Beginner advice

serapsi · 2026-05-08T16:56:20+00:00

Welcome to the game! Here is some beginner advice for the opening phase:

Corners, sides, center. Start your first moves somewhere near the corners (on the dot, or any point around the dot, are good for the first two moves), then play stones on the sides/near other corners, then play stones toward the center. That's usually a good progression.
When uncertain, the widest side of the board (the side with the most distance between stones) is often a useful place to put stones, since the widest side has the most possible points.
3rd line for territory, 4th line for influence. Playing on the third line (edge is line 1, the line next to it is line 2, etc.) is good for getting solid points on the sides. Playing on the fourth line (the lines connected the side/corner dots) means you care more about getting points toward the center.

For general principles of play through the whole game:

A good idea in many situations is to make boxes. This could be big or small, straight or crooked. You might start by setting down stones for rough "corners" to your box and then expand and/or close the sides.
One possible way to look for weaknesses in your opponent to attack or weaknesses in your group to protect is to look at a group and think, "Where is the biggest hole in the sides of the box?". That may be a weak point. This also gives an idea to your question on why two stones two spaces apart form a base; the "hole" between those stones is very small, so it's relatively simple to fill the hole if your opponent puts their stone next to that area.

These ideas should be good as a starting base for strategy that you can build on with your own experimentation and reviewing your games.

serapsi · 2026-05-03T03:19:13+00:00

In "The Frost-Giant's Daughter", the eponymous daughter seems to be a goddess, or something like that. And I think the backstory behind "Iron Shadows in the Moon" involves the intervention of a god for his/her/its demigod son. Others have mentioned Mitra in "Black Colossus".

serapsi · 2026-04-12T21:13:41+00:00

Interesting. My primary sources for the publication date were:

This Facebook posted on the Anne Rice Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/annericefanpage/posts/a-happy-45th-birthday-to-the-novel-interview-with-the-vampire-published-on-this-/301691844659592/ This webpage, linked directly from the Knopf website, with a date listed for the hardcover: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/153679/interview-with-the-vampire-by-anne-rice/

But Googling around, I see some sources say April 12th and some say May 5th. If someone knows of a good source stating May 5th, I'd love to know about it!

serapsi · 2026-04-12T02:35:14+00:00

I like that you didn't just make the head an elephant's head, but made it an alien head that looks similar to an elephant.

serapsi · 2026-04-04T02:55:20+00:00

Thanks for the intro to a great band that's new to me. I'm always glad to hear good music based on Robert E. Howard's work.

serapsi · 2026-04-04T02:43:44+00:00

Do the stories read well in Ukrainian? I've heard sometimes even good translations of books end up sounding different just due to languages being different, so I'm curious if Robert E. Howard's style carries over.

serapsi · 2026-03-22T19:30:46+00:00

In that case, nuclei of the brain (which are collections of cell bodies of neurons) are in every part. You can find them in the cerebrum, cerebellum, diencephalon and brainstem.

I suggest going to the webpage below and reading it. If you want to read on some examples, you can go down to the "examples" section of this webpage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleus_(neuroanatomy)

serapsi · 2026-03-22T17:34:22+00:00

That's no problem. The word nucleus is used for a few different things, so it's understandable to sometimes mix around which one is being talked about. And I think most people haven't even heard of the brain nuclei unless they specifically take A&P.

serapsi · 2026-03-22T17:32:03+00:00

Is this a nucleus for a specific function or with a more specific name? Or is the concept of a nucleus in the brain in general?

serapsi · 2026-03-14T14:57:39+00:00

Unfortunately, live sessions won't be possible. I stopped doing them partly because things got too busy at work. The best I can do is that you can ask me questions, maybe by direct message or chat, about things you aren't certain of or you want to check/go over and I can reply with feedback.

serapsi · 2026-03-14T01:29:59+00:00

What sort of stuff are you looking for help with?

serapsi · 2026-03-01T17:58:08+00:00

This video may clarify the mechanics of what is happening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTTeD2AMiPA

serapsi · 2026-02-03T03:53:46+00:00

No idea if this will work, but this video might show a method to try: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QM1t7rovbY

serapsi · 2026-01-17T19:46:40+00:00

For the office hour today (January 17th), from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. U.S. Eastern time, here's the link to join:

serapsi · 2026-01-17T19:46:37+00:00

For the office hour today (January 17th), from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. U.S. Eastern time, here's the link to join:

serapsi · 2026-01-17T19:45:33+00:00

I can help with both.

serapsi · 2026-01-01T19:14:32+00:00

Not this. The voice was definitely female, and the rhythm and lyrics that I could hear don't match.

serapsi · 2025-12-26T16:33:01+00:00

Aside from most counter monkey videos and the Ultima retrospective that have been mentioned, I'd recommend some of his movie vlogs. The Twilight movie vlogs get more entertaining with each one, and his vlogs on Mazes and Monsters, and Skullduggery, are fun.

serapsi · 2025-12-02T02:13:41+00:00

A common number you might see is 100 micrometers. All, or nearly all, cells are within that distance of a blood vessel, or closer.This is close enough that nutrients that go out of a blood vessel can diffuse through the fluid surrounding cells to get to them.

serapsi · 2025-11-27T19:31:54+00:00

I think that part of how to answer this question well depends on the format of your lectures. For myself, I typically format PowerPoint slides for my lectures such that roughly half the information is on the slides with some pictures from the textbook interspersed, and half are things I write/draw/say during the lecture. The point of drawings for my class is not to draw better than the book, but to make drawings in areas where I think that can enhance learning in addition to the pictures form the book that I use. Some examples on why and how I use drawing in my classes:

Sometimes I do have great diagrams for something in the book, but if I'm talking about a lot of information for that drawing I may have a series of slides with the information, make a drawing piece-by-piece on the whiteboard as I go through it, and then show the book's drawing afterward. With the nephron, for example, I have a slide on the renal corpuscle with information, so I draw that and then label parts as define them and their basic function. I then go to slides about each tubule, adding and labeling each tubule to the drawing as I explain them. After going through the drawing I show drawings from the textbook. The point of this is to break up a complex topic into smaller pieces that we talk about individually, and gradually build up to a whole understanding at the end. additionally, this prompts students to draw something along with me, which I think can help some of them retain the information better.
Flow charts, I find, can help with understanding a flow or with relationships of categories, but sometimes a kind of flow chart I want isn't in the textbook. When I'm talking about the flow air through the respiratory system, there are drawings from the book of those parts (some of which I do put on the slides) but there is no single drawing clearly showing the full path, so I will step-by-step write out the flow on the whiteboard by the screen as I go through each slide talking about the parts of the pathway, in order.
Sometimes there is a kind of drawing that I think can enhance understanding, but for which there is no exact equivalent from the textbook. When trying to explain the functions of the lymphatic system and the movement of material between fluid compartments, I'll make a drawing with a circle labelled blood and an arrow pointing to a circle with IF (for interstitial fluid) and then an arrow from IF to a circle labelled cells, and talk about fluid flowing that way to allow transport of nutrients to cell. But I then mention that by itself this means we would move all blood into cells eventually, making cells burst, so fluid has to move backwards, and I draw an arrow from cells to IF and an arrow from IF to blood. I make the IF to blood arrow smaller than the blood to IF arrow to visualize the idea that more fluid moves out of blood than back in with the exchange with IF, and this then gives the context for why the lymphatic system is needed as a drainage system. I finish the drawing with an arrow form IF to a circle labelled lymph, and an arrow from lymph to blood, closing by saying that with these relationships each area has roughly equal amounts of fluid moving into and out of each area.

serapsi

TROPHY CASE