Author: Muttrox

Make up your mind.

A year ago, I enthused over my Acura’s windshield wiper controls. Specifically, that the intermittent wipers fastest setting was the same as having them on continuously. I discovered it’s even better than that. First it senses whether the car is moving. If it is, it puts them on continuous wiping. If it’s not, it leaves them with a small pause between wipes.

That’s clever!

I had lunch with some new people. I sat at a different people so I could get to know some co-workers I usually don’t associate with. Lunch was delicious: meatloaf and mashed potatoes.*

I was wiping up some of the sauce on a piece of roll. As I bit into it, it somehow fell out of my hand and back on the plate. I picked it up again. As I put it in my mouth it slipped out again and fell into my lap.

I looked up. One person had seen the whoel thing. I said to her, “You saw that, right? I just missed my mouth. Twice!”

I have a feeling I did not impress these new people.

(*Dan Quayle was right. Potatoes is a valid spelling.)

A very pointless machine. If you turn it on, it turns itself off.

Insider trading

Surely, this economic correlation is a coincidence. Right?

People still do this? Oh, I get it now.

Daddy’s Girl

New business meeting

Best riot picture

All kinds of non-prejudice

World’s worst glamour shot. Or something.

Geek love

The English go to redneck country

Hitler vs. Stalin: The surprisingly literate comic book

Caricaturist is robbed. Draws perfect picture of attacker in 15 seconds, the police make an easy arrest.

The real villain of Star Wars

Banned copier commercial

Perfect Pitch demo. The other suggested links are neat also.

Dinosaurs visit a German TV talk show.

Pascal’s Wager revisited

The king of ball-hawking

Talking piano. Really. That is cool.

A glorious dawn: Sagan and Hawking sing with some help from autotune

Coming out: the diary of an 18-year old telling his parents he’s gay. (Start with the plain text, then move to the updates)

The accidental warlord

Unexpected psychology lessons from porn users

30 Senate Democrats stand up for a public option.

We have spent the better part of this year fighting for health reform that would provide insurance access and continuity to every American in a fiscally responsible manner,” the 30 Democratic Senators wrote in the Oct. 8 letter. “We are concerned that — absent a competitive and continuous public insurance option — health reform legislation will not produce nationwide access and ongoing cost containment. For that reason, we are asking for your leadership on ensuring that the merged health reform bill contains a public insurance option.

It’s about time.

• World Series of Poker:The obvious choice for the number one poker show. The tournament itself is so interesting that ESPN would really have to blow it to not make this entertaining. They have not blown it. In fact, the growth of poker can be traced to this tournament and program. They have synergistically supported each other in the best way.

  Norman Chad is a great announcer. Sit back and think what he does. Poker is not an easy game to naturally make commentary for. But he does. There’s something like 25 hours of coverage this year, he’s been doing it for at least seven years, and still comes up with things to say. That’s quite impressive

• Poker After Dark:Since it’s on the early mornings, you need to have TiVO to watch this. They start with six players who play each other throughout the week until there is one winner. The best part is that they show every hand. Watching the World Series of Poker you can easily be deceived into thinking every hand has Aces or hitting flushes on the river. Here you get to see the less flashy hands also. Stealing blinds, everyone folding to a pre-flop raise, etc. Because you see every hand, you get a much better feel for how the game is really played at the highest level.

  The players are usually arranged around a theme. On-line vs off-line, USA vs Foreign (or USA vs Italy), Amater vs. Pro, etc. The best ones are the cash games. Watching someone raise $200,000 with absolutely nothing is riveting.

• Learn Poker from the Pros: This show is fairly obscure. It is a training course, sponsored by FullTilt.com and hosted by Howard “The Professor” Lederer. Each week they select one topic (examples: playing big stack, pot odds, heads up play) and talk through it from a professionals point of view. They have a round table with many of the biggest names in poker where the pros discuss and argue their perspectives. It’s great for helping your game to the next level.

Runners up: Best Damn Poker Show (Phil Helmuth vs. Annie Duke reality show) and I Bet You (which I’ve never seen but guarantee it’s entertaining.)

P.S. This post has one sentence that ends in a preposition and has a split infinitive. Nice.

We mixed it up tonight with a little Omaha. Omaha is identical to Hold ’em, except for two things.

• You have four hold cards instead of two.
• You must use exactly two of your hole cards. No more, no less.

That last one is really hard to wrap your mind around. For example, having four aces isn’t so great. You have a pair of aces and you can’t improve it.

It was like going back to being a poker rookie again. I wasn’t trying to read people’s hands. I wasn’t trying to figure out when I could push people around. I was just trying to figure out if I had something good or not. And so was everyone else. In a typical hand tonight, most of the players limped in pre-flop. The flop came out and every player started looking at their cards, mentally deciding if they had a playable hand. 75% of the hands went all the way to the river. With four cards, you always have a draw. Winning hands were sets or better. A straight was, well, it was ok.

I misread two of my own hands. I lost two huge pots because I messed up the second rule. That was enough, I was knocked out in 7th place out of 8 people. Ah well, it was a lot of fun.

Tonight: -$20

This article from 2005 is probably still relevant:

STATE and local officials may be hanging their heads about the announcement that London, and not New York City, will be playing host to the 2012 Summer Olympics, but New Yorkers should be breathing a sigh of relief that the Games are now somebody else’s worry

I think there are good reasons to host if you are a second tier city, and can show the world that you are really a first tier city. It will drive long-term growth to your area. It’s brand building. Atlanta’s boom coincides with the Olympics, this is not a coincidence.

On the other hand, Montreal is still paying off the debt from hosting in the 1970s. And Chicago doesn’t need to show the world it’s a great place, everyone knows that Chicago is a great place. What do they get out of it? Nothing.

(Thanks to LilBro for the link.)

The “Barack” in Barack Obama means “blessed”. So does my Hebrew name (“Baruch”).

Just sayin’.

The Pats have just had two straight wins over quality opponents. They are at 3-1 already. Not too shabby.

Brady is looking good. The first game he looked bad, the second game he looked mediocre, now he looks good. Not fantastic, but good. Balls are starting to hit receivers in stride again, Wes Welker is bailing him out again – there’s a lot of reason to think we’re heading nowhere but up.

I am not too impressed by our secondary. For all the effort put into it, it looks about the same as always.

Drive-thru villainy. Odd that his name is so close to Robert Mugabe.

Inmate escapes by dressing as lawyer

The miracle of conception. Truly incredible.

The Kanye meme wins again

The streaker scores

Very cool CSI opening

100 Greatest Hits of YouTube

The vacation stress graph

The money you could be saving

That’s a real thinker.

I don’t think she knows what that word means

10 sports top-10 lists

What flavor could this be?

I think the message is, don’t wear your hat backwards

“Thank you for calling Air Health Care, the airline that works like the health care system…”

More about that marshmallow test from the last links, on why it really is an important experiment.

“The good old days”: Life at a startup, Mozilla

Mature thoughts on getting old

A Truly Shocking Guantanamo Story: Judge Confirms That an Innocent Man Was Tortured to Make False Confessions

We all thought that last weeks game took too long, so we eliminated three of the blinds levels. This moved things along pretty quick. It was the kind of night I like. I didn’t get any lucky draws, and I didn’t get any bad beats. That’s not to say there was no luck, but that every time there was a big hand, it was decided by what the players had before the money was committed. There was only one case where I made the right decision but got screwed by the cards, or made the wrong decision and got bailed out.

Notable hands:

• I have K-2 as the dealer, everyone has folded. I raise to 300, hoping to steal the blinds. The small blind folds, but the big blind calls me. The flop is A-10-10. He checks. I throw in another 400, which he calls. The turn is a blank, we both check. Now that I’ve shown weakness, he bets on the river.
  I don’t think he has an ace. I don’t think he has a 10. This guy knows me, and knows I like to pick up cheap blinds from late position. I think he’s sick of me and he’s pushing back. And the bet of 400 is weird. When he has a winning hand he is never shy about putting in a big bet. 400 into a 1500 pot? I have to call. He turns over K-8. Neither of our kickers play and we chop the pot. I think both of us played that hand well.
• I have K-K. I go over the top on a big raise pre-flop, I’m all in. He calls with A-10. He gets the Ace. Garghdarnit! That was my bad beat of the night. (He had a lot less than me, so I wasn’t knocked out.)
• At 150-300 (and 25 antes) I have A-K. There are two callers before me, I raise it to 1,000. Surprisingly I get four callers. I thought my raises demanded a little more respect. The flop is A-x-x. Check, check, I go all in. Why not? The pot has ~5,000 in it, I’ve only got a few thousand more, it’s an easy decision. Yet, they all think about it, they all speculate what I have, he didn’t pick up the Aces did he, like I am some kind of crazy guy. The last person wanted to pay me to see my cards (I told him he could pay me by calling). They all folded, and I was back to average stack again.
• Down to 7 players. At 200-400 (50 ante), I have A-6 in medium position. I raise it 1,300 on a semi-bluff. I am raised to all-in. Gosh darn it. I know this guy, and he picks up a lot of pots going over the top. I know he is bluffing many times. Nyargh, I can’t call, he got me. I fold.
• The very next hand, I have A-6 of clubs. I put in the same 1,300. And the same guy goes in, but this time he just calls me. The flop is three clubs, I have the nut flush. Naturally I check. He does too. I check the turn. Just as I’d hoped, he makes a stab and bets 3,100. I think about it and go all in, only another 2700. But my acting is terrible. I knew it as soon as I did it, it was so far over the top with the “Why am I doing this!? I don’t want to do this!” body language that he folded instantly. Also, he probably had bupkis, that may have been a factor also. I think I could have gotten some more money out of him though, I didn’t get full value for my hand.
• Down to five players. I have 10-9 suited – what the heck, I limp in. The flop is 10-10-x. I check. The short stack moves all in and I call him. His pocket 5s don’t hold up against my set. In fact, another 10 comes up on the river, so I should say – his full house 10s over 5s don’t hold up against my four of a kind!
• Down to the final three. I get K-K. Play the guy like a fiddle to get him all-in, knock him out.
• I start heads up with a 4-1 advantage. The very first hand I have 10-6 and limp in. The flop is A-8-3. I check, he does also. The turn is a 7. What the hell, I throw in another 2,000. He only 6K or so, so I’m thinking even if he suspects I’m full of it he can’t call me. I’m wrong, he calls me. The turn is a 9. I am about to check when I realize I backed into a straight. Hey, how about that, I got a straight! I get him all in and knock him out. Yay!

I like nights without bad beats. It’s easier to figure out if you’re playing well or not because you can separate decisions from outcomes.

Tonight’s Total: $90