I graduated with a CS degree in the '90s, did software development for several years, became a development manager for a large company, and *then* decided I wanted to do science with my life instead of living as another incarnation of one of the OfficeSpace characters.
Neuroscience fascinated me, but I had no neuroscience training. So I worked in an fMRI lab as an RA for a year or two while I took courses and figured out if this field would be really satisfying. At the time, I was 30 years old, so I was a good bit older than most RAs. Getting an RA job was pretty straight-forward though, as most CogNeuro labs are absolutely desperate for technically skilled research assistants.
It turns out, most of the other posters above me are absolutely correct -- if you want to be taken seriously in research, you'll want to get your PhD. Emphasizing that a little differently, after working in a pure research lab, you'll WANT to get your PhD. Not just because you'll have hip science credentials, but because once you realize you like research, you're probably going to want to do YOUR OWN research, and having a PhD is pretty much the only way to do that.
Anyway, I'm in my 5th year of my PhD now, and I continue to love it. I can't believe people pay me to do what I'd be doing for fun anyway. Leaving a big salary is scary (I took a $120,000 pay cut), but it's so worth it to figure out what you like to do in life.
I think we should probably be careful about hanging our hats on the argument that video games are completely innocuous, because I think there's going to be a mounting accumulation of evidence linking games to violent behavior.
Here's what we know from a neuropsych framework: 1) Impulsivity and aggression are linked to activation of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) (the "fight or flight" part, if you remember your basic psych). The more the sympathetic system is activated, the more likely we are to make rash, impulsive decisions. The racing-heart/sweaty/stressed feeling you get when you lose your temper? That's the sympathetic nervous system talking, hopping you up on adrenaline. (And noradrenaline, et cetera) Think of how much more likely people are to make stupid, impulsive decisions when they've lost their temper than when they're thinking "rationally". (e.g., road rage or bar fights) 2) Video games, exciting movies, gambling, and the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (if you're five) all activate the SNS. We know this from measuring galvanic skin response, looking at pupillary reflexes, or simply measuring the level of cortisol in the bloodstream. 3) It could be inferred, then, that video games are likely to increase your arousal which will then make you more likely to cut that guy off when you're driving home from the LAN match or escalate the trash talk into something physical. AS COULD ANYTHING ELSE EXCITING. We've seen this, somewhat less conclusively, from behavioral observations. Five-year olds are more likely to karate-chop the dog after some Power Ranger action. People are more likely to drive recklessly after playing a lot of Gran Turismo or watching Oceans Twelve.
In short, video games *do* change the brain... and that's why we like them. We crave excitement and novelty. We like being surprised; we like scary movies; we like jumping out of planes; we like gibbing people in Quake. We *like* jacking up our SNS.
I think we, as gamers, are setting a trap for ourselves when we say that video games have no impact on our cognition. Of course it does. Everything does. Claiming there's no mental impact of gaming is a foolish position, and when you lose this argument, it makes it that much harder to win the subsequent arguments. A more interesting question is whether games go behind the simple modulation of arousal levels. Are games fundamentally different than sky-diving, for example? I don't think so, but honestly, the jury is out. I can see the other side, too. We tend to play games for nine straight hours, when it's a rare person who sky-dives that much. When we're gaming, we actually envision ourselves in the role of Kratos, God of War, while we don't usually have that involvement with action movies. Maybe games *are* different.
Of course, the *real* question is how much this matters. Even if there were a well-controlled, randomized study showing that the amount of game time played directly correlated with the likelihood of a violent crime, is that enough cause to ban games? I think not, but, then again, I prefer not living in a nanny-state.
Anyway, just some thoughts... (and yes, I am a neuroscientist. And a gamer.)
Like most people, I'm tempted to think people who disagree with me are just plain stupid. Time and time again (and much to my chagrin) I've discovered there actually are two sides to a story. I've learned to be a bit more open-minded in my old age...
With that said, I can't seem to figure out the non-Google side of this issue. Why *would* the Belgians pursue this case? I can't figure out the financial angle of a) pursuing this lawsuit, and b) reducing ad traffic. Can anyone help me understand the other side of the issue? What's really in it for the newspapers?
That's interesting, and surprising. In human embryology, neural differentiation happens early, and often slight variations in development means something bad is about to happen (anencephaly, spina bifida, so on, so forth). I doubt humans would respond well to a sudden doubling of proto-brain. It's amazing that fish are *that* different.
I drink, I get drunk, and even if I'm absolutely *hammered* I retain the knowledge that I shouldn't drive that way. I also retain the knowledge that I shouldn't steal, shouldn't rape, shouldn't kill people, and shouldn't do a host of other things that I know are wrong.
Being drunk isn't an exemption from basic moral responsibilities.
If Creationists are just a bunch of blind religious zealots, why not ignore them?
For exactly the same reason that you might be a little grouchy if the Ku Klux Klan showed up to teach your kids social studies. They're easily ignored, too, but you probably don't want your kids thinking they're the experts in the field.
If you're an adult, though, and you want to believe the world is flat or evolution is a sham or that the sky is red, more power to you. Just don't tell my kids you know jack shit about science.
Your comment makes some excellent points about foreign policy. Unfortunately, they're points that I feel you understand better than our president does.
Yes, it's key to stop Panislamic terrorism. It's critical to our safety, to peace around the world, to a solution to the mid-East crisis. All that.However, our methods have, to put it mildly, sucked a whole lotta ass. We did a really, really fantastic job of just bombing the shit out of Iraq. We shocked 'em. We awed 'em. And then we alienated 'em.
Instead of enlisting aid to actually secure the peace (rebuilding infrastructure, training Iraqi civil forces, promoting education), we chose to go it alone. Why? Because we'd be better at finding the WMDs without interference.
But at the point that we'd won the war, the WMDs didn't matter! They made a reasonable excuse for invading, but after the war, they were pointless.We'd already invaded, we were now stuck there, WMDs or no WMDs. They really only mattered for political points. At that point, to really do good in Iraq, we needed to make it perfectly clear that we were *not* there as conquerors, that we were *not* there to stay, and that we were *not* there to subdue Islam. We needed to make rebuilding Iraq a collaborative, global effort. We needed help. And Bush did NOTHING to seek it out. That's why it's our boys who are being killed, and it's a big part of why terrorist recuiting efforts are so incredibly successful in Iraq today. (Yes, I'm forgetting Poland. I know.)
And that's why Iraq is a debacle. That's a big part of why the rest of the world has come to really hate us. That's why I think voting for Bush is a mistake. Does Kerry have the solutions? Probably not. Certainly not all of them. But he's someone that the rest of the world doesn't actively despise, and that opens a lot of doors. We need help in Iraq if we're going to instill a workable democracy. Bush can't get it. Perhaps Kerry can.
And all that's to say nothing of Bush's really miserable record on the environment and science. Stifling stem cell research? Ignoring global warming? Overruling EPA guidelines on arsenic and air quality? Come on, now...
Kerry hasn't told you one thing that he is going to do. He has proffered nebulous lists, buzzwords, and catchy quotes, but nothing substantial or concrete. Most of you that are planning to vote for him have no other reasons in mind than he isn't Bush and he isn't a republican, and that is really pathetic.
Actually, I do have many reasons for voting for Kerry. Some are even based in the substantial and concrete plans that he's offered.
However, you're right. One of my strongest reasons to vote Kerry *is* that he isn't Bush. You shouldn't discount that reason, either. Bush has been really, truly, unrelentingly terrible. I'd vote for a lab monkey before I voted for Bush. It's hard to imagine the monkey doing a worse job, and at least you might see some good feces hurling in the press conferences.
Of course, the issues I care about are the environment, scientific research, civil liberties, the economy, and foreign relations, so it's possible that there are some really good parts about the Bush regime that I've missed. Wait a second...
Looking at the campaign web pages is hardly the best way to evaluate the Bush science record.
Bush has a reliable record of squelching good science in favor of his chosen industries/religious beliefs.
For example, his administration has overruled his own EPA on recommended arsenic levels/clean air regulations, et cetera. His administration has intentionally suppressed independent expert research on global warming. Why? Occam's razor might suggest it has something to do with the MASSIVE CAMPAIGN DONATIONS made by the polluting industries.
Complicated subjects? Sure. But the subversion of science to political goals is what has many independent scientists irritated with the administration. Science is supposed to be intellectually free research, not dictated from the president.
Finally, your line about stem cell research is just asinine. People who want embryonic (NOT FETAL, thus no abortion, you asshat) stem cell lines aren't advocating abortion, they're advocating the pursuit of lines of research that could lead to some of the most significant advances on critical illness that we've ever seen. Ever.
Suppressing that simply to cater to the Christian Right, most of whom wouldn't know science if it bit them in the ass, is simply wrong. Intellectually and morally.
Look, I'm not pleased with Kerry. But I'll be voting Anyone But Bush on election day, simply because I'd like to see independent science back in action.
I like a fairly diverse set of music (Gillian Welch to Rammstein), but a quick check at RIAARadar.com shows a good chunk of it is RIAA produced.
Now, I hate the RIAA as much as the rest of you. I like my rights, and it sucks that they're being trampled. The RIAA blows.
But I also really like music. And I don't buy the argument that all RIAA music is crap. It isn't. The stuff that gets a lot of commercial airplay may very well be, but it's simply not true to say that the RIAA doesn't have good artists.
And there's my problem. I hate the RIAA, and I like the artists. I'd cheerfully screw the RIAA by burning CDs from friends or finding what I like on the p2p networks, but I feel wrong not paying the artists for music that I spend a lot of time enjoying. Their hard work makes me happy, and they deserve compensation for that.
I wish there were a way I could mail the artist a check directly, for some fair price. If I could, I'd send a letter saying, "Hey, Gillian. I downloaded your music from Kazaa. It's great. Here's eight bucks. I trust that's more than you'd get from the RIAA, if I bought their packaged version."
This is slightly off-topic, but maybe still interesting.
I worked for one of those credit card companies for a while. Our specialty was to find the really, really, really crappy customers (bankruptcies, overdue loans, the works) that no other credit card company would touch. We'd offer them credit cards with high interest rates, high sign up fees, and low credit limits.
This turned out to be enormously appealing to those customers. As it turns out, to function in today's society, you *need* a credit card. Not for the credit limit, but because it's a huge pain in the ass to reserve airline tickets, make hotel arrangments, get a rental car, buy things on the internet, and on and on and on. Life without a credit card can be a hassle.
People need credit cards, even if they're crappy credit cards that exist to screw you. And people will pay whatever price you set for those cards if they can't get them any other way.
Is is a fair business model? Yeah, I think so. In the same way that insurance companies raise your premium through the roof if you get in an accident every month, credit card companies raise your interest rates and fees if you habitually default on other loans. It's the only way to be profitable in that market segment.
The end of the story for the credit card company I worked at is this: as it turns out, the "give credit to people who don't deserve it" model only works in a growing economy. When the economy was booming a decade or so again, our stock went through the roof because enough of the poor credit risks were paying back their loans.
When the economy began to contract, all those people who defaulted once said, "Hey! That worked great the first time, I think I'll do it again!" Instead of our stock going through the roof, our loan loss rates went through the roof, and our stock went from $60 to $2 in a matter of weeks (look at the chart for PVN, if you're curious).
Live by the sword, die by the sword. Or something like that.
Yeah, your expected value improves by a small amount, but your variance goes up my a HUGE amount, which is pretty much always a losing proposition. You're suggesting that I wager $500 at a time? Unless I came with $20,000 or more, there's a good chance I'm going to go broke. And, if I did come with $20,000, I'd rather spend it at the high-limit tables (at 5x odds), where I'll look like a stud, and the drink girls are prettier and come more often, etc.
Of course, that's true, and that's the thing about Vegas that makes being a casino owner so lucrative: Most people aren't really interested in the best bets in the house, and those who come to gamble $20,000 or more almost never are. Most people are interested in either winning a car/jet ski/million dollars on a slot machine with really crappy return rates, or in getting free drinks and looking like a total James Bond stud. Not that there's anything wrong with either of those.
With that said, the original point of this thread was wondering what the best bets in the house are, and the answer is that a single bet on craps with max odds played gives you the best expected value for a game that involves absolutely no skill.
Well, almost no skill, anyways. When I play craps I somehow always end up tossing the dice off the craps table and into the blackjack area. God, how the people at the craps table hate me...
Todd
The problem with professional poker, take 2
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Geeks and Poker?
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· Score: 5, Insightful
First try at this ignored paragraph breaks. Sorry! --- I used to play quite a bit of structured-bet poker in the California card rooms. In California, as opposed to Nevada, the card rooms are smoke free, and the competition is *usually* pretty weak.
At tables up to about the 6-12 or sometimes 10-20 range, almost all deals will see a flop. A lot of people will play any pair, regardless of position, and will often play any face card. In Vegas, more people know what they're doing, and a lot of times the deal will be folded around to the blinds.
So, in my opinion, California is about as accomodating a place to play as there is, and I got to a point where I could consistently win about $15/hr, over the long run. Not great, but not bad. More practice and higher table limits probably would have improved this number.
The problem is that it just gets SO. INCREDIBLY. BORING. If you're playing well, you're going to be folding most of your initial hands because they're just not worth playing. There have been hours where I've sat there and folded all 35 hands that are dealt. For a while you can watch the other players and learn their styles, but when you realize that two guys at the table will play anything to the flop, including 2-7 offsuit, there's not a whole lot else you need to know except that those two people suck and you should be ready to exploit their weakness.
Some poker books have stories about men who cut the pockets out of their pants, so they can masturbate at the tables. Perhaps my boredom threshold for masturbating in public is higher, or maybe I just didn't stick with poker long enough, but my decision was that that lifestyle wasn't really the way I wanted to spend my life.
For $15/hr, there are a lot of other jobs that don't revolve around being bored and taking other people's rent money. (Yes, I know you shouldn't play with rent money. A lot of people do. And those are usually the players who suck, and who are losing their money to you.)
Pot-limit and no-limit are completely different animals, but the risk in those games is enormous. It's trivially easy to lose your entire bankroll in one night.
A lot of casinos offer video poker with a "double down" option if you win. Once you've gotten a winning hand (often a pair of jacks or better), you can play "high card wins" with the computer, and equally suited cards are a push.
Now, I've played a bit of nickel video poker, and I can tell you that the odds on a normal nickel video poker machine are not in your favor. The return is maybe 95-98%.
However, the odds on the "double down" portion are exactly even.
So what's the right strategy, if you're playing this game? Once you get into the "double down" portion, you're playing with significantly better odds.
And, just as importantly, is the strategy affected by the weight of an enormous bucket of nickels, should you win?
Actually, craps offers some of the best odds in the house.
The original come/don't come bets are close to 50/50, and when you put "odds" behind them, those bets are exactly 50/50.
When you see signs with 100x odds for craps, those are fantastic deals. Your original wager might be $5 at an expected 98% return, but if you put another few hundred behind it at an expected 100% return, your total bet is going to be damn near 50/50.
Casino owners have said something like, "If every patron played craps, and every player played the maximum odds allowed, we wouldn't be able to pay our electricity bills."
The thing about video poker is that *usually* the odds are against you. However, on progressive machines, the progressive payout for a royal flush can grow so large as to make the expected return for the machine over 100%.
When this happens in Vegas, you'll see a lot of people hogging those machines, praying for a royal, and it's a smart gamble. With that said, you're still probably going to lose money unless you're the lucky one person to get paid out.
In any case, any strategy for video poker should center around minimizing losses when you don't have a royal shot, and taking a shot at the royal when available. Anything else is just going to lose you more money than you need to lose.
Todd
The problem with professional poker...
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Geeks and Poker?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I used to play quite a bit of structured-bet poker in the California card rooms. In California, as opposed to Nevada, the card rooms are smoke free, and the competition is *usually* pretty weak.
At tables up to about the 6-12 or sometimes 10-20 range, almost all deals will see a flop. A lot of people will play any pair, regardless of position, and will often play any face card. In Vegas, more people know what they're doing, and a lot of times the deal will be folded around to the blinds.
So, in my opinion, California is about as accomodating a place to play as there is, and I got to a point where I could consistently win about $15/hr, over the long run. Not great, but not bad. More practice and higher table limits probably would have improved this number.
The problem is that it just gets SO. INCREDIBLY. BORING. If you're playing well, you're going to be folding most of your initial hands because they're just not worth playing. There have been hours where I've sat there and folded all 35 hands that are dealt. For a while you can watch the other players and learn their styles, but when you realize that two guys at the table will play anything to the flop, including 2-7 offsuit, there's not a whole lot else you need to know except that those two people suck and you should be ready to exploit their weakness.
Some poker books have stories about men who cut the pockets out of their pants, so they can masturbate at the tables. Perhaps my boredom threshold for masturbating in public is higher, or maybe I just didn't stick with poker long enough, but my decision was that that lifestyle wasn't really the way I wanted to spend my life.
For $15/hr, there are a lot of other jobs that don't revolve around being bored and taking other people's rent money. (Yes, I know you shouldn't play with rent money. A lot of people do. And those are usually the players who suck, and who are losing their money to you.)
Pot-limit and no-limit are completely different animals, but the risk in those games is enormous. It's trivially easy to lose your entire bankroll in one night.
Todd
Most (*most*) environmentalists, including the Audubon Society, are fans of wind power. We're big fans of anything that doesn't create acid rain, global warming, devastating oil spills, and strip mining.
And a lot of us in the environmental community are getting tired of having words put in our mouths about wind farms. Some of these reports are heavily publicized by traditional power providers, who'd be more than happy to see emerging technologies shot down, while blaming it on "environmental concerns", and leaving us with the status quo of oil, gas, and coal.
With that said, it'd be nice if we could build wind farms outside of migratory flyways. Yes, the impact is small, compared to things like collisions with tall buildings and being hit by cars and habitat destruction, but the impact is unfortunately concentrated on raptors. They're the birds that are riding the thermals around the wind farms, and they're often the birds that are migrating through that area every spring and fall.
For those who don't know, raptors are the birds of prey. They're usually top-level predators, and there just aren't THAT many of them. Each one eats bunches of mice/rabbits/insects/whathaveyou, and generally keeps prey populations balanced. It's important to have them around.
If the wind farm kills were spread across the avian spectrum, this would be strictly an emotional issue, and not an ecological one. ("Sure is sad to see little birdies chopped up!"). Since the kills are concentrated in one particular category, though, there is actually an environmental impact, both on the predator/prey balance, and on particually endangered raptor species.
And that's it. As far as I know, that's the only issue with wind farms. At the end of the day, it's probably not a huge issue. It should be straight-forward to find wind farm sites that aren't in the middle of migration routes, and it'd be cool if we could come up with some deterrent to keep birds out of turbines.
What would be really neat, though, would be to get away from reliance on fossil fuels.
Slashdot Mirror
I graduated with a CS degree in the '90s, did software development for several years, became a development manager for a large company, and *then* decided I wanted to do science with my life instead of living as another incarnation of one of the OfficeSpace characters.
Neuroscience fascinated me, but I had no neuroscience training. So I worked in an fMRI lab as an RA for a year or two while I took courses and figured out if this field would be really satisfying. At the time, I was 30 years old, so I was a good bit older than most RAs. Getting an RA job was pretty straight-forward though, as most CogNeuro labs are absolutely desperate for technically skilled research assistants.
It turns out, most of the other posters above me are absolutely correct -- if you want to be taken seriously in research, you'll want to get your PhD. Emphasizing that a little differently, after working in a pure research lab, you'll WANT to get your PhD. Not just because you'll have hip science credentials, but because once you realize you like research, you're probably going to want to do YOUR OWN research, and having a PhD is pretty much the only way to do that.
Anyway, I'm in my 5th year of my PhD now, and I continue to love it. I can't believe people pay me to do what I'd be doing for fun anyway. Leaving a big salary is scary (I took a $120,000 pay cut), but it's so worth it to figure out what you like to do in life.
I think we should probably be careful about hanging our hats on the argument that video games are completely innocuous, because I think there's going to be a mounting accumulation of evidence linking games to violent behavior.
Here's what we know from a neuropsych framework:
1) Impulsivity and aggression are linked to activation of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) (the "fight or flight" part, if you remember your basic psych). The more the sympathetic system is activated, the more likely we are to make rash, impulsive decisions. The racing-heart/sweaty/stressed feeling you get when you lose your temper? That's the sympathetic nervous system talking, hopping you up on adrenaline. (And noradrenaline, et cetera) Think of how much more likely people are to make stupid, impulsive decisions when they've lost their temper than when they're thinking "rationally". (e.g., road rage or bar fights)
2) Video games, exciting movies, gambling, and the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (if you're five) all activate the SNS. We know this from measuring galvanic skin response, looking at pupillary reflexes, or simply measuring the level of cortisol in the bloodstream.
3) It could be inferred, then, that video games are likely to increase your arousal which will then make you more likely to cut that guy off when you're driving home from the LAN match or escalate the trash talk into something physical. AS COULD ANYTHING ELSE EXCITING. We've seen this, somewhat less conclusively, from behavioral observations. Five-year olds are more likely to karate-chop the dog after some Power Ranger action. People are more likely to drive recklessly after playing a lot of Gran Turismo or watching Oceans Twelve.
In short, video games *do* change the brain... and that's why we like them. We crave excitement and novelty. We like being surprised; we like scary movies; we like jumping out of planes; we like gibbing people in Quake. We *like* jacking up our SNS.
I think we, as gamers, are setting a trap for ourselves when we say that video games have no impact on our cognition. Of course it does. Everything does. Claiming there's no mental impact of gaming is a foolish position, and when you lose this argument, it makes it that much harder to win the subsequent arguments. A more interesting question is whether games go behind the simple modulation of arousal levels. Are games fundamentally different than sky-diving, for example? I don't think so, but honestly, the jury is out. I can see the other side, too. We tend to play games for nine straight hours, when it's a rare person who sky-dives that much. When we're gaming, we actually envision ourselves in the role of Kratos, God of War, while we don't usually have that involvement with action movies. Maybe games *are* different.
Of course, the *real* question is how much this matters. Even if there were a well-controlled, randomized study showing that the amount of game time played directly correlated with the likelihood of a violent crime, is that enough cause to ban games? I think not, but, then again, I prefer not living in a nanny-state.
Anyway, just some thoughts... (and yes, I am a neuroscientist. And a gamer.)
Like most people, I'm tempted to think people who disagree with me are just plain stupid. Time and time again (and much to my chagrin) I've discovered there actually are two sides to a story. I've learned to be a bit more open-minded in my old age...
With that said, I can't seem to figure out the non-Google side of this issue. Why *would* the Belgians pursue this case? I can't figure out the financial angle of a) pursuing this lawsuit, and b) reducing ad traffic. Can anyone help me understand the other side of the issue? What's really in it for the newspapers?
This will give Stephenson a chance to write the ending he accidentally forgot to write for the novel!
That's interesting, and surprising. In human embryology, neural differentiation happens early, and often slight variations in development means something bad is about to happen (anencephaly, spina bifida, so on, so forth). I doubt humans would respond well to a sudden doubling of proto-brain. It's amazing that fish are *that* different.
You don't have a reference to the paper, do you?
Boy, is that a stupid comment.
I drink, I get drunk, and even if I'm absolutely *hammered* I retain the knowledge that I shouldn't drive that way. I also retain the knowledge that I shouldn't steal, shouldn't rape, shouldn't kill people, and shouldn't do a host of other things that I know are wrong.
Being drunk isn't an exemption from basic moral responsibilities.
If Creationists are just a bunch of blind religious zealots, why not ignore them?
For exactly the same reason that you might be a little grouchy if the Ku Klux Klan showed up to teach your kids social studies. They're easily ignored, too, but you probably don't want your kids thinking they're the experts in the field.
If you're an adult, though, and you want to believe the world is flat or evolution is a sham or that the sky is red, more power to you. Just don't tell my kids you know jack shit about science.
Moderate, or reply? Moderate, or reply?
Reply it is.
Your comment makes some excellent points about foreign policy. Unfortunately, they're points that I feel you understand better than our president does.
Yes, it's key to stop Panislamic terrorism. It's critical to our safety, to peace around the world, to a solution to the mid-East crisis. All that.However, our methods have, to put it mildly, sucked a whole lotta ass. We did a really, really fantastic job of just bombing the shit out of Iraq. We shocked 'em. We awed 'em. And then we alienated 'em.
Instead of enlisting aid to actually secure the peace (rebuilding infrastructure, training Iraqi civil forces, promoting education), we chose to go it alone. Why? Because we'd be better at finding the WMDs without interference.
But at the point that we'd won the war, the WMDs didn't matter! They made a reasonable excuse for invading, but after the war, they were pointless.We'd already invaded, we were now stuck there, WMDs or no WMDs. They really only mattered for political points. At that point, to really do good in Iraq, we needed to make it perfectly clear that we were *not* there as conquerors, that we were *not* there to stay, and that we were *not* there to subdue Islam. We needed to make rebuilding Iraq a collaborative, global effort. We needed help. And Bush did NOTHING to seek it out. That's why it's our boys who are being killed, and it's a big part of why terrorist recuiting efforts are so incredibly successful in Iraq today. (Yes, I'm forgetting Poland. I know.)
And that's why Iraq is a debacle. That's a big part of why the rest of the world has come to really hate us. That's why I think voting for Bush is a mistake. Does Kerry have the solutions? Probably not. Certainly not all of them. But he's someone that the rest of the world doesn't actively despise, and that opens a lot of doors. We need help in Iraq if we're going to instill a workable democracy. Bush can't get it. Perhaps Kerry can.
And all that's to say nothing of Bush's really miserable record on the environment and science. Stifling stem cell research? Ignoring global warming? Overruling EPA guidelines on arsenic and air quality? Come on, now...
Todd
Kerry hasn't told you one thing that he is going to do. He has proffered nebulous lists, buzzwords, and catchy quotes, but nothing substantial or concrete. Most of you that are planning to vote for him have no other reasons in mind than he isn't Bush and he isn't a republican, and that is really pathetic.
Actually, I do have many reasons for voting for Kerry. Some are even based in the substantial and concrete plans that he's offered.
However, you're right. One of my strongest reasons to vote Kerry *is* that he isn't Bush. You shouldn't discount that reason, either. Bush has been really, truly, unrelentingly terrible. I'd vote for a lab monkey before I voted for Bush. It's hard to imagine the monkey doing a worse job, and at least you might see some good feces hurling in the press conferences.
Of course, the issues I care about are the environment, scientific research, civil liberties, the economy, and foreign relations, so it's possible that there are some really good parts about the Bush regime that I've missed. Wait a second...
Looking at the campaign web pages is hardly the best way to evaluate the Bush science record.
Bush has a reliable record of squelching good science in favor of his chosen industries/religious beliefs.
For example, his administration has overruled his own EPA on recommended arsenic levels/clean air regulations, et cetera. His administration has intentionally suppressed independent expert research on global warming. Why? Occam's razor might suggest it has something to do with the MASSIVE CAMPAIGN DONATIONS made by the polluting industries.
Complicated subjects? Sure. But the subversion of science to political goals is what has many independent scientists irritated with the administration. Science is supposed to be intellectually free research, not dictated from the president.
Finally, your line about stem cell research is just asinine. People who want embryonic (NOT FETAL, thus no abortion, you asshat) stem cell lines aren't advocating abortion, they're advocating the pursuit of lines of research that could lead to some of the most significant advances on critical illness that we've ever seen. Ever.
Suppressing that simply to cater to the Christian Right, most of whom wouldn't know science if it bit them in the ass, is simply wrong. Intellectually and morally.
Look, I'm not pleased with Kerry. But I'll be voting Anyone But Bush on election day, simply because I'd like to see independent science back in action.
E-Baying a used CD is fine.
The problem is buying used CDs from music stores. Most stores that buy used CDs offer a better store credit rate than cash rate.
That means that a lot of those used CDs are funding purchases of new RIAA CDs from the same store.
If you, the consumer, don't buy used CDs, stores have no reason to buy used CDs from other patrons, and there's less store credit to buy new CDs.
Now, this is all very, very indirect and buying a used CD doesn't help the RIAA nearly as much as buying a new one. But it still helps a little.
And that's why I like my idea of burning the CD and sending a check directly to the artist. The RIAA gets no piece of that action.
Todd
I like a fairly diverse set of music (Gillian Welch to Rammstein), but a quick check at RIAARadar.com shows a good chunk of it is RIAA produced.
Now, I hate the RIAA as much as the rest of you. I like my rights, and it sucks that they're being trampled. The RIAA blows.
But I also really like music. And I don't buy the argument that all RIAA music is crap. It isn't. The stuff that gets a lot of commercial airplay may very well be, but it's simply not true to say that the RIAA doesn't have good artists.
And there's my problem. I hate the RIAA, and I like the artists. I'd cheerfully screw the RIAA by burning CDs from friends or finding what I like on the p2p networks, but I feel wrong not paying the artists for music that I spend a lot of time enjoying. Their hard work makes me happy, and they deserve compensation for that.
I wish there were a way I could mail the artist a check directly, for some fair price. If I could, I'd send a letter saying, "Hey, Gillian. I downloaded your music from Kazaa. It's great. Here's eight bucks. I trust that's more than you'd get from the RIAA, if I bought their packaged version."
Does any mechanism like this exist?
This is slightly off-topic, but maybe still interesting.
I worked for one of those credit card companies for a while. Our specialty was to find the really, really, really crappy customers (bankruptcies, overdue loans, the works) that no other credit card company would touch. We'd offer them credit cards with high interest rates, high sign up fees, and low credit limits.
This turned out to be enormously appealing to those customers. As it turns out, to function in today's society, you *need* a credit card. Not for the credit limit, but because it's a huge pain in the ass to reserve airline tickets, make hotel arrangments, get a rental car, buy things on the internet, and on and on and on. Life without a credit card can be a hassle.
People need credit cards, even if they're crappy credit cards that exist to screw you. And people will pay whatever price you set for those cards if they can't get them any other way.
Is is a fair business model? Yeah, I think so. In the same way that insurance companies raise your premium through the roof if you get in an accident every month, credit card companies raise your interest rates and fees if you habitually default on other loans. It's the only way to be profitable in that market segment.
The end of the story for the credit card company I worked at is this: as it turns out, the "give credit to people who don't deserve it" model only works in a growing economy. When the economy was booming a decade or so again, our stock went through the roof because enough of the poor credit risks were paying back their loans.
When the economy began to contract, all those people who defaulted once said, "Hey! That worked great the first time, I think I'll do it again!" Instead of our stock going through the roof, our loan loss rates went through the roof, and our stock went from $60 to $2 in a matter of weeks (look at the chart for PVN, if you're curious).
Live by the sword, die by the sword. Or something like that.
Todd
Of course, that's true, and that's the thing about Vegas that makes being a casino owner so lucrative: Most people aren't really interested in the best bets in the house, and those who come to gamble $20,000 or more almost never are. Most people are interested in either winning a car/jet ski/million dollars on a slot machine with really crappy return rates, or in getting free drinks and looking like a total James Bond stud. Not that there's anything wrong with either of those.
With that said, the original point of this thread was wondering what the best bets in the house are, and the answer is that a single bet on craps with max odds played gives you the best expected value for a game that involves absolutely no skill.
Well, almost no skill, anyways. When I play craps I somehow always end up tossing the dice off the craps table and into the blackjack area. God, how the people at the craps table hate me...
Todd
First try at this ignored paragraph breaks. Sorry!
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I used to play quite a bit of structured-bet poker in the California card rooms. In California, as opposed to Nevada, the card rooms are smoke free, and the competition is *usually* pretty weak.
At tables up to about the 6-12 or sometimes 10-20 range, almost all deals will see a flop. A lot of people will play any pair, regardless of position, and will often play any face card. In Vegas, more people know what they're doing, and a lot of times the deal will be folded around to the blinds.
So, in my opinion, California is about as accomodating a place to play as there is, and I got to a point where I could consistently win about $15/hr, over the long run. Not great, but not bad. More practice and higher table limits probably would have improved this number.
The problem is that it just gets SO. INCREDIBLY. BORING. If you're playing well, you're going to be folding most of your initial hands because they're just not worth playing. There have been hours where I've sat there and folded all 35 hands that are dealt. For a while you can watch the other players and learn their styles, but when you realize that two guys at the table will play anything to the flop, including 2-7 offsuit, there's not a whole lot else you need to know except that those two people suck and you should be ready to exploit their weakness.
Some poker books have stories about men who cut the pockets out of their pants, so they can masturbate at the tables. Perhaps my boredom threshold for masturbating in public is higher, or maybe I just didn't stick with poker long enough, but my decision was that that lifestyle wasn't really the way I wanted to spend my life.
For $15/hr, there are a lot of other jobs that don't revolve around being bored and taking other people's rent money. (Yes, I know you shouldn't play with rent money. A lot of people do. And those are usually the players who suck, and who are losing their money to you.)
Pot-limit and no-limit are completely different animals, but the risk in those games is enormous. It's trivially easy to lose your entire bankroll in one night.
Todd
A lot of casinos offer video poker with a "double down" option if you win. Once you've gotten a winning hand (often a pair of jacks or better), you can play "high card wins" with the computer, and equally suited cards are a push.
Now, I've played a bit of nickel video poker, and I can tell you that the odds on a normal nickel video poker machine are not in your favor. The return is maybe 95-98%.
However, the odds on the "double down" portion are exactly even.
So what's the right strategy, if you're playing this game? Once you get into the "double down" portion, you're playing with significantly better odds.
And, just as importantly, is the strategy affected by the weight of an enormous bucket of nickels, should you win?
Todd
Actually, craps offers some of the best odds in the house.
The original come/don't come bets are close to 50/50, and when you put "odds" behind them, those bets are exactly 50/50.
When you see signs with 100x odds for craps, those are fantastic deals. Your original wager might be $5 at an expected 98% return, but if you put another few hundred behind it at an expected 100% return, your total bet is going to be damn near 50/50.
Casino owners have said something like, "If every patron played craps, and every player played the maximum odds allowed, we wouldn't be able to pay our electricity bills."
Todd
When this happens in Vegas, you'll see a lot of people hogging those machines, praying for a royal, and it's a smart gamble. With that said, you're still probably going to lose money unless you're the lucky one person to get paid out.
In any case, any strategy for video poker should center around minimizing losses when you don't have a royal shot, and taking a shot at the royal when available. Anything else is just going to lose you more money than you need to lose.
Todd
I used to play quite a bit of structured-bet poker in the California card rooms. In California, as opposed to Nevada, the card rooms are smoke free, and the competition is *usually* pretty weak. At tables up to about the 6-12 or sometimes 10-20 range, almost all deals will see a flop. A lot of people will play any pair, regardless of position, and will often play any face card. In Vegas, more people know what they're doing, and a lot of times the deal will be folded around to the blinds. So, in my opinion, California is about as accomodating a place to play as there is, and I got to a point where I could consistently win about $15/hr, over the long run. Not great, but not bad. More practice and higher table limits probably would have improved this number. The problem is that it just gets SO. INCREDIBLY. BORING. If you're playing well, you're going to be folding most of your initial hands because they're just not worth playing. There have been hours where I've sat there and folded all 35 hands that are dealt. For a while you can watch the other players and learn their styles, but when you realize that two guys at the table will play anything to the flop, including 2-7 offsuit, there's not a whole lot else you need to know except that those two people suck and you should be ready to exploit their weakness. Some poker books have stories about men who cut the pockets out of their pants, so they can masturbate at the tables. Perhaps my boredom threshold for masturbating in public is higher, or maybe I just didn't stick with poker long enough, but my decision was that that lifestyle wasn't really the way I wanted to spend my life. For $15/hr, there are a lot of other jobs that don't revolve around being bored and taking other people's rent money. (Yes, I know you shouldn't play with rent money. A lot of people do. And those are usually the players who suck, and who are losing their money to you.) Pot-limit and no-limit are completely different animals, but the risk in those games is enormous. It's trivially easy to lose your entire bankroll in one night. Todd
And a lot of us in the environmental community are getting tired of having words put in our mouths about wind farms. Some of these reports are heavily publicized by traditional power providers, who'd be more than happy to see emerging technologies shot down, while blaming it on "environmental concerns", and leaving us with the status quo of oil, gas, and coal.
With that said, it'd be nice if we could build wind farms outside of migratory flyways. Yes, the impact is small, compared to things like collisions with tall buildings and being hit by cars and habitat destruction, but the impact is unfortunately concentrated on raptors. They're the birds that are riding the thermals around the wind farms, and they're often the birds that are migrating through that area every spring and fall.
For those who don't know, raptors are the birds of prey. They're usually top-level predators, and there just aren't THAT many of them. Each one eats bunches of mice/rabbits/insects/whathaveyou, and generally keeps prey populations balanced. It's important to have them around. If the wind farm kills were spread across the avian spectrum, this would be strictly an emotional issue, and not an ecological one. ("Sure is sad to see little birdies chopped up!"). Since the kills are concentrated in one particular category, though, there is actually an environmental impact, both on the predator/prey balance, and on particually endangered raptor species.
And that's it. As far as I know, that's the only issue with wind farms. At the end of the day, it's probably not a huge issue. It should be straight-forward to find wind farm sites that aren't in the middle of migration routes, and it'd be cool if we could come up with some deterrent to keep birds out of turbines.
What would be really neat, though, would be to get away from reliance on fossil fuels.
Todd