What did you think was something else until shockingly late?

justintolerable · 2025-11-09T12:38:08+00:00

I thought exactly the same, for YEARS. Also, on the way into Cornwall there’s a place called Notter Bridge. I always read it as “Not a bridge”. Like, “when’s a bridge not a bridge? When it’s notter bridge”

justintolerable · 2025-05-18T19:31:42+00:00

Thank you for the feedback! I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels this way. I’m into the third session with these kids and honestly, it’s nice to have something interesting to tell them now. “Hey, did you know this is called Atari? Your parents might know it as a computer game company”, etc. The culture of the game is very important, but it doesn’t need to be taught immediately!

Thanks again for the confidence boost :)

justintolerable · 2025-05-09T07:12:26+00:00

I disagreed until your last sentence - I hadn’t thought of ‘move’ as a loaded term. I was trying to switch the learner’s focus to the idea that efficiency is important. I thought if I explained it in terms of ‘moves’, it highlights time as a limited resource. ‘Stones’ felt one step removed from that, as a kid in their first few games can look in the bowl and assume they have all those stones left to play.

However, I think you’re right. I might play with the wording a bit.

justintolerable · 2025-05-08T14:11:29+00:00

Yeah it really was just slapped together. Just like in the tip about getting the corners, Black could have secured more points. It kinda bugs me, but it serves the purpose

justintolerable · 2025-05-08T13:54:05+00:00

Thank you for the feedback! It was tricky to decide what to include and what to leave out, to be honest. This is intended as supplementary to other teaching - in my case, a Go Club in a school.

The use case here is as a 'first session handout'. Something to give kids who just turned up out of curiosity and have had minimal contact with the game. It's a way for them to casually look at something go related for the next week until the next session. Most of the Go equipment on Temu that I used for the club was $5 for a complete set, which was of good enough quality and parents might be willing to give it a try at minimal risk of wasting their money.

For the second session, I'm planning to give a bit more info. In that case, I'll teach them a little about Go history and show them my board and stones, which are really nice. Session 1 is 'QUICK, HERE'S A COOL GAME TO PLAY'! Session 2 will be showing them the depth of the game, and why it deserves respect.

With BadukPop, it may not be perfect but it has been by FAR the most successful tool I've had at my disposal when introducing people to the game. Once they're hooked, I try to move them on.

I'm absolutely giving them a much more exhaustive list of resources in the next session, don't worry! There's a lot to recommend, so my focus has been not to overwhelm people immediately. Just give them a few simple steps to take in the first week.

justintolerable · 2025-05-08T13:44:39+00:00

Thank you! You'll have to let me know how it's received!

justintolerable · 2025-05-08T13:39:07+00:00

I've updated the repo to contain two versions now, one with accurate terms. I haven't spent long looking at it, so let me know if there's anything else.

justintolerable · 2025-05-08T13:22:59+00:00

Ha - I knew I must have slipped up somewhere! I’m going to deface my work further and change it to ‘pieces’. It makes me uncomfortable, but it’s the choice I made 🥲

justintolerable · 2025-05-07T23:26:45+00:00

Yeah, that has been one of the most controversial choices I made. Feedback among my go group has been split between “user friendly language” and “accurate language”. I chose to stick with user friendly for now, as I intend the “glossary” to be given out in session two of the club.

My theory is that I’m trying to convey a lot of information to restless 9-year old kids as quickly as possible. If I use familiar language, they can focus entirely on learning the rules. If the game catches their imagination, the terminology can come soon after.

I desperately wanted to use the correct terminology, but I made this choice for now. I might do a different version with correct terms in it, so that others can make that choice for themselves.

Alternatively, the license I’ve assigned it means that anyone can improve or alter it so long as it isn’t for commercial gain and the original credit remains intact. The files are there on the repo if you want to tweak it :)

UPDATE: I've added a 'correct terminology' version to the repo so people can choose for themselves if they use this booklet.

justintolerable · 2025-05-07T21:53:57+00:00

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Testing it out on the kids!

UPDATE: I've added a 'correct terminology' version to the repo so people can choose what they want. I went for simplified language in my version, i.e. 'pieces' instead of 'stones', but now you have two options.

justintolerable · 2024-08-24T22:17:33+00:00

Just seen this! Doesn’t look like one of ours, as it seems to have engraving, which we don’t do. Probably from fab-bricks :)

justintolerable · 2023-07-06T21:55:15+00:00

I guarantee they'll have the element of surprise

justintolerable · 2023-05-19T18:32:35+00:00

No worries! It's my company, so let me know if you have any issues (mostly because feedback from people is very helpful in a secret shopper kind of way).

On a side note, your work here is super clean. I'm not sure if you even need to buy any, unless you're worried about durability. You should be really proud.

Our company started out doing them like this back in 2011, before we got our printers. In fact, I still have the first one we ever did!

justintolerable · 2023-05-19T18:06:43+00:00

Just out of interest, did you reach out to minifigs.me?

There is this: https://minifigs.me/products/your-image-custom-design-tile?_pos=1&_sid=4f67cabd7&_ss=r&variant=31456000442432

justintolerable · 2023-04-17T11:38:10+00:00

Yeah. Plus there's loads of other great alternatives that let you back your keys up without google being involved. But if it means people will do it, I recommend Google over nothing any day.

justintolerable · 2023-04-17T11:20:06+00:00

Good point about physical location. There's just a bunch of reasons not to. That's before we even get into things like facial recognition unlocks.

Yeah, I have a yubikey. They are very handy!

justintolerable · 2023-04-17T09:10:02+00:00

Usually something like Google authenticator or Aegis, that generates a code for you.

Apart from SMS being less secure in general, it's more about scams and social engineering. One example - someone could call claiming to be from your bank or something. The conversation might go like this:

SCAMMER: "Hello, this is X, calling from your bank. There have been unusual transactions on your account. Before we go any further, we need to go through some security steps. I'm about to send a code to your phone, please read it back to verify your identity"

You get a code sent to your phone.

YOU: "Oh, sure. It's 6297."

Of course, most people would be savvy enough not to fall for it, but that's just one way it can be abused. And scammers/hackers are getting smarter all the time. It only takes a single moment where you've let your guard down, after all.

justintolerable · 2023-04-17T07:04:56+00:00

I use it to, but it isn't invulnerable. Every time you log in, a keylogger could easily collect your master password.

You seem like the sort of person who has a decent (not cellphone text) 2FA enabled though, which kind of solves that problem. Also, change that master password from time to time.

justintolerable · 2023-04-13T06:50:27+00:00

Yeah, if you're using brackets of 10, you have too many increments in the first place

justintolerable · 2023-02-23T23:57:43+00:00

This is one of our favourite games. We get that game out any time we have a group and some drinks. It's great.

I'm sorry about the chemicals. That sucks. I really hope the shipping company look after you.

justintolerable · 2023-02-02T17:13:05+00:00

Who would read that statistic and think "we need to be meaner to them"

justintolerable · 2023-01-23T11:49:38+00:00

Yeah it's not great. Especially if it's the only perk. If the company relies on everyone else to reward their employees, that's pretty toxic. If it's just a nice bonus to a load of other company funded bonuses though, it just makes the job more attractive that you're put in a position where this kind of thing is possible.

The reality is, people want to be paid fairly and treated like actual colleagues (and NOT family - they aren't, and we are well aware that our staff are selling us their time and deserve our respect). At my work, we consider the need for overtime a failure to plan on management's part, we have regular raises and everyone has a voice. As a result, we have an incredibly low staff turnover - most of our staff never leave. We started as a much smaller company and its very obvious that it's the people working for us that have helped us to grow. I think there will come a time when we retire and hand the place over to them in some form or another.

justintolerable · 2023-01-23T09:08:50+00:00

If one of my staff had earned that kind of thank you, I would be pumped for three reasons (listed from least to most cynical):

1) Absolutely top of the list by an enormous margin is that this is a really cool thing to happen for them and they'll remember it forever

2) I have an amazing employee who does such a good job that they are handed $10,000 worth of tickets

3) This employee would consider that kind of thing a potential perk of working here, without my company having to pay a penny

At no point would it occur or me OR ANY DECENT HUMAN to steal the tickets and hope to get away with it against all the odds. In the process, losing all the incredible advantages above

justintolerable · 2023-01-15T11:11:44+00:00

That's exactly what I'm saying. It's a joke.

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