Coffee Machine

   

Taking a break? Go ahead and add what's on your mind right now. Alternatively, take a look at some go humour.

Motto for today:

"I knew I was getting stronger. Once I used to make my moves and then think about them, but now I think before I move."
from scene 2

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

Some news are found at Go News.


1-1-05

kokiri - I'm having trouble getting my computer to display the new format of SL properly - could someone give me brief details on how to clear my cache with specific references to AOL? Thanks

unkx80: Which browser are you using? Usually, when we talk about the cache, it is the cache which resides inside your computer, so usually it has nothing to do with your Internet service provider, AOL in this case.

geno: AHA! So you would think, being logical! :-) Many versions of AOL actually have "their own" browser; it's really IE components with AOL branding, integrated with their nauseous interface. This is one of AOL's many deceptive practices, like re-branding newsgroups and not letting their paying customers know that USENET is not an AOL creation and that they can have access to those same groups elsewhere, or renaming alt.aol-sucks to "Discussion about AOL".

Bill: IMX, if you are connected via AOL, you can use a different browser, instead of the AOL browser. I started doing that in the '90s.

If you are using Internet Explorer 6, from the "Tools" menu, select "Internet Options...". Then under the "Temporary Internet Files" box, click on the "Delete Files..." button. Since you did not know about the cache, it is very likely that the your cache contains hundreds of megabytes of files and clearing it may take several minutes (Internet Explorer will appear hung during this time, but there will be a lot of hard disk activity).


December 31, 2004

Hikaru79: Is the Go Teaching Ladder down? Server problems? I've tried getting to it from the [ext] http://gtl.jeudego.org/ URL and it's not returning anything. I hope this is temporary =S

Yes, it is down right now, could be the Y2K5 bug?

Arno: apparently our nameservers are down. If you like to reach the site you can use gtl.hexdust.net instead. But please, don't link to or bookmark that URL.


December 30, 2004

ThaddeusOlczyk: Was there a sudden crash on KGS today?

Niklaus: I'm glad it's not just me, then...

ThaddeusOlczyk: Me too. I feared that I did something stupid and I got banned. Without anyone telling me. ( I just changed email, so I'm not sure it is correct everywhere. )


December 27, 2004

Velobici: I have digital photos (jpeg) of covers and a couple pages of several chinese language go books which i would like to add to SL. Hopefully, adding these to the pages would allow folks to better judge whether or not they are interested in the books. Please see SL pages: LiChangHo Jingjiang Weiqi Sihuo and Weiqi Gaoji Jieti Xunlian. Photos viewable at [ext] http://bresler.org/Go/Photos. How does one upload images to SL?

Malweth: As far as I know, all images on SL are linked to the owner's site. Ref: GoSuite.

Velobici: Oh! Does SL have an automated method of checking that links to images stored at the owner's site are still good? These links will come and go as people use Geocities and other hosters limit their availability in a variety of ways.

Malweth: I doubt SL explicitly checks for broken links - unless you're including the SL community at large. That's how a wiki works ;)

I would be willing to contribute my Chinese go books to this - I can scan covers and sample pages... I'll try to find and post a big listing of books I was able to find online...

it's here: [ext] http://fanyi.math.ntu.edu.tw/Lieyi.htm


December 24, 2004

DJ: Well, my warmest wishes of a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to my fellow Deshi's, to the go community at large, and to all the persons that inhabit this beautiful planet Earth.

May the year 2005 bring more peace, serenity and environmental consciousness than its predecessor...

Shall we start a 2005 Goodwill Rengo?

Hikaru79: Happy Holidays, DJ, and everyone else on SL! ^_^ Come on and join in the Rengo!


December 21, 2004

Chris Hayashida: With the lockout of the National Hockey League in the States, the sports cable channel ESPN has been showing a lot more World Poker Championships. When I started talking at the club, I found that there were a lot more Go players that played poker (specifically Texas Hold 'Em) than I thought there were. I'm not sure if it's that:

  1. Poker is popular because it's on TV
  2. Go players are more likely to play lots of other games anyway, including card games
  3. I live in L.A. and everyone gambles here
  4. My friends have an addiction to the adrenaline rush of gambling
  5. Evil forces are at work so that I can't save up enough for a goban with legs

Obviously, to some extent, Go and gambling go hand in hand. I know that in the back of some Go clubs around here, there is lots of gambling, even if it's "frowned upon" by the establishment.

Besides Jimmy Cha, are there lots of other strong Go players/good poker players? Or is the correlation that I'm trying to cobble together just imaginary?

ilan Take a look at an actual Poker book -- you will see that the game is dominated by technical details, and requires memorisation, calculation, experience, and difficult decision making under time pressure, kind of like Go. If you have any hopes of getting good, then the gambling element, at least in its frivoulous sense, has nothing to do with the game. A good source for the various aspects of the game is the book Positively Fifth Street, by James McManus?, and it even mentions go in there!

Paul Clarke: I believe that UK 5 dan Piers Shepperson is also a good poker player.

Dan: I actually was just noting how few poker-playing Go players there seem to be compared to poker-playing chess players. I know of a lot of chess players who have moved to poker, and almost no Go players, and was wondering if there was anything about the qualities of the games that led to this discrepancy Maybe I know the wrong Go players...

Quicksilvre: Maybe. There seem to be three major schools of poker: the rounder school, comprised of those who grew up around gambling, the intellectual school, those with computer science degrees and the such (which are suprisingly common), and the Internet school--those who learned on the Web, mostly after 2003 (when poker really took off).

Only those of the second school are consistantly exposed to go. Meanwhile, almost everyone who watches ESPN or the Travel Channel is exposed to poker. Hold' em seems to be much more telegenic than go--and all other types of poker--and is very cheap to produce (well, go is too, probably).

ilan: The point is that in Texas Hold'em, there are many more community cards, which, in the language of Combinatorial Game Theory, makes the game "hot", so gives weaker players a much better chance of winning (in fact, much of the time any player has the possibility of winning up to the last few cards) which means that losers get much more positive reinforcement from their occasional lucky wins. You lose money at gambling by trying for low probability long shots, and good poker players should be pleased when they lose a dominant hand to a long shot, because it means the bad player will continue playing his incorrect strategy. The success of Texas Hold'em is somewhat similar to pool (pocket billiards), where straight pool has been superseded by 9 ball as the game of choice. Basically, you will always lose at straight pool to a better player, but you will almost always be able to win the occasional 9 ball game against anyone. Note that 9 ball is a "hot" game as opposed to the most comparable game, 8 ball, because it is not a partizan game (in 8 ball, each player has his own balls making it a much more defensive game). Once again, this reinforces the "losers" out there who can claim to have won some games from the leading players. In games like Go, the consistency of wins by stronger players is so dominant that it is hard to attract self-deluded losers with big pocket books. Even with handicaps, the variance is almost nil compared to these other games.

Chris Hayashida: Interesting point. I think it says something about me that I like 9 ball and Hold 'Em a lot because of my occasional lucky win. Now if only I could pull off those 'lucky wins' while playing Go... :)


December 16, 2004

Stefan: Today's edition of [ext] The Economist has a Christmas special feature on go. Sensei's Library takes the very first place in the accompanying list of website links ("Sensei's Library offers information and discussions about go for aficionados and novices alike.").

The [ext] article is quite good and touches on familiar topics: the challenges of computer go, the rotten axe handle, the four schools during Edo, the current "meteoric rise" of South Korea. However, it doesn't address the increased opportunities to play using the Internet. (The link will work for magazine subscribers only, I'm afraid)


December 10, 2004

juhtolv: I just wonder: Do you know places, where you can download Go-lessons in SGF-format? Please, add them to page called SGF Archives.


December 8, 2004 (local time)

KGS Wish Fund issue moved to Meta Discussion.


December 4, 2004

PatG: Play Go to play Go. Consider getting stronger to be a side benefit rather than a goal. I began playing Go regularily as opposed to seriously relatively recently at, shall we say, the early middle stage of life. I will never have the time to spend digging into the minutia of top level play so I doubt I will even get close to Dan level. This is ok. Handicapping ensures two players can get a good game regardless of differences in skill. If I have to take 9 stones from a wunderkind half my age - so what as long as we both enjoy the experience.

ilan: I definitely understand the idea that getting stronger should not always be a goal. But, there should still be a goal of discovering new things or understanding more things. For example, as a mathematician, I am not getting stronger, but I continually strive to discover and understand more. Unfortunately, what you wrote kind of sounds like rationalisation for losing, since a big aspect of this game is fighting spirit. See the book The Hustler, by Walter Tevis, which is a study of this exact question.

PatG: I don't see that I am rationalizing losing. Playing to lose would be an insult to ones opponent. The handicap system allows a less skilled player to express their fighting spirit in situations where they would lose an even battle every time. I agree that exploration and discovery are of great value.

ilan: OK, I guess I was wrong there. Now I have to try to figure out how to rationalise my mistake.


December 2, 2004

Chris Hayashida: I visited another Go club today. I live in Southern California, and I am blessed with both a large population and a diverse community, so there are Go clubs all over the place. When I went inside, I merely wanted to watch, and maybe get a game in. I introduced myself as a 2 kyu, and they said that it wasn't bad, but maybe there wasn't anyone there to play. I ended up watching a series of games (they played fast.) I'm not sure if they were not reading, but both players were playing moves around already settled capturing races, playing the wrong moves making killable groups live, and similar things. I found out that I was reading deeper than both players.

So anyway, I got to thinking that I might be at the stage where I am better than half of the Go players out there. As a joke, I went to www.usgo.org, and generated a listing of all players in the AGA, sorted by ratings. I scrolled halfway down the page and found that it was about -3.8, or a weak 3 kyu. (As a side note, the top 25% seem to be about 3.3, or a "typical" 3 dan player.) Instead of thinking of this as a milestone, I found that it was a little depressing.

It also started me thinking why I play Go. I want to be stronger, but I don't have shodan or any other rank as a goal. It seems like it's stopping short of something greater. But what can I aim for? The strongest in the state? Not likely. I probably can't even be the strongest in the Los Angeles area, since there are so many Go clubs here, and many players that are AGA 7d+. Those goals are ones I never aspired to, so at least I won't quit out of frustration.

Someone at the beginner's night said that when she played Go, it enabled her to forget about all the other things that are going on, and just look at the board and play. It's funny to me that I might be a little stronger, and yet for me, it's exactly the same. I have no problem believing that two professional Go players would be able to concentrate on a game in the middle of a war when an atomic bomb was dropped nearby.

I didn't get a game in, but since I was downtown, I went to the Japanese bookstore and got three Go books for 10% off. So I guess my trip wasn't a complete waste. :)

Bildstein: I'm about 2 kyu IGS these days, and there is a goal I strive for. It's not to reach dan level, it's not to be the best in the state (for all I am, I already am - I live in Tasmania) or to win any tournaments. Least of all is it to reach the top ranks of the amateurs, because I'm worried that I could get there and not actually reach my goal...

There are concepts in Go that are easy to understand but very difficult to apply. You can understand when you see them applied, but to spot them in your game is very difficult. One example I can think of is a probe. Or perhaps strategic timing more generally. It's not a concept I've ever consciously applied in a game. And of course, this is the only concept that I can understand but am not good enough to apply in a game.

So my goal is to reach the stage where I can make use of these strategic concepts, and for me, the game of go will really become an art.

Does that make any sense? It's not something I've had to articulate before.


November 22, 2004

Chris Hayashida: Okay, I admit it, I'm a snob. I'm snubbing my nose at the Kyu Problems and not posting solutions, when I probably should be. I'm only 2 kyu, so maybe I post my solutions and see if they're right? Or is it better to leave them for someone else? Or maybe I should stop fooling myself into thinking I can do dan-level problems...

BTW, are you dan-level guys doing these problems completely in your head? I'd be disappointed if you were playing them out on a board...

I'm no dan player... But most of the problems (well except for a couple of 6d and a few probs I was working on myself) I solve without a board... I mean it's not like you can play out vars on a board during a game... (Ohh yea and it's probably for the best that you avoid posting the answers... I say... Let weaker players enjoy the process since it's not much of a challenge for you...:) Reuven

chrise "I mean it's not like you can play out vars on a board during a game..." That would be fun!

Me - excuse me while I put down all these stones in an attempt to figure a way out of this mess.

Opponent - Why, of course!

I do problems exclusively in my head btw.

Brent: Sounds like a perfect opportunity for a sleeve tesuji to me. The key is to try so many variations for so long that your opponent doesn't actually remember what the board looked like before you started. (=


November 12, 2004

Chris Hayashida: Is it just me, or do amateurs play the shoulder hit to the 3-3 too much? I seem to remember being taught that the shoulder hit should only be used to reduce a potential moyo after the 3-3 has extensions on both sides. Otherwise, a kakari is better. However, on many of the games I watch on KGS (4k and lower) it seems like every 3-3 opening move is met with the shoulder hit. This usually seems to favor the player who made the 3-3 move.

I was trying to explain how a dual 3-3 opening is harder to develop from, but it almost seems like a "trick opening" that seems to work rather well. Any comment on the opening is met with, "Well, I'm winning most of my games..." Aargh!

I guess I just had to vent. I want to learn, not win. :(

Bob McGuigan: The supplement for AGA members for the first December AGA e-journal will have a "What's Wrong with that Move?" article by Nakayama that is about a situation where an approach is better than the shoulder hit. The people who argue that "I'm winning most of my games..." need to realize that just because they win it doesn't mean their play is correct. In fact, by persisting in errors that way they are building roadblocks to their future progress.

(Sebastian:) Well, there are two things you can do about it:

Chris Hayashida: Quick comments. The follow-up to the shoulder hit isn't bad. It's the original shoulder hit that can be the misplay, IMO. It's not that it's at the point of symmetry, either. If White has a double-wing formation from a 3-3, the shoulder hit is the correct move. Finally, shoulder hit + tenuki = 3-3 invasion. :)

DrStraw: I play the 3-3 point a lot - always have done since I first saw it 30 years ago in pro games - and I find that even high dan players on KGS are more likely to play the shoulder hit than a kakari. But I agree with you - the kakari is usually better. If my opponent plays the shoulder hit against me too early it gives me a lot of flexibility to determine the direction of play and I usally feel that I have the advantage.

Charles The shoulderhit, as a rule, is optimal only when there is a double wing formation. There are exceptions to that, though. Given that amateur play tends to underestimate territory, and overestimate central influence (while not paying enough attention to side formations), one can see why it happens. But Korean go is generally rather negative about the 3-3 point.

Bill: "Amateur play tends to underestimate territory and overestimate central influence." Gee, Charles, we must know different amateurs. ;-)

Brent: Well, as an amateur, I can say that I often do seem to pay too much attention to central influence. I think this may be partly a result of my first teachers trying too hard to steer me away from the other extreme. (=

Charles It depends a bit on level. At ama 3/4 dan you get the amateurish Takemiyas, while at ama 1/2 dan you get more of the miserly types. But there is plenty of 'never mind the quality, feel the width' about amateur play with frameworks. You tend to be able to tell the ama 5 dan by the quiet smile when the opponent goes omoyo.

Stefan: There is a closely related problem. Generally I find amateurs worse at converting influence into territory than converting territory in territory.


November 11, 2004

Ahh I hope it's the place to put this. Maybe Go Philosophy - Onboard vs Offboard? or another page with a name of this nature would be a more appropriate place.. When reviewing pro games in specific and games in general, what the review often focuses on is what would have happened if... And naturally it made a lot of people think that the best part of the game might be the one which isn't played on the board. As pretty as it may sound, is it really so? Maybe the great part is the part which is played after all? Avoiding all the possible mistakes read out... I would think that it deserves your attention and some discussion. Another related topic should be the perfect game. Also probably isn't a too uncommon an idea - Should it have fighting or not? When entering a fight should(/n't?) the one entering always be at some disadvantage? If so would a perfect game played by two gods (With the correct komi, leading to jigo and all..?) have any fighting or would it be excluded as a mistake? I took both sides as far as these topics go and the more I think the less I'm sure... Reuven

(Sebastian:) Yes, this is exactly the place for this! You're probably right that kami no itte would be a pretty unaggressive, and I might say, boring, game - like the cold death the universe would experience if it kept expanding. But luckily we're far enough from either of the two. I only would like to know which will occur first.

Chris Hayashida: Maybe not in the perfect game, but when watching/playing back pro games, I really admire the moves that are considered but aren't played out. It's not that those sequences are better than the ones actually played, but it's amazing to me that both sides had read out the alternate sequences, and then, for one reason or another, one side did not like the result, and thus a different variation was played.

At the level I'm at (2k AGA) I still find that there is a big inequality in the amount that the players are reading. A variation might be played out halfway, only to find it is disastrous for one side. At that point, the losing side scrambles to make the best of a bad situation. You don't see that in pro games.


November 4, 2004

Chris Hayashida: On election night (in the USA) I was thinking that blue and red go stones would have been cool. (Those are the same colors typically used for the two political parties in the US on the maps on the news.) I never got around to making them. I guess I have four more years to do so.

On a side topic, it seems like more people I've bumped into through Go have been unhappy with the re-election of Bush. I'm wondering if Go players tend to be politically liberal, or if it's just a matter of demographics... I'm in Los Angeles, after all, and I would guess that most people on Go servers are younger...

Bill: One factor may also be that go players do not see the world as black and white. ;-)

Stefan: Beautiful. Just became my Motto of the Day!

BradJackson: Not a bad motto at all. I think that red and blue stones wouldn't look as good as black and white, but that's obviously a matter of personal taste. Practically speaking, some color blind players might have trouble with it

Politically, I think it depends mostly on your friends and your area. I'm pretty liberal, but most of the people around here are moderate conservative to extreme conservative. One of the consiquences of living in Amarillo, TX. Since go is a new and "foreign" thing in the US, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a slight tendancy in US go players towards liberalism, but I'd also be surprised if it was a big tendancy. Go is so great it trancends mere political boundaries.

ilan: Go seems to attract effete intellectual snobs and these should be Kerry suporters, by definition (I count myself among these). The day following the election, some were in the KGS English Chat Room claiming that people who voted for Bush are unable to think. By comparison, my wife was playing internet poker and was being insulted for her French origin by Bush supporters. It seems that the election result inspired the worst from both sides. The go aspect I was waiting to see on election night was the observation that swing states were worth double the electoral votes of other states.

Niklaus: Another thing you learn as a go player is that you have to face the facts as they are, whether you like it or not. No amount of wishful thinking is making your dead group alive. Considering the refusal to accept that Saddam Hussein neither is Bin Laden's buddy, nor did he pose a direct threat to the US and that the current situation in Iraq is not really the way it was planned to be, among an astonishingly big part of Bush supporters, this may be an explanation why go players would rather vote for somebody else.

kritz I would like to respectfully disagree. Often those of us in the Midwest hear "If only you knew what we knew, you would vote for Kerry" or "Those who vote for Bush are Stupid." I can assure you that most in the Midwest see the exact same "facts" as those on the coasts or in Europe. They just happen to view those facts from a different direction. As for intelligence ... well, I may have a graduate degree in engineering and a law degree and regularly read the world's newspapers, but I am only 14k ;p

Malweth Perhaps the reason there's a big majority of anti-war and pro-Kerry people playing go (KGS or otherwise) is because, to play go you (mostly) need to have a good world-view. The people you play are from all over the world and setting up games often requires GMT conversions. In essence, people that have this type of world-view are more likely to regard foreign policy with higher importance. -- Regarding the reasons Bush supporters have their intelligence insulted (whether it's true or not) is partially based on the fact that Bush is portrayed as a dumb, friendly guy (true or not). It may also have something to do with the fact that Bush won the "moral" vote, which typically includes being against gay marriage and stem-cell research. Being against either makes little logical sense.

gaius: Another possible explanation: many of the guys you meet on Go servers are non-American, and they tend to be quite liberal. See [ext] http://globalvote2004.org: only 9.0% of the non-Americans support Bush, while 77.1% support Kerry and 6,7% support Nader.


ilan: Thanks kritz, I couldn't have said it better myself, but I will try to anyway. I was in a Parisian cafe the other day and someone was loudly stating his opinions on the Middle East by making strong and inflammatory statements. My impression was of a go player making overplays and that someone with real experience would take positions which are impossible to defend. I then realised why diplomats are usually old.

Kritz Malweth's comment shows is a perfect example of what I am talking about. With regard to stem cell research, Bush is against Fetal stem cell reseach. He greatly increased the funding for stem cell research in general (much more thant Clinton). A point clearly understood in the midwest and never mentioned by the major media. (I never saw this distinction in the European papers) With respect to Gay marriage ... it has been widely reported that Bill Clinton advised John Kerry to support the 11 state constitutional amendments. Also Bush expressed support for civil unions (again - I saw no mention of this in the non-US papers) {please don't take this as an opinion of mine on these topics - just how the midwest view is different} I dare say ... before you start jumping up and down about the results, a little self examination may be warranted. It is possible that those in the Midwest were not the only ones out there who were "spun."

ilan: The above two messages by Malweth and kritz are a perfect example of what I have observed over the years: American liberals usually believe that their views are self-evident and don't require explanation and it is the conservatives who are able to argue their case. This has a long history on the Internet where Computer Science pioneer John McCarthy? defended his conservative position against self-righteous liberals ever since computers became a medium for discussion.

kritz I don't know that I would characterize myself as a conservative - I just love to read. In my opinion, much of the discussion around the world in the papers won't help feed the poor or end AIDS. I guess I would hope some dialog would help everyone get along. Characterizing the US population as insane will only drive us further into our paranoia and into behavior which most of the world disdains.

Bill: Having grown up hearing that liberals are governed by their hearts and conservatives are governed by their heads, I was surprised, as an adult, to find that, in the U. S. anyway, that the principal form of conservative political argument is the ad hominem fallacy. In the U. S. the level of political discourse is not very high, on either side. Witness Crossfire.

kritz I would have to agree with you about the discourse. (For the record: I never watch Fox news) That said, clearly fallacy - ad hominem is exactly the method used to attack Bush. "Bush is an idiot ...therefore there can be no logical basis for the policies - further Bush is a lacky for the religious right." I dare say in many respects there is little difference between Bush's policies and Clinton's. (Nobody in Europe complained when Clinton cleaned up the Bosnian mess without the UN) I would be very surprised if the World would have seen much difference between Bush or Kerry. The differences will likely be internal.

Now the big question - how to get past this multi-month 14k rut.

Chris Hayashida: Man, this is so not the conversation that I wanted to start. I just wanted a "Yeah, blue and red stones would be cool." :)

Have you seen this one? [ext] Semiprecious Go stones for the serious collector
Cool and dear. For those with the Porsche on the drive-in lane (shell & slate instead of gravel), because the quadrupel garage is full ...

I was about to post my longwinded thought on Bush vs. Kerry, but I think this flame war is best left to rec.games.go.

Someone come up with a new topic. Quick.

Charles I know, go servers. Or Japanese rules ...

kritz sorry - guilty - anyone tried Wilcox software?? I'm looking for somehting to help move me in my game.

AshleyF: I've tried Sector Fights and Contact Fights (GoDojo). They're excellent! Very interactive, fun way to learn and tons of very good information for a wide range of levels.

Malweth: Rational political discussion can't be considered a "flame war" - I haven't seen a single personal attack versus anyone here. In any case (politically) the real problem is that the media doesn't like to give us fact - just skewed half truths which assume the listener only wants an overview.

Go relatedly, I just read BenjaminTeuber/GuideToBecomeStrong and thought it was an excellent overview of how to get stronger. I've been thinking about a similar method of learning through Tsumego, so I'm going to be quick to adopt his methods. Give it a look-over because 99% of high level Go is reading based (now where to get an ample supply of Tsumego...?)

Depending on your level of strength there are many sources of trumego. At a 10k+/- level there is Kiseido's 1001 life and death problem book. For somewhat stronger players there is Gokyo Shumyo available on the web (and on SL as the Kanazawa series). Then there are goproblems.com and the korean academy on Jan van der Steen's site.

ilan: kritz, everyone on KGS is in a rut since WMS changed the rating system. My Dashn rating is rapidly catching up to my KGS rating, and Dashn used to be 3 or 4 ranks stronger.

LukeNine45: Really? I thought it was just me-- I keep losing on KGS. Now I've almost gotten demoted, I was about to break 10k. Statistically it can't be possible for *everyone* to do badly, though... I used blue and green stones for awhile until I bought a real set, I don't recommend it as they're really hard to see.


October 26, 2004

Sad news for all those who love to listen to music on the radio while playing Go. John Peel has left us [ext] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3955289.stm

DJ: I am shocked. He was still young, he was a myth, we music lovers (and amateur dj) owe him so much...

Charles He meant a great deal to me, when I was 15. (Yes, I'm one of the Troutmask Replica generation, along with Matt Groening and DJ - all the best people ...)

Dieter: I have been musically brought up by people who were brought up by John Peel. Strangely enough, I have all Beefheart's records but I will probably never truly appreciate Trout mask replica, though I acknowledge that it is his most distinguished work. Thanks John.

DJ: Living in Rome, I never had the occasion to personally hear John Peel, but I was very well aware of his incredible work, openmindness and care for interesting music whatever its source.
Just the same, radio listening played a huge role in my music education (my first rock concert: the Stones, 1967 - Brian Jones still alive - latest: Einsturzende Neubauten few months ago...).
Nowadays the radio world, AM and FM alike, is, with very few exceptions, terribly commercial.
BTW, I am very happy to see that two senior (at least as regards go skills) deshi's as Charles and Dieter are also fine music connoisseur... Did you know that Captain Beefheart's former band is on tour with the old repertoire? ;-)

Charles Yes, interesting that they can play it live, with all the weirdness. Dieter, I was listening to TR at a rate on one track per week, on a bad-quality transistor radio, while at boarding school. This effect is hard to reproduce (even if one wanted to).


October 22, 2004

I'm curious about SL's wiki setup. We just had a wiki that was holding documentation (or soon-to-be-there documentation) for Textpattern essentially taken down due to an extraordinary act of graffiti/spam vandalism. How does SL combat this? This place has been around for quite awhile and I've never seen anything like [ext] this. I guess I'd like to know so maybe we could get it going again and prevent this sort of thing. - Remillard

Stefan: SL has cases of WikiVandalism, but you need to be very quick to see one. Usually pages are repaired or restored again in minutes. Every bona fide visitor is keeping an eye on the place, and the RecentChangesJunkies outnumber the vandals. That, plus Librarians can block vandals' IP for a while.

Remillard:Ahh, well if it's simply a case of many vigilant eyes, then TXP might be somewhat hosed. I don't think we have near the amount of eyeballs that SL does. It's a different sort of community. I'd hoped there was something along the lines of things to foil bots and such, but I guess not.

Arno: apart from "many eyes" there are some bot traps in place as well. E.g. anonymous users adding more than 10 URLs to a page within one edit get blocked and the edit is not saved.

BradJackson: Personally, I'd recommend against allowing anonymous edits unless there is a large community in place to catch the vandals/advertisers/jerks/whatever. Anonymous is nice, but I've never seen any wiki where it was critical.

October 5, 2004

Has anyone noticed that an album of Almost Sente comic strips came out? Check out the info on [ext] http://almostsente.art.pl


previous versions (before WMEs):


This is a copy of the living page "Coffee Machine" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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