For now, I’ll just link to this as the eight millionth reason why I will not be switching my content sharing to Facebook: If You Like Links, You’ll Hate What Facebook Is Doing To Them – The Future Buzz.

Pittsburgh 33, Arizona 17.

In other news, I passed the bar.

Thoughts:

• Leonardo DiCaprio is rapidly gaining on Christian Slater for best permanent Jack Nicholson impression.
• Tom Cruise is still creepy. I guess that will never go away.
• Borat is still funny. I guess that will never go away.
• Harrison Ford is better than Shia LeBoeuf will ever be, but that freaking earring is ridiculous!
• And yeah, vote on Tuesday. Even though, statistically, most of your votes really are worthless.

PS: Remember G.E. Smith? He was awesome.

Grading of the examination will be conducted in accordance with the Committee of Bar Examiners (Committee) standard procedures. During the grading process, however, the Committee’s psychometric consultant has been asked to perform a psychometric study on whether the earthquake impacted applicants’ performance on the first session of the examination and to report his findings to the Committee prior to the release of results from the examination.

The Committee will consider its consultant’s findings and determine what action, if any, should be taken to ensure that all applicants are treated as fairly as possible. Any actions the Committee might take will be discussed in the information made available at the time results from the examination are released to the applicants, which is scheduled for November 21, 2008.

It’s not really clear what this means, but it looks like if scores are lower than average for that session, the Bar Examiners are going to apply an Act of God curve to even things out. I guess I’ll take it.

I took the California bar exam in Ontario, which is near Los Angeles. Also, it’s about 10 miles away from the epicenter of the 5.4 earthquake that hit towards the end of the first morning. So that was nice. But aside from that, things seemed to go fine. I mean, I have massive doubts and regrets, but I think that’s normal and not really indicative of how I did. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I won’t get my results until November, so there’s not really much use in stressing out about them until then.

After the bar, I had a celebratory meal at Benihana (their Mai Tais are fantastic, even if you don’t drink out of a ceramic buddha), then went to sleep at a reasonable hour. I’m pathetic. The next day I flew up to San Francisco for the weekend. I stayed with a friend from college and had a very good time. Featured were:

• Dinner at some hipster joint that actually serves very good food.
• Drinks at The Orbit Room, a fantastic lounge with bespoke cocktails and a clever vintage aeronautic theme.
• Watching karaoke at The Mint. The performance quality was a letdown after my last visit there, but the entertainment value was quite high nonetheless. The highlight of the evening for me was getting verbally ambushed by a truly drunk astrology aficionado whose buddy Reuben wouldn’t return her calls. After a series of sarcastic remarks that she understood to be sincere, she asked for my phone number, but I gave her a fake number! OMG YOU GUYS, I’M A PLAYER! So that was fun.
• Playing softball on Treasure Island. For the record, as best I can recall I went 4 of 6 with 3 infield singles, and had a pretty unimpressive fielding day at third base. But I had one solid putout, which is probably the first time in my entire life I’ve successfully thrown a runner out at first base. Baseball: not my best sport.
• Potpourri: Playing a bunch of card games, spilling at least one glass of wine, spending a lot of time on Muni/BART, having eggs benedict in Rockridge, helping my friends pick out a hookah at a smokeshop staffed by a cliché.

Next, I flew up to Vancouver, where I stayed at this hostel. This is a pretty fun place to stay, but I think I may be too old for it. Everyone seems to be approximately 17 years old (and to have been travelling the world for at least a decade). But it’s cheap, central to downtown Vancouver (and in very close proximity to any number of sex shops and vagrants), and has free wifi. Here are things I’ve been up to in Vancouver:

• Meeting up with my internet friend Tim. Tim is real life friends with some other internet friends who I have met before and overall, I don’t totally hate him. So that’s a plus. Anyway, he and I hung out a fair amount, which was good, since I don’t know anyone else in Vancouver.
• We played Pitch ‘n’ Putt in Stanley Park. It’s 18 holes of between 50 and 100 yards each, using a pitching wedge and a putter. It was surprisingly similar to real golf. I kicked Tim’s ass, but he had the only birdie of the group, so I guess it’s a wash.
• Saw Batman again. I feel the same way: very good, not perfect, occasionally too implausible/stupid, but overall very well done and enjoyable.
• Had sushi and gelato. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
• Walked all over the place. Like, 6 miles on Monday, 13.5 miles on Tuesday, 10 miles on Wednesday, and, er, .2 miles so far today. The weather has been a little warm, but not too bad (no rain so far!). I’ve got a hilarious raccoon tan from wearing my sunglasses all the time.
• Spent a ridiculous amount of time dealing with technology. Charging my iPod, phone, laptop, trying to find wifi all over the city, having all access to ATMs cut off, going to FUTURESHOP (Canadian Best Buy) to replace the camera Tim managed to lose during a nap… but on the plus side, I’ve had a lot of luck getting free wifi on this trip, which has been a huge help. I don’t know what people did before cell phones and ubiquitous internet access–I don’t think I could get around without it.

Now I have a few more hours to kill before I head off to the airport for the short trip to Seattle (I should have taken the ferry, but I’m an idiot), where I will spend the weekend doing fun things. Then I spend a week with the fam before going back to Boston to pack up my life and head down to DC.

One more thought I have been deeply yearning to share:

• Brett Favre: sucks. He retired, and then double retired when the team asked if he was sure about it. The team moved on. He reneged. The team refused to drop his contract, to prevent him from signing on with one of their division rivals. He whined on national television. They couldn’t get any decent trades for him, because his whining made it clear that they would be desperate to get rid of him (and thus had no leverage). Yet somehow this guy is a victim? Bah, humbug.

I’ll be in San Francisco from the 1st to the 4th, then in Vancouver from the 4th to the 7th, then in Seattle from the 7th to the 10th. It’s not a lot of time in any of those places, but I’m hoping to be able to meet up with anybody who’s around. Leave me a comment here or email me (calamityjake at gmail dot com) if you want to make that happen–although I may not be able to get back to you til after the exam is over.

Good luck to everyone else who’s taking the bar–I’ll be back on the internet, hopefully with something more interesting to say, in August.

(Sorry that the video starts automatically. Hopefully you’ve got Flashblock installed.)

There are a ton of other fascinating designs on the Nike Labs site (you can scroll through them all on the bottom of the screen, and click for more details and designer videos–much bigger than the one I’ve embedded here). Great way to waste half an hour.

¹ Between my friends’ going to grad school and their general aimless wandering, I don’t even know who I know in any of those cities anymore.

The curry bun is a sweet doughnut wrapped around a deep green dollop of mild English-style curry. The onions in the curry are slow-fried for four hours. Once cooked, the curry is given a day of rest before it marries its doughnut. Only about 400 of these buns are made each day, all by hand.

“I have found the perfect harmony of curry sauce and dough,” explains Hideki Okubo, who experimented with spices and curry powder for six months until he got it right.

That was 24 years ago, and his curry bun has since become something of a legend in Tokyo. Okubo said he has been offered lucrative deals to mass-market it but has never seriously considered doing so.

“A restaurant has to have one thing that stands out,” he said. “For us, it is our bun.”

And that’s not even from one of the restaurants with a Michelin star. I’m kind of obsessed with this stuff (even though I never cook anything with more than three ingredients) and I really dug this story. Two thumbs way up.

The problem with gifts is the expectation — the truth is that one good experience can ruin you for life. For me it was two years into my marriage. I had graduated from film school and was living without a job, writing every day (or at least saying I was) and being supported by my wife’s starting architect salary and a small stipend from her mom.

My birthday came, and the gift I wanted was to be shot in the back of the head while I slept — to be mercifully put out of my misery before I gained any more weight or finished the extremely depressing movie I was writing.

My wife handed me a large, very heavy flat box. Inside was a silver Zero Halliburton briefcase.

Now, if you missed the ’80s, let me explain what this was. It was the ultimate briefcase. It was the one you saw in the movies, carried by Feds, moguls, guys in sports cars, drug dealers. It was the kind that was filled with rows of hundreds and then handcuffed to somebody’s wrist. I had admired one in a window at the mall. My wife had clocked that and delivered. It cost $300. Our rent was $800 a month.

It was so extravagant, so ridiculous, so desired. I was speechless. My wife knew what I wanted. I wanted to feel successful. I wanted to go somewhere everyday with my papers in that gleaming hand-held Learjet.

When I saw that gift, I knew that no matter what I felt like, she somehow saw me as the kind of person who carried that thing. She somehow saw me as a success. And yes, there were hugs and kisses and tears.

I don’t know why, exactly, but this rubs me the wrong way. The extravagant, ostentatious gift, given at a time when they apparently could have used the money better? It is a very nice thought, and as we all know it ended up all working out in the end, but it still seems like an odd exemplar of a great gift. I mean, if you’re ever thinking about spending 1/3 of your rent on a gift for me while you’re getting financial support from your mom, please reconsider. It’s the thought that counts–just knit me a pink oven-mitt.

In related news, I thought the Apatow/Mann contribution to the Times‘s gift guide thing was pretty hilarious.

The guys on the show were arguing about two things: 1) continuous shuffle, and 2) weighting toward action hands. Unfortunately, I don’t think any of them really knew at any point which, if any, of these things they were actually talking about. I’ll address them one at a time, and give my opinion about both.

• Continuous Shuffle

  A standard randomizing shuffle algorithm (since I don’t know what real nerds call it, I’ll refer to it as a “static shuffle algorithm”) would do one random shuffle before beginning dealing. It’s the digital equivalent of what they do at a casino–before each hand is dealt, the dealer shuffles the full deck. Once this shuffle is completed, the order of the deal is set in stone. If someone had x-ray vision, he could look at the deck at any point and predict with 100% accuracy what card would be dealt next at any point in the hand.

  So online, if you’re using a single random shuffle, the order of the cards being dealt is set from the start of each hand. Theoretically, if someone could crack this algorithm it might be possible to predict what cards would come out (or, perhaps more likely, to predict with a bit more accuracy the chances of a given card coming out at a given time). Either way, the hypothetical hacker would have a significant edge over the honest poker player.

  Obviously, sites don’t want people cracking their randomizing algorithm–it doesn’t get them anything to allow certain players to cheat in this way (in fact, it seems pretty clear to me that it would hurt a poker site to be seen as vulnerable to this kind of cheating, since players would probably just take their business elsewhere). So to increase the difficulty of figuring out the next card, poker sites use an additional level of complexity: the continuous shuffle algorithm. With this in place, the poker site is constantly reshuffling any cards that haven’t already been dealt out. The next card to be dealt is perpetually changing, so that even if you could figure out in one moment what the deck’s order is, it would be randomly changed by the time you tried to use that information.

  Now what does this mean for you as a player? Assuming that the randomizing algorithm is, in fact, truly random, it means absolutely nothing is different. Your odds are identical, with or without the extra step of the continuous shuffle. This is Schroedinger’s Cat–until you see your next card, it is all possible cards and none of them. The only way this should make a difference is if you believe in the supernatural (in which case, maybe we should be talking about what gods to make sacrifices to before tournaments, instead of implied odds). Casinos preserve “your” cards in the case of a misdeal as a nod to the credulous people who believe the random card they “should be” dealt occupies some special place in the cosmos. It doesn’t.

  Okay, so to summarize: as long as the randomizing algorithms are legit, it makes no difference whether a poker site uses a continuous or static shuffle algorithm. The only distinction is that if you’re worried about someone cracking the shuffle order, a continuous shuffle algorithm is probably a little bit safer–it adds another level of complexity, increasing the difficulty of cracking it.

• Weighting Toward Action Hands

  Okay, this is the other topic. The idea here is that although the algorithms are random (in other words, the order of the cards is not pre-determined or predictable), the odds of the randomizing algorithm are weighted toward results that lead to more action. In other words, two good hands go up against each other more often than they would in a real life game played with a physical shuffled deck. This seems like a very real possibility, if you play a lot online–high value hands go up against each other all the time. I’ve lost with full houses to better full houses many times, often in situations where neither full house was obvious. Why would a poker site do this? Well, it increases the excitement–some people play for the rush of action, and will play more at a site that has more action (even if they keep losing). It also increases the perceived bad beats–if I lose a lot of money on a good hand, I might want to keep playing to try to get that money back. After all, I “deserved” to win that big hand. Action hands also lead to bigger pots, which means a bigger rake for the poker site. The more action hands, the more money the site takes in (at least in the short term).

  But here’s the thing: there are many, many, many differences between online and live play. For example, at least at the low stakes most people play online, you’re going to get a lot more callers. More callers means more ugly hands catching on ugly flops (and more medium hands catching on medium flops). More hands catching means more action. Another example, which has been discussed plenty of times: you play more hands per hour online. More hands means more action hands (just in actual number, not in terms of action hands per total hands). Another example: seeing the river (and the result of hands). I think you see way more folding before the end of a hand live. This is related to what I alluded to above–I think you see more conservative play in live games, meaning more folding before the end of the hand. This gives players fewer opportunities to catch a one-outer or runner runner straights, etc.

  Anyway, I don’t intend to go into too much depth here–there are plenty of other differences between online and live play. I just want to point out that you can’t just compare the number of action hands you see online to the number you see live and say that the disparity means poker sites are rigging their algorithms toward more action.

  And (as was mentioned on the show), I think it would be short-sighted and stupid for a site to risk getting caught (or even just being suspected) of rigging its shuffling algorithm. As soon as that perception is out there, a site’s players will flee for other sites (which sites will be sure to advertise about their legitimate algorithms). Action works great for games that play to people’s pure gambling rush–slots, roulette, lotteries–but for players who consider themselves to be rational and calculating, a poker site that messes with the odds is a joke (and a good place to get ripped off). They won’t put up with it. So the risk of being unmasked as a flawed poker site is too great for anybody with anything to lose to actually do it. At least, I think so.

My suspicion is that any legitimate poker site is extremely concerned with the integrity of its shuffling algorithm (whether it’s continuous or not)–and that any appearance of a higher rate of action hands online is due to the myriad differences between the two media, not due to anything fishy in the software.

The question of how difficult it might be to crack the system, either through the shuffling algorithm or another way, is completely separate (and, to me, much more concerning). However honest and diligent these sites may be, no system is perfect. If the stakes are high enough, sooner or later someone will probably figure out a way to gain an edge. Poker bots, collusion, algorithm-cracking: these are all serious problems with online play, and I am sure that they are all out there, to some degree or another.

So although I trust the good intentions and fair design of these poker sites, I still think the rule for online play should be: play at your own risk, and never put money on the table you can’t afford to lose.*

^* Actually, this is probably a good rule for poker anywhere.

If I were a woman, the prospect of being subjected to this kind of abuse (or, worse, the kind of abuse it forebodes) would scare the hell out of me. I wouldn’t feel safe. And the fact that for half of my friends and family this is not idle, hypothetical speculation–that it is, for all women, a very real problem–that really horrifies me.

This is all compounded, in Catherine’s case and that of other people who’ve written about this on their blogs, by the seriously idiotic harassment of misogynist commenters who swing by just to essentially reinforce the impression that men, especially men masked by anonymnity, are clueless and/or malicious jerks.

The internet commentary runs the gamut from well-meaning (e.g., “you should take it as a compliment–they think you’re attractive” or “dealing with the occasional jerk is par for the course in a big city”) to ignorant (“This is caused by a small minority of men“) to delusional AND misogynistic (“Now if she really wanted to teach this kid a lesson she would have walked up to him and said if you ever want to see, and touch big beautiful breasts like mine you better learn how to talk to a woman properly, saying nice titties will not get you the titties.“).

There are plenty more examples out there–the ones I linked came from a more or less random scan of this Yglesias post (some fun comments also available at an earlier post of Catherine’s here. What I find most amazing about the comments that attack or undermine the suggestion that street harassment is a serious problem is: how can anyone seriously argue that? Sometimes it’s relatively mild (a whistle or a suggestion that a woman “smile!”), sometimes it’s vile (“nice tits” or much worse), but in every case it’s objectifying, childish, insulting, and shameful. It reflects so poorly on men that this kind of behavior seems acceptable (or even admirable) to any of us–and it’s so much worse that the general reaction online from men seems to be condescension or an echo chamber of chauvinism.

I mean, I’m hardly the most sensitive guy in the world, and this stuff makes me crazy. I think of my female friends, and how much bullshit they have to put up with because this behavior is generally tolerated, and now I go online and read about how it’s women’s fault because they aren’t coming up with good enough ways of repelling it? That is seriously fucking stupid, my internet friend.

I don’t know how to fix street harassment. But I think that writing about the phenomenon, over and over and over again, does at least confront people with the fact that it’s not a rarity, it’s not limited to bad neighborhoods, it’s not women’s fault, and it’s not okay.

Also, I’ve been trying out another of Google’s sharing systems, the results of which you can see here (or subscribe to the feed).

Someday, I’m hoping Google will combine these two tools so that you can ignore just one thing from me, instead of two.

And while I’m here, let me just let you guys know a few things.

1) 3:10 to Yuma was pretty good, but the end was stupid and borderline incoherent in terms of characters’ motivations.

2) Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift is in no way good. And yet I watched the whole thing anyway. There’s just something about drifting–I can’t look away. Also, the way it is so blatant about trying to cram in as much of what “the kids” are into as possible… it’s kind of adorable. Like when a politician mentions “the MindSpace.” Anyway, if you find yourself watching this you should keep an eye out for the ludicrous twist at the end.

3) Kanye’s new album is nice, especially the song that is just him rapping over a great Daft Punk song. I mean, that was a pretty easy day for Kanye the Producer. “I’m just going to… yeah, I’m just going to loop the chorus over and over. Let’s call it a day.”

4) I finally got around to reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma. This book was really amazing. I thought I knew everything about it without having to read it–organic food rules, corn is evil, meat is murder–but the book was fascinating. I give it a thousand thumbs up.

I know this is random, but I just want to clear this up for people out there.

There are these things called shark attacks, but there is no such thing as a shark attack. I have never seen a real shark attack.

I know you’re making a weird face as you’re reading this. OK people, a shark attack is not what we see on TV and what people portray it as.

We’re humans. We live on land.

Sharks live in water.

So if you’re swimming in the water and a shark bites you, that’s called trespassing. That is called trespassing. That is not a shark attack.

A shark attack is if you’re chilling at home, sitting on your couch, and a shark comes in and bites you; now that’s a shark attack. Now, if you’re chilling in the water, that is called invasion of space. So I have never heard of a shark attack.

When I see on the news where it’s like, “There have been 10 shark attacks,” I’m like, “Hey, for real?! They’re just running around? Sharks are walking now, huh! We live on the land, we don’t live underwater.”

Nice use of the semicolon, too.

From Gilbert Arenas’s Blog.

(Great minds think alike, although I chose not to throw in a Rich Ankiel joke.)

Brief discussion after the jump.

I enjoyed the book and think that, once they excise all the sitting around in the forest and at the Weasley’s house, it will make a very good movie. The ending was pretty clever and satisfying (although it didn’t blow me away). I will probably not bother writing any more detailed a review of the book (there are more than enough of them online already), so if you have thoughts on how the series turned out feel free to respond in the comments here.

In other news, I have free wireless at my hotel, which is nice. I’ve spent the last 11 hours travelling, which is not nice. 8 of those hours were spent in a middle seat on an airplane, which is definitely not nice. But I’m here now, and I managed to get a lot done in the many hours I was stuck in an uncomfortable seat–including reading the last 300 pages of Harry Potter 6. I’m officially ready for book 7 on Saturday.

^* Aside from the 2 hour delay in taking off, the 5 hours of flight, and the 30 minutes of circling SFO, I mean. United Airlines and I are breaking up.

Made with Pictaps, whatever that is.

1. Ate dinner at Komi. I love this place so much. Even though it costs an arm and a leg.
2. Went to a Washington Nationals game. They actually won (this is a blue moon situation).
3. Ate lunch at Bistro du Coin. The service is miserable, but the food is good and authentic
   French bistro style.
4. Had a drink atop Hotel Washington. It overlooks the White House and the Mall and is worth a bit of a wait. Hint: even if you can’t get a table right away, you can always check and see if there’s room at the bar.
5. Went to the National Zoo. If you enjoy watching animals in cages, this is a good place to go. They have pandas, hippos, and other creatures who mourn their captivity. Overpriced sodas.
6. Supped at Dino. Hearty but sophisticated Italian fare, on the affordable side of expensive. Great wine list, for all of you oenophiles out there. We saw some DC food bloggers there, so you know it’s good. $24 prix fixe menu Sunday through Wednesday before 7:30pm.