Hello bloggers! Sorry I haven't been updating regularly. Please enjoy this chess chapter. I would post Section 5, but it has a diagram that requires extensive formatting. Perhaps in a few days.
Section 4: Removing the Defender
Victory and Defeat
For a twist, I'm going to give my unusual game story at the start of my section. That's because I will be referencing to it at key points. If this works, this may become my new section format, after all unusual games that draw upon the things I teach in the section are a great learning tool!
I was playing a match against someone, and he tried to use the 4-move checkmate, known as a Scholar's Mate. Now, this was a school tournament, back when I had only been playing for about 5 years. (Turns out I've been playing for nearly 10 years, I did some reminiscing).
I went 7-2 in this tournament, and one of them I lost against the best team in the whole place. The other one... So I did the basic defense against that Mate (You'll see it in the next section) and so he started to harry my defending piece! I rebuffed him, he kept attacking, until I moved my Knight. BAM! I was checkmated.
Now why do I tell this story at the start? Well, the Scholar's Mate is something I want to tell you all, so you can defend against it. The only way he beat me was by REMOVING THE DEFENDER, which is something I want to talk about today!
Scholar's Mate The Scholar's mate goes as follows. Black's moves are sensible opening moves.
1.e4. e5 2.Bc4. Bc5 3.Qf3. Nc6 4.Qxf7++
When someone goes Qf3, there's a very good chance they are planning the Scholar's Mate. The defense is very simple. Instead of Nc6, the move is Nf6. Now, the Knight guards the square being attacked, and the g-pawn guards the Knight! One more tip for the Scholar's Mate. Don't do it. If you win, you don't learn from your experiences, and if they defend, you are at a disadvantage in the opening.
Removing the Defender
Now there is one strategy that can make the Scholar's mate viable. Follow the first 3 moves of the mate. If they move their Knight to defend, here is a sample series of moves. This gets complex, so bring a chessboard. I'll explain the more complex moves.
1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 3.Qf3 Nf6
Note the correct defense by Black.
4.d3 d6
d3 allows the Bishop to threaten the next move, as well as being a solid move. d6 is a typical good move.
5.Bg5 h6 6.Bxf6 Pxf6 7.Qh5 Nc3
The Queen makes a different angle of attack. Note that both the Queen and the Bishop are attacking the f7 pawn. Nc3 is a developing move. 8. Qxf7++ This is nearly the same as the match that defeated me. The match is over. However, a clever opponent would have done the following: 4. d3 h6 This defends against Bg5. Or, at any point, Black could have used the move Be6, stopping the Bishop in it's tracks. So I also would not usually recommend you use this mate as well.
However, it can show you that Removing the Defender can be effective. Whenever a foe's piece is the only piece guarding a square you need to reach, and Piling Up is infeasible, try to Remove the Defender. Occasionally you may have a defender being defended, in which case you must remove the defender in order to remove the real defender.
You may want to read over this again, it's a complicated section. Next section, we'll learn how to 'discover' attacks, check the king with two pieces at once, and make a fork....but with TWO pieces, on the one turn! But wait! Didn't I say only castling moved two pieces at once? Yes I did, but I'll only be moving one piece! You'll also find out how to trade pieces into a winning endgame so you can win the match!
Next Section: Discovered Attacks
Exchanging Material
I hope you enjoy these Chess guides. In a few more chapters I'll have to start writing about Chess again. I hope I'm not too rusty. Anyway, on to the Dailies.
Daily Quote: Chess. A day to learn, a lifetime to master. -Jay Bailey
Daily Website: http://www.puzzlepirates.com/. A silly piratey themed MMORPG, however the various activities in the game are not done by skill level, but rather through puzzles. The Carpentry puzzle involves fitting shapes into larger shapes, and the Drinking puzzle is a strategic board game! Give it a go! (Note: If you do not wish to pay monthly for this, go to a Doubloon Ocean, (server) not a Subscriber Ocean.)
Until next time, may you take the time to just relax and have fun.
-Callanthae
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
Post 14: Childcare: Part 2
Welcome back bloggers! My baby wasn't too bad: and I found out I had a Normal one. To those who missed Childcare: Part 1, I received an electronic baby on Wednesday for use in an Exploring Early Childhood assignment. I returned it yesterday, and am now writing what happened during the second half of the 22 hours I had the baby for.
The baby had cried 3 times within 11 hours when I wrote Post 13, and this is where the story left off.
I didn't want to sleep, so I decided to play a game called ZunderFury on www.kongregate.com. It's a nice, simple game, but very hard if you decide you want to get all the different feats. The baby cried again: 3 times in 3 hours. Three times in three hours. Unbelievable. It required the key in for 15-20 minutes each time, so it was a tough three hours. At around 1, I decided to go to bed, read, and wait for the baby to cry again.
Once it did, I would stick the key in until it was okay, then go to sleep. However, at about 2, this stopped seeming a good idea, and I went to sleep. I got woken up at 4:30 am, and then had to take care of it again before immediately crashing out again.
I woke up at 7:30, got up at 8, and got ready for school. I grabbed Ariel, wrapped her up in her blanket (which Ms Southwell gives us, in order to further simulate the experience) and took her to school. Two minutes out from the gate, I was thinking 'What are the odds that the baby will cry, right now?'
WAH! WAH! Of course, Murphy's Law. (Murphy's Law states that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong) I rushed it over to Ms Southwell, who took 10 minutes to take the baby due to an important phone call, but then I left it with her. My readout was:
Normal Baby
Cried: 9 times
Head Dropped Back: 6 times (Mostly when it cried, and I was too hurried to get to it to make sure it's head was okay)
Abused: 0
Neglected: 0
Minutes Cried: 4
In total, that's pretty good, Ms Southwell told me.
The worst part about the whole thing wasn't the crying, in the end. Or even the sleep deprivation (I got 5 hours sleep, which was interrupted twice, and thought I did well.)
The worst part was the dread, the fact that this baby was a ticking time bomb, waiting to explode. Just...waiting...to...explode...
A friend of mine, we'll call her Casey, also had the baby on Wednesday, but she turned hers off before midnight. She must have had a pretty tough baby.
I kept that baby close though. Unless it was in the half-hour guaranteed safe zone, I didn't leave it out of my sight, even to pee. When we ate dinner, I put Ariel in her bed (a basket of mine, lined with my clothes and one of my pillows) and took her to the foot of the table.
It's Friday now, and I've almost recovered from my sleep deprivation. I'm also awake enough to realise that these two blog posts are really going to help me in the second part of my assignment, because they provide vital notes and insights. I'll probably just mix and match this stuff into formal writing in the end, and that should do it.
I also handed in a Food Tech assignment today. It was a close run thing, but I managed it. I don't know how well I'll do though.
Well, it looks like that's nearing my 700 words for the day (about twice that of a normal blog post) so I suppose that'll be about it. On to the Dailies!
Daily Quote: 'If you want to test wisdom, offer it to fools and see how they tear it up' -Anonymous
Daily Website: www.blogger.com. It takes a fair bit of work to find good blogs on the site, but try the recommended blogs list on the right-hand side. You can also make a search for certain names or tags. This may not be my best recommendation, but it's at least as good as my blog because it hosts my blog, so it's good enough for me to link.
Until next time, may you take the time to have a good night's sleep (unlike me).
-Callanthae
The baby had cried 3 times within 11 hours when I wrote Post 13, and this is where the story left off.
I didn't want to sleep, so I decided to play a game called ZunderFury on www.kongregate.com. It's a nice, simple game, but very hard if you decide you want to get all the different feats. The baby cried again: 3 times in 3 hours. Three times in three hours. Unbelievable. It required the key in for 15-20 minutes each time, so it was a tough three hours. At around 1, I decided to go to bed, read, and wait for the baby to cry again.
Once it did, I would stick the key in until it was okay, then go to sleep. However, at about 2, this stopped seeming a good idea, and I went to sleep. I got woken up at 4:30 am, and then had to take care of it again before immediately crashing out again.
I woke up at 7:30, got up at 8, and got ready for school. I grabbed Ariel, wrapped her up in her blanket (which Ms Southwell gives us, in order to further simulate the experience) and took her to school. Two minutes out from the gate, I was thinking 'What are the odds that the baby will cry, right now?'
WAH! WAH! Of course, Murphy's Law. (Murphy's Law states that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong) I rushed it over to Ms Southwell, who took 10 minutes to take the baby due to an important phone call, but then I left it with her. My readout was:
Normal Baby
Cried: 9 times
Head Dropped Back: 6 times (Mostly when it cried, and I was too hurried to get to it to make sure it's head was okay)
Abused: 0
Neglected: 0
Minutes Cried: 4
In total, that's pretty good, Ms Southwell told me.
The worst part about the whole thing wasn't the crying, in the end. Or even the sleep deprivation (I got 5 hours sleep, which was interrupted twice, and thought I did well.)
The worst part was the dread, the fact that this baby was a ticking time bomb, waiting to explode. Just...waiting...to...explode...
A friend of mine, we'll call her Casey, also had the baby on Wednesday, but she turned hers off before midnight. She must have had a pretty tough baby.
I kept that baby close though. Unless it was in the half-hour guaranteed safe zone, I didn't leave it out of my sight, even to pee. When we ate dinner, I put Ariel in her bed (a basket of mine, lined with my clothes and one of my pillows) and took her to the foot of the table.
It's Friday now, and I've almost recovered from my sleep deprivation. I'm also awake enough to realise that these two blog posts are really going to help me in the second part of my assignment, because they provide vital notes and insights. I'll probably just mix and match this stuff into formal writing in the end, and that should do it.
I also handed in a Food Tech assignment today. It was a close run thing, but I managed it. I don't know how well I'll do though.
Well, it looks like that's nearing my 700 words for the day (about twice that of a normal blog post) so I suppose that'll be about it. On to the Dailies!
Daily Quote: 'If you want to test wisdom, offer it to fools and see how they tear it up' -Anonymous
Daily Website: www.blogger.com. It takes a fair bit of work to find good blogs on the site, but try the recommended blogs list on the right-hand side. You can also make a search for certain names or tags. This may not be my best recommendation, but it's at least as good as my blog because it hosts my blog, so it's good enough for me to link.
Until next time, may you take the time to have a good night's sleep (unlike me).
-Callanthae
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Post 13: Childcare Part 1
Hello bloggers. It's been eleven hours since I received my baby, and I've come to the conclusion that I must have an easy one. When the baby cries (randomly from 30 minutes to 4 hours since it last cried) the parent must put a key (attached to their wrist) into the back of the baby. The baby will then stop crying. However you must keep the key in for a random amount of time, between 2 minutes and 2 hours (though again, the 2-hour thing might be a joke).
So far, my baby has cried 3 times, once at lunch, which was fairly easy, ten minutes of holding the key in. At Drama, it needed about twenty minutes, and I had it lain down with my hand under it, because it wasn't heavy enough to cut the circulation, since it's about the size and weight of a newborn. The last time started an hour ago and took 25 minutes to calm it down. Half an hour after it stopped, I'm writing this blog (9:49 pm right now).
Jade has told me that the baby will probably go crazy throughout the night, and I'm hoping that she's wrong. My baby, Ariel, is currently lying in her makeshift cot (in a basket, lined with clothes and on top of one of my pillows) right next to me. I just hope she doesn't cry until I finish this post, at least! EDIT: She didn't.
Ariel is a fairly good baby, only crying every three hours or so on average. I was worried about the Community and Family Studies test I had today, but the baby slept right through it, using my schoolbag as a pillow.
During recess I had a whole bunch of people pestering me, but luckily I had an equal bunch who wanted to hold it and protected Ariel from the idiots out there. Luckily none of them managed something after I surrounded myself with the girls from my Exploring Early Childhood class. (A little side note: I'm the only guy in that class. Apparently they only get a guy in the class every 2-3 years)
At lunch I'd learnt my lesson, and took it up to the Senior Study Area at the library, so all was okay there when it cried, although a bunch of people were looking around for the crying. I apologised to the head librarian for the noise (I borrow several books a week, so it's good to stay on her good side)
At Drama, Rose, my sister and a couple of other people passed it around to hold, then I got a blanket for it to rest on (if the baby's head falls back, it starts crying automatically) and then when it cried, Rose, a mother of two, tried to take the baby, only to find the key was attached to my wrist. I got snapped at, but was able to read my lines with one hand, from the table where I had the baby's key in.
By the time 8:45 rolled around, I was getting paranoid: it had been 3 and a half hours since it's last cry, and I knew it was going to cry soon. I was right, and 15-20 minutes into the baby's routine of making me hold the key (which simulates changing, feeding, burping etc.) I was repeating to myself "No matter how long this takes, I can last longer".
I was right. About 3 minutes after I started singing songs to distract me from my boredom, the baby cooed (a signal to take the key out) and I've been home free ever since.
Now all I have to do is keep close by, and wait for the next cry.
On to the dailies!
Daily Quote: "You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance" - Franklin P. Jones
Daily Website: www.addictinggames.com/puzzle.html. It's games and puzzles all in one! What more could you want? A good-quality (mostly) selection.
Until next time, may you endure whatever life throws at you.
-Callanthae
So far, my baby has cried 3 times, once at lunch, which was fairly easy, ten minutes of holding the key in. At Drama, it needed about twenty minutes, and I had it lain down with my hand under it, because it wasn't heavy enough to cut the circulation, since it's about the size and weight of a newborn. The last time started an hour ago and took 25 minutes to calm it down. Half an hour after it stopped, I'm writing this blog (9:49 pm right now).
Jade has told me that the baby will probably go crazy throughout the night, and I'm hoping that she's wrong. My baby, Ariel, is currently lying in her makeshift cot (in a basket, lined with clothes and on top of one of my pillows) right next to me. I just hope she doesn't cry until I finish this post, at least! EDIT: She didn't.
Ariel is a fairly good baby, only crying every three hours or so on average. I was worried about the Community and Family Studies test I had today, but the baby slept right through it, using my schoolbag as a pillow.
During recess I had a whole bunch of people pestering me, but luckily I had an equal bunch who wanted to hold it and protected Ariel from the idiots out there. Luckily none of them managed something after I surrounded myself with the girls from my Exploring Early Childhood class. (A little side note: I'm the only guy in that class. Apparently they only get a guy in the class every 2-3 years)
At lunch I'd learnt my lesson, and took it up to the Senior Study Area at the library, so all was okay there when it cried, although a bunch of people were looking around for the crying. I apologised to the head librarian for the noise (I borrow several books a week, so it's good to stay on her good side)
At Drama, Rose, my sister and a couple of other people passed it around to hold, then I got a blanket for it to rest on (if the baby's head falls back, it starts crying automatically) and then when it cried, Rose, a mother of two, tried to take the baby, only to find the key was attached to my wrist. I got snapped at, but was able to read my lines with one hand, from the table where I had the baby's key in.
By the time 8:45 rolled around, I was getting paranoid: it had been 3 and a half hours since it's last cry, and I knew it was going to cry soon. I was right, and 15-20 minutes into the baby's routine of making me hold the key (which simulates changing, feeding, burping etc.) I was repeating to myself "No matter how long this takes, I can last longer".
I was right. About 3 minutes after I started singing songs to distract me from my boredom, the baby cooed (a signal to take the key out) and I've been home free ever since.
Now all I have to do is keep close by, and wait for the next cry.
On to the dailies!
Daily Quote: "You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance" - Franklin P. Jones
Daily Website: www.addictinggames.com/puzzle.html. It's games and puzzles all in one! What more could you want? A good-quality (mostly) selection.
Until next time, may you endure whatever life throws at you.
-Callanthae
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Post 12: Chess: Part 3: Forks, Pins and Skewers
Welcome to my post number 12 guys. Before I move on to step 3 of my 11-part Chess guide, (the other two can be found in Chess: Part 1 and Tenth Post), I want to tell you about what I will be writing my next couple of posts on. In Exploring Early Childhood, I have an assignment, the first phase of which requires the caring of an infant simulator (robotic baby) for 22 hours (from recess until before school the following day).
This will obviously be an interesting (and possibly traumatic) experience for me, and excellent writing material for my blog. Heck, if I write it down, the second phase (my report on my experiences) will be MUCH, MUCH, easier. So, expect about 1500 words or so on teenage parenting for my 13th and 14th posts.
The girl who got it on Monday, we'll call her Jade, was forced to turn off the baby at 3 am, apparently being reduced to tears an hour earlier. She then found out that she had a Normal baby. The baby comes in four levels, randomly picked: Easy, Normal, Hard and Psycho (although I'm not sure if Psycho is just a wind-up by our teacher or not).
So half of me can't wait, and the other half is absolutely terrified. I get the baby tomorrow. Now, on to the Chess guide!
A Novice's Guide to Chess: Part 3: Forks, Pins and Skewers (The Kitchenette Special)
Whenever I'm playing a game of Chess, I try to look for the different positions that allow me to make some very special attacking moves. Some of these are one-move devastators, but one of them is very potent, and builds up over multiple turns.
I am talking of,
a) Pins.
b) Skewers.
c) Forks.
d) Piling Up.
A pin is when a weaker piece is stuck protecting a stronger piece. For this, I'm going to use an example again. Remember that game from Section 2? For a refresher, here's how it went.
1. e4. e5. 2. Nf3. Nc6. 3. Nc3. Nf6. 4. d4. e5xd4. 5. Nxd4. Nxd4. 6. Qxd4.
That's the match so far.
6. .... d5. 7. Qa4+. Bd7.
As you can see, the d7 bishop is now PINNED. It cannot move away, or else it's king is exposed. The best way to beat a pin is with a move that moves the piece behind the pinned piece, or to attack the pinner and force it to move away.
Skewers are the opposite. A more powerful piece is attacked, and must move, allowing you to capture a weaker one. Have you ever been in a position where you were checked, and by moving away, you exposed a piece?
That is a basic example of a skewer. You can only beat this by capturing or blocking the opposing piece with a weaker one of your own.
A fork is when you have two or more pieces attacked at once. An example:
K . q . B
The lowercase q indicates Black's piece. The enemy Queen is attacking the King and the Bishop, and the King must move away, allowing the Queen to take the Bishop. Only capturing the forking piece can stop this.
Piling Up is when you put two or more pieces in a position to attack the same enemy piece. For example, let's take our example game again, and move into the past....
1. e4. e5. 2. Nc6. Nf3. 3. Nc3. Nf6. 4. d4.
Now, a total of two pieces are attacking d4 (the e5 pawn and the f3 knight) and two are defending it (f3 knight and the d1 queen). This is Piling Up. To defeat this, either attack one or more of the pieces threatening the square, or continue to pile up pieces. If the second option is taken, the board usually clears significantly at the end of said sequence. Now here's a quirky story that has everything to do with Piling Up!
Victory and Defeat
I was playing in a match for my school. I was Captain of the Chess Team. Yes, that makes me geekier than you.
Anyway, I was in this strange match, where a single PAWN was the key to the entire match. 2 or 3 pieces on each side focused on it, and it sort of escalated. The two of us each had pawns, a Bishop, a Knight, our Rooks and a Queen. We each ended up with FIVE pieces, (Bishop, Knight, Rook, Queen, Pawn) on it, attacking or defending the one square. This took 10-15 moves to set up, but finally I got a sixth attacker up there, and the crowded board suddenly became decimated in one sweep. I won a pawn, bringing me to a two-pawn advantage in the endgame, and I was able to win. All because I managed to win a single Pile Up war.
Next section: Removing the Defender
How to Win (or Lose) in 4 Moves
Well, I hope that was entertaining, although my writing style was still a bit rustic back then. At least Parts Eight and onwards will be as clear as the majority of my blog (a good or bad thing depending on your point of view).
On with the Dailies!
Daily Quote: A single word of encouragement can outweigh a hundred criticisms. -Matthew Reilly
To anyone who knows a writer, never underestimate the power of your encouragement -Matthew Reilly
You are not an 'aspiring' writer. You are a writer. -Matthew Reilly
Matthew Reilly happens to be my favourite author, I greatly recommend his books if you enjoy action. They really are as fast as movies, but with far more depth to them.
Daily Website: www.ehow.com. This website teaches thousands of different things in small mini-articles. I did some of the research for Vocabulary (Post 11) there.
Announcement: From now on, at the beginning of each post's name, I will put the number of said post for easier reference.
Until next time, may you take the time to write about what you love.
-Callanthae
This will obviously be an interesting (and possibly traumatic) experience for me, and excellent writing material for my blog. Heck, if I write it down, the second phase (my report on my experiences) will be MUCH, MUCH, easier. So, expect about 1500 words or so on teenage parenting for my 13th and 14th posts.
The girl who got it on Monday, we'll call her Jade, was forced to turn off the baby at 3 am, apparently being reduced to tears an hour earlier. She then found out that she had a Normal baby. The baby comes in four levels, randomly picked: Easy, Normal, Hard and Psycho (although I'm not sure if Psycho is just a wind-up by our teacher or not).
So half of me can't wait, and the other half is absolutely terrified. I get the baby tomorrow. Now, on to the Chess guide!
A Novice's Guide to Chess: Part 3: Forks, Pins and Skewers (The Kitchenette Special)
Whenever I'm playing a game of Chess, I try to look for the different positions that allow me to make some very special attacking moves. Some of these are one-move devastators, but one of them is very potent, and builds up over multiple turns.
I am talking of,
a) Pins.
b) Skewers.
c) Forks.
d) Piling Up.
A pin is when a weaker piece is stuck protecting a stronger piece. For this, I'm going to use an example again. Remember that game from Section 2? For a refresher, here's how it went.
1. e4. e5. 2. Nf3. Nc6. 3. Nc3. Nf6. 4. d4. e5xd4. 5. Nxd4. Nxd4. 6. Qxd4.
That's the match so far.
6. .... d5. 7. Qa4+. Bd7.
As you can see, the d7 bishop is now PINNED. It cannot move away, or else it's king is exposed. The best way to beat a pin is with a move that moves the piece behind the pinned piece, or to attack the pinner and force it to move away.
Skewers are the opposite. A more powerful piece is attacked, and must move, allowing you to capture a weaker one. Have you ever been in a position where you were checked, and by moving away, you exposed a piece?
That is a basic example of a skewer. You can only beat this by capturing or blocking the opposing piece with a weaker one of your own.
A fork is when you have two or more pieces attacked at once. An example:
K . q . B
The lowercase q indicates Black's piece. The enemy Queen is attacking the King and the Bishop, and the King must move away, allowing the Queen to take the Bishop. Only capturing the forking piece can stop this.
Piling Up is when you put two or more pieces in a position to attack the same enemy piece. For example, let's take our example game again, and move into the past....
1. e4. e5. 2. Nc6. Nf3. 3. Nc3. Nf6. 4. d4.
Now, a total of two pieces are attacking d4 (the e5 pawn and the f3 knight) and two are defending it (f3 knight and the d1 queen). This is Piling Up. To defeat this, either attack one or more of the pieces threatening the square, or continue to pile up pieces. If the second option is taken, the board usually clears significantly at the end of said sequence. Now here's a quirky story that has everything to do with Piling Up!
Victory and Defeat
I was playing in a match for my school. I was Captain of the Chess Team. Yes, that makes me geekier than you.
Anyway, I was in this strange match, where a single PAWN was the key to the entire match. 2 or 3 pieces on each side focused on it, and it sort of escalated. The two of us each had pawns, a Bishop, a Knight, our Rooks and a Queen. We each ended up with FIVE pieces, (Bishop, Knight, Rook, Queen, Pawn) on it, attacking or defending the one square. This took 10-15 moves to set up, but finally I got a sixth attacker up there, and the crowded board suddenly became decimated in one sweep. I won a pawn, bringing me to a two-pawn advantage in the endgame, and I was able to win. All because I managed to win a single Pile Up war.
Next section: Removing the Defender
How to Win (or Lose) in 4 Moves
Well, I hope that was entertaining, although my writing style was still a bit rustic back then. At least Parts Eight and onwards will be as clear as the majority of my blog (a good or bad thing depending on your point of view).
On with the Dailies!
Daily Quote: A single word of encouragement can outweigh a hundred criticisms. -Matthew Reilly
To anyone who knows a writer, never underestimate the power of your encouragement -Matthew Reilly
You are not an 'aspiring' writer. You are a writer. -Matthew Reilly
Matthew Reilly happens to be my favourite author, I greatly recommend his books if you enjoy action. They really are as fast as movies, but with far more depth to them.
Daily Website: www.ehow.com. This website teaches thousands of different things in small mini-articles. I did some of the research for Vocabulary (Post 11) there.
Announcement: From now on, at the beginning of each post's name, I will put the number of said post for easier reference.
Until next time, may you take the time to write about what you love.
-Callanthae
Monday, June 16, 2008
Vocabulary
One of the greatest means of expressing oneself is through words. Just sit and listen for a few minutes in a public place and you'll notice just how much communication is expressed through the English language. That's why it's important to have a good vocabulary, and more importantly, to know that you know the words. You can know a million words but if you don't know when to use them, they are useless.
A greater vocabulary often leads to better communication, however it also has the problem of having to restrain your vocabulary among those who cannot understand it. An example is:
Example 1: I am currently in the possession of a lexicon of gargantuan girth, and frequently put it to exalted employment recreationally.
Now, I don't know if you understood that or not, and it's obviously a caricature of real speech, but nevertheless, it can be far simpler to just say it like this:
Example 2: I know a lot of words, and use them frequently for fun.
It sounds much more understandable. The key however, is to find a compromise between the two. The average reader of my blog, I assume, is a cut above the average blog reader, but not abnormally intelligent. So a good compromise for this crowd would be my last example:
Example 3: I possess a large vocabulary, and enjoy frequently putting it to good employment.
This may not be the best example, but it features the basics, and that's what counts.
If you don't have such a large vocabulary (or gargantuan lexicon) then there are ways to improve it.
1: Read. A lot. A LOT.
I read for at least an hour a day, and am a very fast reader. I will read 2-3 full sized books a week: every week, on average. This is not to improve my vocabulary, but rather because I love reading. However, it is also a great way to learn new words, you can only learn by experience, and reading gives experience learning the meaning and contexts of a word. Many words are words people know but do not fully understand.
2: Buy a 'Word of the Day' calendar.
Or, if you have little money like me, subscribe to an online service. A good one is http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/, which I subscribe to. For example, today I learned I am very dilatory, that is prone to procrastination. Many of these words will be ones you are completely new to.
3: Speak to people.
Just like reading, speaking to people opens you to new ideas, cultures, and words. All three are quite helpful, and everyone has a nice stock of words they know, not to mention the different opinions and viewpoints one can obtain from talking to people from all walks of life.
4: Play word games.
Board games like Scrabble and UpWords, or simple mind games such as 'Last Letter, First Letter' (where you select a topic, and then someone says a word, for example with animals, someone might say 'Zebra.' The next person must say an animal with it's first letter being the same as the last letter of the previous one. E.g 'ZebrA leads to AlbatrosS, leading to Salmon, and so on, and so forth)
All four of these can definitely go far on the path to increasing your vocabulary. Now that your minds are filled with literary goodness, I'll leave you with the dailies.
Daily Quote: 'A journey of a thousand miles begins with the very first step' -Confucius.
Daily Website: http://www.freerice.com/index.php. I found this while researching this article, and it's really neat. Not only does it improve your vocabulary, but you can help feed the hungry too! How awesome is that? Kill two birds with one stone!
Until next time, may you take the time to peruse your lexicon for unexplored fonts of literacy.
-Callanthae
A greater vocabulary often leads to better communication, however it also has the problem of having to restrain your vocabulary among those who cannot understand it. An example is:
Example 1: I am currently in the possession of a lexicon of gargantuan girth, and frequently put it to exalted employment recreationally.
Now, I don't know if you understood that or not, and it's obviously a caricature of real speech, but nevertheless, it can be far simpler to just say it like this:
Example 2: I know a lot of words, and use them frequently for fun.
It sounds much more understandable. The key however, is to find a compromise between the two. The average reader of my blog, I assume, is a cut above the average blog reader, but not abnormally intelligent. So a good compromise for this crowd would be my last example:
Example 3: I possess a large vocabulary, and enjoy frequently putting it to good employment.
This may not be the best example, but it features the basics, and that's what counts.
If you don't have such a large vocabulary (or gargantuan lexicon) then there are ways to improve it.
1: Read. A lot. A LOT.
I read for at least an hour a day, and am a very fast reader. I will read 2-3 full sized books a week: every week, on average. This is not to improve my vocabulary, but rather because I love reading. However, it is also a great way to learn new words, you can only learn by experience, and reading gives experience learning the meaning and contexts of a word. Many words are words people know but do not fully understand.
2: Buy a 'Word of the Day' calendar.
Or, if you have little money like me, subscribe to an online service. A good one is http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/, which I subscribe to. For example, today I learned I am very dilatory, that is prone to procrastination. Many of these words will be ones you are completely new to.
3: Speak to people.
Just like reading, speaking to people opens you to new ideas, cultures, and words. All three are quite helpful, and everyone has a nice stock of words they know, not to mention the different opinions and viewpoints one can obtain from talking to people from all walks of life.
4: Play word games.
Board games like Scrabble and UpWords, or simple mind games such as 'Last Letter, First Letter' (where you select a topic, and then someone says a word, for example with animals, someone might say 'Zebra.' The next person must say an animal with it's first letter being the same as the last letter of the previous one. E.g 'ZebrA leads to AlbatrosS, leading to Salmon, and so on, and so forth)
All four of these can definitely go far on the path to increasing your vocabulary. Now that your minds are filled with literary goodness, I'll leave you with the dailies.
Daily Quote: 'A journey of a thousand miles begins with the very first step' -Confucius.
Daily Website: http://www.freerice.com/index.php. I found this while researching this article, and it's really neat. Not only does it improve your vocabulary, but you can help feed the hungry too! How awesome is that? Kill two birds with one stone!
Until next time, may you take the time to peruse your lexicon for unexplored fonts of literacy.
-Callanthae
Friday, June 13, 2008
Tenth Post
Welcome readers, to my tenth post. As I promised you, I've gathered some blogging statistics. Now that I've reached the magic double-digits, it's interesting to find out how many blogs actually make it.
I was unable to find an average post count, but I did find some interesting statistics. Statistic number one:
Several studies indicate that most blogs are abandoned soon after creation (with 60% to 80% abandoned within one month, depending on whose figures you choose to believe) and that few are regularly updated.
Statistic number two:
The Perseus report noted above indicates that 66.0% of surveyed blogs had not been updated in two months, "representing 2.72 million blogs that have been either permanently or temporarily abandoned.
And statistic number three:
Apparently the blog-hosting services have made it so easy to create a blog that many tire-kickers feel no commitment to continuing the blog they initiate. In fact, 1.09 million blogs were one-day wonders, with no postings on subsequent days.
Last but not least, number four.
the percentage of active blogs compared to the total number of blogs tracked by Technorati was declining, down from 36.71% in May 2006 to 20.93% in March 2007.
Thus we can assume from these facts:
a) 81% of blogs are inactive.
b) 30% of blogs have only one post.
c) 1-21% of inactive blogs have lasted more than a month.
So on a ranking based system, we have 100 blogs. Here are the statistics.
1-30: Single post.
31-60: Abandoned within a month.
61-81: Inactive
82-97: Active, less than a year old.
98-100: Active, more than a year old.
Just by being an active blog, my blog is in the top 20% of blogs for activity. However, since I update several times a week, I'd say I have a very active blog.
Now, welcome to A Novice's Guide to Chess: Part 2! If you don't like Chess, than just skim down: there's more to the post (this is a big one, to celebrate post number 10.)
Dozens of matches I've played have involved a not-so-experienced player make a bad opening move. I win most of those games. Why? The opening is important because of something called 'tempo.' Hopefully you've played a couple of games, because if you haven't, it might be harder to follow what I'm about to say.
White goes first, thus making a move. Black is then forced to respond to this move. Then White makes a move. And so on. White is always ONE MOVE AHEAD. This is tempo. But what would have happened if White had made a bad move? One that Black could just think 'I don't have to deal with that'? Black could make his own opening. WHOEVER CONTROLS THE OPENING CONTROLS HOW THE GAME PLAYS, and that is White's strength.
But how, you ask, do i AVOID making these bad moves? Through some simple principles. Will you teach me, you say? Of course!
1. If your opponent makes a bad move, play normally. Usually, if an opponent does something stupid in the opening, play as you normally would. Instead of being thrown off, you have gained the advantage.
2. Develop toward the centre. I cannot stress this enough. 98% of chess openings start as either 1.e4 or 1.d4. The other 2% are 1.c4 or 1.f4. Developing towards the centre is what matters. If you are White, control the centre. If you are Black, challenge it! The centre is the heart of the board, and if you control it, you almost certainly control the game.
3. Move pawns two squares. You will almost always want to move 2 squares on your first move with a pawn, unless you have a very good reason not to.
4. Develop pieces. Remember our guide to piece value? Develop in that order. Get your central pawns out, then knights, then bishops, then rook. Only then should you release your queen.
There's more to openings, but this is most of it. From now on, I intend to give an example, using an actual game of chess notation, for each scenario, explaining the moves as I go. So go and get a chessboard. Go on, I'll wait. ... ... ... Got it? Great. If you need to, go back and read the first section on Chess Notation. Now, on to the example.
Example 1: Good vs. Good. Here we assume both players are reasonably competent.
1. e4. e5. White moves to e4, immediately challenging the centre. Black moves to e5, stopping the pawn moving further and contesting the centre.
2. Nf3. Nc6. White moves his Knight, threatening the centre and Black's pawn. Black's move defends his pawn and contests again.
3. Nc3. Nf6. There are several options here. The daring Be2 attacks the Knight just played, but to keep it simple, we'll go with the safe option.
4. d4. e5xd4. Now things get interesting! We'll talk about this in detail in a later section, but for now, remember this rule. If you want to attack a piece, count how many pieces attack it's square, and how many defend. If the number of attackers is greater than (NOT equal to) the defenders, it's usually safe to attack. Go back a move, and notice the position. The e5 pawn and the c6 knight both attack d4. The f6 knight and the d1 queen defend. Here's how it would play out: Black > White > Black > White. White gets the final capture, thus getting a pawn in advantage. If you don't quite understand that, that's okay. Let's play it out for you.
5. Nxd4. Nxd4. Each knight makes a capture....
6. Qxd4. The Queen now takes. Normally, you should not develop the Queen this early. But notice how I usually say 'almost always' when referring to a guideline. Any rule in chess is only a guideline (albeit a STRONGLY recommended one!) and can be broken. But you should follow the guidelines until you have the experience to strike out on your own path. Anyway, White has captured a Pawn and a Knight. Black has captured a Knight. White is obviously a pawn up, and has the advantage.
That's as far as we'll take this opening. During the next chess match you make, keep the four principles in mind for the first 8-10 moves of the game! Next section, you'll learn something about attacking, how to make a piece paralyzed (pin), how to make a piece move so you can capture another (skewer) and even attacking two pieces at once! (fork), as well as some tips on countering this! As always, feel free to make a comment, suggestion, question or all three via message or post on this thread!
Victory and Defeat.
Each section, I'll post a little bit about a match I won or lost in a really interesting way, starting with next section. Each match will hopefully help reinforce the concepts taught in the section! I have a couple of ideas already.... Until next time, practice playing Chess! As the guide progresses, things get more and more complex. If you don't understand something, try playing some more. There are some good free Chess-playing programs on the Internet that let you play against a computer, try making a search.
I wasn't a bad writer back then. I really knew my chops, but I was far more actively playing Chess than I do today. Good guide though.
Well, I've written almost double that of a normal post now! I think that that's enough of a celebration of a tenth post. Therefore, I'll leave you with a piece of wisdom from my friend and I before the dailies. If you persevere, and have the time (and most people do, even if they don't realize it) anything is possible.
My friend Hochmut (who has commented here before) said that 'Blogging is perfect for us (Hochmut and I) because we love writing, but don't have the commitment to write a novel'.
200,000 words is the size of a good novel, that is an adult-sized one, about eight hundred A5 pages. However, one year of blogging can achieve a similar amount of text, and it takes that long to write a novel usually anyway! If each post is a brick, or each paragraph a brick, a blog can grow into a mighty building: it just takes time and commitment. It's been 10 posts, I still have barely any traffic and not one comment from someone I don't know. But I don't mind.
I have learnt that you can't expect instant results. After I've built this blog enough, the comments will come. Until then, all I can put in is one brick at a time.
Daily Quote: You're not obligated to win. You're obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day -Marian Wright Edelman
-Whoever said anybody has a right to give up? -Marian Wright Edelman
Daily Website: www.sudokupuzz.com. Sudoku is a logic-based puzzle, with no arithmetic required. The objective is to get the numbers 1-9 in each column, row and 3x3 box. For more info, and for free puzzles of this type, visit this site.
Until next time, may you take the time to give a little extra.
-Callanthae
P.S. That's 10 posts down. Here's to a thousand more! -Callanthae
I was unable to find an average post count, but I did find some interesting statistics. Statistic number one:
Several studies indicate that most blogs are abandoned soon after creation (with 60% to 80% abandoned within one month, depending on whose figures you choose to believe) and that few are regularly updated.
Statistic number two:
The Perseus report noted above indicates that 66.0% of surveyed blogs had not been updated in two months, "representing 2.72 million blogs that have been either permanently or temporarily abandoned.
And statistic number three:
Apparently the blog-hosting services have made it so easy to create a blog that many tire-kickers feel no commitment to continuing the blog they initiate. In fact, 1.09 million blogs were one-day wonders, with no postings on subsequent days.
Last but not least, number four.
the percentage of active blogs compared to the total number of blogs tracked by Technorati was declining, down from 36.71% in May 2006 to 20.93% in March 2007.
Thus we can assume from these facts:
a) 81% of blogs are inactive.
b) 30% of blogs have only one post.
c) 1-21% of inactive blogs have lasted more than a month.
So on a ranking based system, we have 100 blogs. Here are the statistics.
1-30: Single post.
31-60: Abandoned within a month.
61-81: Inactive
82-97: Active, less than a year old.
98-100: Active, more than a year old.
Just by being an active blog, my blog is in the top 20% of blogs for activity. However, since I update several times a week, I'd say I have a very active blog.
Now, welcome to A Novice's Guide to Chess: Part 2! If you don't like Chess, than just skim down: there's more to the post (this is a big one, to celebrate post number 10.)
Dozens of matches I've played have involved a not-so-experienced player make a bad opening move. I win most of those games. Why? The opening is important because of something called 'tempo.' Hopefully you've played a couple of games, because if you haven't, it might be harder to follow what I'm about to say.
White goes first, thus making a move. Black is then forced to respond to this move. Then White makes a move. And so on. White is always ONE MOVE AHEAD. This is tempo. But what would have happened if White had made a bad move? One that Black could just think 'I don't have to deal with that'? Black could make his own opening. WHOEVER CONTROLS THE OPENING CONTROLS HOW THE GAME PLAYS, and that is White's strength.
But how, you ask, do i AVOID making these bad moves? Through some simple principles. Will you teach me, you say? Of course!
1. If your opponent makes a bad move, play normally. Usually, if an opponent does something stupid in the opening, play as you normally would. Instead of being thrown off, you have gained the advantage.
2. Develop toward the centre. I cannot stress this enough. 98% of chess openings start as either 1.e4 or 1.d4. The other 2% are 1.c4 or 1.f4. Developing towards the centre is what matters. If you are White, control the centre. If you are Black, challenge it! The centre is the heart of the board, and if you control it, you almost certainly control the game.
3. Move pawns two squares. You will almost always want to move 2 squares on your first move with a pawn, unless you have a very good reason not to.
4. Develop pieces. Remember our guide to piece value? Develop in that order. Get your central pawns out, then knights, then bishops, then rook. Only then should you release your queen.
There's more to openings, but this is most of it. From now on, I intend to give an example, using an actual game of chess notation, for each scenario, explaining the moves as I go. So go and get a chessboard. Go on, I'll wait. ... ... ... Got it? Great. If you need to, go back and read the first section on Chess Notation. Now, on to the example.
Example 1: Good vs. Good. Here we assume both players are reasonably competent.
1. e4. e5. White moves to e4, immediately challenging the centre. Black moves to e5, stopping the pawn moving further and contesting the centre.
2. Nf3. Nc6. White moves his Knight, threatening the centre and Black's pawn. Black's move defends his pawn and contests again.
3. Nc3. Nf6. There are several options here. The daring Be2 attacks the Knight just played, but to keep it simple, we'll go with the safe option.
4. d4. e5xd4. Now things get interesting! We'll talk about this in detail in a later section, but for now, remember this rule. If you want to attack a piece, count how many pieces attack it's square, and how many defend. If the number of attackers is greater than (NOT equal to) the defenders, it's usually safe to attack. Go back a move, and notice the position. The e5 pawn and the c6 knight both attack d4. The f6 knight and the d1 queen defend. Here's how it would play out: Black > White > Black > White. White gets the final capture, thus getting a pawn in advantage. If you don't quite understand that, that's okay. Let's play it out for you.
5. Nxd4. Nxd4. Each knight makes a capture....
6. Qxd4. The Queen now takes. Normally, you should not develop the Queen this early. But notice how I usually say 'almost always' when referring to a guideline. Any rule in chess is only a guideline (albeit a STRONGLY recommended one!) and can be broken. But you should follow the guidelines until you have the experience to strike out on your own path. Anyway, White has captured a Pawn and a Knight. Black has captured a Knight. White is obviously a pawn up, and has the advantage.
That's as far as we'll take this opening. During the next chess match you make, keep the four principles in mind for the first 8-10 moves of the game! Next section, you'll learn something about attacking, how to make a piece paralyzed (pin), how to make a piece move so you can capture another (skewer) and even attacking two pieces at once! (fork), as well as some tips on countering this! As always, feel free to make a comment, suggestion, question or all three via message or post on this thread!
Victory and Defeat.
Each section, I'll post a little bit about a match I won or lost in a really interesting way, starting with next section. Each match will hopefully help reinforce the concepts taught in the section! I have a couple of ideas already.... Until next time, practice playing Chess! As the guide progresses, things get more and more complex. If you don't understand something, try playing some more. There are some good free Chess-playing programs on the Internet that let you play against a computer, try making a search.
I wasn't a bad writer back then. I really knew my chops, but I was far more actively playing Chess than I do today. Good guide though.
Well, I've written almost double that of a normal post now! I think that that's enough of a celebration of a tenth post. Therefore, I'll leave you with a piece of wisdom from my friend and I before the dailies. If you persevere, and have the time (and most people do, even if they don't realize it) anything is possible.
My friend Hochmut (who has commented here before) said that 'Blogging is perfect for us (Hochmut and I) because we love writing, but don't have the commitment to write a novel'.
200,000 words is the size of a good novel, that is an adult-sized one, about eight hundred A5 pages. However, one year of blogging can achieve a similar amount of text, and it takes that long to write a novel usually anyway! If each post is a brick, or each paragraph a brick, a blog can grow into a mighty building: it just takes time and commitment. It's been 10 posts, I still have barely any traffic and not one comment from someone I don't know. But I don't mind.
I have learnt that you can't expect instant results. After I've built this blog enough, the comments will come. Until then, all I can put in is one brick at a time.
Daily Quote: You're not obligated to win. You're obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day -Marian Wright Edelman
-Whoever said anybody has a right to give up? -Marian Wright Edelman
Daily Website: www.sudokupuzz.com. Sudoku is a logic-based puzzle, with no arithmetic required. The objective is to get the numbers 1-9 in each column, row and 3x3 box. For more info, and for free puzzles of this type, visit this site.
Until next time, may you take the time to give a little extra.
-Callanthae
P.S. That's 10 posts down. Here's to a thousand more! -Callanthae
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Commitment
Something that has been nagging me lately. Have you noticed that 'til death do us part' really doesn't mean that much anymore? I mean, the Australian Bureau of Statistics states that:
Marriage rates have decreased.
Divorce rates have increased.
Marriages are happening later.
Fewer people ever get married.
Marriages last less time.
All the evidence points to an era where marriage is no longer as sacred as it once was. 'Til death do us part' means little in an age of extramarital affairs and easy divorce. In America, things are even worse: In Australia, about 1 in 3 marriages end in divorce, however America has about 1 in 2. So for every marriage, there is an equal chance that it will end in a divorce.
And then we have to think of children. Are problems with marriages so bad that no solution, even with professional aid, can be found, even for the sake of the children as well as the relationship? A divorce should only be made when no other solution can be found, but how many divorcees have attempted marriage counselling? I don't have the statistics (please speak up if you do) but I doubt it's very many.
Many people these days have trouble with commitment. So far my blog has made 9 posts, in a total of 2 weeks. However, most likely less than half of blogs created actually manage 9 posts, let alone the near 7,000 words this blog has run to so far. And 7,000 words is not that much: it's about 17 A4 pages. It's a fair bit, but you'd think most blogs could make it to double-digit posts. But they don't: because people don't commit to them.
I'm not committed to this blog as much as I should be: if I was, I'd be writing every single day. However, once I get to about a dozen posts, I'll more actively work on promoting the blog, and I'm also working on getting guests to post on the blog: friends of mine whom I know are intelligent, to write about serious topics they care about. I want to keep this blog at a good quality.
So many blogs out there are complete rubbish, because many people make a blog out of simple boredom, and have very little to say. I wouldn't make a blog unless I had a LOT to say. If I wrote a post every day, that's about 5,000 words a week with my word count. A year of posts, let's say 300, assuming I miss some days, is over 200,000 words! That's a large novel!
A large novel of thoughts in a year obviously means I need to be willing to say a lot: so that's why I thought for so long about making this: you can see the magnitude of the task here. I wonder what the world's longest blog's length is...and how many posts the average blog has. That's something I might try to find out. If I get the information, I'll post it.
In the meantime, what would you like to see more of in my blog? Your choices are:
Personal Stuff (stuff like my beliefs, opinions, and just general facts, like are featured in my first few posts (an example of my opinions is found in Milestones and Morals))
Current Issues (such as divorce and global warming, both covered)
Debates (such as the global warming post, and Milestones and Morals)
Fact Articles (such as Callanthae Returns and Chess: Part 1)
Other (please specify in your comment, whether it be something currently in the blog or not.)
If I know what you guys want, I'll do my best to put more in, however the cornerstone of a good blog is variety. I will continue to provide all these things, this is merely about what you want more of in the blog.
Well, I've almost reached 700 words, so it's time to leave you with the dailies.
Daily Quote: "Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while" -Wesley, from the movie 'The Princess Bride'
Daily Website: www.gamefaqs.com. This site features thousands of different walkthroughs for games on many platforms, to help you when you are stuck, or just to become a better player!
Until next time, may you take the time to finish what you start.
-Callanthae
Marriage rates have decreased.
Divorce rates have increased.
Marriages are happening later.
Fewer people ever get married.
Marriages last less time.
All the evidence points to an era where marriage is no longer as sacred as it once was. 'Til death do us part' means little in an age of extramarital affairs and easy divorce. In America, things are even worse: In Australia, about 1 in 3 marriages end in divorce, however America has about 1 in 2. So for every marriage, there is an equal chance that it will end in a divorce.
And then we have to think of children. Are problems with marriages so bad that no solution, even with professional aid, can be found, even for the sake of the children as well as the relationship? A divorce should only be made when no other solution can be found, but how many divorcees have attempted marriage counselling? I don't have the statistics (please speak up if you do) but I doubt it's very many.
Many people these days have trouble with commitment. So far my blog has made 9 posts, in a total of 2 weeks. However, most likely less than half of blogs created actually manage 9 posts, let alone the near 7,000 words this blog has run to so far. And 7,000 words is not that much: it's about 17 A4 pages. It's a fair bit, but you'd think most blogs could make it to double-digit posts. But they don't: because people don't commit to them.
I'm not committed to this blog as much as I should be: if I was, I'd be writing every single day. However, once I get to about a dozen posts, I'll more actively work on promoting the blog, and I'm also working on getting guests to post on the blog: friends of mine whom I know are intelligent, to write about serious topics they care about. I want to keep this blog at a good quality.
So many blogs out there are complete rubbish, because many people make a blog out of simple boredom, and have very little to say. I wouldn't make a blog unless I had a LOT to say. If I wrote a post every day, that's about 5,000 words a week with my word count. A year of posts, let's say 300, assuming I miss some days, is over 200,000 words! That's a large novel!
A large novel of thoughts in a year obviously means I need to be willing to say a lot: so that's why I thought for so long about making this: you can see the magnitude of the task here. I wonder what the world's longest blog's length is...and how many posts the average blog has. That's something I might try to find out. If I get the information, I'll post it.
In the meantime, what would you like to see more of in my blog? Your choices are:
Personal Stuff (stuff like my beliefs, opinions, and just general facts, like are featured in my first few posts (an example of my opinions is found in Milestones and Morals))
Current Issues (such as divorce and global warming, both covered)
Debates (such as the global warming post, and Milestones and Morals)
Fact Articles (such as Callanthae Returns and Chess: Part 1)
Other (please specify in your comment, whether it be something currently in the blog or not.)
If I know what you guys want, I'll do my best to put more in, however the cornerstone of a good blog is variety. I will continue to provide all these things, this is merely about what you want more of in the blog.
Well, I've almost reached 700 words, so it's time to leave you with the dailies.
Daily Quote: "Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while" -Wesley, from the movie 'The Princess Bride'
Daily Website: www.gamefaqs.com. This site features thousands of different walkthroughs for games on many platforms, to help you when you are stuck, or just to become a better player!
Until next time, may you take the time to finish what you start.
-Callanthae
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Chess: Chapter 1.
Greetings, bloggers. One of the great pursuits of the mind is a little game called Chess. However, many people are not good at this game because they fail to grasp the principles of the game. About two years ago, I posted this guide on www.globalgamenetwork.com. It was meant to be a 12-part series, but I never finished it. The first six sections are completed, and I intend to finish this guide now, by posting it, one chapter each week, on this blog! However the 12th section was to be a group of annotated games, which have since been lost, so this guide will only be 11 sections.
If my writing style seems very different, this is because I was 2 years younger at the time. (Brackets) indicate changes I have now made to the guide. Without further ado:
A Novice's Guide To Chess
If you do not know the moves of Chess this guide is not for you. This guide assumes that you have a working knowledge of Chess, and may or may not have played a few times. I may not be an expert, but have been playing for 6 (8) years, and have read a lot of chess books, and played a lot of new players. This guide will not make you a chess master, but hopefully each section will improve your playing skill.
Before I continue, I would like to point out that this guide is a long way from finished. When I can, whether once a day or once a month (once per week on this blog), I will update this guide with the next section, helping you improve your skills and building on the foundations of the previous parts. Now, on with the guide!
I will be using chess notation in this guide, a form of shorthand used to record chess moves. Before I give you the first section on Chess itself, you need to understand me! I use the most common chess notation, which goes by the following symbols.
a-h. The column (known as file) the move is on. The very left hand column of the board is the a-file. The queen is on the d-file, and the king is on the e-file.
1-8. The row (known as rank) the move is on. Row 1 is ALWAYS the bottom row as seen by WHITE, not black (even if the move is played by black). Thus the square e1 is the fifth square of the first row: the square where the white king starts.
x. This is capture. e4xd5 indicates the piece on e4 has moved to d5, capturing this piece. Q, N, B, R, K. The pieces. N = Knight, B = Bishop, R = Rook, Q = Queen and K = King. The pawn has no letter, as a pawn move just says the square. Eg, the move e4 means a pawn moved to e4. The move Nf6 says a knight has moved to f6.
+. This is check (when you threaten the king). No more to say here.
++ or #. This indicates checkmate, and the game is over.
0-0 or O-O. This indicated a kingside castle (when the king moves to the right). If you do not know what castling is, never fear: the end of this section will tell you how to.
0-0-0 or O-O-O. This indicates a queenside castle (much less common). Piece Values. Each piece in chess is worth a certain amount of pawns, roughly. This is a way to calculate whether you should exchange (trade your piece for an opponent's by taking their piece with yours even if your piece will be taken) or not. Pawn = 1 pawn. Knight = 3 pawns. Bishop = 3 pawns. Rook = 5 pawns. Queen = 9 pawns. King = 1 King. The King is worth 1 King because he is priceless, you cannot lose him.
Castling.
Well I did promise you. Castling is the only legal move in chess that allows you to move MORE THAN ONE PIECE. I'll explain it through a diagram.
K . . R
The . is an empty square (which must be empty, or else you cannot castle.) After the castling (a kingside) it looks like this.
. R K .
Queenside, which is far less common, looks like this.
R . . . K
The King still moves only two squares, so the Rook must move three:
. . K R .
Castling kingside allows protection of the King and the development of the rook. That's it for now: in the next couple of days (next week) most likely, I'll post the next section.
Next section: Developing your Pieces
What Not to Do in the Opening.
Now for the dailies!
Daily Quote: "Make a wise comment and your name will be remembered forever." -Anonymous
Daily Website: www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net. A bit rude, but I found much of the stuff on this page hilarious. There's a nice big backlog to catch up on, and most of it is funny, if a bit offensive at points.
Until next time, may you take the time to learn the fundamentals.
-Callanthae
If my writing style seems very different, this is because I was 2 years younger at the time. (Brackets) indicate changes I have now made to the guide. Without further ado:
A Novice's Guide To Chess
If you do not know the moves of Chess this guide is not for you. This guide assumes that you have a working knowledge of Chess, and may or may not have played a few times. I may not be an expert, but have been playing for 6 (8) years, and have read a lot of chess books, and played a lot of new players. This guide will not make you a chess master, but hopefully each section will improve your playing skill.
Before I continue, I would like to point out that this guide is a long way from finished. When I can, whether once a day or once a month (once per week on this blog), I will update this guide with the next section, helping you improve your skills and building on the foundations of the previous parts. Now, on with the guide!
I will be using chess notation in this guide, a form of shorthand used to record chess moves. Before I give you the first section on Chess itself, you need to understand me! I use the most common chess notation, which goes by the following symbols.
a-h. The column (known as file) the move is on. The very left hand column of the board is the a-file. The queen is on the d-file, and the king is on the e-file.
1-8. The row (known as rank) the move is on. Row 1 is ALWAYS the bottom row as seen by WHITE, not black (even if the move is played by black). Thus the square e1 is the fifth square of the first row: the square where the white king starts.
x. This is capture. e4xd5 indicates the piece on e4 has moved to d5, capturing this piece. Q, N, B, R, K. The pieces. N = Knight, B = Bishop, R = Rook, Q = Queen and K = King. The pawn has no letter, as a pawn move just says the square. Eg, the move e4 means a pawn moved to e4. The move Nf6 says a knight has moved to f6.
+. This is check (when you threaten the king). No more to say here.
++ or #. This indicates checkmate, and the game is over.
0-0 or O-O. This indicated a kingside castle (when the king moves to the right). If you do not know what castling is, never fear: the end of this section will tell you how to.
0-0-0 or O-O-O. This indicates a queenside castle (much less common). Piece Values. Each piece in chess is worth a certain amount of pawns, roughly. This is a way to calculate whether you should exchange (trade your piece for an opponent's by taking their piece with yours even if your piece will be taken) or not. Pawn = 1 pawn. Knight = 3 pawns. Bishop = 3 pawns. Rook = 5 pawns. Queen = 9 pawns. King = 1 King. The King is worth 1 King because he is priceless, you cannot lose him.
Castling.
Well I did promise you. Castling is the only legal move in chess that allows you to move MORE THAN ONE PIECE. I'll explain it through a diagram.
K . . R
The . is an empty square (which must be empty, or else you cannot castle.) After the castling (a kingside) it looks like this.
. R K .
Queenside, which is far less common, looks like this.
R . . . K
The King still moves only two squares, so the Rook must move three:
. . K R .
Castling kingside allows protection of the King and the development of the rook. That's it for now: in the next couple of days (next week) most likely, I'll post the next section.
Next section: Developing your Pieces
What Not to Do in the Opening.
Now for the dailies!
Daily Quote: "Make a wise comment and your name will be remembered forever." -Anonymous
Daily Website: www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net. A bit rude, but I found much of the stuff on this page hilarious. There's a nice big backlog to catch up on, and most of it is funny, if a bit offensive at points.
Until next time, may you take the time to learn the fundamentals.
-Callanthae
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Callanthae Returns
As my previous post stated, I've been quite busy the past few days. Now that I've hit a bubble of free time that may burst at any time due to my 3 assignments due one, two and four weeks from now, I'm going to stay true to my daily post for as long as I can.
If I'm going to be making a post after four days, it should be a good one, so it needs a good topic. So I'm going to go with humanity. This will be my first fact post: a post about...well...facts. The long explanation is 'A fact article written by Callanthae is an article about the history, background and/or information about a particular thing, time, place or grouping of some kind.'
In this case, it's humanity. This post is all about thinking, so let's go way back to where sentience began! I hereby apologize to any religious peoples. These are not proven facts, but rather my opinion. If you do not believe in evolution, that's fine. I respect people's rights to other beliefs.
Sixty-five million years ago, the dinosaurs died out. Nobody truly knows why, but a comet is most likely. This allowed the mammals on the earth, up till then small, rat-like animals able to evade the murderous dinosaurs, to flourish and become the dominant race.
Two million years ago, humans emerged. Again, nobody knows why, but I will tell of one theory, that I believe to me the most likely scenario, and I will treat to be fact for argument's sake. About two million years ago, a species of African apes gained the ability to rise onto their hind legs to see over the tall savannah grass. Over time this ability grew until the apes always rose on two legs. This gave the apes an incredibly useful evolutionary tool.
The hand. Extraordinarily flexible, fairly strong, and able to carry large amounts while still walking. The opposable thumb allows for fine motor skills. Because of this hand, the apes were able to use tools. In order to be able to use bigger and better tools, the apes began to grow bigger and bigger brains. However, when the brain size reached critical mass, the apes began to die during childbirth due to the oversized brains. Thus, to this day, babies are born with brains that double in size during their first year.
This, however made them fairly helpless. A baby giraffe can stand up within five minutes of it's birth. By six months, many animals are fully fledged and hunting for themselves. Most babies can't even sit up properly at this age. Thus, the apes formed long-lasting communities to care for these young, which led to increased social interaction, which increased food yield through co-operation. And the brains kept getting bigger.
A mere thirty thousand years ago, Homo sapiens sapiens were born. These were civilised men, with the same physical structure as we have today. They used tools to kill prey, scavenged vegetables, and used controlled fire. This was very important: humans were and still are the only animals who create fire. Some animals use fire, but only humans actually make it. It was many more thousands of years until, about ten thousand years ago, humanity learnt agriculture. This allowed us to stay in the same place for long periods of time, so we constructed better buildings, and settled down for our living.
Animals began to become domesticated, and irrigation developed. Bronze tools were developed to replace stone. Ancient empires formed, such as the Sumerians. Then, about four to six thousand years ago, an empire formed that almost everyone knows about: the Egyptians. Thanks to the Nile, their lands were exceptionally fertile, and due to the floods, they had time that was not used to grow food. They used this time to build monuments such as the pyramids. The Egyptians had their own mythology, which they used to explain phenomena like death, and the floods of the Nile.
Then the Greeks and the Romans arrived. They also had mythologies to explain the world. This shows they were thinking, and exploring the world around them. Greece and Rome produced the world's first great minds, philosophers like Plato, poets like Homer and mathematicians like Pythagoras and Archimedes.
Then Rome died, and the Dark Ages began. For the first time, the Western World united under one religion: Christianity. This led to the Middle Ages, and the story of human evolution does not go much further. Humans developed science, using testing to prove the way of the world instead of religion. The only thing that has changed is time, and the specifics. Science vs. religion still exists. And that is the story of human evolution.
If any of this is wrong, feel free to refute me: I like to learn. And by wrong, I mean historically inaccurate. I'd rather not get involved in a religious debate if possible. Now to leave you with the dailies:
Daily Quote: Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. -Elbert Hubbard.
Daily Website: http://www.xgenstudios.com/. Unlike Kongregate, XGen Studios don't have many games, but they games they do have are of an incredibly high average quality.
Until next time, may you take the time to simply stop and think.
-Callanthae
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Welcome again. As you may know, my name is Jay, and you can call me Jay or Callanthae, I don't mind which.
On Wednesdays where I live, I go to Drama lessons outside of school. It's full of strange people and I always think it's just like a TV show, with vivid characters and ongoing plots. We had a new member today: we'll call her Jess. Jess was quite quiet throughout the lesson (everyone else yells at pretty much the top of their lungs: it's part Drama lesson, part social gathering, run by my sister's best friend's mother, who is a friend of my mother. I figured she was fairly shy, so I waited after the lesson, wishing I had a chance to know her better. We had some conversation (I was right in guessing that she was only shy with a large group).
Then, my wishes were answered, as Jess's mother failed to show up (with six kids still at home, it's hard to be punctual). My father (I later found out that he wasn't home until around 6 (Drama finishes at 5 pm)) was also not there. I would have walked home but it was pouring rain, dark, a fair distance, and the drama teacher, we'll call her Rose, offered me a lift. I accepted, but Rose and her daughter, Sarah, decided to stay with Jess, as did I, since I had my lift.
Well, it was over an hour before Rose finally decided to pressgang Jess into getting a lift home with her, but at least I got time to have a talk with the newest member of the group: though warmth is very grateful now after spending an hour huddled outside the Drama building with rain falling close to us (at least we were undercover). I'm writing this a few hours later.
My topic for today is Identity. What is it?
In Society and Culture, we're studying models for socialization. Most of them appear to say the same two things.
a) Adolescence is very important for developing socialization.
b) In order to succeed at the adolescent stage, one must discover one's identity.
What does that even MEAN? What is an 'identity'? Who I am is such a simple, yet esoteric, little-known subject. Who am I? I am Jay. But that doesn't answer the question. I'm smart: I'm writing a blog, I like Chess and reading. My interests don't answer the question.
I'm smart. I'm one of the few people in the world who gives a damn for other people. I think I'm funny but other people don't. That's my personality? Is that me? I don't know.
Is it even possible to really define identity? And how does one get it? Do you gradually discover it? Is it like falling asleep, where you don't realise the exact time it happened? Or is it an epiphany that you suddenly discover?
Identity. I can't stop thinking about it, but I don't really know what it truly means. If I don't know what identity means, I can't possibly discover it. I might ALREADY have discovered it and just not realised that.
In order to discover my identity, I first have to define it. I should probably ask my Society and Culture teacher. And I'll ask you as well. What do you think identity is? How do you know your own identity? What makes up an identity? I don't know: but I certainly intend to find out. That's the blessing and curse of intelligence: constant curiosity. Since my combination of intelligence and knowledge figures out just about everything, when I come across a problem I can't solve, I'm instantly intrigued.
I suppose it's something for me to find out. Well, that's probably enough musing for today, I'm approaching my average of 700 words per day (I counted them by Word for 3 days, then made rough stock for the next 2). So, onto the dailies.
Daily Quote: "One word of encouragement can outweigh a thousand criticisms" - Matthew Reilly, author, referring to the craft of writing.
Daily Website: www.google.com. This one seems incredibly obvious to me, but not to everyone. Google is the best search engine out there. It's brilliant for searching out answers, research, or just something to do if you're bored. The king of search engines. There are thousands of sites out there for you: this will help you find them.
Until next time, may you take the time for inner reflection.
-Callanthae
On Wednesdays where I live, I go to Drama lessons outside of school. It's full of strange people and I always think it's just like a TV show, with vivid characters and ongoing plots. We had a new member today: we'll call her Jess. Jess was quite quiet throughout the lesson (everyone else yells at pretty much the top of their lungs: it's part Drama lesson, part social gathering, run by my sister's best friend's mother, who is a friend of my mother. I figured she was fairly shy, so I waited after the lesson, wishing I had a chance to know her better. We had some conversation (I was right in guessing that she was only shy with a large group).
Then, my wishes were answered, as Jess's mother failed to show up (with six kids still at home, it's hard to be punctual). My father (I later found out that he wasn't home until around 6 (Drama finishes at 5 pm)) was also not there. I would have walked home but it was pouring rain, dark, a fair distance, and the drama teacher, we'll call her Rose, offered me a lift. I accepted, but Rose and her daughter, Sarah, decided to stay with Jess, as did I, since I had my lift.
Well, it was over an hour before Rose finally decided to pressgang Jess into getting a lift home with her, but at least I got time to have a talk with the newest member of the group: though warmth is very grateful now after spending an hour huddled outside the Drama building with rain falling close to us (at least we were undercover). I'm writing this a few hours later.
My topic for today is Identity. What is it?
In Society and Culture, we're studying models for socialization. Most of them appear to say the same two things.
a) Adolescence is very important for developing socialization.
b) In order to succeed at the adolescent stage, one must discover one's identity.
What does that even MEAN? What is an 'identity'? Who I am is such a simple, yet esoteric, little-known subject. Who am I? I am Jay. But that doesn't answer the question. I'm smart: I'm writing a blog, I like Chess and reading. My interests don't answer the question.
I'm smart. I'm one of the few people in the world who gives a damn for other people. I think I'm funny but other people don't. That's my personality? Is that me? I don't know.
Is it even possible to really define identity? And how does one get it? Do you gradually discover it? Is it like falling asleep, where you don't realise the exact time it happened? Or is it an epiphany that you suddenly discover?
Identity. I can't stop thinking about it, but I don't really know what it truly means. If I don't know what identity means, I can't possibly discover it. I might ALREADY have discovered it and just not realised that.
In order to discover my identity, I first have to define it. I should probably ask my Society and Culture teacher. And I'll ask you as well. What do you think identity is? How do you know your own identity? What makes up an identity? I don't know: but I certainly intend to find out. That's the blessing and curse of intelligence: constant curiosity. Since my combination of intelligence and knowledge figures out just about everything, when I come across a problem I can't solve, I'm instantly intrigued.
I suppose it's something for me to find out. Well, that's probably enough musing for today, I'm approaching my average of 700 words per day (I counted them by Word for 3 days, then made rough stock for the next 2). So, onto the dailies.
Daily Quote: "One word of encouragement can outweigh a thousand criticisms" - Matthew Reilly, author, referring to the craft of writing.
Daily Website: www.google.com. This one seems incredibly obvious to me, but not to everyone. Google is the best search engine out there. It's brilliant for searching out answers, research, or just something to do if you're bored. The king of search engines. There are thousands of sites out there for you: this will help you find them.
Until next time, may you take the time for inner reflection.
-Callanthae
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Online Communites
Yesterday, I found a system I liked. I told a bit about my day or something personal, and then went into a deeper issue. I feel that it is important for a blog reader to feel that they know the blogger. Normally this isn't a problem, but when the blog is deep, serious and all about thoughts, personal details often detract from the mood. Thus, I'm going with this new system: My first couple of paragraphs will be about my day (if it was interesting) or about me (if it wasn't.) or something to help you get to know me.
Today was quite boring, very cold and very wet. That's about it. So a little about myself that I haven't mentioned:
I am an atheist. When I was young, I believed in Christianity (Anglican) but when I was 8 or 9 I began questioning it. God was something I could not see, that could not be proven, and though I have a good imagination, I'm also grounded in reality. I am a realist. I actually believed in Santa longer than God (until about 10 years of age, yes I know, pathetic). Mind you, part of me thought if I stopped believing in Santa, no more presents from him, so I had some strong incentive not to stop believing:)
I am also a spelling freak online. I detest people who make typos consistently. People who leave out vowels are even worse. And don't even get me STARTED on 1337speak. Anyone who skips half the letters in a word, or speaks with numbers is either
a) An idiot
b) Very lazy
or c) Trying to be cool.
It is not cool. People don't respect you for it in most respected online community. People don't like it, except on places like MySpace where filth and filth find their own level on the cesspool. To anyone who both enjoys this blog and enjoys MySpace, I apologize: but please. There are other, smarter communities out there. Just comprehending the vocabulary I use in this blog (nowhere near as complex as I could) means that you are above the MySpace community intellectually.
Another place online to avoid is Runescape. Before I continue, let me say that my 'self-speech' and my topic for the day have blended, and it's hard to see where one ends and the other begins, but this IS my topic, I'm not just rambling. Runescape is not that good a game, but it's worst aspect is it's community. It's horrible (or was, six months ago. If it's changed, I'd be happy to know. I haven't dared check for risk of vomiting all over my keyboard from the horror.)
and is comprised mainly of 10-12 year olds, or people with that mental age. Trust me. When I was 12, I played Runescape. Then I grew out of it.
Some people however, like the game enough to stick on, despite the community. One thing to say though: the members' worlds are probably much better due to the absence of noobs. Forgive the slang, there is no better word I can think of. People who are willing to pay for the game, on average in my experiences are smarter, older and just better players to play with. I've played World of Warcraft. It costs money, and it has a very mature community. Puzzle Pirates: subscriber oceans are more mature. Runescape? No. Other free games? No.
I, however, am less experienced with online gaming than others, so my opinion is not absolute truth. But another thing: Text-based MMO's are also more mature: it takes imagination (which requires you not to be a moron) to play MUDs. Two good ones are Medievia and Materia Magica. Achaea and Aardwolf are good too. It may seem as though I'm just rattling off the big MUDs but they are big for a reason. They are very good. And all of them are free to play. So there's the exception: text-based.
So to summarise:
1: Stay away from MySpace, Runescape and free MMO's.
2: Pay-to-play games usually have more mature communities.
3: Text-based MMOs (MUDs) are the exception.
Now, on to the Dailies:
Daily Quote: 'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt" -Abraham Lincoln
Daily Website: www.wisdomquotes.com I get some of my quotes from here: It's a great site, with loads of categories to suit every occasion. A wise man always has a quote up his sleeve!
Until next time, may you take the time to commend one who thinks before he types.
-Callanthae
Today was quite boring, very cold and very wet. That's about it. So a little about myself that I haven't mentioned:
I am an atheist. When I was young, I believed in Christianity (Anglican) but when I was 8 or 9 I began questioning it. God was something I could not see, that could not be proven, and though I have a good imagination, I'm also grounded in reality. I am a realist. I actually believed in Santa longer than God (until about 10 years of age, yes I know, pathetic). Mind you, part of me thought if I stopped believing in Santa, no more presents from him, so I had some strong incentive not to stop believing:)
I am also a spelling freak online. I detest people who make typos consistently. People who leave out vowels are even worse. And don't even get me STARTED on 1337speak. Anyone who skips half the letters in a word, or speaks with numbers is either
a) An idiot
b) Very lazy
or c) Trying to be cool.
It is not cool. People don't respect you for it in most respected online community. People don't like it, except on places like MySpace where filth and filth find their own level on the cesspool. To anyone who both enjoys this blog and enjoys MySpace, I apologize: but please. There are other, smarter communities out there. Just comprehending the vocabulary I use in this blog (nowhere near as complex as I could) means that you are above the MySpace community intellectually.
Another place online to avoid is Runescape. Before I continue, let me say that my 'self-speech' and my topic for the day have blended, and it's hard to see where one ends and the other begins, but this IS my topic, I'm not just rambling. Runescape is not that good a game, but it's worst aspect is it's community. It's horrible (or was, six months ago. If it's changed, I'd be happy to know. I haven't dared check for risk of vomiting all over my keyboard from the horror.)
and is comprised mainly of 10-12 year olds, or people with that mental age. Trust me. When I was 12, I played Runescape. Then I grew out of it.
Some people however, like the game enough to stick on, despite the community. One thing to say though: the members' worlds are probably much better due to the absence of noobs. Forgive the slang, there is no better word I can think of. People who are willing to pay for the game, on average in my experiences are smarter, older and just better players to play with. I've played World of Warcraft. It costs money, and it has a very mature community. Puzzle Pirates: subscriber oceans are more mature. Runescape? No. Other free games? No.
I, however, am less experienced with online gaming than others, so my opinion is not absolute truth. But another thing: Text-based MMO's are also more mature: it takes imagination (which requires you not to be a moron) to play MUDs. Two good ones are Medievia and Materia Magica. Achaea and Aardwolf are good too. It may seem as though I'm just rattling off the big MUDs but they are big for a reason. They are very good. And all of them are free to play. So there's the exception: text-based.
So to summarise:
1: Stay away from MySpace, Runescape and free MMO's.
2: Pay-to-play games usually have more mature communities.
3: Text-based MMOs (MUDs) are the exception.
Now, on to the Dailies:
Daily Quote: 'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt" -Abraham Lincoln
Daily Website: www.wisdomquotes.com I get some of my quotes from here: It's a great site, with loads of categories to suit every occasion. A wise man always has a quote up his sleeve!
Until next time, may you take the time to commend one who thinks before he types.
-Callanthae
Monday, June 2, 2008
Milestones and Morals
Welcome. My name is Jay, and you can call me Jay or Callanthae, I don't mind which.
I got my Learner Driver's License today. My birth certificate came in the mail and I was able to provide the identification, about a month after I decided to actually get the license. It's three and a half months since I turned sixteen, but now I finally have it. It's not even a bad picture like I thought it might be. My sister is catatonic: the thought of me actually being able to drive was too much for her to handle (and yes, I am joking).
I actually almost failed the test: I got one question in the second section wrong, then came across a statistics question. I figured the answer would be the highest number, and I was right. Lucky I passed: My Dad was only willing to pay once (so I had to study hard, nobody likes to fork out money!)
But anyway, this blog is THOUGHT Central after all, so I'd best move on to the thoughts. Luckily for you guys, I happen to have had some nice, serious thoughts today.
I was in Society and Culture, a subject where you learn about...well...society and culture. I was sitting next to a friend of mine, and we were taking a case study of an essay in the textbook, and applying it to theories of socialisation (theories of how we mature and develop as we age) and she, we'll call her Cameron, even though I don't know a Cameron (On the off chance she's reading this, she'll still probably know it's her, but I still feel giving a real name is an invasion of privacy. It's different for me: I gave permission for me to use my real name. She didn't: I didn't ask.)
Cameron asked me to explain what the theories were about to her, and I said "I can give you the summaries, but any more and that'd probably come under the category of 'cheating' ".
Then she said "Oh. I never knew anyone who cared about cheating before."
Let me repeat that for emphasis: She NEVER knew ANYONE who cared. I mean, I knew not many people at my school had a code of ethics: but she had never known a single person apart from me who cared. Are morals really that dead? Surely a few people would still believe in fairness?
I joked about it with her, but I can't get those words out of my head. They haunt me even now. "I never knew anyone who cared about cheating before".
Wow. That was really a big shock. And then my heartstopping test encounter, all on the same day. Well, at least I can't complain I have nothing to write about! (On the days I really do have nothing to write about, I have twenty emergency blog topics. How to Exercise Your Brain was one of them.)
So: how dead are morals? Is it just my school? My district? My state? My country? One of the great strengths of the internet is the ability to quickly and easily communicate with people from the other side of the world. So tell me. Over where you live, are morals strong? Do they at least have a foothold? I for one, am going to find out.
In fact, for my Personal Interest Project I have to do for Society and Culture, I think I've found my idea. My topic: Are Ethics Dead? I could use any opinions, quotes, facts or thoughts you can give me. And you're guaranteed this will be a recurring topic in this blog. It's a very serious, very large issue, and I'm planning on revisiting it a few times in the next six weeks, at least until my 'Mini-Pip' is due: It's a small (1500 words) version of the real PIP I have to do at the end of next week.
So what's your opinion? Also note: any comments about morals you may post, I will consider that you are giving permission for you to be (anonymously) quoted, UNLESS YOU MENTION OTHERWISE IN YOUR COMMENT. With that warning in mind, I close my blog for today: and leave you with the dailies.
Daily Quote: 'Inside every man is a battle between good and evil that cannot be resolved' -Homer Simpson
Daily Website: www.gaiaonline.com. Most of this site is junk, but if you want some serious discussion on issues current in our world, go to the Extended Discussion forum. And be prepared to stand up for what you believe: they sure will.
Until next time, may you take the time to look back on how far you have come.
-Callanthae
I got my Learner Driver's License today. My birth certificate came in the mail and I was able to provide the identification, about a month after I decided to actually get the license. It's three and a half months since I turned sixteen, but now I finally have it. It's not even a bad picture like I thought it might be. My sister is catatonic: the thought of me actually being able to drive was too much for her to handle (and yes, I am joking).
I actually almost failed the test: I got one question in the second section wrong, then came across a statistics question. I figured the answer would be the highest number, and I was right. Lucky I passed: My Dad was only willing to pay once (so I had to study hard, nobody likes to fork out money!)
But anyway, this blog is THOUGHT Central after all, so I'd best move on to the thoughts. Luckily for you guys, I happen to have had some nice, serious thoughts today.
I was in Society and Culture, a subject where you learn about...well...society and culture. I was sitting next to a friend of mine, and we were taking a case study of an essay in the textbook, and applying it to theories of socialisation (theories of how we mature and develop as we age) and she, we'll call her Cameron, even though I don't know a Cameron (On the off chance she's reading this, she'll still probably know it's her, but I still feel giving a real name is an invasion of privacy. It's different for me: I gave permission for me to use my real name. She didn't: I didn't ask.)
Cameron asked me to explain what the theories were about to her, and I said "I can give you the summaries, but any more and that'd probably come under the category of 'cheating' ".
Then she said "Oh. I never knew anyone who cared about cheating before."
Let me repeat that for emphasis: She NEVER knew ANYONE who cared. I mean, I knew not many people at my school had a code of ethics: but she had never known a single person apart from me who cared. Are morals really that dead? Surely a few people would still believe in fairness?
I joked about it with her, but I can't get those words out of my head. They haunt me even now. "I never knew anyone who cared about cheating before".
Wow. That was really a big shock. And then my heartstopping test encounter, all on the same day. Well, at least I can't complain I have nothing to write about! (On the days I really do have nothing to write about, I have twenty emergency blog topics. How to Exercise Your Brain was one of them.)
So: how dead are morals? Is it just my school? My district? My state? My country? One of the great strengths of the internet is the ability to quickly and easily communicate with people from the other side of the world. So tell me. Over where you live, are morals strong? Do they at least have a foothold? I for one, am going to find out.
In fact, for my Personal Interest Project I have to do for Society and Culture, I think I've found my idea. My topic: Are Ethics Dead? I could use any opinions, quotes, facts or thoughts you can give me. And you're guaranteed this will be a recurring topic in this blog. It's a very serious, very large issue, and I'm planning on revisiting it a few times in the next six weeks, at least until my 'Mini-Pip' is due: It's a small (1500 words) version of the real PIP I have to do at the end of next week.
So what's your opinion? Also note: any comments about morals you may post, I will consider that you are giving permission for you to be (anonymously) quoted, UNLESS YOU MENTION OTHERWISE IN YOUR COMMENT. With that warning in mind, I close my blog for today: and leave you with the dailies.
Daily Quote: 'Inside every man is a battle between good and evil that cannot be resolved' -Homer Simpson
Daily Website: www.gaiaonline.com. Most of this site is junk, but if you want some serious discussion on issues current in our world, go to the Extended Discussion forum. And be prepared to stand up for what you believe: they sure will.
Until next time, may you take the time to look back on how far you have come.
-Callanthae
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Global Warming
A lot of people I talk to are worried about global warming. Most of you will already know the background information, so bear with me as I skim through it.
Global warming is the heating of the earth's atmosphere due to 'greenhouse gases' such as CO2 and CFC's (found in some detergents and other products). The sunlight from the Sun normally comes to earth and then bounces off into space. However, greenhouse gases trap the light and the heat within the atmosphere, causing global warming.
Now, I don't believe this is more than a small part of the issue, but this is the official stance on the matter, according to scientists from that school of thought.
Global warming is an issue that is debated about by politicians and scientists today, so whether it's true or not, it is still a big issue in this modern world.
Environmental organisations such as Greenpeace are lobbying for restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions such as from factories and car exhausts. While this does increase the level of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, do you know what the single greatest cause of greenhouse gas emissions are? Here's a hint: we have millions of greenhouse gas generators, and we cultivate them. They never get any press even though they cause more emissions than most cars.
The answer is cows. Cows emit huge amounts of methane daily, which rise into our atmosphere to push emissions up. The problem here is that this has been happening for thousands of years.
Barely ten thousand years ago, the planet was mostly covered in snow and ice: the latest Ice Age in the history of our planet. The earth has been steadily warming since then, before the Industrial Revolution.
However, the scientists are correct in saying that harmful chemicals HAVE largely increased their concentration in the Earth's atmosphere. So you decide. What do you think? I personally agree with Ian Malcolm from the popular book (and more popular movie, which is nowhere near as good), Jurassic Park. The book isn't about dinosaurs eating people: it's a very deep novel with a lot of scientific novel, interspersed with dinosaurs eating people. That's Michael Crichton's style.
Either way, the quote is as follows. "We don't have the power to destroy this planet, or to save it. But we may have the power to save ourselves". I believe it is a very true quote: Nothing we can do will destroy the planet. All we can do is destroy ourselves: or save ourselves.
So what do you think? Post your opinions and let me know what you believe. I want to know what my readers are thinking, even if I don't have many readers yet. Don't forget to post a comment.
And another thing. In my research for blogs, I heard of something called an RSS feed where people can subscribe to a blog and recieve the latest posts as they are posted. Apparently it's very useful and convenient for blog readers. So if anyone knows how I can attach one to my blog, please tell me. I'd be very grateful to know.
Daily Quote: "Only humans could create a thing [math] that even they cannot understand" - Callanthae
Daily Website: www.kongregate.com. I've mentioned it before, and I'll mention it again. There are many games on this site to make you think. Some of the best of them are:
Strategy: Protector, Desktop Tower Defence, Sonny, Dungeon Defender, Vector TD
Puzzle: 3D Logic (and it's sequel, 3D Logic 2: Stronghold of Sage), Music Bounce, Shift, Shift 2, Chronotron
Until next time, may you take the time to state your opinion.
-Callanthae
Global warming is the heating of the earth's atmosphere due to 'greenhouse gases' such as CO2 and CFC's (found in some detergents and other products). The sunlight from the Sun normally comes to earth and then bounces off into space. However, greenhouse gases trap the light and the heat within the atmosphere, causing global warming.
Now, I don't believe this is more than a small part of the issue, but this is the official stance on the matter, according to scientists from that school of thought.
Global warming is an issue that is debated about by politicians and scientists today, so whether it's true or not, it is still a big issue in this modern world.
Environmental organisations such as Greenpeace are lobbying for restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions such as from factories and car exhausts. While this does increase the level of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, do you know what the single greatest cause of greenhouse gas emissions are? Here's a hint: we have millions of greenhouse gas generators, and we cultivate them. They never get any press even though they cause more emissions than most cars.
The answer is cows. Cows emit huge amounts of methane daily, which rise into our atmosphere to push emissions up. The problem here is that this has been happening for thousands of years.
Barely ten thousand years ago, the planet was mostly covered in snow and ice: the latest Ice Age in the history of our planet. The earth has been steadily warming since then, before the Industrial Revolution.
However, the scientists are correct in saying that harmful chemicals HAVE largely increased their concentration in the Earth's atmosphere. So you decide. What do you think? I personally agree with Ian Malcolm from the popular book (and more popular movie, which is nowhere near as good), Jurassic Park. The book isn't about dinosaurs eating people: it's a very deep novel with a lot of scientific novel, interspersed with dinosaurs eating people. That's Michael Crichton's style.
Either way, the quote is as follows. "We don't have the power to destroy this planet, or to save it. But we may have the power to save ourselves". I believe it is a very true quote: Nothing we can do will destroy the planet. All we can do is destroy ourselves: or save ourselves.
So what do you think? Post your opinions and let me know what you believe. I want to know what my readers are thinking, even if I don't have many readers yet. Don't forget to post a comment.
And another thing. In my research for blogs, I heard of something called an RSS feed where people can subscribe to a blog and recieve the latest posts as they are posted. Apparently it's very useful and convenient for blog readers. So if anyone knows how I can attach one to my blog, please tell me. I'd be very grateful to know.
Daily Quote: "Only humans could create a thing [math] that even they cannot understand" - Callanthae
Daily Website: www.kongregate.com. I've mentioned it before, and I'll mention it again. There are many games on this site to make you think. Some of the best of them are:
Strategy: Protector, Desktop Tower Defence, Sonny, Dungeon Defender, Vector TD
Puzzle: 3D Logic (and it's sequel, 3D Logic 2: Stronghold of Sage), Music Bounce, Shift, Shift 2, Chronotron
Until next time, may you take the time to state your opinion.
-Callanthae
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