Quadibloc wrote:
On Jun 24, 12:04 am, Jürgen R. wrote:
schrieb im

You mean somebody might not be thrilled at the idea of spending 4 yrs
at a second-rate school in - God help us - Lubbock, TX?

Wasn't that the town that was buzzed by migratory birds from outer
space?

John Savard

My agents have informed me that "It's illegal to sleep in a garbage can
in Lubbock, Texas."

Those dorm rooms may save someone from spending an unpleasant night in
the slammer.
--

"Do that which is right..."

Rev. J.D. Walker

Chess One wrote:
wrote in message
...


Chess One wrote:

I think Sam Sloan hasn't quite caught up with things. Perhaps in a couple
of
days he'll get it. But maybe I am not rich like him? since $800,000 in
tuition is 'not nuthin'.
Phil Innes


In the first place, the $800K in scholarships is over ten years.

Sure. But no less for that?

More
to the point, it is of no use to the winner unless she wants to attend
Texas Tech.

Sure.

That doesn't mean it's worthless, but neither is it the
bonanza that Fool, er, I mean Phil,

Whoops! Characterizations have entered in, quaotations have stopped. Indeed
I never called it a 'Bonanza', but its easier to mock me /as if/ I had,
rather than what I said, no? Besides, you can get off on being ****y about a
million bucks, which is the main point for us journalists.

seems to think.

Oh! only 'seems'? That's weak. Especially since its John Hillery's term, and
I didn't use it - he is now in danger of seeming to mock himself or his own
invention of what others 'seem'.

It's a good deal
for the girls. Whether it would also be a good deal for the Denker
players is an interesting question, requiring a reasoned analysis of
tradeoffs. Somehow I don't expect to see that here.

True - here you get very reluctant praise, lots of ****ing contests midst
that, and instead of even bothering to have a conversation, various wags and
scoundrels anticipate what others 'seem' as if actual discussion would be
too wear-making for their poor little minds.

Phil Innes


The qualifier "seems" was inserted for two reasons: a) To avoid
actually _saying_ that you're a blithering idiot/PR flack (choose
one), and b) Your limited command of written English often makes it
hard to determine what you actually mean. (I've never heard you speak,
but second-hand accounts suggest that you are no more coherent in that
medium.) I must thank you, however, for confirming my opinion that no
rational discussion of the subject can be expected while twits like
you infest the place. Why don't you go back to Chessville and let the
grownups discuss these things?

On Jun 24, 5:53*pm, "J.D. Walker" wrote:
Quadibloc wrote:
On Jun 24, 12:04 am, Jürgen R. wrote:
schrieb im

You mean somebody might not be thrilled at the idea of spending 4 yrs
at a second-rate school in - God help us - Lubbock, TX?

Wasn't that the town that was buzzed by migratory birds from outer
space?

John Savard

My agents have informed me that "It's illegal to sleep in a garbage can
in Lubbock, Texas."

Those dorm rooms may save someone from spending an unpleasant night in
the slammer. *
--

"Do that which is right..."

Rev. J.D. Walker

Let us not be too hard on Lubbock. A town that gave us Buddy Holly
can't be all bad.

On Jun 24, 1:38 pm, "Chess One" wrote:

You mean somebody might not be thrilled at the idea of spending 4 yrs
at a second-rate school in - God help us - Lubbock, TX?

Second-rate because it's in Texas? Anyway,
everything is bigger there, so who cares about
the rates... .


Yeah - it takes a bit of research about what they are up to in TX, and
suspicions are justified. Chessville's senior editor went there to
investigate, and was photographed with a couple of chess fans, one was the
had of the school which has the largest campus in the USA [if you exclude
ones with airfileds on them]

Arbitrarily? Why not then also exclude
schools with buildings, or those with trees
or parking lots?


and the chess fan was key in the discovery of
water on Mars.

FYI: There is no water on Mars; it's too cold
there, as I discovered when flying my sub a
tad off-course in a mock attack on the moon.
And you can't breathe the air, either (it's akin
to smoking fifty packs of Camels an hour-- a
world record to be sure, but one's very last).


Of course, it is better than flunking out of a first-rate school, as Sloan
did.

Guess: U.C. Berkley? Maybe it's a personal
bias against the state of Texas... .


I don't think undergraduate education is worth fighting over in this country
Jurgen.

Jurgen? FYI: this country is the U.S.A.
You must be thinking of some banana
republic in eastern Europe.


My daughter attended 2 good east coast schools

(There's that pro-coastal bias again.)


but switched for her
last 2 years to a Californian one, since she could get all the courses she
wanted to there. Must have paid off, since at 26 she has just qualified for
a fully funded and then some PhD where they only take 20 a year, saving her
or me about a $100k.

Mere chump change. Look at how much
Yale grads make-- even the dumbest ones;
George Bush can write a book and get paid
a million bucks up front-- no matter how bad
it is! That's even more than Ray Keene gets!


Its not just availability of good courses, its much to do with student
attitudes, and although she thought Californians pretty dumb after the East
Coast prep schools and Univs, she managed to work directly with professors
since she clearly wanted to take advantage of what opportunities there were,
and they didn't. So she got the attention, the courses and the
recommendations necessary in US to make more things happen.

Make things happen? Well, just have her
get a law degree and then go into politics.


Times have changed in this respect. Someone also wanted to sponsor me for a
PhD in physics because of my UK high-school knowledge [!] plus a little
application of my own to electro-optics.

Can you build me an implantable, bionic
eye, like Steve Austin had in The Six
Million Dollar Man? Oh, never mind... I
don't have six million dollars-- YET.


But I already have a good degree, I said!

Easy to say. A good while back I knew
some folks who wanted to get degrees in
English Lit., but I read that there was a
massive over-supply of such people,
unable to get (paying) jobs. Meanwhile,
we have a terrible shortage of truck drivers
and nurses and such.


Maybe it is still different in Europe - though I don't think so. Taimanov
was actually interesting on this; he said that for many bright students in
Russia their 'only way out' was to either excel academically or sometimes at
chess. He meant 'out' of regional Russian cities.

The danger, he said, was that for many, their bit of excellence was often
proved too brittle in the world - he meant this of chess players in
particular, those who had massive promise, but who really could not live
adult lives in their own culture since their orientation was too narrow.

If this 'failure' happened to the Sloan, then better the Sloan than our
Western example of 'brittle', the Fischer.

Mr. Sloan is the opposite of Mr. Fischer;
instead of burying himself in chess to the
exclusion of all else, Mr. Sloan has
traveled the world, become a master of the
game of Go, memorized the age of consent
of every country in the world, and once even
defeated the Supreme Court (although he
lost badly to the S.E.C.) single-handedly.

As for /education/-- from what I've seen
hereabouts, it's all hot air; where is the
evidence of greatness? Are folks on rgc
actually /taught/ to be so biased? so daft?
who teaches this, and in what field do they
earn their prestigious degrees? arrogance?
LOL.

I am once again reminded of the blind-
fold taste tests wherein puffy rich folks
were utterly unable to distinguish between
red and white wines; also I am reminded of
a famous story of an emperor and his new
clothes... .


-- help bot

(discoverer of ice on Mars)

On Jun 24, 11:18 am, "Chess One" wrote:

The going rate for advertising what benefits especially young chess players
at Chessville is $0. We don't charge for that, we exist to promote that.

This is true. But I can at least understand that it might be thought
that a gift of a scolarship at a particular college *by* that college
is advertising for that college - bought cheaply, because the odds of
it being redeemed might be too low.

That might not be a fair characterization of the offer, and the USCF
might be making a mistake. But I can see there's another side to this
story.

John Savard

On Jun 24, 5:13 pm, help bot wrote:

FYI: There is no water on Mars; it's too cold
there,

It's too cold on Mars for liquid water. The discovery of water ice on
Mars was very significant. It's true that in ordinary parlance, water
refers to only the liquid phase of the compound, and "ice" always
refers to water ice, but in other contexts, water is simply H2O... and
frozen carbon dioxide and frozen methane are other examples of ices.

John Savard

On Jun 25, 7:01 am, Quadibloc wrote:

This is true. But I can at least understand that it might be thought
that a gift of a scholarship at a particular college *by* that college
is advertising for that college - bought cheaply, because the odds of
it being redeemed might be too low.

John Savard

Good point. How many people had ever heard of Texas Tech University,
other than having a football team and a basketball team, before this
thing started?

Texas Tech is certainly getting a lot of advertising at very low cost.

Sam Sloan

wrote in message
...

The qualifier "seems" was inserted for two reasons: a) To avoid
actually _saying_ that you're a blithering idiot/PR flack (choose
one), and b) Your limited command of written English often makes it
hard to determine what you actually mean. (I've never heard you speak,
but second-hand accounts suggest that you are no more coherent in that
medium.)

Dear John,

While you commend others to their faults, it is yet to be seen if you can
write a single intelligible sentence in any on-topical matter. You seem
content to wish to repress that in others, and suggest things which are
simlpy defamations.

What gossip you permit and admit by second-hand accounts is, I suggest,
something entirely to do with you. When I mentioned CJA's influence over
USCF, you wondered what it was - despite Hanken's previous role, and another
CJA officer currently on the USCF board. Yet you ask, what influence?!!

I must thank you, however, for confirming my opinion that no
rational discussion of the subject can be expected while twits like
you infest the place. Why don't you go back to Chessville and let the
grownups discuss these things?

How embarrassing for you! Yet another commentary on what you propose
yourself to be, a grown-up capable of addressing a topic. Whereas if you
could discuss something, let us say that you have never demonstrated it -
and chose instead to voluntarily represent second-hand gossip in place of
attempting substantive writing with others in public.

I know that this is merely normative behavior at CJA, and what you
demonstrate here is that 'standard' of journalism. No wonder therefore that
you don't recognise anything else.

What you say is demonstrably refuted by how you behave!

Now - the relevance of this 'influence' of CJA on American chess, and USCF
in particular, cannot be measured by other means that I suggest above - a
culture exists in which what is proclaimed is not from any basis of
demonstrated standards.

In the case of the Denker, we see refusal of substantial benefits to young
men in chess, but with no comparison made with alternatives. The only
arguments I have read here is on how this will effect USCF, rather than
benefit young players. Those are the plain issues, worth public discussion -
and if Denker committee is completely synonymous with USCF, then beyond
praise or blame, let us all understand that.

If CJA folks want to talk in place of Denker/USCF, are their opinions too,
synonymous with those agencies? As represented here, they are. Which was my
initial point!

Phil Innes

wrote in message
...
On Jun 24, 5:53 pm, "J.D. Walker" wrote:

Let us not be too hard on Lubbock.

**That'll be the day!

A town that gave us Buddy Holly
can't be all bad.

On Jun 25, 9:40 am, "Chess One" wrote:

In the case of the Denker, we see refusal of substantial benefits to young
men in chess, but with no comparison made with alternatives. The only
arguments I have read here is on how this will effect USCF, rather than
benefit young players. Those are the plain issues, worth public discussion -
and if Denker committee is completely synonymous with USCF, then beyond
praise or blame, let us all understand that.

If CJA folks want to talk in place of Denker/USCF, are their opinions too,
synonymous with those agencies? As represented here, they are. Which was my
initial point!

Phil Innes

The "benefits" to young men is that one player, the winner, gets a
scholarship to Texas Tech, plus the players get to share a double
dormitory room and get to eat buffet style meals during the
tournament. To compete for this they have to travel to Lubbock Texas
at their own expense.

Meanwhile, the present Denker arrangement is that the winners receive
cash prizes awarded by Mitch Denker and can also play in the US Open.

Which deal is better?

Sam Sloan