Evolution of a Go program

About the development of Moyo Go Studio, software to (help) play the Oriental game of Go. Go is a two-player zero-sum game of perfect information. It is considered much harder than Chess. Currently, in spite of enormous effort expended, no computer program plays it above the level of a beginner.

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Back Online

After having been internet-less for almost two weeks due to a string of mistakes at my ISP (I went on a holiday in the meantime), I am now back online but will go on another trip in our Saab 900 to swim in more Norwegian and Swedish lakes and lose weight on more walks.

We did a 20-click walk on Hardangervidda a few days ago, and due to the excessive recent training it felt like a stroll in the park. I used to be so sick that such activities would seriously affect my immune system, but now it's quite OK.

I came back to the pleasant surprise of having sold a handful of Moyo Go DVD's, a Thai translation has been completed, a tournament sponsorship effectuated and an important (speed!) part of Moyo Go's TsumeGo-in-development module designed. I needed a very complex 256-element lookup-table, which I drew on a huge sheet of 5 mm-paper, by hand. The values are based on pattern images. Now I just have to type it in, 1024 values in all. My goal is to end up with a tactical module that outperforms anything else, including MadLab and GoTools.

My ADSL speed here in this - literally - neck of the woods is 2 MBit/s instead of the previous 6 Mbit/s but I'll manage.

We moved to the edge of Oslo Nordmarka, a wilderness area. We saw a moose with young in the garden, looking through our window on the first evening! On our recent trips we slept in the car, my girlfriend found the way for the back chairs to be put totally flat so we had a comfy place to sleep. We are subletting a tiny place and are praying that the heating costs in winter will be affordable. The multi-CPU, dual-screen maxitowers and 24" CRT are contributing almost 1 KW to the electric heating though :-)

Norway generates 100% of its electricity by water power, so it's 100% renewable, "free" energy.