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Sunday, December 20th, 2009
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whipartist
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OK, no surprise that I went running tonight. I was planning to do one more extended day of week 4, but as I was driving to the gym I changed my mind. "OK, stop being lazy. There's no reason you can't move on to week 5, so just do it."
I did it. Well, sort of. W5D1 is supposed to be three iterations of a five-minute walk followed by a three-minute run. The only thing is, I was doing this from memory rather than having consulted the schedule, so I didn't quite do it right. W5D2 is an eight-minute run, a five-minute walk, and an eight-minute run. (W5D3 is a 20-minute run. I'm pretty sure that's not humanly possible, but I digress.)
I got myself a little bit confused about W5D1 and W5D2. I wound up doing a five-minute run, a 3-minute walk, an 8-minute run, a 5-minute walk, and a 5-minute run. I'll count that as having done W5D1, even if it wasn't 100% to spec. You guys can be the judges, though. Is 5-3 8-5 5 >= 5-3 5-3 5? Edit: It turns out my memory wasn't 100% faulty. What I actually did is W6D1 rather than W5D1.
I also finished it up with a pseudo-sprint-- for the last minute of the last run, I increased my pace by 1MPH. Yeah, that kicked my ass, but what can I say? I was bored. I tried running a couple of minutes tonight without counting steps, and that sucked-- I was sure I'd done like two minutes, but it was actually 45 seconds.
At midnight on a Saturday night, 24-Hour Fitness is pretty damned empty. I could have grabbed any treadmill in the house.
And for those who guessed at the lyrics from last time, yes. That's from the London recording of Cats.
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Saturday, December 19th, 2009
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Friday, December 18th, 2009
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whipartist
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 There's a Walgreens near my office. It's in the middle of the urban jungle, but there's a small parking garage next door for customers of the store. It's hard to see the layout from this photo, but when you pull into the garage there are two spaces on the right, a wall, three spaces, and the back wall. On the left there are four or five spaces with a dividing wall. In this photo you can see one of the spaces on the right, the dividing wall, and then three spaces behind it. You can also see a part of one of the spaces on the left, and the dividing wall that hides two more spaces. The dark blob in the back right corner of the garage is my car.
This is, admittedly, not a large garage. And yet, most of the customers are there for 15 minutes or less, so it doesn't have to be very big. This morning I tossed my car in the garage briefly while I dropped off a prescription on my way to work.
When I came out, someone had parked smack dab in the middle of the garage, blocking in all of the cars in the back stalls. It wasn't that he had no other options-- there were two empty spaces in my section, and a few others elsewhere. There's no chance at all that all of the spaces filled and then emptied during the five minutes that I was in the store.
I looked around for the owner, then waited a bit. When he didn't show in a few minutes, I pulled out my phone to snap a photo. Just as I did, the owner came out. "I'm leaving now."
"Good!" I kept composing.
"I said I'm leaving now."
"Thank you. I'll be able to get my car out and get to the meeting that I'm now late for." I snapped the photo.
No apology for the inconvenience, no remorse, nothing. Just indignation that I was photographing his faux pas.
Dear Mr. 6KJR767: You are a flaming jackass. Have a nice day!
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Comments: Read 8 or Add Your Own.
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dmorr
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The last two posts have talked about folding KK as an overpair on the river to the third postflop bet after calling the previous two streets. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) jnala commented:Folding KK on the river might be appropriately exploitive against some real-world opponents, but I can't imagine it's optimal play. That makes your range for calling the river after calling the flop and turn... what, just JJ? 99 if you happened to raise over a limper with it? Maybe AA, though your argument seems equally strong for folding that? Seems like you're making it profitable for the BB to lead every street with any two on a ragged rainbow board. So there's two sides to the optimal play argument here. If I fold the river, that encourages my opponent to fire every street with any two. But if I call enough, then he has a very simple winning strategy.
So let's make some simplifying assumptions here. He's going to fire two thirds of the pot on every street, and I'm going to call him until the river, then fold unless I have a set, say. So he's putting in, for a pot after the preflop action p, 2p/3 + (2/3*7p/3) + (2/3*49p/9) = 5.85p, which wins him 3.2p in money he didn't bet postflop when I fold. So in order for him to be indifferent to bluffing that way, I need to call on the end about 40% of the time. (Feel free to check my math.)
But actually sometimes I have better than a pair. I have a set sometimes too, so I can reduce my calling percentage by that much. So if my distribution is JJ+ on the river on a J high raggy board, I have 21 hands and I need to call 8 or 9 of them to make 40%. I'm certainly not folding the three top set hands (remember if he's bluffing a raise is the same as a call), so I need to call say 6 more hands of my remaining 18. Well, I could call with aces and fold kinds and queens -- and this strategy is also good in that it means if he played QQ or KK or even AA in a weird way, I don't lose money by calling with my queens.
Ok, so folding the KK and calling with AA is looking reasonable. How does this change if my distribution is wider? Well... it depends on how much wider it is in what way. The more hands that I have, the more I have to call on the river. So if I got here with TT (932 J 8 board), now I need to call with a couple of the KK hands -- but if I got here with 99 as well, that balances that out. Both those hands probably would have raised at some point already though -- the TT on the flop to protect against overcards, and the 99 on the turn for value, though it flat calls sometimes too. I'm not getting here with AK or 88 I don't think.
Ok, let's look at this from the other side. Suppose I will pay off all the way with a big pair. Then an opponent can call with certainly any small pair and just bet it all the way, since he stands to win 6.85p -- and since he's calling something like 1/3p preflop, he's getting over 20:1 implied odds. That's pretty good when he flops a set once every 8 times or so.
Now, it's not actually that bad because sometimes I have AK and just fold when he flops his set (though sometimes I hit my A or K as well), and sometimes I have random suited connectors and so on which also won't pay off, and in fact the more of those hands that I have, the worse his implied odds are. But agreeing to pay off 20:1 definitely sounds like too much. Calling the river a third of the time with my big pairs means he makes only 14:1 when he wins, plus some of the time he gets stacked when I flop a set, and sometimes I get to just fold. So that's a strong argument for folding some of those one pair hands to the third postflop bet.
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Comments: Add Your Own.
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whipartist
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I ran again tonight... just got home from the gym. W4D3e is in the bag.
This time, I managed to do a full W4Dx precisely as scheduled, with no extra long walks. I'm not sure what changed, but things sort of felt easier. Pushing my way through the long running sections was still boring and annoying as all hell, but my heart rate seemed to come down much more quickly during walks. Maybe the ten-minute run did something? Or maybe I'm just getting into shape a little bit more? Who knows?
Today, rather than counting the steps for five minutes, I counted the steps for one minute and then did that five times. It's just mental games, but it seemed to help at least a little. Maybe. Or maybe I just wasn't working quite as hard.
This is also the first week 4 day that I haven't gotten off the treadmill feeling like I wanted to curl up in a corner and collapse. That has to be a good sign.
I think I'll do at least one more day of W4 before trying to move on. If it still feels doable, I'll try W5.
Oh, and here's a slightly obscure showtunes lyric-- one I'd never heard until tonight. Without searching, can you identify it?
The usual dog about the town
Is much inclined to play the clown
And far from showing too much pride
Is frequently undignified
A small hint: it's from the London recording of a show. The Broadway lyrics for this song changed quite a bit.
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Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.
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Thursday, December 17th, 2009
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whipartist
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Someone on my backgammon server just shouted this:
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year-old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
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Comments: Read 9 or Add Your Own.
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Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
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whipartist
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I just got back from the gym.
As you may recall, the normal week 4 is five minute warmup walk, three minute run, 1.5 minute walk, five minute run, 2.5 minute walk, three minute run, 1.5 minute walk, five minute run, five minute cooldown walk. This particular workout has been severely kicking my ass, so I've been adding more time to the walks. Tonight went like this:
Warmup walk, three minute run. OK, I'm tired, and a 90-second walk isn't going to do it-- I'll do two minutes.
Five minute run. ARGH, this sucks. Man, how can people do this? This is the most boring thing I can imagine doing. Push push, I want to quit, but I'm too stubborn, but man do I want to quit. Man, that chick next to me has a great ass. OK, only a minute left. Nice rack too. Plod, plod, yawn, OK, five minutes is up, thank god. Three minute walk.
Three minute run. OK, three minutes doesn't entirely suck. It's dull, but it takes about two and a half minutes for me to get well and truly bored, so I can do this. Three minute walk, because my heart rate wasn't quite down to where I wanted it to be after two.
Five minute run. Hate this. Hate hate hate. Oh man, the chick with the rack quit already, and she looked like she was about to die after running for two minutes. Wimp. Wait, why do I do this to myself? This running thing sucks. Three minutes down, two to go. I need a nap. Run run run. I'll check my heart rate to break up the monotony. The Knight Rider animation on the monitor is cute. OK, heart rate of 144... about what I expected, and pretty close to the top of where I want to be. Man, this is boring. Only a minute to go... that's 70 steps to count, roughly. Ten, twenty.
OK, I've done five minutes. Hmm. I wonder if I can do one more? I'll try it. 60, 65, 70, wow, I can. Maybe another one?
60, 65, 70, holy crap. I've run for seven straight minutes. Can I do eight?
OK, this is still boring. Let's check my heart rate. Hrmm. OK, 147, holding steady. I'm not dead yet. 60, 65, 70, eight fucking minutes. WHOA!
Heart rate is holding steady in the high 140s. Let's keep going. Man, this is dull, but I can do one more minute. 60, 65, 70. NINE!
Nine. That's not a round number. Ten is a round number. I think I'm still alive, my heart rate is 146, do it. Do it. Still bored, though. Oooh, that guy has a nice tattoo. Plod plod plod. 30 seconds left. 20. 10. Get ready to reach for the speed dial.
JAYZUS KEERIST! I JUST RAN NONSTOP FOR TEN MINUTES! TEN FUCKING MINUTES!
So I don't really know what to make of this. I'm pretty sure that if I'd set out to do ten minutes I would have failed miserably-- it's too big a chunk of time for my brain to cope with, and I don't see enough mental progress bars to make myself keep going. But I could slippery slope my way into it.
I listened to music this time rather than This American Life, which may have helped. I don't know for sure, but maybe it distracts a different part of my brain. Most of the run still felt pretty sucky, though, like I really had to force myself through it. It didn't feel good. And I'm pretty sure I still couldn't really do a W4Dx without modification.
Maybe I'm getting better, though. I felt significantly less dead at the end of this run than after the last one.
And I'm working on getting a new controller board for the treadmill.
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Comments: Read 10 or Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
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loser_variable
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This was one of my all time favorite shows. Pity they made so few episodes.
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Monday, December 14th, 2009
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dmorr
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I posted a poll about a river play in wrgpt where I had cowboys facing a third postflop bet. In the real world, say at the wsopme, I'd be looking for a reason to fold. There were no draws on the flop, so he can't be semibluffing, and his only made hands that I beat on the flop are a 9 or an overpair. The 9 is not going to keep betting, and the overpair really shouldn't either. So I have to hope he either exactly has QQ and decided to slowplay preflop, that he has AK and fired with air on the flop and got there and is still firing, or that he's randomly three-barreling with nothing. Because it's wrgpt the last seemed unusually likely, so I called. He had JJ that spiked a set on the turn.
My nice win streak at lucky chances also came to an end. I was down about 2000 with 3000 in front of me when I played the following hand. I open from the middle with AJ for 60, three callers and a blind defender come along. The flop is a pretty (AJ)3. I bet 200, the player immediately after me with whom I've never played raises to 700 (he has me covered), and a loose chasing player cold calls (1700 back), folded back to me.
Hm. I can pretty confidently put the cold call on a flush draw. This is not a board to slowplay on, and I think he knows that. What about the other guy? He could have 33, or AQ, or maybe AK, or some kind of draw. I'm not sure what he'd do with a weaker A. He's a middle aged white guy, so probably just call. 33 seems pretty likely, but I decide that there are enough other hands for me to raise again here. There's no reasonable sized raise to make that doesn't pot commit me, so I jam. Both plays call, and I'm up against 33 and K2s flush draw. The 33 holds up.
I'm not sure what I think of this hand, actually. I do have top two, which is strong, but a set sure does seem likely. On the other hand I don't really see folding here or on the turn when I look like a scared one pair by calling the flop. Maybe a better play is to call and then bet like $1k on the turn if the flush draw doesn't get there, and just fold if I get raised. That seems exploitable though.
The problem is that the pot is big because of all the people in preflop, so I don't have much maneuvering room. Calling and check-calling the turn doesn't seem good either, since the set can charge me while the draws get a free card. Anyone have any better ideas?
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Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.
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dmorr
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I'm still selling my car. Some of the responses have been pretty amusing.
For instance, there's this:When is a good time for me to come take a look? I want to make sure I can afford the insurance, but I couldn't get this quote to go through on my dial up connection. (slowwww) Can you do me a huge favor and go to Auto Quotes and see how much the average quote is for our area? Thanks so much! "Auto Quotes" links to www.realtimedirect.com, which I'm not linking to because I have to think this is a phishing/trojan attempt. Looking at it via lynx, that loads the content frame from www.481937.com... which actually looks like it's advertising a car insurance broker. So maybe this is just spam and not something more nefarious.
I've gotten multiple phone calls from some sort of used car listing agency in nevada that wants to sell my car for me, a spam text offering no credit loans, but also several apparently sincere inquiries. I had someone drive here from Berkeley today to take a look. He claims to have looked at 13 boxsters over the last few weeks trying to find one he liked. He told me he could afford $13k instead of my asking $15k, but that he'd try to raise some more money, and anyway I should call him if the price drops. He seemed pretty serious, actually, even getting down and peering at the underside of the car from all four sides. Very friendly. But I'm going to hold out for more money.
I'm showing it to someone else tomorrow, and two others have asked to see it but haven't replied to my reply. So we'll see.
Worse comes to worse, I can just use a broker and pay a little to avoid the headache. I'll put up with it for now, though.
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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whipartist
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I'm off the hook for the stress test today-- the cardiologist has the flu.
Damn. And I've been studying for it and everything.
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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whipartist
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I'm home from Nebraska. Mom was very happy to see me, even though it was a brief visit.
As my plane taxied to the gate at OAK, I thought to myself, "I should go home and go running." And I did. Modified W4D3c is done, with the ongoing modification of making the walks longer than the program calls for. One would think that this should be getting easier, but it isn't. In fact, I'm starting to reach the point where running is just boring hard work, and it's not fun anymore. I'm not sure what to do about that, but I'll ride it out for a while and see what happens. I'm still making myself do it, though, which impresses me.
24 Hour Fitness is way less mobbed at 11 p.m.
Tomorrow I get to go do a cardiac stress test. As my doctor said, 99% chance that everything is fine, but it's worth the test to catch that 1%. He saw a tiny irregularity in my EKG. That combined with the fact that I was getting dizzy, even though we're both pretty sure that we know what the underlying cause of the dizziness was, makes it worth the time/cost. I think I add another 9 or two to the calculation-- the dizziness went away once we cut back on high blood pressure medicine.
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Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.
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Saturday, December 12th, 2009
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whipartist
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So I'm in Nebraska right now, visiting mon and her husband for the night. The only thing is, we kinda neglected to tell her I was coming.
She directs a bridge game on Saturdays. When I got here I wrapped my coat tight, pulled a scarf over my hair, and went in. "Hi! Is it too late to get into a game?"
"Yes, but you're welcome to stay and watch."
"Oh good." I reached up and pulled the scarf down, and her eyes got big.
I'm a brat. And everyone in the room knew I was coming, except mom.
P.S. It's freezing here! And there's white death all over the ground.
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Comments: Read 8 or Add Your Own.
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Friday, December 11th, 2009
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whipartist
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W4D... hmm, let's call it W4D3b is in the bag.
I'm sort of horrified, actually. I left for the gym around 8:15 this morning. WTF? I'm not usually even awake at that hour. 24 Hour Fitness was still busy, but less mobbed than when I went the other night. Thanks to @slamonella for showing me where to find a 17-day guest pass rather than the usual 7-day.
The run was better than the other day, but still kicked my ass. I'm still doing longer walks between runs than what the program calls, but I'm using my heart rate as a guide. I think I'm going to do at least two full week 4s before moving on, and at least two days of doing it without longer walks, before moving on. I'm starting to see how I eventually will be able to move on, although I'm not there yet. A few days ago it felt like I'd run to the end of the line.
Now, I need to pack, shower, and get to the office. I have a busy day and weekend ahead of me.
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Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.
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Thursday, December 10th, 2009
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whipartist
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Yes, there's a good reason for this. I'll explain later.
Poll #1497375 Pick a number
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: None, participants: 80Pick a number:
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Comments: Read 29 or Add Your Own.
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Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
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loser_variable
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This will sound contrived, but I assure you it was entirely coincidental.
Just this evening I was flipping through my copy of "System Reliability Theory." I do this because (a) being dateless frees up a lot of my time and (b) I regularly have to attempt to communicate with a pack of math PhD quants -- most of whom I swear to God don't speak a word of English -- and I like to have some sliver of an idea as to WTF they are talking about. I've probably mentioned this before, but I always sit there thinking they are saying "douchebag says what?" in Cantonese.
Anyway, I came across a gem of a quote. Emphasis is mine. It is from mathematical statistics pioneer Jerzy Neyman.
Every attempt to use mathematics to study some real phenomena must begin with building a mathematical model of these phenomena. Of necessity, the model simplifies the matters to a greater or lesser extent and a number of details are ignored. The success depends on whether or not the details ignored are really unimportant in the development of the phenomena studied. The solution of the mathematical problem may be correct and you may be in violent conflict with realities, simply because the original assumptions of the mathematical model diverge essentially from the practical problem considered. Beforehand, it is impossible to predict with certainty whether or not a given mathematical model is adequate.
That, more or less, is my point. We all know that, of course. It is not yet time to commit trillions of dollars on possibly fraudulent and to-date definitely failed models. Now, let me try [takes deep breath] not to be a dick which I realize is my nature, and say that at the evil for-profit I work for, if we built a model that said our plants would, for example, overheat badly in the next few years, and then said plants cooled for a decade and a half, I think you can imagine the fate of the model and, very probably, the modelers. I can sure as hell envision whether we would start unprecedented capital spending to address the unmanifested problem.
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
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whipartist
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I'm back at the gym after a two-week hiatus. I couldn't really find time or a place to run after I left Scotland, and after I got home I came down with a nasty cold.
My 7-day guest pass at Bladium ran out. I wanted to shop around before committing, so tonight I checked out 24-hour fitness as a guest. Before I go any farther, let me just say that Bladium is on the order of $60-70/month, and 24-hour Fitness is about $30/month with a screamin' deal from Costco of $300 for two years. I'm not really comparing apples to apples here-- more like apples to raisins.
I got there around 8:45 p.m., since the guest pass said I had to check in before 9 in order to register. All of the membership counselors were gone for the day, but they sent me in to work out anyway.
The place was mobbed. When I arrived, every single elliptical and treadmill was in use. Well, OK, not all of them-- of the 14 treadmills in the gym, five of them were out of order. I didn't count broken ellipticals, but there were certainly a few. After about ten minutes of waiting, a treadmill became available. It was unimpressive, obviously well-used, and fairly low-end in construction. It had a display labeled heart rate, though as far as I could tell it was just a random number generator. The machine didn't have grips for measuring heart rate.
The locker room was OK if uninspiring, and not nearly as skanky as reviews suggested. Maybe the men's locker room is worse?
As for the run itself, well, after two weeks off I didn't expect to pick up where I left off. I've technically finished W4D2, but I seriously considered going back to do a back-in-the-saddle W3D3. I compromised and decided to do a W4 day, but with longer walk intervals-- as long as I thought I needed before the next run. I got through it, but my ass has been well and truly kicked. There will definitely be a repeat of W4 before moving on. At least one.
And now, I seem to have a gym dilemma. Do I pay 4x the price for a significantly nicer place, but with fewer features? Or do I go for the cheap but crappy solution? I suppose I could check out other 24HF clubs, but the other one that's close to me has horrid Yelp reviews, and is in a worse neighborhood. I can also poke around for other options, but I haven't yet seen anything promising.
Or I could just fix the fucking treadmill and be done with it.
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Comments: Read 8 or Add Your Own.
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whipartist
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I know some of my friends are out of work, and most of you know someone who is job hunting. My company is hiring a bunch of people, mostly in San Francisco but also in NY, London, and a few other places. If you're interested in one of these positions, or know someone who is, let me know. http://videoegg.com/about/jobs/
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Comments: Read 9 or Add Your Own.
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Monday, December 7th, 2009
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whipartist
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I'm sure that most of us have already heard today's news story about McDonalds refusing to hire a transgendered teen. The voicemail message from the McDonalds manager is particularly, umm, enlightening.
I hate that this happened, and hate that this sort of bigotry exists in our society. At the same time, I love this news story. Not only have I seen the story passed around the web, but I just listened to it being delivered in a clipped British accent on the BBC. CNN doesn't seem to have picked it up, but both the NY Times and Fox News have the story on their sites. In all of the cases that I've found, the story is being reported in a very matter-of-fact manner, with no overtones of snickering or tittering. Even more important, they're doing it in a way that makes it obvious that McDonalds screwed up.
So what? This is actually a sign of progress, I think. Discrimination against TG people is alive and well, but to hear the press treat it like the abomination that it is gives me hope.
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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7 (8.8%)