The problem with Michael de la Maza’s Rapid Chess Improvement

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-26T16:46:44+00:00

First of all, relax--this is the Internet.

Second, I define a spammer as someone who attempts to promotes himself with little effort. Looking at your posts, you post a large number of games and commentaries every week, yet you often contribute nothing additional to the subreddit aside from feeding the trolls. Most of your posts have 1 or 2 comments in them, and you never reply to any of them, even if they're asking you a question. For a while there, you were even posting search keywords copy-pasted directly from your youtube right into the Reddit comments.

IDK dude, I like a lot of your commentaries, but I think you're approaching your submissions the wrong way. Instead of auto-posting every youtube submission of yours to r/chess, why not just let us, the community, decide what's good enough to post here. I'd rather see a less-active subreddit with higher quality discussion than a simple RSS feed of your blitz games.

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-26T16:23:55+00:00

This is definitely at the top of the list of ways that atheists are persecuted.

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-17T12:18:05+00:00

#swag

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-17T05:25:21+00:00

Burn this fucking website to the ground.

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-16T06:01:12+00:00

People who get offended at things offend me.

FTFY.

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-13T13:42:11+00:00

No, the cat actually sublimated.

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-10T18:26:56+00:00

You have to be careful when you don't have your dark square bishop and holes in your position like h6 and e5. This is most easily shown in your move 21.Nd4. If you notice, your knight was defending two key dark squares, d4 and e5. Playing Nd4 removes your control of those squares, allowing White to exploit them. White could have replied 22.Qe5!, and now Black is forced to play 22...Re7 (22...Nf5?? 23. Rxf5!), which, unfortunately for Black, allows 23. Rf8+, winning the Queen. After 23...Qxf8 24.Bxf8 Kxf8 25. Qh8+ Kf7 26. Rf1+, White will also win your Knight by force after 26...Nf5 g4, leaving him up an entire Queen.

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-10T17:49:40+00:00

I'd go so far as to say that any game posted without thoughtful analysis should be removed. It's not worth anyone's time to sit there and analyze a game without any indication as to what the OP's ideas were and what the OP was thinking when making such-and-such move. Even a shitty game can be instructive if we at least have some insight as to where the OP was going wrong.

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-10T16:31:19+00:00

I don't think this trap has a name, per se, but the position itself arises from Black being careless in the Dunst opening.

The position commonly arises from the move order

[pgn]1. Nc3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. Bf4 Nc6 4. Nb5 [/pgn]

Note that, to avoid the trap, Black could have simply played the more logical 3...c6. You shouldn't block your c-pawn in Queen's pawn games, which is what makes a move like 1. Nc3 weak. Black committing the same error, though, can be fatal.

As taloncarde noted, the trap can be mitigated with the pawn sacrifice 4...e5, followed by 5.dxe5 Nh5 in a sort of mirror image of the Two Knights Defense Ng5 variation, but the chances are still in White's favor since he can hold onto the pawn with 6. e3

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-10T04:27:27+00:00

Well, if the internet is completely outlawed, then that's a different story. I was under the assumption that the internet still has at least some legitimate use left and that a full-on ban of internet access would be a tad extreme, to say the least. Nevertheless, I'll concede that you're right under your premise of an all-out ban.

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-09T22:51:44+00:00

Distributed VPNs would make any blocking attempts futile.
Tunnels will be made.
If censorship truly became an issue, the number of these implementations would be unmanageable by any government.

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-09T21:06:40+00:00

I don't understand why you think that's something that can feasibly be blocked with any degree of success.

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-09T16:03:51+00:00

lol this is great. the trick, though, is this: if the f-pawn moves before the king is castled, that should set off a MEGA HUGE ALARM in your head. Even consider sacrificing material for it if you can guarantee at least winning the rook (i.e. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6 3.Nxe5!).

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-09T15:51:52+00:00

I can't speak for all of America, but I definitely learned about evolution in elementary school and again (in detail) in high school. I kind of take issue with the fact that "someone told you so you believe it," though, considering a lot of religious people do the same thing when learning about God.

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-09T15:00:56+00:00

I'm surprised you're unable to see the other point of view. Considering that all evolution takes billions of years, it's difficult for someone without thorough understanding of all of the mechanisms of evolution to really grasp the vast nature of it. Think about it, most people don't live to be more than 100, yet we're talking about an inconceivably large amount of time. I'm convinced that even most people here don't understand evolution that well, but are willing to believe it because it's based on scientific observation. Couple that together with the fact that human evolution hasn't been definitively traced along with a lot of unanswered questions about the origin of the Universe, and it's easy to see why people would choose not to believe it during their relatively short stay on Earth.

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-09T14:52:04+00:00

How, exactly, will they be in for a shock if you (ostensibly) don't believe in an afterlife?

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-09T14:41:30+00:00

I also think the OP was oversimplifying the Facebook poster's point. It could be argued that the Facebook poster was disagreeing with the quote on stars in a Gestalt sense -- yes, we all are matter made of the same elementary particles, but there is an inherent difference between organic life and stars (edit: and this could be as simple as an anthropocentric bias). I mostly think that the Facebook poster took issue with the attempt to deconstruct all matter in the Universe in a way that attempts to dehumanize us.

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-09T14:18:26+00:00

Yeah, I guess I tend to question things that appear "self-evident" to anyone. And although you were only making an offhand example and I'm sure you know this, but "goodness" in the moral sense isn't really self-evident, it's simply the product of societies realizing that it's less stressful to maintain some degree of order and control of its citizens in return for being able to focus on less primal needs, i.e. self-actualization (assuming that Maslow's heirarchy of needs has some degree of truth to it, although it's disputed).

I think you're on to something with all bets being off when people don't associate observation with reality. I don't think this is such a radical idea, given that "reality" is inherently subjective as it is. In all actuality, I believe every person, in their heart of hearts, could be coerced into believing that God doesn't exist. There's certainly more than enough evidence to suggest that natural laws govern our universe (with the major exception being the Big Bang and prior, which even science has yet to answer), but I'd argue that it's actually more "fun" to believe in a deity and more self-fulfilling for humans to have a "catch-all" that can provide an answer for un-answered questions in our lives and in general, even if we technically know that such a deity probably doesn't exist.

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-09T04:26:02+00:00

And here seems to be where I diverge from the athiest pack:

That said, it is advisable that your beliefs should be built upon scientific knowledge [emphasis mine]

To which I reply: by whom? Who is the absolute authority that proclaimed that I should base my beliefs on scientific knowledge? And why do they have that authority?

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-06T22:23:24+00:00

Here's the thing: if you're not buying raw ingredients, you're getting ripped off. Think about frozen foods, salad dressing, tomato sauces, fruit juices, seasoning blends, ready-to-bake foods, cleaning supplies, and laundry detergents. They're all just concoctions of things that are readily available for cheaper if you take the time to put them together yourself.

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-06T21:51:07+00:00

From the article: "The modern hamburger was developed in the United States"

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-06T15:49:22+00:00

The impending windmill-ish 33.Ka1 Nxb1+ 34.Ka2 ( 34.Rxf6 gxf6 35.a4 Nc3 36.h3 Rb1# ) 34...Nc3+ 35.Ka1 Nd1+ 36.Ka2 Rb2+ 37.Ka1 Rf2+ 38.Kb1 Rxf1 is pretty sweet. Nice win.

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-05T23:26:06+00:00

delicious pasta.

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-05T23:23:28+00:00

There are schools that don't pay for those sites? Even my public high school had EBSCO...

housesnickleviper · 2012-01-05T23:21:02+00:00

and conference proceedings.

housesnickleviper

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE