Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Not like I would have played it

My chess continues to be weak, but I think slowly getting better. Tonight my last game I played against someone named "SpeedyMcGreedy". It was a fairly interesting game because he played the opening different than I usually see. So I had a little more trouble trying to control the tempo of the game. Still I'd say I went from better, to unclear, to game over. The position displayed below was the final position from the game. It was taken using the Chessic interface to the ICC for Mac OSX. It's actually a pretty nice interface, and I like the Mac look and feel. When we reached the below position, I had 5:21 on my clock, as displayed, and he had about 9 minutes. As you can see, he just sat there for 9 minutes until he finally lost on time. I hate when people do that!



Overall, for today, I finished with 2 wins, 1 draw, and 1 loss. The loss coming against the 2200 rated computer that I played. So, overall, respectable. There are a few things I definitely need to brush up on before the weekend, I just don't know how I'm going to do it all. I've been so wiped out after work every day this week that I sleep for a few hours when I get home, so my night is almost gone before I even get started. Knowing that I need to be working on my project, wanting to be playing and practicing chess for the weekend, and wanting to play a little bit of poker, it's killing me! As usual, I probably continue to make the wrong choices. Which drives me even crazier!

And so it goes.

Welcome... to my life!

Ed.

The sun comes up

I'm starting to get a little nervous. Not nervous in the nervous sense, but nervous in the I suck and I don't know if I have enough time to do anything about it sense. My chessplaying is horrific and the weekend is coming quickly. We'll see what happens, hopefully I can feel reasonably well about it by Friday night. You know what they say, or at least what Garth says anyway...

As long as one heart still holds on, then hope is never really gone

I finally made some real progress on my project Sunday. I'm still behind, but at least I was able to get some quality work done. Though quality is, of course, purely subjective. Last night I had such a bad headache when I got home from work that I couldn't do anything but go to sleep for a while. I have a few goals that I really want to reach this week, so hopefully the headache's stay away. I am... only human. Worst case, if my chess isn't feeling so good this weekend, I've considered going to the tournament but not playing - just working on my project. I'm planning on playing, but it's a backup just in case.

My mother and sister arrived safely in Florida yesterday. They seem to be enjoying the near 70 weather while we freeze out here. I've never been a big fan of the "going to Florida" thing, but I gotta say that the 70's does sound nice. Speaking of nice, I watched the end of The Bachelor last night. My sister asked me to tape it for her, so I had it on the TV. Wow! You wonder how much of it is real. I thought the two finalists were amazing, that would have been a tough choice.

Time to get to work.

Ed.

Super

I used to wonder where Rae got all of her superballs. Thanks to Bill Harris over at dubiousquality, I don't have to wonder anymore:

http://www.bravia-advert.com/commercial/braviaextcommhigh.html

and the parody...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4396069753768297433&q=snoken

which has nothing to do with superballs.

Ed.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Stay Tuned

It's interesting, the cycle. No, not the kind you ride. Usually you get sick, it gets worse, it gets better. That's it. That's what I know. I feel like I'm in that cycle, but it's not working quite like it should. No big surprise there I guess. Truth be told, I really am getting better every day. The big thing I think is the tradeoff between my head prickling and taking DayQuil/NyQuil. Because they really do a good job of drying the heck out of you. Instead I'm taking something called "Mucinex", and my head really isn't prickling like it was. That's a good thing, and yet... Anyway, what is Mucinex? It's an expectorant. Yep, an expectorant. I have no idea what that means, maybe it doesn't mean anything. It says it on the box though. What it does is "Thins and Loosens Mucus". If that doesn't sound disgusting, tell me what does? In case you were curious, "Thins and Loosens Mucus" does not mean "drying the heck out of you". Nope, I'm pretty sure about that! The actual instructions that the good doc gave me was to use Mucinex to get the congestion out, and take either advil and sudafed or just advil cold & sinus for the rest of the symptons.

Enough about me, let's talk about myself. Another wasted night. A little rest, a little terrible chess, a little terrible poker, and helped a friend get a free C Compiler configured on his computer so that he could start learning C. As for now, well, it's past my bedtime, so I think that's it. Except for the trash, had to take out the trash. It was a lot of fun, because I was sick, so I had a lot of trash. That and I'm guessing it won't get picked up in the morning so I'll have to bring it all back in tomorrow. We'll see.

I almost fell down the stairs tonight too. But that's another story. And I didn't, so not a very good one. Maybe next time!

I'm really, really, really going to get some work done on my project this weekend, so hopefully some exciting updates will be happening soon.

Stay Tuned!

Ed.


PS:

You wonder when you're gonna break through
Break those chains that bind and make you
Do those things...
that you don't want to do
And she wonders too

You've been trying hard for so long
But something always seems to go wrong
When you do
And she knows it too

Still you feel the time is now, the place is here
You've worked so hard to wipe away that desperate fear
That you've held so dear
So you know you're gonna make it, here and now
And she knows you're gonna find a way somehow

To break those chains that bind and make you
Do those things...
that you don't want to do
And together you'll make new chains that bind you more
Because if that ain't love then she's showing you the door
And you'll be poor
So poor
So poor
So poor

Good night!

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Under the Table

Welcome back! Let me tell you, it feels great. Just knowing that it's almost done. I hate being sick. Today was the first day I actually sat at the computer for more than just a minute or two checking email. All I wanted to do was sleep. Well, that and feel sorry for myself, of course! Most of today I spent doing my usual sick routine, you know the deal: medication, couch, tv, sleep, shower, more sleep... but then, at around 5pm, I knew this was going to be it. Call it nostalgia, call it what you will. I had a George moment. I'm back baby, I'm back!

Now the tough part... trying to put your life back together and making it better than it was before. Stronger. Faster. We have the technology. Speaking of technology, I just got off the phone! I made my reservation for the hotel at cedar lake in Sturbridge, MA. Eastern Class Championships, March 3-5 (or 4-5 if you like the accelerated schedule, like I do). So I have to get my chess back into play again here too. The work never ends. Such is the life of a vagabond.

I did try to play a game of chess yesterday, while I was still in the middle of being sick. It didn't go so well. I don't think I'm going to try tonight. I'll wait another day or so and then get moving on trying to learn how to play again. I've got 2 weeks to get it all figured out!

I'm not sure if you've heard it, but I saw a video on CMT the other day for "Skin" by Rascal Flatts. It is such an incredible song. I cried. I had to buy it on iTunes. Speaking of iTunes, until the Pilot of the new show "Conviction" airs in early March they are offering it as a free download on iTunes. After that it will be $1.99, as will all other episodes of the show the day after they air. But for the premier they are trying to drum up a little extra interest I think. I grabbed it, haven't watched it yet though. There's always tomorrow.

Until then, Ed.

Monday, February 20, 2006

The Flu

After a relatively good year I've managed to get the flu. Sleeping and drinking lots of water. What a blast! Not to mention really helping me get a lot of work done. Not! I can't believe how crappy I feel. At least I had Saturday. The worst part is that I have such a busy week, this couldn't have happened at a worse time. I'm feeling the stress. I haven't been out of bed for more than an hour at a time, so I'm hoping some miracle happens tonight while sleeping.

On Saturday I should have stopped at 2 games. I pushed myself and went for 3. My back was a little stiff. I did better than last week though, no 80's. Saturday night I went down to the chessclub. I spend a little time working on my flowchart while I was sitting around talking with the people there. So at least there was that.

I did actually manage to spend some time Sunday night working on my project as well. I was feeling sick and had a terrible cough, but somehow I was able to sit and work. That was not the case today. As for tomorrow, well, one can hope.

Wish me luck!

Ed.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

I love rock'n'roll

In another typical display of my disorganized state, I came home from work Thursday to find an email from my professor - a reminder that our 1-3 page progress report was due that night. It really wasn't so bad. I actually found it very helpful because it made me put together a timeline and really see that I needed to get moving here. The only tough part was that I had to get up at 5:30 this morning so I really wanted to have an easy night last night. So it goes.

Today after work I ran down to the Hampshire Mall. I was originally going to go to Walmart, but Kip called them and they said they didn't have it. Have what you ask? Popular opinion has it that Guitar Hero is THE BEST GAME EVER!!! So, of course, I had to have it. When I got home, rather than start playing right away... I slept until 8pm. What can I say, I didn't get much sleep last night and I need sleep. I figured at some point before the end of the day I'd get a chance to find out how much I totally rock!

I went to D'Angelos for dinner. When I say I went, I mean I stopped, picked up my grinder, and went home. While I was there they made my grinder rather quickly. I kept telling myself, they're professionals, this is what they do, I'm sure it's fully cooked and it'll taste just fine. It was a cheeseburg grinder - my favorite! When I got home I opened it up... the red was soaking through the bun. So I threw it out and called Domino's. What else could I do?

I started watching "Red Eye" while I ate. I got about 30 minutes into it, and it's not too bad. But I wanted to rock!

So I rocked.

I'm hoping to cover the game in more detail over the next few days, But so far I would say it's good. Not "best game ever" good, but good. Then again, I was never a big fan of the hard rock. On "EASY" mode, the first song you play is "I love rock and roll". Before I started I played through the tutorial. I can't decide if I'm doing so well because I play the guitar, or if it's really that easy. Not that it's super easy, but on average I'm getting 93-95% of all the notes. I'll have to have someone else try it to compare. Maybe I can get my brother to try it this weekend. That would be fun!

Tomorrow morning Adam, Dave, and I are going to go bowling again. Let's see if I can top last weekend! Truth be told, I'll be surprised if I don't. 80? Come on.

I rock!

Have a great weekend!

Ed.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

The Super VIP

Another weekend almost over. Where does the time go? We were a bit lucky with the storm, it really didn't hit us so bad. But still, today felt like mostly a wasted day. I didn't do too much with my project this weekend, and it's going to kill me if I don't get motivated and moving on it soon. I did spend a little time playing around with NAnt, which is a .NET build tool similar to Ant for Java. But aside from that, no real progress was made.

Last night I did make it down to the chess club. It was actually more interesting than I had anticipated. Tom asked me to play a game against the "computer" that someone had donated to the club. He told me that he had Dave Hall play it at the "E8" level (hitting go after 30 seconds, so it was basically not playing at the full E8 strength) and it crushed Dave. The computer itself is the Novag Super VIP. Although I was proud of the game, and had a great time playing it while kibitzing with Antonio Laudati and Larry Williams, I just did a little research on it:

Model: NOVAG Super VIP
Manufacturer: NOVAG
Year: 1989
Est. ELO rating: 1688
Levels of play: 48 divided into 6 skill sections
Type: Calculator
ROM: 48Kb
RAM: 2Kb
CPU clock speed: 9.8304 MHz
Opening book: 20,000 moves
Port: 1 standard RS 232C port in modular socket
Transmission Format: 1 Start-bit. 8 data-bits. 1 stop-bit no parity bit. I200 or 9600 baud rate selectable

And, given my rating, the result is no longer such a surprise. As for the game itself, what can I say about its play? It was fairly passive but still a good challenge. Here's the game:

Ed Borowski vs Novag Super VIP
1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 e6 4. e3 c5 5. c3 cxd4 6. exd4 Nbd7 7. Bd3 Be7 8.Nbd2 O-O 9. O-O b6 10. Ne5 Bb7 11. Ndf3 Nxe5 12. Nxe5 Bd6 13. Bg5 Re8 14. Qf3 h6 15. Bh4 Be7 16. Qe2 Nd7 17. Bxe7 Rxe7 18. f4 Nf8 19. Rae1 Rc8 20. Qh5 Qd6 21. Re3 Rcc7 22. Rg3 Kh8 23. Rff3 f6 24. Ng4 Qd8 25. Ne3 Nd7 26. Rg6 Qa8 27. Rxh6+ gxh6 28. Qxh6+ Kg8 29. Rg3+ Kf7 30. Qg6+ Kf8 31. Qg8# 1-0

I hope you had a good weekend!

Ed.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

The Perfect Game

People are always asking me "Hey Ed, when are you going to become a superstar? Bumfuzzled, I'm usually stricken by momentary confusion and bewilderment at the naivety of the world around me before saying, "Dude, I am a superstar". To which comes the reply, "Oh, Ok, have fun with that.". And thus begins another day in the life...

There's an old saying that goes "Chess, like money, like love, has the power to make men happy.". It was updated about 15 years ago to say "... has the power to make people happy.". Either way, you get the idea. As I have spent many years on my own foray into this wonderful and mysterious world of chess, I can say one thing about the above statement. Happiness is fleeting.

I went bowling today for the first time since November of 2004 when I went out to Bend, Oregon to visit Sean and Bree. I decided to stop after 2 games because my back was getting a little stiff. I wish I could say that I missed it, but after today I think more realistic a statement would be that I miss being good at it. When I stopped bowling 3 years ago, my average was around 190. My first game today I bowled an 80 - with 2 frames where the only thing I found was the gutter! My second game was better, it was in the 140's. But still, using the standards of the past, not very good. I went with Dave and Adam. I suck.

I also played a 30/3 speed tournament today at party poker. I was doing pretty well, until my AA came up against AQo... and lost. I came in around 206 out of 580 or so.

I'm going to try to do some work on my senior project today - so hopefully some more news on that this weekend. I say try because all I really want to do is sleep. Jon also asked me to stop by. I've also got a few new movies. If only I could find some motivation... for anything. I also picked up Garth's "The Lost Sessions" on CD at Walmart last night. I have to say, it's not as good as I had hoped. I think that's because I really loved the acoustic playing from his special on CMT, so having the finished tracks with all the other instruments and everything - just doesn't do it for me.

Ed.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

The Benchmark

I think that today was the day that Garth Brooks "The Lost Sessions" was being re-released as a stand-alone albumn at Walmart (it was originally part of the box set) with 6 additional tracks. Yes, marketing at work, but I've heard at least 2 of those new songs and I have to get it. Amazing! I'll definitely be checking that out later in the week.

Tonight won't be so long a blog. I really didn't spend any time working on my project. That will probably wait until Thurs/Fri now. I would like to get the move generator at least partly functional by the end of the weekend, but there's a lot of work to do before I get there. I'm thinking about creating a flowchart just to help me visualize what I'm planning and maybe keep me a little more focused on the appropriate areas.

I was fortunate enough at work today to do some JDBC driver benchmarking with SQL Server 2005 Express. Mainly because I have a database with tons of records and Microsoft has a JDBC driver available. I've always used the open source jTDS driver, but I wanted to see what the microsoft one could do. Imagine my surprise when it didn't do so well! The benchmark consisted of "INSERT"ing 30,000 records into a table. When I ran the program using the Microsoft JDBC driver it took 1:53 (1 minute 53 seconds). Then I swapped in the jTDS driver and ran it again. 32 seconds! Wow! I can only imagine all of those java programmers out there who decide to use the Microsoft jdbc driver with their programs because "Microsoft released it for their database so it's got to be good".

Back to my project for a minute. Another thought that has been running through my mind lately is the generating of legal pawn moves and pawn captures. There will definitely be a lot of opportunity for performance testing with this project, let's just hope I keep focused and am able to do even a fraction of what I'd like to. My past experience and research had me leaning towards an array of pawn bitboards. Since there are 64 squares in the chessboard, therefore 64 possible squares that a pawn could be on (not exactly true, it's actually 56 since a pawn can never actually be on it's own 1st rank) we would have the bitboards legal_pawn_moves[0] through [legal_pawn_moves[7] be 0 (all 64 bits 0) since there are no legal moves from the 1st rank since a pawn can't be on the first rank. In case we wanted to leave room for handling odd compositions and whatnot, we could always choose to list the "legal" moves if we wanted to. I'd like to do some diagrams to explain better, but I think I need to wait until I've done a little more research. Right now I have some uncertainty in the exact implementation of these ideas and I need to work through them. But what I wanted to get to was a new idea. I'm not sure if it would be faster or slower, but it's interesting. I read it somewhere on the Internet the other day and it seemed interesting. It's the idea that to generate all of your legal pawn moves, since a pawn can only move 1 square ahead (or 2 on its first move) all you'd need to do is take the current pawn bitboard, shift it to the right 8 positions, and you have all the current pawn moves (minus the captures).

Well, I wanted to get to bed by 10 tonight, and it's 9:55, so I'm not going to make it. I want to spend a few minutes on my guitar first, so I best be going.

Rock on!

Ed.

Mono

My powerbook is still running! Nice. I still haven't found the motivation to try to work on my PC again. Maybe this coming weekend. Maybe. It's been a tiring week, and it's only Monday. Today I got home from work and fell asleep. I slept from 5 to 9pm. Pretty pathetic. I got up, ate 2 bagels with cream cheese, played 2 pathetic games of poker, 1 pathetic game of chess, and finally decided to try to work on my mono problem. What is mono? The quick answer is that it's an open source version of the Microsoft .NET platform. Why am I using it?  Because I decided to start my senior project for school using the c# language, and without a working windows machine where I can actually install the .NET framework, I needed an alternative.

The worst part about doing it on the mac is there really isn't a good development environment available for it (c#). Sure, they have processes that you can go through to get X installed on the mac, then install the GTK libraries, etc... but it's a bit of a hassle. I actually started down that path for another reason - I wanted to see if I could get any of the Windows Forms stuff running. I actually was able to, but not as easily as the article I was reading would lead you to believe. But that's another story. I'm easily distracted. Anyway, I've decided to use eclipse as my editor of choice for the moment, with the improve-technologies c# plug-in. Which at least does some syntax highlighting. It's pretty archaic, and sometimes I feel like I'm actually working with a chisel and stone, but it works. It does require some flipping back and forth between eclipse and a console window, because although it will compile your code through the editor I haven't found a way to run it through the editor. I suppose I could set it up as an external tool, but that just seems a little lame. The other annoying thing is that every time you save your code, it recompiles it.

Having said that, I'm getting by. I even made some progress tonight. I am now able to create a bitboard (64-bit unsigned long integer with each bit representing a square on the chessboard which is either occupied by a piece, 1, or not, 0. For example, a bitboard of all white pawns in the starting position would look like this:

00000000
00000000
00000000
00000000
00000000
00000000
11111111
00000000

It's ok, you can say it. Wow! The problem that I was having wasn't in the theoretical implementation though. I've been studying bit boards off and on for over 10 years now, since I've always wanted to write a chess program. So I have a pretty good understanding of what and how to use them. The problem that I was having was that c# (pronounced c-sharp) through mono wasn't letting me perform bitwise operations on my bitboard. Why would I want to perform bitwise operations? In this case I wanted a simple function to print out a bitboard. Just so that I could "see" what it looked like. I wanted to call a function such as "printBitBoard", passing it the bitboard I wanted to print, and it would print me a diagram such as the one I demonstrated above. So I needed to perform bitwise operations to see if a particular bit was on or off (0 or 1).

If you're not familiar with bitwise operations, what I wanted to do was perform a bitwise AND operation. The bitwise AND operation takes the source and does a bit by bit comparison with the destination. So, if I wanted to see if I had a pawn on A2 (the 1 on the very left, 2nd row from the bottom, in the diagram above), the AND would work as follows (I added in spaces for the sake of visualization):

00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 11111111 00000000 (My WhitePawns bitboard)
BITWISE AND
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 10000000 00000000 (Bitmask to see if pawn on A2)
=
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 10000000 00000000 (Result - yes, pawn on A2)

How does it work?
0 AND 0 = 0
0 AND 1 = 0
1 AND 1 = 1

So if I had this instead:

00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 11111111 00000000 (My WhitePawns bitboard)
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000001 00000000 00000000 (Bitmask to see if pawn on H3)
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 (Result - no)

Therefore, the calculation is simple. If result > 0, then the square is occupied. Here is the code for printing a bitboard:

public static void printBitBoard(string s, ulong bb) {
Console.Write("----------------------------\n");
Console.Write(s + "\n");
Console.Write("----------------------------\n");

for (int r=0; r<8; r++) {
for (int f=0; f<8; f++) {
ulong bitMask = 1;

if ((bb & (bitMask << (r*8+f))) > 0) {
Console.Write("1");
} else {
Console.Write("0");
}
}

Console.Write("\n");
}
}

This is the cool part: if ((bb & (bitMask << (r*8+f))) > 0)

bb is the bitboard
bitMask is our bitmask set to 1... 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000001
The << is the shift operator, so we take our bitmask and based upon the square we're checking (1-64), we shift it to the appropriate position in the mask. Since c# is 0 based, we're actually checking 0-63. So the first time through, with r=0 and f=0, the bitmask will be 1 as shown above. The next time through, r=0 and f=1, so we will shift the bit over 1 position and get the following: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000010

and so on...

If you wanted to see all pawns, the cool thing is that you wouldn't need to create another bitboard, you'd simply have to OR the WhitePawns and BlackPawns together. A Bitwise or works as follows:

0 OR 0 = 0
1 OR 0 = 1
1 OR 1 = 1

So we have:

00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 11111111 00000000 (My WhitePawns bitboard)
BITWISE OR
00000000 11111111 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 (My BlackPawns bitboard)
=
00000000 11111111 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 11111111 00000000 (Result - all pawns)

And with that, I think I'm going to call it a night! Hopefully I can fall asleep - luckily that's not usually a problem.

Ed.

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Ohhhhh, we're half way there!

My powerbook is usable again! I should know within the next day or two if the replacement hard drive keeps running, but so far so good. Right now I'm typing from it... well, I plugged in an external keyboard, mouse, and my 21" monitor because I miss my desktop, but it's working. The hard drive is a little louder than my previous one... but I'm not complaining. For $20, at least I'm running again. That's not counting the cost of the new tools I bought.

Now we'll have to see if I have enough energy left this weekend to attempt working some more on the desktop. I'm not sure if there is much I'll be able to do, because I am pretty confident that it's going to need a new power supply... or worse!

Enjoy your Saturday!

Ed.

Friday, February 03, 2006

My kingdom for a screwdriver

Yes, I finally found the documentation I needed for my powerbook! The good news is, I've almost got it. The bad news, I need a T8 screwdriver... the smallest I have is a T10. It just doesn't quite work. I guess I'll be buying a new screwdriver tomorrow.

As for the PC, no news. I have a feeling it may stay dead for a while. We'll see.

Ed.

The Crash

What can I tell you, having my 2 computers dead at the same time is killing me! You can't believe what I've been relegated to. So I went to Walmart tonight to pick up a new Hard Drive for my desktop. I just finished putting it in, and it really got me thinking... I think I need a new power supply! And not just any power supply, my PC is a small form factor... not a standard sized power supply.

I've also been working on replacing the hard drive in my powerbook. Unfortunately, all the research I've done - different models with screws in different places. I can't get the thing apart!

I'm starting to get upset... and that's a bad thing.

I hope everyone else is having a good night!

Ed.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

I just don't belong

That was strange. I blinked, and the day is gone. What happened? Sleep, work, sleep, work, dentist, food, sleep, school, chess, blog, sleep. Confused? Me too! Welcome to my life.

I did submit my Statement of Purpose tonight to my instructor for my Senior Project. The decision: Chess Engine. After all these years, I guess I finally have to create it! I'm sure it'll be a blast to work on, so I'm pretty excited about that.

I'm still playing good chess, so that's good too. Another win tonight, though I won't go into the details. I'm hoping to continue playing daily through the month, getting ready to play in Sturbridge in early March. The Eastern Class Championships from March 3-5 to be exact. Then April 12-16 is the Foxwoods Open, and I'm definitely planning to play in that as well. My exact schedule I haven't decided yet. I may go down early, try to play a few days of poker, then play in the chess tournament, or I may decide to play an accelerated schedule for the chess tournament and use the first day or two to play poker. We'll see. After that no fixed plans until July/August, but you never know.

It's funny, but after being a "B" player for so many years I really don't feel like I'm any different. I feel like I'm a bit of an imposter, playing in the "A" section now.

What else can I say? Sleep well, and don't let the "Bend" bugs bite!

Ed.

Groundhog Day

For those of you not keeping up, we've got six more weeks of winter! That's right, the great Punxsutawney Phil has once again seen his shadow.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

My so called life

A few weeks ago the hard drive on my laptop (Apple Powerbook) started to die. Not your normal, everyday hard drive crash where you lose everything, but a slow painful one. I took that opportunity to back everything up off of it to my desktop computer. To this day my laptop is still alive and kicking, though for every 1 minute of productive use I have to sit through another minute or five of listening to my hard drive thrash away. I did get a replacement hard drive for it from Dave for 20 bucks, it's not new but neither is my laptop... I just need it to last a little longer. But rather than spend the time to put in the replacement hard drive, I decided to take some time this weekend to reformat and re-install OSX on the laptop to see if maybe, just maybe, it wasn't the hard drive. It actually went very well, and worked all that night. But I soon found that it wasn't to be. It's back to being virtually unusable because of the constant long delays between doing anything. So, hopefully a project for this coming weekend.

I got home from work today and turned on my desktop computer. As it was booting up I decided to go use the bathroom. While I was in there I could swear that I was hearing my computer constantly reboot. That power on self test has a distinct sound to it. So I shut everything down, blew the dust out of it (why not), and turned it back on. My hard drive was making a clanking sound and it wouldn't even get to the POST. Dead. Gone. Bye bye.

Suck.

My how far I've fallen.

We won't talk about my years worth of data, music I've purchased off of iTunes, etc... Cause of course a computer professional such as myself would have made backups of all that stuff! Professional indeed.

Suck.

The good news is, I played a game of chess tonight. It was against an opponent who, on the icc, was a little bit weaker than me but it should have been a good game. I'm guessing he was stoned. Below is the next to last move. I'm playing black and it's black to move. What did I play? (hint: Black to play, mate in 1).



*** SPOILER WARNING ***

The actual game went as follows (the last move is the answer to the puzzle above):

1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nf3 g6 4. d4 cxd4 5. Nxd4 Bg7 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Bc4 O-O8. Nxc6 dxc6 9. O-O Qc7 10. Qe2 Ng4 11. Bd2 Qxh2# {White checkmated} 0-1

Until next time, Ed.