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macaroniandcheese  Suspended Member (Idle past 3927 days) Posts: 4258 Joined: |
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Author | Topic: rampant curiosity--how do you waste time? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Mammuthus Member (Idle past 6475 days) Posts: 3085 From: Munich, Germany Joined: |
Hi TL,
Stephen Fretwell? Wasnt he the guy who posted under the name Stephen ben Yeshua?
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truthlover Member (Idle past 4059 days) Posts: 1548 From: Selmer, TN Joined: |
Can I ask, what is the great chess puzzle, and is it free? It's CT-ART. I think I have 3.0. As far as I can tell, it's head and shoulders above anything similar. It has over 1000 puzzles, ranging from easy to way out of my league. It's not free. I think I paid $26 plus shipping. It's a European program, so I had to wait a while for it to come in, but you're in England, so that shouldn't be a problem. I have two recommended books for chess improvement that improved my chess playing pretty dramatically. One is The Amateur Mind by Jeremy Silman, and the other is Rapid Chess Improvement by Michael de la Maza. The Amateur Mind has the same material as How to Reassess Your Chess, also by Silman, but in a much more understandable format. I wouldn't recommend Reassess Your Chess to anyone, but The Amateur Mind raised my rating close to 200 points in a few months. There's also some pretty good advice in Chess Master at any Age by Rolf Wetzell. It has ideas for study methods, like writing down positions where you made mistakes so you can study them and writing down principles you want to learn on flash cards. Unlike the other two books, Wetzell's focuses on speed chess, too, though the other two will improve your speed chess as well. The Amateur Mind made it so I was never without some sort of idea on how to proceed in the middle game. I used to get stuck after the opening, scratching my head and thinking, "Well, what do I do now? Attack the king? Are there any tactics available?" No more. Now I always have some idea of how to simply better coordinate my pieces, improve this or that piece's position, or arrange the board to better fit my army.
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nator Member (Idle past 2169 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: See, that's what I thought was clear when I wrote that, but hey, that's just you and me.
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Tusko Member (Idle past 101 days) Posts: 615 From: London, UK Joined: |
Thanks a lot for those books. They sound really interesting. Thats just the kind of thing that I'm after. Let me know how your chess goes!
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Brad McFall Member (Idle past 5032 days) Posts: 3428 From: Ithaca,NY, USA Joined: |
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FliesOnly Member (Idle past 4145 days) Posts: 797 From: Michigan Joined: |
robinrohan writes: So do you participate in the Cornell University Project Feeder Watch Program? I also watch birds--that is, if I can manage to stagger outside. We are waiting for the winter warblers to appear. They will be here any minute now. This is for anyone out there that may enjoy, on occasion, watching the birds at their feeders during the winter months. About five years ago my wife and I joined "Project Feeder Watch". It's a blast and I highly recommend it to everyone at this site. You don’t need to be an expert birder (I sure as hell am not), so that will not suffice as an excuse. There is a small fee to cover the costs, but the payoff is great. Here's a link to the site. FeederWatch - Count Feeder Birds for ScienceGo check it out. It provides a valuable service to the scientific community and gives everyone a chance to participate in a worthwhile endeavor.
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3978 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.3 |
Hi, robin.
My wife is a devoted birder; I have always loved them, but did not watch them in any systematic way until I fell under her influence years ago. Now, by a slow osmotic process that penetrates even my stupor, I have managed to absorb a surprising amount of knowledge--my favorite way of learning. One fun activity for bird lovers: get a dummy and dress it in a raincoat and hat (or stuff those with straw), and put it in the yard with sunflower seeds in its "hand." After a week or two, put on the coat and hat, sit quietly in the same place with seeds cupped in your hands, and enjoy watching the Usual Suspects (our term for the mixed foraging flocks of chickadees, titmice, sparrows, juncos, etc.) come to eat. With patience, you can soon have them eating out of your hand when you walk about the garden or yard, though the coat and hat may remain useful . Without fail, they make my heart glad even on the worst of days.
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JustinC Member (Idle past 4844 days) Posts: 624 From: Pittsburgh, PA, USA Joined: |
It's been a while since I played, but a good book for basically any non-expert is Best Lessons of A Chess Coach by Sunil Weeramantry. I still go back and read the lessons every once in while to refresh myself.
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3978 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.3 |
Good morning, Flies.
We have been discussing participating in the watch--your post is a useful nudge. The Cornell center is a fantastic resource--we surf there often, just to explore what is new, or to use their audio clips to identify a mysterious call, or to admire the online exhibit of fine bird art (I collect vintage and antique illustrated bird books and prints). We moved into our current home four years ago in a quiet cul de sac near a remarkable amount of open space (for Connecticut)--walking trails to state forest, watershed land, 200 acre town park with swimming pond. Determining just how protected all this is from development was probably the most focused research activity I have undertaken in many years. The house probably should have been a tear-down, but we spent our money on location and the 2.5 acres of hilltop, and we are piecing the house back together as time and funds permit. We are within a 15 minute walk of more than 1000 acres of protected open space and can enter parts of it within five minutes: I'd live in a hut for that! Our "yard" is mostly oak and hickory, some maple and sassafrass; we are gradually replacing what lawn there is with wildflowers and mosses and reestablishing native berry-bearing shrubs and trees. By providing copious food and leaving dead tree snags standing, and fallen brush scattered about, our bird population and diversity have burgeoned. Now we have several nesting species of woodpecker (downy, hairy, red-bellied, an occasional pileated visitor), and they tap on the windows and cock their heads to peer inside when the feeders are empty--esp. if we move about near a window so that we are visible. We hop to it; they have trained us well. We get occasional sharpshin and Cooper predation, but the crows and jays pretty much mob them off. It is fascinating to watch the crows and jays, accompanied by the smaller birds, chase off the hawks--then the smaller birds turn on the crows and jays and run them off. A week or two ago we exited our back door to find a red shouldered hawk perched on a garden post just 10 feet off our deck--magnificent. We froze and shared her regard for 10 minutes before she soared away. Last year we had nesting red tails and were treated to the fledgling crashing and keening through the upper branches as he learned to fly--both comical and majestic. We have ravens nesting in the nearby state forest, but we don't post it on web bird lists--sometimes birders descend in hordes in response to such reports, and we hope these wolf-birds will become well established before that happens. Did I mention that I like birds?
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iano Member (Idle past 1940 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
And after all that you still don't believe in God. Sheesh....
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1467 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
With all that, why does he need to? Honestly, the arrogance of the believer. A vast world of natural beauty and delight, and it's still not enough for some people.
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3978 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.3 |
And after all that you still don't believe in God. Sheesh.... All your belief in God, and you don't consider the rapine of the natural order an action priority. Sheesh... I love life, iano: furred, scaled, feathered, micro, macro, cold-blooded and warm...even you. This world, and a natural span of years in it, is heaven enough for me. By nature (pun intended), I would probably be a pantheist, but the pervasive, oppressive, kill-the-unbeliever insistence on an anthropomorphic, Mean-Old-Man deity keeps me acutely aware of the lack of evidence for one. Despite primarily identifying myself as a poet, and a metaphysical one at that, I cannot will myself to believe in something of which I see no sign or necessity. The world's "great" religions have too much blood and misery on their hands to make a persuasive case for suspending my disbelief. Even so, I remain more agnostic than atheist. Life, beauty, love, truth...beer I do my best to do as much good and as little harm as I can by what light I have. If that's not good enough (and I know you don't believe it is), so be it: I will stand and answer.
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FliesOnly Member (Idle past 4145 days) Posts: 797 From: Michigan Joined: |
So what are you waiting for? Push, push, nudge, nudge. The season has already started (two weeks ago), but it is certainly not too late to sigh up. It sounds to me like you have an ideal spot. Plenty of woods, plenty of cover, available water...perfect. Just do it. Trust me; you will enjoy filling in the sheets each week. It’s almost like a challenge to us. We look forward to seeing what new species we might get, and find ourselves rooting for rotten weather so more birds will show up (of course, we don’t see it as “rotten weather” . we LOVE winter storms and lots of snow).
Like you, we too live in the woods (about six acres). Mostly oak and maple, with a few sassafras, beech, white and red pine, witch hazel, a handful of white birch, and numerous shrubs. There is a nice wetland on our property and we are basically surrounded by 700-800 acres of undeveloped woodlands and wetlands. We get lost of fun birds, including a resident Coopers Hawk that routinely "feeds" at our feeders, and a local grouse that will on occasion waddle up and feast on the spillage. Once we had over 70 wild turkeys going bananas during a snow storm. Now, I am by no means a "bird nerd", but I do thoroughly enjoy the Feeder Watch Program. We do ours over the internet and I have even made my own color coordinated data sheets to match those found at the Cornell site used to enter the data. It is, to me, the best way to do it (as opposed to filling out paper sheets and mailing them in at the end of the season). My data sheets reflect only those birds that we are most likely to see each weekend (our count period); listed in the order they are found at the Feeder Watch Site. I’d be happy to send you a sample of the sheets I have made. The fun thing is to compare your typical count numbers with the "expected" or average numbers in your general area. For example, we get far more than the typical 4-5 Dark-eyed Juncos seen by most people. We have had more than 40 at a time. Of course we have seven bird feeders set up, along with 7 suit feeders, so we do offer lots of feeding sites. So again, Omnivorous . sign up today. It’s easy, it’s fun, and it’s an inexpensive way to enjoy terrible weather. This goes for everyone here. Hey, we’re obviously all interested in science, so join up . do something scientifically worthwhile for once . rather than bitching about creationsists and/or evolutionary biology . lol .
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3978 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.3 |
Sold, Flies.
I'll do it tonight so my better half can enjoy the sign-up with me. Your location sounds wonderful. We, too, have most of those understory trees along with the dominant oak and hickory--even a couple of ironwoods. Imagine how majestic the Eastern forest must once have been! Down the road about half a mile we have (forbidden) access to a 130 acre black cedar shaking bog, a rarity in these parts, complete with carnivorous plants. It is owned and managed by Yale, and we sneak in sometimes in the early morning to get glimpses of kinglets, gnatcathers, and such, careful to avoid the mosquito trap collectors: the skeeters are pretty much unavoidable. The entire community conspires to keep the bog off maps of all kinds (road, hiking, etc.) and generally below the radar. Our real estate shopping matrix: 1. No more than half hour commute to New Haven without using interstate highways, via a route that allows us to share one vehicle. Check. 2. Very low population density. Check--lowest in New Haven county. 3. Very high proportion of protected open space. A source of great grief to the tax collector, much of the town space is tax-exempt watershed land for New Haven. Check. 4. Surviving local farms, orchards, herds. Check--horses and bridle trails, too. 5. Mandated lot sizes that preclude suburban development. Check--2 acre minimum, and rocky glacial till that precludes building even on many eligible sites. It still amazes me that we managed to find something that fit the bill and was also only 1.5 hours from New York City, though it took us several years. Eventually, though, we hope to raise a four-season cabin on our woods (66 acres of isolated hardwood forest abutting the Blue Line) in the lower Adirondack foothills, and retire there. The Adirondack land will go to the local conservancy in our estate. In the spring I go there often to play Omni Tree&Ginsengseed.
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Dan Carroll Inactive Member |
I just wasted a full metric crapload of time by reading some thread about alcoholism.
Ba-ZING. Ha ha, seriously, though. Drawing and sudoku.
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