Hikaru no Go culture capers

HNG has some fascinating asides along the way:

1. Haze Jr. High School Go Club members washing Go stones at the chem lab sink,
   
2. An excellent discussion of "shin kaya" (aka "new kaya," but as noted below, "new" in the sense of fake or substitute) and how it's really spruce, and why the name is sharp practice, if not outright intended to deceive,
   
3. There was also a nifty discussion of gobans in general, and the sound a stone makes when striking real kaya in that same episode, around 50 or 51 or so;
   
4. Also a great Shuusaku tour of Innoshima, and lots of odd period (Kouka to Bunkyuu, roughly) information like the imperial "flower pot" episode.
   

Much more going on in there, I'm sure. The series is heavy on Go jargon, short on elaboration and example, but not too overwhelming. Everybody loves the secret languages of exclusion and initiation.

Red ears...

Cool! Episode 63 part 1/2 of Hikaru no Go at YouTube shows the "ear reddening" move, Honinbo Shusaku's 127th move of a match with Gennan Inseki in Osaka, September, 1846. Hikaru (i.e., Umezawa Yukari, the pro who vets gameplay for the series) comments that Shusaku/Sai's opponent would have lost all will to fight, because the move "attacks all of the surrounding sides."

Click on the little graphic from gobase.org (it's their logo), for the YouTube view of the same game.

Wireless, again...

Wireless...! Whatever, it turns out that all you have to do to "install" wireless is run your ethernet cable to the ActionTec DSL modem and turn the antenna on — assigning a name to your connection and a wireless encryption password (WEP) in passing — then, power down, unplug your ethernet cable from the notebook, and power up. Connect manually, ONCE, to your wireless so you can enter the WEP password, ONCE, and then you are connected. Magically. Just don't try to "configure" it, or use any of the oddball network controls lying out in plain sight all over Windows XP, or you will screw it all up beyond all recognition.

Once it works, it works. Don't fix it.

Found this while fooling around with wireless. Nice.