After digesting James Devlin’s articulate (and still ongoing) series on building a poker bot, an obvious near-term prediction can be made: prepare for a future of bot on bot action. That is, as more knowledge of building software that can play on-line poker masquerading as humans spreads, inevitably the ratio of bots to humans will increase. Far from causing the on-line poker industry to collapse, it will thrive under such conditions, gaining more and more “players”, even as the proportion of actual humans in a virtual seat shrinks. An average of humans-per-table may never hit zero, but it could become vanishingly small. Once it gets lower than 1.0, most on-line poker games will be bots vs. other bots.

A good number of these bots, possibly large subsets of them, will be colluding. Since this requires communication between them in some way, what you will have here are distributed expert systems, programmed for conflict. In short, you’re halfway to Skynet. This, I think, would be a much better story for the Terminator franchise: where Skynet arises out of an intense escalation of poker-bot conflict, and the extermination of the human race is merely the side effect of Skynet’s (successful, though misguided) obliteration of all opposing poker bots.

Devlin’s articles also paint a picture of how disturbingly easy it is to hijack software on the Windows platform. There’s some Skynet potential there as well. For example, it is easy to see how a zombie network could easily become a poker playing powerhouse. Chances are one or more of them already is.

Image from a lego model by robbed.

Popularity: 3% [?]

If you follow gaming at all, you know that the fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons has been released. As I suspected, the rules are, essentially, the rules that govern a video game captured in book form. As I did not suspect, the result is actually pretty good. It’s still very crunchy (i.e. rules-heavy), but it is pretty well designed crunch, with a lot of design focus given to keeping what is fun and ditching what is not.

The effort is helped quite a bit by some interesting layout choices. In particular, their use of white comes as welcome change from their 3E design and somehow looks modern and slick. After years of role-playing products designed with ink on most of the page, usually with some kind of pale or gray image as the background, the open style used in 4E might change the way a lot of books get designed. I remember noticing the use of white in the gorgeous Ptolus and wondering why more RPG books didn’t use it. Fourth Edition’s color and font choices (mostly a family called Mentor) are also an interesting break from their past and, I think, well selected.

A few days ago, Wizards of the Coast finally unveiled their new Gaming System License (GSL). Not so good. It’s many shortcomings are being debated in forums all over now, but a thread on ENWorld is particularly notable, as it includes several publishers of 3E supplements using the Open Gaming License (OGL). Posts from a user named Orcus are worth reading, in particular, because he is a lawyer as well as a game publisher (Clark Peterson from Necromancer Games). Even though Necromancer’s page currently claims certain products will be ported to 4E, this forum indicates that at least some of the books mentioned (something called the Tome of Horrors, in particular) will not be, now that the details of the license have been unveiled.

One of the main issues is what some are calling the “poison pill” clauses (even though it isn’t really a classical poison pill). Essentially, it makes converting a “product line” (whatever that means) from the OGL to the new GSL a one-way process, and contains language that essentially would put a publisher’s future into the hands of Wizards of the Coast. I’m not a lawyer, but from how I read the GSL (PDF here), it seems to me that publishers would be fools to sign it as it is presently written, particularly if they already have created OGL content. It also pretty much shuts down any fan-based computer tools, like character trackers, reference tools and the like (though there will supposedly be a “fansite” related policy released later).

So, unless the license is changed, you can bet that not many publishers are going to fully embrace it, though many will probably make a few books for it. I’m guessing that most of the following will occur:

• Well established product lines (that is, those who could claim a measure of brand recognition and loyalty) will continue to publish these lines under the OGL. They will eventually be forced to remove the d20 logo from them, but it will probably not matter.
• Well established companies, if they publish for 4E at all, will do so with entirely new product lines. They will be able to leverage their name, but not their brands.
• A few new companies will arise that make only 4E products, but will focus more on adventures than anything else. At least one of these companies will, in fact, be owned by another established company that is still publishing OGL-only material.
• After realizing that the GSL won’t let it follow its current plans for 4E integration, Pathfinder will remain 3.5, and will become something of a flagship product for those still using the OGL, mutating into the semi-official mechanism by which the 3.5 rule set evolves.
• Because of this, friction will be created between Wizards and Paizo, Pathfinder’s publisher. Since Paizo has a very close relationship with Wizards, the result will be that Pathfinder will be sold before the year is over.
• More than half of newly created companies that enter into the D&D related publishing business will publish under 3E rules using the OGL.
• The amount of shelf space given to 4E products in gaming stores will not exceed that given to 3E products. Ever. In Borders and other large book stores, however, you won’t be able to find 3E products at all.
• Numerous fan sites will emerge that convert third party OGL content into 4E. They will be constantly under threat from Wizards of the Coast, who will pay a lot of legal fees to continually fight them as they shift around.
• Wizards will become more vocal about copyright infringement on p2p networks.

I’d love to see some other open source game take off in the wake of GSL backlash. Unfortunately, if this happens, it is likely to be Pathfinder, rather than a better system, such as FATE (also available under the OGL license) or Wushu Open (released under the Creative Commons). Even more unfortunately, there aren’t that many other viable alternatives. There are certainly a number of free RPGs out there, but few of them are open source.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Now that idiot thugs are refusing disaster relief and rice shortage prophesies are being self-fulfilled, it won’t be long until famine starts to rear its head. While many people are busy dying, those that aren’t will be spreading blame around. Blame will fall on bad weather, bad crops, bad luck, even on Al Gore. But the truth will be none of these. While starvation is (obviously) caused by a lack of food, famine—that is, widespread starvation over a large area—is the result of bad government.

As far as food goes, governments fail their people in two ways: by failing to plan for bad times and by bungling (or, all to often, profiting from) crises when some external event triggers a food problem. Usually, famine involves both. In its 2002 coverage of Ethiopia entitled “Bad weather, and bad government”, the Economist said:

Bad weather is rarely enough, on its own, to kill large numbers of people. Famine usually
requires bad government, too…. In Ethiopia, the food crisis has been aggravated by the legacy of a senseless border war with neighboring Eritrea between 1998 and 2000. It killed tens of thousands, forced 350,000 to flee their homes, blasted both countries’ infrastructure and prompted foreign donors to freeze a lot of aid. In all, it cost Ethiopia an estimated $2.9 billion—almost a whole year’s output for every farmer in a country where 80 per cent of the population lives on farms. Such a monumental man-made disaster has made it harder for the country to cope with a natural one.

The millions of Chinese that starved from 1958 to 1961 also owe their deaths more to their government’s response to natural disaster than to the disasters themselves, even by that governments own admission. Research into other famines by Amartya Sen reached similar conclusions. Even black swan events, such as fungus unexpectedly killing potatoes needs bad government to become the Irish Potato Famine.

Our modern reaction to famine in other countries is to send relief aid and “keep them in our prayers”. This probably saves a few lives (at least in countries where the government isn’t stealing the aid), but treats the symptom, not the disease. You will continue to see famine in country after country until we change this “we sympathize” tune we sing into an accusation of incompetence against the government causing the problem, even our own (especially our own). Some, for example, are taking the World Bank to task, claiming it created policies that encourage governments to create famine. This is a step in the right direction, but a better step would be to also blame the governments themselves.

Art “Four Horsemen: Famine” by Greyskin666.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Seeing samaBlog tackle an office pool of 2008 predictions from the New York Times, I thought I’d do the same. The only thing is, I think many of the choices suck. So I’m going to answer free-form. Also, I’ll not repeat the questions or choices, so you’ll need to follow along in one of the links above:

1. The SEC does not allow me to answer this question.
2. No Country for Old Men
3. Portions of either the DCMA or the Patriot Act are un-Constitutional. Preferably both.
4. Tree of Smoke.
5. The World Without Us.
6. …services offering media without access control financially crush those that require DRM, and find that “old media” sales (CDs, DVDs) for such “open” titles actually increase as well.
7. …the 50 trillion dollar shortfall that will fiscally destroy America pretty soon will continue to be unmentioned.
8. Pervez Musharraf.
9. Cuba.
10. …hell freezes over.
11. …whichever of them happens last. I might even care by then.
12. …slightly higher than it is now. Also, October and November will be bloody, as the insurgency attempts to influence the U.S. Presidential election.
13. …roughly equivalent to shuffling deck chairs on the Titantic, as it will be something other than the only one that actually matters (see answer #7).
14. …something very loud but, ultimately, not important that skews the results of one or more party’s nominations. In the actual election, the standard advantages of height, hair and the “beer factor” will turn out to not play a role.
15. Hillary Clinton-Robert “Bob” Kerrey
16. …almost certainly a pair for whom I will not vote.
17. “Anyone but Bush”. This theme will likely be just as disastrous as the soccer-mom “I just think it’s time for a change” theme that brought Bush to power was. Alternately, the winning theme may be the real lesson learned in the 2000 election: “I can rig election results better than you”.
18. …something other than the only thing that actually matters (see answer #7).
19. …the consequences of a 50 trillion dollar shortfall that no one has done anything to fix.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Through the last half of the 1990’s it was nearly impossible to find a news article that mentioned Apple in its opening paragraph without the word “beleaguered” appearing nearby. This trend continued long after the “beleaguered” epithet ceased to be truly applicable. In spite of positive financials and an innovative product line, pundits continued to preach the imminent collapse of Apple. Even the introduction of the iPod didn’t impress anyone (as Slashdot’s now famous assesment of “No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.” best illustrates). Eventually Apple managed to turn perception around, to the point where media coverage turned into fawning hero worship in many cases.

Just as this was a series of overreactions, so to will be the backlash against Apple that is starting now. I predict that by this time next year, it will again be trendy to refer to Apple as “beleaguered”, though such a charge will be even less true than it was at the start of the decade.

Certainly, Apple has been doing a lot of unnecessary damage to its image. This is likely to get worse. At the same time, it now faces serious competition on the downloadable music front.

What strikes me about most about their latest stumbles, however, is an underlying cause of troubled interaction with other companies. It seems, in particular, that many of their recent choices have been driven more with an eye toward entanglements of deals they have made than a desire to make good products. This switch is taking them away from what their loyal fans loved about them, and is likely to do more damage than Apple expects.

In the famous dual interview with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, the two were asked the following: “What did you learn about running your own business that you wished you had thought of sooner or thought of first by watching the other guy?” To me, this seemed to be the most illuminating of the questions they were asked. Gates said this:

Well, I’d give a lot to have Steve’s taste. [laughter] He has natural—it’s not a joke at all. I think in terms of intuitive taste, both for people and products, you know, we sat in Mac product reviews where there were questions about software choices, how things would be done that I viewed as an engineering question, you know, and that’s just how my mind works. And I’d see Steve make the decision based on a sense of people and product that, you know, is even hard for me to explain. The way he does things is just different and, you know, I think it’s magical. And in that case, wow.

Jobs thought a little while before answering. He ultimately said this:

You know, because Woz and I started the company based on doing the whole banana, we weren’t so good at partnering with people. And, you know, actually, the funny thing is, Microsoft’s one of the few companies we were able to partner with that actually worked for both companies. And we weren’t so good at that, where Bill and Microsoft were really good at it because they didn’t make the whole thing in the early days and they learned how to partner with people really well.

And I think if Apple could have had a little more of that in its DNA, it would have served it extremely well. And I don’t think Apple learned that until, you know, a few decades later.

If Apple’s interaction with NBC is any indication, they still have quite a ways to go in partnering. It very much seems as if Apple’s attempt to get more deal making into its DNA has caused it to forget the focus on product, style and people that Gates and others (including myself) so admire.

Doubly problematic is that Apple’s new style of dealmaking may actually wind up hurting them. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if media executives who have been dealing with Apple try to extract some payback against Apple, now that they have Amazon to go to. On the other hand, if this is what it takes for media execs to get their heads out of their asses enough to offer DRM-free music (like they could have done ten years ago), it might end up being good for consumers, if not necessarily Apple. Keep an eye on the differences between new music deals record companies sign with Apple and Amazon.

As a related, but more “long shot”, prediction, it could be that, after creating the first real innovation in cell phones in years, Apple gets so fed up with all the compromises needed to get deals done in the mobile space that they just abandon the idea.

At present, a Google search for “beleaguered Apple” returns around 292,000 results. Over the next year, Apple will sell tons of iPods, release funky products and make tons of money, but that won’t stop the result count on that particular search from increasing dramatically.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Over two years ago, I suggested a way to destroy a modern record company, using their “pump and dump” strategy against them. The prime example of the strategy at the time was the handling of Britney Spears. Unfortunately, no one has implemented my advice, but evidently with a recent performance, Ms. Spears seems to have entered the “dump” part of the pump and dump strategy, with one reviewer claiming “it’s clear no one is telling singer how to fix career”. I didn’t see the performance, so have no idea if that is actually true or just the media being the media, but if it is true, it extends the case study of the pump and dump strategy. In my previous post, I quoted a prediction from Chris Johnson’s analysis suggesting there is “considerable evidence to suggest that when Britney stops being pushed on the market by her record company, sales will fall off a cliff.” Chances are this will happen fairly soon.

On the other hand, if the performance really was that bad, it actually kind of contaminates the experiment, because it might mean that fans are leaving because of taste (i.e. the bad performance turned them off to the star) rather than because the hype train stopped. Then again, you might see a double whammy effect, where both taste and the lack of hype contribute to a sales disaster of epic proportions.

Update: No mercy, though it sounds like they weren’t really “representing” her before the performance either.

Popularity: 9% [?]

According the the old maxim, those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Assuming that’s true, a quick look at US foreign policy over the last forty years or so suggests at least one lesson we can learn. In that period, the US government often gave backing to questionable men as “lesser evil” allies of convenience, only to be bitten later by these men when the political climate suddenly changed. Noriega worked for the CIA. The Reagan administration gave financial, intelligence and military support to Saddam Hussein against Iran. The CIA funded and trained the people who became the Taliban to fight the Soviets. Since the current administration contains many of the same people who adopted and executed these policies, it’s a good bet that the future thorn in the side of the US is someone we’re currently cuddling up to while (supposedly) holding our nose.

From where might such a thorn grow and who might he be? Looking at numbers for total aid or even just official military aid may help, but past “backfires” were usually done in secret, so it is tough to say for certain who the US is really aiding at the moment. Still much of this is either reported or widely suspected, so some possibilities, in no particular order:

Middle East

The Middle East seems like an obvious place for the thorn (or thorns) to arise, especially since it is the site of the more recent such troublemakers. On the other hand, the US already has so many enemies there, we’re running out of candidates for turncoats. There are a few, though, especially since the US is losing the propaganda war there so badly that it doesn’t even know it is fighting one. (Hint: start with food.) The most obvious candidate for the US being betrayed in the future by those they are backing now is one of their more recent partners:

Sunni dissidents are now being armed by the US to fight against al-Qaida in Iraq. While on the surface, this seems like a boneheaded repetition of the mistakes made with the Taliban, there are a few differences (which may make it a better move, or even worse). One is that Sunni also may be receiving arms from Iran. Since Iran’s regime is Shi’a, this seems a bit odd, but perhaps they assume that anyone willing to resist the US in Iraq is worth befriending (i.e. they are making the same mistake in arming potential turncoats as the US). If this is true, the US effort to arm the Sunni may be more of a “better they get guns from us than them” move, attempting to point them at other targets. (Is that better? Worse?) Another difference is that authority to negotiate arms deals has been given to officers on the ground, not secret CIA operatives. (Better? Worse?) In any case, I can’t find any references to situations where dumping a lot of guns into an area experiencing heated religious strife and wrath against a foreign occupier ever helped much, so this seems like a good candidate for some future backlash. Photo by Xinhua/AFP Photo

The House of Saud presents a much different set of possible “backfire” threats. It is clear that Saudi Arabia has received official aid from the US and the House of Saud has ties with the Bush family, suggesting that unofficial aid is not out of the question as well. Three types of backlash seem possible. First, given the number of Saudi Arabian citizens involved in the 9-11 attack, it’s not clear how loyal the House of Saud is already. At the very least, a perception against them now exists, which may snowball into an official souring against them from the US, which would really give the House no choice but to turn against America. A second threat is that the House of Saud is very large, which makes it unlikely that all members share the same opinions of the US and provides lots of opportunities for infighting and coup. A “wrong” king seizing power could change everything quickly. Thirdly, should the House fall, the US would be confronted with a situation somewhat like that of Iran in the 1970’s, when the Shah fell. While the House of Saud is nowhere near as propped up by the US as the Shah was, the US has more to loose in Saudi Arabia than they did in 1970’s Iran. Photo by BBC Television

Pervez Musharraf, dictator of Pakistan, most closely fits the historical “type” of leader that ultimately turns on his US backers. Clearly a key ally in current US involvement in the Middle East, it is not so clear how loyal an ally Pakistan actually is. Pakistan is repeatedly accused of harboring terrorists, and signed a truce with the Taliban. Islamists in Pakistan are becoming more vocal and it appears that Musharraf may be starting to loose political standing. That’s a dangerous situation for a leader that might turn against the US to be in, as he may think he could boost his following by reversing course. Taking the danger to a whole new level, he controls nuclear weapons. Photo by Reuters

Fatah, being an arm of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), would seem an odd horse for the US to back; however, they fight Hamas, who wants to wipe Israel off the map. It is unlikely, however, that Fatah will emerge as the next big “turncoat” enemy. They are being trounced by Hamas, so probably will not survive long enough to betray American backers. It is likely, however, that the US will continue to back any anti-Hamas groups it can find, and some of those may eventually succeed in eliminating Hamas, only to rise against the hand that fed them. Even Fatah itself, should it survive, can be counted on for betrayal. Already, as Michael Oren says in the Wall Street Journal (see previous link), “a distinct correlation exists between the amount of support that Fatah receives from the West and its need to prove its ‘Palestinianess’ through terror.” Photo by AFP

Former Soviet states

A number of ex-Soviet (usually ex-KGB) types managed to gain power in the former Soviet states after the collapse of the USSR. Fortunately, the citizens of most of these countries seem to have more sense than the US, as they’ve been overthrowing these Cold-War relics with surprising ease, and almost no blood. Some possibilities, however, remain:

Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, at first glance, isn’t much of a candidate for this scenario, because the US doesn’t seem to have done much for or with Turkmenistan, the country who recently “elected” him. One would like to think the US has stayed away from the country because it’s former leader was so odious, but the truth is more likely that they are more fixated on other nations in the region at the moment. Still, even if Berdymukhammedov’s regime turns out to be as hard as his name is to spell, Turkmenistan’s natural-gas wealth nearly guarantees outsiders will try to make deals with him. Photo by ?

Nursultan Abishuly Nazarbayev, the current leader of the false democracy of Kazakhstan, provides a good example of the “dictator masquerading as democrat” that seems trendy these days. The current US administration seems intent on cozying up to him, in spite of typical post-Soviet thuggery. On the other hand, he evidently gave up huge numbers of nukes voluntarily (back to Russia) and seems more interested in playing nice with all sides. If Kazakhstan is a future thorn, it will probably be under a different leader. His son-in-law was making a bid for power in 2012, but Nazarbayev fired him and issued a warrant for his arrest. He also recently changed laws to allow himself to remain in power indefinitely. Photo by Associated Press

Islam Karimov, leads Uzbekistan similarly, but even more overtly dictatorially. The US government liked him, since he was trying to squash an Islamist rebellion in his country, but that’s changed since his troops gunned down a peaceful protest. (Given the fact that this action made the Bush administration say “woah! too brutal for us! see ya!”, you can assume it was pretty bad.) At this point, it seems the US already burned the bridge with Uzbekistan’s regime, which is now purging itself of pro-American members and cozying up to China and Russia. It’s possible Karimov might become a thorn, but it’s probably more likely that the brewing insurrection will succeed, making yet another Islamist state that hates America. Another possibility is that the growing rift over which country will dominate the region will grow worse, creating yet another opportunity for the US to pick the wrong side. Photo by Associated Press

Africa

Like much of the first world, the historically US has done its share of meddling in Africa, although to a much lesser extent than, say, France or England. Recently though, it’s joined the world in ignoring much of it. While the US has been throwing money at fighting AIDS promoting abstinence in Africa, it doesn’t appear to be exercising much political will there lately. Uganda appears to be on the rise, but it’s not clear it owes much of that to America. The US concern in Africa now seems not to be famine, genocide or mineral wealth, but terrorism. Which leads us to…

Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of Ethiopia, has joined the US war on terror by launching an offensive against anti-American targets in Somalia and becoming much more involved in the rest of Africa. Zenawi’s regime has a history mixed messages. It leads Africa in the percentage of GDP spent on programs for the poor, but has little to show for it and a horrible human rights record. It opens its airwaves but stifles freedom of the press. Ethiopia is also surrounded by Muslim countries, with a growing Muslim population of its own (from 30%-50% of the country, depending on which source you check). The threat here seems to be that, as Ethiopia is slowly dragging its way to become more genuinely democratic, it’s demographics may be shifting. This could portend an ousting (legitimately or otherwise) of Zenawi, leaving an American equipped army in the hands of the ousters. Alternatively, Zenawi may develop visions of granduer from his military outings and turn feral. Another possibility is that tensions between Egypt and Ethopia over the water rights of the Nile could turn ugly, which would put the US in a tight spot. Photo by Ethiopian embassy

Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt, served as a high ranking officer in several wars against Israel before attaining his current office. During the first Gulf War, he allied his country strongly with the coalition, Egyptian soldiers being some of the first to fight in Kuwait. Presently, he is not as enthusiastic about the Iraq war, but still receives nearly five times more military aid from America than does all of sub-Saharan Africa combined. It seems unlikely that Mubarak would rabidly turn on the US, but if it happens, it will almost certainly be over Israel. As in Ethiopia, another possibility is that increased democracy could actually oust him in favor of a more Islamist ruler. Photo by Khaled Desouki / AFP / Getty

Other locations

No doubt a number of other people and areas are missing from this list. Thailand? Indonesia? Mexico? What do you think?

Popularity: 5% [?]