It is purely semantic

Aarde = earth, sounds like dirt, then the Germans ran off with it and made it Erde, out of vanity, which basically sounds like "Ert"! See?

There are drunken idiot "students" singing outside my window. I wish I had a gun with a silencer. Or even a silencer on its own would be nice.

I'm pretty sure I got the chronology and facts correct, but don't forget I'm <bonkers>.

Ad astra!

DIVE, DIVE!

I need accurate damage reports, dammit

<Eyal> told me that <Dvoretsky> is the "dog's nuts" of endgame books.

He swears by it, and he is a VERY strong player.

I've never seen the volume myself, I'm just passing along a recommendation.

Me too, but I don't think any sounds ever came out. See, that requires musical talent, and I can't tell an up-note from a down-note or a quaver from a quaker.

Was Richard M Nixon ("I'll make the @#$%suckers *glad* to mutate!") a hemidemisemiquaker? And did he ever get his hemidemisemiquaker oats?

On the other hand, I've put much less time into actually studying it than I should have. I also packed it and brung it, despite its being a weighty tome, to a certain 9-round open tournament last month -- forgetting that endgame books are no use at tournaments in the post-adjournment era.

Typical. Back when adjournments were the norm, the only nontrivial endgame book I possessed was 'Rook Endings' by Levenfish & Smyslov. So of course I kept winding up in minor piece endings: sometimes screwing them up, sometimes playing surprisingly well, all pretty random, rilly.

Queen endings seem to happen to me too, and I'm convinced that they're beyond human understanding, like Hinton and the fourth dimension. Sir Henry knew the score:

"Y'see, the Natives had it in their noodles that if a chap's soul was pure then the snakebite wouldn't harm him. Poor old Hargreaves died instantly, horrible agony."

So here it is, Zapkinder:

<Dom's Calvinistic Predestination Rag & Rap >

I'm not sure whether this is depressing ("Our human limits! Woe!") or magnificent ("The irreducible complexity of everything strikes again").

Some very complex deep tactical positions are broadly similar, but the thing about Queen endings is they *look* straightforward -- and some have been solved by brute force calculation -- and they look as though general principles should apply. But even Dvoretsky tends to find more exceptions than laws, and insists that calculation and analysis of each specific position is paramount.

http://www.gothicchess.com/javascri...

Give that one a whirl

Like Pynchon, I love the mixture of slapstick and cutting-edge science. Or like Viv Stanshall, the blend of clowning, satire, erudition and real danger.

Zappa -- circa We're Only In It For The Money -- Brown Shoes Don't Make It -- Bow-Tie Daddy -- Let's Make the Water Turn Black -- was brilliant. First rate satire, new and different music, plus that 'punk' willingness to bite the hand that feeds it (vital, this).

But he lost it, somehow, and I don't pretend to understand why. Drew back until only schoolboy smuttiness and precision musicianship were left... like a bizarre mutant mix of Varese and 'dirty' postcards, or Stockhausen with a strap-on (note: NOT a type of guitar).

A type of *organ*, obviously. Oh, Gawd.

There was a 2nd Zappa moment, but it passed too quickly -- us old guys have slower reflexes -- and then he died.

Maybe, I dunno, he should have tried to get his *cancer* elected president. If Reagan, Bush and Clinton can be Prez, why not a cancer?

<"Cancer is the answer. Why take a risk on an unknown homeless person who can't afford TV spots, or deviate from our ancient traditions by voting for a woman, an African-American, or a raccoon?

Cancer is the Answer you seek. Yet it's also a kind, soft traditional remedy, nature's way of saying 'nighty-night'. Many cancers have held public office. Reagan ran the USA from his Polyp Bureau. Nixon had a rectum transplant, but the rectum rejected him.

And the case of Grover Cleveland, his 2nd term, his cancer of the jawbone, and his attractive young wife Frances... is a secret. See my *next* book for details.

Cancer -- the star-sign that emulates the American Way. Cancer -- the Answer.

This is Post # 6500. An interesting number: the product of 65 (itself the product of the smallest primes of form 4n+1, and the sum of two squares in 2 ways) and 100 (which is both 'round' and 'square' and a ton or century or centurion).

To mark the 6500th, a brief regression into numbermania -- but not numerology, which is superstitious junk -- plus some rare Ballard material on the subject of chess, and a dash of Virgil. The old ill-assorted gang of gangers taking the doggerel for walkies. Literary types can ignore the equations, and vice versa. You stare into the abyss, and you find it ignoring you. Life's abyss.

"Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit."
- Virgil, Aeneid, 1203

'One day, perhaps, we shall like to remember even these things.'

"People who talk about three-dimensional chess obviously know nothing about the present form." - JG Ballard, End-Game.

(a,b) = [a^2] + [b^2]

6500 = 2.2.5.5.5.13 = 125 x 52
52 = 4 x 13 = (2,0)*(3,2) = (6,4)
125 = (11,2) = (10,5)
(11,2)*(6,4) = ([11 x 6] ± [2 x 4], [11 x 4] ± [2 x 6]) = (66 ± 8, 44 ± 12)
= (74, 32) = (58, 56)

(10,5)*(6,4) = ([10 x 6] ± [5 x 4], [10 x 4] ± [5 x 6]) = (60 ± 20, 40 ± 30)
= (80, 10) = (40, 70)

6500 = (80,10) = 6400 + 100
6500 = (70,40) = 4900 + 1699
6500 = (74,32) = 5776 + 1024
6500 = (58,56) = 3364 + 3136

"Men of a phlegmatic or philosophical temperament, resigned to the inevitability of their fate, would choose to read the novels. On the other hand, men of a more volatile and extrovert disposition would obviously prefer to play chess, unable to resist the opportunity to exercise their Machiavellian talents for positional manoeuvre to the last. The games of chess would help to maintain their unconscious optimism, and, more subtly, sublimate or divert any attempts at escape."

- JG Ballard, End-Game, The Terminal Beach.

Fibonacci: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181, 6765 ...

F5 = 5 = (2, 1) = 2^2 + 1^2
F11 = 89 = (8, 5) = 8^2 + 5^2
F13 = 233 = (13, 8) = 13^2 + 8^2
= [F6]^2 + [F7]^2
F19 = 4181 = (50, 41) = 50^2 + 41^2

F[2n+1] = [Fn]^2 + [F(n+1)]^2

x² - x - 1 = 0

Tribonacci Sequence: 1, 1, 1, 3, 5, 9, 17, 31, 57, 105...

The ratio between successive terms of the Tribonacci sequence gradually approaches the positive real root of the cubic equation: x³ - x² - x – 1 = 0

Torbay? With an ithyphallic ichthyosaurus swimming in ellipses, looking for his long-lost cadborosaurus?

Just a guess, mind.

Is your self-proclaimed <bonkersness> a steady-burning flame, or does it oscillate like mine? Why, one day we might even be 'in phase'...

What are you doing up in the middle of the night?

That's one hell of a caculation there.

Math is Greek to me, but then so is Greek, for that matter.