AntoniusBlock

Rather than studying specific moves and move orders, you can get away with studying plans and ideas if you're under 2000 FIDE. I got to around 2200 online with minimal opening memorisation, but with a lot of time dedicated to solving tactical puzzles (2-3 hours every day for around 3 years).

If you're in the UK, all X-File episodes are available to stream for free on 4OD. I'm re-watching it too, but I'm so busy I can only do 1 episode every few days.

I'm playing on desktop. I tried to play in Firefox's private mode, but the emulator didn't load. I don't know if this is intended or a bug, but just thought I'd let you know.

Your site is great. I've signed up and I'm using it now to re-play EarthBound. Thanks.

I play on Lichess, so yes, you could say that. Too bad this name was taken by someone else on Lichess. Love Bergman, by the way.

Looks nice to me. Also it's very lightweight and fast. I ran WindowMaker on a 500mb RAM machine back in the early 2000s and it was very snappy.

Power and Chaos! Yeah, I remember watching The Tribe every Saturday morning. Turns out loads of people here in the UK watched it as kids too but they don't remember the name, so you have to say "it's the show where all the adults died and kids run around a city with their faces painted trying to avoid a villain called Zoot and his gang whose motto is Power and Chaos" which usually works.

Stopping the process of monopolisation is bad for business? Since when?

I learned to read German by working through "German for Reading" by Karl Sandberg. It's a great book. Work through it a couple times until the grammar is second nature, use the Anki deck "4000 German words by frequency" to increase your vocabulary, and start reading children's books (Emil und die Detektive, Max und Moritz, u.s.w) then move onto slightly harder books like Kafka's Die Verwandlung and Zweig's Schachnovelle.

Max und Moritz is hilarious btw, so don't skip it!

Cryptography I by Dan Boneh (Stanford University)

Programming Languages by Dan Grossman (University of Washington)

Both are on Coursera.

This is a nice, short documentary on ANSI art and BBSs: https://vimeo.com/341663153

Sleep at the same time every night (this builds a routine).

Eat dinner at least 3 hours before you sleep, no later.

Shower before you sleep (cools you down and helps you sleep).

Keep your room temp at around 18-19C.

Buy blackout curtains and keep light in your room to an absolute minimum.

No caffeine or stimulants 6-7 hours before you sleep.

No phone/iPad/tablet/laptop screens before you sleep.

Use your bed for sleep and sex only. Nothing else.

Buy a good mattress and pillows.

I spent hours watching demos of pro games to learn wallbangs (especially de_nuke) and flash spots. Good times indeed! Shout out to HLTV.

I expected more like 15-20k. That seems a bit low to me.

They have no training or experience flying F-16s. They wouldn't be able to maintain and repair the jets either without training and parts from the US.

Thanks for the recommendation. I've added it to my backlog.

Very cool! Here are some of my favourite Eastern European films, in case anyone wants recommendations.

Poland:

Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie (1965) !!!!

Sanatorium pod klepsydrą (1973) !!!!

Ziemia obiecana (1975) !!!!

Osobisty pamiętnik grzesznika przez niego samego spisany (1986)

Pociąg (1959)

Pokolenie (1955)

Kanal (1957) !!!!

Popiół i diament (1958)

Czechoslovakia:

Holubice (1960) !!!!

Ostře sledované vlaky (1966)

Marketa Lazarova (1967) !!!!

Obrazy starého sveta (1972)

Spalovač mrtvol (1969) !!!!

Slnko v sieti (1962)

Zlaté kapradí (1963)

Údolí včel (1968)

Hungary:

Csillagosok, katonák (1967)

A Pál utcai fiúk (1968)

A tanú (1969) !!!!

Kárhozat (1988)

Két félidő a pokolban (1961)

Az ötödik pecsét (1976)

Szegénylegények (1966)

Szindbád (1971)

Szürkület (1990) !!!!

NOTE: the films with !!!! next to them are my absolute favourites and if you don't have time to watch all of these films, I implore you to at least watch these.

`all over the shop' meaning all over the place, not literally all over a shop/store which is what Google Translate and DeepL translate it as. It's British and Irish.

100% agree. If `pure input' people, like Stephen Krashen and Steve Kaufmann, are to be believed then output (like speaking and writing) would eventually come after lots and lots and lots and lots of reading and listening, but I'm a bit skeptical.

When I was studying Norse mythology (for fun, not academically) I read that even though Scandinavians were in close contact with Romans, Greeks, Arabs and even Indians via trading routes, they didn't really commit too much to writing. They had runic inscriptions on stones and gold, but that's kinda it. They only really took to writing after they converted to Christianity, which is why we have stuff like Snorri Sturluson's Eddas.

This is a bit random, but your comment reminded me of the film The Dacians (1966) which portrays the impending Roman invasion of Dacia. It's a good film. I don't know how historically accurate it is, though.

I learnt Latin with LLPSI 1. Though I must admit, LLPSI wasn't the only resource I used. I had to use latintutorial's* youtube videos (his videos are great btw) to explain certain bits of grammar that I couldn't understand on my own, like gerunds, gerundives and the subjunctive mood with `ut' and `cum' clauses is what I needed help with specifically, so you're right about people only getting the basics or at least the things they can make sense of on their own. I suppose LLPSI would be easier for someone who has already taught themselves an Indo-European language and is used to Indo-European grammar. Latin, for me, was the first language I learned, so I had jumped into the deep end. "Allen and Greenough's New Latin Grammar" is another book I used occasionally (it's the best Latin grammar book IMO). As for your comment on feedback, if I can understand what I'm reading then that's all I'm interested in. I'm only learning Latin to read ancient Latin literature. I don't want to compose or translate Latin. An example of feedback for me, would be to read a page of Caesar's The Gallic War in Latin then read the same page in English afterwards to see how close I was to understanding everything. So far I've been close on almost everything, so the feedback I'm getting is that I'm reading Latin the way it was written 2000 years ago.

Here's what I read in order:

LLPSI with Colloquia Personarum, Pugio Bruti (waste of time btw) and Fabulae Syrae. After that I read Epitome Historiae Sacrae, the Vulgate, Fabulae Faciles, Ad Alpes, Julius Caesar's Invasion of Britain and half of LLPSI 2. Currently I'm reading The Gallic War. I also started studying German at the start of this year using the book "German for Reading" by Karl Sandberg which is taking up 1 hour per day of my time so I can't spend 2 hours on Latin per day which is what I was doing from 2020 to early 2022. I wouldn't say I'm fluent at all, but on a good day I can comfortably read Caesar (with a dictionary).

My goal since the start (January 2020) has been to read Ovid's Metamorphoses, which hasn't worked out yet, but it's a work in progress.

* Big shoutout to LatinTutorial/Benjamin:

https://www.youtube.com/@latintutorial

I think it'd make more sense because we're taking in different developmental factors together.

I don't know. Ask your law-makers. I live in a country where you can drink alcohol at 16 as long as you're accompanied by an adult, for example. Then at 18 (when you're legally considered an adult), you can buy and drink your own alcohol on your own. Americans tend to coddle their young adults too much. Maybe it's their puritan heritage.

Adult is the correct term. I just don't think we should base adulthood on nebulous things like the ability to drink alcohol, smoke weed or rent hotel rooms, but rather to put a bigger emphasis on biology.

Average everything out and you'll get a number close to 18 which is the typical adult age in most countries.

>Sexual development, ability to bear children? Mid teens for most, earlier for some.

Let's say 15

>Completed puberty, full height? Mid to late teens.

Let's say 18

>Finished the fastest phase of brain development? Mid-20s.

Let's say 25

The average of 15, 18, and 25 is 19.3

Being an adult is based on biological development, not whether you can drink or buy weed.

How much do you make per year?

That's only worrying if they can reliably detect nuclear submarines. Until then, all it takes is a couple dozen torpedoes and their best ships get a free trip to the bottom of the ocean.

Q: who's the best chess player of all time?

A: The best chess player of all time is generally considered to be the late Garry Kasparov, [...]

>late Garry Kasparov

Silly bot scared me into thinking Kasparov had died.