What I Know About Chess

          A while ago I was searching in Google: what is the maximum number of possible moves in chess?  The answer I have is that maximum amount of moves is somewhere less than six thousand.  However there is the three-move rule, for example: if you move in two square back and forth three times it is a draw.  I was thinking about being a good chess player when I was about fifteen years old but I have never mastered it.  I found out to improve my chess skill it will cost me financially to certain extend.  I like the thinking process of the chess: the insight, the pin, the fork and the trap.  But it is hard to find other players.  Even if there are other player, the game is not necessary fun.  Playing with computer also gets dull.  Now I am forty three years old and I subscribed one year of Chess Life magazines since last year.  I enjoy them very much.  However, I can’t just read the text and picture the position of the piece very well.  I like to try some products advertised in the magazines, too, but do not feel like to spend more money.  According to the magazine, in the 2010 Chess Olympiad, US did not do very well for both gentlemen and ladies.  For men, the result is 5^th to 10^th rank.  For women, the result is 3^rd to 5^th rank.  To me, I would definitely love to make money by playing chess but I do not have the ability to do so.  I know some people take a long time to make a move in chess but I rather play the move quickly.  I have not play a real chess game for many years now.  I did play a Chinese chess game on an airplane when I was traveling to Taiwan last December.  Chinese chess is different from Western chess.  Anyway, I think reading about chess is a good way to keep me occupied.

What I Think About Movie: Inception

          I saw the movie “Inception” about 3 weeks ago in DVD.  I feel it has a great topic, as part of the word “Perception” is part of the word “Inception.”  The movie is about a person named Dom Cobb invented a machine that can make dreams feel like reality.  However, his wife Mal killed herself because she liked dreams world better than the reality.  That part of Cobb kept hunting him.  He also left his children because of money even though he regretted that later on.  However, he united with his children in the other person’s dream.  The movie seems to indicate with the machine Cobb had created a person can keep dreaming after he or she died.  At the end of the movie, obviously Cobb is drowned.  However, his dream still continues as he reunited with his two children in the dream.  I feel if a person is dead, his thought should stop and so does his dream but this is not the case in the movie.  There is also the idea of a dream within a dream when Cobb was trying to get the safe’s combination from a rich person’s son.  The time with the machine in the dream is twelve times as long as the real world.  These are interesting ideas to me.  The machine that makes dream world real can be brought into a dream and the time in the dream is actually longer.  There is a person died when he is in a dream within a dream.  In the movie, he was said to be in limbo forever but he seems to have a life somehow and I feel the movie contradict itself on this part.  In the movie, when characters are in a dream within a dream, they are things unpredictable happened that is why a person died.  To me, our dreams are not controllable.  I do not know what I am going to dream when I am going to sleep.  The girl that Cobb recruited helped him a lot in the movie.  She tried to understand his struggle in the dream and help him to complete the mission at the end.  Cobb said if he is in the other person’s dream, he token will spin forever, and that is what I see at the end of the movie.  Cobb was in a van diving into the water through the side of the bridge at the end.  There is the picture of him reunited with his kids with his token spinning on the table, so he died and keep dreaming.

Human and Machine from Tom Liao

          Most of us have seen the movie: Terminator.  In our industries, we use robots in many ways and we keep trying to improve them.  Will machines actually take over humans in our future?  Even though there are many opinions, I would presume: some day, human will be replaced by the machines. 

            When I was in a bookstore, I saw a book with a term “singularity”.  I picked it up and flipped some pages. And I found out that it has to do with the time human will have after they have created very powerful computers.  I looked up the term again recently and understood that it associates with the time after the computer is more powerful then the human brains.  The source also said this even is likely to happen in 21^st century and the breakthrough is likely to be Artificial Intelligence.   A.I.s may also get some boost from nanotechnology.  What I see now is that human is the most dominant specie on earth and we control many things with our brain by create tools and machines.  If there is the specie called machines that have more advanced brains than ours, obviously they can dominate us with their mind.  Of course, they do not have to be willing to harm us but more advanced minds dominate over less advanced minds.

            Do we need to worry about the singularity?  I would say “no”.  When we thought about building rockets and launching them into space, there are possibilities that rockets can land on our houses but that did not stop us from building rockets.  Again, the largest particle accelerator in the world in Switzland was thought to create a black hole to devour our world or turn the whole world into the strange matter, but it is still built.  So I say:  just keep pursue your dreams and happiess, and  future is not future if it is predictable.

           

How Society Affects Me As A Person

            Society is the totality of human relationships.  In the age of civilization, human can no longer live a completely solitary life, because everything a person uses is made by other people so one person is related to the other in some ways.  I used to live in Taiwan from 1967 to 1983.  At that time, there are not many industrial complexes.  The town that I lived has many rice fields.  I was just a child.  After being to the U.S. for twenties eight years, I have got an A.A. degree in drafting and B.S. of IT from Cal State L.A.  Looking back to see how society affects me, I would said it teaches me as I get older I have to learn more and contribute to the society.

            When I was in Taiwan, most shops and vending carts are within walking distances.  I walk to school, shops and markets.  Because I was young, my parents took care of meals for me.  I was worry-free.  I was a happy child but also was someone without responsibility.  After moving to the U.S., I quickly realized many of my peers work part time in High School.  The urge of having my own money made me want to do the same.  After some trouble years, I finally got an A.A. degree from ITT Tech in drafting in 1985 and work in a Drafting Company.  I worked there for three years then went back to Cal State L.A. and got an IT bachelor degree in 2005.  Because I like SolidWorks, I learned the software at 2005 while I was in school.  I use it from 2006 to 2010 for a rigging company.  So I become knowing:  as the place I live get more modern and as more time has passed, my skills need to advance more also.  I know nothing in my birth place but I have to know drafting and SolidWorks to be able to work.  I heard from my relatives’ friend that a Math professor makes $200,000 a year and how he would like that kind of position.  I read about the competition between Lockheed Martin and Boeing to get the government’s contract for Join Strike Fighters.  Lockheed got the contract because they were more impressive than the Boeing; whoever is more skillful gets the contract.

            I went back to Taiwan the end of the last year.  The restaurants are exquisite but the air pollution is a problem.  Some of my happiness from my childhood actually got into me again.  However, I think air pollution is an issue in Taiwan.  Hopefully people would lean to more green technologies and change the quality of the air.  Again, use knowledge and benefit society.