A couple a weeks ago I went for a job interview in order to see what is out there. It was a terrible phone interview and I failed to make a connection with the technical interviewers. I think I was just as disappointed in them as they were with me. However, what I believe killed it for them was an experiment I decided to conduct: to the usual question about software patterns I answered boldly that I didn't believe in software patterns and that I believed management techniques were what drove productivity and quality of work, not particular software commonalities. It was partly true, though, I do believe that, and this post is about my thoughts on the matter. Now, be warned: I may offend a few people that religiously pray in UML at Martin Fowler's shrine in the church of the Gang of Four.

Let's start with a brief history of software patterns. It started with inspiration from a building architecture book that explained that for similar problems there are similar solutions in architecture and that listing them would be a boon for the would be architect. Someone applied this to software in the form of common practices to solve common problems. The idea was that, outside the main goal of cataloguing best practices, these software patterns would provide a sort of common language for software architects.

The problem is, of course, practice. The good part of a software pattern is that it provides a tested solution to a common problem. The bad part of a software pattern is that there are not that many common problems and most of the time software patterns are applied badly in practice. Invariably, at some point, the application of a software pattern leads to the Golden Hammer "antipattern". If the software pattern is well thought to apply to as many of the situations where a certain problem is met, then it is defined by a lot of flexibility. That may sound good, but a flexible architecture is usually low performing, overly complex or simply hard to understand in order to use them in very specific circumstances. That is why for most requirements there isn't one software library, but many, each attempting to juggle the right amount of performance, complexity and ease of use. And, of course, if a pattern is not well thought, why use it at all?

I guess the point I am trying to make is that current software patterns try to catalogue small issues, things that are, really, of little consequence, and that other things are way more important to behold, like long term vision. What is the point of using Inversion of Control if you don't plan to ever make components modular? Why would you create an MVC application if the code monkeys that you have hired will riddle the view with business logic? In fact, why would you make any effort of standardizing your application if you don't plan anything? And that is the basis of my contention: planning an application is the bottleneck. I would go for Software Planning Patterns way before I even consider mid level software patterns. The planning is where the need of the technician does battle with the need of the business owner. One strategy might be perfect when chosen only to become obsolete during implementation, I agree, but then you have an initial strategy, a current strategy and the techs must find the way to transition from one to another. Planning is where all the interested parties come together and need to reach a decision; the technical implementation, let's face it, must just work and then, hopefully, be reasonably maintainable.

And I dare say that in building architecture the long term plan for the building is already there. It must be, as it will last for decades. You don't start a skyscraper only to change your mind in the middle of the work and go for a stadium. You know the purpose of the building, you know how you will use it, you know the needs it has to cover, and all that is left is to determine the technical way to achieve this plan. Software is way more elastic than this and I believe this is why the concept of pattern does not easily transfer from the domain of construction to the one of software development. In a way, forcing these patterns on the software world is in itself like using a Golden Hammer: they don't fit exactly. Moreover, the word of the day in software is Agile, the management technique that assumes right from the word go that there will be change in the plans for the project and that the team must be ready for it. I submit that the current state of software patterns is too rigid, too inflexible, based on the assumption that there is a plan and that it will not change. Or worse, based on the assumption that there is no plan and that anything must be enabled by the software architecture. They either force you to lose flexibility or add so much of it that it makes the end product bloated and unproductive.

The answer is somewhere in the middle and that middle is different from project to project. No matter how well software patterns are designed and applied, in the end they must conform (or end up hindering) the strategic plans for the software project, which are, in my view, the true bottleneck of software development. As a domain specific language between software architects, software patterns are good, but one has to acknowledge the extreme minority of architects in software. Even in that small guild I don't find there are a lot of discussions where the lingo of software patterns is used much. The complex patterns are invalidated by the many "flavours" that unavoidably appear to handle that complexity, while the simple patterns are invalidated by components that encapsulate them and relieve the developer from having to implement them. My conclusion is that the importance of software patterns is being exaggerated. Little more than a miniatlas of common software practices, it serves as a pretty picture book, rather than an instrument that promotes understanding the field of software development.

This 6 episode long anime can by all rights be considered a single movie segmented into 6 small stories. The story is not extraordinary and the animation not great, but the quiet way it is told makes it nostalgic and generates a lot of kind feelings. What's it about? There are these two (highschool, of course) guys in a not far away future where robots and androids are common place. Some of them are advanced enough to obey complex commands and to look human and they all follow the Three Rules of Robotics, as coined by Asimov. One of the guys notices in the logs of his house android that it goes out from the house, occasionally, to places where it hasn't been instructed to go. The two friends follow the logs and find a weird bar where androids and humans must obey a single rule: all customers are to treat each other the same and not discriminate against robots. This makes the two understand the complex feelings that robots can have and discover their own difficulty in relating to said robots under the weight of society expectations. There is even an "Ethics Committee" that hates robots and wants to limit the interactions between man and machine, but just before they make any move the show ends.

Eve no Jikan was an interesting concept, something that reminded me of some of the quieter episodes from Ghost in the Machine or Denou Coil, which says a lot considering that GiTS is my favourite anime ever. However, the sixth episode felt like one of the others and then it suddenly says the story is finished, so its production must have ended prematurely. Maybe with a little more backing, it could have become a cult anime, as well.

Finally, it is all over! The Dark One is defeated and all the character stories have come to an end. Funny enough, having Brandon Sanderson write the last two books made me want to read more. You may have noticed that in the title I give no credit to Robert Jordan; I know it's his story and that he left a lot of notes on how the book would continue before he died, but Sanderson has made it a lot better and it feels a waste to end it just when it got good.

The last book of the Wheel of Time saga, A Memory of Light, continues where Towers of Midnight left off, pits everyone against everyone and ends all threads. The battle of the end is epic and, except some slight miscalculations, is pretty much consistent with the other books. No Nynaeve braid pulling or needless spanking or otherwise humiliating women in this one, instead a lot of characters blooming from the dried up husks that they were becoming in the last Jordan books. As before, I loved Mat's character, but also Perrin is now a lot more involved, intrigues abound, people die (even important ones) and the ending is... let us say intriguing. One may still hope some offshoots of the story. There were some unexplained or otherwise inconclusive bits. For example there is a scene where Mat sends a lot of villagers to die protecting a river, then, when it matters most, the same villagers return through a gateway. I have no idea what that was about. Also there was a little bit of a story with some soldiers that had all their metal turned to something squishy. It just went and gone without much continuation. Then some ideas of the battle seem brilliant at the end of it, but not used during it, making the entire "Mat's strategical genius" idea a bit flimsy. Also, Demandred almost kicked his ass (and a lot of others as well) before he got killed. If there is something that felt a bit off, it was the women. Robert Jordan was obsessed with the women and he often wrote the story from their point of view. Sanderson is clearly a man's man :) Women had pretty small roles and little introspection.

Bottom line: a fourteen book saga is a lot to read. As much it pains me that it is over, it makes me even more glad that it is over. Sometime you just have to learn to let it go. The quality of the writing is very good and I dare say that this is probably the best book of them all, which makes it a fitting finale. It is also very long, the third in length from the entire series, at approximately 360000 words. If you have read The Wheel of Time so far, there is absolutely no reason to not read the last book. If you haven't started to read the series, you might want to think it over if you want to spend so much time doing it, but I don't think you will regret it. And lastly, if you have started to read it and then abandoned it for whatever reason, the last two books are a level higher than the rest of them and should provide motivation to carry on.

Oh, and you if you wonder if I am going to read the prequel and the companion books: no, I won't! If you do, though, please make the effort to comment on one of the Wheel of Time posts. Thank you!

Macross Frontier is a 2008 anime series of 25 episodes set in the Macross universe, itself 25 years old at the time. Humanity is expanding in the galaxy using huge self contained colony fleets that are defended by the ubiquitous Mecha humanoid robots. Their enemies, a strange race of space bugs that seem to have no mind of their own, but whose method of communication or reason for doing anything is a mystery. Enter Alto, a beautiful guy - and when I say beautiful I mean it, as he is cute as a girl and many times in the series people address him as one, to his chagrin - that wants to be a pilot. He accidentally joins up with an elite piloting force and there the story seems to become interesting: space battles, interesting aliens, amazing tech, even political machinations. But wait! In Japan there has to be more. And there is! Alto is 17 years old, that means he is also in high school. Two of his pilot buddies are his colleagues. Then there is this galactic idol pop star singer that is very beautiful and somehow falls for Alto and subsequently becomes a student in the same class! And there is another girl who also wants to be a singer and she becomes one rivalling the first, only to fall for Alto and... join the same high school class! And all the time they need to act on their feelings, without actually expressing them in an articulate way, and trying to protect one thing or the other. And if you thought the two singers are just a filler device, not at all connected to the main story, you are wrong. The singing of one of them seems to affect the alien bugs!

To quote a friend, WTF is wrong with the Japanese? Why would you mix space battles with j-pop and high school? Why hasn't there appeared a service that strips the annoying 2 minute singing at the beginning and then at the end of every episode and lets you watch everything start to end? It would be perfect if it would also remove in separate streams the fighting plus the sci-fi from the ridiculous fascination with high school puppy love!

To conclude, it wasn't great by any means, and the insistence of showing every space battle in the context of a pop song was really annoying. The story was OK, although I could spoil it for you in about 5 minutes. The animation was standard, I didn't think there were any issues with it. If you love the kind of "oh, oh, poor me, I am in a love triangle and can't get out" story, this is the one for you. The sci-fi was, really, taking the backseat in this one. I have to admit, though, that the highschool theme was not exaggerated much, nor was it absurd to the point of annoyance like in Elfen Lied, for example.

Due to the fact that Blogger thinks an iPad Safari browser is a mobile device and needs optimization of the blog template in order to fit the screen and the meagre computation resources and that there is no way to customize the way "mobileization" is done, I've decided to remove the mobile template from the blog. Please do let me know if this is an issue, so I could try to find a solution for it, but in the meanwhile I will just disable it.

Yes, yet another chess blog post. Don't worry, soon there will be a ton of rants about the programming world, just wait a bit.

This puzzle is from Chess Tactics for Champions, by four times women chess champion Susan Polgar. Here is a review of the book, much better than I could do it. So, on to the puzzle:

White to move.


[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "1k1r4/pP2q3/8/Q5pP/5bP1/5P1K/P1R5/8 w - - 0 1"]
1. Rc8+ Rxc8 2. Qxa7+ Kxa7 3. bxc8=N+ *

I have started a more formal chess training program, something that would possibly improve my skills as a chess player and finally getting me into that place where I can fully appreciate the beauty of the game. As part of this program I've watched the Daniel King Power Play DVD Part 1: Mating Patterns, in ChessBase format. It was a well presented material that made for very interesting time. The information contained is aimed at beginners such as myself and presents several chess mating themes, with some puzzles at the end, to test the knowledge gain. I can say that I liked it and I recommend it to other learning chess players as well. However, this post is aimed at summarizing the information, for future reference.

Themes:
1. Greek Gift
2. Lasker Double Bishop sacrifice
3. Lawnmower (Double Shotgun) mate
4. Bishop See-saw
5. H-file Rook distraction
6. Knight mate
7. Queen in on the pin
8. Back rank mate

And then are the Puzzles.

For each theme I will post pictures with a position, let you think, then give you the opportunity to see the entire PGN. Same with the puzzles. Try to think things through before looking for the solution.

1. Greek Gift

The opposing king is castled short and you sack a bishop by taking the pawn in front of the enemy king. The king is forced to take, and then a knight check comes, followed by the arrival of the queen.

Netzer, Jean - Guezennec, Franck, 2000 (FRA-chT U20)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Hartl, Rainer - Hecht, Christoph, 2000 (Landesliga Sued 0001)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Langrock, Hannes - Gaede, Derek, 2000 (JBLN West 0001)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Polugaevsky, Lev - Tal, Mihail,1969 (URS-ch37)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Colle, Edgar - O'Hanlon, John,1930 (Nice)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Thesing, Matthias - Borngaesser, Rene,1984 (NRW-ch)

Black to move. Click here to see the game.

Toulzac, Pierre Yves - Sokolov, Andrei,2000 (Mulhouse IM)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

2. Lasker Double Bishop Sacrifice

The light bishop is sacrificed just like in the Greek Gift, the queen comes around to check, then the dark bishop is sacrificed as well for the pawn in front of the enemy king. The mate is achieved by a rook lift.

Lasker, Emanuel - Bauer, Johann Hermann, 1889 (Amsterdam)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Koenig - Cornforth, 1952 (London)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Dizdarevic, Emir - Miles, Anthony , 1985 (Biel MTO op)

Black to move. Click here to see the game.

Jonkman, Harmen - Espig, Lutz, 1998 (Chemnitz op)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

3. Lawnmower (Double Shotgun) mate

Two rooks or a rook and a queen push the enemy king to the margin of the board, taking rank after rank or file after file until the king is mated

King, Daniel J - Krasenkow, Michal, 1989 (GMA Baleares op)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Tkachiev, Vladislav - Watson, William N, 1993 (London Lloyds)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Watson, William N - Merriman, John, 1993 (London Lloyds)

Black to move. Click here to see the game.

Bologan, V. - Van Haastert, E., 2005 (21st ECC)

Black moves h5, White to move. Click here to see the game.

4. Bishop See-saw

The queen has caught the enemy king at the corner of the board, his only escape blocked and continuously harassed by a bishop that gobbles all the pieces on its color and then gives mate.

From Nimzowitsch's book My System

White to move. Click here to see the game.

King, Daniel J - Kuijf, Marinus, 1982 (Amsterdam)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

5. H-file Rook Distraction

The enemy king seems safe, as your pieces appear uncoordinated, but here comes a suicidal rook bringing the king into the open and ready to be slaughtered.

Polgar, J. - Berkes, F., 2003 (Hunguest Hotels)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Kuemin, Simon - Cebalo, Miso, 2003 (Biel MTO)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Kudrin, Sergey - King, Daniel J, 1988 (London NWYM)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Sorensen, Arne - Marciano, David, 1988 (Tecklenburg op)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Kuzmin, Gennadi P - Zhuravliov, Valerij, 1992 (St Petersburg)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

6. Knight Mate

Mates with the knights, whether in conjunction with other pieces or with other knights.

Kotronias, Vasilios - King, Daniel J, 1990 (New York WFW)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Wheeler, G. - Povah, N., 1977 (London)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

De Musset, A. - study

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Clemenz - Eisenschmidt, 1862 (Dorpat)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Dumpor, Atif - Kosic, Dragan, 2001 (Ajvatovica IM)

Black to move. Click here to see the game.

Kortschnoj, Viktor - Karpov, Anatoly, 1978 (World Championship 29th)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

7. Queen in on the pin

The queen comes right next to the enemy king, where the poor protecting pieces are pinned by some other piece. The opposing king is stuck between his pieces and the troublesome queen.

Tatai, Stefano - Kortschnoj, Viktor, 1978 (Beersheba)

Black to move. Click here to see the game.

King, Daniel J - Costa, Jean Luc, 1987 (Bern)

From here, Black will move Ne4, then White to move. Click here to see the game.

Fazekas - Spielmann, 1938 (Prague)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Peredy - Malanca, 2003 (Budapest)

Black to move. Click here to see the game.

8. Back rank mate

The poor enemy king is attacked and there is nowhere to go because of his own protectors.

Wolff, Patrick G - King, Daniel J, 1989 (London WFW)

White moves Rab1, Black to move. Click here to see the game.

Rovner - Kamyshev, 1947 (Moscow)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Capablanca - Fonaroff, 1918 (New York - casual)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Alden - Nilsson, 1972 (Sweden)

Black to move. Click here to see the game.

Adams, Michael - Giorgadze, Giorgi, 1997 (FIDE-Wch k.o.)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Alekhine, Alexander - Colle, Edgar, 1925 (Paris)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Bazan, Osvaldo - Fischer, Robert James, 1960 (Mar del Plata)

Black to move. Click here to see the game.

Puzzles

Think it through, prepare your moves in your head and only then look at the games.

Cinak, Nilufer - Novak, Ksenija, 2002 (Bled ol (Women))

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Bareev, Evgeny - Akopian, Vladimir, 2000 (Dortmund SuperGM)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Sveshnikov, Evgeny - Sherbakov, Ruslan, 991 (URS-ch58)

Black will move g6, White to move. Click here to see the game.

Hillarp-Persson, Tiger - Hansen, Sune Berg, 2005 (Sigeman Chess Tournament 2005)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Marin, Mihail - Kiselev, Sergey, 1997 (Ciocaltea mem)

Black to move. Click here to see the game.

Yates, Frederick - Reti, Richard, 1924 (New York)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Jussupow, Artur - Ivanchuk, Vassily, 1991 (Candidates qf3)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Bruzon, Lazaro - Jobava, Baadur, 2005 (Capablanca Memorial Elite)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Vidmar - Euwe, 1929 (Karlsbad)

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Rozentalis, Eduardas - Kozul, Zdenko

White to move. Click here to see the game.

Azmaiparashvili, Zurab - Shirov, Alexei, 2002 (FIDE GP)

Black to move. Click here to see the game.

I know it has been a long read, but imagine how long it took me to write it! This is not something you read once, but a post that you return to again and again to rehearse the games and maintain the feel for these interesting mates.

Also, there are some inconsistencies between the start of the game and the pictures, also the puzzles are not very clear. It should have a text that explains what you are to try to do. And there are comments in German in the PGNs, as well. I am going to address this.

I was waiting for the moment when I would be reading a new sci-fi book. Based on a suggestion from some source I have long forgotten, I chose David Brin's Existence, a futuristic hard science fiction book.

And at first it felt good. It described a cyberpunk near future, after some sobering disasters that rallied the world against nuclear war and global warming. It was dialog based, like the books of Asimov. It delved into the political, economical, technical and personal aspects of the world. It even started with the discovery of an alien artefact and started an exploration into the Fermi paradox, the philosophical conundrum that asks: "if there are many civilisation in the galaxy and they all reach the sophistication to go to space, where are they?".

But soon it started to feel all wrong. The different stories were fragmented, in some parts badly written, in some parts conflicting, some never connecting to one another, like Brin got some texts he had worked on and mashed them all into the book. Then the "chapters" all starting with a little media announcement or quote that explained bits of the world, but in a reporter editorial style that said nothing and brought nothing new to the table. And then it started with the goading: an idea was forming, the characters were reaching a realization or another, and before the reader got to see what it was, another chapter was starting.

My conclusion after finishing the book is that, while filled with interesting ideas and also having a main plot that is, indeed, ingenious, this was not a good book! I've spent the time to read the acknowledgements at the end only to find I was right: Brin did publish a lot of the stuff in the book in short stories here and there. And after finishing all that material, he speeded things up to show the "future", because he really had been disconnected from all the stories he started, reaching that annoying fast-forward effect one often finds in the works of writing amateurs. And the thing is, David Brin is not an amateur - at least he shouldn't be after all the books he has written and prizes he has won. One possible reason is that it is the first book after a hiatus of 10 years. I hate to say it, but it looks like he needed some money and this is the way he chose to do it: frame a couple short stories, a couple essays and an old Usenet into a longer novella that feels like the patched mess it actually is.

The bottom line is that I can't recommend this book. The main idea is interesting, but it can be summarized in a few words, which I won't do for fear of spoiling it for you in case you do decide to read Existence.

Recently Microsoft released a tool that checks your site for web design issues, with focus on Internet Explorer 10. So I've added a few things, like more thorough gradients for the important quotes, touch behaviour for Microsoft Touch APIs and a color and logo for the tile that you guys will be placing on your Windows 8 desktop!

But even more importantly, I've found a bug in the chess board algorithm in IE: some of the boards would just show an ugly dialog error and not display anything. I fixed the bug and also made the boards appear only when the screen is scrolled on the PGNs. That means you will be able to open chess posts or even the chess category, even in IE, with the caveat that you will experience slower scrolling as each PGN becomes visible. On Chrome and Firefox and probably IE9 and IE10 there will be no visible delays, but I am still using Internet Explorer 8, so for you Windows XP guys, there is a huge usability increase!

As you may have guessed from my previous chess posts, I am a chess beginner and a gambiteer. I like to play the strange moves and see my opponents squirm in positions that they were not expecting and were not prepared for. That is why the proposition in this post is gambit galore and also to be taken with a grain of salt.

My idea is that there could be common themes for the three Gambits in the title, since they start almost the same way. You have the Smith-Morra Gambit, where White answers Black's Sicilian Defence with d4 and then c3 in the accepted version:1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 * then you have the Danish Gambit, where White's move order is the same in response to King's pawn defence: 1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 * and then there is the similar response from Black to the King's pawn opening, called the Elephant gambit: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d5 3. exd5 *

You might notice that in the Elephant, I did not offer up a second pawn on c6. This is because the main line is pawn to e4 and also White has the opportunity to take e5 with the knight, which is the computer recommendation as well. The problem is that after Black's response Qe2 to the main line or the Bd6 computer recommendation after Nxe5, the Elephant doesn't appear at all like the Danish/Morra and, instead, threads into its own territory, somewhere closer to the Latvian gambit, but not by much. However, in this post I will be stretching the imagination and will be trying to squish the big Elephant into the Morra mold and see where it takes me.

I have just finished watching a two hour video presentation of the Morra accepted line, by IM Andrew Martin, and there are also a lot of tutorials for the Danish, from beginner to very advanced levels. Not so for the Elephant, which seems to be even less favoured than the Latvian, to which GM Roman Dzindzichashvili answered with a refutation and some very rude words to its efficacity. All that I could find about it are lines that have no connection with the Danish/Morra style and that is because of that pesky White knight on f3.

If my thesis holds ground, then I will be talking here about a chess system that has some similar ideas and theory for at least three major openings: The Sicilian Defence and King's pawn for both White and Black! Also, threading on less travelled ground, there is a good chance online and club players will be unnerved by it.

So let's get into it. I will start with the Smith-Morra main line. This means the most played version in database games, by players who know theory and open that way because it was proven to be the best way. There is little chance you will see the same moves in club level games.

1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 Nc6 5. Nf3 d6 6. Bc4 e6 7. O-O Nf6 8. Qe2 Be7 9. Rd1 e5 10. h3 O-O 11. Be3 a6 12. Rac1 *

This is the position in which White wants to get. I tweaked a little the game so that at move 11. Black moved to the second most used line in the database, the a6 system, rather than Be6 and exchange light bishops. What I want to evidence here is the position of the White pieces: both rooks are connected and on open or semi-open files, cramping Black's development, the bishops are out and about, aiming at the Black king, the knights are developed and the queen is on a very crucial square, controlling yet another file and the essential e2-c4 diagonal.Black has not finished development, has pinned pawns and weaknesses like b6 where a knight may find outpost. There is a lot of potential for attack and, even before reaching this position, a lot of possible traps in which Black could fall. Even the main line has only about 100 games in the database at this point, so it is not very common, even if it is a pretty solid opening.

Let's move to the Danish and compare.

1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 Nc6 5. Bc4 Nf6 6. Nf3 d6 7. Qb3 (7. O-O Be7 8. Qe2 O-O 9. h3 a6 10. Rd1 b5 11. Bb3) 7... Qd7 8. Ng5 Ne5 9. Bb5 c6 10. f4 cxb5 11. fxe5 *

Seems to be a different beast altogether. I've added a variation that plays like the Morra, the single game in the database like that (Sipek-Urbanec 1995). The b5 push is also found in the Morra. So, what are the differences here? The most important to me seems the absence of the Black pawn on e6. That means White can attack much quicker and Black must defend more aggressively, too. The e4 pawn is unopposed and, in some games, that proves decisive for White. The pawn on c7 is still there, so the Black queen will have to maneuver on light squares instead of dark.

A possible conclusion would be that, even if they seem similar, the Danish and Morra gambits are quite different. But are they?

A White queen on e2 would support the e4 pawn in its push forward and make room for a rook on d1, just like in the Morra. The dark bishop can pin or eventually trade with the knight on f6 or even move to e3 or f4, supporting the e4 pawn as it moves to e5 and making room for a rook on c1. A computer analysis on a Danish game played in the Morra fashion shows equality when Black still has an extra pawn.

Now, some of the readers may scoff and conclude that I am trying to fit the proverbial triangle shape into the round hole using brute force, that attempting to take one opening and play it like another is an imperfect chimera, destined to be an abomination. However, I must remind you that I am not a master player, nor a professional one. I have no time to learn tons of theory just to win a game. My purpose for this research (which may still fail to achieve anything) is to find a gambit based system that uses the same principles for any opponent response. In time, each variation can be improved and branched off from the main system, but at the start all I need is for it to work.

Let's get back, then. How about playing a Morra game in the Danish way? Well, the Danish gambit is even rarer than the Smith-Morra and the games in my database are primarily focused on the exposed f7 square. It could work, I guess, but it would seem even more unnatural and, lacking proper theory, a beginner like me could easily mess it up. I will, therefore, use the Morra as the template to which all others must conform.

Besides, if you think fitting the Danish to the Morra was difficult, the Elephant comes next!

In the database there are only two games that start like a Morra Elephant and they both are won by White, which is not good for us. Only when it gets to the standard position of knight protecting the single center pawn, the transposed games suddenly reach 73! It seems this position can be more easily achieved by playing the Scandinavian defence! In the next board I will present the main line for the Elephant, then the Morra Elephant and at the same time the way to reach the same position from the Scandinavian. The rest will continue from the Elephant line, but, actually, it will be based more on Scandinavian games.

1. e4 e5 (1... d5 {The Scandinavian Defence} 2. exd5 c6 3. dxc6 Nxc6 4. Nf3 e5 {And we reach the position would would have liked from the Morra Elephant.}) 2. Nf3 d5 3. exd5 e4 (3... c6 {And here is a Morrafication of the Elephant} 4. dxc6 Nxc6 5. Bb5 Bd6 6. O-O Nge7 7. d4 e4 8. Ne5 Bxe5 9. dxe5 O-O 10. Qxd8 Rxd8 11. Nc3 Nxe5) 4. Qe2 {This is how the Elephant is mainly played.} Nf6 5. Nc3 Be7 6. Nxe4 O-O 7. d3 Nxd5 8. Qd1 Nc6 9. Be2 Bf5 10. O-O Qd7 *

Ooh! This seems completely different. White still has that extra tempo and he uses it to pin the Black knight on c6, which leaves e5 undefended. Black's bishop on f8 did not have time to get out, so moving the queen on e7 like in the Morra would block it and the entire king side. The move Bd6 is the only one that can defend the pawn and this gives White at least the opportunity to swap the bishop with the knight and mess up the Black pawn structure on the queen side. If White does not take, as in the example above, then the only possible move to protect the knight is to use the other knight on e7, thus forever altering the structure of the game.

It seems no amount of force will twist the Elephant into a Morra gambit a tempo behind. A Morra with a lost tempo doesn't even appear to work! Besides, in order to get here, White had to ignore the opportunity in the beginning to take on e5 with the knight, as suggested by the computer; a much safer route to the same dysfunctional position can be achieved from the Scandinavian defence.

The Elephant hides some interesting traps that have nothing to do with the Morra or the Danish and has more in common with the Latvian gambit that with the two systems above. The Latvian, if you remember, offers up two pawns in order to gain the tempo White is awarded in the start of a chess game. The Elephant can be played in the same way, only to lose two center pawns, so not so good. The similarities with the Morra/Danish are deceiving. A tempo behind, Black cannot use the same ideas, having to defend instead of attack.

Conclusion: It is a very difficult thing to find a defence for Black that works the same way as an opening for White, because of the extra tempo. Even so, the Elephant only begins like the Morra, it has nothing else in common. The Morra gambit itself is only similar to the Danish and, while I think they can be molded in the same shape, it would be a tortuous adventure that I am not sure will get me where I want.

I hope you have gained a little understanding of the differences between the three gambits and how simple differences like the position of a pawn or an extra tempo can change a game of chess.

We live now in a world where people get the same education, see the same movies, read the same books - if at all. We then watch the ones around us and see only ourselves and we get bored. That is why, I believe, we start to see various mental illnesses or strange behaviours as interesting. That is why, I think, The Drowning Girl, by Caitlín R. Kiernan has received so wonderful reviews.

That doesn't mean the book is not brilliant. Kiernan paints the world as seen from the eyes of a lesbian paranoid schizophrenic, combining ideas from paintings, old legends and written stories into a whirlpool of staggering creativity. However, I do have to wonder, would the book have received the same amount of positive reviews if the main character was a straight man?

All that aside, I have tried to keep an open mind when reading the book and I have found that the way the author mingles stories and goes back and forth, keeping the reader on their tows, is both excellent and terribly irritating. It builds up a lot of tension that needs to be released into a grand finale. However, the climax of the book seemed to me to be somewhere in the middle, with the ending lagging and wasting into pointless mental delusions.

It is hard for me to recommend or not recommend this book. It is clearly well written and very inspired. It not only delightfully weird, but also draws information and data from all kinds of art fields and mingles them together in an interesting way. The construction of the book aside, though, leaves a plot that doesn't really mean anything. It's the maelstrom of thoughts and feelings of a mentally troubled person with a slight mystical component which, even till the end, is not really clear if it is only in her mind or has some factual truth.

I did enjoy one thing, though, the idea that something can be "true", but not "factual". If you think about it, it makes sense, but usually words like "truth" hold an objective mask on them, when most of the uses of those words are actually subjective. Yep, it's true :) I also liked the way details about the artists led to connections to other works and facts, that a thorough analysis of art can show hidden worlds and interesting perspectives.

As a conclusion, what leapt into mind when trying to find a book that is similar to this was Geek Love, by Katherine Dunn. In a word: freaky. The Drowning Girl is much more interesting, though, and doesn't try so hard to shock with the character's sexuality or personal weirdness. But in the end, having read it, I felt like it said nothing. An interesting journey towards nowhere in particular.

We all know that the best way to prevent SQL injection is to use parameters, either in stored procedures or in parameterized queries. Yet on some occasions we meet code that replaces every single quote with two single quotes. The question arises: OK, it's ugly, but isn't it enough?

I have recently found out of something called "Unicode Smuggling" which uses the database against itself to bypass protection as described above. More details here: SQL Smuggling , but the basic idea is this: if the replacement scheme is implemented in the database and uses VARCHAR or maybe the code uses some non-unicode string, then the protection is vulnerable to this by leveraging what is known as Unicode Homoglyphs. If you feel adventurous and want to examine thoroughly the ways Unicode can be used maliciously, check out UTR#36.

Here is an example:

CREATE PROC UpdateMyTable
@newtitle NVARCHAR(100)
AS
/*
Double up any single quotes
*/
SET @newtitle = REPLACE(@newtitle, '''','''''')

DECLARE @UpdateStatement VARCHAR(MAX)

SET @UpdateStatement = 'UPDATE myTable SET title='''  + @newtitle + ''''

EXEC(@UpdateStatement)

Note the use of VARCHAR as the type of @UpdateStatement. This procedure receives a string, doubles all single quotes, then creates an SQL string that then is executed. This procedure would be vulnerable to this:

EXEC UpdateMyTable N'ʼ;DROP TABLE myTable--'

The first character in the provided string is not a single quote, but the Unicode character U+02BC . SQL will silently convert this into a single quote when stored in a VARCHAR. The injection will work.

Small demo in MS-SQL:

DECLARE @nhack NVARCHAR(100) = N'ʼ;DROP TABLE myTable--'
DECLARE @hack VARCHAR(100) = N'ʼ;DROP TABLE myTable--'
SELECT UNICODE(@nhack),UNICODE(@hack) -- Results: 700      39

More discussing this here: Can I protect against SQL Injection by escaping single-quote and surrounding user input with single-quotes?

I've often encountered this situation: a stored procedure needs to display a list of records ordered by a dynamic parameter. In Transact SQL, the Microsoft SQL server, one cannot do this elegantly in any way. I will list them all and tell you what the problem with each is.

First of all, let's start with an example. Assume we have a table called Test with a lot of rows, which has a datetime column which has an index on it. Let's call that TheDate to avoid any SQL keywords. We want to do something like this:

SELECT TOP 10 * FROM Test ORDER BY TheDate ASC

Notice that I want to get the top 10 rows, which means I only need a small part of the total. I also order directly by TheDate. In order to release a piece of code we also need to test it for performance issues. Let's look at the execution plan:


Now, let's try to order it dynamically on a string parameter which determines the type of the sort:

SELECT TOP 10 * FROM Test ORDER BY CASE WHEN @sort='ASC' THEN TheDate END ASC, TheDate DESC

As you see, I've used CASE to determine the sort order. There is no option to give a parameter as the sort order. The execution plan is this:


Surprise! The execution plan for the second query shows it is ten times slower. What actually happens is that the entire table is sorted by the case expression in a intermediate table result, then 10 items are extracted from it.

There must be a solution, you think, and here is an ingenious one:

DECLARE @intSort INT = CASE WHEN @sort='ASC' THEN 1 ELSE -1 END
SELECT TOP 10 * FROM Test ORDER BY CAST(TheDate AS FLOAT)*@intSort ASC

I transform the datetime value into a float and then I use a mathematical expression on it, multiplying it with 1 or -1. It is the simplest expression possible under the circumstances. The execution plan is:


Bottom line, there is no exception to the rule: when you order by an expression, SQL Server does not use indexes, even if the expression is easily decompilable. Don't get mislead by the apparent functional programming style of SQL syntax. It doesn't really optimize the execution plan in that way.. Even if the column is an integer, it will not work. Ordering by TheInteger is fundamentally faster than ordering by -TheInteger.

And now the solution, ugly as it may be (imagine the select is a large one, with joins and where conditions):

IF @sort='ASC' 
BEGIN
  SELECT TOP 10 * FROM Test ORDER BY TheDate ASC
END
ELSE
BEGIN
  SELECT TOP 10 * FROM Test ORDER BY TheDate DESC
END

Yes, the dreaded duplication of code. But the execution plans are now equivalent: 50%/50%.

This post was inspired by real events, where the production SQL server went into overdrive trying to create and manage many temporary result tables from a stored procedure that wanted to avoid duplication using the CASE method.

Update: there is, of course, another option: creating an SQL string in the stored procedure that is dynamically modified based on the sort parameter, then the SQL executed. But I really dislike that method, for many reasons.

More information from another blogger: Conditional Order By. They also explore rank using windows functions and in one of the comments there is a reference to SQL 2008 "Grouping Sets" which I have not covered yet.

You know the format, let's get this out of the way. First, the series I've already been talking about:

• Doctor Who - a weird Christmas special introduced another companion. She is cute and perky and doesn't take commands well. Also, she dies twice already. It doesn't seem to stop her.
• Torchwood - no Christmas special and no news on a fifth season. I wonder if it will ever reappear.
• Criminal Minds - still on hold, but not totally rejected yet.
• Dexter - A weird seventh season sees Dexter in love, running away from mobsters and being helped by his police sergeant to cover up kills or even commit them. Then it all ended in a ridiculous fashion. Hint: watch Dexter's face when Deb jumps at the recently shot person in the last episode: it seems to say That is NOT how this is done! Stop it, just stooop!
• Fringe - Fringe is not better. I still watch it in order to avoid sci-fi withdrawal symptoms.
• True Blood - I can't wait for season 6. I do fear for its quality, but I also have high hopes.
• Weeds - the series has ended, finally, when all life has been squeezed out of it. I am glad it is over.
• The Good Wife - season 4 is running strong... ish. There are some new ideas introduced in the show that don't really fit well or seem to be needed in the picture, like Kalinda's husband.
• Haven - season 3 of Haven pits Audrey against a killer that takes people's skins. And she is also to disappear on a certain date in order to stop the troubles. And she is also courted by two guys who are insanely in love with her. What is a girl to do?
• Lost Girl - removed from my watching list.
• Falling Skies - season three has not started yet. I am curious how it will continue. Plus it's sci-fi.
• Southpark - some funny episodes in the October batch. Could have been better. Still good.
• The Killing - still on my watch list, being a police show and all.
• Suits - third season is about to start. It doesn't make much sense, but I like it.
• Breaking Bad - the fifth season has ended and there will not be a sixth. Still haven't had the inclination to watch it.
• Californication - the sisth season is about to begin. I can't wait.
• Beavis&Butt-head - It seems the show was quietly axed. I haven't heard anything about it for a long time.
• Homeland - I've seen two seasons of Homeland and it's pretty cool. Claire Danes is a bipolar CIA agent that fights to prove an American soldier rescued from the Talibans has been turned. She is also in love with him. Not much sense when you put it that way, but a lot of tension. The show is another American adaptation from an Israeli show.
• The Walking Dead - pretty hard stuff added this season, making it interesting again. Some characters even die! Almost got to "want" status.
• Game of Thrones - the show follows the books faithfully, even when removing some bits or rearranging others. However I feel it failed to fully capture the atmosphere of the book. We'll see how it goes.
• L5 - no second episode for a long time now and with the current economic climate, I doubt it will continue. Too bad.
• Mad Men - season six is to premier in 2013. I will keep watching it, because it is just great.
• Misfits - all new characters in Misfits, with some stories interesting, but now more towards shocking and/or disgusting. I've removed the "want" status from it, because the quality of the show is not as great as when it started.
• Sherlock - the third season of the series will begin probably late 2013. I liked it, even if a bit too... Moffaty? I really don't want to see more and more people acting like Doctor Who. One is enough.
• Spartacus - Vengeance - War of the Damned will start soon, in January. Too bad it ends the show, but then again, maybe it will be something meaningful and slim, without boring filler episodes.
• My Babysitter's a Vampire - vampire teens, with seer and wizard friends and fighting against the evil in their highschool? It's silly, but at least it knows it is silly. I watch it because it is easy fun.
• Continuum - a second season has been confirmed, but I don't know when it will start. Rather boring, but sci-fi, you know.
• Copper - a BBC America drama about Irish immigrants set "Five Points". I really liked it, with its depiction of rampant corruption and racism and classism at the beginnings of the city of New York.
• Longmire - a second season has been confirmed. I really like the show, even if about a rural cop in the middle of nowhere.
• Political Animals - it feels interesting and profound, but it is not really so. The impression is strong, though, and I may still had watched it if it weren't cancelled.
• The Newsroom - my wife loves this. I will watch the second season, but I can't decide if I like it or not.

And now for new shows:

• 666 Park Avenue - A show about the devil! I haven't started watching it, and it was cancelled already.
• A Young Doctor's Notebook - This is not really a series, but a mini series. Four episodes, each 20 minute long, about a Russian freshly graduated doctor coming to work in a really remote village. The show is brutal and funny at the same time. I doubt there will be a second season, but this one is worth it. Starring John Hamm and Daniel Radcliff.
• Arrow - I watch this, even if I don't really know why. It is yet another superhero series where the main strength of the guy is that he shoots arrows. I can't recommend it.
• Beauty and the Beast - Incredibly beautiful people acting as both beauty and beast in this ridiculous show that attempts to place the story in modern times. The beauty is, obviously, a cop.
• Blackout - God know I tried to like this show about political and personal corruption in England, but I couldn't. It starts bleak and intense, but quickly devolves into the surreal.
• Battlestar Galactica - Blood and Chrome - so far William Adama is introduced as a young and cocky pilot in a series of webisodes. The show has everything I loved about the first two seasons of BSG 2004. I can't wait for more.
• Elementary - the American Sherlock doesn't look or feel at all like a Sherlock. Instead it looks and feels exactly like so many US shows about gifted people helping the police. I still watch it, but the show is really not what it should have been.
• Emily Owens M.D. - I was caught into one of those times when one wants to see a true doctor show, with actual cases and medical dilemmas. No. Instead this crappy show seems like the poor brother of Gray's Anatomy, with those silly happy songs in the background whenever the female protagonist speaks with other women that are not her evil boss or highschool nemesis (I am not kidding, they added the highschool nemesis thing)
• Hatfields and McCoys - This American Civil War miniseries was filmed in Romania and stars Kevin Costner. I really wanted to see it, but didn't get around to it, yet.
• Hit and Miss - A new show I really know nothing about. Six episodes so far.
• Hunted - Oh, Melissa George as a secret undercover agent (and I do mean undercover). Beautiful, smart, trained to kill and yet fragile as a woman, she leads the show well until... it is put on hold! BBC really screwed up abandoning this show. Cinemax is in negotiations to continue doing it, in collaboration with BBC. Fingers crossed.
• Last Resort - The show started really well. An American submarine is ordered to nuke Pakistan, but through a secondary network. They request that the order be sent via the primary network, and they are shot upon. They manage to escape and hold fort on a remote island, threatening to launch on any country that even approaches the island. A great premise with very good actors. Unfortunately, the show started to lag a little, then suddenly was cancelled. I would like to believe that it was a nerve they touched with the script, but more likely there are too many stupid people deciding to watch reality shows instead.
• Made in Jersey - they tried to make "Working Girl" a series, with a New Jersey girl, no less, making it as a lawyer in the big city. It was a complete flop and it was quickly cancelled.
• Parade's End - another miniseries. The trailer looks really promising and I haven't read the book. As soon as I watch it you will know.
• Primeval - New World - I can't really say I don't want to see it. It is the American continuation or spin off from the British Primeval show. But it just feels bad in every way, even if Zane from Eureka stars as the lead character.
• Restless - a miniseries. A young woman finds out that her mother worked as a spy for the British Secret Service during World War II and has been on the run ever since. The synopsis sounds interesting. Two episodes so far, that I have yet to watch.
• Revolution - can you imagine a sci-fi show that I refused to watch? This is a horrible show, something that combines Xena with Flash Forward. Yes, it is possible. And it sucks!
• Ripper Street - this is not yet another Jack the Ripper show, instead it is set just after the killings stopped. A bit like Copper, with the police force of the time solving gruesome murders. Haven't got around to watch it, but it might be nice.
• Secret State - a British miniseries starring Gabriel Byrne. Four episodes, rather captivating, but lacking a proper resolution. Not to mention a happy ending, which British seem to avoid completely :)
• The Fear - A Brighton crime boss turns entrepreneur and then he goes crazy. Like mentally ill crazy. I haven't started watching this miniseries, but it might be interesting.
• The Mob Doctor - another promising series that gets cancelled for no good reason. This doctor woman is forced to work for the mod in order to get her younger brother out of debt. She is a brilliant doctor and she has to jumble her official cases with the off the ledger ones. Really interesting, even if a bit bland.
• Transporter - they decided to do a Transporter series. I couldn't get through half of the first episode. Everything that Jason Statham did well in the show, the ridiculous and pompous ass they placed as a lead did wrong. Every good redeeming quality of a movie that, let's face it, wasn't that great is lacking here. Avoid this waster of time!
• Vegas - Well, if we have to watch series about cops, at least let them be good ones. Vegas is a good alternative to Longmire, with the action set in the early years of Las Vegas where a farmer and former MP gets to become the sheriff of the town. Interpreted by Dennis Quaid, his character and the local mobster, also well interpreted by Michael Chiklis, make this series interesting and worth watching.
• Wizards versus Aliens - OK, go ahead: laugh! I did watch a TV series made exclusively for young children where a family of wizards fights a ship of evil aliens set to consume every bit of magic in the galaxy. It is an alternative to The Sarah Jane Adventures, only even sillier. I had fun.

There are several miniseries and shows that just arrived on my radar. No point in discussing something I know nothing about, yet. So far a lot of the shows I loved were cancelled, while stinking refuse of TV series thrive. I am almost to the point of not caring anymore. I hope my short list (yes, I was humblebragging) will help you decide which shows to watch or not watch.

Until the next post in the series about series!

I was looking for something on my blog using my iPad and I noticed that the format of the blog was horrible. It used a "mobile" mode by default. That meant no Javascript, fixed width, etc. Pretty nasty. There is a link at the bottom of the page that says "View web version" which changes the "m=1" parameter in the query to 0, which makes it accessible as it should have been.

I will be investigating this and how to address it. Meanwhile, there is the workaround of clicking the link mentioned above.