gorogue wrote: I'm really interested in learning how to play go, but I don't really know how I can make any progress. I learned the rules a couple of weeks ago and have been practicing life and death problems on goproblems.com and playing some games on KGS. Every time I play, I get crushed by what seems to be the weakest players on the site. I think part of the problem is that I have no idea what the general principles guiding my play should be. It seems that I'm making what are obviously stupid moves that are strategically bad a lot of the times and people take advantage of them easily (unless weak players on KGS can easily calculate dozens of moves ahead?). I also play chess, and in addition to working on tactical puzzles, there were some basic strategic ideas that allowed me to play a reasonable game when there wasn't a clear way to checkmate, win material, etc. but other than the opening idea of "corners, sides, center" I have no clue what I should be doing (I don't even really know how to apply the "corners, sides, center" idea...). I guess I'm just wondering how I can get a "feel" for the game and improve. Thanks!
You do not say what size board you are playing on. It is easy to get swamped on a 19x19 board. There are a number of things that you can do. One is to play with a proper handicap, one that gives you around a 50-50 chance of winning. For instance, with a 9 stone handicap you play 9 stones on your first move as Black. (There are set patterns for handicap stones, but you and your opponent may agree to let you play them anywhere.) Another is to play on a smaller board, such as the 9x9, or even smaller. Games are quicker, and require fewer handicap stones to make an even game. Another is to play the capture game, where the object is to capture a stone. On a small board that also makes for a quick game. You can handicap it by requiring White to capture more stones than Black. You can then move on to capture-2, which requires capturing two stones to win, then capture-3, and so on. The capture game on small boards is actually more strategic than regular go, which is highly tactical on small boards. The strategy is like go strategy on larger boards. Capture-2 is more like regular go than capture-1, capture-3 is even more like regular go, etc.
There are strategy problems on goproblems.com, and Sensei's Library has a number of good pages for beginners.
Good luck! 
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) just choose the lowest rank available at any Go server and play different people at about your rank … you’ll soon see that it goes the other way ’round, too.