How smart are computers getting?

I've been doing a lot of writing, not only for this opinion blog, but also a creative writing blog and as a contributing writer for This or That. Well the other day, one of the writers for This or That posted an article about lessons he learned playing rock-paper-scissors with his computer. (Follow this link to try it out for yourself)

I tried it and I have to warn you that the computer cheats, a lot. OK, it doesn't actually cheat, but it uses it's superior computing powers to review all of your past moves and uses your paterns against you. It's so not fair, but you can click on a button to see into the computers brain and watch it review your move history. Let's say your last four moves were rock, paper, paper, scissors. The computer reviews all your moves to see if you've ever followed that pattern before. If so, it looks to see what you threw after that pattern and moves accordingly. If not, it will look for the pattern of paper, paper, scissors. This computer model isn't far off from what we go through when we decide which of the three to throw when we play, but we don't have such an extensive and exact memory.

So how did I do? After two hundred rounds I basically broke even. I managed to win, lose and draw about a third of the time for each. It wasn't easy to reach this mark either. I had to continually change my thinking. If I didn't change my strategy, and conciously think about my strategy, I didn't stand a chance. It was by having a pattern, but keeping it random that I was able to keep the computer from beating me. If you've got some time, it's a good exercise to try and outsmart the computer.

See if you can do better than I did, and leave a comment below to let me know how you did.

Join in on the This or That! Top Song Bracket!

You may have seen me talking about This or That! a fairly new website that allows users to generate voting platforms for a variety of topics, but today you need to hear about something pretty exciting that is happening on the site. Starting today and going until the end of the month, This or That! is holding a 64-song bracket to determine the top song of 2010. It is set up just like March Madness with 64 songs battling through 6 rounds of competition. You get to vote on each song match up all the way to the top.

I haven't had a chance to vote yet because I'm writing this at school and I can't connect to Facebook. (Did I mention you can join This or That! with your Facebook account?) I am however, pretty excited about some of the match ups. I'm also surprised about some of the songs I'm going to vote for. (Yes, I will pick Tik Tok by Ke$ha over Imma Bee by the Black Eyed Peas, just don't tell anyone, ok.)

Did I mention there are tons of chances to win prizes? I guess I just did. If you vote in all the voting blocks, you will be eligible to win one of 25 This or That! t-shirts, and one lucky voter will win a pair of Beats by Dre Studio Over-Ear headphones.

So check out this great site, and this great competition.

I totally forgot to post the link. http://thisorthat.com/ Also, I guess I was supposed to write which song should win to be eligible for the blogging portion of the contest, so now that I've seen the brackets, I'm totally picking Fireflies by Owl City. Go check it out and play along.