Author: Muttrox

I was watching another boring webinar at work the other day. A boring person was making a boring analogy about how something is like icebergs, most of the real story is hidden beneath the surface. Oh, what a clever analogy! It almost woke me up from my boring-fact-induced slumber!

Anyhow — the cool part was that I started mentally doodling on icebergs and suddenly connected two facts.

* Icebergs are nine-tenths below the surface.
* Water is one of the only liquids that expands when frozen. This is why pipes break and houses and ships creak in winter, all the water turns to ice and takes up more room than before, stressing the structure. When it thaws there is room “left over” so more water and such can get in. This is also why driveways and roads crack over time.

I realized that the first one follows from the second. If ice is about 10% less dense than water then it will float in water. The denser water will force it up until about 10% of it is above the surface. At that point, the 10% of the iceberg that is out of the water will have enough weight to equalize the “missing” weight of the water under the surface from it’s lower density.

Cool! Can I confirm this by getting more precise numbers? Wikipedia says that ice is 8% less dense than water. Exactly how much of an iceberg is above water? Their iceberg entry gives more precise numbers. Dang, I forgot that icebergs form out of sea water… 1025/920 = +11%, close enough to “one-tenth” for me. And with a little more searching I can find the formulas and logic. Neato!

(And I left the webinar early.)

I’ve never played so conservative in my life. I already wanted to play tight in the beginning rounds and when eleven players came that made it easier to play tight. In the first two hours I played to the flop only twice and never saw a turn. I won exactly one hand by stealing the blinds. These are the only two other hands I played in the first four rounds:

1) A-10. I bet 4x the blind. I’m called. Flop is K-K-J. I check, he raises a little over half the pot. I grudgingly fold. He showed the pocket jacks.
2) A-K of spades. I bet 3x the blind. I’m called. The flop is J-9-8 of diamonds. He goes all in. I have to fold.

I was slowly dying. By which I mean, it was ninety degrees out, under lights, next to a humid pool, and I had just played nine holes of golf – I was sweating like a pig. A big out-of-shape disgusting pig. Oh, also I didn’t have many chips left. I got down to 900. The blinds have just moved to 250-500, I obviously need to make a move. I look down and see pocket 9s. I’m just about to go all in when the person in front of me goes all in with 1800. That makes the decision harder. I decide not to do it. He had A-Q, so it could have gone either way. He gets knocked out on the play so I end up as big blind a hand early. Damnit!

I have A-8. I go all-in (only 400 more to go!) and get a caller who has A-Q. Uh-oh! The board ends up with 3-9-10, and the turn is an 7. I have an open-ended straight draw, but the J would give him a higher straight. Yes, I get the 6 on the river! I am alive and nearly tripled up.

Here my luck turns. There are only six players left, and I start to get cards. Not great cards, but cards good enough to play. I have enough chips that I can finally start playing some offense.

Down to four players. I take out two of them with hands like my A-8 vs. their A-3. So to Kid’s point, there are two big hands where I did not get big beated. That brought it down to two players, but I had a 9-1 chip advantage and won on the first hand.

Did I play well tonight? I dunno. I had bad cards and hung around long enough to give myself a chance, but it’s hard to take much credit for a crazy river straight. I made good calls on those A-kicker hands. I am impressed I played so few hands. I don’t know if it was the right strategy or not but it showed a lot of patience and discipline. Eh, who knows. So hard to figure out. That’s what you readers are for!

Tonight: $110 !
Running Total: $66, on the positive side again!

Paul P is gone. Paul went and got married and had himself a child. Since he hasn’t updated for six months, he’s outta here. Sorry Paulie!

Matt is in. In addition to regularly commenting on this blog, he has his own. Be a doll and send him some traffic.

It is well known how Dick Cheney has had his thumb on the scale for Halliburton throughout the Bush administration. A blatant conflict of interest. Only it turns out the conflict is not so blatant, as any profits he makes these days go straight to charity.

Matt Yglesias talks about the growing trend of parents holding their kid back a year so that they’ll be advanced relative to their class. With our oldest starting kindergarten in a couple weeks (by the way — who decided school starts in mid-August!? Absurd!) we’ve noticed this kind of jockeying from many parents.

I think it’s silly if not actually counter-productive. I would rather my child be around children who were a little bit more developed than him. It spurs him on. Maybe I’m being egotistical about his brains, but I think our kid will be bored a lot in school as is, if the level is dumbed down that much more it will be that much worse. Then there’s the overall time — you are robbing them of a year of adult life. When they are nineteen they don’t want to be stuck in school and you don’t want them around. It’s better for everyone if he grows up when it’s time to grow up.

Mrs. Muttrox adds: I couldn’t help contributing to this post as the education of young children is just about the only thing I can speak about with much authority these days. I’m split on this issue. I’ve seen kids “redshirted” for rational reasons- a child (usually a boy) who is slightly developmentally delayed and barely makes the age cut-off for kindergarten held back in pre-K for another year. Sometimes this makes sense. Kindergarten is not what it used to be. Many districts have all day kindergarten now. ALL kids are expected to be read, write, and understand fairly complex math concepts well before the end of kindergarten. Many boys just turning five are still working on the ability to sit still and follow directions for hours at a time, never mind accomplishing real academic milestones. Generally, girls at this age are better able to control impulses and have more developed verbal capabilities.Unlike what the article claims, this is the reason I’ve typically seen for the gender gap seen in higher education now. Girls start out ahead from the beginning and are more likely to naturally possess the skills lauded by teachers (listening, sitting still, following directions) which lead to continued success in school. I have a hard time believing the conclusion of the article that redshirting has led to gender inequality in higher education mainly because redshirting is a relatively new phenomenon which I doubt has had time to show such a long-term effect.

On the other hand, many parents in our area hold back boys with summer birthdays because of the “fear factor.” These boys are clearly ready for school but their parents feel that they will somehow be at a disadvantage by being younger, either immediately or in the future. I have heard future competitiveness in junior high sports used as a rational for keeping a child back. This seems to me yet another example of highly anxious suburban parents trying to micromanage their children’s lives in an attempt to ensure their future success. I also recently read that redshirting is further increasing disparities between high and low income children because this practice is a luxury of the prosperous. School is free day care, and many families simply can’t afford to pass it up. As a result, poorer children find themselves not only with less formal preparation for kindergarten (preschool, enrichment classes, etc), but also nearly a year younger than the more privileged children in their class. All that being said, I am relieved that our childrens birthdates coincidentally save us from having to make this decision.

Al Gore Places Infant Son In Rocket To Escape Dying Planet

Don’t feed the pigeons

Sandals plus Superglue equals awesome

Lance Armstrong never did this

You won’t count sheep to fall asleep after this

Wheee!

I don’t remember Iron Man drinking so many beers

Something is off about photo #7

McCain is really old

If you dream it, you can achieve it

Jesus in a Cheeto. The owner calls it “Cheesus”.

Nine authentic ads from the 1930s

30 greatest moments in found porn

Just put down the bong Mr. Mathematician

Mixed Messages

The (de-)evolution of the Hollywood fight scene

Paint Fireworks (Bravia Ad)

The Pirates Can’t Be Stopped

A different broken window theory in economics – does misfortune lead to growth?

The social policy of The Backyardigans

Just what MLK wanted for his legacy

Sex, Rock, and Reality

pwned in job interview questionnaire. Read the question, then read ptinsley’s reply on pg 2.

Shaq vs. Kobe, the gift that keeps on giving

A good editorial from David Brooks – the link between education and prosperity in the USA

Libertarian quote list

The Pareto curve of freedom

I felt the pressure. After the discussions here, I was ready to go in, get an early lead and start pushing. It was a good plan. The problem was the first part – getting the early lead.

Early hand: I have Q-7, call one player from the big blind. Flop is A-A-x. I figure I’ll make a stab at the pot. He turns out to have A-A underneath. I was lucky to have folded quickly in that one! Similar hands followed… I just never had anything to work with.

My worst hand of the night: I am big blind. One player limps in, small blind calls. I have A-9 suited. I thought to myself, do I push or call here? I should push. Yet I did not, I called. Flop completely missed me. Checks all around. Turn missed me too but I put in a bet to see if I could steal the pot. One guy stayed with me. The river was nothing. The other guy put in a big bet. I am convinced he has nothing also and I at least have an ace. I call. He had 5-6 suited and had caught the flush on the river. In my head I did a full Chris Farley monologue I’m so stupid stupid!!! It’s exactly the kind of thing commenters have pointed out – my passive play pre-flop allowed a marginal hand to stay in and catch the big hand. Arrghh!

So here I am, someone staying at half the average stack despite not having gotten a decent hand the entire night. With the exception of the above hand, I’ve played OK. Bluffed out some pots. Folded when I should have, etc.

The last hand: Blinds are 100-200, I have ~1300. I have K-3 suited in the big blind. One person puts in 400. I call. The flop is J-8-3. It’s time to push. But… that 400 bet was weird. The guy who bet it usually calls or raises big. What does that mean? Does that mean he’s testing me to steal the pot or does it mean he has very strong cards? I can’t read this guy. Eh, let’s do it. I go all in. I’m instantly called, he has a pair of 4s. I end up losing.

What is a pair of 4s doing calling an all-in bet with two higher cards on the board? Even at 2-1 odds it’s not that great, and he didn’t stop to calculate odds. So – I asked him, why did you call that? He said I took too long to decide, he thought I was bluffing. If I had pushed quickly he would have folded. I found that funny because on three other hands I had deliberately taken a very long time to decide an obvious move, exactly so that taking time later wouldn’t seem suspicious.

Anyhow, it sucked. I must have a good hand or two somewhere, but I don’t remember them. There’s no margin for error if you’re not getting cards and I made at least one big error.

Running Total: $-44

The New York Times recently had an interesting article about Tom Coburn, a Republican who puts holds in the way of lots of legislation. He is being dubbed Dr. No.

In the Senate, Mr. Coburn has continued down his singular path, driving Democrats and some Republicans to distraction with his prolific use of the “hold” — the ability of a single senator to object to moving ahead on a measure without a debate. He currently has holds on nearly 80 bills, the most of any senator.

It’s bizarre how much power one Senator has when he chooses to exercise it. But I read this very differently than the NYT does. Rules are rules. The entire idea of a hold is the villain here.
It’s a strange idea to allow one Senator the power to stymie 99 of them. But as long as it’s there, Coburn is right to use it.

The hold is not a magic bullet either. There is no reason that it has to honored. “Why in the world does the Republican leadership allow itself to be bullied by the rogue far right of its caucus, which has perfected the art of stopping good bills that help good people?” Mr. Reid asked.

So Reid has no problems honoring the Republican’s hold. But he sang a different tune before. When the godawful FISA legislation was working it’s way through, Chris Dodd put a hold on the excreable bill.

Dodd’s hold during FISA was not respected. Reid conspicuously ignored it. He treats holds from the GOP side with the utmost deference for Senate traditions.

I wanted to call this post, “Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game”. Don’t hate Coburn, hate the hold. But the player is Harry Reid. If he is willing to ignore the hold in one context then there is no reason not to do it whenever he wants. There is Dr. No, unless it’s Harry Reid.

And although I disagree with many of Coburn’s stands, I agree with one of his primary motivations, giving time to actually read the bill. There has been some truly awful legislation signed in the last eight years that Congressmen admit they had no idea they had voted on. Coburn does both sides of the aisle a service to read what he votes on, and to force time for others to do the same.

Update: Reason says it also, and then more.

Skepticism about U.F.O.’s may render us vulnerable to terrorists or espionage against the United States.

ON the afternoon of Nov. 7, 2006, pilots and airport employees at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago saw a disc-like object hovering over the tarmac for several minutes. Because nothing was tracked on radar, the Federal Aviation Administration did not investigate. Yet radar is not a reliable detector of all aircraft. Stealth planes are designed to be invisible to radar, and many radar systems filter out signals not matching the normal characteristics of aircraft. Did it really make sense to entirely ignore the observations of several witnesses?

A healthy skepticism about extraterrestrial space travelers leads people to disregard U.F.O. sightings without a moment’s thought. But in the United States, this translates into overdependence on radar data and indifference to all kinds of unidentified aircraft — a weakness that could be exploited by terrorists or anyone seeking to engage in espionage against the United States.

What is the right number of bad beats to get?

If you’re not getting any, you’re not playing aggressive enough. Let’s say there is a situation where you are favored 4-1. You should be going all-in with that every time. And one out of five times you will get beat. If you are never getting beat, you aren’t taking winning opportunities. But if you’re getting bad beated a lot, you’re doing something wrong. You’re putting all your chips at stake in coin flips too much. What data can you use to see how you’re doing?

I am reminded of NBA players who never foul out. If you are consistently playing 30+ minutes and only getting 1-2 fouls, you aren’t playing aggressively enough.

I’ve been hearing the same chorus of criticisms from the couple readers who care about my poker outings. So I reread all my poker posts and comments.

Observations:
1) More bad beats in there than I expected. I really don’t think I forget about my good beats – I was surprised to see how many times I went in with the best hand and lost.
2) I’m getting better at bluffing but it is still against my personality.
3) A lot of big hands that I write about could have turned out different if I had bet very aggressively on them.
4) I am an early chip leader a lot.
5) I don’t use a big chip stack to bully people, I use it to wait opponents out.

Conclusions:
1) I’m not that bad. Poker has a lot of luck in it. When you play a hand right, go in big with the better hand, but the other guy catches better cards – what can you do? And it’s happened to me more than it has to the other guy. As a statistics guy I know this is often a justification used by losers who aren’t observant and honest enough to remember what really happened. I don’t think I’m that way. When I’ve won due to good luck I’ve been upfront about it.
2) I need to bluff more. I’ve always known that.
3) I am not going to particularly concentrate on betting more aggressively within the big hand. The critics are right to see how some of my hands could have gone better with bigger betting. However, that is still a “could go better” not “would go better”. The harder question is how much better I did by not always being aggressive in hands. I’ve saved lots of money with well-read folds. Sometimes you bet aggressively and you end up losing it all. For the most part I’ve managed to avoid the “big mistake” hands. In addition you don’t want other players piegon-holing you as an always-raising player, you want to keep them confused. I don’t think any of them can read me or my bets and that’s how I like it. But the main reason is that I am instead going to concentrate on:
4) Bullying. Master Men, you’ve got me there. I need to use my big stack to intimidate other players, pick up cheap pots, keep them from ever being in hands against me. Don’t let them limp in. Keep them afraid of playing against me, keep them playing against each other and knocking each other out while I take a “big stack tax”.

That’s my resolve. When I’m ahead, act like it. Instead of playing for a seemingly-certain 3rd or better finish, I’ll use my stack continuously to keep getting richer.

I’ll keep you posted on results.

The stupidest game show contestant. (The best part may be the 3rd grader laughing at her.)

Cartoon ski accident

Rapping Sesame Street

French Lesson – at least it’s not lesson one.

Effective camouflage

Walmart codes for the intercom. Have fun!

Seeing-eye cat

All kinds of home-related breaks in the new housing bill

On the Costs of Parenting (bonus points for the post title)

Rush hits American TV for first time in 30 years – on Colbert Report. And they play Tom Sawyer on Rockband.

Synchronized Motorcycling (from 1950s)

The power of suggestion in voting: ” Essentially, people whose voting booth is located in a church are more likely to put more weight into social issues, people voting in fire houses care more about safety, and people voting in a school tend to put more weight on things like education.”

The Mole strikes in Don’t Ask Don’t Tell hearings
Moveon.Org turns 10

Adding more roads can reduce speed of traffic

More on Benford’s law. A great five minute video.

The cost of immigration restriction

Sports:
NFL players intelligence, by position

The kinds of pick up basketball players. (another take on it)

The worst player in Madden 2007 responds.

Patriots trying to move on for the New Year.
Key Quote:

The Patriots play the league’s easiest schedule, according to the 2007 won-loss records of their opponents.