Classes are now in session. I took four of the freshmen students assigned to me for this week and gave them a tour around the science campus. They got right and proper anxious when I told them that there are currently only five seniors left on our physics track. I guess that there are worse ways to motivate people. They seemed to like everything about this place. Aside from that, I told them about possible student research, where are good places to eat, whom to ask about random bureaucratic crap, why should you always skip the student-faculty liaison, where can you get the licensed software and all that other auxiliary stuff that makes your life on campus easier. Crafting: I made some soap. Cold process with sunflower oil, nothing fancy. Both are from the same batch that was decanted four times in a nearly-boiling saturated solution of table salt. Word of advice: use distilled water for this purpose. Both the calcium or magnesium ions (stuff that's in tap/hard water) can and will decrease your yield and purity. The final product's pH is around 6-6.5 (it was 8-9 before the first decantation) so it should have only a slight drying effect. The one on the left is just your normal soap. The one on the right was mixed with 150 mg of silver citrate. That way it should exhibit some anti-bacterial properties. The difference in colour is mainly caused by the fact the one on the right dries a lot faster (larger exposed area, additional mixing to distribute silver citrate evenly). Ghetto chemistry at its finest. Games: The Call of Cthulhu session was great! Everyone plays as either a police detective or officer so at least there's no need to contrive some lazy reason to explain why all those people are working together. How do you all know each other? From work! Awesome, now there's no need to make the first few sessions mainly about earning mutual trust. Since we play, at best, every other week it's a very well received change of pace. Chess: I'm 4 out of 4 and on fire! My opponent (black) resigned from this position:
Or lye as I think it's also called. Yeah, I used it as well. I'm now intrigued about the used oil you mentioned. I guess that if there's no acrolein there would be nothing wrong with it. Otherwise, it might start to polymerise in the presence of a strong base (like caustic soda) and ruin the product. I'll give it a try sometime.Caustic soda
Nope, sorry. I'm only on lichess and that's primarily because weewooweewoo and I play there occasionally. Plus that Stockfish AI they have for machine matches is a neat way to kill some time. Just in case, my username there is devac. Also, still no smartphone. Tried using two different ones for a month or so and got fed up with both of them for different reasons.
6. Ke2!? 6. Ke2!? 6. Ke2!? You're fucking nuts. I thought you said you were nervous about this game - you played it like crazy! Also, that was a beautiful queen trap. This is seriously a really beautiful game to look at. edit: It turns out the computer recommends 6. Ke2 - It's not that crazy at all, but I'd feel so nervous playing it, I have no idea how you did it in tournament.
Thanks! Oh, I was extremely nervous, but Ke2 was perfectly rational. Let's go through the possible variants: yields me a mess of a situation where neither side has a good position, but black might be able to capitalise on it better. I'm not taking those chances. this is the kind of position where everything feels like a blunder. Almost all fields are either defended or can be defended if provoked. It basically punishes you for trying to disturb the system and it's move 12. Now it doesn't even matter if I'll capture it with my knight, bishop or queen. No matter what happens, I'm woefully underdeveloped when compared to black… and it only has a pair of knights out and primed kingside castling. About nervousness: I've done pretty much those exact calculations right there. Every classical response to this position felt bad, so I started looking at something unconventional. Almost everything that I predicted as a consequence of Ke2 looked better than the above variants. The mind can do amazing things when you feel like you are cornered.Also, that was a beautiful queen trap. This is seriously a really beautiful game to look at.
Ke2!? You're fucking nuts. I thought you said you were nervous about this game
6. Bd2 Bxd2+ 7. Qxd2 Nde7 8. d5 Nb8 d6 9. Nc3 d6 10. exd6 cxd6 11. dxe6 Bxe6 6. Nbd2 Nde7 7. a3 Bxd2 8. Qxd2 d7 9. Qc3 dxe5 10. dxe5 b6 11. d3 Bb7 6. Nfd2 Nde7 7. a3 Bxd2+