Ramblings

darksar @ 2008-04-30T16:15:00

2008-04-30T23:20:43Z

So... the first thing I wanted to report on the whole music subject,
is something I learned a few years ago. I guess it's more about the
ear than music in general, but it has great implications concerning
the enjoyment of music.

Actually I learned it while learning about the eye.

I've pretty much always considered the eye a much superior sensor, in
comparison to the ear.

There seems like a lot more information coming in through the eye, and
all the ear seems to pick up are sounds, and we can only tell roughly
where they are coming from. (Even more roughly for those of us who
have damaged our hearing over time.)

But here's the thing. By the time a beam of light is processed from
our eye to our brain, we can recognize only ONE color, despite the
fact that there may very well be all kinds of different colors in that
beam. (And what I mean is, a whole bunch of different photons,
traveling in the same path, conforming to different frequencies, will
appear as one color at the point it hits the eye.)

Not only that, but our eyes can't even read what frequency light is
exactly. It has to approximate by comparing it to three reference
colors: red, green, and blue, which create this whole artificial color
scheme...

To show an example of what this means, we could have a photon of
yellow light fly in, OR two photons, one red and one green, and we
could potentially not tell the difference!

In fact, our readings are so confused at times, we change some
combinations of frequencies into PURPLE!!! There isn't even a purple
frequency!!! It doesn't exist!!!

Now... take the ear. When two frequencies come in... we can tell.
Not only can we tell they are two different frequencies, but we have
some idea how they are related. Are they an octave apart? Close
together? We can tell.

We can hear many more than just two also.

So with the ear, we can differentiate between frequencies, but the eye
smashes them together and forms one color.

This ability to compress a series of musical notes into one sound, is
very very cool. It rivals the ability of the eye to view different
colors across the horizon. The ear is not such a second rate sensor
after all.

darksar @ 2008-02-13T16:05:00

2008-02-14T00:09:22Z

One of the things I got for Christmas was one of those little mp3
players which can hold all the music I've gathered for my entire
lifetime on something the size of a postage stamp. (Thanks Babe!!!)

When I was younger, I was involved in music a lot more than I am now.
I would either be listening to it, or playing it one way or another.

I noticed my parents' music collections, and even my grandparents'
music collections, and I would wonder why older folks didn't seem to
be involved with music as much anymore. There was clear evidence that
they once listened to music pretty heavily. But now not so much.

Today, I don't play any music, and I barely get a chance to listen to
music even though I have all kinds of cool audio equipment.

So this little mp3 player is very cool in that sense. I'm running
around like a kid with headphones on all the time. Well, not so much
walking around with them, cause I think that's asking to get run over
by pretty much anything that moves around on the planet... but you
know what I mean.

Anyhow... a funny thing has started happening ever since I've
populated my little mp3 player. I've noticed I'm getting songs stuck
in my head all the time now. I had one song stuck in my head for a
week!!!

So I started asking people how to get rid of a song stuck in your
head. I heard if you listen to the song all the way, it will go away.
So I did that, and it didn't go away. My Babe says no, you got to
SING the song, THEN it will go away. That was hard because I didn't
know the words. So I learned the words and sang along with the entire
song, and it STILL didn't go away.

Then someone said no, you need to sing the song OUT LOUD for it to go
away. (There are noise ordinances which make it illegal for me to
sing, so I had to do this as a crime in my back yard, hoping dog
barking would cover for me.) But it STILL didn't work.

I started reading about "ear worms" and whatever else they call it.
Some folks are doing studies, but really for the most part, no one
really knows what's going on.

Most surmise that the brain forms links for data, and for some reason
a song gets looped. And really, unless you are good at brain surgery,
that's about as far as anyone takes that theory. They just assume
it's true. People then go on to concentrate on how to stop it, or
even how to force it to happen for evil advertising purposes.

But now that I've been studying it myself, I'm thinking they have the
fundamental concept wrong.

Maybe it's not a bogus loop in the brain at all.

Maybe instead, part of the brain simply WANTS or NEEDS music.

Despite the fact listening to the song did not make it go away... my
mind was happy when the music was playing.

Take a look at people. If they are not directly listening to music in
their car, home, or carrying around a player, they may be whistling,
humming, singing, or silently bouncing around physically to some tune.

So I started listening to music again at work, and well... I need to
experiment more, but I'd say part of my brain becomes satisfied and I
can concentrate on work easier.

All the remedies to remove a song stuck in your head may be suited to
each individual. They do what it takes for their brain to become
satisfied, whether it's listening to a song or singing out loud.

So anyhow, I think I will devote this year's journal, to studies in
music.

darksar @ 2007-12-30T12:37:00

2007-12-30T20:43:42Z

That concludes my ramblings on Racism.

In summary, I petition for no new laws or reduced freedom.

I simply point out responsibility, and that it might be a
better world if people, as a rule, gave a **** about other
groups of people.

Now back to our regularly scheduled ramblings.

Thanks,

Darksar
--------

darksar @ 2007-12-30T12:34:00

2007-12-30T20:39:18Z

One Theory on How a Minority can get some Better Consideration

Racist actions always seem far away from me. It's happening
somewhere else, probably because there's not a lot of minorities
around me most of the time. Or at least not in any significant
grouping.

So it strikes me that it's probably easy for me to go about my
day without doing anything racist towards anyone. While someone else
is acting racist when close to a racial minority, it's very easy for
me to pretend I'm above it all, and indicate to people that I'm such a
good and fair person.

I'm sure this is common sense and plenty of people already know
what I'm about to point out, but I don't see it enough, so I'll state
it here again.

The people who are closest to a minority are usually the people
who have something to gain by being racist, whether it's something
physically of value, or whether it's simply putting one's self above
the other in some way, perhaps violent.

So we can describe this with an equation. Folks who have
something to gain are more likely to act racist, compared to those who
are far enough away they have nothing to gain.

If you don't have anything to gain or lose being far away, then
you CAN gain something else by acting fair and kind to minorities.
You gain a good feeling, get patted on the back for being a
humanitarian, and get the self enjoyment of pointing out other
people's mistakes.

So, I think most people in the majority are far enough away from
any particular minority, that they may be considered passive to the
issues unless they are brought up.

From the point of view of a minority, communicating with the people
close to you, may be a lot harder than communicating with the passive
majority of folks far away.

A minority might have a lot easier time appealing to the majority
far away, explaining their situation and gaining support, than either
fighting the people close by, (which admittedly you might need to do
regardless) or carrying that fight to all of the majority.

One thing that probably isn't very helpful, and perhaps harmful,
yet something I think I see quite often, is when the minority treats
those far away as if they are the ones close by.

I think it's difficult for a minority to initiate with those further
away and explain their situation, first because they are already angry
from being treated poorly, and second because it will be very
frustrating trying to talk to people who really have no idea what's
going on. They may go through some wrong ideas before they start to
really understand.

But I think this is, at least, one strategy minorities can use in
order to get some fair consideration. Bypass the people who have
something to gain by oppressing you, and talk to the passive masses
who have nothing to gain from oppressing you and will feel good about
doing the right thing. (I guess this is already being done,
especially on the internet.)

Be patient and don't attack the passive masses, or else you've
simply made enemies out of people who might have otherwise been
sympathetic.

Darksar
--------

darksar @ 2007-12-29T13:12:00

2007-12-29T21:21:17Z

Do you think that Guy is a Racist?

It seems like these past couple years, we've seen in the media a
lot of celebrities who have been racist in one way or another. You'd
think this would cause a lot of deep thinking about racism, but I'm
not so sure that's been the case.

The most important question seems to always be: "do you think that
person is a racist?"

There's been folks like Mel Gibson, Michael Richards (Kramer from
Seinfeld), Dog the Bounty Hunter, Imus, and probably a whole lot more.
And one thing I'd like to make perfectly clear, is that I'm all for
complaining about these folks actions, and absolutely not making any
excuses for them.

What I really would like to bring up, is not so much what they
did, but rather how we all react. We all sit down and try to
determine at great length and conversation, whether or not this person
is a "racist" or not. If we decide they are a racist, then they are
guilty of racism. If we decide they are not a racist, then we forgive
them.

My point is, we spend so much time judging the person, we
completely forget the fact that the act occurred. More times than not,
the person is forgiven, and we have no exploration as to why these
acts keep happening by people who are supposedly not racists.

In addition, no matter what we judge, we make darn sure it's very
clear, that we are not racists ourselves, and that's why we're so
committed to judging. Nothing we do could possible be considered a
racist act. It's laughable to even suggest it.

So I'd like to point out the simple conclusion: if all these
celebrities, who are a small subset of our population, are not racist,
yet they are committing racist actions, then it's likely that many
more of us are also doing this. It's just we don't get caught by the
media because we're not particularly noticed.

The real danger is the sole question, "Do you think this person
is a racist" is that we completely ignore the problem of all these
racist ACTIONS happening all around us.

The media catches celebrities committing racist actions, but who
catches us? If s single person called us on it, would we tell them to
jump in the lake? When is the time we need to soul search or talk to
minorities to learn what we're doing wrong?

I guess my point is simply that it's the ACTIONS that matter. Any
of us are capable of racist type actions, and if we pretend only racists
commit racist actions, then I think we're really missing the point.

Darksar
-------

darksar @ 2007-12-28T13:59:00

2007-12-28T22:02:25Z

Who's Responsible Today for Racist Events?

I think when you are young and growing up, you tend to believe
all racist events have happened in the past, and today we have all
matured and everything is great. Of course as you get older, and see
more of life, and study more of the timeline, you realize the present
and the past are really the same. Pretty much any historical racial
event is very likely still happening.

As far as I can tell, the very first argument that comes up in a
racial discussion is: who is responsible today? I've witnessed the
conversation so many times, it looks like this:

"Blah Blah Blah, this group of people got a raw deal."

"Well, it's not my fault. I've never hurt anyone, and
neither has any of my family.

"Yes it is your fault, you folks are responsible!"

"No we are not!!!"

I hope it's obvious that the conversation serves no purpose
except to make everyone angry. It achieves the opposite of any
original intention to address unfair racial events.

The problem with this argument is that you can't apply a personal
responsibility to people in general. Sure, you can pin down a
personal responsibility to specific people who are tied to an event.
But it's a lot harder to tie a personal crime, to the general
populace. And in turn, the general populace will become rather
defensive about being labeled criminal.

The key is to understand that responsibility isn't only personal.
We all have a duty and responsibility for our society. This contains
all the responsibility you could ever want or need, and it's not
personal, nor is it racist.

Simply put: individuals are responsible for what their society
has done, what it is doing, and what it will do in the future.

I'm not saying that you need to wave a flag, become a politician,
or give up a lot of privacy. Really, it's amazing how little you need
to do. Really, all you need to do is just care a little. There are a
bunch of people in society, and really all you need to do is a few
little things. Maybe for some, it's just a matter of NOT doing things
like instantly putting other people's concerns down for your own
amusement.

Instead of telling you how to do this, I'll explain what I
changed in myself once I understood this.

I used to hate people who stopped me at the grocery store or
market, and ask me to sign petitions for their cause. I'm on my own
business, and these folks have no right to bother me. I am not
interested in their causes, and I don't have the time or money anyhow.

Today, I do stop and listen. I won't let them push me around. I
sign very few petitions, and really what I want, is a document that
explains their position so I can mull it over at home or on the
internet. But I do listen. I stop. I am polite where before I
probably seemed rude. And I research their cause a little. And
really, all I'm doing that I didn't do before was to just care a
little.

If we all just care a little about everyone else's issues, then
perhaps our own issues will be listened to also. We can't expect
other people to care about our issues, even if they are issues of our
own right to privacy, unless we care a little to consider other
people's issues.

Ultimately, it's everyone's responsibility for what their society
has done, is doing, and will do in the future. Not necessarily ruling
out specific personal responsibility, but at minimum, we ALWAYS have
the responsibility to set things right.

Darksar
--------

darksar @ 2007-12-27T13:21:00

2007-12-27T21:22:44Z

The White Mountain: Why Racial Sensitivity is Necessary

Ever wonder how racial crimes are justified by the common person?
As soon as I started studying racism and history, I was appalled by
what people have done to each other. I've wondered how any society
could have allowed those things to happen, such as slavery and wiping
out many of the Native Americans.

Some people simply describe the racial majority of the past as
evil. I found that hard to believe. My overall belief is that
although technology has changed over the years, people really have
not. After studying things deeper, I still believe people are just
about the same as they were hundreds of years ago.

When you come to the conclusion that people are about the same as
when serious racial events happened, you realize that it's critical to
find out how exactly these things happened, so you can have some hope
of preventing them in the future. So I studied.

As one would expect, it was not a bunch of the majority who
simply decided to wipe out or enslave a minority. It was a very
smooth and gradual process of justification over time.

If you read the newspapers and letters surrounding events, you
will see a slow increase in controversial negativism. This negativism
will increase as controversial language is slowly accepted by the
majority until a threshold is reached. At this point actions seem
justified.

As an example, look at Wounded Knee, where Native Americans were
slaughtered. You will find increasingly unjustified hostile language
towards Native Americans, until a massacre will barely get past the
populace, which is just the next natural level of negativism.

Another example you can experience in grade school, as a group of
kids slowly decide to pick on someone who looks or acts differently.
In my experience, kids don't just attack. They talk about the target
in increasing negativism, slowly building up justification to the next
level, until the next level becomes an action instead of simply
harsher words.

If you ask a kid why they threw a target's book in the mud, they
very likely won't have an answer except, "I don't know."

If you ask a kid what they experienced before being beat up, they
may say they expected it because of the way kids were acting.

Racial crimes come from the progression of negative viewpoints
against the target race. Negative viewpoints are transmitted through
words, and increased by each person who wants to stand out by pushing
the envelope just a little more.

Racial Insensitivity is simply on that path to justifying
criminal actions. Minorities take offense for the exact reason the
grade school kids does, when kids are building negativism against him.

Racial Sensitivity is how we as a society, no different than
those before us, can help prevent racial crimes before the negativism
snowballs out of our control.

So how do we decide when it is OK to be racially insensitive?

We all live on a mountain of snow. Those of us who wish to speak
climb the mountain and sit around chatting. As we speak, our words
pop out of our mouths and fall into the snow. Sometimes our words
just plop down there and stick, while other times they start rolling
for a little while and stop. Finally other times our words may
snowball down the hill and slam into some folks or wipe out a village.

Simply put, we are responsible for our words.

Freedom of Speech is a completely different matter.

Just because you have the freedom to climb the mountain and
speak, does not mean you can ignore your responsibility for your words
and what they contribute to doing.

If your words hit someone, or wipe out a village, then society
has every right to hold you responsible.

If you carelessly fling your words causing little snowballs which
may or may not grow into runaway snowballs, then people certainly have
a right to take issue with your carelessness. And that has nothing to
do with your right to be on the mountain.

Finally, one word on "tolerance" since it seems to be abused in
this subject area. Complete universal tolerance is not what people
mean when they talk about harmony and virtue. It is a good thing to
learn to tolerate different people and ideas. You do not need to
tolerate negative ideas that may lead to cruelty or murder. It is
completely reprehensible to hear someone replace the harmonious use of
the term "tolerance" with the universal "anything goes" meaning.

Darksar
-------

darksar @ 2007-12-26T13:00:00

2007-12-26T21:01:47Z

Well, it's almost the end of the year, and I
have not written anything controversial, as
promised.

So I guess I'll try to finish this up for the year
in the remaining few days before New Years.

Not intending to direct this at anyone in particular,
but rather because it's such a hot and trendy topic
these days. It's hard not to talk about this without
ruffling some feathers: Racism.

Racism is a very popular topic these days, and quite
frankly, I'm tired of the same old, same old conversation.

I don't see others with much desire to actually talk about
the details. And as always, the answer is always in the details.

I guess I will write four posts. They will likely be locked.
I'm not ready to declare these ideas as my official position.
(or argue about them)

My purpose is to organize my thoughts, get them down before I
forget them, and study them over time. Then I can refine them
personally, and hopefully be able to contribute to real
conversations at other times.

Also, I should point out these are largely not MY ideas. They
are the details I've gathered and studied, which I've simply
organized.

The posts will probably be:

1. Why Racial Sensitivity is so Important

2. Who is Responsible for Addressing Racial Actions
in Society.

3. Why it's not Enough to Just Criticize Celebrities

4. One Theory on How to Help Communicate Racial Issues

My appologies if any of this comes out offensive to anyone.
That's not the intention, and I'm not perfect.

Darksar
-------

darksar @ 2007-01-09T00:55:00

2007-01-09T07:55:16Z

It seems that I woke up on the wrong side of live journal
this year. So I think I will devote this year, and at this
point, only this one year, to controversial topics.

So we will see what I feel like posting this year of 2007.

But for now I'd like to point out that the Universe seems to
be conspiring to push me to wake up very early each day.

Now... I don't find that especially strange in general,
except for me, I find it odd because I thought the
Universe already had conspired to make me a late night
person. So... why the change???

I feel kind of like I'm one of those TV vampires who are
trying to be good to save their souls. Except I have not
killed anyone, at least not that I remember. I'm just trying
to adapt to the seemingly poisonous morning.

I kind of get the feeling that Vampires never really were
hurt by the daylight, but rather the early morning. They
were probably misunderstood by morning people, and accused
of all foul things simply because they wanted to sleep in.

If you've ever worked all night long, only to run into a
morning person coming into work at 6am or earlier, they
have a little something beyond their cheerful morning welcome.

Theirs is kind of a reaction to your lack of extreme happiness.
It turns so quickly into anger. And I can say there's an
unexplained instinct in getting out of work and back home
to sleep with the curtains closed before more morning people
get in to work and decide to drive a stake thru your heart.

darksar @ 2007-01-03T14:46:00

2007-01-03T21:46:57Z

Well, I was saying to my Babe that I felt I didn't
really finish anything in 2006. She pointed out
that I built a fence gate over July vacation.

So I went out in the back yard today, and I looked at
the gate. The wind was strong over Christmas, and it
must have slammed shut. So I looked at it closer today,
and it is all ripped out of shape. Some of the wood
is broken. Other parts have bent where the nails were
put in. The screws look ready to strip even if I wanted
to take it back apart...

I went into the house and noticed the curtain rods trying
to fall off the wall that I put up earlier in the year...

Sigh...

It is depressing when you do not make progress.

I think I need to finish *something* or else I'm going to
go nuts. It seems like every task becomes increasingly
hard the more I turn my focus on it.

I mean, how can writing a craps game become a year long
project? It's a couple dice and some odds and such...

I think I will attempt to finish one thing per month, just
to keep my sanity. I really would rather do other things,
but in January, I'm going to finish my craps game. If I get
done early, then I will allow myself other things.

darksar @ 2007-01-02T00:11:00

2007-01-02T07:11:38Z

Well, time to review New Year's resolutions of 2006.

1. Hope I was a good mate.

2. Did not progress at all in the health department, but
did not slip back too much either.

3. Some progress in dog training. Need to keep advancing.

4. Learned to make pizza, spaghetti, and fish kinda. So I guess
yet another small step.

5. Did not become profitable at poker. I guess I've lost $150
in 2 years.

6. Wrote almost a whole craps game... I guess it does not count
as writing a complete computer game.

So... I guess the answer is the same for most of them. Made
some effort, sometimes a little progress, but did not accomplish
much.

Overall, it was a year of catching up, I think. A lot of stuff to
get through.

I think I'll roll the 2006 resolutions into 2007. But not just that,
but with the added prime resolution to actually finish some goals off.

This is because I fear I may be developing the habit to never finish
things off. We will see if we can't address this in 2007.

I'll also make a minor resolution to post more in my journal.

Happy New Year All,

darksar @ 2006-06-30T13:50:00

2006-06-30T20:51:10Z

Ah, sweet vacation!!! A week of it!!!

This morning I didn't have to rush around and worry about
getting to work on time. I just kinda sat around and watched
TV. It wasn't even good TV.

Then I decided to take the dog for a walk. The dog decided he
forgot how to sit and obey normal commands, so I went for a walk
myself. (That's what our trainer says to do.) I made sure to
walk around the block and let all the smells from the neighborhood
waft into my clothes, and then I got back and the dog was willing
to behave again. Then we went for another walk, and he was a lot
better.

It was getting to be around 11:30am, and still had not a thing to do.
I purposely enjoyed my mind not rushing around trying to come up
with things to do. It was an enjoyable time of not thinking at all.
I don't know what I'll do on the rest of my vacation, but I'm going
to go out of my way to do more of that.

Then I showered, and still... no where to go. That was nice too.

So I decided to start my own business. I pulled up the IRS web page
and decided to get myself a Federal Tax ID number. They are free,
afterall. Unfortunately, the online form said I needed to write down
a start date for my business. Hmm... seems like a trick to me, so I
called them up.

Somehow the voice recording knew I was on vacation, because when I got
tired of being on hold, I decided I'd just hang up. Afterall, I didn't
really need to start my own business. As I went to hang up, the voice
encouraged me to keep holding, and then I got transfered to a real person.

I was right, it was a trick. As soon as you get a tax id, they expect you
to fill out more forms come tax day. I explained that I didn't have a business,
and was more or less just pretending for a while, and they said I couldn't do
the pretend thing.

So I thanked the guy and said maybe I'll make a business another time.

Then I decided to sit in front of the TV some more.

Later, I decided to build a fence gate so the dog could be confined
to the back yard. So I got out not one, but two tape measures, and
measured lots of fence stuff. I drew a stick figure of a fence maybe
I'll build this weekend. Building fences seems kinda fun. I've built
a little fence that seems to be too small, a larger fence that is better,
and now I will build a fence gate. My Babe thinks I'm building a maze
in the back yard, and she is carefully staying away from the back yard.

Just now, I'm doing some recreational computer programming. I am writing
a cgi program, but that got kinda boring after a while. I guess I'll
go back to it later.

Then maybe some poker. I am still losing overall. But I like the challenge.
Man, it's been almost two years of online poker.

Ahh, vacation is good.

darksar @ 2006-02-26T23:09:00

2006-02-27T07:25:53Z

Hey Min or Shadis,

I don't know what I did wrong, but my account is inactive. I probably
screwed it up when I was registering. Let me know at Darksar@yahoo.com
if there's anything I'm supposed to do.

Been a good weekend. Bought lots of lightbulbs. Lightbulbs are always
burning out here. I guess every person likes to believe they cause street
lights to go off. I suspect they go out all the time. But I get suspicious
when our lights go off in sequence and do funny things.

I can't really blame the supernatural I guess. I have a few X10 home
automation things set up. But it got really annoying when the lights
that were not hooked to X10 started changing state without my permission.

I start to get paranoid when I always find myself standing on an unstable
stool wobbling around wearing only slipperly socks, hoping I don't slip
off and fall.

I guess everyone feels kinda worried about that. But I have a bad history
of it. I've broken amazing things while trying to balance on things.

I remember once at a hotel trying to stand on a chair, to close a stubborn
drape because I got in late, and I didn't want any chance of light getting
in the next morning. Well, I slipped off that oddly enough, and hear a
large shattering on the way to the floor.

I looked down around me, and there was a lot of shattered glass. I wondered
where it came from. Then I decided I'd ignore it and go to bed.

The next morning, I was still stumped by the high bunch of shattered glass
all on the floor. I thought it might be related to the lamp, which looked
like it might have had a glass table attached to it at one time.

I left a note for the maid not to get cut by the glass, as I was not
real confident she'd notice it, despite the fact it covered the ground.

I mean, she could have slipped and fallen in it, and been cut to shreds.

But anyhow, the most worrying thing is when you're standing on a
stood wobbling around in slippery socks replacing a 60 watt lightbulb,
and then suddenly you see another light bulb go off in the distance.

But this isn't light a lightbulb in another room. It's a lightbulb
thru a hole in the ceiling up into a room you never saw before.

So you climb up there, going to replace it, and then another one
even higher up, burns out.

Eventually you are really high up, much less stable than the wobbly
stool earlier.

darksar @ 2006-01-17T12:02:00

2006-01-17T20:02:58Z

Well, last night I made a pizza.

This was the first time I'd done this solo since before I met my Babe.

Last time my Babe and I made pizza, I took notes.

The bread was pizza dough bought from the store, and the sauce was
probably not very complicated, but it seemed complicated to me.

So, to make a long story short, it came out OK. I actually liked it,
and my Babe seemed to like it as well.

I guess the reason I feel like I've made an accomplishment here, is
that I actually, for the first time ever, was mixing in ingredients
and tasting the sauce as it came along. The composition of sauce, and
how different ingredients change the taste over the time of cooking,
has been completely magical and unknown to me. So this is like a
whole new area of knowledge. It's kinda exciting.

I'm actually not planning on becoming a good cook or anything. I
guess I am mostly doing this in order to enjoy and understand what I
eat. I love pizza, and I know what I like, but I couldn't tell you
what I actually like about it.

Back in 1999, I managed to visit a pizza convention. It had lots of
pizza type stuff that companies were selling. I simply went in as a
fan of pizza. I also hoped to have some of the best pizza around.

Unforunately, that's not how it worked. An interesting thing
happened. It seemed that companies would put their pizza component on
bland pizza parts, in order that you could easily taste their product.

So if they sold sauce, then the bread and toppings would be bland. Or
if they sold bread, they would put on a dull sauce.

Well, after a day at the pizza convention, suddenly I wasn't tasting
the combined pizza taste anymore. I was tasting the components, which
was disturbing. I had trouble eating pizza for a couple weeks. But
it was a great way to learn more about pizza.

When I first signed up to go in, they asked me what my company name
was. I said I didn't have one, I was just here for the pizza. They
told me I couldn't do that, I had to be in the business. I was like
what? I mean, my money is still green. What's the problem? But they
would not let me in, so I had to make up a company name.

Then everywhere I went, they'd read my badge and ask me about my
business. I was so annoyed originally, that I never thought to think
up a business, so it kinda developed clumsily over the course of the
day. By the end of the day, I was opening my own pizza place and
shopping for supplies. I had to keep reminding myself not to close
any deals.

Man, those pizza folks take their business seriously. They don't want
no pizza eaters in there. They want pizza business people.

I also bought a video tape on how to throw pizzas and do tricks. I
have not watched it yet. I guess I can watch it now, but I really
hate cleaning up flour all over the place.

darksar @ 2006-01-14T10:27:00

2006-01-14T18:39:10Z

Well, I made spagetti last night for dinner. Besides pizza and toast,
I think it's the only thing I've made. My Babe gave me the simple
recipe earlier, and I had watched her make it. I think it was edible.
I kinda had an upset stomach this morning, but I think this is unrelated.

On the other hand, I heated up some soup, and I am baffled on how to
pour the soup into a coffee cup without burning yourself or otherwise
making a mess.

The boiling broth seems to pour into the cup, and the noodles stay
in the pan long after the cup fills up the first time.

This is not to mention that the pot doesn't pour very well into a
coffee cup, and spills hot water on the sink, and on the sides and bottom
of the cup.

I tried to spoon in some noodles and made a mess.

Now while writing this, I just burned my tongue. I guess it's
still hot. So now I am slurping it, so as to cool it down. Many
people don't like slurping noises including me, but no one's around
right now, and it seems entertaining.

The dog just came in the house. Apparently he's interested in my
slurping, which is interesting since he hates chicken noodle soup.
So I've stopped slurping. As far as anyone knows.

darksar @ 2006-01-01T13:27:00

2006-01-01T21:27:51Z

New Years Resolutions for 2006.

Reviewing 2005:

Lose 17 to 25 pounds.

I actually lost 25 pounds. Truely Amazing.

Become a better mate:

I can't say I accomplished anything I hoped for.
So I will work on this more in 2006.

Advance in my career:

Nothing concrete here. Although I did learn
quite a lot. Hopefully this will pay off this
year.

Learn to play Poker:

Complete failure here, I think. I have not progressed
at all. I am still dead even for an entire year. I
kinda feel like the entire world has all learned to play
Texas Hold'em just a little better than myself.

===============================================================

New Year's Resolutions for 2006 !!! :

1. Learn to be a better mate/husband/partner.

2. Take another step at being healthy and
physically fit.

3. Train dog more.

4. Learn to Cook well enough to actually make
some regular meals around the house.

5. Learn to play poker well enough to be
profitable over time, while playing on
the internet.

6. Write a moderately simple computer game.

===============================================================

darksar @ 2005-12-02T15:57:00

2005-12-02T23:58:38Z

I had a dream the other night.

I was in a grocery store with my Babe. We were at the cash register,
and the checkout lady was ringing up our groceries.

Suddenly I had a ringing in my ear. The sounds of everything else
kinda faded such that I could not make out much of what was being
said. The cash register lady was talking to me, and I couldn't
understand a word she was saying.

I guess it's kinda like losing your hearing ability as you grow older.
Folks would always tell me, don't listen to loud music because it will
ruin your hearing. I payed attention to them and worried about it for
a while. But then after a little experimentation, it seemed like they
were exagurating to some degree, such as authority figures do at
times.

So as a young man, I guess I really abused my hearing. I used to
listen to loud music all the time.

Then later on one day I was getting a physical, and I had a hearing
test. The doctor told me to stand in a hallway, and he would whisper
from down the hallway to see if I could hear. Suddenly I noticed my
hearing was not what it used to be.

The thing was, there was background noise coming from another room
down the hall. When I covered up one ear in particular, the
background noise overwhelmed the doc whispering. I realized I had
lost some hearing. But it was only at a certain frequency. It was
the frequency people speak at.

Now I realize more useful information about losing part of your
hearing. It doesn't mean that you lose your ability to hear. Well, I
guess some folks experience that. But you lose a range. If it's the
voice range, then you might not really notice it.

The brain is always making shapes and recognizable words out of
patterns it perceives, and as you lose your voice range, the brain
compensates, so you don't notice it. Then POW, one day the loss drops
beyond the brain's ability to compensate and it seems like a drastic
loss in hearing.

Worse yet, background noise becomes your enemy. It drowns out the
little voices you can otherwise hear. (Well, not THOSE little voices.
But the ones more concrete people make.) That's why old folks are
always cranking up the TV, and trying to make everything else quiet.

Hearing damage happens gradually. But the perception of hearing loss
doesn't happen, then suddenly happens. The little hearing thingees
fall out of your ear each time you listen to something damaging. Lose
1% of them today, and along with that brain compensation thing, you
never notice. Not until like 50% of them are gone, and then it's too
late.

Now why didn't a grown up explain this to me in adequate detail? Oh
yeah, because I never listened...

So anyhow, I was having a similar problem with the lady at the
checkout. Only this time, I could not hear anything she was saying.
I was, for the moment, functionally incapacitated in my shopping
effort.

I tried to just guess what the lady was saying, and I took out some
money and asked if this was enough. as if I was too lazy to do the
math. Then she put her hand up to her ear, and gave me a questioning
look.

Then I looked around the store, and tried to talk to my Babe, and she
looked at me funny too, and I saw that everyone in the grocery store
had stopped what they were doing, and many of them had their hands
near their ears. Everyone was experiencing the same problem I was.
But the ringing didn't seem to be coming externally.

Then my dream skipped ahead a little, and it was after a few hours,
and people could hear normally again. It turned out that we were
attacked by space aliens, and they had the ability to disrupt our
hearing all over the world. They incapacitated almost all of us.
They wiped out our military in about a half an hour. It was really
depressing. I guess even with modern technology, the military and
leaders all rely heavily on actually hearing what each other say in an
emegency.

I remember looking out the window and seeing a squadron of what
appeared to be jets, and I was momentarily excited to think we still
had some, but as they got closer, it was clear that they were the
aliens. They had massive squadrons of ships, 100 strong in each
group, with 3 or 4 squadrens visible in the local sky at any given
time. The planet Earth's defenses were wiped out. We wondered if we
had some nukes left. But from where we were at, it was just
wondering.

darksar @ 2005-11-09T23:42:00

2005-11-10T07:42:26Z

Dieting is like hot tubbing at work.

I go in to work, and read my email, and then after an hour or
so, I go off and sit in the hot tub for about 3 hours.

The warmth of the water feels incredibly good. I can completely
relax with the heat of the water.

Except that when I talk about sitting in the hot tub for 3 hours,
what I really mean is running hot water over my hands for about 15
seconds in the bathroom.

I realize this sounds kinda pathetic and depressing, but actually
that's not the message at all.

When you get used to dieting, you learn to appreciate the smell
of food you like, and you realize that the earlier time when you
were hot tubbing in many many pizzas a day, was quite bogus.
You can get a whole lot of the enjoyment of hot tubbing simply by
splashing a little hot water on your hands.

So I got a little beach umbrella from a drink the other day and
pitched it into a hotel bar of soap in the bathroom. It's kinda
nice. And I have these little towels I use to dry off on.

It's not ideal in the bathroom. So I'm moving out to the sink.
Out there, they don't have controllable hot water, but they have
burning hot water from the coffee maker. I can mix that in with
some cold water, and it's infinitely nicer than in the bathroom.

I wear my sunglasses when I go out there now. Some people want
to use the hot tub to wash their clothes or something like that,
so I tell them they can't.

It's really convincing, because I can put up a pretty good argument
why anything they want to do is not something to do here in the sink.

The sink is obviously made for hand hottubing. And I have reservations.

It's not for washing out dishes, or stealing water to take somewhere else.

And if they hassle me, I've had a lot of experience splashing water. I
can make a splash go right in someone's eyes at about 15 feet.

It's a sweet deal so far. We'll have to see...

darksar @ 2005-11-04T16:59:00

2005-11-05T01:00:17Z

I've always been relatively good at recognizing voices, like on the
phone or TV. So like someone would call that I had not heard for a
number of years and I'd be like, yeah, I know who it is.

The past years I guess I don't talk on the phone much anymore, but I
recognize the people on TV while sitting in the other room. I think
I'm getting better at it.

The weird thing is, everyone else seems to be getting worse at it.
Identifying people from their voice is becoming a 6th sense for me.

And it's not just pattern but volume. I have always thought it's
weird the way people talk behind other people's backs, when they don't
realize they are talking loud enough for the other people to hear.

Another thing I seem to have noticed for the last 20 years or so, is
that people are increasingly mumbling their thoughts out loud. I
thought that was weird years ago, but now it's happening more and more
often, and no one else seems to notice.

It's starting to become as if I can virtually read people's thoughts,
while no one else knows.

But the really weird part is, that more and more often, I hear common
voices. It's not like people I know, or else I'd have a better handle
on it, but it's like, there's the voice from three weeks ago again.
There's the voice from a month ago in the post office. There's the
voice from this morning, even though I just drove across town....

Of courswe this doesn't make sense, since I'm pretty sure people are
not following me around. And of course it's not anything weird like
space aliens.

So I did some investigating, and read about people who believe if they
use a tape recorder, they can record voices of the dead. Of course I
didn't believe this, but I became fascinated as to what is actually
happening. It seems like every day background noise occationally
forms patterns that resemble a human voice. Kinda like my computer is
making a variety of noises right now, and if I listen real hard, I can
pick out little things here and there that sound like a voice.

Then I also took it the other direction, and started listening to
crowds of people, like in the cafeteria. I find crowd voices
fascinating, because it doesn't sound like people at all.

So the discovery here is, that we always think of voice as something
special, that is distinguishable from other noises, but it's
absolutely not. Voice sounds, and other sounds, can mix and translate
at any time.

It follows that if human voice does this mixing with ordinary noise,
then there is probably lots of other communications mixing as well,
and if you develop your listening translation abilities, then you
should be able hear and understand all manners of things.

And finally, this ties right back into my theory on inanimate objects
actually being on the edge of living. The computer fan IS speaking,
and it WANTS to be alive. It envies your life, and given half a
chance it would gladly swap places with you. And the scary thing is,
there's probably a way inanimate objects can do just that. But I
imagine it must be difficult, or there must be rules or physical laws,
or else it would happen all the time.

But no one can argue that when you die, you become inanimate. The
question is, what becomes closer to life when you do die? Can a rock
steal some of your life while you sleep on it? Don't ever kill
insects in the same place too often, as they might cause a nearby
pebble to gain a necessary advantage. And this does explain why
sacrifices were done in one place all the time, in order to give more
life to something they kept nearby.

Anyhow, the point is, if something is getting close to life, perhaps
you can communicate with it thru ambiant noise communication. But
don't be fooled. It probably is most interested in stealing some of
your life energy.

darksar @ 2005-09-28T13:16:00

2005-09-28T20:20:29Z

Warning: Anniversary post follows:

Well, today is my 3rd wedding anniversary.

I feel very happy.

I woke up next to my dream woman laying right there next to me. And
when she woke up, she didn't try to run away or anything. I am always
concerned on the morning of our wedding anniversary, as I don't know
how many years the spell's duration lasts.

I still don't know what I'm supposed to owe the universe. I guess I
should try to do some good deeds or something.

I guess I'll spend the rest of the time at work remembering what it
was like before I met my Babe. I'll think about how cool it would be
to get a date with her. And have, once again, the best day of my life
when I finally get to see her today.

Love you, Babe!!!

Darksar
----------

darksar @ 2005-07-20T11:15:00

2005-07-20T18:18:21Z

Well, today James Dohaan passed away. He was "Scotty" on the original Star Trek.

So today is a good day to write my memories of Star Trek.

The original series of Star Trek was aired in 1966 and was cancelled in 1969.

My Dad was a huge fan of Star Trek, watching the reruns religiously.
Naturally I became fascinated with it was well, as a young child.

This was the era of only 3 channels on TV, plus one or two channels on
UHF. The UHF channels were always kinda interesting. Some TV's
picked them up fine. Other TVs had dials you had to use to tune them
in. Tuning the weaker ones in was often very difficult. I remember
spending quite some time dialing the dial this way and that way,
trying to catch the exact right spot. But anyhow, Star Trek was
always on a better received channel for us. I think we would have
moved otherwise.

With such few channels, there was constant pressure to bury Star Trek.
It was the fans who kept bringing it back, and in those days, local
public demand for rerun TV shows was unheard of. But every so once in
a while, it would finally be taken off the air, and then months later,
it would be back because of people complaining.

There were some periods of time where it was shoved in bad time
slots. I remember it being on after the News at 11:30pm for a while.
Star Trek was the easiest to convince my parents to stay up and watch,
since my Dad was sympathetic. I remember barely keeping my eyes open
one night watching "Devil in the Dark".

For the time, it was the simply the greatest Science Fiction series
that ever existed. Thinking of it being cancelled was something you
didn't want to think about. The thoughts of them making new episodes
was rediculous, but Star Trek fans still hoped.

In 1973, they came out with a Star Trek cartoon, which was very cool
because it was Star Trek, but kinda disappointing because it was a
cartoon. The original series managed to get moved back to a
reasonable time in our area, like around 6pm. I guess this was
because more UHF stations were finding out that reruns were really
popular, and Star Trek was extremely popular. They probably never
figured reruns would be so popular, but they are. I personally think
reruns are a much better idea than remakes... But that's another story.

My Dad and I started playing a game where we would compete to be the
first person to recognize which episode was playing. When Star Trek
moved to dinner time, the game changed that we would call it from the
sound of the TV show alone. And we're talking seconds to call, of course.

By the time I was getting into High School, I had a number of Star
Trek techincal manuals, episode guides, and other stuff.

Up to this point, for nearly 10 years, the idea of having a Star Trek
movie, or a new Star Trek series, was impossible. We'd hope for that
like we'd hope for a million dollars to fall from the sky. It's
difficult to explain this to folks who grew up with more Star Trek
series and movies than you can shake a stick at.

But then the impossible happened. They announced a movie, and it came
out sometime around 1979. It wasn't a very good movie either. But it
was still unbelievable.

In 1982, "The Wrath of Khan" came out, and it was pretty close to awesome.

Of course as they say, the even numbered movies are the best, and "The
Voyage Home" in 1986 was an awesome movie also.

When I went to college, I thought Star Trek would be exclusively a
nerdy kinda of thing, and maybe it was, and maybe there were just a
lot of nerds in college I guess. But I had no idea of how many women
watched Star Trek. A couple I was friends with would invite me after
dinner to the woman's dorm lobby to watch Star Trek. It was an all
womans' dorm, and the lobby was always packed to watch Star Trek after
dinner.

I also remember finding a color TV in my dorm's basement, and drawing a
crowd when I managed to rig an antenna to receive Star Trek. (OK, so
it was more a wire than anything else, but it seemed like a miricle to
some of the people there...)

Then the impossible happened again. A new Star Trek TV series in 1987!

The story doesn't end there for me. In the year 2000, on my first
date with a woman I was very fond of, wandering around Las Vegas, we
had our first kiss in the Star Trek bar at the Hilton over drinks.
Now married, we go back when we can, and drink stuff like "warp core
breaches", and eat triangular pizza.

I guess today people don't appreciate what Star Trek was in the old
days. It just seems like something over done, and perhaps not always
done very well. But man, what it used to be, and what it is for some
even now...

So... I guess you won't see me wearing funny ears at conventions.
But I must say Star Trek has been very good to me. Lots of good
memories.

Rest in Peace James Dohaan.

darksar @ 2005-07-19T12:47:00

2005-07-19T19:50:28Z

THE DIET!!!

I am officially on a real diet. I am actually starting my second week
of it.

It is only now that I realize I've never really been on a real diet
before, ever.

First of all, I don't believe in many of the crazy plans people call
diets. I've done the Slimfast thing, and that lasted all of two days.
It tastes horrible. I've seen people do stuff like eating Jenny Craig
meals and drop tons of weight only to gain it all back. I've seen a
zillion things to eat and drink to lose weight, and I don't believe in
much of any of it.

I primarily believe in exercise.

The last time I dropped weight, I participated in hockey, karate, and
two softball teams. That kept my weight under control to some degree.
Although softball really did involve a lot of pizza and beer...

I dropped my activities and gained a lot of weight. And worse yet, I
got older.

My Babe is being real healthy, and willing to help me with the food
aspect of this diet, so I am doing the diet thing for real.

I decided to ease into the diet thing. Dramatically shocking myself
usually ended in giving up on the third day. So I skipped some coke
and stuff for a while, and we went to the grocery store and the
farmer's market to find good food.

This is the first time I've actually tried to read the packages.
There's all kinds of health info on them! I must say for as much as I
hate most laws, the one that says they need to print this info on the
package is well appreciated.

I remember one diet I tried to go on, where I ate lots of good food.
Problem was, I didn't stop eating the bad food. I thus gained weight,
since I was eating more, not less.

I also stocked up on lots of Ultra Slimfast. Not because I'm going on
the Ultra Slimfast diet. But because one of the major reasons I quit
my diet is because I run out of food and can't make it to the grocery
store, and end up buying a pizza just to survive. SlimFast is a
crutch. Run out of food? No problem. Drink a Slimfast and get to
the grocery store as soon as possible to find that good food to eat
instead of the bad food that is easily accessible.

The first day on the diet was OK. The brain doesn't take it
seriously. It thinks I'm just joking around.

The second day was probably the worst so far. My brain freaked. It
started trying every trick in the book. I was quite surprised to
smell BBQ potato chips in the hallway, especially since the brand I
smelled has been extinct since my 9th grade.

So I took a walk outside. I still don't know if all the smells in the
air were real or not. But I smelled steak cooking on a grill, and
hamburgers, and all kinds of good things in the air.

Then I went home and the Food Network taunted me with a pizza
competition in my home town...

But when I got home, my Babe had fresh fruit ready. Man, I don't
remember a plum ever tasting so good. Such a deep strong taste.
Makes me wonder why I ate so much candy instead.

I've also been exericising. I mean, that's still the core of my
beliefs in weight loss. It's what's natural. Humans as animals are
supposed to move.

So first week down and it seems to be going OK. I lost the beginners
fake weight. I guess that's just emptying out your stomach and
getting used to not having to have that FULL feeling all the time.

I mean, that basically became my lifestyle for years. I had to feel
full all the time. If I felt a little hungry, I would eat, and I
looked forward to it. It was a highlight of the moment.

But now a little bit of hunger is my friend. That's the new norm.
Stuffing myself feels bad.

But week two is harder. You can tell when you get rid of the fake fat
the first time your weight goes back up a little. Then we get into
the real numbers. The rest was just fluff.

Probably the most significant reason I have stayed on this diet is my
Babe cooking all kinds of complicated things that actually tase good,
yet are good for you. I didn't think this existed. Had a salmon
dinner that was incredible.

I allow myself two nights of pizza. (in moderation) What can I say,
it's my favorite food. If I tried to give it up, I would fail. But
only twice a week, the rest of the time hard core diet. And I am
beginning to like it that way.

And that's the key. Make a lifestyle out of it, not a diet.

Or so it seems at the beginning of week 2...

darksar @ 2005-06-22T11:35:00

2005-06-22T18:35:49Z

Another poker post... I swore I wouldn't post these anymore...

Well, last night I actually won at poker. The good thing is, I played
for 5.5 hours. Usually I don't win over that length of time.

I'd like to think I'm actually learning something, but the truth is,
there were a number of people who were not so careful. In fact, last
night was probably the first night I felt I might be the second best
out of 10 at the table. That was a weird feeling. But I sure wasn't
about to leave.

I made fewer mistakes also. The urge to give all my money away is
very close to overpowering. But I kept it under control for the most
part. But I also think I just got incredibly lucky cards.

Betting Texas Hold'em can be looked at in two phases: the beginning
two cards, and everything after that.

Getting bad cards in the beginning is survivable, because you don't
put much money in. You just fold fold fold.

Getting good cards in the beginning and bad cards in the end is the
worst, because you dump money in and nothing comes out. In this case
my brain seems to think poker works like anything else in the world:
if you want something of better quality, you pay more. So when I get
bad cards in the middle, I have a tendency to believe if I put more
money in the pot, I should get better cards. But this doesn't work,
and it reminds me of a lot of auto shops I've been to also.

The guy at the table I would suspect was the best was fun to watch.
He got a minor luck streak, and won a few hands and established
himself as a dominant player. Then he bullied the table, and everyone
was scared of him and he won hand after hand probably bluffing. I
watched him double his money. After 10 hands, he had won half of
them. I wanted to go up against him but I kept getting nothing I
could work with, at least as far as I know.

But one of the sheep got brave, and caught him. Then the rest of the
table joined in attacking him on every hand. And he would not sit
back, he must have thought he would always get great cards, because he
got busted back almost to where he was before, and left.

I wonder if this kind of pack mentality exists in the more advanced
games, or whether it is confined to the beginners tables.

darksar @ 2005-06-16T12:18:00

2005-06-16T19:20:16Z

I was really excited yesterday, because I thought I was helping out my Babe.

I was eating lunch at a grocery store, and a guy next to me was
talking to his coworker. He was listening to her and going, "Ooooooh"
and "Ahhhhhhhhh", with a really deep and strong voice.

I was thinking, this guy has the perfect zombie voice.

He was a little heavy set, and I'm sure he could push his way thru a
crowd, or maybe even smash thru an uninforced door.

He would make a perfect zombie!!!

I got home and excitedly told my Babe.

Then she explained that when she said she was looking to put together
a "Zombie Hunting Team", she meant a team to hunt zombies, not a
hunting team made up of zombies... Darn.

darksar @ 2005-06-10T17:37:00

2005-06-11T00:40:10Z

Well... went to Las Vegas and did some gambling.

The blackjack thing worked out OK. Played tons of blackjack and lost
within the range predicted.

After memorizing the blackjack strategy which provides a 1% loss on
average, there is a peace in playing I did not have before.

I'd watch as people at the table struggled and stressed as what to do.
But for me the decision was easy. I followed the course of highest
probability, and that was the best decision.

The first two days were annoying, as I lost a lot. But instead of
sweating it out trying to figure out how to get my money back, I just
sat back and let the cards do all the work. I was just an innocent
bystander. And somewhere along the line of a few free drinks, the
cards must have won me some money back.

So that was OK. I'll have to finish memorizing the strategy, and run
some more simluations to get some final hard predictions. But
otherwise things worked out OK.

-----

Craps was fun also. Actually the first day playing craps was not so
much fun, and one of the staff was a complete jerk, and that kinda
ruined it for me. But the next two times out were awesome.

I'm not a big craps player. I studied it a bit, and the pass line bet
combined with the odds bet is pretty good odds. So I play that.

Problem with that alone is, it can be rather boring. So I'll play the
6 and/or 8 place bets from time to time when I think a roller is on a
hot streak, even though I know a hot streak is not suppsoed to be
predictable.

-----

Slots I did horrible at. It is the only game I played that I did not
study for. So I ended up *learning* the games as I played, which is,
or course, kinda interesting, but expensive. Next time I'll do more
research on slots.

-----

Video poker, which I used to very much like, seems ruined. I didn't
see one reasonable machine the whole trip. The odds are simply
horrible on the new machines.

As I learn more about the gaming, I am amazed at the blatent ripoffs
they will try to get you to play.

One of the most amazing in our time is 6:5 blackjack. Anyone who has
read anything on blackjack knows this is the biggest ripoff. They
advertise single deck blackjack, but the blackjack pays off 6:5
instead of 3:2, which means it simply removes money out of your pocket
all for the benefit of having a single deck. And I seriously doubt
many of these folks were making a profit off card counting. So the
single deck doesn't do anything for them.

-----

Played Texas Hold'em fixed limit poker. This was the first time I'd
played Texas Hold'em in a casino. It was fun. First of all, everyone
at the table was looking like one of those TV poker players. There
was the kid with an mp3 player. There was the guy with slicked back
hair and dark sungalsses. And all across the poker room, everyone was
flipping their chips around in their hands, as if they took classes on
how to do that, instead of learning how to play poker.

I've tried to learn how to shuffle poker chips like on TV. As a
result there are a large number of chips under our desk, under the
fridge, under the cabinet, and under the stove. Although I hate the
idea for use in a casino, one good thing to come out of RFID cyborg
chips will be I'll be able to find them in the house.

I don't want my poker chips to be able to think and talk. I'm still
spooked about the coke machine. I'm already paranoid about inanimate
objects, and I don't see why we need to try to make so many ordinary
inanimate objects aritificially intelligent. Pretty soon EVERYTHING
in the world will have a CPU in it, and it will be exactly like I've
been imagining this whole time. I don't see why the world needs to go
thru all the effort to make one of my fears come true.

Anyhow, all these people at the table looked like card sharks. But if
they were, I couldn't tell, because the things that happened on the
table were not particularly good playing as far as I know. You hear
about "tells" and all that. I had pocket aces one hand, and you think
anyone could tell? Heck no. They raised the roof on me and all lost.
And the whole time I was covering my mouth to stop from shouting YE
HA!!!

But I also lost a couple hands too. I came out a few dollars up. We
didn't play long. I mean, what does a night of poker really mean
anyhow? In the old days, you'd come out up $50, and be patting
yourself on the back. I must be a good poker player!

But online, you learn that streaks last hundreds of hands. I played
247 hands in 4 hours the other night online, and lost $18. How long
would that take in real life? 8 hours? 16 hours? The action moves a
lot slower in real life. What's the significance of a couple hours of
poker in real life? Maybe it's the thrill of looking at someone and
calling their raise, and whoever the winner is exclaiming it was skill
in "reading" the player, or giving false "tells". Even though it's
probably all random.

Anyhow... one things for sure. On average I'm still losing at poker.

As the book says, poker is hard to learn, because learning is based on
negative and/or positive reinforcement from actions. And in poker,
it's about probability not the result of an immediate hand. So your
brain is very very confused... I know mine is.

Last time I won, I went off and became really agressive and won a ton
of money in a short time. My brain says obviously thats how I should
play, since it worked. But I know not to always trust my brain. I
don't know where wisdom comes from, but it's not the brain. The brain
seems to have a mind of it's own.

One day in Vegas my Babe and I lounged out by the pool. Now that's
the way to do Vegas. We liked it so much we bought lounge chairs for
home. Now we can sip margaritas by the pool any time we like. And by
"the pool", I mean the tub we wash the dog in. But hey, we're training
the dog to make margaritas, and he is doing OK.