Serial Experiments Lain is a strange little anime. It reminded me a bit of Dennou Coil, but the subject was more akin to the show Caprica, as it covers virtual worlds, disembodied conciousness, gods and the barriers between what is real and what is "Wired". It was also psychedelic as hell at times, full of fractured philosophical ideas that were presented in digital like flashes.

After all its 13 episodes, it is hard to say what I was left with. I enjoyed the show, but more because of its overall subject and weird presentation. I am sure I haven't understood half of what the creators were attempting to communicate. In a way, it is an abstract art anime, which might not appeal to some people and other people might like it for completely different reasons than intended, such as myself. I couldn't shake the feeling that this is what the Japanese would have done if they were making Caprica. How the characters see the connected world is interesting, as something almost occult, that can store human conciousness into protocols that are hardly well understood and that have evolved organically in time. The concepts of ego and self are also explored, when one has to ask: if I am both connected in a virtual world and have a body in the real world, where is "I" ?

All in all a pretty decent anime, something that lacked any attempt to make it artificially humorous. No highschool love stories, no weird lewd jokes, just the plain storyline. I liked it.

In a previous post I've written about my thoughts on how to learn chess, with the main emphasis being on game analysis. But how that is done is a matter of time, taste and budget. This post is about how I do it. I don't know how other people are analysing chess games, except from hearing them talk about it, so I am not an authority in the matter, but it will save you some time figuring it out for yourself (which you still have to do even if you read the post :) ).

The easiest way of all is to get a game in PGN form, load it in a chess program, then watch it unfold, while you think about what you would have done differently and highlight what you thought was a good move and a bad move. Of course, that relies on your own thinking, which may be flawed, so you can gain help from a chess engine that will analyse the variations and tell you what it thinks of what you thought. It sounds complicated, but it is not. You ask yourself why the player didn't fork the queen and the rook with the knight, you can do it for them (creating what is called a variation). While you are moving the pieces, a chess engine can suggest, based on the time you let it analyse, what is the best move in that situation.

For this I use Arena Chess GUI, a free chess program, and load up the free chess engine versions of Houdini and Rybka. Arena comes with more engines, so you can try them all, but really it's a matter of taste. I once did a championship of chess with the chess engines available in order to see which is best, but there is no real way of giving both chess engines the same computer resources, so the programming style of each engine makes this only a fun comparison, not a scientific one. There are videos on YouTube with competitions of chess engines; those are fun in their own right. Unfortunately, Arena is not really bug free. There are a few gotchas that you learn the hard way, like don't use the Minimize to tray option if you have the default "load PGN at startup" on, or don't use "save back into PGN", etc.

Of course, most chess engines have a free version and a commercial one. Depending on your seriousness, you can choose to pay money for them and get the advantages of new development in chess computing, but don't expect too much. After all, a computer engine only takes a formula that gives a value for a position and then makes a tree of possible move orders in order to minimize their opponent's advantage and maximize theirs. The algorithm is pretty standard and the formula, which really makes the difference between engines, is the outcome of centuries of chess analysis. The game hasn't changed that much in a few years. And exactly this difference between how humans process a game and how a computer does it, makes this analysis a little flawed. A computer will tell you where you went wrong, but won't be able to devise a winning strategy for you, as it is examining every move like it would be the first. So we move to plan B.

Another option for analysing a game, thanks to the vast database of chess games ever played, is to see what other players, human grandmasters and below, have done in the same situation. A software that was built to do this is ChessBase. And it is true that there is a gazillion of possible chess games, but they all begin kind of the same. The opening principles restrict the way a game can start and for the first 20 or 30 moves, there are a lot of players that did the same thing (and played a decent game). ChessBase is a great program, just like Chess Arena, because it allows flexibility in the way you use it without bundling it all. The program is small to download, then you get to download whatever chess engines you want, game databases, video tutorials, etc. To give you an example of size difference: ChessBase 11 is 150MB, the chess player base is 640MB, a video tutorial of chess openings in ChessBase format is 1500MB, while the MegaDatabase of chess games is 2700MB. You can imagine that there are a lot of games in that database, over five million of them. Unfortunately, ChessBase, the databases and the tutorials are not legally free. They cost around 200 euros, plus a few more for the tutorials. Not much for the effort that was put into them.

The chess blog posts that I am using to publicize games are done by using these kinds of scenarios. I am taking a game that I played with someone or with my phone, I am analysing the game so see where changes in the score have occurred (those are the interesting bits in a game) and then try out variations, using engines or databases to see what else could have been done. It is a good practice to analyse the game as soon as possible, as the ideas that led to the moves are still fresh in your mind. It may seem like a drag, but commenting why you did the moves allows you to understand the game later on, when you are revisiting it. Also a good idea is to have your chess partner do the same thing and then merge the two PGNs into one, that makes clear the overall play. A chess analysis engine will comment every move with what it thought would have been the best continuation and the value of the board at that time. It makes a PGN horrible to read, because even if you put it into a visual display of the PGN, you still want to have a clean, readable PGN file. What you want to do is analyse a single move with the engine, see were it goes, then write a humanly understandable statement like "which would have been disastrous because of the sacrifice of the rook on f8, followed by Qxf7, mate".

As examples, try to compare the following blog post PGNs. My first chess game post, was annotated automatically by ChessMaster XI, which has a human readable annotation engine which I first thought was great. But look at the texts: they are either obvious or resort to stuff like "Leads to 15...Kf7 16.Bh4 h6 17.b4 Rab8 18.a4 Bxf3 19.Qxf3 Be7 20.Ng4 Bxh4 21.Nxe5+ Kg7 22.bxc5, which wins a bishopand two pawns for a bishop and a knight.". Unless used to read PGN like English (which most professional players can, btw, complete with a chess board in their heads), you see a lot of mambo jumbo. A later game post, that contained annotated moves by me, as translated from chess engine analysis.Or this one, which contains no annotations at all. Which one do you like best?

A word of warning, analysing chess games is not a short process. The advantages of the ChessMaster XI auto analysis was that you could leave it on at night, then come back in the morning and see it unfurl before you (and audio read by the chess software). To do it manually, or even let the auto analysis run at night and then decode the best move suggested by the computer and translate, takes a lot of time. I've spent an hour per game to annotate a match (two games) that two coworkers had and that I dutifully stored on my cell phone while they were playing. It was satisfying, but time wasting. A lot like blog posting... I leave you at that. Have fun dissecting chess games.

There is, of course, a long tried method of learning chess: find a bunch of people that want to play chess and go fight with them. Like that old Army line: join the Army, meet interesting people, kill them. But also obvious is that this is not the best method there is. You meet old men that play chess every day with other old men that have a lot of time on their hands and, even if they kick your ass rather quickly, you often find ways of defeating them because all their play is organic, lacking a principled structure. And that is what this post is about. I am the least principled player out there, as I have a ridiculously leaky memory and am rather greedy (I want fun games, now, not dirty principles), and therefore I get often beaten by people that should not have been able to defeat me. And, like in the old adventure games: So, you want to be a (principled) chess player - this is the quest.

First of all, don't google "how to learn chess" as you will get swamped by all the chess players that think they can teach you for money and all the software that you need to buy and all the DVDs that you absolutely need to buy. That doesn't mean that if you are patient you wouldn't eventually find what you need and, being a wannabe chess player, you should have a little patience. But if you are like me (why do I want to play chess again?) you don't have patience. Second of all, don't start with chess books. You can find zillions of them on the web, but in order to read them you will have to become very familiar with a chess board. Unlike a video, they will require to read the book with a chess board at hand and do the moves as you read. That pretty much means you can read them only in specific settings and you will feel like an idiot for reading a page a day. Books are great, but not for beginners.

Then there are some free online resources that one can use, lovely chess sites like JRobiChess.com, theChessWebsite or ChessVideos.tv, where one can get multiple opportunities to learn: grandmaster games, videos, tutorial, references. These are great, and I thoroughly recommend them. Also, look for "chess" on YouTube and you will find a plethora of people discussing and teaching chess, some of them completely for passion alone. On JRobi's site you can even find a chess study time recommendation: Opening Study – 10%, Tactical Puzzles - 20%, Endgame Study – 10%, Analyzing Your Games – 30%,Analyzing Master Games – 30% of Time. Let's analyse this plan a little bit and some very interesting ideas will emerge.

As you can see, there is time allotted for openings, only a tenth of the time, and the same amount of time for endgames. This leads to the first very important idea: endgames are (at least) just as important as openings. If you think about it, most of the amateur games, played for fun and not for some chess rating, are spectacularly inaccurate and end in quick mates. That means that most of the "go get'em" practice will teach you about openings and some of the middle game. Once in endgame territory, we are suddenly beginners again, trying to get by and failing miserably. That's why it is important to spend time with endgames. Josh Waitzkin, a US champion at chess, recommended learning endgames even more than openings. He described how, by careful study of just a few pieces on the board (two kings and a pawn, or some other piece, the usual endgame scenarios) he would emerge slightly disadvantaged in the endgame, then crush his opponent, less instructed in this most important part of a chess game. The opening and endgame learning is only a fifth of all learning time, though. Other things are even more important.

20% tactical puzzles. This is the equivalent of learning karate moves out of context. You are not fighting anybody, but you learn to hit them in a particular way. You don't have the pressure of a game, you have all the time in the world, find the best move! Both JRobi's site and Kevin's (theChessWebsite) have daily tactical puzzles. This is actually one of the few exercises that I do almost every work day: I open their sites and do those puzzles. But let me tell you something: if you open a chess book with tactical puzzles, you get some really nasty, mind boggling stuff. These online ones, at least the two I mentioned, are made for people that if they don't immediately see the answer, they start trying moves until they get them right. I should know; that hint button also gets heavy use. So this is one of the moments when I can recommend books, but start with the online ones first and try to see them through before moving.

Now comes the heavy part. We've covered a little more than a third of the time one should spend on chess learning, according to JRobi. The other two thirds are analysing games. That is it. Take the game out of the competition and clinically dissect it until you learn everything there is to learn. A major idea comes out of this, though: if you need to analyse your own games, that means someone must record them as you play. Professional and club games have score cards: they write every move they and their opponent make, the score, even small comments (you will see what I mean when we get to PGNs) and they sign each other's cards at the end of the game. I've never done it, but I imagine it is satisfying to get your adversary to sign their own defeat while you desecrate their own card with your victory scribble (heh!). I also imagine it adds to one's motivation, getting this kind of direct recognition of your effort in the game. Another option, much easily available, is to load a chess game on your mobile phone and set it to two player game. Once you make a move, you make it on the phone as well. At the end, you download the PGN file on your computer for later analysis. With a chess engine at hand and all the time in the world you can see where mistakes were made, where good moves changed the score balance and what was missed. A spectator of the game can do that for you, as well. I originally planned to write in this blog about analysing games, but it has become too long already. I will, therefore, detail that particular part in another blog post.

Of course, analysing the games played at grandmaster level shows how other people are thinking when playing the game. It's not unlike reading material relevant to your line of work. You may be smart, but you are not expecting to think of everything that may be of use to you in a specific context. You read what other wrote on the subject and gain inspiration. And when you see a giant chess player sacrifice a queen for two knights and then mating the other guy in another ten moves, you also gain humility (or you close the bloody game and go watch a movie or something). Indeed, try not to let it get to you. Grandmasters are not geniuses that can outthink you at every step, monsters that can intellectually squash you like a bug, they are people just like you that also dedicated their lives to the game of chess. Professional chess players do it for life. Expecting to understand what they did without a lot of effort is a stupid expectation. It is important to analyse their games and learn from both their mistakes and brilliant moves.

That leaves us with the endgame of this post: computer chess tutors. That is different from playing chess with your computer or pad or cell phone. That enters the first category of just playing. Computers also play differently than people, they are great at not making mistakes and punishing yours, but their design also allows for moves that would mate you in 235 moves or something like that, which is insane for any human being. Don't get me wrong, computers are great practice, but consider that if you beat them at a certain difficulty level, it is because they were programmed to let you. With the computing power available today, a cell phone would probably be able to beat Kasparov. So, back to chess tutors. I've only found one that I liked, and that is the ChessMaster XI game. Incidentally, there is where I've learned of Josh Waitzkin, as he is the voice and mind behind the game tutorials. I've also heard a lot of Fritz, but I haven't found a context where it really tutors you. Fritz is bundled with ChessBase and there are some tutorials with board, PGN games and video that use ChessBase to teach you stuff. There are probably some ChessBase based tutorials, but I haven't searched for them yet.

So, I leave you with this little research I've done, I hope it helps you get better and encourages me to heed my own advice.

I found this game on The Kenilworthian blog, a game between Nona Gaprindashvili and Alexander Blagidze. What fascinated me about this particular game is the position after 12... Nc6. Only twelve moves into the game, a position that seems normal, like something one would see when studying a particular opening, and then Bam! Can you see the bam? That is the challenge. Try to find it yourself.

I've analysed the game (very superficially) using Houdini and I've added two variations, just to see what would have happened in the more obvious situations. One question remains: what was really black's downfall? What was black's bad move and what could have been done instead of it? You can see it in the analysed PGN, but try to see it, it's a deceptively silent move.

[Event "USSR"]
[Site "USSR"]
[Date "1963.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Nona Gaprindashvili"]
[Black "Alexander Blagidze"]
[Result "1-0"]
[BlackElo "2400"]
[ECO "B23"]
[Opening "Sicilian"]
[Variation "Closed, 2...Nc6 3.Bb5 Nd4"]
[WhiteElo "2400"]
[TimeControl "600"]
[Termination "normal"]
[PlyCount "47"]
[WhiteType "human"]
[BlackType "human"]

1. e4 {(e7-e5) +0.10/16 20}
...c5 {(Ng1-f3 Nb8-c6 Nb1-c3 Ng8-f6 d2-d4 c5xd4 Nf3xd4 e7-e6 Bf1-e2 Bf8-b4 Nd4xc6 b7xc6 0-0 Qd8-a5 Qd1-d3 0-0 Bc1-e3 Bc8-b7 Be3-d4 e6-e5) -0.20/16 20}
2. Nc3 {(Nb8-c6 Ng1-f3 Ng8-f6 d2-d4 c5xd4 Nf3xd4 e7-e6 Bf1-e2 Bf8-b4 Nd4xc6 b7xc6 0-0 Qd8-a5 Qd1-d3 0-0 Bc1-e3 Bc8-b7 Ra1-d1 Bb4xc3 Qd3xc3 Qa5xc3 b2xc3 Nf6xe4 Rd1xd7 Ne4xc3) +0.22/17 20}
...Nc6 {(Ng1-f3 Ng8-f6 d2-d4 c5xd4 Nf3xd4 e7-e6 Bf1-e2 Bf8-b4 Nd4xc6 b7xc6 0-0 Qd8-a5 Qd1-d3 0-0 Bc1-e3 d7-d6 Qd3-c4 d6-d5 Qc4xc6 Bc8-d7 Qc6-b7 Bb4xc3 b2xc3 d5xe4) -0.19/16 20}
3. f4 {(d7-d6 Ng1-f3 g7-g6 Bf1-c4 Ng8-f6 d2-d3 Bf8-g7 h2-h3 0-0 0-0 a7-a6 a2-a4 Nf6-h5 Nc3-e2 e7-e6 c2-c3 Bc8-d7 Bc1-e3) 0.00/15 20}
...g6 {(g2-g4 Bf8-g7 g4-g5 a7-a6 Ng1-f3 b7-b5 d2-d3 h7-h6 a2-a4 b5-b4 Nc3-d5 h6xg5 f4xg5 e7-e6 Nd5-e3 Ng8-e7 Ne3-c4) 0.00/15 20}
4. Bb5 {(Nc6-d4 Ng1-f3 Nd4xb5 Nc3xb5 d7-d6 0-0 Bc8-d7 c2-c4 Bd7xb5 c4xb5 Qd8-b6 d2-d4 c5xd4 Qd1xd4 Qb6xd4+ Nf3xd4 Ng8-f6 e4-e5 Nf6-e4 Bc1-e3) -0.02/14 20}
...Nd4 {(Ng1-f3 Nd4xb5) +0.08/14 20}
5. Bc4 {(a7-a6 a2-a4 e7-e6 Ng1-f3 Ng8-e7 e4-e5 d7-d5 e5xd6/ep Ne7-f5 0-0 Nf5xd6 d2-d3 Bf8-g7 Nc3-e4 0-0 Bc1-e3 Nd6xc4 d3xc4 Nd4xf3+ Qd1xf3 Bg7xb2 Be3xc5 Bb2xa1 Bc5xf8) 0.00/14 20}
...Bg7 {(Ng1-f3 d7-d6 0-0 Ng8-f6 e4-e5 d6xe5 f4xe5 Nd4xf3+ Qd1xf3 Qd8-d4+ Qf3-e3 Nf6-g4 Qe3xd4 c5xd4 Bc4xf7+ Ke8-d8 Nc3-e4 Bg7xe5 h2-h3 Ng4-h2 Rf1-e1 Rh8-f8 Ne4-g5 Be5-g3) -0.05/15 20}
6. Nge2 {(d7-d6 0-0) -0.05/13 20}
...e6 {(b2-b3 a7-a6 e4-e5 d7-d5 Bc4-d3 Nd4xe2 Bd3xe2 Ng8-e7 Bc1-b2 Bc8-d7 h2-h4 Ne7-f5 h4-h5 Nf5-g3 Rh1-h3 Ng3xe2 Qd1xe2) +0.01/14 20}
7. Nxd4 {(c5xd4 Nc3-e2 d7-d6 b2-b3 Ng8-f6 Bc4-d3 Bc8-d7 Bc1-a3 Qd8-b6 h2-h3 Bd7-c6 Ne2-g3 0-0 Ba3xd6 Rf8-d8 Bd6-e7 Rd8-d7) -0.09/15 20}
...cxd4 {(Nc3-e2 d7-d6 b2-b3 Ng8-f6 Bc4-d3 Bc8-d7 Bc1-a3 Qd8-b6 h2-h3 Bd7-c6 Ne2-g3 0-0 Ba3xd6 Rf8-d8 Bd6-e7 Rd8-d7) +0.09/16 20}
8. Ne2 {(d7-d6 b2-b3 Ng8-f6 Ne2-g3 h7-h5 Bc4-d3 h5-h4 Ng3-e2 Bc8-d7 Bc1-b2 e6-e5 0-0 Bd7-c6 c2-c3 Bc6xe4 Bd3-b5+ Ke8-f8 f4xe5 d6xe5 c3xd4) -0.15/16 20}
...Qh4+ {(g2-g3 Qh4-e7 a2-a4 d7-d6 d2-d3 Ng8-h6 c2-c3 d4xc3 b2xc3 0-0 0-0 Nh6-g4 h2-h3 Ng4-f6 e4-e5 Nf6-d7 d3-d4 Nd7-b6) 0.00/16 20}
9. Ng3 {(Ng8-f6 Qd1-f3) -0.29/15 20}
...Qxf4 {(d2-d3 Qf4-f6 Rh1-f1 Qf6-e7 Qd1-f3 d7-d5 Bc4-b3 Ng8-h6 e4xd5 e6xd5+ Qf3-e2 Qe7xe2+ Ng3xe2 Nh6-g4 Bb3xd5 0-0 Bc1-f4 Ng4-e3 Bf4xe3 d4xe3 d3-d4 a7-a5 a2-a4) +0.12/16 20}
10. d3 {(Qf4-d6 0-0 Ng8-e7 Bc1-f4 Qd6-b6 a2-a4 0-0 a4-a5 Qb6-c5 Qd1-e1 d7-d6 Bf4-d2 Bc8-d7 Ng3-e2 b7-b5 a5xb6/ep a7xb6 Qe1-h4 Ra8xa1 Rf1xa1) -0.22/16 20}
...Qc7 {(0-0) +0.11/15 20}
11. O-O {(Ng8-e7 Bc1-g5 Qc7-c5 Qd1-d2 b7-b5 b2-b4 Qc5-b6 Bg5xe7 Ke8xe7 Bc4-b3 f7-f6 a2-a4 b5xa4 Bb3xa4 Bc8-b7 Qd2-f4 Ke7-e8 e4-e5 f6-f5 Ng3-e2 g6-g5) -0.21/16 20}
...Ne7 {(Bc1-g5 Qc7-c5 Qd1-d2 b7-b5 b2-b4 Qc5-b6 Bg5xe7 Ke8xe7 Bc4-b3 Bc8-b7 Qd2-f4 f7-f6 a2-a4 b5xa4 Bb3xa4 Ke7-e8 e4-e5 f6-f5 Ng3-e2 g6-g5) +0.21/16 20}
12. Bg5 {(Qc7-c5 Qd1-f3 0-0 Bg5-f6 Bg7xf6 Qf3xf6 b7-b6 a2-a3 Ne7-c6 Rf1-f5 Qc5-e7 Ng3-h5 Qe7xf6 Nh5xf6+ Kg8-g7 Rf5-f4 Nc6-e5 Ra1-f1 Ne5xc4 d3xc4 Bc8-a6 b2-b3 g6-g5 Rf4-f3) -0.10/16 20}
...Nc6 {(Ng3-h5 g6xh5 Rf1xf7 h7-h6 Bg5-f4 Bg7-e5 Qd1xh5 Ke8-d8 Qh5-h4+ Kd8-e8 Qh4-h5 Ke8-d8 Qh5-h4+) 0.00/16 20}
13. Nh5 {(g6xh5 Rf1xf7 h7-h6 Bg5-f4 Bg7-e5 Qd1xh5 Ke8-d8 Qh5-h4+ Kd8-e8 Qh4-h5 Ke8-d8 Qh5-h4+) 0.00/17 20}
...gxh5 {(Rf1xf7 h7-h6 Bg5-f4 Bg7-e5 Qd1xh5 Ke8-d8 Qh5-h4+ Kd8-e8 Qh4-h5 Ke8-d8 Qh5-h4+) 0.00/18 20}
14. Rxf7 {(h7-h6 Bg5-f4 Bg7-e5 Qd1xh5 Ke8-d8 Qh5-h4+ Kd8-e8 Qh4-h5 Ke8-d8 Qh5-h4+) 0.00/18 20}
...Qe5 {(Rf7-f5 Qe5xf5 e4xf5 0-0 f5xe6 d7xe6 Qd1xh5 Bc8-d7 Qh5-g4 Ra8-e8 Bg5-h6 Re8-e7 Bh6xg7 Re7xg7 Bc4xe6+ Kg8-h8 Qg4-h3 Bd7xe6 Qh3xe6 Rg7-f7 Qe6-b3 Rf7-e7 Ra1-f1 Rf8xf1+ Kg1xf1 Kh8-g7 Qb3-d5 h7-h6 Kf1-f2 Re7-f7+ Kf2-g3) -4.44/16 20}
(14. .. Kxf7 15. Qxh5+ Kf8 16. Rf1+ Qf4 17. Rxf4+ Bf6 18. Rxf6+ Ke7 19. Rxe6+ Kf8 20. Re8+ Kg7 21. Qh6#)
15. Rf5
(15. Rf5 Qxf5 16. exf5 O-O 17. fxe6 dxe6 18. Qxh5 Bd7 19. Qg4 Rae8 20. Bh6 Re7 21. Bxg7 Rxg7 22. Bxe6+ Kh8 23. Qh3 Bxe6 24. Qxe6 )
1-0

World of Ptavvs is a book first published in 1966, therefore it feels very dated indeed. Still, while reading the book, I've realised how I missed the style of the sci-fi back then, when the world was grand, the future was brilliant, people would all be intelligent and rational, doing what is smart and what is right, with a power of will that defined their very being. Remember Asimov? It's like that! And it's no wonder, both Larry Niven and Isaac Asimov were technical people at their core, even if they have expanded their interests in many other spheres as well. I have to reiterate this: in this time of Generation Me, when everything seems to be focused on the intensity of one's emotions, rather than on what the situation at hand is and what to do about it, when legions of film makers and young adult writers pound this insane idea that what we feel is more important than what we think and our own belief is more important than the welfare of the people around us, in these horrible times books like World of Ptavvs feel like good medicine.

Not the the book was not ridiculous in many aspects. The fusion drives, the trips towards Pluto that took a few days, a "belter" civilisation populating the main asteroid belt and moving around in ships that were essentially huge fusion bombs, the way people with terrible burns and psychic trauma would calmly talk about their ordeal to the scientific investigator come to solve the problem, the idealistic discussions that spawned out of nowhere in moments of maximum tension, the intelligent civilisation of dolphins that dream to go to space, the psionic powers... all of these were at the same time wonderful to behold and quite silly. However, I liked the book, I gobbled it up.

The plot is about this alien that can control the minds of others. Their entire civilisation is based on enslaving other populations via their Power. He is the victim of a malfunction in space and activates a retarder field that will protect him from time and space interactions until someone removes him from this stasis. Thus, he reaches Earth and remains on the bottom of the ocean for billions of years. When people get him out of his shell, all hell breaks loose, the book transforming into a space race and a philosophical introspection at the same time.

I can't make justice to the subject in a few words any more than I can do it in more words without spoiling the pleasure of the read - I've already said too much. If you feel you are in the mood for old school sci-fi, World of Ptavvs is a good book, reminiscent of the works of Asimov or van Vogt. Silly, yet grandiose at the same time.

I have been called a hipster many a times and that is because I don't really like mainstream things and, instead, choose to see beauty and purpose somewhere else. I'm not really a hipster, though, since the trends I am following are not the latest and I have no sense of fashion. But enough about me. Let's talk about software and it's latest incarnation: mobile and HTML5/javascript and how I despise the hype around something that is, let's put it simply, a combination of lazy programming and market forces. No real innovation, no quality, no soul. A Hollywood of software, if you will.

People, I've seen this before and so have you. There was a time when computing was done on devices that had single digit megahertz chips at their core. Applications and games thrived. Programmers would always complain about the lack of resources and there was a time when 64KB of memory was thought enough for most computing purposes. It was that time that spawned the algorithmic generation, the guys that usually ask you what a graph is or how to manually do a bubble sort on paper when they hire you to work on web sites. You needed to make your software slim and efficient to work on those devices. Then the processor power, memory and drive capacity just exploded. Each step of the way, applications and games thrived. The problem was... they were the same as before, only larger. Wolfenstein became Doom became Quake became Counter Strike became Call of Duty and beyond, the resolution, the realism, the environment ever evolving, but the game staying the same: get some guns and kill something. But still, it was OK, we like things bigger, we want more pixels. It doesn't matter that the Windows operating system grows exponentially to use the increasing space and processing power, yet we use it in about the same way as before. It doesn't matter that the single player games just look better and have the same or even less complexity than the games ten years before. It's a status quo we can live with.

But then browsers came along. Suddenly, there is a whole new market: online apps. One server to bind them all. And we again lament the lack of resources, as we use slow javascript and try the ever annoying Java applets and somehow we settle on Flash. It can be used on any operating system, almost any browser, let's make games with it and place them online. The only reason we do not make entire web sites in Flash remaining SEO. And we lament the lack of programming tools for something that was originally created only for online animation for commercial ads, but we can live with it. All the games we played so joyfully on 80386 processor machines we can now play in a browser, in Flash, on machines that are 100 times faster. No problem there.

Then the smartphones and tablets arrived, with their new operating systems, their weird resolutions and their direct dislike of Flash. Suddenly Flash is no good anymore: it is not open enough, not fast enough, not compatible enough. Instead, let's switch to HTML5 and Javascript, the backbone of the Web. Let's use those. Sure, now we need a faster Javascript, so we think on it a little and Kaboom! Javascript is suddenly 8 times faster. We need new HTML concepts and ideas and Kapow! the HTML standard suddenly changes after years of wallowing between panels and committees. Nothing can stand in the way of change now, we even have portable devices that are faster than the computers we used 10 years ago.

And so we get to today, when my Athlon II 2500+ computer is too slow to play flash games without overheating, because they are made with frameworks designed to output HTML and Javascript. And that is why I can't even move the mouse in browser based HTML5 and Javascript games, even if what the page I am on only wants to do is let me play Angry Birds, a game that would have worked fine, with almost the same level of graphics and certainly the same level of intelligence and entertainment, on a 33Mhz computer from 20 years ago.

I could live with all that, though. I could buy another computer, after all it is a wonder this one even works anymore, but it bothers me so much that I have games and films and software that have been working on this machine for so long and they are mostly better than what I can find today. It bothers me to buy a smartphone or a tablet only to see my rights to use it restricted and conditioned from the people that make them. It bothers me to have lived 20 years with computers, only to have more pixels at the end. I can even imagine my LCD coffin, being put into the ground, with people crying over the touching (really, you can touch them!) floating images from it, while some people would discuss the number of pixels the coffin has. He lived a good life, he got pixels.

I think that The Checklist Manifesto is a book that every technical professional should read. It is simple to read, to the point and extremely useful. I first heard about it in a Scrum training and now, after reading it, I think it was the best thing that came out of it (and it was a pretty awesome training session). What is this book about, then? It is about a surgeon that researches the way a simple checklist can improve the daily routine in a multitude of domains, but mainly, of course, in surgery. And the results are astounding: a two fold reduction in operating room accidents and/or postoperatory infections and complications. Atul Gawande does not stop there, though, he uses examples from other fields to bring his point around, focusing a lot on the one that introduced the wide spread use of checklists: aviation.

There is a lot to learn from this book. I couldn't help always comparing what the author had to say about surgery with the job I am doing, software development, and with the Scrum system we are currently employing. I think that, given he would have heard of Scrum and the industrial management processes it evolved from, Gawande would have surely talked about it in the book. There is no technical field that could not benefit from this, including things like playing chess or one's daily routine. The main idea of the book is that checklists take care of the simple, dumb things that we have to do, in order to unclutter our brain for the complex and intuitive work. It enables self discipline and allows for unexpected increases in efficiency. I am certainly considering using in my own life some of the knowledge I gained, and not only at the workplace.

What I could skim from the book, things that I marked as worthy to remember:

• Do not punish mistakes, instead give more chances to experience and learning - this is paramount to any analytical process. The purpose is not to kill the host, but to help it adapt to the disease. Own your mistakes, analyse them, learn from them.
• Decentralize control - let professionals assume responsibility and handle their own jobs as they know best. Dictating every action from the top puts enormous pressure on few people that cannot possibly know everything and react with enough speed to the unpredictable
• Communication is paramount in managing complex and unexpected situations, while things like checklists can take care of simple and necessary things - this is the main idea of the book, enabling creativity and intuition by checking off the routine stuff
• A process can help by only changing behaviour - Gawande gives an example where soap was freely given to people, together with instructions on how and when to use it. It had significant beneficial effects on people, not because of the soap per sé, but because it changed behaviour. They were already buying and using soap, but the routine and discipline of soap use was the most important result
• Team huddles - like in some American sports, when a team is trying to achieve a result, they need to communicate well. One of the important checks for all the lists in the book was a discussion between all team members describing what they are about to do. Equally important is communicating during the task, but also at the end, where conclusions can be drawn and outcomes discussed
• Checklists can be bad - a good checklist is precise, to the point, easy to use. A long and verbose list can impede people from their task, rather than help them, while vague items in the lists cause more harm than good
• A very important part of using a checklist system is to clearly define pause points - they are the moments at which people take the list and check things from it. An undefined or vaguely defined pause point is just as bad as useless checklist items
• Checklists are of two flavours - READ-DO, like a food recipe, with clear actions that must be performed in order, and DO-CONFIRM, where people stop to see what was accomplished and what is left to do, like a shopping list
• A good checklist should optimally have between five and nine items - the number of items the human brain can easily remember. This is not a strong rule, but it does help
• Investigate failures - there is no other way to adapt
• A checklist gotcha is the translation - people might make an effort to make a checklist do wonders in a certain context, only to find that translating it to other cultures is very difficult and prone to errors. A checklist is itself subject to failure investigation and adaptation
• Lobbying and greed are hurting us - a particularly emotional bit of the book is a small rant in which the author describes how people would have jumped on a pill or an expensive surgical device that would have brought the same great results as checklists, only to observe that people are less interested in something easy to copy, distribute and that doesn't bring benefits to anyone except the patients. That was a painful lesson
• The star test pilot is dead - there was a time when crazy brave test pilots would risk their lives to test airplanes. The checklist method has removed the need for unnecessary risks and slowly removed the danger and complexity in the test pilot work, thus destroying the mythos. That also reduced the number of useless deaths significantly.
• The financial investors that behave most like airline captains are the most successful - they balance their own greed or need for excitement with carefully crafted checklists, enabling their "guts" with the certainty that small details were not missed or ignored for reasons of wishful thinking
• The Hudson river hero(es) - an interesting point was made when describing the Hudson river airplane crash. Even if the crew worked perfectly with each other, keeping their calm in the face of both engines suddenly stopping, calming and preparing the passengers, carefully checking things off their lists and completing each other's tasks, the media pulled hard to make only the pilot a hero. Surely he denied it every time and said that it was a crew effort because he was modest. Clearly he had everything under control. That did not happen and it also explains why the checklist is so effective and yet so few people actually employ it. We dream of something else
• We are not built for discipline - that is why discipline is something that enables itself. It takes a little discipline to become more disciplined. A checklist ensures a kind of formal discipline in cases previously analysed by yourself. It assumes control over the emotional need for risk and excitement.
• Optimize the system, not the parts - it is always the best choice to look at something as a whole and improve it as a whole. The author mentions an experiment of building a car from the best parts, taken from different companies. The result was a junk car that was not very good. The way the parts interact with one another is often more important than individual performance

I am ending this review with the two YouTube videos on how to use and how not to use the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist that Atul Gawande created for surgical team all around the globe.

I've stumbled upon the Latvian Gambit and wanted to test it immediately against my colleagues. As you will see in the video, it seems a wonderfully aggressive opening, something akin to Shock and Awe, riddled with traps against your opponent. The truth is that it is an unprincipled opening, abandoning material advantage in the hope that your adversary will slip up and expecting you to have the skills to attack and defend accurately as the game progresses. I did manage to capture the queen once, but only after pointing out to my opponent that he could have forked my king and rook, so that the trap would work - he hadn't noticed. In the rest of the games, none of them running the course of the video you will see, the lack of skill on both sides of the table forced me to abandon this gambit for now, instead looking for something more principled and more appropriate for my playing level.

So here is the game from TheChessWebsite:

[youtube:2flPdsk9uz4]

I've experimented with chess engines and watched other videos about the gambit and constructed a rather complex PGN file. You can play with it here. Don't forget to click on the variations to see how the game could progress. There is even a full game there, from a video that has the link in the comment.
[Event "The Latvian Gambit"]
[Site "Siderite's Blog"]
[Date "2012.04.18"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Siderite"]
[Black "Siderite"]
[Result "0-1"]
[BlackElo "2400"]
[ECO "C63"]
[Opening "Spanish"]
[Time "13:45:38"]
[Variation "Schliemann, 4.Nc3 fxe4 5.Nxe4 Nf6"]
[WhiteElo "2400"]
[TimeControl "0+60"]
[Termination "normal"]
[PlyCount "11"]
[WhiteType "human"]
[BlackType "human"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f5 3. Nxe5 (3. Bc4 3. .. fxe4 4. Nxe5 Nf6 (4. .. Qg5 5. d4
Qxg2 6. Qh5+ g6 7. Bf7+ Kd8 8. Bxg6 Qxh1+ 9. Ke2 c6) (4. .. d5 5. Qh5+ g6
6. Nxg6 hxg6 7. Qxg6+ (7. Qxh8 Kf7 8. Qd4 Be6 9. Bb3 Nc6 10. Qe3 Bh6 11. f4
Nge7) 7. .. Kd7 8. Bxd5 Nf6 9. Nc3 Qe7) 5. Nf7 Qe7 6. Nxh8 d5 7. Be2 (7.
Bb3 Bg4 {White loses the queen, one way or another} 8. f3 exf3+ 9. Kf2 Ne4+
10. Kf1 (10. Kg1 f2+ 11. Kf1 Bxd1) 10. .. fxg2+ 11. Kxg2 Bxd1)) (3. Nc3 3.
.. Nf6 {Continue as for the king gambit (reversed)}) (3. exf5 3. .. e4 4.
Ne5 Nf6 5. Be2 d6 6. Bh5+ Ke7 7. Nf7 Qe8 8. Nxh8 Qxh5 9. Qxh5 Nxh5) (3. d4
fxe4 4. Nxe5 Nf6 5. Bg5 d6 6. Nc3 dxe5 7. dxe5 Qxd1+ 8. Rxd1 h6 9. Bxf6
gxf6) 3. .. Qf6 (3. .. Nc6 4. Qh5+
{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZHGgEGM6SQ} (4. Nxc6 bxc6 5. exf5 Nf6 6.
d4 d5 7. Bd3 Bd6 8. Be3 O-O 9. Nd2 Rb8 10. Rb1 Qe7 11. O-O h5 12. Nf3 Ne4
13. Bxe4 dxe4 14. Ng5 Bxf5 15. Qxh5 Rf6 16. Nh3 Qd7 17. Bg5 g6 18. Qh4 Rf7
19. Nf4 Rh7 20. Qg3 Kg7 21. Qc3 Rbh8 22. d5+ Kg8 23. h3 {correct move dxc6}
Bxh3 24. Qxc6 (24. Nxh3 Rxh3 25. gxh3 Rxh3) 24. .. Bf5 25. Nh3 Bxh3 26. Bf6
Bxg2 {Bh2+ would have been mate in 4} (26. .. Bh2+ 27. Kxh2 Bxg2+ 28. Kg3
Rh3+ 29. Kxg2 Qg4#) 27. f4 Qxc6 28. dxc6 Bf3 29. b4 Bxf4 30. Rbe1 Rh1+ 31.
Kf2 R8h2#) 4. .. g6 5. Nxg6 (5. Nxc6 dxc6) 5. .. Nf6 6. Qh4 Rg8 7. Nxf8 Rg4
8. Qh6 Rxe4+ 9. Kd1 (9. Be2 Nd4 10. Nc3 Nxe2 11. Nxe2 Qe7) 9. .. Ng4) (3.
.. Bc5 4. exf5 Bxf2+ 5. Kxf2 Qh4+ 6. Kf3 (6. Kg1 6. .. Qd4#) (6. Ke2 6. ..
Qe4+) (6. g3 Qd4+ 7. Kg2 Qxe5 8. Nc3 Qxf5 9. Bd3 Qf7 10. b3 Nf6 11. Re1+
Kd8 12. Qf3 Nc6 13. Ne4 Qe7 14. Nxf6 Qxf6 15. Qxf6+ gxf6 16. Bb2) 6. .. Nf6
(6. .. Ne7 7. Nc3 d6 8. g3 Qh5+ 9. g4 Qh4 10. Qe1 Qxe1 11. Bb5+ Nbc6 (11.
.. c6 12. Rxe1 cxb5 13. Nd3 Nc6 14. Nxb5) 12. Rxe1 dxe5 13. Rxe5 O-O 14.
Re4 h5 15. h3 Nxf5 16. Bc4+ Kh7 17. gxf5 Bxf5 18. Kg2 Bxe4+ 19. Nxe4 Rae8)
(6. .. b5)) (3. .. fxe4 4. Qh5+ g6 5. Nxg6 Nf6 6. Qe5+) (3. .. d6 4. Qh5+
g6 5. Nxg6 Nf6 6. Qh4) 4. Nc4 (4. d4 d6 5. Nc4 fxe4 6. Nc3 Qg6 7. f3 exf3
8. Qxf3 Nc6 9. Bd3 Qg4) 4. .. fxe4 5. Nc3 Qf7 (5. .. Qg6 6. d3 exd3 7. Bxd3
Qxg2 8. Be4 Qh3 {At this point black has not developed and is lost}) 6. d4
(6. Nxe4 d5) 0-1



Update: Here is another analysis of the Latvian Gambit, by Abby Marshall.
Roman Dzindzichashvili considers the Latvian gambit a sign of mental illness.
Chessexplained also has a video about it.

This is the second book by William Golding that I am reading. Unbeknownst to me, it is part of a trilogy! Even Nobel prize winners for Literature seem to can't help but write the damn things. How is one to finish reading all they want to read?! Anyway, the guy wrote Lord of the Flies, reason for the Nobel and a story I enjoyed both as book and movie. Rites of Passage has many similarities with that book. It happens at sea, on a ship, not on an island, but just as removed from the normal rules of civilised society. It reveals dark depths of human morality. It exposes hypocrisy and narrow mindedness. Golding also won an award for it, the Booker prize this time.

So, what is it about? There is this nobleman, godson of an unidentified but very important man, travelling on a ship from England to "the Antipodes" where he is to take an important state office. The guy is the highest socially elevated person on the ship, giving him some sort of equal footing with the captain himself, who is normally king and church on his ship. Now, the book appears as the journal of said guy, of the name of Talbot, written to his godfather, as a means to thank and humour the man, restricted in his own life by the gout disease. That is where the book is at its most difficult: the language is that of an Englishman noble from the 19^th century, with antiquated words and funny ways of turning them into sentences. I pride myself on having understood and finished it, but now, that I know it is part of a trilogy, I am a bit disconcerted.

Anyway, the journal of Talbot presents us with the marvellous world of a ship at sea, forcing the reader to both empathise with the man, but also share some of his opinions of the lower castes and of the social system. We get to share his view of the current events as well. He thinks of himself as noble, intellectually and morally superior to other people on the ship, while exercising a benevolent and understanding indulgence at the actions of others. He truly seems to be the most intellectual person on board, as educated in comparison with others as a college graduate is to a four grade drop out. However, he is a bit of a dick, full of condescension and of the weaknesses of all men.

The main moral of the story is that his arrogant views on the world of the ship are reasonable, if taking as true the presuppositions he makes as member of his social class and having his position on the ship. However, they are completely wrong as related to what really happened. We understand this in the second half of the book, where he relates the contents of another man's journal, who's perspectives on the situations turn our perceptions on their head. Also, the finale is quite grotesque, revealing that his blindness to the world around him is, more or less, voluntary and part of the social system he represents.

This is a difficult book to read, but one that opens eyes, so to speak. Not only we get to see how English was meant to be used (bah, Americans! :) ) but also the author is taking us through the recesses of the human mind and society and the experience of the read is a visceral and personal one. If you can handle the language and the slow pace, I recommend reading this book.

There is also a quicker option for the ones who want to see what happens without having to read the books. The To the Ends of the Earth trilogy has been adapted to a miniseries, by the BBC, of course, starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

It's been a long time since I've posted a music entry. Here is one from Hanzel und Gretyl, an Industrial Rock band with Nazi overtones singing mostly in German. Actually, I couldn't say what ideology they have, since the band contains two people from New York who are not even German! But I like their music, this one in particular (I've listened to it on repeat for a day or so). Enjoy!

Towers of Midnight, the 13th book in the Wheel of Time series and the book before last in the saga, was a great read. As the second volume written by Brandon Sanderson after Robert Jordan's death, it benefited a lot from Sanderson's fluid writing style and the fact that all the stories are coming to their end.

The plot was interesting, too, with all three ta'veren characters doing their part, all the girls (except Nynaeve!) being involved and quite a few Forsaken as well, with interesting gimmicks the Darkfriend previously known as Luc and even a gholam!. The entire Trakand clan is represented and there are blessedly few Aiel. In this book Moiraine is found, there is some news of lovely and terrible Lanfear and someone dies (although, of course, nobody important and they die quite uselessly) while battling Aelfinn and Eelfinn, while The Final Battle approaches, with the revelation of red veilled dark Aiel?

My feeling of the book was one of discovery. Brandon Sanderson is writing this book with the enthusiasm of someone that just started work on a story (because he did!), yet with all the legacy material from Robert Jordan to build upon. No wonder the last part of the series was supposed to be just one book and resulted in three at the end. That means the story feels fresh, even if I have been reading it for the last four months. Also, it is no surprise that Sanderson could not maintain the fearful and deferential view of women that Jordan cultivated in the previous books. Oh, don't worry, they continue to meddle in all the affairs of others and their behaviour is just as erratic and irrational as before, it's just that men don't act like cowed idiots anymore and actually have a backbone. I don't know if this was supposed to happen in the original author's view, but I am willing to bet that it was not. Actually, this is one of the worse points of the story, when Elayne (the queen of Andor), Egwene (the Amyrlin seat) and Faille (Perrin's wife and princess of Saldaea) are plotting and acting like they own the world, while at the same time putting themselves in all sorts of dangers where they have to be saved by others. Of course, the others more often end up dead, but there is always some handy rationalization for behaving like an idiot. Amazingly enough, though, Cadsuane and even Moiraine are behaving quite well. The End must really be coming!

The bottom line is that I have finished reading the series. The last book won't be published until 2013, so now I am free to read other books. Yatta! I've gathered a technical book about refactoring, The Rites of Passage, by William Golding, and The Checklist Manifesto, which I hear is both instructive and interesting to read (not to mention short). So, I guess the wheel won't be turning as the wheel wants until next year. Meanwhile, you're stuck with me!

The Gathering Storm is the 12th book in the fantasy series Wheel of Time and the last in the saga to be written (partially) by Robert Jordan. The guy died while writing it and the book was continued by Brandon Sanderson. The result? A better book! I firmly believe that Sanderson is writing better than Robert Jordan, while at the same time retaining enough of his style to not feel too much of a disconnect. I wish I was a literary critic right now, so that I could tell you what was better, but I am not; as a reader I can only tell you that I felt less like crawling through thick fluid and more like swimming. There is proof: I've finished reading this book almost a week ago and, while not having time to write this post, I did get two thirds in the thirteenth book of the series.

Ok, I must admit that being a series finale, it was bound to be more interesting, however more focus on the action and less on Nynaeve's braid pulling helped a lot. The plot revolves more about Rand and Egwene and less on the others. Rand is getting more and more erratic do to his obsession for eliminating his emotions. Instead, he buries them within, causing more and more insanity. Luckily, he gets over it, and not by psychotherapy, either. Egwene, instead, having been captured by the White Tower, has been demoted to Accepted and forced to do chores and beatings in order to stop calling herself Amyrlin. She uses her enormous ego and Aiel teachings to overcome the hurdles and reunite the Tower with the unexpected help of Verin, as we finally learn who she was.

The story of this book is interesting in itself. It was supposed to be the last book of Wheel of Time, but then it grew too much and it was decided a split into no less than three other books. The initial target was 200000 words, but the final estimation reached 750000. That means most of the book was written by Sanderson. The reception for the book was positive, since many of the threads left unended in the previous books were clarified.

Right now I am almost at the end of the final published book in the series, Towers of Midnight. The fourteenth book is supposedly ending the saga and will be published sometime at the beginning of 2013. So in about 9 months it will all be over :-)

It was a while since I've written about chess. After an initial burst of enthusiasm, I was left with no friends to play with and it all kind of flopped. However, I've met several people at the office that are interested and even passionate about chess. So it may be that many nice chess blog posts could be coming.

This one is about the Bryntse Gambit. I wanted to write about it because it is relatively unknown. Here is the short version of it: 1. e4 c5 2. f4 d5 3. Nf3 dxe4 4. Ng5 Nf6 5. Bc4 Bg4 6. Bxf7+ Kd7 7. Qxg4+ Nxg4 8. Be6+

At this point, the king has only two reasonable options: Kc7 or Kc6. I've continued the game a few moves from there using the Rybka and Houdini chess engines. The extended game with the respective variations is here: 1. e4 c5 2. f4 d5 3. Nf3 dxe4 4. Ng5 Nf6 5. Bc4 Bg4 6. Bxf7+ (6. Be2 6. .. Bf5 7. g4 Bd7 8. Nc3 Bc6 9. Bc4 e6 10. Qe2 h6 11. Ngxe4 Nxe4 12. Nxe4 Qh4+ 13. Kd1) (6. Be2 Bxe2 7. Qxe2 Nc6 8. Na3 Nd4 9. Qc4 Qd5 10. Qxd5 Nxd5 11. c3 Ne6 12. Nxe6 fxe6) 6. .. Kd7 7. Qxg4+ Nxg4 8. Be6+ Kc7 (8. .. Kc6 9. Bxg4 g6 10. Nc3 Bg7 11. Ncxe4 e5 12. O-O exf4 13. d3 Be5 14. Ne6 Qh4 15. h3) 9. Bxg4 Qe8 10. Ne6+ Kb6 11. Na3 a6 12. Nc4+ Ka7 13. b3 Nc6 14. Bb2 h5 15. Bh3 Qf7 16. O-O-O Rh6 17. f5 b6 18. Rhf1 Nd8 19. g3 Nxe6 20. fxe6 Qg8 21. Bf5 Rxe6 22. Bxe6 Qxe6 *

The article that prompted this post can be found here: Bryntse Gambit Revisited

What I find interesting about this gambit is the voluntary sacrifice of the queen in order to gain a positional advantage. It is true, the black king is harassed all over the board and left with almost no safety, the black pieces are undeveloped and the pawns are scattered in three islands, but white has no queen anymore, exchanged for a knight and a bishop. I wish I was confident enough to play this gambit and know what I am doing after losing the queen. Just in case you were wondering what could one do if suddenly afraid of going on with the Bryntse, I've added two possible continuations where the queen is not sacrificed.

I have dreaded the necessity of this post. Not only there are a zillion TV series that I have watched, but there are many that I had to dismiss for lack of time. Even so, I find myself more and more unwilling to spend evenings and mornings watching these stories. I've abandoned TV a few years ago, then TV shows on my computer have overshadowed full feature films and now... I feel I am wasting time. Perhaps this post will serve as data point in a statistic of my interests in time. Perhaps in itself it is not yet a waste.

Also, since it is obvious that I am also watching shows I don't particularly like, I will employ a colour coding scheme: red for shows I do not recommend, green for those I like.

• The Sarah Jane Adventures - following the death of the main actress, the show has been cancelled after a short fifth season made of the completed episodes that far. I can't say that I will miss it, but it was an entertaining series.
• Doctor Who - watched the Christmas special, but it wasn't that special. At least this year it was a flop. I will continue watching it, for originality's sake at least.
• Torchwood - the other Doctor Who spin-off continues with bursts of episodes. Miracle Day was weird enough to warrant continuity of watching.
• Eureka - ridiculous series, but one of the few that I can watch with no expectations whatsoever. That is pretty refreshing. Their Christmas special entered in the domain of animation, changing styles as it went along.
• House MD - not watching it anymore. The medicine has taken a backseat role, as it happens eventually in most medical series, so there is no reason to.
• Criminal Minds - a season and a half are waiting for my viewing pleasure. I've always found something else to do that took precedence.
• Dexter - the sixth season started really well, only to end in a sort of twisty, fancy way that did it no good. Two more seasons have been announced. Oh, and dirty Harrietta now knows Dexter is a killer, more like the original books.
• Fringe - the show continues to make no sense. It has become a sort of darker Eureka for me.
• True Blood - season 5 is due to begin in the summer. I have high hopes.
• Men of a Certain Age - I've finally got myself to watching the second season. It was great. Then they cancelled it. Fuck you!
• Weeds - The last episode of the last season is still waiting for me to watch it and I just can't make myself do it. I think this series will fall out of my viewing list
• The Good Wife - the show is back on track. Alicia is no longer having an affair with Will and she was considering buying the old family house back from the people who owned it. Her feud with Kalinda is over as well and the new partners in the firm (except Eli Gold) have been removed. It feels like getting back to the first season story arch and still well done.
• Haven - the series has some left potential, but not much. Along with Eureka and Fringe, they are just there to pass the time when too tired to think. I believe I will stop watching all of these three or keep watching them all.
• Lost Girl - from time to time I watch it. It's not guilty pleasure, because I don't like the girl so much. Sometimes it is fun. Rarely.
• Falling Skies - one of the few true sci-fi series left, it will start its second season in the summer. No high hopes, but what else is there?
• Southpark - the 16th season has just started with a pretty hilarious TV seat debate. May it continue in the same funny spirit!
• The Killing - still on my watch list, as it was in October. I keep away from shows with cops nowadays.
• Suits - second season to start in the summer. Might be fun.
• Breaking Bad - no watch. I have not yet deleted it, but I am not watching it, either. Perhaps when on a long vacation...
• Californication - fifth season has started and it's pretty good. A bit too much over the top and starting on the downhill path of "I'm a daddy and I need to be responsible", even when his daughter starts dating a guy that behaves like Hank's younger self, but still good.
• Beavis&Butt-head - when I was in highschool I would watch this religiously. Some of the episodes were really really funny, complete with the mischievous fun made of MTV music clips. Season 9 did not feel as funny to me now, maybe also because instead of music clips they work on MTV's reality shows. Anyone remember that M stood for Music in MTV? Some episodes were nice, so I will watch them if they continue. At least I owe them that from my childhood years.
• Homeland - a paranoid female CIA agent is convinced a war hero saved from the terrorists is actually a sleeper agent. The show is pretty dark, but it didn't go anywhere fast. There are some episodes unwatched that I need to decide to see in order to make up my mind about the show.
• Lie to Me - it "Housed". When the show is more about the people than what they do, it becomes boring for me. Off my list.
• Terra Nova - a true disaster, it was cancelled after only two seasons. It felt like a 70's show, without the story.
• The Fades - brilliant tv show. Something that we should all watch for quality's sake alone. The second season is still unannounced, but I loved the first season!
• Hidden - still haven't watched it, but it seems intriguing.
• Grimm and Once Upon a Time - TV shows about fairy tales. Unfortunately not even the presence of Robert Carlyle in Once Upon a Time could not make me watch more than a few episodes each

Time for shows I didn't mention in the last post about TV series:

• The Walking Dead - it's a zombie series! As excited as I was before I started watching it, I am now abashed. Of course stories with zombies will be about the people and their feelings and less about the zombies. Wait, what? Some of the episodes are interesting, but most are simply boring. It was an interesting video I've seen, an interview about the show, with some pretty slick ideas from the director just being dismissed out of hand because they were over budget. They were story ideas, not big explosion ideas, mind you. TV networks are dicks.
• A Game of Thrones - I've read the books and I liked them. The show is pretty much following the books, but the feel of it is a bit off. Sometimes you gotta move away from the story in order to preserve the spirit of a book and they are not doing it.
• The Firm - a TV series based on Grisham's The Firm. It started really bad and I could not watch it. Meanwhile, it was cancelled.
• Awake - a guy lives his life during day time, only to fall asleep and find himself live a slightly different life. Interesting concept and people have said nice things about it, but I haven't started watching it, yet.
• Black Mirror - a British sci-fi show, only three episodes, and they are separate stories. Again, I've heard nice things about it, but haven't watched it, yet.
• Boss - tough American politician and the world of corruption and power in which he lives. Interesting, haven't started it yet.
• Great Expectations - another British mini series, three episodes so far. It seems nicely done, but have not watched it yet.
• Inside Men - watched the first episode, but I don't think I will like it much. It is about people that decide to steal from their place of employment, then cover up the thing. It involves a heist, sordid decisions, huge regrets, enormous tension.
• L5 - this is another VODO film, you know, the freely distributed shows that depend on donations to continue. It is a true sci-fi show, with a colonisation spacecraft returning to Earth after a failed exploratory mission, only to find themselves 200 years into the future and no living human anywhere. Interesting!
• Mad Men - this is a very good show about the advertising world in the 60's. I've watched the first four seasons and the fifth is to start this March. Nice atmosphere, well acted and directed. Just be prepared to have smoking and drinking urges while you watch it :-) (and I don't smoke)
• Misfits - another show with great potential. Imagine Heroes, only made by the British, so it's funny and original. The final season was a bit of a downer, with a lot of characters leaving the show, but it is nice indeed.
• Person of Interest - I doubt we're going to be watching it again. It's another police procedural, only with a lone vigilante employed by a rich computer genius.
• Pioneer One - the first season has ended. It was interesting to watch this VODO distributed film, as it was both interesting and captivating. I hear the second season is going to be sponsored, so it will have a true budget. Unfortunately, I don't know where they can go with the idea.
• Sherlock - British revamping of Sherlock Holmes in the modern times. A bit interesting, but also a bit Doctor-Whoish. First and second seasons (both of three episodes each) were fun to watch and I await the third with mixed feelings. It could have been better, I guess, but it was pretty good as it was.
• Spartacus - Vengeance - The actor in Spartacus had cancer and died, so after the first season and a prequel, they replaced the actor and went on with Vengeance. The show is gory, sexual and full of intrigue. Some episodes are brilliant, others are less so. I will continue to watch it.
• The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff - British comedy show, parodying the work of Charles Dickens with the people in The IT Crowd. I didn't like it.
• The River - another show I haven't got around to watch. This one is a horror show situated in the forest of the Amazon, where people are trying to find a lost explorer, husband and father, while being surrounded by mystery and black magic.
• The Royal Bodyguard - seems to be another British comedy show about a ridiculous guy inside Buckingam Palace. Haven't watched it and I don't think I will get around to.
• Todd and the Book of Pure Evil - Ha ha, this Canadian show was pretty funny. I've watched the first season and I am now occasionally watching an episode from the second. Don't expect anything intelligent, it is like a satanic horror B movie, complete with weird special effects, only it is funny and a series. Canadians are getting good at this stuff.
• Touch - only the pilot has aired so far. Keith Sutherland is the proud father of an autistic son that seems not to want to speak. However, he sees patterns between people and makes random connections that are extraordinary. I am going to watch the first episode when the others start airing. I can't say I am terribly excited, but it could be nice.

Knife of Dreams is the last book in the series written by Robert Jordan. He died after finishing it. It was one of the nicer books in the series, mostly because it prominently featured Mat, who is one of the few characters in the Wheel of Time series I can empathise with.

The obvious and unnecessary story arch with Perrin's wife abduction by the Shaido Aiel finally ends, Elayne, Egwene and Nynaeve are all acting like they know everything and some get abducted by the Black Ajah and the White Tower, only to deny any wrongdoing or link to the cause of their predicaments. Cadsuane continues to be a pain in the butt, without actually providing a good return of investment and Min is either worrying without cause or acting stupidly and precipitating harm to Rand. Aviendha is not much better, but she rarely appears in this one. In other words, all the women are pompous idiots in Knife of Dreams, while Rand and Perrin act like buffoons. So the only satisfying story arch remains that of Mat.

I've started to read the last three books, which the new author (working on the basis of very detailed notes left by Robert Jordan and big fan of his) points out are three pieces of the same story, only one larger than a single volume could have contained. After that, I am free of the Dark One and the taint will be gone!