I want today to give
a shoutout to the Comet B68 chess engine. Might not be the best or perhaps not even
among the top 100, but its peculiarities makes it an estimable companion for
endgame training.
Nowadays top
engines, will generally put an obstinate fight on endgame positions (no
tablebases) coming up with strong moves
consistently. That's fine on one level, but that's also unhumanlike. Humans
will try a variety of plausible moves and, if inspired, try to bamboozle or
swindle. The Comet engine , unlike the
stronger engines that share too much DNA, will try approaches that may not be
objectively the best, but that will still pose problems to the opponent, even
more if he is mechanically playing. That is a plus for endgame training as it
keeps the player on his toes. The most dangerous opponents are frequently those
that are devious or who don't know better.
So far I've not been
able to find another engine with similar characteristics, if you know of
one, please let us know.
By just being a markup language HTML is arguably easier to learn than formal scripting and programming languages. However, I had not had much of a traction with it over the years, other than few basic notions, just enough to conjure up the most basic of web pages. On my latest attempt at it the panorama has cleared thanks to Andy Harris' hot off the press HTML5 and CSS3 All-in-One For Dummies.
The book is just what I had been looking for: current with the newest standards, step by step, and uncontrived. At this point in time HTML and CSS have been polished enough to remove some of their worst warts leaving more logical cleaner languages which makes this a great time to learn. Harris' approach, in the Dummies tradition, builds from scratch both keeping the curve a level as possible and focusing on what one is likely to need to build solid, attractive webpages and move on to more advanced material if one wishes, and does not attempt to be exhaustive. His writing, code and extra material makes it easy to follow along.
My previous best attempt last year was with Tittel's HTML, XHTML and CSS For Dummies (6th) which I felt spiked the learning curve somewhere around the CSS section and left me not learning much if anything and discouraged. This time around I also dabbled with HTML5 and CSS3 for Dummies by Karlins and CSS3 for Dummies by Mueller but kept coming to Harris's as my guide. And things have changed since last year: with my newfound knowledge for the first time I now understand some of the aspects of my own blog and have quite quickly started editing here and there with confidence.
The 8 in 1 aspect consists in 8 'minibooks' under one cover. The 8 minibooks are:
Creating the HTML foundation (98 pages)
Styling with CSS (116 pages)
Building layouts with CSS (90 pages)
Client-side programming with Javascript (174 pages)
Server side programming with PHP (126 pages)
Managing data with MySQL (106 pages)
Integrating the Client and Server with AJAX (150 pages)
Moving from pages to sites (86 pages)
The only thing that might be a minus is it's the size of the printed book which is over a thousand pages long. I borrow an e-version from my local library and read it with the Adobe Digital Editions reader, so you might want to consider that as well. Note too that it not exhaustive: you won't find everything, but you'll also not get overwhelmed by the material. To me that's a plus.
I'm not sure If I'd recommend it to someone who isn't comfortable with computers to begin with; for someone who has a reasonable motivation it will fit hand in glove.
Once I watched a video on which a dozen or so children from a religious group are taken to their local natural history museum. The teacher/pastor tells the children to be skeptical of the exhibits and explanations for he has discovered that more than an institution, the museum is a temple based on faith. So he asks the children to be on the look out for unjustified claims, and ask 'How do you know?' each time any of these come up.
Sure enough when the museum guide is explaining one of the exhibits the children chirp 'How do you know?', 'How do you know?' to his dismay. (Wish I could find the video once more to confirm facts)
This sets an interesting quandary. I'm sure the guide knew his stuff, but, caught of guard and with short allotted time, he couldn't come up with a proper response on the spot. What would that response be? Certainly not rebuild all the theory from the ground up. Took me some years but I finally came up with something that could work.
"What we currently know is based on a body of knowledge that has been accumulated through decades, even centuries, of investigation by thousands of persons. The method by which we have accumulated this knowledge is called scientific, and relies broadly speaking in someone putting forward a possible explanation, called hypothesis, for the observations we have in our hands, and then having himself and others test it as rigorously as possible. This is the key part: we are not wedded to our hypotheses, in the sense that we are ready to let them go if these fail testing, which we call experimentation, or if a better one comes along that explains more or explains as much in a more simple manner.
"What we see here in the museum exhibits and in the words the museum staff and I give you are the best explanations we've got at the moment for natural history. Sometimes, we can't experiment directly to try to disprove our hypotheses, as in the case of what we think as long dead species. For these, we rely on evidence uncovered by digs. Very much as in detective stories, we build our case and, if it holds water, we accept the hypothesis as probably true. Once again, we are glad to revise our understanding if something turns up that contradicts what we already have.
"The beauty is that for each field of science, the knowledge, is internally consistent, meaning that it fits together, as a toy structure, and meshes well along with each of the other. Sometimes our hypotheses are so built, that they allow us to advance predictions. When these come true, by further observation, they add to our confidence. That is how we know."
He could even push for a bit more if he feels the audience as receptive. He could round of with:
"Oh, and science is Bible sanctioned. Remember Gideon from the Book of Judges? He wouldn't take things at face value, and tested, experimented, to be real sure about how things were."
A few years ago the eMusic online store felt like a very good alternative to the iTunes store mainly because of the low price of the music tracks. Back then I got some very good promotions that kept me subscribed and I made good use of the credits. Probably the best discovery that I made during my eMusic experience was the Kiera Lee 2005 album What Do I Believe. I remember back then comparing the samples with Taylor Swift's first album just as she, Taylor, was about to take off and deciding that I liked Kiera's album much better. In this time I have not changed my opinion: just my liking.
Kiera Lee hails from Canada. As I reviewed in the eMusic site, the music in this album lies somewhere between pop and country. The music and lyrics are uplifting and really change your mood for the better. The first two tracks are the best while the rest do hold up.
I liked the music so much that I went to eBay and overpaid for a caseless physical CD (just checked and there's one offered at this very moment). The tracks on the CD are not the same as in the MP3 album. Some are even different recordings from the same songs, that, if anything, are even more touching, so one can say that there is no duplication in owning both formats. Maybe I got a sampler or something.
With the spread of competing online music stores, the music of this album can be easily found, so if you think you might like it, check it out.
When I was in junior high two separate friends quite coincidentally bought Destiny of the Emperor for the NES with just a few months apart and both invited me over to play. Not much later, one of them, Gabriel, bought me Romance of the Three Kingdoms II for the SNES at an open air market just by chance. I'd like to give a word to the media I've been exposed to since then. In chronological order.
Destiny of an Emperor for NES
What got us into this one in the first place is that it shared many of the standard RPG elements we could relate to: an overhead map, encounters, towns, items you could equip, a party, 'magic' and HP in the form of your troops. The most innovative aspect, which I've not seen since, which is a shame, is the All-Out option during fights; toggling it, you let your troops to automatically slug it out with the enemies and may the best win. If things go begin to look sour, especially against strong tacticians, you can regain control. This saves lots of time and is at times more fun than selecting actions for every party member each round.
The game does a great job of introducing the characters at the intro with just a few lines and along the story. We never were at a loss about what we were expected to do, despite not knowing who these people were at first. The crucial part were the character portraits, which appear to be a mainstay for the media. With them we could distinguish between the generals despite the unfamiliar names. At a glance we could tell if the opponent was an important character or not, because either his portrait was a generic variation of a handful of templates or an extra effort was put into it. Also the stats. We could judge the different characters from them; Zhuge Liang the most clever, Lu Bu the strongest, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei close behind.
The most frustrating part was meeting Zhuge Liang in the first place and the getting him to wake up (If I remember rightly you have to keep the B button pressed or something). Unless you had him, you couldn't enter 'the peaceful land of Shu'. This one also turned up to be one of those games where you can hardly string more than half dozen steps without having someone attack you (Dragon Warrior II apparently is the worst in this area). Fortunately, the programmers thought of the 'smoke pot' item to avoid being always harassed.
The music fits the mood and some of the fight tunes are exciting.
The story follows the events of the novel broadly and it goes from the Yellow Turban rebellion to the final encounters with Sun Quan, Cao Pi and Sima Yi. You play as Liu Bei and his generals Curiously enough, Cao Cao is an ally on some part, and never an opponent.
On the whole a well-balanced game and pretty entertaining.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms II for the SNES
This one is a strategy game. You have to develop your land, collect taxes, train your troops, carry on diplomacy, recruit more generals and deal with natural disasters. You can start in one of the many 'Acts' of the novel from Dong Zhuo's seizing of Luoyang to the consolidation of the three kingdoms, the map reflecting each one's territory at the moment. You can play as any of the principal leaders and pretty much as any of the obscurer ones or conjure up your own.
Encounters are tactical in nature and very solid. At the start you may challenge the other side or be challenged by a hero of them to a hand-to-hand combat, the result depending on the strength stats of the generals. Each province have different terrains and you move your troop units through them in order to capture your opponents castle and win the province. One of the best parts is that of joint attacks and cpu controlled reinforcements which can event switch sides if it suits them. Speaking of the AI in the game, the computer is no pushover, although you're destined to win in the end, the computer puts in a good fight.
The most difficult part always is vanquishing Liu Biao. He rarely expands and stacks up on generals making him densely packed for defense and always ready for your onslaught. Liu Bei has difficult starting points in the first stages.
As in Destiny each general has his own portrait and stats. The portraits are better than in Destiny, but Zhang Fei's and Zhao Yun's and perhaps Ma Chao's were better in the older game. With the aid of the portraits the instruction manual does a great job of explaining the situation in each time period, and of the story as a whole, in just a few pages. Aww… this were I first learned about the fate the three brothers.
The music is just acceptable but can get repetitive real quick. The ending consists of famous scenes from the novel graphically very good considering the medium. You can restart a play again and again as this one has a very high replay value. I still have my copy.
Of course, there is a whole series of games under this title. Since I've only played this one I cannot talk of all the rest. However, ROTKII is so good that, I can only guess at the improvements the publisher has made over this long while, The latest must be… superb.
Three Kingdoms: The Novel (translated by Moss Roberts)
The main course and holy grail of all three kingdoms media. I do not remember how I learned there was in fact such a book, but I think it was one of my first orders at amazon. It is a large book consisting of 120 chapters, which, like The Lord of The Rings, you drink it whole with gusto.
Everything is here: the characters, the action and battles, the different plots and counterploys, the inner stories of some characters all these enhanced with maps and loads of endnotes. This is all very exciting and so much so that every chapter ends with cliffhanger. I feel guilty at having liked it even better than The Iliad (going to reread that in the future though).
After having played the previous games I could dive right in. I now knew who everyone, more or less, was and could now contextualize their relationships. Some mysteries were now solved such as why some minor characters were highlighted in the games, such as Li Jue & Guo Si; the rival tigers and tiger-wolf strategies; Zhang Liao's route; and why some allies were prone to betray you, like Wei Yan.
There are many memorable scenes here. Not everything is just the Red Cliffs. To me the most striking, is the visit of Cheng Gong and Cao Cao to the latter's uncle; the sudden realization, and Cao Cao's final decision and rejoinder.
I'll have to check back on this one (or confirmation please!), but to me it appeared that Li Dian unintendedly played the role of the recurring enemy that comes back each week with different ploys only to be defeated again and again.
Jiang Wei ended up being my favorite character narrowly edging the more famous ones.
If the story or generals are already familiar to you and you're willing to read, the novel is a must; you will not get bored and simply put you won't regret it. Be sure to get the Moss Roberts translation which flows just right and gives the names in Pinyin, which is the system shared by most (it appears to me) of the current media. If you want to read it but still are unacquainted with the characters, not to worry. Check out kongming.net were you can find the portraits to many of the games out there and give a face to the name. If you live in Boston, the Boston Public Library at Copley Square has the four volume set.
Marionette theater
A troupe of marionetters from the East came to my town and offered two or three performances with scenes from the Three Kingdoms. I got a ticket for a Sunday morning show. The medium-sized theatre was full with mostly families with children. The introduction to the story was carried out by a local actress which gave the proper pronunciation, as far as I can tell, of the character names. I, for my part, invariably refer to CaoCao inside my head as "cow, cow". The marionettes were of the giant variety controlled by black clad puppeters on stage. The performance was solid, submerging the audience into the drama. One of the scenes included was the visit to ZhugeLiang's house.
(Video shows not exactly what I saw, but you get the idea).
Comic Books from China
The rest of the Three Kingdoms sites out there are more complete than mine, but I think I've got something they don't. A family member brought me a boxset of Chinese novels from a trip to China which includes the Three Kingdoms.
What one finds inside is a series of comic panels, over 600 of them in all, following the plot. Each panel is numbered and captioned. This one too goes from the brothers' pledge to what looks like the fall of Shu. Some of the scenes and characters are recognizable, but the majority remain opaque to me. Zhuge Liang, Guan Yu, Lu Bu and Zhang Fei are among the identifiable personages. The captions look too brief to explain much, so I guess one has to know the story to enjoy the medium.
The other novels are in the same style and format. One is clearly the adventures of the Monkey King; as if there was a chance of ever mistaken him. The other two are a mystery to me. Apparently these are the Dream of the Red Chamber and Water Margin. Dream has a Jewel of the Palace vibe, while Margin looks like a brother or at least first cousin to the Three Kingdoms with battles, generals and lords. There is also someone with a feather fan… Since I cannot read any of them I just regard these as a collector's item.
Koihime Musou (anime)
A surprise that refreshes the Three Kingdoms universe. Though mostly plotless, as it focuses more on character interaction, it is quite good and lighthearted in its presentation. The battle scenes, though brief, are not unsatisfying. The best, without doubt, is Gan Ning vs Lu Meng in the third season. Most of the production budget is used in the voice acting of some fifty characters and in their outfits which are very detailed and, yes, beautiful. These last also allow a sizable amount of tasteful fanservice.
It consists of three seasons that can be watched legally for free at Crunchyroll, and three (forgettable) OVAs.
Koihime Musou (Visual Novel)
Basically a dating game on which the anime is based. I downloaded the demo from Mangagamer and played up to the intro sequence and an hour or so after that. I have problems with this one. First though the good part: the more I browse around the Visual Novel Database the more convinced I am that visual novels are an art form in it of itself. Notable is the care taken on character design, settings, story, routes and even music. That said, they look like an enormous time sink. They are long and (based on just this one experience) long drawn. Boy, these people do talk: they are not kidding when they refer to the media as 'novels'. After all has been said and done, after all the girls conquered and all the endings achieved, what is one left with other than the good memory? Also, there's a huge risk of liking the characters too much. Do resist the siren call.
To top it off, the game is also adult oriented which may be a good or a bad thing.
Penned by Zhuge Liang himself this is the only nonfiction of the group. It is a set of recommendations and advice in much the same vein as The Art Of War. I saved it for years on my bookshelf waiting for the perfect moment to read it. When I finally did, it left no impression on me. I'll have to take a deep thoughtful look on this one sometime again.
Others I've not experienced:
The Three Kingdoms has spawned a veritable parade of adaptations, probably too much for anyone to find let alone consume. Here are just a few notable others that have come to my attention, but not watched, played or read.
Ikkitousen/ Battle Vixens
The Three Kingdoms reduced to a high school setting. A concept similar to Koihime Musou but more violent and racy.
The Ravages of Time (manhua)
Great artwork.
Three Kingdoms (2010 TV series)
A huge live production by the looks of it. Also feels like the best alternative to actually reading the novel.
Dynasty Warriors
Many people nowadays seem have had their introduction to The Three Kingdoms through this series of games. Never played any, but they must have something into them. I cannot explain how some bunch of unknowns (at first) slugging it out has been so successful here in the West. On a side note, though quite capable, somehow I don't feel that Cao Cao would deign himself to fight hand on hand.
Due to the well-known end of life for Win XP I decided to switch my virtual machine platform to Virtual Box from VirtualPC 2007. To anyone else who's looking to do likewise here go the pros and cons I've seen of the newer over the older.
Pros:
Easier virtual hardware configuration
Multiple cores
Video acceleration
Snapshots
Video capture
Client more frequently updated
Faster VM loading
USB support
Still free
Cons:
Heavy files
Backup a hassle:
Resource intensive & slow
Guest Windows activation somehow doesn't survive the export/import cycle
No file drag and drop between guest and host with Windows as a guest
I've not been able to easily set up a shared folder
This one is creepy: My Andrea sound pod wakes up and blinks signaling that the microphone is active. Haven't found the reason.
We Japanese: Being descriptions of many of the customs, manners, ceremonies, festivals, arts and crafts of the Japanese, besides numerous other subjects is probably one of the best treasuries of old Japan out there and affordable as well. Prepared by the Fujiya hotel at Hakone it consists of a whole collection of one or two pages descriptions of customs, folk tales and more. These vignettes were originally prepared and printed on the menu cards by the hotel for the sake of both the local and foreign visitor. These became so popular that were gathered in three volumes.
By the looks of it, the flagship 1950 edition combines all three previous volumes. Most of the entries are illustrated with drawings, but some b&w photos are also included. The info is current to 1950, but some of it dates back to at least 1934 which makes the book a time capsule of sorts. As an object it is traditionally bound and enclosed in an unfolding case which shuts with a bone (faux?, real?) pin. There appear to be at least three different designs for the cover which is texturized. Each page is folded double.
The descriptions and stories are concise, insightful, frequently delighting. Since these only are a page or two, they allow reading at odd times. An index is included, but does not cover absolutely all, so some digging is still needed to find all there is to know about some particular topic.
We Japanese came on my radar it after reading Ryokan by Fahr Becker (also recommended) which borrows from it on a dozen or so occasions.
Despite its relative rarity, it surprises me how low it can be bought for. I got mine for around $20, but I've seen it as low as $12. I say one should grab a copy even if for a gift. This kind of value offers are not easy to come by.
Hi. I'm interested in books, tea & tech of course. Chess (I'm about 1900 elo on Fics) and music too. Some anime on the side; have a Crunchyroll account over there.
I swim daily on weekdays and have joined a gym (I want my own Frank and Andy). Never learned to ride a bike though.
Thanks for stopping by.
I want today to give
a shoutout to the Comet B68 chess engine. Might not be the best or perhaps not even
among the top 100, but its peculiarities makes it an estimable companion for
endgame training. 
