Putting my Chinese classes to use...

Last night, Hao (one of my Chinese flatmates) had a Chinese friend over for dinner. Determined to try out my Chinese skills, I asked him in Chinese what his name was. He said, "Wow!!" and then told me (in English) that his name was Qinnian. So I asked him in Chinese, "You're from China, right?" He said, "Cool!!" and then told me (in English) that he was from Beijing.

<sigh>

At least he understood me.

Where's Waldo?

Here are some pictures of my room. Can you find the refrigerator?

Jabes' Pond: A New Thanksgiving Tradition

Last week, my aunts Barbara and Kathleen flew me home for Thanksgiving, surprising the rest of the family. It was wonderful to be there. As if that wasn't enough, Barbara also gave me a new digital camera. So now I get to put my own pictures of London on the blog, instead of pictures stolen from other websites. This photo of Emma and me was taken by Kevin. Don't expect such high quality from my pictures. Fortunately, Kevin was able to give me a few pointers, so hopefully I'll be able to figure out some of the many features and options on the camera.

We often do some hiking at Thanksgiving and this year was no different. As usual, we hiked Inspiration point (see Kara's photos in previous blog entry). But this year, on a second hike, we decided to bypass the turn-off to Inspiration, and instead hike out to Jabes' Pond. Though less steep, it was a bit longer (2 miles instead of 1; we're not talking about anything serious here). I wasn't convinced that this "pond" would be worth the walk though. I was picturing some brown mudhole in the middle of the woods. What we got was a stunning lake shimmering in the sunlight. We immediately decreed this hike to be a new tradition. Of course there was an abundance of delicious food and excellent music back at the Inn. Robin even brought the brass: a french horn, two trumpets and a trombone. After a few shaky Christmas carols, Chrissy (on the trumpet) regaled us with the theme song from the Flintstones. While working on a puzzle, I was subjected to a practice music session: three hours of Mr. Bojangles on repeat. Mostly it was the usual rousing folk repertoire though, with an array of banjos, guitars, mandolins, bongos, washtub bass, autoharp, fiddle (thanks to Kirsten) and, of course, chicken shakes.



To my delight, I discovered that half the family is learning Chinese! Okay, so it's only Robin, Petie, Marty and Caryn & Nate, but Robin brought enough books to make it seem like half the family. He even brought brushes, so we got to practice writing characters.

Hopefully this dose of family time will be enough to tide me over until the next time I get to go home, or at least until I get some visitors (hint, hint).

Kobayashi Opening Answer

Well, I found one answer to my question on the Kobayashi opening (see post from September 30, 2006). Black wins by resignation, but it's most certainly not straightforward. I think the answer can basically be interpreted as "fight."

Here's how it starts:



Here's a bit more:



It's still not clear at this point (to me anyway) that Black has won the game. Indeed, the game continues until White resigns after move 259. The game was just played yesterday between Kono Rin (black) and Yamashita Keigo (white) as part of the 32nd Japanese Tengen title match.

Photos of Thanksgivings Past

I just remembered that I actually have access to some old Thankgiving photos from our events, rather than pictures filched from Silver Bay's website, though I must say that Silver Bay's website is much better than it used to be.

These first three are from Aunt Chris' photos.





There are more like this last scenic hiking photo from Kara here.

Thanksgiving

This weekend is, of course, Thanksgiving. My family will again be at Silver Bay, where we've been celebrating Thanksgiving for close to 15 years. We now get over 80 people for the weekend. Here I am in London, where people have been asking me, "what do you do for Thanksgiving anyway?" Mostly, we eat. Great food, all day long. There's usually a table set up with a jigsaw puzzle, which people work on throughout the day. Some people try to get in a few hikes to balance at least some of those calories and to appreciate the beautiful setting. And, of course, it wouldn't be a family event without loads of music.

Our event has been so successful and has grown so much that Silver Bay is now trying to convince its regular members to follow our lead. Hopefully our family will get to continue to use the space, but if they're successful in getting others to come, it could certainly change the dynamic.

Directions

I must look like I know where I'm going now; people have started asking me for directions. I'm always really happy when I know. "The London Eye? Just go down next to that tunnel to the path along the river and turn left." "Yes, the Old Vic is just up this street on the left... don't worry, this street will turn into The Cut at some point."

I got stumped tonight though. Now, looking it up, I feel really stupid. I guess the "royal" threw me. Someone asked me where the Royal National Theatre was. I pass this hideous monstrosity every single day, but all I could think of was the ornate Her Majesty's Theatre. I had to just shrug and apologize.

Go Stuff For Sale

In my meanderings about London, I've been happy to see that Go-related materials are available for sale. I found a games shop ("Playin' Games") around the corner from my office that has both equipment and books. There's the Chinese book store in Chinatown that also had equipment and a few books. Up on Euston Road, I passed a Chess & Bridge store. I saw chess boards in the window and immediately went over to investigate. I saw the name of the store was Chess & Bridge and was prepared to be disappointed, but then saw what I was looking for: a Go board (with "Go" written in Go stones on it) in the window! The store was closed when I was there, so I'll have to check it out some other time.

I've also recently found a few more potential local players. There's a mathematician here at King's on sabbatical from Spain who emailed me to say that he plays and is looking for clubs. So hopefully I'll get to play with him soon. I also found out last night that a couple of guys in one of the other postgrad offices here have recently started playing.

Oui oui

Paris is so beautiful. If you have the means, I highly recommend going.

When I arrived at my hotel around 2 pm on Sunday, the receptionist called a colleague of his to confirm the arrangements for the room that was reserved for me. As he waited for said colleague to answer the phone, he pulled a glass of wine from under his desk and took a swig.

My room on the fifth floor had a balcony (actually two--one from the main room and one from the bathroom), which looked out on all the other beautiful buildings on the street.

Mostly I spent my time (the time not spent at math talks) walking around. I stopped in at Notre Dame and walked through the courtyards of the Louvre. I didn't go into the Louvre because it was only going to be open for another hour, rendering its €9 entry fee out of my budget. I walked up the Avenue des Champs Élysées, which, dominated as it was by megastores, was made worthwhile only by the Arc de Triomphe at the end, which was indeed impressive. Wandering back across the Seine, I followed the glittering lights to the Eiffel Tower.

Yesterday was the first meeting of the London-Paris Number Theory Seminar. My advisor gave a talk about the paper of his that I'm reading and there were two other talks also about generalizations of Serre's Conjecture. Jean-Pierre Serre himself attended the seminar.

Afterwards, I wandered around a bit more, getting mildly lost in lovely cobblestone back streets, discovering beautiful little bookstores that made me wish I knew French and a tiny Japanese import shop that I was allowed to peruse even though they were closed and had delicate pottery scattered everywhere.

I walked up past Moulin Rouge, which was surely the least interesting bit of Paris I saw while I was there, and then headed back to the Gare du Nord to catch the Eurostar back to London.

Tagore Exhibit

"The Gift"

If you would have it so,
I will end my singing.

If it sets your heart aflutter,
I will take away my eyes from your face.

If it suddenly startles you in your walk,
I will step aside and take another path.

If it confuses you in your flower-weaving,
I will shun your lonely garden.

If it makes the water wanton and wild,
I will not row my boat by your bank.






"In the Dusky Path of a Dream"

In the dusky path of a dream I went to seek the love who was mine
in a former life.

Her house stood at the end of a desolate street.
In the evening breeze her pet peacock sat drowsing on its perch,
and the pigeons were silent in their corner.

She set her lamp down by the portal and stood before me.
She raised her large eyes to my face and mutely asked, "Are you
well, my friend?"
I tried to answer, but our language had been lost and forgotten.

I thought and thought; our names would not come to my mind.
Tears shone in her eyes. She held up her right hand to me. I
took it and stood silent.

Our lamp had flickered in the evening breeze and died.



I stopped by the British Museum this evening to see the small but stunning exhibit of Rabindranath Tagore paintings. In some ways, these small paintings are just doodles, but the deep layers of color are masterful and bring the abstract animals to life against a background of sorrow mingled with hope. These are a few of his many poems. I hadn't known that he had done any painting.



"Mind Without Fear"

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up
into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason
has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action---

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Fish & Chips

Earlier this week, I joined a few other maths postgrads for fish & chips for lunch. It was the first time since I've been living here that I've eaten fish & chips. One of the guys who came with us is from somewhere on the coast of England and said that you can't get really good fish & chips in London, but he said the place we went to (the Rock and Sole Plaice) was the best he'd had so far.

I'm suffering from too much beer consumption last night (some might go so far as to call it a "hangover"). Brenda invited "The Emperor" to join us for drinks at the pub. His nickname comes from being the rather demanding social organizer of another maths postgrad office down the hall from us. He's from Belfast and has quite a reputation for drinking often, long and heavily. The bar staff greeted him personally when we arrived. Not only did he join us, but another 5 guys showed up and I drank twice as much as I usually do on our Thursday evening pub nights. The whole situation seems more likely to arise in fraternity initiation than in the social life of some maths postgrads. I think the conversation might have given us away though.

Actually, Peter (The Emperor) is no longer The Emperor since he finished and now has a job for which he has to get up in the morning. Supposedly another guy named Peter in the same office has taken over his role ("Peter the Second"), but I don't think he has quite the same knack for the job.

Useless Joseki

My friend and I dubbed this star point joseki (1 through 7) the "useless joseki". Playing White or Black, we never felt satisfied with this joseki. Our misgivings (in one direction anyway) apparently were justified: this joseki is now considered "old". White should not choose to play this joseki. Why?

First of all, Black will press with 1 through 5. Here, White is pushing from behind--never (especially if you are Guo Juan's student) push from behind! Also, White is running along the second line while Black is building outside influence. This is good for Black.







Furthermore, if White plays elsewhere, Black has a severe follow up. With 1 through 7 in this diagram, White lives tiny along the side, but Black seals White in and makes massive influence on the outside. This is unacceptable for White.







White can avoid being sealed in as in this diagram, but now Black gets a really big corner and White is not even alive yet.










My question now is, what other choices does White have against this 2 space high pincer if White does not want to jump into the corner? The only other options given in my joseki dictionary are jumping into the corner or doing a double approach move, which, compared to jumping out, is generally similar to jumping into the corner.

THE math

From an interview of Karl Rove a couple of weeks ago by NPR's Robert Siegel:

SIEGEL: I don't want to have you to call races...

ROVE: I'm looking at all of these Robert and adding them up. I add up to a Republican Senate and Republican House. You may end up with a different math but you are entitled to your math and I'm entitled to THE math.

SIEGEL: I don't know if we're entitled to a different math but your...

ROVE: I said THE math.

Vote!

Happy Election Day!! Don't forget to vote!!

Even better, help MoveOn.org and call others to remind them to vote as well.

So much news

Fortunately, there's some good news amongst everything going on these days, like the Episcopal church making history with their first female presiding bishop and the Army Times calling for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation right before the mid-term elections.

There's bad news, also, of course. The situation in Oaxaca is awful (an interesting side note: it's amusing that Bush meets with other foreign leaders whose elections were fraught with charges of fraud). Speaking of Bush, his home state has started running webcams trained on the border between Texas and Mexico so that internet users can watch and report any illegal immigrants trying to cross the border. It's reminiscent of Mao's technique of getting people to turn each other in. Perhaps this will backfire though. Anyone who wants to cross has someone send in reports of suspicious activity in other regions to draw the border patrols away.

Yesterday, on my way to the Go club, I walked through a large rally/protest in Trafalgar Square about climate change. There was a reassuringly large number of anti-Bush signs. If you haven't already done so, you should take the time to read the excellent three part article by Elizabeth Kolpert that appeared in the New Yorker last year:
The Climate of Man-I
The Climate of Man-II
The Climate of Man-III

Last night was supposedly Guy Fawkes night here in England, celebrating or condemning (I'm still not sure which--perhaps both) the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. I had been told that there would be bonfires, but I didn't see any. There were some fireworks, but it seems that there are fireworks pretty much every night here in London.

Some song lyrics:

god told the angel "go see about john"
so he flew from the pit with the moon round his waist
gathered wind in his fists and the stars round his wrists
cryin' holy, holy to the lord
--Neko Case, "John Saw that Number"

Basic Corner Shapes

Basic L with a nostril and two hanes. Is it dead or alive or ko? (Evaluate for both Black playing first and White playing first.) What's the difference between a nostril off the long leg and a nostril off the short leg?





OK, so the anatomy is a little strange. But the "legs" just come from the legs of the L and the "nostrils" come from the fact that a basic L with two nostrils is alive (it has two nostrils, so it can breathe). This shape comes up in games quite often, so it's good to know. (By "alive", I mean even if White plays first.)

American Food

Brenda told me today that she was in a shop the other day that had a lot of international food, including a lot of American food. I was immediately suspicious. American food? She said there was a big display of something that she just could not believe: jars of marshmallow stuff that you spread on bread?!? Oh, god. Fluff. Exported. How embarrassing. I confessed that it was real, it was very strange, and yes, people actually eat it on bread. My little sister loves it.

I think she's just trying to get back at me (successfully) for making fun of her Halloween tradition. She said that when they were kids they used to dunk their heads in a pile of flour to try to get a coin buried in the bottom. It's like bobbing for apples, but, well, not quite. I had, of course, never heard of such a thing and doubted the safety of such a practice, and whether anyone other than she and her siblings had ever done this. Another guy (from England) in our office agreed with me. She checked with her boyfriend (also from Ireland, though a different part)--he had never heard of it either.