De klok loopt

De situatie:

Datum:               5 maart 2010

Omgeving:          (invallen) RSB-wedstrijd

Opdracht:           winnen en zeker niet verliezen

Kleur:                 ik wit

Klok:                   ik 6 minuten, tegenstander 48 minuten

Stelling:           

 Opgave:           vindt een winstweg die binnen de remisemarge blijft

 De klok loopt.

 In een Pirc had zwart de korte rokade niet aangedurfd en moest hij op een gegeven moment zelfs (met mijn loper op h6) zijn toevlucht nemen tot de terugzet Lg7-f8. Terwijl zwart voorbereidingen begon te treffen voor de lange rokade, lukte het me zijn koning in het midden vast te houden op straffe van materiaalverlies.

In de gegeven stelling, moest ik een sluitende winst vinden. Sluitend, omdat de tijd ontbrak om een niet-geforceerde winst tot een goed eind te kunnen brengen en verliezen in een teamwedstrijd moet te allen tijde worden voorkomen.

Tja, daar zat ik; hoe of wat de winst te bereiken? Geef me 20 minuten meer en ik durf er een doos goede wijn om te verwedden dat ik win. Maar nu?

Dat wit beter staat, is duidelijk. Onze siliconenvriend Fritz geeft wit een plusscore van 2.64. Maar ja, welke plusscore je ook hebt, het is niet hoog genoeg zolang de opponent niet opgeeft.

In de uitgangsstelling wilde ik de toren van h1 naar e1 spelen, de loper moest dus weg om de weg vrij te maken. Met 1.Lf1-g2 verhinderde ik bovendien meteen een paardvork op f3 (na een Th1-e1, staat de dame op d4 en toren op e1).

Tevens dreigde ik nu g4-g5 gevolgd door f3-f4 en e4-e5.

Mijn tegenstander antwoordde 1… Ke8-e7 met een remiseaanbod en ik had nog ruim 4 minuten.

 

Uiteraard aasde ik op de doorbraak e4-e5, waarna in de boekjes volgt “met totale vernietiging”. De praktijk is helaas vaak weerbarstiger.

Eerst g4-g5? Of toch Th1-e1? Of niets verder voorbereiden: de beuk erin met direct f3-f4?

Ik besloot tot het laatste. Na het min of meer logische vervolg 2.f3-f4 Pe5xg4 3.e4-e5 Pf6-e8 4.e5xd6+ Pe8xd6 5.Th1-e1 deed zwart zijn 5… Lc8-e6 opnieuw van een remiseaanbod vergezeld gaan.

 

Klok: 2 minuten 25 seconden.

Opnieuw de zwaarwegende opdracht: “vindt een (sluitende) winstweg die binnen de remisemarge blijft”. Snel! Evalueer Pc3-e4! Voegt eerst f4-f5 iets toe (Pe2 kan naar f4)? Wellicht Pe2-g3 dan (?) in combi met Lg2-d5 (en na c6xd5 komt Pc3-d5)? Of na Pe2-g3 een torenoffer op e6? Nee, nee, terug! Wat na simpel Pc3-e4? Nee, na Pd6xe4 Dd4xe4 Dd8-a5 of Dd8-b6 is Pg4-f2 een vervelende vork! Eerst Lg2-h3 (dus?) met ruil op g4 en dan plan als net?

Pfffffff.

Het zijn te veel mogelijkheden, het spel is te ingewikkeld. En mijn moedertje zaliger had al een uitgesproken mening, waar ik het mee eens ben, over alles waar “te“ voor staat.

Ik zal het spel nooit helemaal doorgronden.

In de situatie waarin ik me bevond, tikten de seconden door, ook al hoorde ik ze op de digitale klok niet zoals thuis op mijn analoge klok.

Terug dus maar naar onze emotieloze Fritz die in 0,1 seconde de winnende voortzetting uitspuugt:

6.Dc5 en nu

6… Pe3 7.Lxc6 bxc6 8.Pd4 Pxd1 8.Pxc6+, of

6… b6 7.Dxc6 Tc8 8.Pd5+ Lxd5 9.Dxd5 Te8 10.Pc3+ Kf8 11.Txe8+ Kxe8 12.Lh3, of

6… Dc7 7.Pd4 Kd7 (anders komt Pc3-d5+) 8.Pxe6 fxe6 9.Pe4

Zo simpel is het.

Ik zag het niet en nam met 40 seconden op de klok de remise aan.

som gräver en grop för en annan faller sig

In plaats van dit Zweedse gezegde dat we ook in de Nederlandse taal kennen, is wellicht de titel “in eigen zwaard gevallen” meer van toepassing.

Maar oordeel zelf.

Met zwart speel ik dit seizoen op 1.e2-e4 het Scandinavisch 1… d7-d5.

Geen spectaculaire opening voor zwart, maar het is dan ook min of meer uit nood geboren.

De spaarzame tijd die ik aan schaakstudie kan besteden, vul ik liever in met midden- en eindspel dan met openingen. En de basiskennis die ik over het antwoord 1… e7-e5 of 1… c7-c5 heb, is opgebouwd in de 70-jaren toen ik het schaakspel ontdekte. Die theorie is enerzijds voor een gedeelte weggezakt en anderzijds niet meer actueel. Dat laatste mede omdat ik de scherpe antwoorden prefereerde, zoals Jaenisch, Traxler en Najdorf. En hoe zit het ook al weer als wit (na 1… e7-e5 dus) met het Koningsgambiet op de proppen komt of exoten als de Ponziani en het Deens gambiet? Het zou tijdens een partij teveel tijd kosten om alles uit diep verborgen kwabben op te duikelen, gesteld dat het al zou lukken.

Vandaar dus 1… d7-d5.

Ik ben niet geheel ontevreden met de partijen die ik ermee heb gespeeld. Daarmee doel ik op de amusementswaarde en niet op de punten. Vooral de Portugese variant geeft leuk spel. Een recent voorbeeld:

RSB-wedstrijd feb 2010, WSV- RSR IT, W. Hennink – JHS

1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Pf6 3.d4 Lg4 4.Pf3 Dxd5 5.Pbd2 Pc6 6.Lc4 Dh5 7.c3 0–0–0 8.Db3 e6 9.0–0 Ld6 10.Te1 g5 11.Pe5

Alle stukken zijn ontwikkeld met tegengestelde rokades. Omdat ik geen goed vervolg zag voor een directe aanval op h2, besloot ik de diagonaal g1-a7 te bezetten.

11…. Pd5 12.Pf1 Pxe5 13.dxe5 Lc5 14.Le3 Pxe3 15.Pxe3 Td2 16.Da4 Dh4 17.g3 Dh5 18.Lf1 Lf3 19.b4 Lb6 20.c4 Ld4 21.Lg2 g4 22.Tab1 Dg6 23.Tb3 Lxg2 24.Kxg2 De4+ 25.Kg1 h5 26.c5

met een T-offer tot besluit

26…. h4 27.Dxa7 hxg3 28.Da8+ Kd7 0-1

Kortom: het Scandinavisch kan leuk en goed zijn.

Zie echter wat mij een week later in februari overkomt.

In een HH-competitie wedstrijd bij RSR IT, speelde mijn tegenstander Leo Kranenburg na mijn 1.e2-e4 de Aljechin: 1… Pg8-f6.

Even dacht ik een variant te gaan spelen uit mijn schaakjeugd: 2.e5 Pd5 3.c4 Pb6 4.Pf3 Pc6 5.exd6, maar zag daar na ampele overweging vanaf om de redenen in mijn inleiding genoemd.

Dus volgde de zoutloze reactie: 2.Pc3 en keek ik na 2… d5 3.exd5 Pxd5 4.Lc4 Pb6 5.Lb3 c5 6.d3 Pc6 7.Pf3 Lf5 met wit tegen een Scandinavische stelling aan. Wel een gelegenheid om iets te proberen. Waarmee ik, verwijzend naar de titel van dit artikel, mijn kuil groef of het zwaard uit de schede haalde.

De theorie gaat hier voor wit verder met de opstelling 0-0 en Te1.

Dat kende ik (vanuit mijn zwarte Scandinavische theorie).

Ik besloot echter tot lange rokade en K-aanval.

Maar de kuil was te diep, het zwaard te scherp. Na het vervolg

8.Lf4 e6 9.Dd2 Le7 10.0–0–0 Pa5 11.Pe5 Pxb3+ 12.axb3 h6 13.g4 Lh7 14.Lg3 a5 15.Tde1 a4 16.bxa4 Pxa4

bleek de zwarte aanval veel sneller als de witte.

Na 28 zetten won zwart terecht, kwam het zwaard er aan mijn achterkant weer uit en kon ik worden begraven in de kuil.

Tja, ik had kunnen weten dat het Scandinavisch leuk en goed is – voor zwart!

twee lessen voor schakers (en kunstenaars?)

Gisteravond voor RSR IT ingevallen in RSB-team tegen HZP Schiedam en tegen een 2049-er gespeeld:

JHS – D. van Loenen

Na een leuk systeem tegen het Frans:

1.e4 e6

2.b3

stond het na 18 zetten aldus, met wit (ik) aan zet en ruim in mijn tijd:

Hier keek ik naar:

a) 19.Tf3 met voor de hand liggend vervolg; dacht toen: dan moet 19… h6 en win ik nog steeds, maar kan sterker, dus verder kijken …..

b) 19.Tf6 verhindert 19… h6 (die mep ik eraf) en als hij dan niet 19… g7-g6 doet, wellicht Tf6-h6 (?!) en als hij wel 19… g7-g6 doet Ta1-f1-f3 en wint, maar kan sterker, dus verder kijken …..

c) 19.Ld3, dan moet 19… g6 en na 20.Dh6 wint Tf1-f3-h3, immers h7 is niet te dekken, maar kan dit niet leuker vanwege al de toeschouwers om me heen (“onze bord 1 speler gaat eraan!”), dus terug naar T-zetten …..

d) weer kijken naar 19.Tf6 en toen dacht ik: 19.Txf7 is leuk en na 19… Txf7 komt 20.g6 ! en als T dan wijkt loopt het mat of in ieder geval winst en als T niet wijkt, dan komt  na 20… h6 21.gxf7+ Kf8 22.Dg6 met winst. Ja, dit is leuk.

Vervolgens variant d) nog een keer doorgenomen (tijd genoeg) en gespeeld!

Je begrijpt, na 19.Txf7 Txf7 20.g6 hxg6 gaf ik op.

Les 1: denk nooit aan het publiek !

PS

Als je meer van 1.e4 e6 2.b3 wilt weten hoor ik het wel.

Les 2

Gelezen op de Sliedrecht-site dat Kees in een bonds-wedstrijd de Leeuw speelde.

Les 2: ……. (zelf in te vullen) ……

Multitouch 4

In the last class (3) we came up with a list of ideas what to do with multitouch.(Beyond the simple “enlarge and rotate” with two fingers.)One of the ideas was to use your feet, a screen for a foot (or two). Later we saw that this idea, in a flat version is already in use! http://www.gesturetek.com/cube/introduction.php

The idea of Rik Speel en Danuta de Vries:

their idea goes way beyond the one showed above:

Move board 3006 (see comment in Dutch)

An animation to show some of the effects:

The next idea is on a grand scale:

The floor of a museum as a whole is taken as multitouch screen in the next sketch, the floor reacts on behaviour of visitors in the museum:(Robbert Geers en Vincent van den Broek)

Pepijn en Dominic proposed a book with multi touch pages, great for selecting passages and images and saving them in your own archives. (See comments for description in Dutch.)

Peppijn made this animation:

Thinking of the body as the only real multitouch “thing” around,  Mark Vobornik en Sharon Snoep thought of a multi touch human body simulator.See their description in the comments in Dutch.

Multitouch 3

More reflexions

Multi-touch remains a strange notion. This fact of being a strange thing is good and it should stay strange as long as possible. This makes us think! It is as if multi touching is touching our brain at different levels and positions. It is as if multi touch is doing it’s trick also on thinking.

Touching in contrast with clicking is immediately more related to the actual functioning of the hand than the simple and precise mouseclick. The hand is much more then only finger tips. So multitouch is more than “5 times a mouseclick”. Also the flat sides of the hand contribute in the function of the hand. Multitouch is interaction between a screen and finger touch. So the touching spots, the blobs can vary in size and even have a direction. This is totally different from a mouseclick. Touching with mutiple fingers resembles grabbing. Grabbing, caressing, constructing. This relates multitouch to sculpting. In sculpting more than in painting the hand is involved in the manipulation material. In painting the brush is more used like the mouse, being like a point, even if the painter uses a flat brush. Also painting is done in single strokes, seldomly in independent simultaneousbrush actions.

So multitouch makes the screen and the objects projected on the screen more real, although we cannot “grab” these things – the hand is obstructed by the glass of the screen.

By making the screen more than only a flat surface, we can try to come closer to this notion of grabbing.

Practical:

We are going to link up the FLASH with the multitouch next week. Before that we need to study another few examples of actionscript, the mouseclick and sound.

Here are the sourcefiles:

http://www.contrechoc.com/flash/flash_MT_examples.zip

be careful inserting your own sounds: FLASH eats only .mp3 format.

Assignment for this third lesson: we have promised a customer a very alternative multitouch box, we have to deliver a protoype with a convincing story (concept) at 5 o’clock, we have cardboard available, scissors, knifes tape, and we will have a quick shared creative session.

Photo’s of this session will be sent to the customer (this blog – see results, Multitouch 4.

We will practice the first real programmed  multitouch program with this flash file:

http://www.contrechoc.com/flash/reduced_Multitouch.zip

Beside that we train in starting up the tbeta, FLOSC, and the flash examples.

Making a contact mic in CROSSLAB with Radboud

Ever heard of piezoelectricity?

Well, “Piezoelectricity is the(increadable) ability of some materials (notably crystals and certain ceramics, including bone (human bones too???) ) to generate an electric potentia in response to applied mechanical stress” so far from the wikipedia…

Oh and then it must be immediately clear that this gives us a fabulous microphone .

So Radboud Mens in his SoundArt class showed us how to make this mic. A so called contact-mic. Do it yourself: Soldering!

It took a bit of soldering but after only one burnt finger, 17 new microphones were born. As Radboud told us, outside the building, in the rumbling city, the mic applied to metal sheets, or tubes, gives great sounds, the dark heartbeats of the city.

Such an piezo element can also be connected to the ARDUINO, you must finetune it with a resistor, it can have strange effects, resulting from static electricity on your hands, already triggering only when you point at it.

The piezo element can become a speaker at the same time, doing the reversed action: not recording sound but making noise itself.

Saving an ATMEGA 168

Why did I write this mail to Jeff?: (it is a long story…)

 http://mightyohm.com/blog/2008/09/arduino-based-avr-high-voltage-programmer/

He Jeff, thx, for the artschool in Rotterdam Holland (WDKA) I thought I could save a bit of money buying ATMega’s instead of Lilypads and Arduino’s. I ran in the same fuses trouble I found in your blog (having more experience in Iphone programming . Just in this holiday week I decided I could try building your shield. I had to be careful (so being not at all artistic) and indeed I succeeded in…yes! making a tiny shortcut in between two near pins, of course the 5.5V and the GND of the ARDUINO. Invisible to the naked eye, there was a microscopic soldering error on my board between the not even “used” pins!
USB protection saved me twice, but then amazingly my shield (a master copy of your shield) worked! I could recuperate the ATMEGA 168. (And the 9 others I had apparently meshed up!)

(See Bootloading the Arduino a blog of 27 januari.)

you see the Arduino is so rectangular, the lilypad is already nicer, but the single ATMEGA is even more small and “hideable”. Only, get this thing programmed! (Don’t forget to set the internal timer….)

What happened? I wanted to try “the naked ATMega168″. But I ran into trouble: the hex file to bootload the ATMEGA was nt the right one. First i started altering settings, I didn’t know about fuses, lockbits, so….in the end I foudn the right HEXfile, see former blog about this. But then apparemtly I already had bad settings for quite a few of the 10 ATMEGA’s.

So I started digging the internet and found the blog of Jeff. But well, it took me a few weeks to decide to build this shield (picture above). And after some trouble it did save 7 out of 10 ATMEGA’s. For the last three i am writing in the file of Jeff on the ARDUINO the eraseChip function, but that does not save me at the moment. Anyway, you don’t save time buying naked ATMEGA’s But i have learnt a lot! Being able t make a shield is perfect and from the script of Jeff i learnt the possibility of setting ports 0-7 at once using the DATA.

And in the end the best reward is when it actually works!

I lost this link several times: the datasheet, the page to program HIGH VOLTAGE stuff is around 297:

http://www.atmel.com/dyn/resources/prod_documents/doc2545.pdf

Multi-touch: making your own table

Multitouch tables are offered for 10K dollars. Can you make one for 100 – 200? Yep!

First of all, get informed! links:

http://dundee.cs.queensu.ca/wiki/index.php/Building_a_Multi-Touch_Sensitive_Table

this one took 4 days to make….

http://tinker.it/now/2007/02/28/multitouch-table-experiment/

http://niceminds.com/?page_id=88

 http://www.ehow.com/how_4559676_build-multitouch-ftir-table.html

the most expensive is the plexi glass.

a surface mirror doesn’t cost too much < 5 euro.

(if you can lend the projector, if you have a laptop)

But the software is free!

(You have to be able to program with this software.)

There are about three ways to use the IR light. The easiest one is to shine on the glass/acrylic from beneath with a IR LED lamp.

When you do this you can use glass instead of acrylic which reduces the costs.

Something which stays a bit of a problem is the light in the environment. Every time you have to set up anew. Also calibration is a bit of a nuissance. You also have to do this every time. The edge of the screen is the main problem case,

But the fun of having a multitouch screen – table is worth all the trouble. It will change the whole way of working with computers, not thinking yet about how it will change our environment.

Another nice description of transformning a webcam to IR:

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/kitchenscience/exp/make-an-infra-red-camera/

MultiTouch2

What is received on the server in lesson 1:

(Assignment: Search examples of multitouch.)

http://mtg.upf.edu/reactable  an intricate application with sound.

http://www.i-bar.ch  a surface on a bar which interacts with the drinks, connexions between touching objects.

http://vimeo.com/2080212 a table idea by Jurjen Versteeg (student audio visueel)

This last link is interesting, but not multitouch – it is even triggered by RFID!

http://www.vimeo.com/176199

So what is multi-touch? (Well, what could it be?)

Multitouch consists of two words: multi and touch. Multi is more than one, and even more then two… Touch is mainly done by fingers, but can be done with your nose, your toe, your knee (great for alternative ideas…).

What outside the computer can be multitouch. It is very funny to think about this…is a stone multi touch? No. Then you could add: reacting interactivily to multitouch? Then the answer is: no not a rock….a plant a tree, hmmm maybe….strange….an animal? Yes closer….It was quite a suprise thinking about “what is multitouch outside the computer”  that the only “thing” that could be multitouch is a living “thing” and more specific, the human being! This gives us something to think about. Multitouch means reacting to several impulses at the same time. We can do that because we have neural perceptors everywhere. Some regions more than others, hands inside have many, hands outside considerably less. There must be interesting images about this fact:

So the computer as the only other multitouch thing beside the human being can be thought of as approaching, wanting to imitate the multitouch of the human, the living.Ha! We have more receptors than any of these machines, and we have parallel processing, and we have concentration and filtering mechanisms!

Between the human multitouch and the rest of the world were tools and instruments already for 1000 of years. Some of these instruments are also multitouch: musical instruments! A violin can make several strings vibrate at the same time (in the 17th century 3 or even 4 strings, nowadays 2 because of a different shape of the bridge). A piona can make 10 (or more) sounds, depending on the agility of your fingers and your expertise.

Sounds and hearing is also multi sensorial, because the ear can discern several tones, notes at the same time. These tones can distracted from the sound which is a spectrum. The spikes in this spectrum are “seen”, “heard” as notes.

Towards expression, the elements

In the computer the multitouch has to be given a form, an expression. The thing reacting to multitouch is expressive, the box, or whatever. (Better whatever than a box in the end.)

The thing happening on the screen. (We do not project the screen in the box for the moment.)  On the screen we have an application in FLASH using the tbeta library. So we have to connect the box to the FLASH applicaton, using it’s possibilities and the expressiveness of FLASH.

We can look at the examples and analyse what is used as input and what is presented as effects. The box is not at all involved in these examples.

We will try to make more coherence between box and effect on the screen. The shape of the box will be designed, according to our idea.

Then we have to program a bit,  first using “the mouse”.

Two simple flash examples:

• two eyes following a mouse
• two eyes looking around independently

(all is done in actionscript), the script structure is

1. “backpack” – import,only caarry what you need
2. “preparation” – make all the necessary things ready for take off
3. “run” – looping, waiting, reacting

Programming is not easy, but if you follow this structure then simple programming is possible for everyone.

Hacking a keyboard

 

Looking for an easy way to get a lot of input possibilities attached to the computer, you could think of hacking a keyboard. That is taking it apart, finding the key matrix (a matrix is like a chessboard), and making the switches you need. It is all very well described here:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2301149,00.asp

but also the writer warns that: there is no standard key matrix, so all types of keyboards have to be checked individually and that you have to be careful not to damage your computer, third you have the problem of ghosting, that is three buttons might awaken an extra ghost button.

Alternatives are available: prepared boards. A bit more expensiv, but first of all, you know it will work, second, you cannot damage you computer.

These hacks are listed here: http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Keyboard_Encoders

So I-PAC (USB): (31 euro’s + 4 TAX, feb 2009)

http://www.ultimarc.com/ipacve.html

it comes with WinIPAC:

http://ultimarc.com/download.html

KeyWiz40-Eco (26 dollar, TAX ? )

http://groovygamegear.com/webstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=76_80&products_id=200

(no experience yet with these hack-boards! But they seem to be good…although noting is better then DIY, ok maybe sometimes it does not function then….:-)

Since the keyboard strokes are recorded and taken care of in FLASH (for instance) no need to reprogram the strokes anywhere else.

As an alternative to keyboard or the above mentioned keyboard chip, one could simple use the ARDUINO like the key matrix. Making ports input, and reading out the combinations, using the FLASH connection (or other) described elsewhere in this DIY blog.

first possibility: simple using the ports, setting all ports to input, use a 100 – 200 Ohm resistor and a switch.

second possibility:(using less ports, making combinations)

For instance: using 3 ports:0 = low, 1 = high, ports are connected to a single switch.

000 = a, (sending an a through the serial connections)

001 = b

010 = c

011 = d, etcetera

since the ARDUINO has 14 input ports (not counting the analog ports) we have a bewildering number of possibilities. (2 to the power of 14)

Third possibility, like the keyboard matrix:

use two rows of ports, look at the keyboard, 4 rows of keys, from bottom to top, use 4 porst for these rows, then take for instance 5 keys in each row, and connect these to five other ports, so each key is connected (with a switch) to 2 ports, the first determining which row to pick and the second which character in the row.

Then you see suddenly how many keys there are on a keyboard! Covering the whole keyboard with an ARDUINO, you have to divide the keyboard into regions, adding the number of rows, or take an extra switch to connect to each key…This will be a lot of work!

Maybe the above mentioned keyboard alternative is not so bad after all?

(Using the ARDUINO with FLASH, you need serproxy, and setting the serproxy config to the port used by the ARDUINO software – see other blog.)

So i started buying a flexible keyboard on the market. The purple one i didn’t sacrified, but a white one. Seeing through the layer reveals the wiring. On the side we have the chip. There are a lot of shortcut revealed! Trying out connections from the two side, sometimes the computer falls asleep, sometiems all is saved . So indeed be careful! I used male connectors to slip inside the matrix board. Here some pictures: (try connecting wires from the strip left under to the strip right under…

we bought this for CrossLab:

http://groovygamegear.com/webstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=76_81&products_id=235