Kurt's Thoughts

ZOMG.  This is one of the funniest things I’ve heard in a long time.

Roy Wood Jr… pranks Barbara about her Social Security check
http://www.evilkoala.org/Media/Roy_Wood_Jr_Barbras_Check_DIRTY.wma

This was forwarded to me:

• Apple iPhone kiosk… powered by Windows XP
  http://uk.gizmodo.com/2007/08/02/oops_iphone_display_needs_to_r.html

…which then reminded me of this:

• Sony Playstation 3 kiosk… powered by Xbox 360
  http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/australian-store-uses-xbox-360-as-ps3-kiosk-237076.php

…which again reminded me of this:

• Sony uses Xbox 360 game graphics to advertise Playstation Portable
  http://www.gamespot.com/news/6164738.html
• Sony & Kia run Playstation 3 promotion using Xbox 360 screenshots
  http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/789/789405p1.html

Ever wanted to play blackjack recreationally without having to use your brain?

Consider this a quick tutorial on how to minimize the house’s edge on you in Blackjack in just three easy steps.  This is NOT a discussion of using something like the infamous HiLo count but rather one on something called the Ace/10 Front Count – something I’d read about a while back on the Blackjack Insider, a pay-for newsletter at http://www.bjinsider.com/.

IMPORTANT
I’m making the assumption that you already play perfect Basic Strategy.  If you don’t then this tutorial’s not going to help you much.  Playing 99% perfect Basic Strategy is absolutely critical to play Blackjack and win in the long term.  The easiest way to learn is to buy Blackjack strategy wallet cards and simply put them on the table to refer to when you play Blackjack. 
(If you want to learn, check this Basic Strategy exercise program out:  http://www.s-a-g-e.com/blackjack_info/bj_test/Bjtest.html)

With that out of the way, here’s the easiest way to get an edge in Blackjack without burning out your brain:

• STEP 1:  Go to a six deck shoe game with good rules; start playing after a shuffle.
  These games are generally easy to find.  It’s really important to play on tables with favorable odds and rules.  I go over this in another blog entry – http://kurtsthoughts.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!97895BBB8AD10F37!562.entry?&_c02_owner=1.
• STEP 2:  Place your ‘low bet’; count the number of A/10 cards for the first TWO decks.
  That’s 104 cards.  You need to be able to simply count the number of high cards that come out of the deck as you play.  On average you should count 40, since there are 4 cards each from 10/J/Q/K/A and you’re counting two decks.
• STEP 3a:  Double your bet for the rest of the shoe if your count is lower than 36.
  If you have a 36 or lower, you have a good edge on the house so you should double your bet and keep it there until the end of the shoe.  The lower your count, the more of an edge you have on the house and the more your bet should rise accordingly. 
  – A count of 34 or less is great.  Multiply your bet by 4.
  – A count of 32 or less is phenomenal.  Multiply your bet by 6.
• STEP 3b:  Walk away from the table if you have a count equal to or higher than 40.
  If you have a count equal to or higher than 40, the house has a strong edge on you and you need to stop playing, period.  Grab your chips, walk away, or go to the bathroom and take a break.  If you have 36-40, then you can proceed to play to prevent arousing suspicion and expect on average to break even.

That’s it.  The only tricky part is knowing when you’ve gone through 2 decks.  By checking the discard deck you need to memorize approximately when you’ve gone through somewhere between 100-108 cards, otherwise this doesn’t work.

This works because a game with good rules (Double down on any two cards, split aces multiple times) will generally give the house a .5% edge. 

• With a front count of 36 or less, you can get as much as a .4% advantage over the house
• With a front count of 34 or less, you can get as much as a .8% advantage over the house
• With a front count of 32 or less, you can get as much as a 1.2% advantage over the house
  (For the uninitiated, a 1.2% advantage is really great.  Think about it:  The casino themselves generally break people’s bankrolls when it only has a .5% advantage.  Some professional card counters don’t get a 1.2% advantage using traditional card counting schemes like Edward Thorp’s famous HiLo count.)

There are some additional rules that you can play depending on your front count to even further increase your edge assuming you have a count equal to or less than 36, however I’ll save that for a later post.

I read this Onion article and it pretty much said it all for me:

Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence
Founding Fathers, Patriots, Mr. T. Honored
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/50902

I’ve read numerous accounts of people and organizations having to "aggressively pursue" the correction of entries made about them or on their organization’s behalf because of vindictive individuals looking to libel an individual without their knowledge.

THE ONLY WIKIPEDIA CONSTANT:  OPINION WITHOUT CONSEQUENCE 
Recently, there was a statement made on a rather popular board that CO2 couldn’t exist in a liquid state – that in fact, Carbon Dioxide was only available in solid or gas states of matter.  The individuals stating this used Wikipedia as their point of reference.  Chemists from around the Internet simultaneously balked:  CO2 is very much available in a liquid state – just not at pressures existing at sea level.

Then one added, "Try reading a book sometime instead of taking wikipedia at face value."

And this is the problem I have and will continue to have with Wikipedia.  The concept is an idealistic claptrap.  When there is no consequence for inaccuracy, accuracy is never the objective:  Opinion is.  A given entry is completely based on the determination and the available time of the editing user. 

LIBEL ORCHESTRATED
Take for example, this comic from Penny Arcade.  

Penny Arcade:  "I Have the Power"
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/16

It’s funny but it’s also 100% true.  Skeletor can write anything they damned well want about He-Man and have millions of netizens read this opinion and take it for the truth because, hey – it’s on the web right?  The claim that "people don’t have to use Wikipedia" doesn’t fly because no individual  should have go back to a web page and watch it like a hawk just because someone… anyone… can libel them – i.e. outright lie about them – on a publicly acknowledged reference.

And the irony is that even with a broadly acknowledged lack of credibility, Wikipedia continues to chug along as a the primary reference of choice for millions of kids, adolescents, and moronic adults worldwide.  Take this incident regarding the next generation console wars between Nintendo, Xbox, and Sony:

Wikipedia closes Wii, PS3, Sony entries
Virtual vandalism the latest weapon in the next-generation console wars.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6161547.html?sid=6161547&part=rss&subj=6161547

THE LAZY MAN’S REFERENCE
And the thing that makes all of this possible is that if there are any constants in human nature, it’s that people are greedy & lazy.  In this case, they crave information – no matter what it’s accuracy is like – and they are willing to take any shortcut to get it – i.e. use Wikipedia.

And it’s not like the majority of these people verify anythign they read in Wikipedia.  To the contrary, students in school have the <ahem> tendency to straight cut & paste out of the damned thing.

I think Dave Taylor from the Intuitive Life Business Blog said it best in his essay on the lack of credibility of Wikipedia.  (Taken From "What Wikipedia Lost:  Credibility" – by Dave Taylor, Intuitive.com)

It really hit me [the problem with Wikipedia] as I was editing the student papers and reading passages like this:

"Twenty-five years ago, all computer usage, including the use of Microsoft applications, was accomplished from manual entries at the command line prompt. In addition to the mainframe operating systems there was Digital Research’s CP/M-80 for the 8080 / 8085 / Z-80 CPUs and MS-DOS (or PC-DOS when supplied by IBM) which was based originally on CP/M-80, among others [Wikipedia, 2005]. The ubiquitous commercial off-the-shelf software of today was not to become available for another fifteen to twenty years…"

http://www.intuitive.com/blog/what_wikipedia_lost_credibility.html

Now, if you don’t know what’s wrong with the above quote and you’re not willing to go out and find out why… you’re precisely the type of person that shouldn’t be using Wikipedia as a reference.  Why?  Well… the same reason that bloggers like myself are NOT journalists:  Fact checking.  As a blogger, I’m just a guy with an opinion and I ultimately have no accountability, whereas a Journalist has a lot to lose by not doing his/her fact checking.  Again, here’s another great article by Dave Taylor on the topic of the difference between Journalists vs Bloggers:

Journalists versus bloggers:  The Difference is Fact Checking
…one of the distinct differentiators is that real journalists do fact checking.
http://www.intuitive.com/blog/journalists_versus_bloggers_the_difference_is_fact_checking.html

"LET’S ALL JOIN HANDS FOR THE EMBETTERMENT OF MANKIND"
I’ve heard this naive and ignorant claim about Wikipedia being the "collective" of human kind’s knowledge… about how it creates democracy in how history is documented… about how it binds together the aggregate knowledge of the world… how it makes us all warm and fuzzy and allows us to sing kumbaya.

Let’s get this straight:  If everyone were concerned about the world, if everyone participated in the world affairs fairly with a good conscience, if everyone treated the fellow man like an equal… communism would have worked, crime wouldn’t exist, and Dick Cheney’s machiavellian tactics would have been supplanted by others a long time ago.

But that’s not reality.  Without accountability & consequence, you can’t have accuracy and without that, you can’t have credibility.

Wikipedia in my mind has no credibility.

Ever wonder what organization owns your favorite Las Vegas hotel?  With all the acquisitions and shifting going on, it’s hard to tell these days.   Here’s a list of current holdings by the big conglomerates:  If your hotel’s not on here, there’s a good chance it’s independently owned, like The Venetian, The Hard Rock Hotel, The Wynn, etc.

MGM Mirage:

• Mandalay Bay
• Luxor
• Excalibur
• New York-New York
• Monte Carlo
• MGM Grand
• Bellagio
• Mirage
• TI
• Circus Circus
• Slots A Fun

Harrah’s:

• Harrah’s
• Imperial Palace
• Flamingo
• Barbary Coast
• Bally’s
• Paris
• Caesars Palace
• Rio  

Boyd Gaming:

• Orleans
• Gold Coast
• Suncoast
• Fremont
• California
• Main Street Station
• Sam’s Town
• Joker’s Wild
• El Dorado (Henderson)

Station Casino:

• Palace Station
• Boulder Station
• Texas Station
• Sunset Station
• Santa Fe Station
• Red Rock Resort
• Fiesta Rancho
• Fiesta Henderson
• Wild Wild West

Tamares Group:

• Plaza
• Vegas Club
• Gold Spike
• Western

American Real Estate Partners (a Carl Icahn company):

• Arizona Charlie’s Decatur
• Arizona Charlie’s Boulder
• Stratosphere

Bill Wortman:

• The Cannery
• Nevada Palace
• The Rampart (managed only; the hotel is owned by Marriott).

MTR Gaming:

• Binion’s
• The Speedway

The age of competitive gaming is here. 

• The World Series of Video Games
  http://www.thewsvg.com/
• Major League Gaming Professionals (The home of Tsquared)
  http://www.mlgpro.com/ 
• Championship Gaming Series (The home of Fatal1ty)
  http://www.thecgs.com/ 

Right now I’m watching the Championship Gaming Series:  O… M… F… G.

Why am I so hyped on this?  It’s actually compelling to watch!  CGS has two teams of 8 battle it out in 5 different Xbox 360/PC gaming scenarios:  Project Gotham Racing 3, Dead of Alive 4: Female, Dead or Alive 4: Male, Counterstrike: Source, and FIFA 07.  (Counterstrike is the only PC game and is played 5×5.)

The players have personality and the "best player" from each team on a game plays the other teams best player head-to-head in FIFA 07 and Dead or Alive 4.  Dead or Alive is actually played Female vs Female and Male vs Male… I don’t think any guys want to be known as either the guy that beat up on a girl or a the guy that LOST to a girl (the sport of video gaming is after all ego driven and mostly populated by guys) so they play within sexes.

The coolest thing however is that EVERYONE is playing on Xbox 360.  Across the board:

• MLG is primarily about Halo 2 & Rainbow 6.
• CGS is primarily about Xbox 360 exclusive games like Dead or Alive & PGR3.
• WSVG doesn’t play any Xbox 360 exclusives but all the games except World of Warcraft are played on Xbox 360s.

I think this sports gonna blow up and I think you’re gonna see these tournaments played at 9-10AM in the morning on Saturdays when kids get up and watch people battle it out on the very consoles that are sitting in their households.

In fact, when I grow up, I’d LOVE to sponsor one of these teams.  How cool would it be to have a stable of bad ass gamers that you could coach, motivate, escort, and provide for on a professional level?

Long live Xbox 360.

My brother noticed something cool:  We sponsored the Projekt Revolution tour with Linkin Park.  Notice the projection images at the top of the stage.

I have a philosophy about orphaned animals:

I believe that it’s imperative that true advocates for abandoned and homeless pets actively surround themselves by these unfortunate animals by visiting shelters and volunteering their time for their cause.  And no matter how depressing and how sad their bleak situation may be, it’s our obligation to suck it up, put on a smile, and genuinely be a positive force for them.

Why?  Because negativity is contagious and prospective adopters looking to adopt a pet don’t need your sadness and desperation.  What they need is a positive, comforting guide to help them find their new family member.

Just as importantly, it’s also important that you be a positive force amongst the animals.  Dogs, cats, rabbits… they’re all very empathetic and know when the people around them are upset.  How many times have you had your pet rub up against you or lie with you quietly when you were sick or crying?  They don’t need more sadness around them than that which they already have so don’t contribute to the problem.

But most importantly, it’s important to remain positive for yourself.  You can’t subject yourself to a cause daily that simply makes you sad and unhappy all the time.  So if you care about homeless animals, and you want to make a difference, you have to change your attitude perspective to one that’s positive – one that simply appreciates the animals for what they are.

And then at 3:32AM in the morning, I read articles like this and this.  And for all my principles and philosophy before me, I can’t help but cry uncontrollably in front of my laptop.

What in God’s name is this world coming to?

I don’t believe anyone else has said it better than Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) on the Senate floor, on the topic of Michael Vick’s indictment:

At one point, Byrd began shouting and pumping his fist:

"Barbaric!," he yelled. "Let that word resounding from hill to hill, and from mountain to mountain, and valley to valley across the broad land. Barbaric! Barbaric! May God help those poor souls who’d be so cruel. Barbaric! Hear me! Barbaric!"

"I am confident that the hottest places in hell are reserved for the souls of sick and brutal people who hold God’s creatures in such brutal and cruel contempt," he said.

"One is left wondering," he said. "Who are the real animals: the creatures inside or outside the ring?"

(http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,290061,00.html)

Welcome to the complex world of Mobile Software development, Apple.  68 bugs and counting according to this site:  http://www.applehound.com/node/104

And security wise… well, be careful:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/07/16/Security-firm-says-to-not-use-iPhone-Web-dialer_1.html
http://www.everythingiphone.com/forum/iphone/when-someone-calls-me-they-can-hear-4141.html
http://erratasec.blogspot.com/2007/07/our-first-iphone-bugs.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/03/iphone_hacking_progress/

If anything, I have to believe the focus on security & testing that folks like us and Blackberry have put into our phones is finally being recognized by industry pundits. 

And to our credit, while we don’t have a pretty sliding interface like the "Phone+iPod" does for it’s music player, we do play MP3/WMA files quite flawlessly while the user is doing other things like reading mail or surfing the web on Windows Mobile.  And we pause the music when someone is calling, as it should.

I want to qualify that this is my opinion and I have nothing other than my own personal experience to draw from in forming this opinion however I think it’s important that people stop drinking the haterade and start recalling all the positive work that Peter’s done for Microsoft and the Xbox division:

<my opinion>
PETER MOORE LEFT MICROSOFT FOR A BETTER LIFE – i.e. he was anything but fired.  Peter wanted to live with his family in the Bay Area and EA is paying him truckloads of money.  Plain and simple.
</my opinion>

I only make this comment because I think it’s wrong really for everyone to wipe their shoes all over a guy who’s been an absolutely great leader for the Xbox division.

• Is the XBox 360 the leader in next-gen gaming?  Absolutely. 
  13M consoles sold next to Wii’s 6M and PS3’s 3M.
• Is the Xbox 360 doing hand over fist better than Xbox Original?  Absolutely.
  Far more titles, way more developers, with revenues coming in from 5 different sockets (like Xbox Live subscriptions and in-game advertising) instead of just games & accessories sales.
• Is the Xbox 360 doing as well as the hyped Wii?  Of course.
  The Wii has sold 2.8M consoles since launching.  In the same span, Xbox 360 sold 2.7M consoles and it’s a year old.
• Are there 4x as many games being produced for Xbox 360 than PS3 or Wii?  Darned right.
  With PS3 exclusives falling left and right to Xbox 360 and Wii not being able to get any decent developers on board other than 1st party games, all the dev skill is going to Xbox 360.
• Is the holiday line up of games undeniably kick ass relative to the other consoles?  Oh hell yeah.
  Mass Effect, Bioshock, Halo 3, Grand Theft Auto 4 with Xbox 360 exclusive levels & content, Virtual Fighter 5 with Xbox Live Multiplayer (unlike the PS3 version), Madden 08, & SceneIt?.

The bottom line is that Peter Moore has been a great face for the Xbox and he did a tremendous job.  He made the brand what it is today, and he established the network of partners that has made Xbox 360 so successful.  Partners like EA, Epic, Team Ninja, Ubisoft, Valve, id, etc.  They wouldn’t be with us if it weren’t for Peter.

WHAT ABOUT THE 3 YEAR WARRANTY?
The common "evidence" I keep hearing is the charge that we’re extending the warranties on Xbox 360’s to 3 years in what some describe as an "admission" of fault in the hardware.

I just don’t believe this.  Why?  Because even if this were directly attributable to Peter, we at Microsoft simply don’t fire people for mistakes like these.  In my experience, it just doesn’t happen – especially big public departures like these.  People get let go for all sorts of reasons but this just isn’t one of them.  Our culture is generally one in which people aren’t penalized for mistakes so much as their encouraged to learn from them, and even if you could say that Peter Moore was responsible for a $1B chargeback to the Xbox division, I don’t believe our leadership would put a gun to his head but instead say, "Okay – what do we do to fix this and how do we avoid this sort of thing in the future?  You go figure it out."

WHAT ABOUT JAPAN?
I’ve heard some comments made about our lack of traction in Japan being the cause of Peter’s departure.  Look:  I’m Japanese and knowing oy ethnic heritage’s nationalism,  I can’t tell you how hard it must be to try to get an American console into a Japanese living room.  You have to not just get games written for the Japanese but also design a console that the Japanese might actually take to.  For example:

• The Japanese want things small.  The console had to transform from the black behemoth that it used to be to the "thin, curvy" thing it is today.
• The Japanese equate the "X" to a negative response.  "X" means "No" in Japanese.  We had to change the emblem of the Xbox to a ‘circle with an X in it’ to make it more positive.  Don’t believe me?  Look at a PS2 controller:  The ‘circle’ is the ‘ok’ button or the acknowledge button;  the ‘X’ is the non-acknowledge button or the ‘cancel’ button.
• The Japanese believe Sony is godlike.  Sony is the symbol of Japanese success in electronics the same way that Toyota is the symbol of Japanese success in manufacturing.  Microsoft had to make the Xbox 360 ‘Japanese’ with Japanese developers, Japanese-specific targetted games, Japanese casings, Japanese exclusives, etc.

The bottom line is that Peter Moore was a great leader and an incredible influence on the Xbox 360 division and folks that are fans of Xbox really should pay him a debt of gratitude for helping create and market such a great product.

In fact, think about this:
Electronic Arts Sports games are already playing at 60 frames per second on the Xbox 360, making the game play twice as smooth and twice and beautiful than it’s Playstation 3 version which only plays at 30 frames per second.  Now that Peter Moore, a man who made his greatest accomplishment building the Xbox 360, is focused on building these same Sports games.

Which console do you think is gonna benefit from this move?

Wanna see some seriously interesting info about Washington?  George Tenet paints an ugly picture of VP Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Presidential Advisor Richard Pearl.

I listened to George Tenet’s book, "At the Center of the Storm" on AudioCD and it’s every bit as fascinating as this video clip from CBS’s 60 Minutes.  Based upon what I heard/read/gleaned, he implies, among other things:

• Dick Cheney was at the center of most of the deception around Iraq and drove US policy with Machiavellian fervor.
• Condoleezza Rice is a political animal that even when told, dropped the ball around executing defenses for 9-11 and was more about deflecting blame than anyhing.
• Former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card was an straight shooter caught in the middle of some very underhanded dealings.
• Bill Clinton’s budget cutting of the CIA was the reason for the US’s lack of global intelligence coverage. 
• The invasion of Iraq and destablization of the middle east was the ultimate goal of a small group of 4 Washington folk who had believed it necessary for unknown reasons, including Presidential Advisor Richard Pearl.
• Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was a good man with a lot of bad people around him that got screwed in the end.
• Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was a politician worse than Condoleezza Rice, was twisted morally by his own jockeying for power, and was otherwise a very scary individual.
• Bob Woodward was a lackey and a podium for the White House party line.

The topic of President George W. Bush is covered and he really doesn’t have anything bad to say about him except basically that his cabinet is filled with snakes and that his administration didn’t react quick enough to CIA warnings after being getting settled into office in April 2001.  He’s actually a little complimentary to President Bush stating that while he’s portraryed as a moron in the press, W is quite lucid, thoughtful, and makes shrewd decisions daily.  He sort of implies that he either a) doesn’t know what his staff is doing a lot of the time as they inform him on a need to know basis, or b) he could be purposefully removed from much of the tactical decision making for the purposes of plausible deniability. 

Either way, he doesn’t impune President Bush’s integrity… but he doesn’t hold back on the rest of the White House.  This was one interesting book.

http://images.soapbox.msn.com/flash/soapbox1_1.swf
Video: CIA’s George Tenet on 9-11 & Iraq

NBC’s Heroes is about to release in beautiful HD DVD format in 7 discs.  That’s right.  Only on HD DVD.

The Matrix Trilogy is also released in exacting HD DVD format.  All 3 movies in a single package.  Only on HD DVD.

There’s also Batman Begins, which looks frickin’ bad ass.  This is one of the best HD DVD’s out there for it’s clarity and hi-fi audio.

And Blood Diamond, the Leonardo DiCaprio film, sports some fantastic interactive features only made possible using HD DVD.

The HD Forum has HD DVD supporting studios releasing many titles during 4th quarter of the year including "Battlestar Galactica Season One", all 4 "Harry Potter" movies, and "Oceans 11 & 12".  Yep, HD DVD is releasing major hit after major hit in it’s format.  Here’s a listing of what’s here and what’s coming from Amazon.

WHY DOES UNIVERSAL STUDIOS CONTINUE TO ONLY SUPPORT HD DVD
Universal Studios is asked, "Why HD DVD" when Disney, Fox and other has gone BluRay.  They’re quite eloquent in their explanations:
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/features/20070530_Jonathan_Takiff___Universals_gamble__Will_consumer_win_.html

• Ethernet Support available in all HD DVD players
  (Warner Bros "Blood Diamond" for HD DVD takes advantage of HD DVD players’ online-connected experience, where as the BluRay version does not)
• Interactive Software Support (like rich iHD menus) available in all HD DVD players
  (Warner Bros "The Matrix" and "Batman Begins" are published only on HD DVD because of the rich programmable interactive software technology available.  BluRay supports Java programming for BluRay discs on only some of its players – requiring a system software upgrade for others.)

OTHER MUST HAVE HD DVD MOVIES
Here are 5 HD DVD discs that Perfect Vision magazine highlights as must-haves for the HD DVD owner.  (And they also list other "great HD DVD discs" along with a dozen "discs to avoid")
http://www.thelookandsoundofperfect.com/_pdf/060107_discstodiefor.pdf

I originally wrote this as part of another entry but I thought that this was important enough of a point to write its own entry about.

Many casinos are rapidly moving to dealing blackjack at tables with rules that specify that people that get "natural 21s" or are otherwise initially dealt an Ace & a Ten-card, are paid only $6 for every $5 they bet (6:5), instead of the traditional $3 for every $2 they bet (3:2).

While this might not appear to be a big deal to the lay-person, this is a monstrous advantage for the casino and they’re hoping – in fact they’re BETTING – that you won’t know any better or you won’t care.

GETTING FLEECED BY THE CASINO WITH 6:5 NATURALS
Put simply, the "6:5" game is sheer highway robbery and a horrendous advantage for the casino.  This rule has gotten more and more popular as ignorant tourists come to play random tables in the casinos, completely unaware of what 6:5 natural payouts do to their opportunity to win. 

Whereas a typical game of blackjack would have the casino net an average of $2.60 an hour, assuming $10 bets at 100 hands/hour, a 6:5 game nets the casino $14.30 an hour.  Let me repeat that:

• $2.60 is lost per hour when betting $10/hand for 100 hands/hour, on a 3:2 table
• $14.30 is lost per hour when betting the same amount, on a 6:5 table

$2.60 vs $14.30:  Hello?  McFly?  Again, casinos are betting that you’re too blind to notice or care that they can take your money much faster if they make their tables 6:5.  Intelligent people take heed – there’s only one basic rule you need to know about this topic:

ONLY DOPES PLAY TABLES THAT PAY 6:5 ON NATURAL 21

There’s a great article written on this in the Las Vegas Sun, basically depicting casinos that put 6:5 games in their pits as folks that consider their customers to be stupid and deserving of being fleeced and swindled of their money as quickly as possible.

THE SINGLE DECK BAIT & SWITCH
The most common scenario in which you’ll find 6:5 tables is to highlight it as a "single deck" game,
(often advertised as "Now back by popular demand… Single Deck Blackjack") which in comparison to a double deck game, negates the traditional -0.35% advantage the house gets from using 2 decks, however if the table is also paying only 6:5 on naturals, players are getting gipped of -1.37% for a grand total of -1.02%.  Compare this to a typical double deck game with a house edge of only -0.36%.

BOTTOM LINE:

Players lose their money 3x FASTER on a "single deck 6:5" game than on a "double deck 3:2" game.  Take it from Blackjack legend Stanford Wong – this is his article on 6:5 tables:
http://www.bj21.com/bj_reference/pages/6to5blackjackpayout.shtml

(Sidenote:  Don’t even get me started on blackjack tables that pay EVEN MONEY on naturals or tables that state that TIED HANDS LOSE.  This is a colossal -2.29% disadvantage for the player and a -1.79% disadvantage respectively.  Yes, you read that correctly… paying even money on naturals creates a larger disadvantage for the player than losing with tied hands.)

I got asked the other day, "How do you know what table to play when playing Blackjack?"  It’s an interesting question that not a lot of folks know:  Which of the many Blackjack tables in the pit should you choose to play at? 

The implication is that not all Blackjack games are created equal and this is certainly true depending on what Blackjack table rules are imposed.  What you essentially want is a table that has as small a theoretical advantage for the casino (or "house edge" as it’s called) as possible.  The impact that these nuances have are more and more relevant to your chip stack the longer you play.

First it should be stated that NONE OF THIS MATTERS if you don’t play perfect Basic Strategy.  No amount of minimized table edge will make you a winner if you don’t play absolutely perfect Basic Strategy.  Rule Number 1:  Memorize a strategy table or buy a strategy card from the gift shop and bring it to the table with you.

Getting back to casino advantage:  Well, it turns out that the answer to selecting the table with the best rules is as simple as doing some observations about the table and doing a little math in your head.  Let’s assume that unless stated otherwise, the baseline casino rules are as follows: (These rules provide zero net advantage to the casino if the player uses basic strategy)

• Single deck
• Dealer stands on soft 17
• Doubling is allowed on any two cards
• Double not allowed after splits
• Natural 21 pays 3:2

COMMON RULES VARIATIONS
Here are some common rules that you can either seek out or avoid in order to minimize the casino’s advantage.

• +0.08% Resplitting A’s
• +0.19% Double after split
• +1.86% Naturals pay 2:1 (untied only)
• +2.29% Naturals pay 2:1 (all)
• -1.37% Naturals pay 6:5
• -0.10% Double only on 9, 10, 11
• -0.20% Double only on 10, 11
• -0.20% Dealer hits soft 17
• -0.35% Two decks
• -0.52% Four decks
• -0.58% Six decks
• -0.61% Eight decks

NO LOVE FOR THE PLAYER?
As you can see, there are very few rules available these days that provide a better advantage for the player, but a lot of rules – common ones – that give a stronger advantage to the casino.  For example:

Let’s say you’re playing at a table with doubling after splits, 2 decks and dealers hit soft 17.  The resulting edge for the table would be 0.19%-0.35%-.20%=–0.36% assuming otherwise perfect strategy by the player. 

The arbitration between selecting a table with good rules, playing with perfect basic strategy, and using methods like card counting to gain a more significant edge on the house is called "advantage play".  There are very few individuals in this world that truly are "advantage players".  I think it was Blackjack Hall of Famer John Chang (a VERY famous Blackjack player who beat the casinos for millions of dollars in the 90’s along with the MIT Blackjack team) said that there are only a few hundred people in the entire world that truly are advantage players and the rest don’t have the discipline.

GIVING PLAYERS AN EDGE WITH COUPONS
Hey!  Where does one get a game where Naturals pay 2:1?  Well, they don’t really exist.  The only way to get this kind of edge is through casino coupons which are in things like Player’s Club mailers or coupon books like Anthony Curtis’ Las Vegas Advisor Coupon book.  Coupons are vouchers that allow a player to get benefits like 2:1 on blackjacks or give the player "match play" – i.e. the coupon doubles your bet in front of you at no risk to you.  A great discussion of this topic is available as an article on the web site "Beyond Counting", a book by James Grosjean, Game Theory Mathematician, Advantage Player, & Blackjack Hall of Famer.  The article is called "Beyond Coupons". (http://www.beyondcounting.com/pdfs/beyondcouponsbjfo.pdf)

(Incidentally, James Grosjean is a fascinating individual and one of the people in this world I wish I could meet some day.  He writes a column in All-In Magazine – the only paper-based magazine out there for Blackjack players, and his articles are always very interesting to Blackjack players, even if they’re a little less useful than his material on advantage play.

EXPECTED HOUSE EDGE
In general, the house edge can vary wildly depending on the tactics imposed by the player & the rules laid down by the house.  Here’s a swipe at the percentage advantage differences between the edge the house has over players depending on these circumstances and tactics.  To the mathematically precise, please understand that these are broad generalities, however for the purposes of giving people a mental picture of the differences, I think they’re accurate enough to give you a picture of the difference in the ‘odds of winning’ when putting in a little effort, so use these as guidelines:

• -5.00% to -10.00%:  Typical LV Strip casino edge over the tourist that doesn’t play basic strategy
• -2.00% to -3.00%:  Typical LV Strip casino edge over the player that plays strict basic strategy
• -0.20% to -1.00%:  Typical LV strip casino edge over the player that uses basic strategy at a table with reasonable rules (i.e. No 6:5 naturals, doubling down available on any two cards, etc.)
• +1.00% to +2.50%:  Typical edge player has over the casino using unbalanced card counting techniques (like Knockout or Speed count)
• +3.00% to +5.00%:  Typical edge player has over the casino using advanced balanced card counting techniques (like traditional Thorp HiLo with indices, two-level counts, all calculating true counts based on shoe depth)

A NOTE ABOUT THE VENETIAN HOTEL & CASINO
Personally, I’m something of a fan of the Venetian Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.  They get ripped by some online web sites like VegasTripping.com for their purported lack of atmosphere for table play but I don’t think it’s that bad at all.  I’ve always liked their dealers who are far less grouchy than other places like Frontier or Caesars, it’s a quick hop to some fast eats, and the cashier rarely has much of a line. 

Most importantly, they also have two tables in the pit specifically designated as double deck tables with reasonably good rules at about a -0.30% house edge and they have YET to institute any 6:5 tables compared to Mandalay, Hard Rock, Palms, etc. which you really have to respect.  Say what you want about the Venetian’s faux-Italian theme:  The Venetian has all the synthetics of a typical strip casino with the class of the Bellagio.  They’re also fluid with comps which makes it a little more attractive to stay there if you play a lot.

This story brought a tear to my eye.  It was originally written about in the San Francisco Chronicle.  I’ll explain why it struck a chord with me later:

Saving a Whale

If you read the front page story of the SF Chronicle, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth.

A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farralone Islands (outside the Golden Gate ) and radioed an environmental group for help.

Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her.  A very dangerous proposition. One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer.

They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed gently around-she thanked them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives.

The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.

The full story is available on Snopes and is acknowledged as not a urban legend but rather a true story: http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/whalethanks.asp.  Additionally, the actual San Francisco Chronicle article is archived online and available here:  http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/12/14/MNGNKG7Q0V1.DTL.

ANIMALS HAVE FEELINGS TOO
Why this story is interesting to me has to do with my personal experience with homeless, abandoned, and orphaned animals.  Much like political correctness and the backlash that has generated around being too "PC", I believe that people similarly feel the same way about the anthropomorphism of animals:  People are too hesitant to associate feelings and emotions with animals for fear of sounding like loons.

The fact of the matter is, animals feel sadness, happiness, pain, glee, excitement, boredom, frustration, anger, fear, whimsy, playfulness, relief… and they feel gratitude.

It’s quite simple actually:  Anyone that’s worked with dogs knows that dogs that are in kennels or shelters have it rough.  They get frustrated and angry from boredom.  But they also know when they’re got it good.  They engage their human friends and they do everything they know how to express their happiness that they’re home.  Everyone’s seen the glee in a dog’s eyes when his human friend comes home from work and grabs the leash to take him for a walk. 

In the same vein, a dog also knows a bad, chaotic environment like a city animal shelter and he’ll know when he’s been provided with better. 

A STORY ABOUT A DOG’S GRATITUDE
While in a shelter, my dog Sheepa was, for lack of a better explanation, lonely.  No one pet him, no one cared for him, no one spent time with him.  He basically led a solitary life in dog prison for more than 2 years with people walking him and feeding him but otherwise treating him like he had the plague because he’d bitten others before and was considered incorrigible.

When I first saw him, he’d been brought by a rescue coordinator but kept on the side in a enclosed kennel with little to no adoption exposure.  The rescue coordinator didn’t like him at all and considered him somewhat vicious.  She only brought him because some woman had called and asked to see him but never showed up.  It was pretty much pure luck that he was there that day, and I saw him. 

He was a furry mess but I took him out for a slow walk.  He was so weak and tired.  His fur was matted, he had ticks all over him, and he reeked of pee.  He ambled gradually outside and never uttered a word.  He didn’t pull his leash or bear his teeth.  He just kind of made his way.  We finally took him back and placed him back in his kennel, which was away from the other dogs all of whom had cages where people could see them… but not Sheepa.  He was in the back and no one else even looked at him. 

As I opened the door to his kennel, and he made his way in, he looked up at me then turned to my hand and quietly licked me once.  He collapsed down into his mess of newspaper and looked back through the kennel’s wire door.  It still makes me cry to think about it.

My wife and I adopted him that night.  Not really knowing any better, we had Sheepa just sleep in our living room… and boy did he sleep:  He slept for 12 hours straight he looked so tired.  We had him worked on for two days by a dog salon to clean and groom him.  And over a period of a week, he became a 100% more energetic and a lot more friendly.  One day, he even smiled much to our delight.

It’s been 3 years now and these days, Sheepa watches TV with me on the couch.  He sleeps a lot but we discovered that he’s 12-13 years old so that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.  We also discovered that he’s deaf so we give him commands through a sort of doggie sign language.  He’s quite social and doesn’t growl or attack anything like he purportedly used to.  He follows me around the house and always greets me with a lick.  He still feels the habitual/instinctual need to take snacks back to his bed to protect them while he eats them, but other than that, he’s very domesticated which is a far cry from the defensive, fearful, and belligerent attitude of most dogs upon exiting the shelter system.

GRATITUDE:  WHAT IS IT?
So what is gratitude anyway?  And how does an animal express it?  Well, it’s not really that complicated.  Gratitude is a sense of happiness & relief associated with a specific event or condition.  If you think about things in the most basic "good vs bad" sense (like an animal might):

• Things were bad and scary before, but now that this new person is around, things seem to be good.
• I used to have to fight for food and my space before at the old territory, but now that I’m in this new place, I don’t have to fight anyone for my food and I have my own territory.
• My fur made me irritable before, but I’m not itchy or scratchy any more since coming here.
• Other dogs and people used to hurt me but now that I’m here, no one bites me or hits me.

The bottom line is, a dog can bark, growl, bite, run away, ignore you, poop & pee.  It can also run up to you, jump up and down, lick you, smile, nudge you, lean against you, and sit on your lap.

If you get the latter rather than the former relative to other individuals back before you demonstrated some kindness to the animal, congratulations:  You’ve made a friend and he’s grateful to you.

And it’s okay to think that because it’s true.

A cousin of mine recently went to Japan to teach English in some countryside elementary schools and he came back with some horror stories about the apathetic attitudes many of the student have. 

I gather based upon what I’ve heard that the situation is similar to the way America’s urban children are stuck in a generational rut, where it’s exceptionally difficult and requires a lot of bravery to strike out beyond the squallar and poverty of their own native community.  Japanese countrywide children are stuck being low level farmers or labor workers with little hope of "breaking out".  So they don’t care about learning much.

It reminded me of this one guy that called himself Azrael that wrote an online diary about teaching English in Japan.  He entitled his diary, "I am a Japanese School Teacher" and his writing was hilarious and it was really before the dawn of "blogging".

This was the first entry I ever read.  Go ahead.  Read it.  You’ll feel compelled to read more:
http://www.outpostnine.com/editorials/teacher1.html

This guy is a laugh riot.  And here’s the funny part.  His blog was so popular, that a year or so ago, he got asked to join a network of bloggers where it sounds like he got paid.  The new site is at:
http://www.gaijinsmash.net/

Even funnier?  He QUIT.  And not just a year ago or anything… he quit just a couple days ago. He decided that he couldn’t take teaching English in Japan any more and he just up and quit.  This is after 7 years or so of teaching English.  The timing is amazing… I visited his blog 7 years ago, and then didn’t come back until two days ago, and BAM.  He quit.

He has a lot of gripes but he doesn’t piss all over the experience.  For all his teeth knashing, Azrael’s quite grown up about the whole thing.  Impressive.  I can’t say definitively that I would have been as mature.  And I’m Japanese for god’s sake.

God bless you, Azrael, and thank you for making me laugh my ass off at least twice in my life.  You’re the kind of person I’d like to meet one day.

I was flipping through channels a month or so ago and I noticed that a film called "Shelter Dogs" was playing on HBO.

I work with an animal rescue organization on the weekends called Save-a-Life Adoptions and so I think this would be an interesting watch.  I recorded it to watch on another day.

KEEPING THINGS POSITIVE
I’m not going to lie:  I’m one of those folks that donate money to animal shelter & rescue organizations annually and revel in hearing about the wonderful, positive work being done in animal advocacy.  There are so many caring people out there providing time, services, and love to help homeless dogs and cats get along, when no one else will give them a home. 

Best Friends (http://www.bestfriends.org) are the masters of this concept.  They know the majority of donation-contributing society would rather not hear about the sordid & horrific things people discovery while being an animal advocate, so what they do is they adhere to a very strict policy of only sending out "all the good news" related to adoption and animal care, focusing on the positives and only alerting people to the negatives when it’s a dire emergency.

So as a result, I indulge in the fluffy, happy, joyful materials that are delivered monthly by Best Friends and I remain satisfied and delighted whenever I get a dog adopted into a new family.  And even on days where things are slow, and no one adopts any of our animals, it was still a good day because the animals got out and got to do something different while meeting other humans.

GETTING BACK TO REALITY
But anyone that’s worked with homeless dogs & cats knows that there’s a much sadder, helpless side of animal advocacy.  Euthanasia in shelters, animal abuse in homes, laws treating pets as nothing more than property without rights, incurable diseases, rampant pregnancies due to a lack of spaying/neutering, professional breeding in puppy farms… all of this makes for very depressing thoughts. 

And as a volunteer you try to put it out of your mind so that you can focus on doing good things.  Althought I do have a singular, unrelenting, almost-catatonic anger that stirs whenever I hear about someone buying dogs & cats from pet stores & breeders as their first option, I’m not going to use this post to discuss the point… maybe in another post.

But then along comes this movie:  "Shelter Dogs"

I was unable to watch this movie upon my first two attempts.  I got through 5 minutes of it one time, and then the second time, I got through 15 minutes.  Both times, I had to turn it off and watch something less meaningful, less cerebral, and less emotional, because it’s just such an impactful and gut wrenching movie.

I did eventually watch through the entire movie – this time with the help of Sheepa who lay next to me throughout the movie.  The subject matter is so completely accurate to what animal rescues deal with on a daily basis it’s scary.  It touches on the internal debate animal activists have about the humanity of having "unadoptable" dogs live the rest of their lives in what are essentially prison cells.

THE UNADOPTABLE DOG
Here’s a situation: 

1. What do you do with a dog if he/she’s prone to biting, attacking, and is generally overly aggressive?  What do you do if that dog is beyond the capacity of society to rehabilitate – and by capacity, I mean individual time, funding, manpower, etc.?  What if that dog must be kept separate from the rest of the animals because of it’s aggressive nature, and what if no one in it’s entire lifetime would ever adopt him/her?
2. Now what if you also have THREE well-behaved, well-mannered, socially SAFE dogs on hand that came in with that one ‘unadoptable’ dog.  What if these animals were perfect family members that were being kept in "unfamily-like quarters slowly driving them crazy from the lack of attention, the lack of interaction, and the confinement required by the walls of the shelter.
3. Imagine that every day, these same 4 dogs – one unadoptable, three adoptable – arrive EVERY DAY.  On average however because of your capacity, you have only room for 1 of the  incoming dogs every 3 days …because imagine that it takes that long for anyone to adopt any of these homeless animals.   And because of the ‘unadoptable’ dogs taken in, your ratio of adopted versus unadopted goes lower every day forcing you to turn away dogs that would otherwise have a shot at getting adopted.  One out of every 10 dogs gets adopted.
4. Now instead of 1 unadoptable dog and 3 adoptable ones, imagine dealing with ONE MILLION UNADOPTABLE DOGS and THREE ADOPTABLE ONES.  And most of them never get homes in private animal rescues – they instead go straight to city/county animal shelters where 9 out of every 10 dogs are euthanized.

That’s the problem:  There’s 4 million dogs, with capacity for only 1 million of them, in private foundations.  And even though 1 out of every 4 dogs is unadoptable, they still need housing somewhere.  They still need care and they still require resources, medical treatment, and volunteer time to feed & shelter.

By the way, this is all going on what there are uneducated, unsympathetic people out there that:

• BREED DOGS
  There are actually people out there that have litters of puppies as a career… as money making venture… as their livelyhood.  These people prey on human vanity & our legal systems flawed view of dogs as nothing but "property".  And the dogs they don’t sell – mysteriously disappear.  Do you ever stop to think what happens to a puppy if he/she doesn’t get adopted?  Do you ever stop to think how many litters a female has had to produce for her owner? 
  …there’s a very special room in hell reserved for these people.
• FAIL TO SPAY/NEUTER
  And then there’s the "cultures" of people that don’t spay/neuter their animals for fear of "emasculating" them.  They hold no accountability for any animals born of their irresponsibility and they simply let puppies and strays wander the streets of places like East Los Angeles where there’s a stray dog with no owner living off of trash cans on every corner.
  …it’s these people that demonstrate how fundamentally dangerous stupidity is in America.
• BUY DOGS
  There are people out ther so self-absorbed with the particulars of the dog they choose, they are willing to pay $1200 for a specific type of dog without even considering adopting, instead viewing homeless dogs as "used".  They give made-up excuses for their ignorant attitude like, "Oh, they’re psychologically scarred" or "Well, someone gave them up so they can’t be any good".

…and it’s these people that should watch this movie.

Against the odds, Paul Potts captures Britain’s heart and wins the Britain’s Got Talent competitions with his extended solo of Nessun Dorma.

Britain’s definitely got talent.  The grand finale judging was recorded here:

The finale is written about here on the BGT web site:  http://talent.itv.com/page.asp?partid=354

Grand Final – The Winner

It was as if the tension would never end – but finally, eventually, painfully… Dec announced Paul Potts as the Britain’s Got Talent winner.

It was a moment where futures were made and dreams were dashed. But even though every one of the performers here has an outstanding talent, only one could scoop the big prize tonight.

Two million votes were cast by the British public. For the big winner, welshman Paul Potts, tonight starts a week of newspaper interviews, magazine features and TV appearances. Life won’t be quite the same ever again.

As Ant and Dec congratulated the singer – or was that held him up – he told them – "I can’t believe I’ve won it – I’m like jelly. Performing for the Quen means absolutely everything. Thank you for believing in me".

…more at the link…

I found myself actually tearing up as I watched this video.  It’s just beautiful and to hear that he’s an unheralded cell phone salesman, makes this story all that more remarkable.  He’s had virtually no vocal coaching.

Look at the judges clap.  Look at Amanda Holden crying during his performance.  Look at the audience’s standing ovation.  Piers Morgan & Simon Cowell virtually gush about him and they’re always the subdued ones.

Not surprisingly Paul’s made it to the final competition against a puppeteer named Damon Scott who’s good but I don’t think he’s even in the same caliber as Paul… and two other acts that I can’t even consider.  But this’ll be up to Britain’s Got Talent’s audience voters.  The finals began about 6 minutes ago in Britain. (12 Noon PST)

Three words:  GO PAUL GO!
http://www.paulpottsofficial.com

——————–

(BTW:  Here’s a video of his semi-final performance)

NFL Quarterback Michael Vick was found to have 30 fighting pitbull bred dogs in chainson his property in Virginia along with an additional 25-35 other pit bulls elsewhere on the land.  Several were injured, others were starving, and all appeared to be bred and trained for dog fighting.

The operation is described as a large scale professional facility for dog fighting training.  There were animal fighting gear and paraphenalia, breeding equipment, treadmills, steroids and other substances to supplement the growth of dogs, bloody strips of carpeting.  Scales to weigh the dogs, antibiotics to medicate wounds, and documentation allegedly showing involvement in dog fighting ventures.

And Michael Vick claims he knows nothing about the large professional dog fighting facility on his property.

Dog fighting is a felony in Virginia however the maximum sentence is 5 years and a $2500 fine.

ON A PERSONAL NOTE
Now, I’m rarely for enacting new laws and new restrictions on people’s freedoms as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else… but because American law doesn’t recognize animals as anything other than property, immoral and amoral people get away with all sorts of cruel and inhumane behavior that would otherwise result in ridiculous consequences had the same crime been executed on a human.

This has got to stop.  On one side of the spectrum of life, people are so damned quick to protect trees… the carbon levels in the air… the encroachment on wetlands and wildlife areas… and on the other side of the spectrum, others are willing to assist abused, hungry, and downtrodden human beings so much so that they’re willing to hold concerts to aid Africa or even invade countries in the name of human rights.  And frankly, I respect all of their concerns whether they’re right or wrong.

But when it comes to the middle ground – being the custodians of God’s little living creations like dogs, cats, rabbits, snakes, and any other animals that are or aren’t otherwise pets – we humans seem to "hop" over our duties as being the guardians & shepherds of the living breathing creatures that share the earth.

And some horrible, horrible professional sports figures even have them fight to the death for sport and fortune.

SIGN THE PETITION, PLEASE
Please sign this petition to enact strong laws against animal fighting in the NFL, the NBA, and other professional sports and ask these leagues to publicly condemn sports figures that do fund and participate in such cruel behavior.  The petition publicly shows your name and your city of residence and I know that bothers some people but everyone needs to ask themselves:

This is a worthy cause:  At what point do I as a citizen need to stand up and publicly say, enough is enough.  If this isn’t a cause to put my name & address down on a petition for the world to see, what is?

SIGN HERE:  http://network.bestfriends.org/petitions/detail.aspx?pn=4&gu=stopbsl