Or, as Denis Leary calls it, “Amateurs Day”.
And a little less relevant, but funnier…
Critical Thinking
Or, as Denis Leary calls it, “Amateurs Day”.
And a little less relevant, but funnier…
Where do all the f*cking roads go?
Canadians going to the bathroom during the big hockey game. Fantastic graph.
Single Ladies, done real Motown style
I dream of owning this
See your name as an equation. Math geek everywhere are drooling.
Ladies room graffiti
Why the GOP is scared of Obama
Burger Wars: A Map of the USA with territory claimed by the big chains. More detail here.
Does your Mom know you’re here?
Failbook: Please don’t breed
The absurdity of British libel laws: One of the best science writers in the country quits.
All-star cast does presidential history on Funny or Die
2009 World Press photo awards. Pictures of the Olympics, 1 and 2
Academy Award winning Trailer
A heck of an ending to a police chase
OK Go does it again. Another bad song with an amazing video.
Study finds median wealth for single black women at $5. That is not a typo, $5!
Infant starves to death while parents raise virtual child online
Last post we learned the basic pass line bet in craps. Now we’re going to expand into a few other bets.
Don’t Pass:

This is the exact opposite of the Pass Line bet. If it wins, this loses and vice versa. There is one exception so that the house can keep the edge. If a 12 is rolled on the come-out roll (buck is OFF) the Pass Line bets loses but this bet doesn’t win. It doesn’t lose either, the money stays out there untouched. Otherwise the rules are directly opposite of the Pass Line bet. The comeout roll of 2 or 3 wins, 7 or 11 loses. Any other roll becomes the point and the Don’t Pass bet wants a 7 to come up before the point does.
You can take odds behind the line with a Don’t Pass bet also. Example: A point of 10 is established. The true odds of getting a 10 before a 7 are 2-to-1 against, so you have to put out $20 to win $10.
The Don’t Pass bet is rare. Craps is a very social game. Everyone wants the roller to do well, no one wants them to crap out. The Don’t Pass bet actually has slightly better odds than the Pass Line bet (1.40% to 1.41% against you), but you will be a social pariah if you make this bet.
Field Bet:

This bet only applies to the next roll of the dice. It has nothing to do with comeout rolls and points and all of that. If the next roll is 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, or 12, you win. 2 and 12 pay double, $2 for every $1 bet. The other numbers ( 5, 6, 7, 8 ) lose. Pretty simple, eh?
Come Bet:

If you understand how the Pass Line bet works, you understand the Come bet. The only difference is when they start rolling. The Pass Line bet starts when the buck is OFF, on the comeout roll. The Come bet starts at any other time. The Come bet is actually the exact same bet as the Pass Line bet, but shifted in time, so for just that Come bet, the next roll is treated as the comeout roll. It’s like saying to the casino staff, “Hey, I missed the come out roll. Can I put some money out and we’ll all pretend the next roll is the comeout roll? Yeah, just for this bet. C’mon, pretending is fun!”
The Come bet can also have odds behind the line, and there is a Don’t Come bet also. Everything works exactly like their equivalent bets. The only difference is the shift in the sequence of dice rolls, all the rules are the exact same.
Example: It is the comeout roll. No Come bets are allowed. An 8 is rolled. The 8 is the point. You put down a come bet. An 11 is rolled. For your Come bet it was the comeout roll, so this is a win. It has no effect on the pass line bet (because only an 8 or a 7 matter for the pass line bet). You put down another Come bet. A 7 is rolled. Your Come bet won, and all the pass line bets lose.
I love the Come bet. It’s hard to understand initially but once you get it, it’s extremely easy, it’s a good bet, you can make awful sex puns, and you look like a sophisticated player.
In my opinion, you should stop there. “Placing” on the 6 and 8 is also a very reasonable bet, but everyone who does that starts putting action on the other numbers and those are bad bets.
Congratulations. Now get out there and win some money lose money slower!
Intimidated by craps? It looks like a hard game to learn. There is a lot of yelling and a lot of different bets going on. But the basics of craps are very simple. You can learn them in less than 5 minutes, and I’m going to show you how.
The first thing to learn is that most bets in craps are sucker bets. Most of the yelling going on is people throwing their money away. True, all the bets in craps are losing bets (see the end of this article for the possible exception), but some are worse than others.
The basic bet in craps is called the “Pass Line” bet. You place money down on the playing table in the space marked with “Pass Line”.

The Pass Line bet has two simple rules. Each roll of the dice is governed by one of these rules. To know which one to use, look at the buck.
The buck is a large disc. One side is black with the word “Off”, the other side is white with the word “On”.
The Pass Line bet is placed, and begins, when the buck is Off.
That’s it. You know now the basics of craps. Let’s try an example.
That’s it! Congratulations!
But if you want to know more, read on.
The Pass Line bet has an optional feature, called odds behind the line. Odds behind the line is the best bet in the entire casino. To play them, wait until a point has been established. You can now put more chips down behind your pass line bet. The chips should not go in the pass line area, but should be clearly aligned with your original pass line bet. Casinos vary in how much you’re allowed to put down. It is always a minimum of whatever your pass line bet is, and the maximum can be anywhere from twice that to one hundred times your original bet.
How does it work? This bet pays off at true mathematical odds.
If the point is:
Example: You put down $10 on a pass line bet. The come out roll is a 9. You put an addition $20 down behind the line. After a few meaningless rolls the 9 comes up. You win! How much? Your original $10 pass line bet wins an additional $10. The $20 you put down behind the line pays off at 3-to-2, so you get another $30 there. You won $40, on top of your original $30 bet.
Because these pay off at true odds, neither you nor the casino has an advantage. So the casino will let you do something you can’t do anywhere else – you can change your bet after you’ve placed it. As long as the buck is On, you can keep adding and subtracting money from the odds behind the line bet and they won’t get mad. Just don’t touch the original pass line bet!
Why did I say that odds behind the line are a possible exception to every bet being a losing bet? It depends on your viewpoint. The odds behind the line bet pays off at true odds and is not a losing bet. But you can’t place the odds behind the line until you have made a Pass Line bet. The Pass Line bet is close to even, but the edge is with the house.
Want to learn more? Go to Part II. Another simple guide is here.
I enter my username and password and hit return. What do I get back?

If the site is smart enough to understant I am trying to login, why doesn’t it just log me in?
God covers Beyonce
This movie stars brands. Try it.
Stay classy Canada
Pirate vs Legal movies.
Found in a 1st graders backpack
Wes Anderson directs Spiderman
Babies with laser eyes.
The real America. Sadly.
Supercut of mirror scares
Traffic girls from North Korea are hypnotic
A letter from 14-year old Slash, apologizing for talking about his guitar so much.
School uses spycams installed in take-home laptops to monitor students. At home. Unreal.
Antarctica is bleeding.
Understanding the Bush years and Desert Storm.
Networking passive aggressive notes
A brief history of pretty much everything
6 crazy coincidences
After hours at the airport
Understanding the derivatives market. I’m sure there’s a logic hole somewhere, but I can’t find it.
Americas top 50 franchises
The man who escaped into Auschwitz.
On Catholics and torture. Worth reading in full.
Roger Ebert’s Last Words. And his remembrance of Gene Siskel.
Lighting a cigarette from the Olympic torch – that’s an arrest.
The science of touch.
Triumph of the Cyborg Musician
How Google works.
I just found this. Much better, the show they gave at the press conference.
And because I forgot to put it in before, the best show in recent memory:
Because a rectal exam is just horrifying. It’s not an interesting sensation, it doesn’t make me curious, it just makes me wish I didn’t have to get one every year.
If I were a 20-something who was seeing the Who for the first time, my main reaction would be “Their drummer is pretty good. The singers good for an old guy. I don’t get the guitar player, is he a singer also?”
They needed more practice. They needed it because of all the changes they made to their signature songs, amending them for time. Almost all of the transistions were shaky. These were the worst parts. Invariably, someone in the band was a little unsure if the switch was happening. Pete was often cutting out at these points. When he was playing it was not with his usual confidence.
Whenever they did happen to play 30 seconds or more of a song with no edits, it was great. They looked like a fantastic band. These are the parts I’m going to reply tonight before hitting delete. But just then a chorus would get skipped, Pete wasn’t sure if they were supposed to go to the break so he’d a big sustain note to cover it… sloppy work. And his voice was just horrible. What was going on there?
They did say afterwards that they couldn’t see anything, and it appeared they were having trouble hearing.
These days they say about themselves, “We’re not The Who. But we’re the best damn Who cover band in the world!” Unfortunately last night, they weren’t even that.
Update: Just listened to a second time. I upgrade it to a B-.
I publicly predict that The Who will be mediocre.
The first Calvin & Hobbes interview in 21 years. Boring, but still.
How a corporation became a person: An overzealous court reporter.
Gravity sucks
Unclear on how a dollar store works.
An interactive visual look at bipartisanship in the Senate.
Scale. No, forget that. Here’s scale a hundred times better. Truly mindblowing.
Charlie Brown at 35
Saints, Colts Hoping To Resolve Super Bowl Through Diplomacy
Even though I disagree with the message, this is a very clever ad.
Westboro Church meets it’s match. (If you don’t know who they are, google it. The most despicable human beings on Earth.)
125 rare photos of famous people.
Man saved on frozen sea by webcam spotter
Winter 2010 Olympic Hotties. Here’s my favorite.