Speaking of mods, isn’t oojason ahead of me in line?
Darth Ender already defeated him. Also, as far as I know, oojason never played chess professionally.
YeGods, I certainly have never played professionally. Has Darth?
Under what conditions is a challenge match typically played? Rough timeframe per move? And I’m assuming no consulting with books/computers, right?
If you prefer tactics, you might enjoy Chinese Chess (Xianqi).
Speaking of mods, isn’t oojason ahead of me in line?
I think we’re all in agreement that ping pong is a sport, no?
All I know is women can’t be as good at it because muscles.
I’m not sure how much muscles come into play in ping pong. But muscles do come into play in many other sports.
Leg muscles are important in table tennis, especially for a defensive player.
My last serious game of chess was in 1994… I was playing a tournament and looked out the window and it was a beautiful day, I asked myself what I was doing sitting there moving pieces around on such a nice sunny day (literally true). My last rating was 2074, my highest was 2137 (if I remember right). I’d be lucky to break 1700 today - I can’t even remember the openings I used to play. It’s a whole new world now with the databases and the computers - I’ve never used any of them.
That said, I’d be willing to try a game with whomever. It would have to wait until the weekend as my workdays are killer right now.
As for table tennis - don’t get me started. It is most certainly a sport. The level of fitness required to play at top level is pretty much like soccer. If you don’t believe that, simply go online and watch some world class matches. A lot of people think that the way they play at home is indicative of what it is like at a competitive level, when the two bear little resemblance.
This is doubly true for badminton. Many serious players won’t even play singles because it is too exhausting. Here too, watch a world class match and see the level of fitness and exertion on display. Badminton is one of the most aerobically-demanding sports one could choose.
As for chess, I was an expert-level tournament player for many years, and never considered it a sport. However, my view changed a bit during the first Karpov-Kasparov match, when the match had to be cancelled over fears of Karpov’s health. The length of the match, and the games, and the stress, Karpov had lost over 20 pounds (I think he was only 135 BEFORE the match) and had clinical exhaustion. Physical fitness is actually a factor because of the nature of the prolonged concentration and stress endured during an extended match. Top players train physically as well as mentally. I’m still not sure I’d call it a sport, though.
I can’t speak for curling, darts, videogaming, etc. because I am not knowledgeable in those areas. Therefore, based on my experience with people’s comments about table tennis, I am loathe to proclaim something in an area I know nothing about.
I wonder if there are some sports where women are actually objectively better than men. For instance, certain judged aspects of figure skating and gymnastics?
There are two olympic sports that are gender neutral - equestrian and curling. The latter doesn’t surprise me, but the former does - it requires a lot of strength and athleticism.
In my favorite sport of table tennis, it is no contest - the top woman in the world couldn’t break the top 100 in the men’s ranking, and that has been true since the beginning.
I play drums in several local jazz groups.
In 1991 North and South Korea fielded united teams in the world table tennis championships. It was quite hopeful seeing the athletes working together. Too bad it didn’t help. This is a bigger stage, so I hope that it makes a dent.
I’m curious how it will be reported/spun in North Korea press to its own people.
Great Sacramento-area music educator and bassist Lenny Pollachi. Don’t smoke.
Silverwook found one more audio glitch at roughly the same time that I got mired in beginning of semester stuff. I’ll try and get to that this weekend.
The Democrats would be a more liberal party if the electorate were more liberal.
IMO the positions of both parties have drifted right to attract donors, which are unfortunately worth quite a bit more than voters.
This. Since “Citizens United”, it’s getting harder to distinguish when a politician is trying to attract voters, and when they are trying to attract funding. You’re right it’s more usually the latter, since that generally leads to the former (sadly).
I agree with your reviews of the three series.
As a child, my family often watched this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes_(1984_TV_series) and i consider that my benchmark for what Sherlock should be.
It unfortunately switched to different creative personnel in the later seasons and really suffered for it by making way too many changes to source material in the adaptations, but God, those early years really are wonderful. For a lot of people, that’s very understandably the definite take on Holmes. Brett is magnificent, and Hardwicke and Burke were both a great Watson.
I think the biggest negative factor in the later episodes was Brett’s health, which was seriously failing. The early years were astonishingly good, though. It’s hard to imagine a better interpretation of Holmes.
Warbler said:
I like the early episodes of the Jeremy Brett series.
This. Nothing else has come close.
Sorry if I’m REALLY late to the party. I just now (finally) saw TLJ. (I’ve been sick since it came out, and only now felt spry enough to go to the theater).
Hmmm.
For some perspective, I REALLY liked both TFA and RO, a lot, and I thought they were both much better than the prequels.
But TLJ. Hmmm. I thought the first half of the movie was really terrible. It was rambling, depressing, gratuitous… basically a mess. I nearly lost it during the casino scene, and even moreso during the Yoda scene. Seriously even CPY was better. And that locksmith guy they picked? C’mon!! I found myself, while watching the film, trying to decide if it was as bad as the prequels, and pretty much thinking it might be. And I thought Kelly Marie Tran’s role was weak, really weak.
But it started getting decent during the Ren/Rey/Snoke showdown. (Although that did seem an awful lot like the RTJ showdown with the Emperor.) The “dark side” struggle that Rey was going through was way WAY better done than Anakin’s was in the prequels… I could have believed her turning to the dark side had it happened.
And then, I have to admit that the last half hour of the film was pretty amazing. Mark Hamill’s role in the climactic scene was really wonderful, much better than I had imagined it would be. It was truly some inspirational film-making, in my opinion.
So how could a movie have such extremes? From almost-walk-out-of-the-theater bad, to that-was-amazing good? This is one film that could benefit from a judicious fan edit. I saw TFA and RO each three times in the theater, but I doubt I’ll see this in the theater a second time. The thought of sitting through that first half is just not appealing.
I consider myself quite liberal. However, I would be perfectly fine with a conservative president who wasn’t also an anti-environmental Bible thumper. It perplexes me why “conservative” has come to be associated largely with these two things. I’m fine with the concept of less government and more freedoms, but I’m not religious and don’t see the logic in governing our country with a 2000-year-old unchanging cryptic Aramaic hodge-podge that nobody even has an original copy of. I also consider our planet a beautiful and precious place and want leaders who care that it be preserved for the future… why isn’t that considered “conservative”?
Oprah appeals to the more liberal minded people. But if you want Trump gone, we need someone that will appeal to the moderate and conservative-light people. Obviously the liberals are going to vote for the Democrat whoever it is. But the moderates and conservative-light people need to be won over.
Actually, I thought that was what was being attempted with Hillary. As democrats go, she was pretty centrist.
I don’t think that Trump’s negatives are of any importance to those who voted for him. The perception among his supporters is that he is doing exactly what he said he would do. He’s making government smaller (closing or downsizing a bunch of agencies), removing regulations, kicking out furiners, undoing things Obama did (esp. Obamacare), backing out of international agreements, lowering taxes (at least for some people), is very pro-Israel / anti-Palestine, and reducing environmental programs. His supporters have every reason to vote for him again, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he won even more comfortably next time. The democrats will need to run a very appealing candidate.
The big cushy Beyerdynamics make everything sound great.
I really like the album “With the Beatles”.
Their versions of “Till There was You” and “Besame Mucho” remain my favorite of all versions of those standards.
Love the tune “Saw Her Standing There”. Great bass line.
I like some of their obscure originals, like “Ask Me Why”. They explored some very interesting musical forms in their early years. In some ways, as a musician I find their earlier material more technically interesting. Although there were many stronger musicians, somehow they managed to forge new ground.
The Beatles’ later material is ostensibly the more culturally significant.
However I prefer listening to their early material. Great tunes and great harmonies.
J0E said:
… I bought the VCD set of the Special Editions …
There’s a VCD set of the SE for sale?
Is Trump trying to provoke Kim into doing something, so that he can bomb them in retaliation? Or is that a stupid question?
darth_ender said:
… I don’t believe Republicans maliciously pass these bills in order to harm everyone but the richest in America.
I don’t think (and I don’t know of anyone else who thinks) that Republicans are maliciously trying to hurt anyone. Rather, I think that quite a number of them (and I am convinced this is the case for Trump) are simply using this window of opportunity to become as rich as they can, as quickly as they can.