2009-07-10

Chinese weiqi cartoon

A new Chinese cartoon about weiqi might give some hope for old Hikaru No Go fans.

I have not seen the cartoon so I have no idea what it is about, but it really looks like there is a lot of weiqi involved. I will ask Girlwing later what it is about.

2009-07-08

Riots in Xinjiang, China

These days there have been some media coverage about the riots in Xinjiang, China. What strikes me is how biased the news is based on who is telling them. So far the most neutral source I found is wikipedia.org. That site is probably closest to the truth, but you should never trust anything you read. So if you are interested you can read about the Ürümqi riots there.

For reference you can read some here in Swedish:
http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/kravaller-i-kinesiska-xinjiang-1.905589
http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/hankinesiska-motdemonstrationer-mots-med-targas-1.906625
http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/nya-kravaller-i-vastra-kina-1.907036
http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/soldater-strommar-in-i-urumqi-1.907126
http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/kinesisk-polis-forsoker-stoppa-nya-oroligheter-i-urumqi-1.907175

http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/stor-oro-bland-uigurer-i-sverige-1.906102
http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/terroriststamplade-organisationer-beskylls-for-upplopp-1.907259
http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/kina-expert-socialt-missnoje-bakom-valdet-1.906834
http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/konfrontationen-parallell-till-konflikten-itibet-1.906387


It looks like the same no matter what Swedish news paper you read. Probably because no reporter is on the remote location anyway and all information they get is from TT and for some reason this information can be trusted so no one is checking anything before printing the news.

Do you know of any truly neutral news source out there?

It is really a joke if one has to trust a wiki to get "reliable" information about current happenings.

2009-07-03

Joseki Every Double Digit Kyu Should Know

As a beginner of weiqi (go) there is always this problem in how to play in the opening. The primary suggestion is to start playing in the corners and then move out along the sides and save the center for last.

But how should you play in the corners? First you can place one stone on or close to the 4-4 point and wait for the opponent to approach it. And then what? I would tell you to experiment and learn from your mistakes. Others say that you should learn Joseki. We are both right!

On Sensei's Library there is now a page about Joseki Every Double Digit Kyu Should Know. With "Double Digit Kyu (DDK)" they mean beginner players with a rank from 10 kyu to 30 kyu. A player that just learned the rules is said to have the rank of 30 kyu. I am at the moment a player of the strength 4 kyu (Singe Digit Kyu) so I don't really qualify, but I have always been ignoring to learn joseki so there is even something for me there to learn.

But remember... you don't get strong just because you know some (or a lot) of joseki by heart. You get strong when you understand the moves behind the joseki and understand how to choose the best joseki for the current board position.

So don't memorize... Study!

2009-07-02

Mozilla Firefox 3.5 Released

Finally we have a new version 3.5 of the Mozilla Firefox web browser. As usual there are several new and improved features. The most talked about is the new "private browsing" porn mode. Other nice features are improvements to tabs, speed and the awesome "awesome bar".

There were three days ago that this Mozilla Firefox 3.5 arrived and the Mozilla Foundation have this cool live download statistics. As of this writing there are almost nine millions downloads. Quite impressive! :)

If you are new to Mozilla Firefox you can start with some nice Tips & Tricks. After that you should really take a look at all the nice
add-ons that exist for Firefox.

The first add-ons that I added was:
Have fun with your safe and fast Firefox web browser!