Nori is adjusting well to living with us and especially with Mochi. But I'm not going to post about the puppy, even though he does some really cool and cute things. Instead this is a geek post, more like a geek rant.
Ever since I was in grade school/high school, I've been looking for chess on television. I guess it had to do with that episode on Family Ties where Alex plays that russian kid and the russian kid tries to throw the game (unlike other depictions of chess on television this episode must have had a chess consultant or a real chessplayer involved.) Ever since then I would carefully scrutinize these depictions of chess to see if they got it right. Chess is often used as a shortcut for the TV writer/filmmaker to show that the person who is playing is very intelligent, I suppose I wouldn't have such a problem with this if they actually get the situation correct.
Case in point, the most common mistake that people make in media when they try to depict chess is the setup of the board. The chessboard must be oriented so that if you put your hands on the two corners in front of you, your right hand will rest over a white square. Almost always I see that this square is dark, it doesn't matter whether it is in print media, on television or in a film, this is usually the most egregious problem. There are other more subtle errors that show up here and there. I have no issue if this was a single honest error, but what really gets me mad is that with the widespread use of Chess as some kind of intellectual metaphor, the people using it are so either so boneheaded, lazy or have such a disregard for the intellectual capacity (geekiness) of their audience, that they don't seem to bother to double check simple things or get someone to give an informed opinion.
Why am I talking about this? I just watched this HP commercial for their laptop, you know the ones with the celebrities talking about what they have on their laptops and the models impersonating them doing some mime with their hands while animation illustrated what they are talking about. The commercials are well made. What gets me is that Jay-Z is playing a game of chess online and makes a move and declares that the game is over. If he meant that he lost (badly) he's right, because the move he just made was a total blunder. I was able to reconstruct the following from the magic of tivo.
Jay-Z plays white and moves his rook one square to the right. This is absolutely the wrong move as black will now wipe him from the board after Bishop captures g2 (the white bishop) giving check and then after white recaptures on g2 with his King, Black captures at c3 with his rook and black is an entire rook up in material. White's passed f and g pawns are now useless. Of course this is all dependent on the people producing the animation, but one wonders.
I wondered if chess was doomed to be portrayed like this. But my optimism is always bouyed when I see the first few minutes of Casablanca. Humphrey Bogart loved chess and insisted that this scene be written into the movie. Contemporaries considered him to be a very strong player. I have yet to see another example of a better depiction of chess in movie or television.
Hmm as rants go, this is a pretty poor one. Perhaps, I should stick to puppy postings. Don't worry, I have 100+ pictures that I'm processing now and will post these soon.
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