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Coffee Machine
    Keywords: People

Taking a break? Go ahead and add what's on your mind right now.

Alternatively, take a look at some GoHumour.

There's also a noticeboard with some matters not directly related to Go on it; and a go noticeboard for announcing Go related things that will expire sooner or later.


Motto for today:

"'To be is to do.' - Sartre. 'To do is to be.' - Rousseau. 'Shoo-be-doo-be-doo.' - Sinatra."

(You may change the motto of the day, but please save the old motto in OldMottos.)


February 28th 2003

Phlegmatic - As a beginner I've found the Killing Shape page very useful, but its links are a bit confusing.

The page states that if you almost fill a group's eyespace with the shapes under discussion, a kill will result. So far so good.

However, follow the links and you'll see they don't really reflect this string of thought - e.g. it references the straight three page, which doesn't show this as a killing shape, but rather shows an eyespace that's a straight three and discusses life and death of that.

Subtle difference I know, and smart people can work it out for themselves, but as it's such a useful basic page, would someone (who is better than me at these things....) be willing to inject a note of clarity into proceedings and tidy things up a bit?


February 27, 2003

Fhayashi - anyone else concerned that if Charles Matthews keeps writing his wonderful stuff here, he won't get more real books written?


November 29 2002

Charles Another minor landmark passed: the People keyword now brings up over 1000 pages. One day I'll update Names in Go ...

Arno: woowoo!!! :o) Thanks to all!

Arno (again): I removed 55 'people' keywords from HomePages. Count dropped below 1000 again :o) HA!

Charles Is this one of those 'modern management techniques' I read so much about? In the works of Scott Adams. Thanks, I guess. So now I ask my question about Random Page. I don't see People 20% of the time. So how pseudo-random is it? I know Knuth says somewhere one shouldn't be shocked at the answer to this type of question.

Arno: The problem with Random Page is how it does "random". Pages have no index number and the database has no random function itself. So I came up with a quick hack: select a random point in time between creation of this wiki and "now" and select the nearest page created at that time. From the statistical point of view it is obvious that pages created during bursts of "new pages" are less likely to be selected. I guess I should change this. Then again, it doesn't have high priority, does it?

Charles The priority is low. But the bias is clear, once explained; and is against active periods and discussion on SL.


november 20, 2002:
Skelley: Hey... isn't it possible to make the username on the left clickable and have it link to the user's homepage? Should be possible this being a PHP Wiki and all...
And damn! I've been on this Wiki only for a couple of days, but already I am showing signs of Obsessive-Compulsive Wiki Editing Disorder


november 2, 2002:
Hu's questions moved to MetaDiscussion and GuineaPigsFeedback. --Arno


october 24, 2002:
I am completely sick and tired of the people I "meet" when I play Go online. There is a level of rudeness and heartless anonymity that these people (most of them are in middle- and high- school, I've noticed) use to keep from having to reveal the fact that they have no skill relating to other human beings. I was elated when I found KGS, but lately it's become filled with ratings-obsessed twits who can't bear to spend three seconds after the game even discussing the major course of events we just spent 20 minutes playing out..

I'm sick of it. It's gotten so bad that I refuse to hit "done" until my opponent says something about the game. Is it really too much to ask that we briefly discuss what just happened? I'm not looking for a play-by-play review -- I just want to hear some thoughts on the game! I've been online as long as anyone, so maybe I should be used to this kind of idiot behavior. But it seems like Go demands a higher level of respect for one's opponent.

Sigh..

-- Scartol

HuOfKGS: I hope that rudeness is not the primary tactic adopted to combat rudeness. Not clicking "Done" does not encourage politeness, just the opposite. To encourage discussion, start discussing! Pay the opponent a compliment of some kind, and ask them a question. Jump on the KGS Editing Tools button and go to an interesting play. To discourage ratings obsession, play free games, give positive re-inforcement regarding what is a good game, and expose extreme obsession as a self-defeating strategy. Let ratings obsession collapse of its own weight, with a little help from ridicule. If they don't discuss, move on and play another more amenable opponent. Play enough and you will find many sociable opponents. Whatever happens, don't let your opponent's behavior control your mood.

Harpreet: How is demanding this not bad as well? Is it so bad to just want to play games and not discuss? Not everyone sees the game the same way. I think in a teaching/handicap game this seems more important but in a regular game, I don't know. Seems not so strange that some just want to play and not talk. (I am not one of them in case you were wondering).

"Solo": Scartol, please also take into consideration the fact that many people there (like me) have poor english skills. Seems like it twice easier to me to play a couple of games then to write down a couple of sentences in english. Honestly, it took about 10 minutes to write this remark.:) So I like the idea to discuss games... But not in real-time.

Scartol: Oops! I started out with a note about people who don't speak English, but I decided to make it an afterthought instead, and then I forgot it completely.

I have no beef with people who don't speak English. That's fine. I understand when a person has .jp in their email address, or .tw or what have you. No sweat. It's these twelve-year-olds with the US email accounts that I can't stand.


Jasonred Obviously, you haven't been looking at the number of foreign students in Western countries lately. You'll still probably get the occasional person who has a different first language in living in the USA? heh, occasional... also, did you trounce them? It's more fun to discuss close games, but one sided things, or games where one player made a silly mistake which cost him the game, sometimes we just don't feel like talking about it, just pretend it never happened, at MOST say thank you, bye...

Do pros sit down and discuss their games at the end of a tournament? Just wondering, I've never seen an actual Go match before.

SAS: They usually discuss each game at the end of the game (not at the end of the tournament). Here's a picture of Kobayashi Koichi and Kudo Norio discussing one of their Tengen title match games: [ext] http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/topics/981113d.jpg

To Hu and Harpreet: Maybe I'm not explaining well enough what's going on. I do try to use a positive attitude to persuade folks into a simple dialogue. I do pay compliments and try to highlight interesting plays/fights. (I'm just fishing for one comment, something along the lines of "yeah that center fight was big" or "i was bluffing in the corner"). But as soon as I choose "done", they fire off "thx" and they vanish. So my refusal to press "done" is the only way to get them to say anything. I'm not forcing anyone to have a lengthy discussion -- I just want a few words of human decency. It's like using your turn signal in traffic -- it just shows that you acknowledge the humanity of the person on the other side of the screen. I think we owe each other a little consideration.

Ultimately, I guess this has a lot to do with how each of us views communication (and language as a subset therein), and I'm willing to admit that as an English teacher, I'm more touchy than most about this topic. But I also recognize that we have responsibilities as users of language to be respectful with it, and not to hide behind the modem cable in order to be lazy and disrespectful.


october 18, 2002:
As there are a lot GeneralDiscussionPages and it wasn't (at least to me) not always clear where to ask for what, I've written some informal descriptions as I understand them -- please correct it, add to it, edit it, or make suggestions, whatever you deem appropriate. --dnerra


october 10, 2002:
Whatever happened to Jan Van Steen's website at [ext] http://gobase.org? I haven't been able to access it for months now. Anyone know what's wrong? Saesneg

SAS: It works for me. What message do you get when you try to access it? What happens if you try [ext] http://24.132.7.24 instead of [ext] http://gobase.org?
Saesneg Thanks, and a big oops! It must be a firewall issue here. Strange. It is the only site I ever get refused, and I used to have access to it.

october 4, 2002:
The Diffculty Reading page has a spelling mistake in the name that I hope someone empowered to correct will do so. Flash! It has been fixed and recreated as Difficulty Reading (specificly not referenced here). The old page can be deleted. Thank you! --Hu of KGS


september 2, 2002:
I have made a few obvservations on Go,if you wish to discuss them,they are on my SL Homepage.--TimBrent


august 29, 2002:
Dear deshis and RecentChangesJunkies. I have revised the LifeAndDeath pages. Please review the pages. --Dieter


august 8, 2002:
This year the Go Club of Rome marks its 20th anniversary...
I've made a small page. Hope to see you all some day or the other at the club!

 AvatarDJFlux

july 26, 2002:
There is a rumour that Alexandr Dinerstein and Svetlana Shishkina became shodans in Korea.

 HolIgor

SAS: It's Shikshina (Шикшина), not Shishkina. I've removed the inline image of her, as it doesn't seem to display properly if you don't already have it in cache. Anyone who wants to see it can find it at [ext] http://redrose80.narod.ru/go3.jpg . (It's necessary to copy and the paste the URL into the address bar of your browser - clicking on it doesn't work, for the same reason as it didn't work inline.)


july 18, 2002:
Hehe. Taking a coffee after a heavy afternoon of SL activity. You RecentChangesJunkies' nightmares make my day. --Dieter

I am very tempted to add your name in the Recent Changes Dealer list, but someone else has done it. =P --unkx80


july 15, 2002:


Check out [ext] http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/7/11/62356/9269

There is also a reference to SL, guess which one :o)


I propose a toast to SAS for all the new and interesting info linked from NamesInGo and BigTitles. Thanks, and cheers!


Hi there-I am looking for local go clubs, is there a good USA resource for this? cellist, infinity k

Check out Go Places and/or [ext] http://www.usgo.org/index.asp.


Who's your FavouriteCharacterInHikaruNoGo ?


KarlKnechtel: Anyone up for a game of DominGo? :)


may 2, 2002:
Does anyone know of a travel agent who offers tours of go-related sites in Asia? (I keep thinking that it would be cool to spend a month playing Go in Japan, Korea, and China...) - TakeNGive


april 29, 2002:
I'm considering going to law school in Bristol, Rhode Island next year. Many factors affect this decision, of course... Do you know of any Go players, clubs, etc, anywhere near that area? (Near can include as far as Newport or Providence.) Thanks! --Regyt


april 20, 2002:
Yeah, guys... been away two days... Plenty of new, recent changes!
I'm becoming a SL junkie... This site is sure making history in the world of Go! DJ


april 19, 2002
NotSoMagnificentSeven


march 1, 2002:
Two librarians will meet this weekend in a severe battle over the Belgian Championships. Both had qualified once before but neither of them made it to the top five. They have been close friends up to this moment, but tomorrow morning there will be no sign of friendship as the clocks start ticking. Several questions arise: who will win the Ghent game ? Will the driver safely drive his copilot to the finals venue ? Who will laugh bigtime on their way back ? Will life ever be the same again ?

Dieter

Arno: well, as long as neither of you starts throwing the board against the wall - denting the wall and the board - prior to uppercutting your opponent it should be a fair match :o) Thank god you play with clocks, so you can't spend too much time thinking, but you can still take off your socks then put them at the side of the board. Also, after the match you can point out mistakes after a lucky win :o)


march 4, 2002:
--Stefan: It would have been accurate to point out that there are three librarians meeting in the BC. But then again counting has never been Dieter's forte. We can already answer Dieter's questions above, since we clashed Sunday morning. For anybody who cares to know: Dieter won, the gracious loser safely drove them all back home, we all had many a good laugh, and none of this makes a shred of a difference to our lives.

Oh, and Arno: you had to encourage him to take off his socks, hadn't you?

--Dieter: I said "two librarians are meeting this weekend in the BC". Alain, the third librarian, will play the other two in two weeks. But then again, neither careful reading nor timing have ever been Stefan's forte. That's why he prefers playing [ext] children tournaments.

Oh, and I just launched my laundry machine.


--Stefan: Aaah!! So you already knew the draw ahead of the weekend??? That's an amazing feat, considering we only made it Saturday morning!!! And who was it again I beat in the fourth round of that children tournament? Memorising stuff, you know... definitely not my forte :-)


march 4, 2002:
--Alain: I am happy to read that you will wear clean socks when we meet in two weeks ;-).


february 5, 2002:
Arno: If you didn't have a look at [ext] http://users.skynet.be/rexburton/ritchie.htm for some time, visit it now. I particularely like the new "debutants" book :o)


january 13, 2002:
Arno: Does someone here know the Japanese term for "threat"?

Bill: A ko threat is a kozai or kodate. :-)

Arno: thx, Bill :o) Is there a generic term (not related to ko) as well? E.g. as in "threat to cut" or "threat to kill"?

Bill: The common term is "nerai" (verb = "nerau"), meaning "aim". Occasionally a large follow-up is called "ni no ya", the "second arrow."



CoffeeMachine prior to 2001-Dec-31 has been archived at CoffeeMachine2001



This is a copy of the living page "Coffee Machine" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2003 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.