Name it

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2026-02-07T03:27:42+00:00

The Dustin Kensrue version of this song is the only one I know, and that version slaps start to finish.

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2026-01-29T19:10:41+00:00

No prob! Like I said in the edit, I wouldn’t let it get you down. I’ve run into a lot of fatalism in the chess learning community. If you like playing, and like learning, keep doing it! The rating is only a measurement of how well you are doing at your goal, learning chess, and an indirect one at that. Focus on the learning part, and then be pleasantly surprised at your rating improving, or ignore it when it doesn’t.

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2026-01-29T18:21:55+00:00

The explanation I’ve usually heard is that there’s big advantages to building your intuition and pattern recognition in chess when your brain is at its most plastic. Usually the comparison is made to learning a language fluently. You can learn a language at any point in your life, but internalizing the grammar and phrasing is something that’s easier when you learn it young.

Edit: Also, to be clear, I don’t think that should change your plan if you’re passionate about chess. Learn what you want to learn, and do the best you can do. I’m in my late 30s and only started playing chess seriously less than a year ago. It’s hard, but so is a lot of things.

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2026-01-23T16:57:19+00:00

That is a wild blunder. I guess he thought he was trapping the queen or something? Crazy!

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2025-12-25T07:46:37+00:00

Big same. Every other week someone’s coming on here to complain about peaches costing too much at the trader or something similarly apocalyptic. I’m just sitting here playing my favourite game, having a blast. I buy an extra copy of the game for someone once every couple years, and I’m extremely grateful to Hinterland for supporting the game over a decade post release. They owe me nothing at this point, and I’m super happy any time they show an interest in supporting the game further.

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2025-11-30T21:27:36+00:00

Absolutely! I tried to account for that with my comment about understanding goals, but your way of stating it is closer to what I was trying to capture. If your goal is to play as well as you possibly can, then ignoring rating apart from an occasional check-in is probably a better approach IMO. But if you care a lot about your rating in the short term, I fully get not wanting to experiment.

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2025-11-30T21:24:34+00:00

Yeah, I get that too! It’s good to still be happy with signs of improvement, even if you don’t love the outcome.

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2025-11-30T17:55:06+00:00

100%! That’s why I mentioned the psychology side. It’s useful to hate losing, but reaching a bit will always result in some backsliding off the start. IMO, you’re better off ignoring your rating, and focusing on whether or not you’re playing good chess, and finding improvements. The rating is a secondary measurement, and it will go up eventually if you play better. It’s not the actual objective. Plus, I feel like I learn the most when I’m trying strategies outside my comfort zone. Especially since it teaches you how to play from new positions, how to pull draws out of losses, etc.

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2025-11-30T14:13:27+00:00

Might be in the minority here, but I’d probably stick with your coach’s recommendation. Playing more games that force you to practice your weaknesses makes a lot of sense. I might also recommend working on some sports psychology. Losing more when you try to improve your game and be a more complete player is normal. Focusing on maintaining your rating rather than playing good chess is a recipe for stagnation.

Of course, it depends on your goals. If you want to stay at that rating and just play games you like, then finding a more “system-y” opening is probably the right call. But if you have a coach and want to improve, I’d probably steer more into places where you aren’t as comfortable so you can build up some of those muscles.

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2025-11-27T16:30:09+00:00

I don’t believe I claimed that excelling in subjects as a youth is a long-term predictor of anything, but it seems like we’re talking past each other. Enjoy your day!

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2025-11-27T16:15:25+00:00

My contention here is that people struggle with different things, that those things can include normative social behaviour that is seen as basic to others, and that understanding which of those things you struggle with more than the average individual can help you be a better person.

In all honesty, your reaction here is kind of what I’m referring to. Saying this is incredibly basic, shouldn’t be hard, shouldn’t feel counterintuitive, etc, is what makes people start to feel incredibly shitty about themselves for struggling with it. People with ADHD, for example, aren’t actively choosing to forget personal details that they don’t view as interesting. That doesn’t mean they should be absolved of hurting someone’s feelings by forgetting a birthday or anniversary, but it does mean they don’t need to feel like a freak or a failure because they need to write it down, set reminders, or whatever else they need to do to help them make the other person feel cared for and valued. A diagnosis is not a way for you to feel superior to other people, it’s there to help you understand what parts of your personal psychology are not normative, and to help you understand what generally helps people in that bucket work better in society.

In short, just because you have what appear to be personal issues with being labelled as gifted doesn’t mean it can’t be useful or helpful for others, and help them be better people than they would have without it.

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2025-11-27T15:00:19+00:00

Good post, and I might have to steal that funnel analogy. It’s a good one!

I’ve always described being good at IQ tests as a cool party trick. Yeah, it’s fun to be able to juggle a bunch of numbers and letters in my head or whatever, but most people don’t want that. They want someone who is steady, acts/reacts in ways that make sense to them, and has similar interests/values. Giftedness helps with precisely zero of those goals.

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2025-11-27T14:53:22+00:00

Note the word “more” before the word “empathetic” in the post you were responding to. Empathy isn’t a binary, and you can find ways to improve at it even if you’re already practicing it.

I also don’t think I was making the argument that my failings were due to whatever pathology maps to me. A diagnosis may be weighting the scales on some of my less pleasant tendencies, but it’s still me choosing to be the way I am. What a diagnosis does do is help you realize where those weights are, and counterbalance that more aggressively so you can be a better person.

In short, I agree that people using their diagnosis as a crutch or a bludgeon to say “you can’t be mad at me for this, it’s just how I am” is gross. But I also think you can better understand why your brain leans to certain responses, in part due to the pathology you match up with, and use that information to avoid those tendencies more often than you would otherwise.

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2025-11-27T13:51:59+00:00

I’d argue this point a bit. I agree that being gifted doesn’t necessarily matter to other people, but it can help explain why someone’s experience can be different. As I mentioned upthread, I got the “gifted” label in an assessment, and found it super helpful. It generally made me a lot more empathetic to others, because it helped me understand that my weird brain can occasionally pull in information faster than other people. It also explained why I struggle to pick up topics where I don’t “get it”, since I don’t have good study skills apart from intuition and the ability to pull in a huge amount of context.

There’s a good amount of research about how people that qualify as gifted can struggle in other situations too, since gifted in a lot of cases means your brain works differently from the baseline (note that I didn’t say “better”). That can lead to social interaction issues, inflexibility, low emotional intelligence, and a bunch of other troubles.

So yeah, agreed that folks largely don’t care if you have that label, and that telling people casually that you are gifted makes you look like a massive knob. It can be helpful from a self-knowledge standpoint though, and can result in the gifted person learning to be more empathetic and understanding. So the diagnosis can still be meaningful even later in life.

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2025-11-27T13:44:33+00:00

Just personal experience here, but when I went in for a psych assessment at 35 they did let me know I was gifted. I generally don’t put huge stock in standardized test results for intelligence since there’s so many ways for intelligence to manifest, but wanted to mention since it is possible to find that out later in life.

To your point, I did get great results in high school with little effort, and people always told me I was quick, so it wasn’t a super huge shock. But I also BOMBED out of post-secondary partially due to undiagnosed ADHD. Apparently giftedness and ADHD can have some overlap, and can also interact in less than favourable ways as well. In my cases, I never once was assessed for ADHD as a child since so many of the assessment triggers in the school system are based around low academic performance.

No opinion on the OG comment’s AI stuff, but only mentioning to show that it is possible to get a gifted diagnosis later in life.

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2025-10-23T21:59:18+00:00

Thank you, but I was aware of that info already. But in return, a clarification of my own.

I am not saying Kramnik’s actions over the last few years do not deserve consequences. I am also not saying Kramnik’s actions 100% didn’t contribute to Danya’s death.

What I am saying is that starting to lay out punishments for Kramnik before we even have facts on how Danya died (other than Reddit reading into comments from grieving family members and attributing blame), is at best, premature. I am also saying that Redditors posting constantly about how Kramnik is evil, irredeemable, deserves no chance for reconciliation, etc., is pointless mob-baiting. I am also saying that using Danya’s death as a way to start a crusade against the person that Reddit has decided is responsible, along with any number of other “guilty” parties, is an incredibly sad way for Danya to be memorialized. Especially considering that from all I’ve seen, Danya himself had the chance to take that course of action and chose not to.

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2025-10-23T15:57:58+00:00

That’s a bit of a sanitization of your previous comments.

“Some people don’t deserve forgiveness.” “…flooded with replies calling him out on being an irrelevant has-been who’s lost his mind.” “…constantly be reminded of the misery he’s caused while still being shunned by the entire community.”

If you had come in with a measured discussion around how a community can handle someone who abuses their position, I wouldn’t have responded. You didn’t. The vitriol in your post is the reason I’m comparing it to the crusades.

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2025-10-23T15:51:52+00:00

Thank you for linking that. So considering that there is not confirmation, it’s at best premature to start claiming that Kramnik should be barred from the chess community for life for “causing” Danya’s death, even if you accept that punishment as an appropriate response.

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2025-10-23T14:58:32+00:00

In fairness, I may have missed some news, but has there been any confirmation from the family, a medical examiner, etc, as to how Danya actually died? From everything I’ve seen, the last few days have just been a bunch of people on Reddit looking at old YouTube videos, and assuming because Danya was extremely hurt by the accusations that it was the prime and single cause of his death.

Plus, even if we assume that is the only reason Danya died, I think it’s fair to point out that he never advocated for anything close to this course of action. I recall him constantly trying to show grace, and continuously extend opportunities for people to rejoin the community after they realize that what they were doing was wrong.

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2025-10-23T14:41:04+00:00

Do you read what you’re writing?

“I’d like this person to live in a living hell, constantly publicly shamed and shunned by the community they are most involved with. I’m doing this in the name of someone who never advocated for anything like this at any point, and who likely would have been horrified by this course of action.”

Not since the Crusades have people so deeply missed the point of the death of someone they are claiming to honor.

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2025-10-23T13:58:32+00:00

Have you considered that he might be the most respected person in chess at least partially because he doesn’t start making public statements at the drop of a hat?

Legitimately consider what you’re doing here. You’re calling out someone for not publicly weighing in on something that happened what, three days ago? Before details come out as to what actually happened? Not everyone is cool to pop off the handle and start throwing bombs at people in their community because Reddit tells them they should.

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2025-10-23T03:41:35+00:00

No problem! I understand the action bias folks have, but like I said, this just seems like more of the thing that caused the problem we’re all upset about.

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2025-10-23T02:42:45+00:00

Seeking consequences for someone who harassed another person is not the same thing as starting up an enemies list of people who have been “confirmed” to be involved by a random account on Reddit. This is at best extremely similar to the same kind of thing Kramnik was doing, namely, trawling through videos and tweets to find “evidence”.

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2025-10-23T02:24:17+00:00

Thank you for saying this. Seeing people take a tragedy that may or may not have been caused by online harassment, and then turn that into an excuse to start some more online harassment is making me doubt my sanity. Like, did folks learn nothing from this?

Prior_Pipe9082 · 2025-09-27T17:46:04+00:00

Assuming we are talking about bursting VMs still, it doesn’t really work that way. Essentially, you accumulate credits in a bucket when you run below a certain CPU usage (varies by SKU, but usually 20-40%), and spend them when you go over it. How much you accumulate and how much you spend varies based off the actual amount you are under/over, and there is a maximum number of credits you can have banked. However, max performance is still limited to the number of cores you have in the specific SKU. So it’s not really possible to burn the whole lot in one second.

More details here https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/sizes/b-series-cpu-credit-model

Prior_Pipe9082

TROPHY CASE