Did Ozzie and Harriet play go?



The American Go Association ejournal is offering a $25 (USD) prize to the first person to identify the source of this picture. This makes me want to get out old episodes of Leave it to Beaver and The Andy Griffith Show to look for go games that I may have overlooked!

Go vs. chess as applied to real-world military strategy

The American Go Association's ejournal reports on Seymour Hersh's comments concerning the Iraqi resistance, "As somebody said, 'We're playing chess and their playing Go.' " Also referenced were a book and a paper exploring the influence of go on Chinese military strategy:

The Protracted Game: A Wei-Chi Interpretation of Maoist Revolutionary Strategy by Scott Boorman.

Learning From the Stones: A Go Approach to Mastering China's Strategic Concept, Shi by David Lee

This reminded me of a couple of comments in Peter Shotwell's book, Go: More than a Game. Shotwell believes that Boorman's thesis attributing elements of Mao's military strategy to the influence of go is flawed. Rather, Shotwell concludes that both go and Mao are influenced by the same ancient Chinese military and hunting concepts.

A few online Shotwell papers can be found in the Bob High Memorial Library.

Cetacean community thwarted

A US court has thrown out a case of marine animals suing George W. Bush over the US Navy's use of sonar, which has a detrimental effect on marine life. The judgment declared, If Congress and the President intended to take the extraordinary step of authorizing animals as well as people and legal entities to sue they could and should have said so plainly.

Google Desktop privacy branded 'unacceptable'

The Register has an interesting article about privacy concerns with the Google desktop. The CEO of Copernic points out that if Google knows what files you have, and some of those files are "shared", that Google may become a subpoena target for the RIAA and the new US Federal Government war on copyright infringement.

FDA approves RFID implants for humans

Ars technica reports that the US FDA has approved the use of the ViriChip - the same RFID tag your vet injected into your cat - in humans. There is a great quote from Bruce Schneier commenting on the Bush administration's plans for RFID passports here too. For those who are interested, here is the official VeriChip FAQ!

A go OS?

I was surprised to read the following in the American Go Association E Journal:

NEW GO OPERATING SYSTEM: The expanding world of computer go now includes Hikarunix, “the only operating system dedicated to go,” according to creator Karl Sigler. “Hikarunix is a live Linux CD dedicated to learning, playing and studying go,” Sigler tells the E-Journal. Hikarunix features an interactive tutorial for beginners, while more advanced players can record and organize their SGF games for study and comment. “With Hikarunix you can study from an included library of nearly 7000 historical and professional games, 500 of which are reviewed and commented. You can practice Joseki with ‘Guess the next move’ programs, try to solve nearly 5000 go problems ranging from easy to dan level, and play online with thousands of go players, or start your own go server to play private games,” says Sigler. Hikarunix is available free at http://www.hikarunix.org/ Note: the EJ is interested in user reviews of Hikarunix; send them to us at journal@usgo.org.

Don't get me wrong, anything having to do with go/weiqi/baduk I hold in good favor, but does the world really need a go OS? Has anyone made a chess OS?