http://bleaklow.com:80/tags/go9/ My opinions may be incorrect, but they are my own en Alan Burlison Wed, 29 Feb 2012 20:50:00 GMT Pebble (http://pebble.sourceforge.net) http://backend.userland.com/rss http://bleaklow.com/images/misc/logo.gif http://bleaklow.com:80/ http://bleaklow.com:80/2004/01/21/go_set_arrives.html <p> <a href="images/2004/goban.jpeg" onclick="window.open('images/2004/goban.jpeg','popup','width=660,height=660,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no'); return false" class="thumbnailLink"><img src="images/2004/thumbnails/goban.jpeg" alt="Goban" class="thumbnailImage"/></a> </p> <p> The Go set I ordered arrived yesterday, not bad considering I only ordered it from Japan last Thursday. I got stung with a £67 charge for customs duty, VAT & customs clearance, but overall the set still worked out much cheaper than buying it here or from the US. </p> <p> When I tipped the goishi (stones) into the goke (bowls) I was puzzled to see that although there were the same number of black and white stones, the black bowl was considerably fuller than the white one. After <a href="http://senseis.xmp.net/?EquipmentDimensions">some research</a> it appears that the black stones are deliberately made slightly larger than the black ones to compensate for an optical illusion that would otherwise mean that the white ones looked larger. I already knew that the 'squares' on the goban (board) are in fact rectangles so that they look square when viewed from either end of the board, but I didn't know the same attention to detail applied to the stones. And when I took a closer look at the bowls one was ever so slightly taller and broader than the other, and that was the one I has the white stones in. I swapped the stones around, lo and behold they both appeared to be equally full. Trust the Japanese to pay such minute attention to detail! </p> Personal http://bleaklow.com:80/2004/01/21/go_set_arrives.html#comments http://bleaklow.com:80/2004/01/21/go_set_arrives.html Wed, 21 Jan 2004 15:22:00 GMT