Jerrod Ankenman's Friends

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This seems wrong in multiple ways
Am I to understand that people are having their babies' ears pierced these
days? Is this a recent trend or have I just never noticed?

The End of an Era
David Benyamine: i will neveer play u again u are too good i give my
promess

David Benyamine: well done

I have really enjoyed my sessions with David. It is very evident to me why he is often named among the top all around players. It has been interesting to watch him continually adapt his game against me, and do so in nuanced ways that I haven't seen anyone--even Patrik--do. (Sorry, I intend to keep them a secret.) Now, I do think some of his thresholds are a bit off, but it amazes me how his game is the target of so much criticism. Without knowing it was David, if you told me the guy I've been playing has been one of the biggest winners in poker over the last 20 years, I wouldn't have been surprised in the least; it's pretty clear to me that he has a great poker mind.

Things you don't want to hear the home-team announcers say
"And there's a change-up from Zito. Oh, wait -- it's at 84. Maybe a fastball."

UFC/WSOP/WSOP circuit
Just a quick, pointless, on-a-break-from-getting-hit-and-run-by-everyone-on-Stars update:

I booked my flight on Friday to go see UFC. I figured it's silly to fly back on Sunday only to fly back to Vegas on Thursday, so I'll just stay there until the WSOP begins.

sabyl reports no cell phones or MP3 players at the New Orleans circuit event. I'm sure all the people cheating using portable electronic devices will be stopped cold in their tracks.

With tragedy comes lawsuits; also, media bias?
Family of boy hit by baseball holds onto hope

The batter rocketed a shot off a 31-ounce metal bat. The ball slammed into Steven's chest, just above his heart, knocking him backward. He clutched his chest, then made a motion to reach for the ball on the ground to pick it up and throw to first base.

But he never made it that far. The ball had struck his chest at the precise millisecond between heartbeats, sending him into cardiac arrest, according to his doctors. He crumpled to the ground and stopped breathing.

Another tragic example of commotio cordis when there is a blow to just the "right"/wrong part of the chest during a very tiny window in the heartbeat cycle which disrupts the heart's rhythm.

I am deeply sorry for the family, and I understand the tremendous emotional and financial burden that has been placed upon them... but, lawsuits?

His family plans to file a lawsuit Monday against the maker of the metal bat that was used in the game, against Little League Baseball and a sporting goods chain that sold the bat. The family contends metal baseball bats are inherently unsafe for youth games because the ball comes off them much faster than from wooden bats.

IANAL, but isn't there something about implied assumption of risk? Commotio cordis is rare, but has made the news a lot precisely because of similar accidents, sometimes fatal, especially in youth sports.

Serious question, mostly directed at

schmengie and

rcfox for calibration purposes: is the linked AP article biased towards one side or the other in this story?

( More excerpts )

Golf is hard. Let's go shopping!
From the Canucks (appropriately enough) newsgroup:

Curtain Time
Curtain Time for Barack Obama, Part IV, was posted yesterday. This part details the pervasive corruption in Chicago politics, the first convictions, and how those involved just happen to be donating to Senator Obama--what a surprise! Part V will be posted next week.

Speaking of curtain time, we all may want to pay some attention to Chaitén, the volcano in southern Chile that is continuing to erupt. For reference, here's a picture of the volcano before it began erupting (from the global volcanism program):

The volcano is the bump in the center of the picture. The volcano is described as, "a small, glacier-free caldera with a Holocene lava dome located 10 km NE of the town of Chaitén on the Gulf of Corcovado."

A caldera is formed when land collapses following eruptions. Chaitén has already triggered small pyroclastic flows.

Meanwhile, the reports from Chile are not good. The volcanism blog is reporting the daily updates from Chile's Geology and Mine Service. They noted yesterday, "Changes in seismic activity indicate fragmentation and instability around the volcano’s central conduit and beneath the lava dome." The seismic activity makes me wonder:

"Over the past two days marked changes have been witnessed in the seismic activity [of the volcano]. A swarm of earthquakes, mainly of the HB [hybrid] type, has occurred, which is interpreted as related to a fracturing of the main conduit with subsequent ascent of magmatic fluids by the conduit and also through the dome. The later predominance of LP type earthquakes confirms the seismic instability of the system, the origin of which is related to the evident movement of magmatic fluids. In consequence there remains a certain possibility of future major explosions causing the destruction, in whole or in part, of the dome and the generation of pyroclastic flows through the collapse of the column. Nor can the possibility of new lateral explosions be disregarded."

The big question that must be answered--and is impossible to answer now--is how large is the magma chamber under Chaitén? If it's relatively small, an event might be on the scale of Mt. St. Helens or Pinatubo. Bad, but not horrendous. It could also be on a frightful scale, say like Tambora or Toba.

Meanwhile, a Jordanian Professor advocated this past week that suicide terrorists should use nuclear bombs. And he spent 13 years in the United States obtaining graduate degrees. Sheesh....

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: starting the lawn mower....

diversification in poker and martial arts
I did some standup (what people usually call "striking", after a long time away from it and focusing on BJJ (what people usually call "grappling"). I was expecting to be pretty terrible, and I was. My timing and reaction time is just way off. I'd get hit with jabs and push kicks over and over and be too slow to counter or even block. I just got beat up, but it was good. No one went beat me up too badly, and it's what I need to improve. Stuff will come back to me; I just need to put in my ring time and re-work the fundamentals.

Drawing an interesting parallel between my martial arts training and my poker, it's a lot like when I play poker games that are not shorthanded limit hold'em. I play all three flop games and their accordant structures well, but I've been focusing on LHE so long that the other games have suffered quite a bit. The state of the art in both poker and martial arts have both also advanced rapidly in the last few years.

In both cases, there's strong incentive to continue specializing in what I've been doing lately. I make more profit per hand in LHE games, and I have more fun and have more competitive outlets in BJJ. But to be more complete both as a fighter and poker player, I need to put in time on my less strong points (striking and wrestling in martial arts; all non-LHE games in poker).

One difference, I guess. I still make money in non-LHE games. All I get out of kickboxing is bruises.

This could get to be an expensive habit
So I came home from work today and was heading in the front door when Eloisa came out of the restaurant and said, "Stop and have a cockail!" And I looked in the restaurant and my upstairs neighbor was beckoning to me from the bar, so I stopped. Just for a quick drink, mind you. Lemme tell you, a soju mango mojito just doesn't suck in the least, no sirree.

And then a couple of other neighbors came in and sat down next to us at the bar. Somehow menus appeared in front of us, and then I wound up with a glass of tres delicious sangria, and then pan seared scallops with pancetta mashed potatoes. I blame it on the heat... if I went upstairs and cooked dinner it would make my loft too hot. Yeah, that's my excuse.

I didn't order the decadent chocolate thing. Nope, no sirree, was not me. However, I took the obligatory bite of it when it wound up in front of me. It was the polite thing to do, of course.

Twice in three days... this could be a very expensive habit.

People are just completely delusional
In a poll up now at Daily Kos, a plurality of people
say that they would refuse $1,000,000 if it meant they
had to permanently forfeit their right to vote.

Now, there may be a few people who really wouldn't, a couple
of percent (and we won't include those who already have
so much than an extra million is small potatoes -- that
must include a lot of the responders!)

I'm all for idealism in the face of important principles,
but this is just completely ridiculous.

Tired
this morning I did 75 pullups (kipping), 146 push ups, and 210 bodyweight squats in 20min. AKA 14.5 rounds of "Cindy". In retrospect, that seems like a lot of exercise. Especially with the heat. It makes me tired just thinking about, although it didn't seem bad at the time.

We got another air conditioner, but I was too tired to set it up. Maybe dinner will help?

Its gonna be a lazy weekend.

Interesting article on gravitational anomalies
This WSJ article is about the search for the cause of the Pioneer anomaly. It also mentions other anomalies I hadn't heard of before (the moon's orbit is seemingly off by 6mm/year, and the Earth-Sun distance seems to grow by a few inches/year, and in neither case do we know why).

biodiversity - the fear mongers are losing their minds
Mass extinction, global catastrophe, natural disasters and the end of life as we know it - and of course, we evil humans are the cause of it all!

I'm waiting for the scientist who comes out and boldly states that to save the planet, all humans should kill themselves.

It will always boggle my mind that so many people have such a hatred for mankind. I wish they would pretty much just fucking die and let those of us who actually understand the meaning of life enjoy it in peace.

Robert Mondavi, RIP
Famed Napa Valley vintner Robert Mondavi dead at age 94

Robert Mondavi, the charismatic Napa Valley vintner whose work helped establish California wines as among the world's best, died this morning. He was 94.

In the I-can't-help-myself department: he will be laid down in an wooden casket and is expected to take on a rich, earthy flavor over the next few decades.

Appeasement is all the rage
Poll #1189054 Appeasement
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Are you confident you could describe with reasonable historical accuracy what Neville Chamberlain actually did vis a vis appeasement?

View Answers

Yes
10 (43.5%)

No
9 (39.1%)

I have no idea who Neville Chamberlain is or was.
4 (17.4%)

I have no idea what appeasement is.
0 (0.0%)

They just don't make 'em like they used to
One of my poker buddies posted something on rec.gambling.poker complaining about California's recent gay marriage supreme court decision. One of his really bizarre concerns was that gay men might have sham marriages where one of them had health insurance and the other had AIDS. (We can safely ignore the fact that heterosexuals might have sham marriages for the same purpose.)

And then he posted this. When I got to the last sentence I had to make an emergency trip to IronyMeterMart.com. I got a six-pack.

Terrorists Attacking via Air Conditioners

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/05/terrorists_atta.html

From the DHS and the FBI, a great movie-plot threat: It is possible to introduce chemical or biological agents directly into external air-intakes or internal air-circulation systems. Unless the building has carbon filters (or the equivalent), volatile chemical agents would not be stopped and would enter the building untenanted. [...] Other scenarios involve the use of helicopters equipped with agricultural...

Children's Discovery Museum pics
Are here. Don't have time for detail, but I'll just say: water vortex open at top and bottom is pretty cool. Bernoulli-effect balls is even cooler - and simpler to implement. The balls with the short streams in the picture are totally stable, they just sit there. In the long-stream setup, the balls sit at the top for 1-10 seconds before falling.

Six Easy Steps
Politics is hard, but here are six easy steps to improve a partys fate under duress.

Executive Summary:
1. Have a message and stand for something.
2. Keep your dick in your pants.
3. Get lots of money.
4. Cut your losses and throw gimps under trains.
5. If the old message isn't working, get a new one. (see #1)
6. Appeal to voters hearts not their brains.

Crossing Borders with Laptops and PDAs

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/05/crossing_border.html

Last month a US court ruled that border agents can search your laptop, or any other electronic device, when you're entering the country. They can take your computer and download its entire contents, or keep it for several days. Customs and Border Patrol has not published any rules regarding this practice, and I and others have written a letter to...

splitting/toggling DVI signal
If my (notebook) computer has one DVI output, can I get a splitter to split the signal to both 1) an external monitor and 2) my TV, and toggle between which is the "active" output device?

Practical application: I want to use my monitor when I am surfing the web and doing stuff on the computer, and use the TV when I am playing poker (via gamepad in my lap). Right now I am just doing this by pulling out the cable from one device and plugging in the other.

Advice, and links to products will be greatly appreciated.

Stumbleupon
StumbleUpon must have gotten really popular lately. Either that or it really likes seasteading - it's one of our top 5 referrers (generating double the traffic of wikipedia). I remember noticing (and skipping it) awhile back b/c it looked like a good way to waste time on the internet. Glad it's sending time-wasting our direction!

Well, or spoofing our logs with bots. You never know.

Current Music: Love Hurts - Bon Jovi

What GE doesn't want you to know
I read a fascinating site today about how you can modify your car to run partly on water, and halve your fuel costs (I failed to find it again, but it was very like this one). In that spirit, I have some advice about dealing with the current heat wave.

Whether or not you own an air conditioner, it turns out that an ordinary household appliance can be used as a substitute. Specifically, the refrigerator. So if you need extra cool, just open its doors wide, and harness that cooling power for your house. Save hundreds of dollars by using the secret that big appliance makers don't want you to know.

This is a simple, affordable, Do-It-Yourself technology that anyone can use. And it doesn't even void your warranty! Many people have significantly altered the temperature in their homes through our technology - now it's your turn!

p.s. if my fridge sensibly vented its waste heat externally, instead of dumping it into my already-hot house, the spirit of this post would be rather different.

Current Music: Love Hurts - Bon Jovi