Archive for February, 2009
Experimenting with “Google Friend Connect”
Wednesday, February 11th, 2009
I’m experimenting with “Google Friend Connect” on 361points.com.
You may notice the blue “floating” bar at the bottom of the screen if you visit that main website. Please help me experiment with it if you find it interesting: one can join on the bottom-left (using any existing Google, AIM, Yahoo or OpenID account), then can read or write comments, see other members, etc.
It looks like a cool little gadget – I am not sure whether it fits well with 361points.com, given that I never thought of 361points.com as a “social website”, but rather a “content website”, but let’s see…
Thanks is advance for participating!
(I am already seeing a problem with IE 7: the controls aren’t visible on the “Friends Connect” toolbar. Seems to work well thought in Chrome and Firefox.)
Go In The Media
Sunday, February 8th, 2009
I regularly follow mentionings of the game of Go in the regular media (that is, outside of the regular Go websites or blogs). I think that is important in order to see the amount of publicity that Go gets. Here are some of them.
From Forbes (about the Japanese politician Ichiro Ozawa):
A skilled player of the Japanese chess-like game of Go, he has spent the past decade and a half strategising to create a viable rival to the LDP. His small Liberal Party merged with the Democrats in 2003 and three years later, he took the helm.From chessbase.com (a parallel between drawing by repeating the position in Chess, and Ko in Go):
I have no desire to get involved in the debates about the rights and wrongs of draws, but one point seems to have escaped attention, as far as repetitions are concerned. The oriental game of Go has a similar problem, with what are called Ko positions. This is a repetition situation, where White plays a stone on a certain point, and captures a black stone, and Black could then play on the adjacent point, capturing the white stone, and repeating the initial position.From Korea Times:
LG Dacom’s myLGtv offers other specialized programs, including exclusive fishing, baduk and other hobby shows. Viewers can actually play baduk with fellow subscribers, just like Internet game services.From Taiwan News: (about Asian Games in 2010):
“Taiwan looks promising to win medals at the Guangzhou Asian Games slated for 2010 as it has ace go players such as Meijin title holder Cho U, world go champion Chou Chun-hsun, and many other talented players, ” said Chin Shih-min, secretary general of the Chinese Taipei Weiqi Association.”From femalefirst.com (about the movie Pi):
With the aid of Euclid, his home grown supercomputer, Max stumbles upon a bug that crashes his system and spits out a seemingly meaningless number. A knowledgeable friend gives him insight using the ancient game of Go and warns of the spiritual ramifications of powerful numbers.From examiner.com (about “Tara, the Royal Game of Ireland”):
Played on a surface featuring 45, diamond-shaped holes, for placement of the game’s pieces, known as “ringforts,” Tara is faintly reminiscent of the ancient Chinese game of Go, in which the object is to control, by game’s end, more territory on the playing surface than your opponent.Also from examiner.com (about an online games website):
It offers only two games that might be considered classics – backgammon and the ancient Chinese game of Go. The rest of the menu contains ‘Euro’ games, including very recent releases like Dominion, Kingsburg and Wikinger.From bangkokpost.com (about “Teaching parents to teach math to pre-school children”):
”It is necessary that the kids are familiar with losing. This can be done by teaching them games that they can win and lose, such as chess and the ancient game of Go. Sports, too, can help establish the sportsmanship. Overall, the parents should not pressure the kids too much.”
Kisei Title: Yoda wins game 3
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009
Game 3 of the Kisei Title was won by the challenger, Yoda Norimoto, by half a point. Yamashita Keigo is leading now by 2:1.
Interestingly, all 3 games so far were very close: 1.5, 0.5 and 0.5 points.
Next game will be played on February 19th and 20th (Japan time).
For more photos from game 3 see the Yomiuri online page.
Here is the game record:
