I don’t play poker, but I know quite a few people who do, and a few who play online. This post by Ian Ayres makes a fascinating argument that online poker might not last much longer. Not due to legal restrictions, but because computers are getting to be too good at playing.
Brooks points out how Mountain View is not like the rest of the world. This is part of why I like living there, though sadly I can’t do any work at Red Rock.
The reference is to xkcd 304, but I think I like the comic a bit more than the real-life example.
Over on the Freakonomics blog, they interviewed Scott Adams of Dilbert fame. One of the Q&As jumped out at me:
Q: My all-time favorite Dilbert cartoon is the one where he gives some kooky well-thought-out amount of payment for an item so he’ll get back an even dime, and says it’s for the clerk’s convenience. Do you really do that in real life?
A: I don’t do that. I prefer to use my mind for daydreaming while the cashier works out the math.
I do that all the time. I’ll buy something which costs $6.26 and have a $10 bill but no 5, so I’ll pay $11.26 instead to get an even $5 back. Or if I don’t have a quarter but I have three dimes and a penny, I’ll pay $11.31 and get $5.05 back. I’d never thought of that as being particularly weird, but in thinking about it now, maybe it is. Hmph.
Looks like someone figured out how to create WordPress accounts on this server without my permission and post a bunch of items about ringtones. Argh. I think I’ve cleaned up the mess now, and I’ve upgraded to the latest version of WordPress as well. Hopefully that’ll help.
Unfortunately, it’s unlikely this’ll result in a change in how often I post here, which is a fine topic for another post. Hah!
I saw a preview screening of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust tonight. It opens nationwide August 10th.
It was terrific. I just couldn’t stop smiling — so many parts of the movie were done well, or really funny, or had interesting twists that worked out great. I think people will love it, and I hope lots and lots of people see it.
I’ve always loved the book, and when I saw the trailers I was worried that the movie wouldn’t convey the same magic the book does. It turns out that the trailers just don’t do the movie justice. The movie is different from the book in a variety of ways, but both are magical. I think I may even like the movie version more. Quite a few people said afterwards that they hadn’t read the book but loved the movie.
The movers came this morning, so tonight is my first night in my new place. I just realized what I like the most about it — I’ve been sitting here catching up on things for the past few hours and aside from a low-volume hum coming from the TiVo, everything is completely silent. I used to live three doors down from a busy street with a 40 mph. speed limit, so even late at night I’d hear traffic going past.
Silence is great. This alone is worth the hassle of moving.
C4[1] registration is open. I’ll be there unless I collapse due to exhaustion before August.
Almost three years ago now I moved from San Jose to Santa Clara, cutting my commute to work from about 25 minutes to a smidgen over 10 minutes and moving from an apartment to a new-ish townhouse.
The new place was great, with a few exceptions. First, while it was close to work, it wasn’t extremely close to, well, anything. There’s essentially nothing I can walk to, and nothing I can bike to which doesn’t involve biking along busy streets. None of my friends live around here, either. Second, it was rather loud. I’m not exactly a morning person, so it’s been frustrating to realize that if my window is open, I’ll be woken up by traffic around 8 a.m. Third, it’s somewhat small. Specifically, the living room is tiny, the garage is too small to comfortably fit my Honda Accord so I’ve always parked outside, and various other things are just a bit tinier than they should be.
For most of the past year I’ve been looking for a place within walking distance of downtown Mountain View or Palo Alto. I’m rather selective about what I’m looking for, and without a deadline to force the issue I could afford to wait for the right place.
Tonight I signed a lease for a townhouse that’s just a couple-minute walk from downtown Mountain View. It’s much closer to a lot of my friends (including being four doors down from the townhouse two of my closest friends live in), is a minute or two closer to work, has a much larger living room, and is in an area with a bunch of nice walking and biking paths. I’m rather excited.
I’m also rather busy and don’t really have time to move. Oh, well. Somehow I’ll figure out how to get everything over there two weekends from now. Maybe I can steal a trick from MirrorMask and get my books to grow wings and fly their on their own….
Today was the first day in almost a year that I didn’t head on over to Craigslist to look for apartments in Mountain View. Details tomorrow.
Update: In the comments, Daniel Jalkut pointed out that Craigslist supports RSS for every search. Cool! I’d never scrolled down to the bottom of a search page, I guess, since that’s where the link is. I guess the next time I do something like this I won’t have to go to their web site every day.