Sigh

I really shouldn't play in tournaments.

Maybe I'm a masochist.

Another Tournament

On Sunday, there's a handicap tournment. Let's hope this one goes better than the last one.

A Reading List for Anarchist Economics

Go here for a fairly comprehensive list of online readings in anarchist economics.

Electronic Frontier Foundation

It is good to know that there are good folks who understand the difference between good and bad and are prepared to do something about it, including skipping this most horrible and tortured and twisted and grammatically impaired and linguistically-challenged and overdone of sentences.

Anyway, the guys and gals at the Electronic Frontier Foundation do some really cool and much-needed work around privacy and free speech. They also have some graphics ability:

On a roll

I kicked ass last night at the Club. Say no more.

m2014

Want to know when the revolution will be?

2014, baby.

Poor Fred

Spare a thought for Fred. His server was cracked, wiping out his blog. Go here to find out more.

Note that Fred knows his labels. Hacker, in computing circles, is a positive title, meaning someone who writes positive code. A cracker is someone who breaks things and is malicious. Mainstream consciousness sees hackers as crackers. For more on this go here and here.

Idleness

Bertrand Russell, in In Praise of Idleness, published way back in 1932, made the point that we should only work four hours a day. Good man. From that essay:

"Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish forever."

Of course, he later came in for a bit of stick for not advocating strongly against the growing repression in the USSR (from 1919 onwards, but especially during Stalin's great purges). He also wrote a bit about anarchism, more reflecting the popularity of the movement at the beginning of the 20th Century than anything else, I think. You can read Proposed Roads to Freedom here.

Strong fuseki, weak endgame?

I think my fuseki has undergone a serious improvement in the last two or three months, and is continuing to do so. Things are making more sense, and I feel confident. I have strategy and flair (I hope).

However, my endgame is letting me down in a fairly major way. Over and over again, winning positions crumble as the game wears on. Tactical shortcomings, perhaps. It has been a while since I've lost a game in the opening, but just last night, when I got hammered, it was in the same goddamned way. Endgame rout, and a twelve point loss. Series of vital moves missed.

I used to think that when one part of your game improves, other parts get weaker. This is not the case. What happens is that increased competence in one area highlights the relative weakness of others; you begin to comprehend how bad other parts of your game are, and, with mounting horror, realise for how long they have been so bad.

How, then, does one improve one's endgame? Any suggestions?

Bob Black

Bob Black is always amusing. From Anarchism and Other Impediments to Anarchy:

"The history of anarchism is a history of unparalleled defeat and martyrdom, yet anarchists venerate their victimized forebears with a morbid devotion which occasions suspicion that the anarchists, like everybody else, think that the only good anarchist is a dead one."

Funny, but I think he's just bitter.

Round III

Fuck.

Round II

The better I'm feeling, the worse I'm playing. Fuck.

Round 1 of the Tournament

I won the first round, despite the hangover and a distinct lack of sleep.

Aji keshi, you can live by it.

Western Cape Advance

The Western Cape is rapidly become the headquarters of SA go. 3 out 4 of the entrants to the next round of the SA Closed (tomorrow) are from the Western Cape. Gauteng got destroyed.

Anarchist Economics and Go

Just learnt that Michael Albert plays go.

Anarchist go players refuse to rule the world.

South African Closed

They have some funny names here for the SA Closed. The preliminary rounds are called the Contenders and the Candidates, for reasons which I only find confusing. Regardless, the dang thing is on as I type...

Hang on...
Breaking News...
The South African Go Association will have an AGM...

From an email from the SAGA President (just received):

"Dear SAGA members,

"The AGM of the South African Go Association will be held on Saturday 10th September 2005. See attached notice for details.

"The AGM was originally due to be held earlier this year but it was postponed for the following reasons.

"1. In order to be able to call for nominations for the vacancy on council caused by the death of Kagiso Mampe who died soon after the original closing date for nominations.

"2. To propose some amendments to the constitution in order to eliminate certain inconsistencies which were discovered at that time.

"Thanks mainly to the efforts of Leander Gaum, Steve Kroon and Konrad Scheffler the proposed amendments have been formulated and are contained in attached Appendix B.

"All the recommended amendments have been grouped together in Proposal No.1 for consideration as a whole. In the first instance you are asked either to accept or reject this proposal. If you reject proposal No.1 then you are asked to consider and vote for each of proposals numbered 2 to 10 by completing the ballot form (Appendix D). The form should be returned by email, post or hand to reach Leander at least a day or two before the AGM but the sooner the better.

"As far as the nomination of candidates for election to council is concerned the situation has changed considerably. I have decided to resign from council with effect from the AGM which means that together with the position vacated by Kagiso the number of vacancies has increased from the original three to five. In addition Leander has withdrawn his nomination leaving three nominees of the four that had originally been accepted.

"Since SAGA is a democratic organization the authority of the council is derived from the members of SAGA through the electoral process. The first part of that process, and perhaps the most important, is the nomination of candidates for election to council. Nominations will be accepted until the cut off date of July 30th (see attached nomination form Appendix C).

"Also attached is a list of SAGA members since 2003. Only current members are eligible to vote."

It seems that the administration (The correct phrase (in terms of aims) would be governance, but I will not be governed in the playing of a game. You do not rule me. I approach all social associations in terms of express and alterable consent, which I am able to do, unlike in the economic or political realms where, at best, I am forced to engage power structures in terms of hypothetical consent, which, by the way, is worth the paper it is written on) of SA go is about to undergo some fundamental changes.

(I'm listening to a Tim Wise lecture at the moment, funny but true)

Organisations need moments of change, including drastic change. It is healthy, some much so that change should be welcomed and embraced, for it allows new ideas and energy. Of course, that fresh energy and ideas will eventually become static as the new practices and paradigms transform into the unthinking 'just-the-way-we-do-things'. Advocates of change become to be seen as threats and are then attacked, usually with great viciousness. Why? Because they are seeking to replace existing power structures, they are threatening the very existence of those power structures. Yet, this conflict is necessary if the organisation, as a whole, is to survive.

The longer an organisation manages to stay static and resist change, that organisation will run an increasing risk to being unable to adapt to changing circumstances. Same thing happens to social practices that become ritual and ingrained tradition; stay still long enough, and you (or your organisation or society) will become the rabbit trapped by headlights. Don't be the rabbit.

SAGA administration is about to experience a wholesale change, and that is no bad thing, whatever happens. But what, it might be asked, happens if SAGA administration doesn't survive this period of change or mucks it up? What if SAGA collapses and ceases to function, even at a survival level?

Big deal. If SAGA can't make it through this period of change, we're all better off without it.

Anyway, I'm playing in tomorrow's round. Wish me luck for I'll need it.

Albert Meltzer

A mate of mine handed me a CD full of anarchist texts and audio recordings a couple days ago. That was nice of him.

One of those texts, Anarchism: Arguments for and against by Albert Meltzer (who puts forth a anarch-syndicalist view), has some wothwhile quotes:

"It may be in some technological society of the future, run by the State, in a sort of boss utopia, the working class will be displaced as a productive class. We see signs of that even today as large part[s] of the economy are closed down as unprofitable and people uprooted. There is a technology, still in its infancy but making great strides, which will reduce us, as a productive class, to turners of switches and openers of the scientists' doors; to secretaries and receptionists; to janitors and clerks; to domestic servants of the rich. Anarcho-syndaclists think such a society must be resisted."

"'Who will do the dirty work?'. This is a question society, not just the apologist for Anarchism, has to ask itself. There are dirty jobs which are socially unacceptable and poorly paid, so that nobody wants to do them. People have therefore been enslaved to do them, or there is competition in a market economy and the jobs became better paid (and therefore socially acceptable), or there is conscription for such jobs, whether by political direction or the pressures of unemployment. Sometimes the capitalist introduces immigration in the hope of cheap labour, thus putting off the problem for a generation or two. Or it can be that jobs don't get done and, say, the streets aren't swept anymore and so we get deluged with water shooting out from cars driven by gradutae pyschologists and step gingerly past refuse, clutching our theses on sociology."

Oryx and Crake II

Two good quotes in a book ain't half-bad. From Oryx and Crake (Margaret Atwood, 2003):

"That had been the milder form: the single man at the window, drinking himslef into oblivion to the mournful strains of the tango. But such things could escalate into violence. Extreme emotions could be lethal. If I can't have you nobody will, and so forth. Death could set in."

Sometimes, it is not what you say but how you say it.

Another Go Blog

'Ed goes nuts playing go' is worth it for the title alone. Hehehe.

On a serious note, there seems to be a recurrant theme running through most, if not all, go blogs; that of pain and suffering. Anguish. Torment.

And for good reason. Any serious go player, amateur or pro, has committed himself to studying and playing a game that he will never, never understand, no matter how long he lives or how many problems he solves. Yet, he will never be able to leave the goban; it will follow him in and out of consciousness, hanging like demon-monkey, haunting and taunting. Giving only enough to keep him at the board, grinding stones like teeth.

Go is intellectual crack cocaine.

An African on the Live 8 Party

Finally, some sanity on Live 8, foriegn debt, and crusading Europeans. Black Looks, a blog my self-proclaimed African Fem from Nigeria, has this to say in a post entitled 'We are not whales!':

"We were presented with Africa as the “scar of the world”, passive, starving, diseased, dying and helpless. This was a conscious decision by the organisers of the concert to make the crowd sympathetic to their cause and at the same time make them feel good, make them feel as if they had made a contribution to saving Africa. I am reminded of an American TV programme we watched as children in Nigeria: The Lone Ranger. At the end of each programme after the Lone Ranger had fought off the baddies and saved the poor defenseless people his horse would rear up and he would shout “hiooooooo Silver” and then ride into the wilderness till the following week. And so to we are all asked to give "thanks and praises" to the great white chief Geldof on his shining white horse."

Go read her now.

Definitions popping up everywhere

Maybe it is the blue car phenomena (when you buy a blue car, you see roads filled with blue cars), but, man, am I finding definitions of the State just about everywhere I look, or read, to be more extact. What I have noticed about all of these definitions is that they are usually very brief, not elaborated on, and often stuck somewhere in the first pages of a book or article.

For example, I read In Defence of Anarchism again last night. The previous time, I must have skipped a page or two because there it is, on the first fucking page, "The state is a group of persons who have and exercise supreme authority within a given territory."

On the same page, in a footnote, Wolff also says, "For a similar definition of 'state,' see Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation. Weber emphasizes the means--force--by whcih the will of the state is imposed, but a careful analysis of his definition shows that it also bases itself on the notion of authority."

Linux, Definition, and, of course, Go

Yeah! Got a copy of Ubuntu 5.04 today. Gonna try and install it, hope to get the goddamn computer to recognised the goddamn modem, and then I can stop using the goddamn MS connection.

That is, if I can drag myself from the usual complement of weekend go and thesis. On the philosophy side, I'm building up an argument of cunning brilliance concerning the definition of the State, slowly working from the Montevideo Convention of 1933, a detour into the difference between government and the State, a dip into anthopology, then to Max Weber, Europe 1000AD, Bookchin and finally arriving at hierarchy. To be followed by posing exciting questions such as, "Is a church a State?", "Are empires States?"

On the go side, about two weeks ago I played a three dan on scratch, lost by eight points. Anyway, in the fuseki (see pic below), I don't know whether my move at Black 9 was right. Should I have attacked from the right? M3 or N3? If you have an idea, leave a comment.



This is one of those freaky difficult direction of play thingymajigs. Hmmm.