WoVCon: Spring, 2017
Well, she's telling someone something, but it ain't me.Quote: AxelWolfYou tell him BBB.
Unlike RS, who pointed another finger at me, I simply wrote about my overall impression and opinion of gambling, and a few of the persons who display its dysfunction, vicariously or not thus, on internet forums - somewhat careful not to call those persons dysfunctional, per se. (Like-mindedness doesn't refer to any particular person or group of people, per se.)
I had hoped for more from at least the admins here at this time. It's like you want me to be a "bad person" so that you may justify your own reason for being here, and summarily ban me in some sort of perverted political forum correctness.
For the record, I like it here, from time to time, because of all the disorder just waiting to be made sense of on some deeper level.
Quote: InTimeForSpace1Well, she's telling someone something, but it ain't me.
Unlike RS, who pointed another finger at me, I simply wrote about my overall impression and opinion of gambling, and a few of the persons who display its dysfunction, vicariously or not thus, on internet forums - somewhat careful not to call those persons dysfunctional, per se. (Like-mindedness doesn't refer to any particular or group of people, per se.)
I had hoped for more from at least the admins here at this time. It's like you want me to be a "bad person" so that you may ban me in some sort of perverted political forum correctness.
Spare me the justifications, please. I'm not going to parse your post; it was targeted at these readers in this forum. In several other posts, you pick nits on posts by teliot, bordering on insulting him. You can do better in both areas.
Quote: InTimeForSpace1
For the record, I like it here, from time to time, because of all the disorder just waiting to be made sense of on some deeper level.
Quote: RS"Hey Klaus, what's the capitol of Germany?"
Quote: WizardFor those who weren't there, that is an inside joke. At the poker game I bet $5 with AxelWolf that the dealer would know the capitol of Germany. He spoke in a German accent and was named Klaus, as evidenced from his name pin. Fortunately, he wasn't too insulted. He said, and I'm paraphrasing, "That would be Berlin, of course. A better question would be what was the capitol of the former West Germany?"
BTW, the same dealer game me $5 for knowing the capitol of Mongolia.
Some may have missed looking at it, but I took a picture of Klaus's name pin:
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I would like to thank everyone for an enjoyable meet-up. Thanks to Wiz (dinner/trivia/site), Axel (poker), PG(dinner), and anyone else involved in attending/putting this together.
I'm not demanding that you 'parse' anything, ie, in a minute fashion with regards to motive, etc. But, we have to read what is on the page, and at least attempt an interpretation beyond some simplistic means to glorify the site with some sort of "ad".Quote: beachbumbabsI'm not going to parse your post
It's my opinion that gambling writers make a lot more money than their readers. Not a pile, but more, especially considering the lifelong miserable addictions of most of them (the readers).
Romanto-intellectualism is a valid psychological term, and there's nothing wrong with asking him to consider it. It's like specific gambling subjects, and those of gambling, itself, are completely off-limits here. Not a surprise, but not refreshing either.
Targeted at readers here, who else?
Quote: beachbumbabsBtw, I'm almost positive her name is MADGE, not MARGE. Fwiw.
You're right. I don't know what got into me there. Old age I guess.
Quote: InTimeForSpace1Romanto-intellectualism is a valid psychological term, and there's nothing wrong with asking him to consider it. It's like specific gambling subjects, and those of gambling, itself, are completely off-limits here. Not a surprise, but not refreshing either.
Targeted at readers here, who else?
What are you talking about?
Your posts make little if any sense.
Enough gobbly-gook: just speak plainly.
Quote: WizardI would like to congratulate billryan for winning the 2017 Trivia Challenge. He score was 5.5, if I remember correctly. Here were the questions.
1. In 1957, which piano player allegedly lit his piano on fire to upstage Chuck Berry?Jerry Lee Lewis. Here is a video of the alleged incident.
2. Which island is known as the Ellis Island of the west coast?Angel Island. It's near Alcatraz, a frequent guess.
3. What was the cause of death of Edith on All in the Family?Phlebitis
4. In an advertising campaign in the late 60's who said "You're soaking in it" and what was her profession? (0.5 points for each)Madge the manicurist.
Who can forget Madge?
5. According to Tommy Tutone, what is Jenny's phone number?867-5309
6. According to the 1981 movie Heavy Metal, was is the name for the glowing orb at the center of the movie?The Loc-Nar
7. What are director Barry Levinson's four "Baltimore Films"? (0.25 points for each one)Diner, Tin Men, Liberty Heights, Avalon
8. From 1972 to 1978, Harvey Milk served on the Board of Supervisors for which district of San Francisco?The Castro District
9. Whenever Bugs Bunny got lost, it was usually because he neglected to take a left turn where?Albuquerque. I saw some truly awful spellings on that one.
10. What was the name of the Beagle that Lyndon Johnson help up by the ears?Him. The other beagle was his sister named Her.
11. What is the name of the new Sesame Street Muppet with autism?Julia.
12. What was the name of the cat in the original Alien movie?Jones
13. What country's flag features an image of two keys?The Vatican. They represent the keys to heaven.
14. Not counting mirror reflections, how many unique pentominos exist?I don't think anyone knew what a pentomino is. Didn't you read my post on Cash Blox?
15. Simplify eπi. Hint: Find the Taylor series expansion for ex, sin(x), and cos(x).-1
16. How many times was the f-word used, including all derivatives, in the 1983 movie Scarface? (closest answer to be used in the event of a tie-breaker)226
your answer to number 3 is wrong....edith bunker died from a stroke.....she had phlebitis in the last episode she appeared in but in the first episode where she is no longer in the series it said stroke.
Quote: ontariodealeryour answer to number 3 is wrong....edith bunker died from a stroke.....she had phlebitis in the last episode she appeared in but in the first episode where she is no longer in the series it said stroke.
Correct. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Bunker
"Archie's worst nightmare comes true in 1980, on the All in the Family continuation series Archie Bunker's Place, when Edith dies (off-camera) of a stroke. In the one-hour second-season premiere, "Archie Alone," which originally aired on CBS on November 2, 1980, Archie and Stephanie are shown dealing with the grief, having lost Edith several weeks prior."
Quote: IbeatyouracesCorrect. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Bunker
"Archie's worst nightmare comes true in 1980, on the All in the Family continuation series Archie Bunker's Place, when Edith dies (off-camera) of a stroke. In the one-hour second-season premiere, "Archie Alone," which originally aired on CBS on November 2, 1980, Archie and Stephanie are shown dealing with the grief, having lost Edith several weeks prior."
Well, then, I got that correct as well. 4.5. Still not as good as billryan.
Unless one of his was reversed by the corrections.Quote: beachbumbabsWell, then, I got that correct as well. 4.5. Still not as good as billryan.
My score was 5.25, I only got one of the four Baltimore movies.
Quote: billryanNo, I had Madge and incorrectly guessed Cancer so my score remains the same. In any event , I used my prize- Tickets to Penn and Teller. Who were surprisingly good, by the way. Thanks to all.
My score was 5.25, I only got one of the four Baltimore movies.
I think the quiz was skewed towards us old folks. Someone said Bugs Bunny was before their time.
Imagine a child growing up without Bugs Bunny. What is our society coming to?
Quote: billryanNo, I had Madge and incorrectly guessed Cancer so my score remains the same. In any event , I used my prize- Tickets to Penn and Teller. Who were surprisingly good, by the way. Thanks to all.
My score was 5.25, I only got one of the four Baltimore movies.
That's a hell of a prize. I wanted to see them again last week but ran out of time.
Quote: ontariodealeryour answer to number 3 is wrong....edith bunker died from a stroke.....she had phlebitis in the last episode she appeared in but in the first episode where she is no longer in the series it said stroke.
Hmmm. I guess I stand corrected. I will say that I'm pretty sure in the last episode with Edith it was learned she had phelibis but never told anyone.
Also, if you are only going to address a small part of a post, please only quote that part of it, not the whole thing.
Quote: billryanI think the quiz was skewed towards us old folks. Someone said Bugs Bunny was before their time.
Imagine a child growing up without Bugs Bunny. What is our society coming to?
I've heard that complaint many times. That is why I threw in the Sesame Street question.
In my defense, here is abstract of a 25-page paper in the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics: Dynamical Bias in the Coin Toss.
I'll just quote what is says below:
Quote: Persi Diaconis, Susan Holmes, and Richard MontgomeryWe analyze the natural process of flipping a coin which is caught in the hand. We show that vigorously flipped coins tend to come up the same way they started. The limiting chance of coming up this way depends on a single parameter, the angle between the normal to the coin and the angular momentum vector. Measurements of this parameter based on high‐speed photography are reported. For natural flips, the chance of coming up as started is about .51.
Laughed? While I can easily understand the skepticism and comparison to DI, you gotta know if the Wizard makes a statement about odd-ball math probabilities, he's gonna have something to back it up.Quote: WizardAt the poker game on Saturday I claimed that a fair coin flipped has a slightly greater than a 50% chance of landing on the same side that was facing up at the start of the flip. ... This was laughed at and compared to dice influence.
Oh, sure, he might be close but not quite right on the name of the manicurist in the Palmolive commercials or Edith's cause of death, but you just know he read the coin flip thing in some scientific journal and tucked that tidbit away for future use.
The real question is, who finances a study on coin flips? (I'm scared to think that the answer might be, "Your tax dollars at work.")
This may seem the case, logically, as well, but don't celebrate this bit of academic "sensationalism", too quickly.Quote: WizardIn my defense, here is abstract of a 25-page paper in the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics: Dynamical Bias in the Coin Toss.
Here's the full copy. http://statweb.stanford.edu/~cgates/PERSI/papers/dyn_coin_07.pdf
"7. Conclusion. Despite these important caveats we consider the bias we have found fascinating. The discussion also highlights the true difficulty of carefully studying random phenomena. If we have this much trouble analyzing a common coin toss, the reader can imagine the difficulty we have with interpreting typical stochastic assumptions in an econometric analysis. The caveats and analysis also point to the following conclusion: Keller’s analysis gives a good approximation for tossed coins. To detect the departures of the order of magnitude we have found would require 250,000 tosses. The classical assumptions of independence with probability 1/2 are pretty solid."
Quote: WizardHmmm. I guess I stand corrected. I will say that I'm pretty sure in the last episode with Edith it was learned she had phelibis but never told anyone.
Also, if you are only going to address a small part of a post, please only quote that part of it, not the whole thing.
sorry, I'm over 60 and lucky to turn computer on.
Poker was a bunch of fun, as always. We ended up finding out later that Axel owned half the action on the table basically, so overall not sure if he made or lost money. Myself, PG, and Bruce made a little bit, so the best I can say is we took 'some' of Axel's money =).Quote: beachbumbabsI'm pissed that I'm missing this again this year, so I hope those of you in town will show up and make it a great event. And take all of Axel's money later. :)
Summary of poker:
Mike played a bit too tight in my opinion.
Bruce was playing too tight, then I made him bet larger whenever he felt he had it by saying I'd buy have his action/loss if he just did that.
PG played well (of course) and a few more hands than I recall from the previous year. He also enjoyed needling Axel with me =D.
Axel played as Axel does... fairly well, drinking a lot, and making very obvious angling plays to try to get players to do what he wanted =P.
MaxPen ran bad, having 2 pair probably a half of dozen times and running in to bigger hands each time.
RS, supposedly his 2nd time playing, was baffling to me. He'd play a hand to such perfection, then find the nads to make a stone cold bluff on another hand. For his 2nd time playing he played very well, in my opinion.
The two others played a bit too tight, in my opinion as well.
He crushed it... 5.25 (out of 15 or 20?). I 'think' I tied with someone else at 4 for 2nd, so we weren't even close if we'd gotten another one right =P.Quote: billryanHeck no. The much more prestigious Shackleford Trivia Contest.
This had to be the funniest moment at the poker game... After he got it right, I didn't know about their bet... I looked at Axel and said "Wait, you just bet a guy named Klaus, with a german accent, wouldn't know the capitol of Germany??" I still think Mike should change his signature to something about this for a week or two lol.Quote: RS"Hey Klaus, what's the capitol of Germany?"
Haha, I thought it was going to be a clip from Bugs Bunny. I can't believe more people didn't get this one!Quote: billryanFor Romes...
It wasn't necessarily hard laughed at... I just don't see the difference between the two. They both have more elements that are out of the human control to randomize the result than "influence" that could be had. For the record, it was stated that it was a fair "random" coin flip (as in the person wasn't "trying" to flip neither heads nor tails but just flipping a coin). The height, power of the flick, bounce from the landing surface, etc, etc, are all too similar to the same variables which make craps dice influence a myth (in my opinion).Quote: WizardAt the poker game on Saturday I claimed that a fair coin flipped has a slightly greater than a 50% chance of landing on the same side that was facing up at the start of the flip. This was assuming a standard flip, where the coin reaches a height of 2 to 3 feet above the starting point. This was laughed at and compared to dice influence.
EDIT: Overall a GREAT meetup! There was a lot of people that showed up for dinner (probably ~15?). Still had enough for a full poker game as well. There were tons of side trivia bets that happened all through dinner and the poker game. All I have to say is DO NOT BET AGAINST rdw4potus with ANYTHING that has to do with politics/presidents. I think I was down $10 in props, but would have been up $60-$70 had I simply never bet against him lol.
Quote: Romes...All I have to say is DO NOT BET AGAINST rdw4potus with ANYTHING that has to do with politics/presidents...
Hehe... His handle does include "...POTUS" after all. (but I guess that's not the same as betting against Klaus knowing the capital of Germany).
He is the one who ordered machined dice that were slightly off and found that the 'edge' that resulted was less than the error-rate of his graduate research assistants who were tabulating the results.
I think Mike fleeced me =p. He missed a question about like the 31st president earlier in the night (though he was very close and only 2 off). Then later in the night I bet with Mike that he couldn't name the losers, in order, of each presidential election back like 15 elections or so... and he got that =P. I was hoping given his slightly less than perfect presidential ordering that perhaps he didn't know as much about the losers of the elections, but yeah, he nailed it.Quote: AyecarumbaHehe... His handle does include "...POTUS" after all. (but I guess that's not the same as betting against Klaus knowing the capital of Germany).
Quote: beachbumbabsI got 3.5. Not my year.
Way too many off the wall questions in too
many categories. I got 4 right out of 16 and
I'm really good at trivia.
The article brings up the two determining factors: the flipping, or turning over of the coin as it moves up in HTHTHTH.... and back down in the continued sequence, which ends in H or T; and the sideways spinning. It's the variations in both, and the many significant caveats, which prevent the total sequence from being only a combination of evenly (flipped) heads or tails, or being more of the initial-state outcomes to favor the the initial state. If I have this right, it would be an interesting physical analogy to the theoretical advantage yielded by seemingly "guessing" about two randomly picked numbers from the real numbers by comparing those pairs to such numbers picked in advance.Quote: FleaStiffPersi Diaconis is the Stanford statistics professor who joined the circus at a young age and became a magician's assistant at, I believe, fourteen. He first became interested in analysis of random events when he felt he had been cheated in a dice game.
He is the one who ordered machined dice that were slightly off and found that the 'edge' that resulted was less than the error-rate of his graduate research assistants who were tabulating the results.
Didn't Albert exclaim that information belongs in libraries?Quote: EvenBobWay too many off the wall questions in too
many categories. I got 4 right out of 16 and
I'm really good at trivia.
Quote: RomesI think Mike fleeced me =p. He missed a question about like the 31st president earlier in the night (though he was very close and only 2 off). Then later in the night I bet with Mike that he couldn't name the losers, in order, of each presidential election back like 15 elections or so... and he got that =P. I was hoping given his slightly less than perfect presidential ordering that perhaps he didn't know as much about the losers of the elections, but yeah, he nailed it.
Yeah, I should have gotten that question right. If I'd thought about it differently, I know I would have. That's question - who is the 21st president (Arthur) - is one of the riddles from Die Hard With a Vengeance & I really like that film. I blanked on that connection in the moment and just guessed a president who served about 100 years after the country's inception (Grant).
I also shouldn't have blanked on Harding in the reverse ordering. Sorry about that. Cost you money there, too. I'd have made it back to Cleveland's first term if I'd ordered Harding and Taft correctly around Wilson. Ironically, that means I'd have fallen apart over Arthur for a second time on the evening.
The Klaus thing was really really funny. I'm surprised Mike kept it together well enough to get the question out without starting to laugh.
Quote: rdw4potusYeah, I should have gotten that question right. If I'd thought about it differently, I know I would have. That's question - who is the 21st president (Arthur) - is one of the riddles from Die Hard With a Vengeance & I really like that film. I blanked on that connection in the moment and just guessed a president who served about 100 years after the country's inception (Grant).
I also shouldn't have blanked on Harding in the reverse ordering. Sorry about that. Cost you money there, too. I'd have made it back to Cleveland's first term if I'd ordered Harding and Taft correctly around Wilson. Ironically, that means I'd have fallen apart over Arthur for a second time on the evening.
The Klaus thing was really really funny. I'm surprised Mike kept it together well enough to get the question out without starting to laugh.
Any time you make Romes lose money, you made the right decision. Well done.
Too bad you couldn't do the same at the poker table ;-).Quote: RSAny time you make Romes lose money, you made the right decision. Well done.
Quote: RomesToo bad you couldn't do the same at the poker table ;-).
I was up $89 by the end of the night. I bet you never seen someone play KT so well, even if it was probably all on accident.
I will admit... never seen K-10 played that well in my life. lolQuote: RSI was up $89 by the end of the night. I bet you never seen someone play KT so well, even if it was probably all on accident.
Quote: RomesToo bad you couldn't do the same at the poker table ;-).
Quote: rdw4potusThe Klaus thing was really really funny. I'm surprised Mike kept it together well enough to get the question out without starting to laugh.
I had to keep it as quiet as possible because I didn't want everyone at the table to try to jump on the "yes," making Axel suspicious.
Quote: billryanI think the quiz was skewed towards us old folks. Someone said Bugs Bunny was before their time.
Imagine a child growing up without Bugs Bunny. What is our society coming to?
I thought that was the easiest question in the lot. Wow, there's some perspective for ya.
Quote: WizardHe said, and I'm paraphrasing, "That would be Berlin, of course. A better question would be what was the capitol of the former West Germany?"
Bonn, no? Then again, I knew the answer to the Bugs Bunny question.
The way the Klaus story has been re-told; funny. Really funny.
Quote: billryanI think the quiz was skewed towards us old folks. Someone said Bugs Bunny was before their time.
Imagine a child growing up without Bugs Bunny. What is our society coming to?
One of the questions was recent to "60 Minutes," you don't have to be old to watch it but it may drain the youth out of you.
A favorite old school cartoon is the one where the sheepdog and the coyote are friendly until they clock-in, proceed in trying to kill each other while on the job, then clock-out exchanging pleasantries.
Thanks for the recap! Definitely looking forward to future Con's, now I'm off to watch "Alien."
Quote: ThenWhatHappensA favorite old school cartoon is the one where the sheepdog and the coyote are friendly until they clock-in, proceed in trying to kill each other while on the job, then clock-out exchanging pleasantries.
Speaking of Looney Toons, I want Bugs Bunny on my blackjack team...
https://youtu.be/XI4fex06rc4
