One of my online chess games. Some annotations below . . . 2. g3 This opening move doesn’t have a name as far as I know. 4. Bxe4? There’s no way I can see for Black to save the pawn after 4. Nc3 so why put the bishop out there as a target? 6. b3? 6. h3 would prevent Black’s follow-up move. 7. Ng2? 7. Bxc6+ knocks out a valuable Black piece. 8. Bf1?? White’s game is probably lost already so instead of prolonging with something like 8. Nc3, why not just commit suicide? Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
EppsNet at the Movies: Dark Waters
The system is rigged. They want us to believe that it’ll protect us, but that’s a lie. We protect us. We do. Nobody else. Not the companies, not the scientists, not the government. Us. I’ll tell you how the movie ends but without a spoiler. It ends with the closing credits, over which we hear Johnny Cash singing “I Won’t Back Down,” the Tom Petty song, which perfectly summarizes the Mark Ruffalo character, who won’t back down, not as an act of defiance but just as a quiet refusal to give up. Whether or not that strategy works for him, I will not reveal here. Because the movie is based on real-life events, it’s also a good watch for anyone who believes that government agencies will protect us from all of the bad things in life, and that anyone who thinks otherwise must be crazy. Rating: Director: Cast: IMDb rating:… Read more →
Percentage of Fake Accounts on Twitter?
Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of usershttps://t.co/Y2t0QMuuyn — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022 I’d have to say that fake accounts are waaay over 5 percent. Example: NYT and CNN claim 50-60 million followers and get retweets in the lower double digits, whereas accounts with far fewer real followers can get thousands of retweets with a banana emoji and a photo of Estelle Getty. ? pic.twitter.com/RM1eeC8Tjq — Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) April 27, 2022 Read more →
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Yeah but here’s the saddest part
I don’t even care
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And there’s nothin you can do, it’s gonna happen
Sit down and drink a beer with Father Time
People of All Genders Need Abortions?
I've been trying to get pregnant just so I can get an abortion but so far, no luck. https://t.co/G6SzTy5gb8 — Paul Epps (@paulepps) May 7, 2022 Read more →
Menstrual Equity
I'm not a doctor but I know enough about male paraphernalia to say that if a man is expelling blood through his genitals, a tampon is not going to help. https://t.co/tkaQkuCek3 — Paul Epps (@paulepps) May 5, 2022 Read more →
Now, if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hit, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you are because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain’t you. You’re better than that! ~ Rocky Balboa
Gilbert Gottfried, 1955-2022
One of my favorite comedians. We saw him do a show at the Improv in Irvine. I lived in Irvine for many years but didn’t go to the Improv much because comedians of any stature rarely show up there. I don’t know why. They do the Hollywood Improv, you’d think they could just drive up the road a piece, do a set in Irvine and pick up another check. I also heard Gilbert interviewed many times and I think he was even funnier conversationally than he was in his act, and his act was very funny. RIP Gilbert Gottfried Read more →
Have we reached the ultimate state of absurdity where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today? — Thomas Sowell
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Sometimes when I taste the delicious acai berry, I put down my gun and give thanks to a nonexistent God.
A Celebration of Ignorance
I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy, when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries, when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations… Read more →
If a man does his best, what else is there? — George S. Patton
How Lonely Can It Get?
I asked Hank Williams, “How lonely can it get?” Hank Williams hasn’t answered me yet. But I can hear him coughing all night long. A hundred floors above me in the Tower of Song. — Leonard Cohen Read more →
The Ballad of Joking Jesus
Goodbye goodbye write down all I said Tell Tom Dick and Harry I rose from the dead What’s bred in the bone cannot fail me to fly and all of it’s breezy goodbye now goodbye — James Joyce Read more →
This Would Have Never Happened to Donald Trump
I don’t have any regard for Trevor Noah but if Biden’s lost Trevor Noah, he’s lost America. It doesn’t seem real. Noah is right though. If a Middle Eastern country didn’t take a call from Donald Trump, who knows what Trump would do? Start bombing mosques in descending order of holiness? You don’t know. So you answer the call. Preferably on the first ring. Read more →
He Is Therefore Responsible For All of It
The world, we are told, was made by a God who is both good and omnipotent. Before He created the world, He foresaw all the pain and misery it would contain; He is therefore responsible for all of it. It is useless to argue that the pain in the world is due to sin. In the first place, this is not true; it is not sin that causes rivers to overflow their banks or volcanoes to erupt. But even if it were true, it would make no difference. If I were going to beget a child knowing that the child was going to be a homicidal maniac, I should be responsible for his crimes. If God knew in advance the sins of which man would be guilty, He was clearly responsible for all the consequences of those sins when He decided to create man. The usual Christian argument is that… Read more →
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PBR or Ass?
Chess Game of the Day: Caro-Kann Defense
One of my online chess games. Two or three weak middle game moves by me and I got hit by an avalanche. Some annotations below . . . 1. …c6 Caro-Kann Defense 3. e5 Advance Variation 3. …c5 Botvinnik-Carls Defense 13. Qd4? Maybe 13. a4, instead of putting the queen where Black can point a bishop at it. 29. Ra2 Black has the best of things at this point. Possibly Rxf8, taking a piece out of the attack, is an improvement. 34. Ra8? Moving the rook back to a2 would have been better. 39. …Ra1 I thought 39. …Ra2 was better but this move still doesn’t put much of a dent in a large Black advantage. 41. Re2?? 41. Ke3 could have prolonged the agony. The game is really over at this point, but in a blitz game where we both had a little under 40 seconds left, why not… Read more →