1) From the article: To learn more about the results, I called Frank Koelsch, executive VP at Info-Tech. "Microsoft didn't pay for this," he responded to the obvious question. The survey is something the firm regularly conducts among its 25,000 clients.
2) From the article: The just-released report includes results of a survey of more than 1,400 IT executives that was conducted in January.
3) I agree. And only 48% claimed to be not interested in Linux. Which means that the other half is open to it. Seems like Linux is right on track to me.
However the constitution did not give the right for the government to take money from the rich for the sole purpose of giving it to the poor (at least not in the US, some revisionist judges have however allowed it).
The 14th amendment gives Congress the power to tax, and gives no restriction on its use. No "revisionist judges" necessary. Article XVI.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
It's not terribly surprising that SAP uses MaxDB, since they wrote it themselves for their ERP product, open sourced it, and handed it over to MySQL a couple years back.
Well, the point of SSL is to encrypt communications. But the point of a signed certificate is to prevent impersonation. If a trusted authority allows anyone to get a certificate for any domain name, then it becomes easy to impersonate someone's site.
I'm not sure what the point of this is, if the browsers don't have these folks listed as trusted authorities. You can already sign your own certificate and get the same effect. But if you are asking your customers/users to accept a certificate that is not signed by a trusted authority, you are leaving yourself open to being impersonated.
which judges have so far grudgingly or otherwise agreed with
Not true at all. There are plenty of gun control laws, which were deemed legal by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1939 (U.S. v. Miller). This is why the NRA fights most of its battles in the legislature, rather than the courts.
Tech advancement is well and good . . . but the efficiency gains has never been put to the use of giving humans more leisure time, and more enjoyment in life.
Nonsense. We used to be an agrarian economy, and through technology advances we no longer need to be. Do most of us have more leisure time now than the typical farmer? You'd better believe it.
And the United States wonders why we're [Canada] reluctant to join the missile defence programme...
Canada shouldn't join the missile defense program. You'll essentially get it for free, being our neighbor, so it would be silly to volunteer to pay for the costs (regardless of whether it works or not).
They are essentially the same -- they are debt instruments used to raise capital. The government pays interest on bonds, just like people pay interest on loans.
there are intragovernmental funds transfers, which are similar to loans but don't involve interest.
Not true. The government owns interest on the money it borrows from entitlement programs such as medicare and social security. It's essentially the same as selling bonds (it's called non-marketable debt, since it's sold to the government and not the public).
You need to think of it instead like a business that sells shares of stock.
Completely different. Businesses do not pay interest on stock, and are under no obligation to buy it back. They give up a piece of ownership of the company for the money they raise, whereas bonds give you no ownership (simply a return on investment).
All of the major online poker sites have play money games. Play money games are useful for familiarization with the site's software and general poker rules, but not useful at all for learning good poker strategy. People don't take it seriously enough.
I'd recommend picking up Small Stakes Hold 'em: Winning Big With Expert Play by Ed Miller et al. or Winning Low Limit Hold 'em by Lee Jones. They will easily pay for themselves.
Here is a graph from the most recent report from the fund's trustees. Expenditures exceed tax income around 2018, and the fund is exhausted around 2042. This is according to demographic estimates based on current actuarial tables, birth rate models, etc.
Of course, if something causes a significant shift in demographics, such as a low birth rate or high immigration rate, the projections will change accordingly. This is discussed elsewhere in the report. But barring any major changes to the population or social security taxes, don't count on social security for retirement.
Unless your opponent is playing in a very predictable manner, you are unlikely to be able to deduce their hand based on how they have acted in the past. And if you are playing based on statistics, you are going to be playing in a very predictable manner and will be an easy target (though it could be argued that most players of online poker are geeks and thus this is what is happening).
I'm sorry, but unless you are like the guy in Rainman and can count cards, I don't really think math skills will help you that much in poker. Maybe psychiatry, but not math. If you think math skills are helping you, I'm afraid you may be relying more on luck than you think.
OK, it's clear from this post you haven't played much poker.
1. Most people do play predictably. They have standards for which hands they will start with, how strong a hand they need to raise, and what they will call with. It's not about deducing their exact hand, but rather about deducing a range of hands that they may hold. You then act based on how well your hand does, on average, against this range.
Example: Pre-flop (in limit hold 'em) I hold AA, and raise. I get 3 callers.
The flop is T73. I bet and am raised by a player that has only raised in the past with the very strongest hands -- even with fairly strong hands, she will just call. Based on her previous play, I believe her most likely holding is a set (three of a kind) or (less likely) two pair.
Another player calls and I fold. The other player calls her to the river and she shows 3 sevens.
This is an extreme example, in the sense that typical players have more relaxed standards for raising, but this is an actual hand from this past weekend.
2. Playing predictable ABC poker (only playing the better hands) works at the lower limits precisely because most of your opponents aren't paying attention to you. They're not geeks or math whizzes -- they're the people you see in the casino playing roulette or hitting on 14 in blackjack because they "feel it."
Check out these numbers. These are the expected value of all the hold 'em starting hands, in terms of big bets, based on actual hands played (122 million) at pokerroom.com. Plenty of opponents at the lower limits will play the hands you see in the red without hesitation. This is why playing predictably, but restricting yourself to better starting hands, can make a profit here. (At the higher limits your hand selection should be similar, but you have to pay closer attention to your opponents, and play somewhat less predictably).
3. Card counting is a blackjack thing, not a poker thing. The deck is shuffled between poker hands. In 7 card stud, you do have to remember which cards have been folded in the current hand, but in texas hold 'em and omaha (the most popular games currently), the only cards you see are your own and 5 community cards.
4. Most of the pure math in poker isn't terribly complicated. If it's a $1 bet to you to win a $5 pot, you should call if your hand will win more than 1 in 6 times (1:5 odds).
The game theory part (putting people on ranges of hands and calculating the likelihood that you'll win) can get hairy with multiple people in the pot. The people who can make good estimates on these numbers will be better poker players.
5. No one is saying there isn't luck in poker. But over time everyone gets the same distribution of cards. The money will end up with the people who play better. Math skills aren't the end all or be all, but they can help you win.
I have a theory that there are a lot of bots, but they're all programmed badly.
A couple weeks ago someone called me down with 32o, without having made any hand at all, or even a straight draw. A bot with a severe bug was the only explanation I could come up with.
You overestimate the importance of seeing your opponent. Poker is about putting your opponent on a range of hands. By paying attention to the hands they showdown, and how aggressively or passively they play them, you get a very good idea of how strong a hand you'll need to beat them. Being able to see them can help you narrow that range, but it's not essential, and doesn't necessarily help against experienced opponents anyway.
At the lower limits, both live and online, it's not even necessary to pay close attention to your opponents to be a winning player. By betting your good hands strongly, drawing only when you have odds, and having the discipline to lay your hands when you think you're beat, you can make a consistent profit at these tables, due to the fact that so many others play badly at these levels.
If only there was some sort of article you could read that would explain it.
And if that goes over your head, here is a snip of reply from the code's author:
To summarize it:
1) The code delivered to Brian Connolly is not the same as the code implemented in Mambo. 2) The code delivered to Brian Connolly was derived from GPL, Copyright Miro International Pty. 3) Brian Connolly distributed copies of Mambo that had the so-called 'infringing' functionality under the GPL. 4) There are no copyright assignments with my signature on. 5) Brian Connolly has no trademarks or patents on anything resembling the disputed functionality.
You won't get the shares if there are enough people who think the shares are worth $130
Actually, Google and the underwriters have reserved the right to set the offering price below the auction clearing price, if they think the shares are overvalued at the clearing price. So if the offering price is below your bid price, some of your bid may allocate, even if the clearing price was above your bid.
Obviously it's not in their immediate interest to lower the price, but if they think a big slide will make their stock look unattractive they may do so.
I get only a few junk e-mails to "webmaster", "postmaster", and other generic usernames.
Most of the junk I get comes to the email address that's listed in WHOIS. That accounts for probably 99% of the spam I get, since I don't post my real address anywhere.
Seriously though, what would happen if you simply refused to pay the charges?
When this happened to my co-worker, he called the company and threatened to file an FTC complaint. They dropped the charges immediately (the company was named USBI I believe).
The FTC is aware of the problem, and even has an FAQ on it. They encourage you to file a complaint, and also to dispute the charges with the company billing you.
You can also tell your phone company to disallow international calls from your phone line if you don't usually make them. Cleverer dialers can use a 10-10 number, though, to get around it.
"What about that Bavarian cream pie joke I told you? There's no truth to that. Nobody with a terminal illness goes from the United States to Europe for a piece of Bavarian cream pie and then when they get there and they don't have it he says, 'Ah, I'll just have some coffee.' There's no truth to that."
Slashdot Mirror
Illegals aliens dont' get U.S auto insurance either. So why let them get licenses.
You can't get auto insurance without a license. That was the whole point of trying to allow them get licenses in the first place.
1) From the article:
To learn more about the results, I called Frank Koelsch, executive VP at Info-Tech. "Microsoft didn't pay for this," he responded to the obvious question. The survey is something the firm regularly conducts among its 25,000 clients.
2) From the article:
The just-released report includes results of a survey of more than 1,400 IT executives that was conducted in January.
3) I agree. And only 48% claimed to be not interested in Linux. Which means that the other half is open to it. Seems like Linux is right on track to me.
However the constitution did not give the right for the government to take money from the rich for the sole purpose of giving it to the poor (at least not in the US, some revisionist judges have however allowed it).
The 14th amendment gives Congress the power to tax, and gives no restriction on its use. No "revisionist judges" necessary.
Article XVI.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
Once those physical-mail spammers go to jail, I'll support this guy going to jail.
How many of those WalMart flyers advertise fraudulent products?
It's not terribly surprising that SAP uses MaxDB, since they wrote it themselves for their ERP product, open sourced it, and handed it over to MySQL a couple years back.
Completely different db than MySQL.
Well, the point of SSL is to encrypt communications. But the point of a signed certificate is to prevent impersonation. If a trusted authority allows anyone to get a certificate for any domain name, then it becomes easy to impersonate someone's site.
I'm not sure what the point of this is, if the browsers don't have these folks listed as trusted authorities. You can already sign your own certificate and get the same effect. But if you are asking your customers/users to accept a certificate that is not signed by a trusted authority, you are leaving yourself open to being impersonated.
If you don't need standard SQL support
Firebird implements standard SQL. Firebird supports full SQL92 and most SQL99, according to the project website.
which judges have so far grudgingly or otherwise agreed with
Not true at all. There are plenty of gun control laws, which were deemed legal by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1939 (U.S. v. Miller). This is why the NRA fights most of its battles in the legislature, rather than the courts.
Tech advancement is well and good . . . but the efficiency gains has never been put to the use of giving humans more leisure time, and more enjoyment in life.
Nonsense. We used to be an agrarian economy, and through technology advances we no longer need to be. Do most of us have more leisure time now than the typical farmer? You'd better believe it.
And the United States wonders why we're [Canada] reluctant to join the missile defence programme...
Canada shouldn't join the missile defense program. You'll essentially get it for free, being our neighbor, so it would be silly to volunteer to pay for the costs (regardless of whether it works or not).
Do you understand how the federal budget works?
There are no loans. There are bonds
They are essentially the same -- they are debt instruments used to raise capital. The government pays interest on bonds, just like people pay interest on loans.
there are intragovernmental funds transfers, which are similar to loans but don't involve interest.
Not true. The government owns interest on the money it borrows from entitlement programs such as medicare and social security. It's essentially the same as selling bonds (it's called non-marketable debt, since it's sold to the government and not the public).
You need to think of it instead like a business that sells shares of stock.
Completely different. Businesses do not pay interest on stock, and are under no obligation to buy it back. They give up a piece of ownership of the company for the money they raise, whereas bonds give you no ownership (simply a return on investment).
All of the major online poker sites have play money games. Play money games are useful for familiarization with the site's software and general poker rules, but not useful at all for learning good poker strategy. People don't take it seriously enough.
I'd recommend picking up Small Stakes Hold 'em: Winning Big With Expert Play by Ed Miller et al. or Winning Low Limit Hold 'em by Lee Jones. They will easily pay for themselves.
For poker discussion, I'd recommend the forums at
twoplustwo.com, unitedpokerforum.com, bet-the-pot.com, and remmy.net.
Here is a graph from the most recent report from the fund's trustees. Expenditures exceed tax income around 2018, and the fund is exhausted around 2042. This is according to demographic estimates based on current actuarial tables, birth rate models, etc.
Of course, if something causes a significant shift in demographics, such as a low birth rate or high immigration rate, the projections will change accordingly. This is discussed elsewhere in the report. But barring any major changes to the population or social security taxes, don't count on social security for retirement.
Yes, I've seen it a few times in XP as well, on my laptop. Usually when my wireless card gets jiggled while it's booting.
It says something to the effect of "try rebooting, but if you see this again, you're probably screwed."
Unless your opponent is playing in a very predictable manner, you are unlikely to be able to deduce their hand based on how they have acted in the past. And if you are playing based on statistics, you are going to be playing in a very predictable manner and will be an easy target (though it could be argued that most players of online poker are geeks and thus this is what is happening).
I'm sorry, but unless you are like the guy in Rainman and can count cards, I don't really think math skills will help you that much in poker. Maybe psychiatry, but not math. If you think math skills are helping you, I'm afraid you may be relying more on luck than you think.
OK, it's clear from this post you haven't played much poker.
1. Most people do play predictably. They have standards for which hands they will start with, how strong a hand they need to raise, and what they will call with. It's not about deducing their exact hand, but rather about deducing a range of hands that they may hold. You then act based on how well your hand does, on average, against this range.
Example: Pre-flop (in limit hold 'em) I hold AA, and raise. I get 3 callers.
The flop is T73. I bet and am raised by a player that has only raised in the past with the very strongest hands -- even with fairly strong hands, she will just call. Based on her previous play, I believe her most likely holding is a set (three of a kind) or (less likely) two pair.
Another player calls and I fold. The other player calls her to the river and she shows 3 sevens.
This is an extreme example, in the sense that typical players have more relaxed standards for raising, but this is an actual hand from this past weekend.
2. Playing predictable ABC poker (only playing the better hands) works at the lower limits precisely because most of your opponents aren't paying attention to you. They're not geeks or math whizzes -- they're the people you see in the casino playing roulette or hitting on 14 in blackjack because they "feel it."
Check out these numbers. These are the expected value of all the hold 'em starting hands, in terms of big bets, based on actual hands played (122 million) at pokerroom.com. Plenty of opponents at the lower limits will play the hands you see in the red without hesitation. This is why playing predictably, but restricting yourself to better starting hands, can make a profit here. (At the higher limits your hand selection should be similar, but you have to pay closer attention to your opponents, and play somewhat less predictably).
3. Card counting is a blackjack thing, not a poker thing. The deck is shuffled between poker hands. In 7 card stud, you do have to remember which cards have been folded in the current hand, but in texas hold 'em and omaha (the most popular games currently), the only cards you see are your own and 5 community cards.
4. Most of the pure math in poker isn't terribly complicated. If it's a $1 bet to you to win a $5 pot, you should call if your hand will win more than 1 in 6 times (1:5 odds).
The game theory part (putting people on ranges of hands and calculating the likelihood that you'll win) can get hairy with multiple people in the pot. The people who can make good estimates on these numbers will be better poker players.
5. No one is saying there isn't luck in poker. But over time everyone gets the same distribution of cards. The money will end up with the people who play better. Math skills aren't the end all or be all, but they can help you win.
I have a theory that there are a lot of bots, but they're all programmed badly.
A couple weeks ago someone called me down with 32o, without having made any hand at all, or even a straight draw. A bot with a severe bug was the only explanation I could come up with.
You overestimate the importance of seeing your opponent. Poker is about putting your opponent on a range of hands. By paying attention to the hands they showdown, and how aggressively or passively they play them, you get a very good idea of how strong a hand you'll need to beat them. Being able to see them can help you narrow that range, but it's not essential, and doesn't necessarily help against experienced opponents anyway.
At the lower limits, both live and online, it's not even necessary to pay close attention to your opponents to be a winning player. By betting your good hands strongly, drawing only when you have odds, and having the discipline to lay your hands when you think you're beat, you can make a consistent profit at these tables, due to the fact that so many others play badly at these levels.
Wilson's software is generally regarded as the best software for learning poker. But IMO nothing beats a decent book and some real-life experience.
And why, when I ordered one 3 days ago (to replace one that shorted out), did they send it to me? Damn you Dell -- I want my $50 back.
And if that goes over your head, here is a snip of reply from the code's author:
or are you a lapdog of the righteous few
This lapdog position -- does it pay well?
You won't get the shares if there are enough people who think the shares are worth $130
Actually, Google and the underwriters have reserved the right to set the offering price below the auction clearing price, if they think the shares are overvalued at the clearing price. So if the offering price is below your bid price, some of your bid may allocate, even if the clearing price was above your bid.
Obviously it's not in their immediate interest to lower the price, but if they think a big slide will make their stock look unattractive they may do so.
I get only a few junk e-mails to "webmaster", "postmaster", and other generic usernames.
Most of the junk I get comes to the email address that's listed in WHOIS. That accounts for probably 99% of the spam I get, since I don't post my real address anywhere.
Seriously though, what would happen if you simply refused to pay the charges?
When this happened to my co-worker, he called the company and threatened to file an FTC complaint. They dropped the charges immediately (the company was named USBI I believe).
The FTC is aware of the problem, and even has an FAQ on it. They encourage you to file a complaint, and also to dispute the charges with the company billing you.
You can also tell your phone company to disallow international calls from your phone line if you don't usually make them. Cleverer dialers can use a 10-10 number, though, to get around it.
"Well, behind every joke there's some truth."
"What about that Bavarian cream pie joke I told you? There's no truth to that. Nobody with a terminal illness goes from the United States to Europe for a piece of Bavarian cream pie and then when they get there and they don't have it he says, 'Ah, I'll just have some coffee.' There's no truth to that."
- Sheila and Jerry, in "The Soup Nazi"