What I don't like about chess software

That software costs 85 dollars:  I forgot to mention I'm speaking only of the free chess programs.  Anyone who pays money for this stuff as far as I'm concerned needs to have his head examined: (That's a joke son; so don't get all hot and bothered)

Metric is super ridiculously easy.  Imperial is stupid and not intuitive at all.

How many meters in a kilometer?  Kilo-meter.  Impossible to get wrong even for children.

I'd guess 99.9999999999999999% of Americans don't know how many feet are in a mile.

That software costs 85 dollars:  I forgot to mention I'm speaking only of the free chess programs.  Anyone who pays money for this stuff as far as I'm concerned needs to have his head examined: (That's a joke son; so don't get all hot and bothered)

And why do you asssume I would get hot and bothered? Coz you think I bought it?

Firstly, well 'son' I haven't bought it, just wanted to provide you with an option to solve your quandry.

Secondly, even if I had bought it, I wouldn't be getting my head examined because if you are serious about this then it's worth paying for.

Thirdly, what you don't like about chess software will always remain that way if you're unwilling to pay or unwilling to get stuff from torrents.

So yeah I ain't hot and bothered, just mildly amused by your reply. 

I think you should give lucas chess a try. I think this is great program for training and playing.

OK, I understand. You're even cheaper than me (I didn't think that was possible, lol).

Two (free) GUIs come to mind.

Arena sort of fills those requirements. The only thing is handicapping the clocks is a bit messy. You have to right-click your mouse cursor on the clock, and select "Adjust clock". Then you have to click on either the up arrow or down arrow to increase or decrease the time; But it doesn't allow you to simply enter a different time, you have to use the up/down arrows.

http://www.playwitharena.com/

The other GUI is Winboard. It does everything you require.

http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=51528

Playing against machine always is not a good idea. :(

No: you have it backwards.  Competeing against other human beings is not a good idea.  Beating someone who is human and has human emotions: making them feel like a loser is not a good idea. Beating a machine is okay because a machine doesn't have feelings you can hurt.

Humans shoulld cooperate with each other: not compete with each other.  That is the difference between peace and war.

If you want to create adversaries and enemies and fight each other: you get hatred, mistrust, grudges, feuds, endless conflict, unhappiness, misery, anger, destruction of life; death, sorrow, pain, agony.

If you want peace and cooperatioin you get mutual respect, trust, love, friendship, happiness, Life, growth, maturity, wisdom, etc.

I play aginst the machine because the machiine is the enemy of Mankind.  Machines kill.  Machines destroy Life.

Chess is a war game.  Chess is not a game that teaches people how to cooperate with each other:  It brainwashes you into either attacking or defending because the game of war automatically defines the person you play against as your opponent:  You oppose each other in chess.  You do not cooperate with each other  Opposing forces cancel each other out by destroying each other until all that is left alive on the board is one pawn: who turn ityself into a 'queen'.  A Queen of what?  A queen of an empty board where all the knights and bishops and pawns have been murdered, killed, eliminated and massacred.

In war: nobody wins. In cooperation everybody wins.  The fallacy of adversarial competition is obvious to the meanest intelligence.

is they all have small boards: none of them are expandable to full screen size. If anyone knows of one that is, let me know.

Also many of them don't have an audio sound so if you're not peering at the screen 100% of the time you miss the move it makes.

Another is most of them don't have take-back options where you can try another move.

Another is the idea of playing on time against the software om an equal basis: like the human brain can process the number of chess permuationis at the same speed as a computer?  please... time chess is not for man vs machine.  It's for man vs man or machine vs machine.  Most software doesn't give any option for adjusting the time separaetly:  If the machiine gets 5 minutes so do you.  That's a joke.

Try Lucas Chess.

What would be neat in software would be if you could adjust it to only evaluate a certain number of moves into the future.  Somebody asked a Grandmaster ( I think it was Spassky) how many moves he looked ahead.  He said something like "One more than my opponent."  It would be neat to train with the software on a setting of, say, 4 moves until you win more than 50% of the time.  Then crank it up to 5 moves, etc.

Arena - Just grab the splitter on the right edge of the board with your mouse cursor and pull it to the right.

Winboard - Menu: "View --> Board...". You have about 18 board size selections from "Tiny" to "Titanic". (I have an older version of Winboard installed; I'm assuming that the latest version has the same options.)