Author: Muttrox

At work yesterday, on my way up to the 6th floor, the elevator stopped at the 4th floor. A man got in, pressed the button for 5. He was not carrying anything, and appeared to be in good health. As we got in, he apologetically said to me, “Don’t let me take your time.”

I don’t think I had a choice.

Tapped commented on this LA Times Op-Ed by Jonah Goldberg:

The 11th Commandment for liberals seems to be, “Thou shalt not intervene out of self-interest.” Intervening in civil wars for humanitarian reasons is OK, but meddling for national security reasons is not. This would explain why liberals supported interventions in civil wars in Yugoslavia and Somalia but think being in one in Iraq is the height of folly. If only someone had thought of labeling the Korean conflict a humanitarian intervention back then, we might not face the horror and the danger from North Korea today.

Goldberg’s thesis is easily disproved by looking at Afghanistan. The invasion there was clearly in the national interest, and clearly not a humanitarian issue. Liberals supported the invasion then, as did everyone. Liberals have not reneged on their support. Afghanistan has never been a contentious issue, precisely because that war was so clearly in the national interest.

QED.

(This is slightly edited from the comment I left there.)

OK, a couple comments.

Tuesday Morning Quarterback said:

There was a colossal hidden play at the endgame — hidden plays being ones that never make highlight reels, but stop or sustain drives. Game tied with 8 minutes remaining, New England had first down on the Indianapolis 18. Reclamation project Reche Caldwell, who’s had a fine year, lined up right and was uncovered by any Colt. He waved madly for Brady to snap the ball and toss it his way. When Brady finally did — nothing but turf between Caldwell and the end zone — Reche dropped the pass as if it was a live ferret. New England settled for a field goal, four lost points helping determine the outcome.

That’s as true as far as it goes. But this was not a hidden play, it was an in-your-face oh-my-god we-just-blew-it are-we-really-the-Patriots why-don’t-we-pay-for-a-real-reciever play. What’s more, it was Caldwell’s second play like that. Earlier he had dropped another perfect pass when he was wide open. Luckily for him, the Pats scored a touchdown anyhow, so it was quickly forgotten. But when your number one reciever can’t catch a ball that’s right to him, you are in trouble.

I am also annoyed at the Manning is better than Brady talk. Manning deserves every bit of credit for this game, but it doesn’t take away from Brady that the last-second miracle didn’t happen this time. Brady scored 34 points against Indianapolis. That’s a lot of points. Only one other team did better (Jacksonville, week 13, 44 points). Any other week, 34 would have been plenty. The fact that the defense gave up 38 points doesn’t take away from this achievement.

And finally, the Pats defense. Still giving Manning and the Colts their due, but that was not the Patriots defense out there in the second half. That was a bunch of tired old men. The team was still exausted from their upset over the number one team the week before, and they had the flu. Anyone who has watched the Patriots defense play throughout the season could tell this was not the same thing, not at all.

At any rate, no matter how it happens, you got to hand it to the Colts, they finally got to the big one. I have no doubt they will eviscerate the Bears. And if nothing else, I’m going to enjoy watching Prince at halftime.

Readers have asked me to comment on the game. I can’t do it yet. I can’t read about it yet. I will merely say that Rechee Caldwell should be summarily shot. Possibly Bob Kraft also for not spending the money to get a real recieving corps.

God, I can’t believe it.

OK Gillette, you got me.

Your ads are annoying and absurd. Your product strategy is ridiculous (throw more and more baldes on a razor.) I am bothered that my beloved Patriots play in “your” stadium.

And yet. A month ago, they sent me one Gillette Fusion razor in the mail. When I went on a weekend trip, I decided to take it instead of my regular razors. And darned if it wasn’t about the best shave I’ve gotten in my life. It was everything they said. Smooth, responsive, and a great shave. OK, so a supermodel didn’t stroke my face hungrily when I was done, but at least my wife didn’t groan in pain when I kissed her.

My old razors costs about $25 for a 20-pack. These cost about $40 for a 16-pack. So the cost is twice as high, per blade. It was hard to bring myself to really commit. However, let’s leave out percentages and think in absolute dollars. For me, a razor lasts for 2 shaves, 2 days apart, or 4 days per blade. So I need about 90 blades a year. That’s a little over $100 difference. Is it worth $100 over the course of a year to get a better shave? Probably, but I was still unsure. (That’s an underestimate. I don’t shave on weekends or most vacations. I basically shave every other workday, so that’s 280 days / 4 = 70 blades.)

Two things tipped the scales for me. One was that when I mentioned this to Big Scotty, he admitted he had completely folded and was a devoted user. Second, I realized that because this has so many blades, it doesn’t wear out as quick. I’m getting 3 or 4 shaves per blade. If it costs twice as much, but lasts twice as long, it’s effectively the same price, right?

I folded. They got me.

Update (June, 2007): I just finished my first pack of 20 blades. Five months for one pack? That’s amazing! Some of this is due to the introduction of casual Friday at work, reducing my usage to twice a week. But still.

Animator vs Animation (very clever)

Best headline ever: World’s tallest man saves dolphin And it’s true!

Don’t keep asking ”Why?” if your Dad is a chemistry professor.

Dance, Monkeys, Dance! Probably the only time I will ever link to a poetry reading. A dern funny one.

The Man of 100 Voices – 100 impersonations in five minutes. Very impressive.

The best job in the world. Every sentence gets funnier.

You may have noticed Muttroxia’s latest upgrade — guest blogging. We kick it off with a movie review of Rocky by “LilBro”. Enjoy!

If you’re interested in guest posting, drop me a line.

I have an infant son, he’s 15 months old. He is a terrible sleeper. Whereas our older son has fallen out of bed onto his head and slept through it, this one wakes up if you’re in the room and breathe hard. It’s like being around the Indians in an old movie, if you step on a twig, you’re dead.

Today the rest of the family was out, so I was in charge of him and his morning nap, which is usually about 90 minutes. After that, he wakes up screaming. But he kept sleeping today. It had been almost two hours.

Option A: Wake him up. He cries. No one is happy.
Option B: See if he’s sleeping. Inevitably some small noise is made when I check, he wakes up and starts crying.
Option C: Let him sleep. He cries when he wakes up, so I’ll know when he’s ready to come out. Kind of mean-sounding, but effective.

I went with Option C.

So Mrs. Muttrox comes home, goes to check on him and reports he’s been sitting up in the crib making quiet little contented noises, and looks like he’s been doing it for a while. Obviously, I haven’t checked on my own son for some time. I look like the putz Dad.

You can’t win.

Overall, it was great!

For one thing, it’s the first Bond movie in decades that’s based on one of the actual Ian Fleming books. Loosely based, to be sure, but based. And they took the opportunity to “reboot” the franchise. Bond is now much more human in interesting ways. Sure, he’s emotionless — but that’s explicit. More importantly, he gets hurt and he exerts himself. It takes effort to do things. He sweats, he goes all-out, he gets bumped, and his hair does get mussed while doing it. It reminded me a lot of the two Bourne movies, which I also enjoyed for the exact same reason. Action sequences that are reasonably realistic are much more exciting than comic book fights. Any given stunt or fight should give you the impression, “That’s wild, and implausible, but not laughably impossible.” (It does have the usual motivation plot problems, which Easterbrook nails (scroll down to “Bunk”.)

So a big thumbs up. With that said, here are two things that bothered me.

1) Continuity. Having recurring characters and story arcs that span more than one movie makes a series infinitely stronger. Most movies can’t afford to do this. It’s so hard to get a hit that you don’t want to spend precious minutes laying the groundwork for a sequel that may not ever happen. So all the girls get killed, all the villains get defeated, everything gets wrapped up with a nice bow, because you get the biggest bang for your movie-making buck that way. But the Bond franchise is different. There is always going to be another Bond movie next summer, so you can invest in the future and make it that much stronger. Have a villain get away. Have the trail go cold. Have the girl he loves survive for a couple of years for once, would that kill you?

2) Poker. In the book (which I read many years ago), the game is Baccarat. Baccarat has no element of skill, and no one in America understands how it’s played. It’s a very stupid game. So the writers made a smart move and changed it to poker. More current, more chances for Bond to do clever things, and more familiar to the audience. But the poker was terrible — just awful from top to bottom.

There was no poker skill displayed – In every important hand, the players win by having a great hand. In the first half of the movie, Bond wins a sports car by having the nut aces when the other guy has kings. Whoo, that took some serious skill! In the final hand, Bond pulls a straight flush, which beats out two separate full houses and a three-of-a-kind. Strangely, he makes a big dramatic pause before decding to call the all-in bet. In any normal game, his reaction would be instantaneous, “You bet I’m in, you blood-spurting freak! Take a peek at these babies, I like to call them Nut One and Nut Two!” Or something along those lines. At any rate, the point is that it doesn’t take any poker skill to get dealt a great hand. It takes skill to take terrible cards and bluff everyone away and still win. That might actually require the best poker player in the service (which they claim Bond is).

The tells — no great poker player has a tell so obvious. If they have any.

The betting increments were insane. I see your $50,000 and raise you another $50,000. Big deal, standard raise is up to $200,000 or so. Anything less is a terrible bet. No one ever raised enough to scare anyone out of a pot.

There were too many people on big hands. On the winning hand, why would anyone stay in with trips? There’s all kinds of great cards on the boards, three other players in the hand, let them fight it out. That’s how you win a tourney.

Why did the CIA send such a bad player to play? What’s the point of that? Much as I like the Felix character, and making him black worked great, it didn’t make any sense for him to be there.

In fact, the whole game didn’t make any sense. The plot is that the bad guy is such a good poker player that in a $150 million winner-take-all tournament, he is such a threat to win that both the Americans and Brits infiltrate the game with their best players to try and stop him. First of all, no one is that good. At a 15 person table of top players, the best poker players in the world might have a 1 in 3 shot vs. a 1 in 15 shot. That’s why no-names keep winning the WSOP. And if the bad guy is really that good, why is he screwing around with financing terrorism, manipulating world stock markets, and working with people who like to chop his hand off? The heck with that, just become a professional high-stakes poker player. A lot easier, a lot more legal, a lot more fun — and with that bleeding eye schtick, your endorsements would be through the roof.

But even so, I liked it!

Him: …is it true Dad?
Me: What – what are you talking about?
Him: Dad! Is it true! — that if you try you get what you need, but you don’t always get what you want?

Me: Um.. It’s kind of complicated. It’s mostly true.

Most guys knows that the most comfortable bed in the house isn’t even a bed. It’s the couch. Naps are more effective. When I can’t sleep at night, I head off the the couch to get some Zs. That’s one of the great guy secrets: If you’re mad at us, we don’t mind sleeping on the couch. It’s fun. So I brought up the obvious big questions with Mrs. Muttrox.

Why don’t they make a whole bed that’s made out of couch?

Me: Hey, why don’t they make a whole bed that’s made out of couch?
Her: What?
Me: You know, just make it official. I already use it as a bed, and I get a better sleep than on our fancy mattress upstairs.
Her: No. That doesn’t make any sense.
Me: What doesn’t make sense about it?
Her: I’ll tell you what doesn’t make sense about it. What doesn’t make sense about it is that- What does that even mean, a couch that’s a bed?
Me: I dunno, I guess take a couch, make it wider so two people can fit- sort of like two couches facing each other- something like that. I’m not an engineer.
Her (getting increasingly annoyed and incredulous that she’s taking the time to even have this conversation): That is the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.
Me: We could make millions.
Her: How are you going to put sheets on it?
Me: You don’t need sheets.
Her: You don’t need — what are you talking about, or course you need sheets!
Me: When you sleep on a couch, you sleep in your clothes.
Her: You have to have sheets! That’s disgusting!
Me: No, it’s not! You don’t say it’s disgusting when we take naps on the couch!
Her: You are gross. And you better not have taped over Desperate Housewives for some dumb cartoon again!

Many of my readers know the drill by now. Criminals buy a bunch of some random penny stock. They send out spam email to hundred of millions of people, touting the stock. Almost all those people are just annoyed, but there are always a few suckers. They buy the stock. Stock goes up. Within a day or two, the criminals sell out, taking their profit with them, leaving the suckers to hold the bag. Recent research (Frieder, Laura and Zittrain, Jonathan, “Spam Works: Evidence from Stock Touts and Corresponding Market Activity”) has shown this is suprisingly effect, netting over 5% on average. Not bad for a few days work.

I always wonder whether you can’t make money even as a sucker. As long as you’re one of the first suckers in, and one of the first suckers out, maybe you’re not a sucker.

Let’s say you respond to the email, and you’re one of the first people who does. Then the stock price will not have risen much. Shortly after you bought, there will be a flood of new suckers who will push the price up. Now you sell, one of the first people to do so. You get out with profit.

In essence, you let someone else do the manipulation and the spamming, you just ride their coattails. You won’t make quite as much as they did, but you ought to be able to get some profit.

The trick in this is – how do you ensure that you are one of the first people to get in on it? You don’t know when it was sent out, you don’t know when other people received the email, all you know is when you got it. But what you can reasonably assume is that most people would think about it for a while. Your advantage is to act instantly. The sooner you act, the better your odds are of being one of the first buyers. You won’t always be right, but overall you should beat the system.

I haven’t done this. I never would, not my thing. But I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. My wife (per usual) thinks it’s one my stupider ideas, but I don’t see any real objection to it.

Update: On further review there is a simulator based on the data the authors used. Fun to use, but the time detail isn’t fine enough. Everything is at a daily level in their research, whereas I would suggest a strategy that lasts at most one day.

They also add an interesting corrolary (on page 24): “Overall, our results imply that, in theory, a spammee could profit by forming a zero-cost portfolio that entails buying non-tout stocks and shorting tout stocks each time he or she recieves a spam touting stock. This strategy would have a high expected return (7.92%)…”