I'm tweaking colors mostly right now and the lime green has got to go. The original layout was giving me background colors in strange places, so my main focus is to make the actual posts more readable. This requires me to create quite a few new variables because the "layout" I picked shares too many of its variables across the board.
I'm also going to have to create a new header image, because the one there is too... generic? Easy on the eyes? I'm not sure what I want really, and I even thought about keeping the blurry-nature theme. We'll just have to see. I haven't played around with Photoshop in a while, so things could get ugly.
In the end, maybe I'll write more. Otherwise, I'm just killing time 'til time kills me.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Monday, December 22, 2008
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
The White Board
As I sit here, loathing my temporary workstation, I notice that a dry-erase board is mounted on the wall in front of me. Drawn on this board are several rectangles with open bottoms, apparently serving as borders for each of the letters: C, S, T and N. “X’s” and “O’s” seem to be haphazardly scattered around these triangles and lines with pointed arrows seem to indicate their trajectory.
It resembles the type of diagram you would see scratched on a chalkboard by a football coach; not what you would expect to be mounted across from the conference table at a law firm. I can not help but wonder what they were discussing with the client before I dragged my laptop, pens, legal pads and notes into the room. The drawing itself lends little to the imagination, but the mind happens to wander.
Perhaps it is a scale representation of the Enola Gay as it began its fatal approach toward Hiroshima, used as an allusion in a closing statement to illustrate the insurance company’s approach to litigating wrongful death claims?
Perhaps it depicts the best entry routes for attorneys and witnesses with a prospective seating chart that will be used to ensure the most dramatic arrangement of interested parties?
Perhaps I should stop staring at this damn board and get back to work?
It resembles the type of diagram you would see scratched on a chalkboard by a football coach; not what you would expect to be mounted across from the conference table at a law firm. I can not help but wonder what they were discussing with the client before I dragged my laptop, pens, legal pads and notes into the room. The drawing itself lends little to the imagination, but the mind happens to wander.
Perhaps it is a scale representation of the Enola Gay as it began its fatal approach toward Hiroshima, used as an allusion in a closing statement to illustrate the insurance company’s approach to litigating wrongful death claims?
Perhaps it depicts the best entry routes for attorneys and witnesses with a prospective seating chart that will be used to ensure the most dramatic arrangement of interested parties?
Perhaps I should stop staring at this damn board and get back to work?
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Of Squirrels and Me
On my walk to class, I notice that a squirrel is standing about six feet away from me. He maintains a safe distance from the paved university sidewalks while also managing to keep himself within a relatively small radius of a giant oak tree. Should the fear of humanity strike the creature, he needs only to leap onto the tree's massive trunk and scramble up to higher altitudes to reach safety. I find this to be an adequate exit strategy for a mammal with such a small brain.
While the sound of other students forces my head back to the path, the squirrel falls away to my peripheral vision and then, eventually, totally out of sight.
At this moment, I imagine the squirrel, who had barely registered my presence before, snapping his head sharply in my direction. I see a Spielbergian, Jaws-esque track-back and quick zoom to the squirrel's face, creating a visual illusion that the world is behaving strangely outside of his focus.
The squirrel is going to attack me.
I do not fear rabies all that much. There is a treatment and a cure for rabies. I hear that the shots they administer are painful, but I can deal with the pain. But what if the squirrel goes directly for my eyes before I have a chance to shield myself? There is no cure for rodent-inflicted blindness.
I whirl around, careless of how ridiculous I must look, and my eyes search the ground near the oak for the furry monster that was there moments before. I might have percieved a bushy brown tail disappearing into the leaves above me, but I fear this is only wishful thinking. The squirrel that was there just a second ago has vanished.
Where he is now, I can only guess.
While the sound of other students forces my head back to the path, the squirrel falls away to my peripheral vision and then, eventually, totally out of sight.
At this moment, I imagine the squirrel, who had barely registered my presence before, snapping his head sharply in my direction. I see a Spielbergian, Jaws-esque track-back and quick zoom to the squirrel's face, creating a visual illusion that the world is behaving strangely outside of his focus.
The squirrel is going to attack me.
I do not fear rabies all that much. There is a treatment and a cure for rabies. I hear that the shots they administer are painful, but I can deal with the pain. But what if the squirrel goes directly for my eyes before I have a chance to shield myself? There is no cure for rodent-inflicted blindness.
I whirl around, careless of how ridiculous I must look, and my eyes search the ground near the oak for the furry monster that was there moments before. I might have percieved a bushy brown tail disappearing into the leaves above me, but I fear this is only wishful thinking. The squirrel that was there just a second ago has vanished.
Where he is now, I can only guess.
Monday, February 04, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
Dumb Beat and Cheating in Online Poker
I posted earlier about a beat I took on Absolute Poker where a player acted so outlandishly outside of conventional poker wisdom and against pot-odds that I was SURE he had to have "cheated" in some way to have beaten me.
[Short version: KK loses to 95. Full board: 2 5 8 J 9]
This occassioned me to do a little bit of research on how online card rooms both "shuffled" their cards and sent data to players.
Though some elements of cheating HAVE, in my mind, been revealed on Absolute Poker, the means by which they are accomplished are impossible without server side intervention.
I decided to Google the concept of cheating at online poker and, more specifically, cheating at Absolute Poker. Eric and myself both seem to have stumbled across the same story about a distubing "cheater" at Absolute Poker that was covered by a New York Times blog. This article can be found here.
In short, this discusses the fact that someone within the Absolute Poker staff "watched" a particular player's table and related to them the "hole" cards of other players, making it impossible for him to lose in a show down and more importantly, a high-stakes tournament. If this can be proven it would amount to a high-degree of FRAUD and the poker room would have to be shut down at the very least. However, without much more information from Absolute Poker (that probably no longer exists), there is nothing but an XLS file full hand histories and IP information to piece together the puzzle. And, of course, Absolute Poker is not within the jurisdiction of our legal system, so it would be hard to bring such an action against them.
This story is frightening because it is nearly impossible for someone to "see" what your cards are EXCEPT from the server side of the equation prior to encryption (unless they managed to hack the computers of every player at the table). This is because the server does not send all card data to each player's client program, just their hole cards and cards dealt on the board. It will only send data of the people who show down on the river, revealing the winner of the hand.
It sort of makes sense that the type of system discussed in the NY Times article would exist for monitoring purposes, but it seems to be open for WAY too much abuse to remain a viable security measure. This type of monitoring really should only be allowed AFTER THE FACT, e.g. as part of a HAND HISTORY that can only be accessed unencrypted after the server has completed the hand. If the old system that allows this abuse has not been scrapped already, a new system of the type I described should be implemented in its stead immediately.
Unfortunately for my ego, nothing like what happened with the people in that article could have happened to me. If that other player would have known my hole cards, he would have folded preflop. He would need to have access to server data AND be able predict the cards that were coming on the river, as well as see my hole cards, otherwise he would have known he was beat the entire time and would have folded.
Though it does seem at least theoretically possible to get a certain amount of data from the server and predict cards, implementation of a pseudo-random number generator and the Knuth (or Fisher-Yates shuffle) make it extremely difficult.
Briefly, the PRNG creates a pseudo-random deck of 52 cards while the Knuth shuffle will take the entire deck of 52 cards and reassign them to new spots, moving a randomly selected card to another randomly selected position in the deck.
[Personally, I think Poker Stars best explains how algorithms work for shuffling at their security page. They also seem to have the most sophisticated system of randomness]
EXTREMELY advanced software (which could, but probably does not exist) would have to be used to determine the state of the PRNG at any given time to determine the starting deck, and then you would have to somehow figure out where these cards would fall within the Knuth shuffle. You would have to draw on a LOT of data from an indivual deck that is different EVERY game, so the tournament you are in would probably be over before you are able to make accurate determinations and play your hands accordingly.
I will, however, allow that it is mathematically possible to make a determination EVENTUALLY, despite these barriers. However, it does not seem economically feasible to develop and implement such an elaborate cheating system unless you have a large group using it at various tables, probably ring tables where time, and therefore rising blinds, is not a factor.
This remains scary because a person can go all-in preflop, or bet large, knowing that their hand will improve immensely before the river. This will be particularly crushing to people who feel that they have to call with great odds of winning preflop with high poker pairs, or cards with high statistical chances of improving and beating most other hands.
My self-righteous rage was partially quelled by this "investigation" of mine. I was probably just playing against an idiot who thought I was bluffing and was paid for his dumb play by even dumber luck. Oh, and the poker gods hate me.
[Short version: KK loses to 95. Full board: 2 5 8 J 9]
This occassioned me to do a little bit of research on how online card rooms both "shuffled" their cards and sent data to players.
Though some elements of cheating HAVE, in my mind, been revealed on Absolute Poker, the means by which they are accomplished are impossible without server side intervention.
I decided to Google the concept of cheating at online poker and, more specifically, cheating at Absolute Poker. Eric and myself both seem to have stumbled across the same story about a distubing "cheater" at Absolute Poker that was covered by a New York Times blog. This article can be found here.
In short, this discusses the fact that someone within the Absolute Poker staff "watched" a particular player's table and related to them the "hole" cards of other players, making it impossible for him to lose in a show down and more importantly, a high-stakes tournament. If this can be proven it would amount to a high-degree of FRAUD and the poker room would have to be shut down at the very least. However, without much more information from Absolute Poker (that probably no longer exists), there is nothing but an XLS file full hand histories and IP information to piece together the puzzle. And, of course, Absolute Poker is not within the jurisdiction of our legal system, so it would be hard to bring such an action against them.
This story is frightening because it is nearly impossible for someone to "see" what your cards are EXCEPT from the server side of the equation prior to encryption (unless they managed to hack the computers of every player at the table). This is because the server does not send all card data to each player's client program, just their hole cards and cards dealt on the board. It will only send data of the people who show down on the river, revealing the winner of the hand.
It sort of makes sense that the type of system discussed in the NY Times article would exist for monitoring purposes, but it seems to be open for WAY too much abuse to remain a viable security measure. This type of monitoring really should only be allowed AFTER THE FACT, e.g. as part of a HAND HISTORY that can only be accessed unencrypted after the server has completed the hand. If the old system that allows this abuse has not been scrapped already, a new system of the type I described should be implemented in its stead immediately.
Unfortunately for my ego, nothing like what happened with the people in that article could have happened to me. If that other player would have known my hole cards, he would have folded preflop. He would need to have access to server data AND be able predict the cards that were coming on the river, as well as see my hole cards, otherwise he would have known he was beat the entire time and would have folded.
Though it does seem at least theoretically possible to get a certain amount of data from the server and predict cards, implementation of a pseudo-random number generator and the Knuth (or Fisher-Yates shuffle) make it extremely difficult.
Briefly, the PRNG creates a pseudo-random deck of 52 cards while the Knuth shuffle will take the entire deck of 52 cards and reassign them to new spots, moving a randomly selected card to another randomly selected position in the deck.
[Personally, I think Poker Stars best explains how algorithms work for shuffling at their security page. They also seem to have the most sophisticated system of randomness]
EXTREMELY advanced software (which could, but probably does not exist) would have to be used to determine the state of the PRNG at any given time to determine the starting deck, and then you would have to somehow figure out where these cards would fall within the Knuth shuffle. You would have to draw on a LOT of data from an indivual deck that is different EVERY game, so the tournament you are in would probably be over before you are able to make accurate determinations and play your hands accordingly.
I will, however, allow that it is mathematically possible to make a determination EVENTUALLY, despite these barriers. However, it does not seem economically feasible to develop and implement such an elaborate cheating system unless you have a large group using it at various tables, probably ring tables where time, and therefore rising blinds, is not a factor.
This remains scary because a person can go all-in preflop, or bet large, knowing that their hand will improve immensely before the river. This will be particularly crushing to people who feel that they have to call with great odds of winning preflop with high poker pairs, or cards with high statistical chances of improving and beating most other hands.
My self-righteous rage was partially quelled by this "investigation" of mine. I was probably just playing against an idiot who thought I was bluffing and was paid for his dumb play by even dumber luck. Oh, and the poker gods hate me.
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