Monday 27 December 2004

Pic of the day: "The only thing on my mind." Screenshot from the anime Hikaru no Go.

Oh my Go!

I seem to have entered a new fad. It follows the same pattern as the last time I was watching the anime Hikaru no Go. First, I watch in between other more mouse-intensive activities, letting my hand get a rest while I watch a single episode. After a few episodes, I am no longer willing to wait to see the next episode, so I play them one after another. Around episode 15-18 I get the urge to read about Go on the Net, and play against a computer. This time I have played less and read more, but the principle still holds. I still have no idea how to win even the most basic training game except by luck, although I have a lot more theory than when I started. The next step is the urge to watch actual games on the IGS (Internet Go Server) and try to guess how the players will move. Finally I will realize that I will never be able to play a passable game of even amateur Go, and I give up and return to role playing games.

Right now I am in the stage where I am convinced that the translucent strands of dust floating in front of my eyes have the shape of kanji that I cannot read. The end of the fad is probably near. Sometime this week, I'd say. I seem to go through it slightly faster than last time.

***

So how was my birthday? Well, first thing in the morning I installed a program on my Pocket PC that plays Go. GnuGo for the Pocket PC. It is free. I don't know how strong it is, but you set how much "depth" the program has, which translates into how long it gets to think for each move. Of course, a good player would be able to think during the opponent's moves as well, so this may not necessarily make a difference. To me it probably would, though, because I still have to think a lot more than the program and I still lose most of the time. -_-*

Then off to work to have fun with computers and get paid for it. OK, you know how I feel about work, but it isn't too bad during the Christmas week. We work less for the same pay, a kind of compensation for not taking a holiday break I guess. Lots of people do that anyway, for some reason.

I have also bought an e-book yesterday: The Runes of the Earth, the first book of the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, by Stephen Donaldson. I did not at all like the science fiction he tried to write after the Chronicles, but I hope he may be returning to his roots. He has certainly the same habit of belaboring the mundane life of his characters in this world before whisking them off to The Land. I haven't read far, of course, what with being able to play Go on the bus. So it is still thoroughly mundane, but at least he still has the habit of using pointlessly obscure synonyms, one of the things I may have learned from him. (Although Piers Anthony does it too. But he tends to either explain the strange words or use them in puns.)

DSL is still down. But I am not. Go me! Go Go!