Muttroxia

So far I am not super-impressed. It has one deal-killer flaw. Everyone is either friend or not-friend, there is no in-between.

It does a good job of showing me who’s in the system that I might want to contact. But there is no intermediary step where I can catch up, see their basic profile, and then stop. Nope, it’s either full access or nothing. I don’t want to give everyone full access. I don’t mind putting semi-personal stuff out there, but I see no reason to tell 150 people how I blew my fantasy football season. An old buddy sent me an invite. I haven’t seen him for 15 years, I want to know what he’s up to, but I don’t want to give him the same access as my real friends. Mrs. Muttrox is peeved because she crossed the line of professionalism – she has too many colleagues on her friend list. Now she feels that she can’t do anything fun because her next employer will know about it. I am friends with lots of people at work in the real world but I am reluctant to add most of them to my Facebook friend list.

This problem is doubly stupid because it’s so easily solved. All you need to do is add a layer called “acquaintances”. Or add a few layers, you can set any person to be friend “level” 1-4. Or you could have separate access for friends and colleagues. Then you decide what levels can see anything that goes up on your wall and such. It’s a trivial programming issue.

Feel free to send me a friend request. If I don’t accept it’s nothing personal. Unfortunately I am unable to merely dip my toe in the friendship water, it seems you have to take a full dive. I don’t want to.

…is having your baby daughter fall asleep on you.

World War II

Smoking sign fail

Why you should check your kids homework

December 9th is pretend to be a time traveler day. Excellent.

Times are tough – the rich are cutting back on mistresses

What causes War. Could have come straight from Collapse.

Can all conflict be reduced beyond even team aggression and resource competition, down to the single factor of population growth? It’s not quite that simple, but a deeper investigation of the role of population increase shows quite clearly that growth rate and population demographics function as significant triggers for raiding, wars, and even terrorism. …. Their study suggests that population growth accounts for a powerful 80–90 percent* of the variation between periods of war and peace.

What if Starbucks was run like a church?

Sarah Palin on the $10,000 pyramid

Michael Vick bankrupt in prison. How’d that happen?

8 Best recurring gags on Arrested Development

Neil Gaiman on free speech for icky things.

This is where we live

The front fell off. So real, I have no idea what it’s from.

Lunch

Prop 8: The Musical. Heck of a cast. By the way, Neil Patrick Harris is gay. Boy, can he act.

Using electrostimulus to feel the beat. Very weird.

Google shows Microsoft how to connect the dots

Something’s different about you… you’re going bald!

I don’t know the facts, but I’m on the side of the Satch

More Stupid French tricks

Tips for clueless people who get mugged

Things started off great. 20 minutes in I got K-K. I upped the blinds from 50 to 150, got two callers. The flop was K-x-x. I put in another 150. I was raised to 500. Gave the acting job of my life to reluctantly call. The turn was nothing. I checked, he checked. The river was nothing. I checked again, he put in 500. I went all-in, he called, I busted him out. He had K-Q and never saw it coming.

And then it all fell apart. Two factors.

1. The law of small numbers. In one hand I had A-10, the flop was K-x-x. I had bet heavy preflop and semi-bluffed postflop getting lots of action. There was an all-in. I figured him for K and nothing else. I had 2 cards to get an ace and I was getting 4 to 1 on my money. Had to do it. I did it and lost. On two other hands I had pushed big on bluffs, gotten a huge raise back and found myself with the pot odds right to call even though I figured I was well behind. I was both times and lost both times. The lesson is: Pot odds only work when the pots are fairly small in relation to your stack. If they are big then you can get busted out with only one or two hands going the wrong way. Playing a 20% hand with 7-1 on your money is a winning bet over the long run, but if you only have enough money to do it twice, the odds are you’re going home.
2. I was out of it. I woke up at 5:00 am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I had a ongoing firefight at work in the morning. I broke my glasses. Then we had layoffs announced. In the midst of all this, Mrs. Muttrox called to let me know that the 3-year old had fallen off his bike and was at the hospital getting stitches. By the time I got to the game I was mentally done already.

So I got knocked out. I was packing up to go home when we decided to change house rules and allow later buy-ins, because we had started with only six. Muttrox, you in? Um. Yeah, sure, why not. It’s only money. I lost that stack pretty quickly too. Went all in with 9-9 on a short stack, J-J called me and won. Oh well.

Tonight: -$40
Running Total: $555

From Yglesias:

…it’s worth observing that absolutely integral to starting to achieve success in Iraq was the rolling strategic decision to abandon our main war aims. In particular, we’re now neither trying to create a strong Iraqi state, nor trying to create an Iraqi state that isn’t dominated by pro-Iranian forces, nor trying to create an Iraqi state that’s a base for American military power, nor especially trying to create a stable Iraqi democracy. I think all of those decisions were the right decisions, based in smart pragmatic thinking about Iraqi realities and American interests. But if we didn’t want to do that stuff, that we could have just not invaded in the first place. Which is exactly what we should have done!

But this is an important point. It seems that Bill Kristol is running around saying “we won the war” in Iraq. In the real world, back in 2004 when liberals were proposing that the United States radically curtail its objectives in Iraq and agree to a firm date for leaving, conservatives called that proposal “losing.” I’m glad they’re now willing to lower their horizons and accept less. But the implausible partisan spin doesn’t change the fact that the war’s been a strategic disaster. Nor does it change the fact that Iraq looks to me more like a lesson in the limits of counterinsurgency than its promise. But it doesn’t seem to me that it’s being read that way. America is a country of optimists and a country that loves the uniformed military and the idea of success, so I think folks are going to look at the very equivocal “success” of 2007-2008 in Iraq and possibly reach some very unsound conclusions about the prospects for succeeding at other ventures.

Yep.

I voted yesterday in Georgia’s runoff election for Senator. I did it, but it felt like a duty I needed to fulfill rather than the palatable excitement on Nov 3rd. Mrs. Muttrox felt the same way. We already knew Martin was going to lose. And if he did, so what? Sure Chambliss is a complete scumbag but the Dems control all three branches either way.

I didn’t look at the result until early this morning. Sure enough, Martin got creamed. It wasn’t even close, 57% to 43%. It’s clear that the only reason he was close in the first round was the spillover from Obama voters. Participation went from 3.7 million to 2 million.

That leaves the Democrats with 58 Senate seats, 59 if Franken comes through. That’s more than enough. For all the partisanship talk, you will not see 41 Republicans fillibustering on a regular basis. Even in these last years there were usually a few congressman from either party crossing lines for any particular vote.

Lastly, I’ll add that political advertising is just awful. This is the first time Georgia has been in play and the airwaves have been deluged with both parties ads. All of them are terrible. I wish I could say they’re dishonest, but that’s besides the point. They are so devoid of any content that they can’t be judged on truth. Any nugget of factual information has been distorted beyond the point of recognition. Even the ads on “my side” were no fun to watch. As a fairly educated citizen interested in politics, the level of discourse made me a little ill.

(Title reference here)

Tonight’s episode had different animation techniques. The changes were subtle but definitely there. I don’t care for it.

I won!

I won the regular season at least. In our league the first 13 weeks are the regular season and weeks 14-16 are the playoffs. I won mainly because every random player I drafted on a whim turned out to be great. Notably, Michael Turner who became the heart soul and scoring center of my team. This is even better than it sounds because this is a keeper league, so I’ll go into next year with a strong core.

I haven’t had many super-strong weeks lately. There’s a good chance I won’t win it all in the end. And may I add, how do the Titans put 47 points on the board without throwing to Bo Scaiffe!? C’mon! Either way I’ll be very happy, I don’t think I’ve ever won any league like this.

What I’m not thankful for: No prize for the winner. Bragging rights are nice, but cash is even nicer!

Star Trek movie trailer. I didn’t realize was Trekdom was so riled about this one. It’s the story of Kirk and Spock, with new actors playing them. Looks very good to me.

Cut and Paste

The chosen people

Funny, and wise

What creature is this warning about?

Bruce Lee playing ping pong. Incredible (but true?)

IQ by occupation

Real class: Car of teens hits and kills other driver. They won’t help, but order fast-food to delivery scene. Follow-up: he’s escaped custody.

There’s bed-head, then there’s space-head

Yes, this is a real book

Bad jobs: Cranial brick transporter

I just love the internet.

AC DC’s newest video is in Excel ASCII format. Very neat.

To err is human…

Dying 11-year old’s last wish, feed the homeless.

I feel it’s time to give some kind of report card on my beloved Patriots. My problem is that I haven’t seen many games. Last year almost every Pats game was on national TV, this year there have been only two or three. It’s hard to get a read. But lack of knowledge has never stopped me yet so here we go.

• Defense: We haven’t had a good secondary since the Law/Milloy days. Getting older every year, but they are still getting it done. Mayo’s a monster.
• Offensive Line: These guys are the key. Early in the season they looked terrible. Cassel was having bad games because he couldn’t stand in the pocket for more than a second. Everyone looks bad when they are about to be sacked. As they have tightened up Cassel has looked better every game.
• Cassell and the long ball: Cassel started off throwing only short passes. Why? In the games I watched, whenever he threw it more than 20 yards it was way off the mark. I mean, way off. He looked like I would. I’m not sure what has happened lately but all of a sudden he’s throwing long accurately. This has opened up the offense.
• Using Moss: In the first half of the season he didn’t even try to throw to Moss. What a waste! Now that he’s going to him a lot, Moss is catching them a lot. Funny how that works.

So is Cassel the real deal? Clearly, he’s a good player. But is it him, or the system? I tend to agree with Tuesday Morning Quarterback, it’s mostly the system. Belichik looks better every day. And trade Brady? It’s worth asking I suppose, but it’s crazy. Cassel’s playing well, but a few games does not a hall-of-famer make. Let’s see how things stand at the end of the season and talk then.

As 2008 begins to wrap up, let’s take a trip back a few years. This is my personal list of the best Muttroxia posts of the first couple years. Better to do this late than never. (Best of 2007 is here.)

Politics & Government:
My analysis of the 2004 Presidential Election. I still stand by it.
FISA

Quanting:
Analyzing food combinations at Romano’s and Waffle House, why you’re always in the slow lane, and reality TV talent shows. I work the numbers on a particularly bad editorial, decimate an NPR talking point, and work through the game theory of stock manipulation.

Sports & Games:
Grading Sports and the Funnel Theory, 1, 2, and 3.
College Sports suck. The fans too.

Dumb Observations, Humor and Other:
Bad user interface on clocks
Paying at the Grocery
Roadsigns, roadsigns, and labels
Pizza Orientation (you’re still all wrong), and the pizza postulate (still holding up).
I discover I’m old, trying to play soccer with the young ‘uns.
The Bed-couch is still a great idea.
Death to Pandas!
Analyzing the top 500 rock songs, which leads me to the top Aerosmith songs ever.
I hate carseats. I really do. Plastic bags, Circuit City, encores, and tipping also.

I didn’t realize what a strong Indigo Girls contingent there was in my readership. I haven’t listened to them for a long time. It was a good excuse to play two hours straight of music. This is mostly their first two ‘real’ albums, because that’s all I know. I have three more recent albums but somehow they never get on the playlist. So picking a top five wasn’t very hard at all compared to the Aerosmith exercise.

Another thing I learned from the Aerosmith. I have put links to most of these songs. But they are not tagged as .mp3s, you’ll have to add that to the filename. It’s my hope that this will keep the music thieves from stealing my bandwidth. If not then I’ll have to take all the .mp3s down from here also.

This was spurred on my commenters from my last post, go read that one. Funny how we all pretty much agree.

Galileo: This one has gotten better over the years. I think this was when they had figured out how electric they wanted to be. They were adding more instrumentation and featuring more of a band sound than before. The lyrics resonate with me more each time I hear it.
Blood & Fire: Not only is it a beautiful song, but very nostalgic. For a couple years in the ’90s I was hanging out with an old high school friend Amanda. Amanda was a singer and this was one of the songs we’d do together. It’s a fairly easy song to do on guitar (A, B, and E. Until tonight it never occurred to me to put a capo on the 2nd fret.), and it fit our moody style. Wonder what happened to ol’ Amanda. I gotta get on Facebook soon.
Closer to Fine: The classic that started it all. I play this one at gatherings, it never fails to get the girls off their feet.
Land of Canaan: I almost put down Prince of Darkness. I get them confused in my head. Prince of Darkness has a strong chorus and a good shout or two but lacks the verse and drive of Land of Canaan.
Welcome Me: I am not picking a number one, but I have a feeling this might be it. It still holds up. A great song.

Honorable Mentions:
Down by The River: This was in the top 5. Something had to be cut and since they didn’t write this one I pulled it out. I just love this kind of music. Deep moody electric music with strong chord changes. It’s the kind of song I sink into. (And of course you know that the original is by Neil Young, right?)
Keeper of My Heart: I really like the chorus. Here is my love and anger… Unfortunately that’s the only part I remember. I couldn’t understand why my copy of Nomads Indians & Saints didn’t have a song called Love and Anger.
Kid Fears: I can’t argue with Biff, it’s a great tune. It’s back when hearing Michael Stipe’s voice didn’t make me want to gouge my own eyes out. And it is a fun easy one on guitar, but it didn’t age well for me. The chorus is great but the verses were only so-so.
Midnight Train to Georgia: The original is great, but this cover holds it on and a little more. Ani DeFranco plays on this also.
Crazy Game: From their truly first album Strange Fire. Mostly forgettable, but this song has always stuck with me.

(By the way, chords for Down by the River, Closer to Fine, Welcome Me, and Kid Fears are available — email me privately.)