Life In 19x19

But isn't it kōwai to use Japanese words desu? I just want to express how much I daisōōki Japanese!



Now to ready some popcorn...

Oh, I know there are multiple meaning, John. I was just being a little obtuse because, like you, I get so tired of people using the term, and others you mention, when there is no need. So I looked up the SL entry and decided to interpret it exactly as stated there.

Good. And your implication that the SL entry is wrong is correct.

Someone who has made 1230 posts has no excuse for not knowing the names of some modern professional players.

A total non-sequitur, but in any case I think they have every excuse. Someone who has been round the go scene a long while has learned to sift the wheat from the chaff, and has better things to do than work out which 12-year-old has licked more lollipops this week, what ever happened to that 14-year-old who once won some tournament or other, and which is which - Ke Jie or Xie Ke?

But it's not just an age thing. I imagine most people know of Tiger Woods. How many know who won the PGA championship last year? How many care?

John Fairbairn wrote:

Someone who has made 1230 posts has no excuse for not knowing the names of some modern professional players.

A total non-sequitur, but in any case I think they have every excuse. Someone who has been round the go scene a long while has learned to sift the wheat from the chaff, and has better things to do than work out which 12-year-old has licked more lollipops this week, what ever happened to that 14-year-old who once won some tournament or other, and which is which - Ke Jie or Xie Ke?

But it's not just an age thing. I imagine most people know of Tiger Woods. How many know who won the PGA championship last year? How many care?

Being illogical was kind of the point, as it was analogous to DrStraw's claim having several hundred posts means one should have a good understanding of Japanese Go terms (btw I'm not a fan of kifu or moku, but I do use hane). I just find it amusing how DrStraw repeatedly tells us of his ignorance of modern professional Go players with seeming pride yet had lots more posts than our supposed fool tekesta. Though seeing as those lists of pros he hasn't heard of include players in their 30s with dozens of titles like Gu Li who have been top players for a decade (hardly a 12-year-old lollipop-licker), perhaps it's more like he knows who Jack Nicklaus is (same era as Sakata) but hasn't heard of Tiger Woods.

I think replaying a musical score (kifu) could be very satisfying. Or perhaps the original poster was talking about skin (kifu) or contribution to charity (kifu)?

Whatever your think of Japanese terminology I don't think trolling threads in which they are used is the right way to express yourself. It's disappointing to click on what sounded like an interesting discussion only to find that there has only been one on topic post.

tekesta wrote:Recently I have been musing about whether the replaying of kifu can be considered a "yin" activity. I compare it to when a baby receives milk from its mother's breast. One is nourished, but there is no need to chew. The nourishment received helps to strengthen muscles and bones.

As well, doing puzzles can be considered a yang activity. It's like when one puts solid food in her mouth and chews on it. One is also nourished, but there is the need to chew well to make the food soft enough to swallow and digest. The nourishment received helps to maintain supple body tissues.

In Chinese philosophy, an excess of yin can lead to yang and vice versa. On this point I posit that replaying lots and lots of kifu eventually leads to the ability to analyze board positions. Doing lots and lots of puzzles in all categories eventually results in developing intuition than can be effectively applied during play.

I'll keep it brief for the sake of easy digestion Much obliged in advance for your kind input.

This is my first time hearing about Ying and Yang in this way. Is there a good place to read about the concept in English?

Going just by your description here I think there's something to be said for that approach. It's something that gets discussed a lot without the Chinese philosophical spin but I don't know of any consensus ever being reached. My own take on it is that it's important to link your analytical study with your intuitive practice because they need to build on each other, so while pro games do seem like an obvious place to focus on the intuitive side of things, I wouldn't go so far as to say it is one type of activity. The same goes for problems, sometimes it might be worth burning through large amounts of easy problems without reading things out.

Oddly, I'm fine with kifu, but I can't stand the specification of font in tekesta's post.

Though seeing as those lists of pros he hasn't heard of include players in their 30 with dozens of titles like Gu Li who have been top players for a decade (hardly a 12-year-old lollipop-licker), perhaps it's more like he knows who Jack Nicklaus is (same era as Sakata) but hasn't heard of Tiger Woods.

No, I think that misses the point. There are certain players who have a long-lasting impact that transcends their own game/sport. There are players who have a strong impact but only within the game/sport itself.

In my experience, Yi Ch'ang-ho is known to virtually every Korean non-go player I have ever met. He is fairly well known in Japan and China. Yi Se-tol, despite now being ranked higher, is known to no such person I've talked to and no-one in China and Japan is queuing up to stick his name on books.

In China, I think Nie Weiping is still a well known name among non-go players who would, I imagine, look blank at the name Gu Li who ha snot won dozens of titles BTW). I suspect even Chang Ha may still have wider recognition.

In Japan, we have had the likes of Sakata and Go Seigen in go, Oyama Yasuhara in shogi. Elsewhere, I detest basketball and have never watched a whole game, but even I have heard of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.

Even with a sport/game more is less. I just happen to believe that the modern scene in go, with too many tournaments, ridiculous time limits, too many players, and too many young players in particular, loses focus - televised games notwithstanding and so the wider public pays no attention. That can change in a heartbeat through some unexpected intervention, but until that time, for many of us, modern go players are just flies buzzing round our heads.

John Fairbairn wrote:[..] the modern scene in go, with [..] too many players, and too many young players in particular [..]
[..] for many of us, modern go players are just flies buzzing round our heads.

Wow, this sounds quite contemptuous to me. Am I misinterpreting? Yes, apparently I did misinterpret, thanks @ Uberdude, and apologies to JF.

Also, I’m sure that I’m rather a fly than one of “us”, also b/c I’m trying to get more players to the game, and particularly more young players.


“Buzz”, Greetings, Tom

Yes, fair point Tiger Woods is lots more famous than Gu Li so that comparison was not so good, but my main point was that Tiger Woods was too recent. I was going to make the comparison with Lee Chang Ho but thought DrStraw would probably have heard of him, whereas Gu Li was in the most recent list of pros DrStraw hadn't heard of except Nie Weiping and Rui Naiwei, along with younger whipper-snappers I'm not surprised he hasn't heard of like Shi Yue, Fan Tingyu, Mi Yuting, Ke Jie etc.

(Gu Li has won dozens of titles if you count domestic and international, 43 according to Wikipedia, don't know how up-to-date that is).

Bonobo, I think he means pros, contrasting the many young international title winners with flitting careers (see http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.j.s ... Table.html) we have now with the decades long successful careers of players like Sakata or Cho Chikun "back when I were a lad".

oren wrote:I can't stand the specification of font in tekesta's post.

The font looks quite elegant on an iPhone -- does it look bad on your display ?
Or, why can't you stand it ?

EdLee wrote:The font looks quite elegant on an iPhone -- does it look bad on your display ?
Or, why can't you stand it ?

I find it slightly more difficult to read than the standard font, and I generally believe the choice of font display should be in the reader's hands on a forum. There is no need to specify fonts.

oren wrote:

EdLee wrote:The font looks quite elegant on an iPhone -- does it look bad on your display ?
Or, why can't you stand it ?

I find it slightly more difficult to read than the standard font, and I generally believe the choice of font display should be in the reader's hands on a forum. There is no need to specify fonts.

Is it just this serif typeface or do you dislike serif fonts online? Just curious.

Aidoneus wrote:Is it just this serif typeface or do you dislike serif fonts online? Just curious.

Interesting.

A quick scan:

sans-serif : New York Times app, apple.com, microsoft.com, facebook.com, google.com (except for their logo ), npr.org .
serif : L.A. Times app, New Yorker app, WSJ .

EdLee wrote:

oren wrote:I can't stand the specification of font in tekesta's post.

The font looks quite elegant on an iPhone -- does it look bad on your display ?
Or, why can't you stand it ?

That kind of font can be very uncomfortable to read if you've double vision as the letters can blend in together, depending on a number of factors especially text size and letter spacing.

Aidoneus wrote:

oren wrote:

EdLee wrote:The font looks quite elegant on an iPhone -- does it look bad on your display ?
Or, why can't you stand it ?

I find it slightly more difficult to read than the standard font, and I generally believe the choice of font display should be in the reader's hands on a forum. There is no need to specify fonts.

Is it just this serif typeface or do you dislike serif fonts online? Just curious.

It's bad form(TM) to specify form except in the vaguest sense, as the form should be configurable for the user viewing the content. If you like, you can set a stylesheet to change all standard text on websites to a particular font of your own choosing. If you specify a particular font for a part of a page separate from the rest of the fonts, there should be a good reason for overriding the way the user would like the font displayed.

Something like a code block, to make particular text stand apart, might be a good use of this. The whim of the poster, less so. Nobody reads posts on here to appreciate the tailor-made design of the post.