Saturday, January 25, 2003

The Norwegian Prince in the

The Norwegian Prince in the Version of Hamlet that’s Set in Silicon Valley: Fortranbras

One thing I like about computers is that they never flat-out lie, in the sense of intentionally misrepresenting the facts.  Sometimes they glitch and malfunction, but that’s a processing problem.  And sometimes, of course, there’s a problem with bad input or agenda-oriented programming.  But computers are not liars.  Whether for good or ill, they tell you what is, to them, the truth. 

That’s why I’m so resentful of the freecell flimflam.  I’ve played FC by hand - it’s a lot of work, shuffling cards up and down and over and back.  It’s so much more fun on a computer, when two mouse clicks can make the cards cascade delightfully from column to freecell to empty space to freecell to column - so quickly and gracefully as to underscore the infallibilty of the program.  Or so you’d think.  So I thought - but I’ve been disabused. 

A friend clued me in a few months ago to the FC program’s statistics counter that lets you know your won/lost ratio and the length of your current streak and session.  (As I write this it occurs to me that this habit of mine is nothing to be proud of.  It invites the observation that I’m spending too much time playing with myself.  Whatever.  That aspect of this essay will have to be in the nature of a confession.  If FC were my worst habit I’d feel pretty good about myself.) Since that conversation I’ve played more FC, and played it more thoughtfully, trying to match my performance to changes in my ratio.  It never seems to change.  I can lose six games in a row - or, in theory, win them - and my breakdown is always 62-38 (L-W).  I was attributing it to the very slight marginal difference a single game, or a few games, made in the context of all the millions of games I’ve played since I got this computer.  I held out hope that this discrepancy was statistically insignificant, an artifact of coincidence. 

My remaining confidence in the trustworthiness of my computer has been seriously shaken, however, by my discovery that the FC statistics page is toying with me.  I cant tell if I’m playing the game, or being played.  But it’s not counting properly.  As a typical example, I play two hands.  The first, I win on the first try.  The second, I have to restart twice before I get through.  That’s a win, two losses, and another win.  I check my stats.  62-38, with a current streak of two losses.  THAT’S NOT RIGHT.  I’m on a current streak of one win.  Now I don’t know what to trust anymore.  And don’t tell me to ignore the stats and stop checking them.  If I had that kind of discipline I’d have stopped playing FC altogether long ago.  It just doesn’t want me feeling too good about myself, I guess.  Like playing FC would do that for me at all.  I play it to stop thinking, to stop feeling, to enter an orderly universe and let it bring itself to a tidy conclusion.  I like it because it’s simple and clean and I can keep trying it till I get it right.  Knowing of its duplicity sours the whole thing.