Tom Ewall's Blog

 This post will discuss the secret of happiness, the subject of many books, and studies, but actually very simple, which is to be grateful, appreciative, and thankful. I understand there has been a fair amount of research into this, but I'm not looked into this, but learned this through my study of narcissism. Narcissism (I'm referring to especially in the context of narcissistic personality disorder) is characterized by a number of things, including excessively seeking attention, excessive dreaming of something better (a better job, a better mate, etc.), perceiving oneself as special and that only other special people perceive this, feelings of grandiosity, an exaggerated sense of entitlement, manipulating others, a lack of compassion for others, arrogance, and excessive jealousy.  I was interested in which of these symptoms is the horse, and which the care, and discovered that the horse is the exaggerated sense of entitlement, whereas "arrogance" is essentially a sy...

 I took some pictures I really liked on my phone, and am curious to see how they look here. Not bad.  I like it better on my phone though, probably because it fills the screen, and I like the background. This one I was really interested to see because it looks like it has some backlighting from the phone. This is much nicer on the phone, as there is a lot more contrast, and the aspens look like they're on fire. This isn't bad either, but neither the phone nor transferred from it can capture the view from in person.  This was from a hike above Guardsman pass, going towards Brighton ski resort. The one below is an actual pic, where as the one right above it is AI generated.  Although the actual pic is much larger in terms of how much computer storage it requires, the AI one looks very good.  I told it I wanted Guardsman Pass Aspens, with orange, and that's what it created. This is overlooking Lake Coeur D'Alene. Snoqualmie Falls. In terms of composition, by three ...

  This example is similar to a previous one in that KataGo starts out by invading the Lower Left (LL) corner, but a different approach is used by B, where moves 2 and 4 are played and then 6, rather than 6 immediately. Here KataGo has invaded in the UL adn LR corners, and played 31. The strategy B is implementing involves 4 items: 1. Kill 2 of W's corners. 2. Make a territory somewhere else besides the 2 killed corners. 3. Don't allow W a huge territory. 4. Keep the B groups safe. The most challenging item is the second one, as KataGo is very good at sniffing out prospective territories and limiting them, especially if there is a weak group to attack, or some problem with the shape. Before 31 was played, there were potential areas to develop in the upper side, right side, and bottom side, although with 13 sticking out, the top side doesn't look very promising.  Once 31 is played, the bottom side looks to be most promising, especially after played 47 (in the next diagram). O...

  In this example, W plays a shamari.  It seems easier to me to play against this setup by W as the shamari takes 2 moves, so B is able to get around the corners quicker. The strategy involves 4 elements: 1. Kill 2 of W's corners. 2. Make territory somewhere else besides the 2 corners. 3. Don't allow W a huge territory. 4. Keep the B groups safe. In this game, I succeeded well with points 1, 3, and 4, but 2 was so-so, but adequate. The 4 move extension is key to setting up corner situations where W can be killed. Instead of 24, W usually plays at D10, which I think is more difficult to deal with. 29 seems like an excellent point, and B has a very good opening for the strategy above. Here it is move 55, and already B has succeeded in killing the 2 W corners.  It looks like B should be able to build an additional territory in either the center left, or right side.  B has no weak groups, and W has no prospects for a huge territory. All is going well up to this point. B ...

 In this game, KataGo invaded an adjacent corner to its corner, instead of the diagonal one.  I had trouble coming up with a good strategy against this, so tried something different, which worked. The strategy being used is to create corner situations that can be taken advantage of later, by using 4 space extensions from the handicap stone. These induce corner sequences where the W corner can be killed. In order to get a second extension, B needs to leave the Upper Right (UR) with sente.  One approach would be to tenuki right away, which I use then W invades the diagonal corner.  Here a different approach was used. Using this approach there are two issues to contend with.  One is that since a perpendicular structure is being used for the 4 space extensions, there is a greater chance KataGo will bend around the corner, in which case it cannot be killed later.  The second issue is dealing with the 3 stones, which KataGo will attack. I held by breath after pla...

That narcissists know what they are doing is one of the most persistent of misconceptions, and it's very easy to understand why this misconception exists. First of all, when we are badly hurt, it's natural to become angry, and look for a target for that anger.  Narcissists indeed to very hurtful things, so it's natural to be angry at the person hurting us. We somehow feel it's wrong to be angry at others, so we look for justifications for that anger. In reality, that they do hurtful things is enough, but the rationalization is more complete if they are knowingly seeking to hurt us. In general, if we can attribute a morally unsound attitude to an act, that makes the act more heinous, and gives us more justification for our anger. For example, if someone cuts us off in traffic, this provokes a response of anger in many drivers, present company not excepted.  However, if the person acted unintentionally, and that was our perception, we would feel much less anger, perhaps n...

 "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" is a well known philosophical paper by Peter Singer written in 1972. He argues that it if one can save a life, it is evil not to do so, and especially argued the imperative to do so with famine relief. I don't have training in philosophy (except logic) and this isn't any sort of critique of the paper, but a reaction from somewhat of a theological perspective. That one is evil is a basic tenet of Christianity, so proving so through a philosophical argument related to famine is interesting, but any Christian knows they are evil, as this is the premise for seeking forgiveness and redemption. In regards to the moral imperative of providing famine relief, this is a valid argument, but it involves trade-offs, as all of life does.  For example, one could argue that if giving money for famine relief is a moral imperative, so is one's occupation, and there is a moral imperative to have a job which helps other people, which saves the most ...