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Sunday, Apr 08, 2012 - 23:59 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

So Little Time

So the paper's submitted; it'll be a couple of months before I find out if it's been accepted, but the process was fairly fun (well, except the waiting for experiments bit). I'll comment more on this particularly academic peculiarity soon. As it goes, this blog has cleared two hundred thousand pageviews as of the night of March 28, and is plodding along at a roughly 340-a-day clip. Kind of a surprise.

Having more or less settled on my field, I should be automating more stuff in my life:


With newer media, and the commercial offerings
(Ok, no learning involved here actually)


Chionged DotA for the first time in years - there was a period where almost every night saw a game. Was pleased to discover that I hadn't lost all of my touch, though getting back into the rhythm of last-hitting took some time, not helped by the ergonomics (the monitor was placed above head level and tilted forward) and health bars being shown by default. Time to pwn some bots with random-ed heroes!

Game One: Luna. Couldn't have asked for a much better hero to return with. Fast with fair range, a nuke, heavy damage potential and a near-foolproof ultimate. Farmed minor items, went straight to radiance, game about over by then.

Game Two: Techies, and arrival of some slightly irritating know-it-all kibitzers who were disparaging of my choice of two sobi masks to start. Dutifully mined the river and various forest paths, only to discover that the A.I. bots didn't use them at all. Ended up getting a dagger and becoming a flying 1550-damage suicide bomb for the remainder of the game.

Game Three: Clockwerk Goblin. The bots were all at Insane level this time, our side having dealt with Normal ones all too handily. Tried to abuse Rocket Flare to little success, and ended up just turning on Battery Assault, which was surprisingly effective on even a higher-levelled Lycan. This game marked the return of the dreaded Fatal Error.

Game Four: Tiny, and back to Normal difficulty. Got some melee opponents thankfully, and deviated from usual habit to get a Null Talisman from the beginning to bolster his weak mana pool. Avalanche+Tossed my way to an Assault Cuirass as my big-ticket item, but again the game was all but over by then, thanks to my delightful teammates.

Game Five: Storm Spirit, and one last shot at Insane. It was nice to get some actual range, but unfortunately I always found Storm to be a rather uninspiring hero. Can't knock his Ball Lightning pseudo-blink, which makes escaping (got cliff?) a piece of cake most times. He's not especially good at getting kills, though, even after a Bloodstone. Another Fatal Error meant that the score for the night stayed at three wins and two inconclusives.


About the A.I. bots (at least the 6.72 version) - I wouldn't say that they can compare to actual humans just yet. Yes, they get the basics right, being quite proficient at last-hitting/denying in the laning phase, and actually do push together and support one another, but there are a ton of things that they won't do. A bone fletcher appearing out of nowhere and pumping strafed searing arrows into one's back is one occurrence that can be discounted with bots, apparently. Well, at least they won't quit when behind.


Early day tomorrow by my standards, so I'll wrap it up:

Mr. Ham (2847/2700 seeds): Tottenham again, (-1.5) vs. Norwich (at 1.90)

FAKEBERT (2715.5/2700 seeds): Backing the impressive Newcastle (-1.5) against Bolton (at 2.30)



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