It’s like, nearly, a genre (via Martin Schwarz):
I once saw a talk where Bill Nye said “systematic directed genocide.”
How do you feel about Bacon?
Spotted on the pick your own religion chart.
Also: Bacon Jam!
Posted Without Comment, But With a Bad Smell
Machine Learning Ruins Blackjack
Blackjack, or 21, is a game that many enjoy wasting their money playing at casinos. For those who don’t like to waste their money, or at least want to waste it more slowly than others, card counting is a time honored tradition for moving the odds away from the casino and in the players direction (blessed be Ed Thorp.) In other words it makes the game at least slightly enjoyable for those who like to win. But now a graduate of the University of Dundee, Kris Zutis, is going to ruin this small smidgen of fun:
A University of Dundee graduate has created a computer system with the potential to make the game of Blackjack fairer by detecting card counters and dealer errors.
Okay so catching dealer errors certainly makes the game “more fair.” But detecting card counters? People who are eking out a minor advantage (and have to be aware of methods to avoid detection because casinos can kick them out not because of card counting per se, but because the casinos run the game) by using their damn brains are not acting fair? To be fair, of course casinos are already doing this so we should be nice to the grad student 🙂
And further, of course all is fair in love, war, and casino games. But this makes me wonder about arbitrage in the era of machine learning, each machine vying to outdo the other in keeping their profits locked up tight. My high margin classifier just gave me 21, yipee! Oh wait, this is already happening on Wall Street. Remind me again about the market making and liquidy arguments for blackjack.
Confession…
Confession of a classical sinner.
Oct 31 is Approaching
Happy Friday!
Weinstein v. Krugman v. Orzel (Mathematical Elegance Death Match)
Over at the most uncertain blog, he of uncertain principles (aka Chad) takes up a challenge posed by @EricRWeinstein on twitter concerning Paul Krugman’s recent article on why economists got the economic crisis so wrong. Since I know even less economics than anyone around here this seems like a great opportunity for me to weigh in (this is, after all, the blogosphere!)
Continue reading “Weinstein v. Krugman v. Orzel (Mathematical Elegance Death Match)”
Live Worldwide Monopoly Game
Tomorrow, September 9, 2009 is apparently the date for a worldwide game of monopoly: Monopoly City Streets
Welcome to Monopoly City Streets. You versus the world in the biggest live game of MONOPOLY in history!
On the 9th SEPTEMBER, a world of property empire building on an unimaginable scale will be launched! A live worldwide game of MONOPOLY using Google Maps as the game board. The goal is simple. Play to beat your friends and the world to become the richest property magnate in existence.
Own any street in the world. Build humble houses, crazy castles and stupendous skyscrapers to collect rent. Use MONOPOLY Chance Cards to sabotage your mates by building Hazards on their streets.
Which strategy will you employ? Determined drive? Ingenious daring? Intelligent caution? Will you thrive under the pressure of a fast growing global property empire – or will you crumble? Find out if you’ll thrive, or even survive, in the amazing world of MONOPOLY City Streets. It’s going to be epic fun!
Having spent many days in my childhood playing epic games of monopoly I’m tempted. How does one play an epic game of monopoly? Easy, just modify the rules to allow you to go in debt and be stubborn as a mule even when your opponent owns both Boardwalk and Parkplace. (Good lesson: even though there is randomness in rolling dice, when the board gets stacked against you, you may have statistical fluctuations which feel good, but eventually you are doomed. Multiple rolls of bad odds eventually catch up.)
Puzzle for the Day
How do you build a computer out of fire?
(Motivated by the observation that if you take three pieces of string and tie them together at a single point, you can make an OR gate. If we denote the presence of fire on a string as a 1 and the absence of fire as a 0, then this contraption clearly computes the OR function. But OR by itself is not universal.)
Helmet Heads Hijacked?
How did I miss this one from 2005? And how come no one told me to take off my tinfoil hat? Via @kmerritt, “On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study” by Ali Rahimi, Ben Recht, Jason Taylor, and Noah Vawter.
Among a fringe community of paranoids, aluminum helmets serve as the protective measure of choice against invasive radio signals. We investigate the efficacy of three aluminum helmet designs on a sample group of four individuals. Using a $250,000 network analyser, we find that although on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either directions (either emanating from an outside source, or emanating from the cranium of the subject), certain frequencies are in fact greatly amplified. These amplified frequencies coincide with radio bands reserved for government use according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact enhance the government’s invasive abilities. We speculate that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason.
Obviously