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[300] Of life and chess

If one gets too comfortable with a way of life, a situation or anything, he or she risks losing the skill to adapt. The inability to adapt means extinction and this is particularly true in chess.

I could say that I am a competent player in chess although I do need to sharpen my mind a bit – well maybe by a whole lot – before playing a serious game. However, I have one weakness – I love white so much that I can’t remember when the last time I played black. I may master most of white openings but I have only one or two openings for black.

One day, saw somebody played chess. Having almost nothing exciting to do for the whole week, I decided to have a little game. The person asked whether do I mind playing black and somehow, I said no. At first I didn’t realize the significant of the lame no. So, we prepared the board for a game with the typical 32 black and white pieces of pawn and all other sorts on a 64 black and white squares beautifully carved on a wooden board.

So, it was the first move by white. White’s favorite, king’s pawn to E4. I replied with what most amateurs and to some extend professionals do, my king’s pawn to E5. White’s king side knight galloped ahead to threaten my king’s pawn. Automatically, my hand reached for my king side knight to protect the pawn. Then, he did my favorite white’s move; white queen’s pawn marched to its king’s pawn side.

I on the other hand, under my breath pronounced shit. White manned its battle stations in the middle of the board, a realization came to my mind – I was playing black, one move late with my king and queen reversely positioned with respect to white. Well, actually it’s not reversely positioned with respect to white but rather the black queen is on the black square instead of on the white square. It was a total disorientation.

I totally didn’t know what to do next. I was officially screwed. It was the feeling when you enter an exam hall, thinking that you know everything, only later to read the exam questions and have not even one bit of clue what the questions are asking for. Yes. It was that bad. Plus, there were a few people watching the game and that made it even more embarrassing.

Somehow, that gave me a crystal ball view of what I might encounter during my internship in Eastern Europe, if I go, and boy it would be sucked to experience it. I seriously need to learn black’s openings, fast.

The game?

I lost but not due to failure to adapt. Rather, a silly mistake where the white’s knight checked my king and my queen in one move. Rewinding one move back, if I had positioned my queen on another box, I could have checkmated white within two moves but hell, I hate knights.

And hey, this is the 300th post!

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Politics & government This blog

[290] Of technical update

I’ve made a few changes to the template for the past few weeks.

Guestbook is dumped in favor of the comment system.

Site feed is now available for those who actually asked for this site feed. More to come during the spring break.

Added the New York Times into the Propaganda section simply because I’ve been enjoying reading its dead tree edition.

Removed the Straits Times because I think it is one of the worst publications I have ever read.

Added a few prominents Malaysian bloggers, namely Jeffooi’s Screenshots and Aizuddion’s VOI. Others newly added are Lone, EconoPundit and a tree hugger site.
Also a happening Annarbour blog other than the notorious AAIO, Seat of the Revolution.

Well, back to the real world. L8r.

p/s – from the wired world.

Feds Win Right to War Protesters’ Records
BY RYAN J. FOLEY, Associated Press Writer

DES MOINES, Iowa – In what may be the first subpoena of its kind in decades, a federal judge has ordered a university to turn over records about a gathering of anti-war activists.

Freedom eh?

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Economics Photography This blog Travels

[273] Of Jeb and his misadventure in Yosemite NP, California; X

Please read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8 and part 9.

The night was cold, the wind was strong and it was dark.

I was only grateful when the morning Sun rose against the mountains. It was almost 0900 hours by the time my weary eyes were opened. I quickly brushed my teeth, changed to my hiking gears and packed up the tent. The tent had two parts, one was the tent itself and the other part was sort of roof for the tent. The wind was so strong last night that I found the roof a few meters away from the place where it was supposed to be.

It was nearly 1000 hours when I finally moved out from my camping spot. It was disheartening to know that I still had to climb. However, the climb wasn’t too bad unlike yesterday. Later, I had to cross the river after the gradient lessened out. On the bridge and looking eastward, the river was as calm as a bayou but westward, the water plunged fiercely toward Glen Aulin.

After awhile of flat terrain, climbing was again needed but thank God hardcore climbing was not a necessity. Unfortunately for me, there was one problem; the trail was not well marked as the ground was hard rock. At one time, I thought I was walking toward the right direction but ended up just a few feet away from a hundred feet drop. Funnily enough, I was facing toward Glen Aulin instead of the other direction. Immediately, I realized I had gone off trail. So, I turned around and voila! I had no idea where the trail was. Meanwhile, the rattling sound was omnipresent and hell yeah it was scary. I am not a snake fan especially after sitting right beside a rattle snake a few days ago.

Not long after, I saw a few hikers from far. Knowing they were my ticket, I quickly ran toward them. A few puffing later, I caught up with them and found the trail. I just couldn’t believe how I missed the trail. There were a few signs indicating the trail but like I said earlier, it was not well marked. One of the signs that usually used is the stacking of two or three round stones. In my case, the sign was hard to be seen because it seemed to bland with the rocky topography almost perfectly.

I went on the trail, I continued on and human traffic suddenly increased. This made me to conclude that I was approaching the Tuolumne Meadows. Eager to end my misery, I quickened my pace.

After an hour of hiking, it was almost 9000 feet and the peaks still rose without fail though the landscape appeared to flatten out. Optimistically, I convinced myself that the Tuolumne Meadows was within a day worth of hiking.

And then, the forest opened up and thus leaving a spectacular open space. Utopian as it was, the Tuolumne River flowed against the backdrop of Sierra Nevada. Suddenly birds were singing and the sky was clear and blue. Of course, it was clear and blue and the birds were singing all the way. It was just that the surrealness of Sierra Nevada induced the sight and sound of nature, bringing the sound of heavy breathing and the pain of the scorching heat into the far background of the mind.

Tuolumne Creek against Sierra Nevada. The aretes is Unicorn Peak in the Cathedral Range. Photo by Epol.

It was as if the whole scenery was drawn by an artist. It was as if I was living inside an Adam Ansel’s painting. If I wouldn’t know any better, I would have thought it was the Garden of Eden.

I went to the side, off the trail, closer to the river and sat down. One part of me wanted to catch my breath, another part wanted to savor the moment. Only God knows how long I marvelled at the scenery quietly. And when it was time to go, part of me didn’t want to leave and the other part urged me to go on. Oh how I wish I would have followed my heart instead of my mind.

Tuolumne Creek against Sierra Nevada again, somewhere nearer to the Tuolumne Meadows. One of the peaks is Lembert Dome. Photo by Epol.

But then, I went on knowing I needed to go on, leaving behind a place I didn’t want to pass into the depth of time.

p/s – Joke of the day by Prof. Hamermesh: That girl is pretty 3 S.D. above the mean.

pp/s – The Great Lakes Zephyr describes The __earthinc as “an interesting weBlog of a nature lover and envir(o)nmentalist at heart”. I’m flattered.

errata – Somebody pointed out that the statement “It was as if I was living inside an Adam Ansel’s painting” is wrong. It should be “It was as if I was living inside an Albert Bierstadt’s painting.” The two of them were related to Yosemite and I had gotten them mixed up.

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Liberty Personal Politics & government This blog

[265] Of Saddam Hussein’s captured and other things

Saddam has been captured alive, but still no WMD. I don’t like Saddam Hussein but the capturing of Saddam is secondary to finding the WMD. With no WMD, the war is still a lie.

Half way across the globe, Keiko, the famous killer whale has passed away due to pneumonia. I wish there will be no more Keiko in the future. All lives deserve a life out of cage, or aquarium.

On more deserving news, the recent European Constitution Summit in Brussels and the Kyoto Protocol related meeting in Milan failed to reach any accord.

And God damn it. The expected is now inevitable – it’s snowing. I find the urge to hibernate increased ten folds. Sigh…

And ehem.

Categories
Economics Environment This blog

[264] Of Kyoto is costly but it’s still the best solution

After doing tons of reading on the Kyoto Protocol, I’ve come to a conclusion that the Protocol is too costly for implementation.Why?

The Kyoto Protocol, if ratified, essentially demands the reduction of six greenhouses gases to the 1990 level by the year 2008. Those gases are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydroflourocarbon, perflourocarbon, and sulphur hexafluoride.

All those six gases, with carbon dioxide in particular are closely related to growth and energy. The connection to energy is a simple one to make since carbon dioxide is the product of burning any carbon based material, including fossil fuel. Growth on the other hand needs energy. Due to this fact, the bigger the economy, the larger greenhouse gases emission will be.

Currently, according to David G. Victor in his book The Collapse of the Kyoto Protocol and the Struggle to Slow Global Warming, most countries greenhouse gases emission exceeds the 1990 targeted level. In order to achieve the Kyoto set goal, many countries will have to reduce their growth by a substantial amount and upgrade numerous machines to be environmental friendly. The cost of doing so is high and this is the main reason why the United States, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases withdrew from the Protocol. Recently, Russia has hinted that it will also withdraw from the Protocol.

Of course, the negotiators at the Earth Summit + 5 were aware of that and thus carbon or emission trading was introduced so the cost of emission reduction could be pulled down to a more tolerable level. This method allows the idea of aggregate instead of individual emission reduction. As a result, this allows the participants of the Protocol to continue to develop its economy.

Nevertheless, there are voices of discontent from the backroom. Emission trading is done by giving out emission permits to the parties of the Protocol. Later, unused permits by some countries could be sold to others who need to emit more greenhouse gases than the allocation. The problem is, permit allocation was not given out according to the size of the economy but rather, the allocation problem was solved by the wits of the diplomats. Therefore, some countries received more permits then it should have and more received too little.

If the Kyoto Protocol were to be ratified, Russia and Kazakhstan will gain profit by simply selling these permits. This is true due to the fall of the Soviet Union, the Commonwealth of Independent States (former USSR states) economy has no way of using all of its allocation, thus creating a surplus of profitable permits. Other countries like the US, hypothetically speaking, will have to buy from Russia so as to adhere to the Kyoto Protocol. Like what Victor said in his book, no country will sign a deal that merely enriches somebody else without doing something concrete in dealing with global warming.

One way or another, with or without permits, there are losers – somebody has to cover up the cost. Yet, if the Kyoto Protocol isn’t ratified in time, the cost of damage due to global warming and the subsequent climate change will be higher than the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol itself.

Given the options, isn’t it’s only logical to accept the least costly path?

For the sake of compromise, perhaps the Kyoto’s target could be lowered but sooner or later, the emission reduction must be done to avoid probably the costliest damage in modern Human history.

p/s – The __earthinc has been nominated for flyingchair.net‘s best Malaysian weblog.

Alright. Time to get aggressive. People of the world, vote for me at flyingchair.net. I know I wouldn’t win but, hey, a bit of publicity wouldn’t hurt!
If you love my site, vote me!
If you hate it, vote me!
If you are indifferent, vote me!
Vote me! :)