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Is forty the new thirty?

Started by SoldierofFortune, August 19, 2017, 10:51:28 PM

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Mike Cl

Quote from: Cavebear on August 20, 2017, 04:22:37 PM
Wear a raincoat on a dry day.  NOBODY will bother you...
Strange but true in my neighborhood.  What abut the person who wears a hoodie in 100 degree heat--or is riding a bicycle?
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Sorginak

I find that wearing headphones in public is the best way to make certain no one bothers me. 

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on August 20, 2017, 04:28:07 PM
Get one of the semi-transparent ones, so nothing is left to the imagination ...

No, the point is the uncertainty.  I wasn't in any way suggesting flashing, just the way one would be avoided by all by wearing the raincoat on a dry day.

In chess, the threat is more important than the execution.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on August 26, 2017, 06:11:54 AM
No, the point is the uncertainty.  I wasn't in any way suggesting flashing, just the way one would be avoided by all by wearing the raincoat on a dry day.

In chess, the threat is more important than the execution.

Only if you are Bobby Fischer, not if you are Boris Spassky.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on August 26, 2017, 08:38:30 AM
Only if you are Bobby Fischer, not if you are Boris Spassky.

Ah but you are quite wrong there.  It was Spassky who made threats that Fischer brilliantly ignored.  Though only Fischer could ignore them.  I recall reading of one Russian Grandmaster (Tal?) who said after losing a match "Sometimes I forget that my opponent has good ideas too".

So in general, yes.  But not against Fischer.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on August 26, 2017, 05:58:29 PM
Ah but you are quite wrong there.  It was Spassky who made threats that Fischer brilliantly ignored.  Though only Fischer could ignore them.  I recall reading of one Russian Grandmaster (Tal?) who said after losing a match "Sometimes I forget that my opponent has good ideas too".

So in general, yes.  But not against Fischer.

Spassky was always complaining in Iceland that Fischer did lots of annoying things that were distracting him.  So I guess I didn't use "threat" the right way.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

trdsf

I started seeing '40 is the new 30' when I turned 40.  I didn't see '50 is the new 30' until I turned 50 -- and for the record, I got carded for beer two days after my 50th birthday.  Legit carded, not 'we have to card everyone even if they look old enough to have voted against dirt' carded.  I told the clerk, "Don't you DARE apologize!"  :D

So, in about six, seven years, I will look forward to '60 is the new 30'.  If I get to reset every ten years, I'll take it.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Mr.Obvious

Quote from: Atheon on August 20, 2017, 09:06:56 AM
50 is the new 30; 40 is the new 20.

People are realizing that when you turn 50, you don't have to wear silly-looking polyester golf pants and grandpa caps. You can still rock jeans and a T-shirt.

And hipsters have realized the exact opposite.
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on August 26, 2017, 07:35:48 PM
Spassky was always complaining in Iceland that Fischer did lots of annoying things that were distracting him.  So I guess I didn't use "threat" the right way.

Yeah. Fischer complained about nearly everything.  I agree he was a complete nudge to an nth degree.  But when it came to the chessboard Fischer was the all-time best.  Crazy lunatic.  But that's kind of what it takes...

When I was President of the University Of Maryland chess club. we had 3 players who were great.  One was college age and knew every opening.  One was a teen who had inventive moves.  And one was a crazed stoner who could focus on a 1/4 of the board fanatically.  If you were playing in that 1/4, you were doomed.  But you never knew which 1/4 he was focussing on.  If you got it right, he could be beaten.  If not, no hope...
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on August 31, 2017, 03:00:08 AM
Yeah. Fischer complained about nearly everything.  I agree he was a complete nudge to an nth degree.  But when it came to the chessboard Fischer was the all-time best.  Crazy lunatic.  But that's kind of what it takes...

When I was President of the University Of Maryland chess club. we had 3 players who were great.  One was college age and knew every opening.  One was a teen who had inventive moves.  And one was a crazed stoner who could focus on a 1/4 of the board fanatically.  If you were playing in that 1/4, you were doomed.  But you never knew which 1/4 he was focussing on.  If you got it right, he could be beaten.  If not, no hope...

Of your three examples, the first one is weakest.  Being a human chess computer is so ... limiting.  And Fischer admitted later what made him tick ... photographic memory and instant recall.  He claimed to remember every position of every board of every chess game he ever played.  Felt sorry for him, understand why he burned out.  Like running a laptop cpu at twice normal clock speed.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on August 31, 2017, 07:17:27 AM
Of your three examples, the first one is weakest.  Being a human chess computer is so ... limiting.  And Fischer admitted later what made him tick ... photographic memory and instant recall.  He claimed to remember every position of every board of every chess game he ever played.  Felt sorry for him, understand why he burned out.  Like running a laptop cpu at twice normal clock speed.

Fanatically talented specialists are weird.  Some great baseball hitters remember every pitch thrown at them by pitcher and date.  Some chess players can instantly recall every position they ever played.  There is a reason some can play a dozen games blind (not watching each game or simultaneous).  Some people know every card played

They are not like you and me.  Probably some strange facilty of the brain focussed on nearly nothing else.  Functional autism, or something like it.  And quite frankly, that is about the only thing they can do.  There are more balanced exceptions of course.

I look at a chess board and can keep a 1/4 of it or some specific pieces in focus at one time, but never the whole thing.   On the other hand, I am decently competent at a lot of things and grateful for that.

Jack of many trades and master of none...
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

"Jack of many trades and master of none..." ... similar here.  Mozart was a maniac like that.  And burned out early.  There was a scifi story about that, where they brought a classical musician from the 1700s forward.  He became a Rock star and still burned out before he was thirty.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on August 31, 2017, 01:17:23 PM
"Jack of many trades and master of none..." ... similar here.  Mozart was a maniac like that.  And burned out early.  There was a scifi story about that, where they brought a classical musician from the 1700s forward.  He became a Rock star and still burned out before he was thirty.

Or like the Twilight Zone episode where a Shakespeare expert went back in time and discovered to his horror that HE had to write all the plays...?
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

trdsf

Quote from: Baruch on August 31, 2017, 01:17:23 PM
"Jack of many trades and master of none..." ... similar here.  Mozart was a maniac like that.  And burned out early.  There was a scifi story about that, where they brought a classical musician from the 1700s forward.  He became a Rock star and still burned out before he was thirty.
Ugh, I can't remember the name of the story, but it was in Omni.  I remember reading it.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Cavebear

Quote from: trdsf on August 31, 2017, 02:47:41 PM
Ugh, I can't remember the name of the story, but it was in Omni.  I remember reading it.

Probably doesn't matter.  Great Ones probably will be the same in all multiverses.  Burn out about the same sort of way. 
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!