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For this post I am sharing a post I had to make for my Portfolio 1 class. I had to pick a company and write about how well it lived up to its stated values. Then I had to write my own list of personal values and describe them. Also, as a special exercise, I want anyone who reads this to look at the 5 values I listed and tell me where else you will find them all.

Chess.com Company Values

The gaming company I have chosen for this post may seem like a strange one, but it is rather unique in that it focuses only on the game of chess. Chess.com is the number one site for playing online chess because it was developed at a time when there were not as many good options for playing chess. Their stated values are Kindness, Learning, and Joy. They also state that they aim to be more than just a site for playing chess but a community in which players can feel safe and happy. Although not stated directly in their values, they also care about fair play and will do things to correct ratings when players are cheating. I know this from experience because they send me private messages, which I get telling me when an opponent cheats.

https://www.chess.com/about

While I believe that chess.com lives up to all its stated values, I believe that the one it lives up to the most is Learning. The site has countless courses, articles, and mobile apps designed to teach people how to play chess better, and some focus on specific openings. For example, here is a link to the article about Queen’s Gambit, which explains most of what I have learned about it. It explains the history, pros and cons, main responses, and even a link to a course about the Queen’s Gambit Declined response.

https://www.chess.com/openings/Queens-Gambit

Another great example of the emphasis on learning is that many coaches are available to contact people who learn in ways other than just reading or playing games alone.

https://www.chess.com/coaches

Chastity’s Personal Values

I strive to be consistent with many values, whether in my job or my personal life.

1. Honesty

I always speak the truth, even when it costs me friends and job opportunities. I believe a world where it is acceptable to tell “white lies” is a world not worth living in. It was because of this that I published a series of books titled “Chandler’s Honesty” which detail my faults and how I wrestle with my weaknesses as I make hard decisions. In fact, it’s important to note that the reason it’s not called “Chastity’s Honesty” is because I do not attempt to hide who I was. Being transgender is a rather hard concept for people to understand, but through the years, I have never attempted to pretend that I was not born a boy named Chandler. However, my mentor, Honesty the Unicorn, told me that there are two truths to tell. There is the truth of who I was and the truth of who I have become. To leave either part out would be dishonest and only telling half the truth.

Chandler’s Honesty

2. Kindness

If I had to define kindness, it is the kind of selfless act that you do for someone even when they never ask, nor is there any kind of reward for it. I live as a kind person every day by being a Vegan who does my best not to harm the animals as well as maintain respect for all life forms, even the humans I don’t like very much. I believe that the Golden Rule is the best guide to living a life of kindness. Everything I believe about gaming, religion, or politics starts with the requirement that I must treat others the way I wish they treated me if the roles were reversed. Also, kindness never conflicts with Honesty. I can’t lie to make someone feel better, but I need to hold my tongue sometimes when I am angry and could easily hurt them by telling them the truth at the wrong time.

3. Generosity

Generosity can be a form of kindness, but it most often requires giving something away that you will never get back or getting something in return. I distinctly remember the time before I went to Navy Boot Camp when I gave all of my video game systems and television to my childhood friend. I knew that I would have very little time to enjoy my video games because I was planning to be away for quite some time. To this day, I hope that she and her children are enjoying the classic video games I grew up playing. There have also been other times where I have donated to either charity organizations or individuals in need. As I reflect upon this, I remember the words of Philosopher Peter Singer in his TED Talk about Effective Altruism. Although giving is a good thing, it’s also important to be wise in how I can do the most good. I never regret giving my time or money, but I sometimes regret that I could have given something better or different.

4. Laughter

I believe that God put me on this planet to bring people joy and make them laugh. I have always entertained people around me without even trying. I have often dreamed of being a comedian who entertains many people. This has inspired me to become a podcaster and streamer, focusing on gaming but also entertainment and talking about important topics that match my other values.

5. Loyalty

I believe that part of loyalty is keeping the promises you have made to people and not just going back on your word. In a sense, loyalty is a type of Honesty, especially when you have made a promise to someone. If you don’t keep your word, then you will not only lose your reputation but also turn your back on loved ones who expect to be part of your life. But I also think that loyalty is more than keeping promises. I think that the way I take care of my mother is a form of loyalty and is indeed an obligation. I owe my mother for raising me and homeschooling me because it has led to the success I have today. Therefore, I believe that one can be loyal to one’s family, friends, employer, or even country. I believe that people should honor those who have helped shape the good parts of who they are. However, I don’t believe loyalty is ever an excuse to break the other values. For example, people should be loyal or faithful to their partner in a marriage, but this does not mean blind obedience to them or allowing them to abuse them or their children. I don’t know anything about marriage, but it seems like a good example of how things should be. I believe that divorce happens because of dishonesty and at least one person not caring enough about the relationship they have built.

This post was saved in my drafts from February 27. I decided to just go ahead and post it. It was exactly what I was feeling and thinking at the time.

The recent banning of my YouTube account really made me angry. It’s been restored after my appeal, and I got an email that it was an error and that I didn’t break the community standards. But for how long? Censorship is getting a lot worse on social media. Anyone telling the truth about important issues is going to be silenced.

If you can’t handle what I have posted online, then you are not ready to hear what I think and don’t say. So, before America turns into complete soviet Russia, I would like to say that I believe in God. Nobody will understand this unless they read my Chandler’s Honesty story. And maybe nobody cares. That is totally okay. But what I do know is that I cry when I hear true things that I know are meant for me. This happened many times when Honesty spoke to me in my dreams and when I read my book.

Humans believe many lies. Here are just a few of them.

The lie that Pro-Life people are only older men who hate women and want to control their bodies.

The lie that transwomen are only trying to invade women’s spaces for easy sports victories or to rape them in women’s restrooms.

The lie that we won’t get protein without eating meat.

The lie that people choose to be gay as some rebellion against God.

I could give a TED talk about how these are demonstrably false. In fact, I probably will because telling the truth is what I do. I will be making changes to how I use social media because I lack the time to get into arguments with people online who don’t listen. I expect that I will still occasionally post my gaming and programming videos when I find time to work on my creative projects. Very rarely do I have the chance between work and school. My real friends can ask me about other topics, but I am so done with trying to explain myself over and over just to have people say the same hateful and false things about the topics I have mentioned in this post.

There is a board game that is hugely popular in Japan and is often referred to as Japanese chess. Finding someone in the United States who knows how to play would be very hard. However, with the invention of Artificial Intelligence and the right teaching tools, it’s possible for anyone to learn.

I bought a game on Steam which teaches me how to play Shogi and play against the computer.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1486050/Lets_Learn_Shogi

Last week I did a Twitch Stream where I launched the game for the first time and went through all the tutorials. I picked it up very quickly because I am already a chess player. You can watch it to learn along with me even if you don’t buy the game itself. I plan to master it and earn all the Steam achievements.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2099981069

There are some very key differences between western chess and Japanese chess. First, knights don’t have 8 different squares they can move to. They only move in a similar way as how they can jump over pawns for the first move in western chess. Second, there is no Queen. There are the pieces King, Bishop, and Rook which operate exactly the same as western chess but there are also new pieces and different rules for them (especially pawns). I’m not going to go over all the differences in this post because I could never explain it as well as the game itself does.

But what I had the most problem with was that the pieces are Japanese symbols so I can’t tell them apart by memory. Take a look at the board here and you’ll see what I mean!

Unless you happen to know Japanese this will look like nonsense and probably stop you from trying to learn! However, I came up with a solution!

I took screenshots of each of the pages briefly explaining the pieces. These pages contain slightly larger images of the pieces than what shows during the game itself. Below are the screenshots so that I can always refer to this post and see which is which!

This post does not cover include the information about the promotion of pieces. Refer to the game itself for more on that. However, I can tell you that the promotion of most of the pieces gives them power equal to the Gold General. The bishop and rook however are special cases because they retain their existing moves but gain the ability to move like a king. This means that evolved bishops are far more powerful than they were in western chess, and they can move to any square on the board in 3 moves or less.

There are many more things that make the game of shogi much more complicated but interesting. However, I will end this post for now and share more in the future as I learn to be better at this game.

Update: since originally posting this I made a helpful image showing the names of all the pieces in just one picture! I refer to this when I am playing Let’s Learn Shogi.

I also made a small animated GIF which, while not as helpful as the image above, looks very cool.

My college mathematics class was my first time actually understanding algebra. I am also fascinated by the way that business situations can be represented as lines on a graph, even though I don’t understand graphing very well. Although this has been my hardest course and the lowest grade of any course in Full Sail, I am glad I am finally overcoming my greatest academic weakness. On arithmetic, I am solid, but all of the other subjects are quite new to me.

I will also have the PDF textbook to review even when the class ends so I can have a better idea about these subjects. I simply haven’t had time to look at it because I am gone 11 to 12 hours out of the day, trying to get some sleep and then working on school. It’s a miracle I can get anything done with my insane life!

But I also know that as long as I work a full-time job, I will not have the time to learn as well as I could have if school was the only thing going on. I try to cram and do everything on Thursday and Saturday, which are my nights off.

In any case, I am proud of myself for trying to continue my education even though I didn’t start college until one month before my 36th birthday. Yeah, I’ll be in debt trying to pay off my student loans for the rest of my life, but at least this was a decision I made.

Some much younger people go to college when they are 18 or in their early 20s because they are told they have to. I don’t think that someone should automatically pursue higher education unless they have a good reason for it and goals they think it will help with.

But the math class, which is only one class of many, is actually my favorite because I know that with math, there is a right answer even if I can’t find it. It lacks the subjective, opinionated nature of all the other subjects.

In fact, math class is like playing chess. I may have lost the game, but I enjoyed the process of trying to find the right moves. At least I know the rules and can identify what went wrong, even if it is after the fact.