Brief Interlude
I am still hard at it, and plan to continue blogging for some time to come. But right now, time is diminishing... My boat is full on several fronts:
1. A project under careful development on the side with one of our leading bloggers, which we will be announcing in the weeks ahead. Lots of writing, lots of emails.
2. Full intensity at my job, where more and more work is done with fewer and fewer persons, in less and less time. Tiring and demanding. The housing downturn has hit the building materials retail world, and those of us with jobs wish to keep them! In order to get a better job, it is incumbant upon us to still have a job, to bargain from strength, not weakness or dire hunger.
Once a month, I work 17 out of 21 days, and I am less than half way through this term. To start, this is 10 out of 11 days. Oh my god, this takes energy! It also vastly simplifies my social arena but also backloads creative time at the end, when I work only 3 out of 7 days, my most creative week of the month and richest in chess play and investigation.
Kasparov - Karpov NY 2002
See Kasparov's face at -1:08. Talk about stress and emotions!
3. I have returned to CTS, got my 40,000 at 88.3%, soon to be 88.4%; my main focus there is now shifted to this last push to 97.00%, by 10,000 for my second ID. Once that is done, I will finish with the first ID to 50,000 at 90.00% resolutely according to plan.
4. Playing at FICS again, every day if I can, but not always, limited by vital energy burnt at 2. (Job) above.
5. I am also back at viewing my Classic GM Game Collection. The GM Ram unit is particularly rivetting, as the games of Steinitz, Morphy, and Anderssen are of delectable and steller quality. Thank you again Takchess for the pointer.
6. An acquaintance who is now a close friend approached me about the possibility of either teaching at a University or consulting in Europe, and all the writing both to develop this channel or idea is another major piece of writing. Blogging is wonderful, but some things are far more important.
Tiger Woods is "only 32 and already is tied with Ben Hogan for third in career victories with 64". This Sunday epic victory is the third time he has won Five PGA's in a row.
"Woods is so dominant that he has won seven of his last eight times on the PGA Tour, the exception being a runner-up finish to Phil Mickelson at the Deutsche Bank Championship on Labor Day. He's an incredible 16 for 25 since the 2006 British Open." Echo's of Fischers 13 Wins in a row against Chess Grandmasters.
7. I was viewing the pgn of Seirawan's Winning Chess Endings, and made primitive efforts to view Shereshevsky's Endgame Strategy, but given the magnitude of 1. (Project) and 6. (Overseas) above, I just have too much to do now.
8. On the side, as it is still winter, I cook a lot on my days off, and have made pot after pot of low-fat, completely delicious gourment soups. If only I had someone to clean dishes for me... :) ... I would do all the cooking in trade.
9. I turn 50 in October. Lots of shit to do before, believe you me! Lord almighty god.
10. Lunch and a long walk with GM Seirawan this Friday. Do you of you make outlines before you see your friends? :)
Our ways really don't work any more
11. The financial meltdown I have been predicting for the last year is here now. This goes beyong financial excess, but is a subset of human excess, entitlement, and disturbing socio-psychic imbalance, driven by a world gripped by capital markets at all cost, irrespective of human needs for health, sustainability, creativity, and fulfillment. Bush goes out, Obama surely goes in, but this only sustains the short term illusion of deliverance, when American excess must pay the piper amidst balooning debt spiralling out of control. Only sacrifices and re-engineering the way we live, move, and generate our energy can resolve this, not more economic engineering delaying the day of reckoning.
Philip Glass - Koyaanisqatsi. Can you cry?
April Oil is now US $107.00 per barrel, and China has the trottle turned 'full on'. Temperatures are raising and global warming is real. The complex adaptive system called our planet has gone from order to chaos, organized to chaotic, richly individuated to monocultural, and accumulative to dissipative. Please, lets not kid ourselves. The game is over. Life as we know it will never be the same and the future is now.
Warmest, dk
posted by transformation at 2:37 AM
16 Comments:
Good post.
That Kasparov video is intense, I ended up watching a couple other ones too just because watching him at the board is so special. I wish I could have watched him play live, but there's always Carlsen.
I too watched the financial markets last year with a cynical eye. Waiting each round of earnings for the inevitable collapse that should have started last February, then July came, then October and finally investors were ready to admit that the banks had made a mistake. It's frustrating to watch people so intelligent do such stupid things.
I admire your passion for life, and for chess. Even though you paint a bleak picture of the world in this post I know that you enjoy whatever life has to offer you.
Do you think you'll ever have time to spend at a tournament, say, in Reno?
Hello DK,
Eclectic as always.
At times one gets the uneasy feeling that the great "kladderadatsch" (downfall of the capitalist system) as predicted by Karl Marx has come.
Hope you have a good time with Seirawan.
Damn. That was intense. Thanks for sharing. Good luck with your various projects. It looks like you have a full plate.
Good news, bad news, all is vanity in terms of the fact that intelligence will eventually use and turn every bit of mass-energy in the Universe into eternal information.
dk, you seem to understand this on some deep level, thus a certain tranquility in the face of circumstances.
Phaedrus, considering the various and sundry ups and downs of the Kapitalist markets, which always over time rebound in cyclic fashion, I don't think we should conclude that the kladderadatsch is here quite yet.
@drunknknite: thank you very much. i VERY much wish to restablish a USCF rating, figuring i aught to be about 1800 standard, as despite my reputatation for speed, am even better with time to calculate.
at the same time, my job affords little weekend time, so instead have 'bracketed time' for the future devoted to tournements for such time as when i can do this 100%, not 12 or 7%. working 6 out of 8 weekend days in a center role in a big box building materials retailer takes a lot of volts. i meet about 1500 people a week.
idea slot in society? no way. but until something truly worthy as to how deep as i can go, i do not want to move.
buddha sat under the bodhi tree (Skt: for enlightenment) until he knew and, as yet, i do not know, i only feel.
all the old road rule are off the table, and i do not wish to climb a ladder again against the wrong tree, as this is eggregiously wrongheaded. i am very, very, very tired of BS (Eng for bull shit), the lingua franca of American society, at this time.
at the same time, my personality is very, very 'type A' so tournement chess is, despite is great nobility and enormous merit, the one thing right now that i do not need. chess is tension, and i am tension.
they put Christ on a cross, so my style is out of vogue.
@phaedrus: i looked up Klabberdash, and previously had no idea that is what it meant.
in America, we have a wholey different but superficial picture of its meaning, but what you denote is far greater, and seems to touch a gigantic iceberg, whos profile is enormous but well hidden from view?
thank you my very dear friend.
@polly: kasparov with a crown of thorns and bleeding and flashing eyes is indeed 'more than intense".
@wahrheit: so german sounding, too! despite all proclaimations, as always that 'it is different this time' and our own equanimity indeed in check, the voracity of this particular demon is huge and, as yet, unmeasured if not immeasurable, or incommensubable.
unlike Schumpeter, i do not believe that this particular 'creative destruction will generate an iteration of something henceforth unforeseen but unknowably better and more evolved. god help us all.
critical mass is here.
in AI related to chess, when we go from 14 to 17 to 19 to even 22 ply, we can wind up in some remarkably strange if not amazingly remarkable places. this is at a societal level where we are now, if you ask me. some where set of black pawns of c5, c4, and c3 against a R, N, and B yet wins with a lone king due to some weird zugswang.
the planet is chaotic now, and what we know is that visions of knowing are deeply inapplicable.
You have quite the agenda. Good Luck with it. The beer truck picture reminded me of the bee accident they had I believe in CA recently.
I suggest you take a look at the games listed in on the attack (see my blog) I believe that in Db books as well. The anotations are very good if you get timman book.
As for GMram do you have the positions in that book. There are a number of endgames positions he suggests that you know by hand.
LOL at Kasparov's "surprised" look at the marker you mentioned. Have you ever thought what goes through Karpov's mind at times? A superior player, but will always known as a step below Kasparov. Annoying?
In this time of easy communication, you moving halfway around the world (should it happen) won't have much effect on your e-acquaintences. But it will be more of a pain to meet for lunch with Seirawan. Certainly more expensive.
As the housing downturn has damaged your employer, so oil has influenced mine. It is more stressful than usual.
My parents have just moved out of the country, you may move out of the country, and as time continues, probably more will be attracted by this option.
Hello dk,
There's so many points to talk about I honestly don't know where to start.
Thank you very much for sharing the Kasparov video. Kasparov is indeed a very intense personality, one that will not subject himself to slowing down.
Certainly lots to think about from your post.
Time never stands still and neither should we. Our life journeys are all different and circumstances forces us to constantly change to stay one step ahead.
As usual, an excellent post always.
I wish you luck in your journeys.
cheers and take care.
dear Takchess, i have the 59 games from GM Ram but not the endgame postions. do you have them? if you do, id love it, would appreciate it if you could email to me?
i own art of attack, and am familiar with the Timman book but, alas, youve seen my plan, my chess plan, and have more than enough already.
at a certain point, we dont need another book on endings or attack or some opening, but deeper study, more analysis of games, and more difficult tactics, or if not those three (plenty already!) then, if you will, repetition of work already done, or review of work already done.
BTW, i own the modern edition of Art of Attack, but have much that comes first, such as to finish annotating the 62 games of Chernev's most instructive games of chess ever played, the next 180 games in my GM Classic game collection, Seirawans Winning Chess Endings, and Shereshevkys Engame Strategy, etc.
i have made my own databases on the Slav and Caro-Kann, so, again, enough already!
warmest, dk
@liquidEggProduct: lunch or a long walks with Yasser harder in europe? no, it would be a lot easier. we used to meet two times a year, and now once per year, and much more of a time limit.
i told him i wished that we had more time, but am fully prepared to appreciate our brief time. we had 140 minutes, then he had to run. we walked 3 miles, and he bought me a smoothie. BTW, he really loves children and you can see by his face his love and kindness, alert to the child held by her mother.
he is fortunate in having a solid marriage with a wife that he greatly loves.
nevertheless he also has good eyes for noticing, well, *ahem* ... where we go there is much roller blading which is particularly effective at toning the body .... its good to still be alive and appreciate aesthetics such as natural phenomenon, including trees and lakes...
you mention your employer. many feel that only certain parts of the economy will contract, but it is the entire planet that must adjust, and no one and nothing will be spared, in recalibrating the settings.
warmly, dk
Hi DK,
I don't have the positions in electronic form but the book is readily available and inexpensive if you run across it. There are alot of simple endgames without solutions for the reader to master by hand.
On the attack strength is in timmans annotation and a real treat. I'd be interested in what you think if you come accross a copy.
Regards,
Jim
gosh jim! of course i already own the book.
i look at it every day, having now already viewed the 59 reference games in chessbase (some of them many times already), and establishing that i know which diagram goes to which games, to start out.
this is only the beginning of a much longer effort, i intend. for example, i am now making a list of diagrams by game, since there are 120 positions for 59 games.
i simply wish to save time in rendering the positions, which are not 136 positions, but 272 since they must allow for white or black to move!
my plate is already way too full, but then again, all your suggestions to date have proven out, so if i see the book, i will take a look.
i am affraid, that half german (american) as i am, my sense of order allows few interuptions from plan, with all the advantages and disadvantages thereof. but, what i decide, i do, so i manage!
thx again, dk
Hi David, glad to see you hit your 40,000 jubilee on CTS and are making progress on your usual gazillion projects at once. :)
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