Code Turkey: Givin' up Geek Knowledge

Can You Win Money Playing Poker Without Making a Deposit?

2009-08-26T14:54:00.001-07:00

Poker sites usually offer "Freeroll Tournaments", where you can enter for free and possibly win real money. There are usually several hundred entrants (even over one thousand players in many cases), so winning more than a few bucks is very difficult and very time consuming.

Of course, you're winning something for nothing (but your time), so it may be worth it especially if you are trying to get money on the site without using your credit card or sending your bank information to the site.

Professional poker player Chris "Jesus" Ferguson famously parlayed freeroll winnings into well over $10,000 on Full Tilt (the highest point was something like $100k). You can read the article below for more info.

Just keep in mind that poker sites like to keep players under a microscope when they get money on the site in unconventional ways. If you rally your winnings to a few thousand dollars and then try to make a withdrawal, they will be suspicious because you have never used a credit card. You may end up waiting a little longer for the withdrawal to clear.

Full Tilt has lots of freerolls. If you want to get money for "free", I would use the registration link below.

Chris Ferguson Article

Full Tilt Sign Up Link

What is a "Deposit Bonus"?

2009-08-18T17:59:00.000-07:00

A deposit bonus is a bonus offered by a gaming site where your cash deposit is matched by the site by a certain percentage up to a certain amount. For example, most sites used to be 20% of your deposit up to $500. This means that if you deposited $500 on to their site, you would get an additional $100 for "free".

Poker sites are famous for offering deposit bonuses. For example, Full Tilt matches 100% of your first deposit up to $600 (see link below).

You usually have to play a large number of hands in order to redeem the full amount. You can't withdraw the money immediately. If gaming sites did this, they wouldn't be able to stay in business.

You usually need to bet much more than what you deposit. You can't just make a single bet for the whole wad and expect to get compensated. Even though you deposited $100, it is possible to wager $1000 if you bet small amounts at a time.

Full Tilt's bonus is very generous. I hope you give it a shot!

Full Tilt Registration Link (with 100% deposit bonus goodness!)

No Sound/Wonky Sound on XBox When Watching Video

2009-08-18T15:49:00.001-07:00

I ran into a minor problem when trying to watch video on my XBox. The sound on the XBox worked fine, but there was no sound when trying to watch video.

I have a Philips 42 inc PFL LCD television and it is connected to the XBox using a standard HDMI cable. It seems like there is some power saving "feature" of the television where the audio of the television shuts down if there is no HDMI video/audio source when the television powers on.

It seems quite obvious now, but the solution is to power off the TV and turn it back on with the video playing (or with the XBox already on). This will allow the TV to redetect the video/audio source and disable the power save mode.

Another problem I ran into is the audio running about 2 seconds ahead of the video. This problem cannot be solved by power cycling the TV. The solution that worked best for me was to exit the video using the XBox controller and Restart it from the XBox menus.

Hope that helps!

Is playing poker online safe?

2009-08-11T01:56:00.000-07:00

It depends.

I believe that Full Tilt is the safest poker site to play at. I believe that Poker Stars is on the up and up as well. Most of the other smaller sites may be iffy and I would for sure stay away from Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker.

Poker sites make a lot of money. They don't need to cheat players by rigging the cards or stacking the deck in such a way that certain players lose and other players win. In fact, poker sites don't really care who wins and who loses. They earn money on every hand played because they take money out of each pot.

On the other hand, the sites Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker have been associated with cheating by employees who had special versions of the program that allowed them to see all of the player's cards. The Kahnawake Gaming Commission, which regulated these sites, did an investigation and found that a number of people (including one founder of Ultimate Bet, Russ Hamilton) were involved in this scam.

You should always be careful when making any type of financial transaction online. In the case of online poker, I believe it is possible to play in a straight game, but I would stick to the bigger well known and well respected sites.

You can use the link below to sign up at Full Tilt and get a bonus of up to $600 on your first deposit.

Full Tilt Poker link (with 100% deposit goodness!)
60 Minutes Story about Ultimate Bet

Is it illegal to play poker online in the US?

2009-08-11T01:39:00.001-07:00

There are no laws that prohibit playing poker online, even for cash. No one has ever been arrested for playing poker for real money online. You should not have any fear of playing poker for cash online.

There was a law that was passed in October of 2006 called the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), which disallows transferring money from an American financial institution to an internet gambling site, but this does not put the consumer (you) at risk. Only the banks that transfer money to the gaming sites would be at risk.

Ironically, since the law was passed, it has become easier to make a deposit on a poker site. Before the UIGEA was passed, most deposits went through a third party ewallet site called NETELLER (the PayPal of online gaming sites). Credit card deposits were only available to non-US players. Now, credit card deposits are the primary method for getting money on poker sites.

Also note that this does not prohibit money from flowing in the other direction. If a poker site sends you a check, you can cash it with no problems at all.

Feel free to play poker online with impunity. It is fun. It is safe. It will make you feel like a man. Use the Full Tilt link below to get a 100% deposit bonus on your first deposit. You'll be glad you did.

Full Tilt Poker link (with 100% deposit goodness!)
UIGEA Wikipedia entry

Why can't I make a deposit on FullTiltPoker.net?

2009-08-11T01:08:00.000-07:00

Sites that allow gaming for real money are not allowed to advertise on American television. To get around this inconvenience, sites like Full Tilt and Stars typically offer two different brands of their sites: a "dot net" version and a "dot com" version.

Full Tilt owns the domains FullTiltPoker.net and FullTiltPoker.com. The dot net version only offers poker action with play money chips and is branded as an education and entertainment site. The dot com version offers both play money games and real money games.

The sites are allowed to advertise their dot net branded site on television channels such as ESPN, the Travel Channel and NBC because they are technically not gambling sites. The hope is that players will see the commercials for the dot net site and will later go back to their computers and type dot com instead. Even if a player downloads the dot net version of the software and later wants to play for money, there are many ways that they can learn about the real money site (Google, forums, and even the chat rooms within the poker site itself).

If you want to make a deposit and play for cash, you should uninstall the software and download and install the dot com version. Once you do this, you will see a "DEPOSIT NOW" button in the cashier. You can use the link below to ensure that Full Tilt matches your deposit for up to $600!

FullTiltPoker.com link (with bonus goodness)

Me Chinese, Me Play Joke

2009-06-26T22:19:00.000-07:00

If you hang out with serious poker players of any sort, you've probably heard of Chinese Poker. Chinese Poker is a poker variant that is extremely popular in the poker community. When I lived in Ireland, I got heavily involved in Chinese Poker. To say that I got addicted to this game would be a gross understatement.

The Basics
There are many variations of the game, but the basics are pretty simple. Each player (up to 4 players) gets 13 cards from a standard 52 cards deck. The 13 card hand is split into three hands: a 3 card hand (the front) and two 5 card hands (the middle and the back).

The back hand must be higher in value than the middle and the middle must be higher in value than the front. The highest hand you can have in the front is a three of a kind (straights and flushes don't factor into the value of the front hand). The other two hands are ranked based the standard poker scale.

Each player plays one-on-one against each of the other 3 opponents. If you win 2 out of the 3 hands, then you win a certain amount of money. If you win all 3 hands, then you get more money. The amount that you win depends on the type of scoring system you use. The most common scoring system I have seen awards 2 points for winning two out of three hands and 4 points for winning all three hands (called "shooting" or "scooping").

There are also "special hands" that are automatic winners, regardless of what the other players are holding. These hands include the following:
* 6 pairs
* 3 flushes
* 3 straights
* A 13 card straight
* 12 of one suit

Bonuses are also awarded if you get high ranked hands in your three set hands. These include the following:
* Trips in front
* Full House in the middle
* Four of a kind (middle or back)
* Straight flush (middle or back)

For more information on the rules of Chinese Poker, you can check out the Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_poker

Finding a Local Game
Last week, I came across a dated blog post from 2005 about Chinese Poker being dealt at some of the local California card rooms. This rekindled my obsession with the game and I headed off to search a casino that still dealt it. I was directed to the Bike, where there was a game running in the outdoor pavilion. There was a $5/point game already going, but they started up a new table just for me (they were more than willing to accommodate a newbie). I sat down without knowing what the hell I was getting into.

House Rules at the Bike
They use a 1-6 scoring system: 1 point for winning 2/3, 6 points for scooping all three hands. If you tie one hand and win the other two, then you win 2 points. Special hands are honored (4 points), but you have to turn your 13 card hand up (with just a single card revealed). Bonuses are awarded as well: 2 points for a full house in the middle, 3 points for trips up front, 4 points for quads, and 5 points for a straight flush.

One strange twist that the locals play is called "Aces". If you have one more Ace than your opponent, then you get an extra point. If you have two more Aces than your opponent, you get two. If you have three Aces and your opponent has none, then you get 6 points. If you have all four Aces, then you get 8 points.

The Ace rule does not require any skill and all players will break even in the long run. The only thing it does is increase the variance in the game. Playing Aces is optional, but players who do not participate are not exactly welcomed with open arms.

The bad news is that I got my ass handed to me at that game. The locals are pretty much experts at the game although I did spot a few mistakes on their part. Unfortunately, I made quite a few mistakes as a result of being new to this version of the game and because of underestimating the power of the scoop. Since I usually play with the 2-4 scoring system, I wasn't quite used to the scoop being worth 6 times the two of three win. I'll be ready for round two in a few days!

Using the Kindle 2 Overseas (with no WhisperNet)

2009-04-15T15:09:00.000-07:00

Finding the Right eBook Reader
In November of 2008, I started itching for an electronic book reader. After doing a little research, I found that there are really only two major products that were right for me: The Amazon Kindle and the Sony digital book reader.

The Sony product is cheaper, looks nicer, has a (rudimentary) back light, has touchscreen support, and has support for PDF files. On the other hand it also has less capacity, no wireless capabilities, more expensive books and a crappy name (on Sony's site, they call it the "Reader Digital Book" or the "PRS-700BC").

I admit that I am a sucker for good marketing. In the end, I went with the Kindle because it appears to have much more support from Amazon. I know that Amazon is dedicated in their persuit to make the Kindle line the number one product of its category. When you go to Amazon's web site, it's right there on the home page above the fold. If you go to Sony's site, it would probably take you a few minutes to find the PRS-700BC by just clicking around.

This post really isn't about the differences between the two readers though. It's about some of the frustrations that I have experienced using the Kindle outside of the United States.

Buying the Kindle 2
I made my decision to get the Kindle in November of 2008, but there were rumors that a new Kindle was coming in the first quarter of 2009. I decided to wait and I put in my order the day the Kindle 2 was announced.

I am an American national living in Ireland, so I still have an American credit card and an American mailing address. The product was shipped to my mother, who re-shipped it to me. If you do this, I would suggest opening the box and making sure that it doesn't look like you are going to resell the product. This way customs won't slap any duties on the shipment. My mother put "books" on the box and I received it with no hassle.

If you don't have an American credit card, it's probably a deal breaker for you. Not only will it be difficult to purchase the Kindle, it will also be a pain in the ass to purchase accessories and books. Amazon won't even ship any of the leather Kindle covers outside of the US. I have heard some stories about non Americans using Amazon Gift Certificates to purchase the Kindle, but even if they were true, you run the risk of having that branch cut from under you at any time.

Using the Kindle 2 Abroad
The biggest problem with using the Kindle 2 outside of the US is that you do not have access to WhisperNet, the free wireless internet service that is included with the device. Without WhisperNet, you cannot do the following:

You can't purchase books/periodicals from Amazon and have them magically appear on your Kindle
You can't access the free book samples at all
You can't shop for books using the device itself
You can't use the "Sync to furthest page read" to synchronize the page you're on across multiple devices (like the iPhone Kindle app)
You can't backup your bookmarks, clippings or annotations
You can't register your Kindle on the device itself

There's really only a work around for the first issue. You can connect your Kindle 2 to your computer using the included USB cable and manually upload the files that you have to download from Amazon. Finding these files for the first time is no easy task either. For the first week, I was going through a link on Amazon's web site that said "Your Media Library" and through that vein, I would eventually end at an error page that said "We're sorry, this title is not currently available for download." Eventually, I found the right link (under "Manage Your Kindle") and got the books on the device.

This process is a little tedious, but not that big a deal for downloading books once every few weeks or so. What really makes this a pain in the ass is if you want to subscribe to magazines or newspapers. It would be great to wake up, eat a bagel, grab your Kindle and start reading today's issue of the Wall Street Journal on the train. No, you have to log into Amazon, download today's file and upload it to your Kindle like a douche bag. This pretty much makes magazine and newspaper subscriptions out of the question for me.

Not having access to the free samples or the Kindle book store is not a big deal to me. I mostly read technical books and I usually know which books I want. Not having web browsing access is not a big deal either. I would rather browse the web using my iPhone anyway. The screen refreshing on the Kindle really isn't meant for scrolling down a long web page.

The lack of the "Sync to furthest page read" feature is a little annoying. I also have an iPhone and you have to do a little dancing around to figure out what page you're on. It's kind of like having two copies of a book and reading one on the train and one on the toilet, where you have to flip through pages to figure out what page you're on. In reality though, I don't read much on my iPhone. I really only do it when I'm in bed and I can't sleep, since the Kindle doesn't have a backlight and my phone charges next to my bed.

The lack of backed up bookmarks and annotations is a little scary, but not a big deal on a day to day basis. You have to bookmark PDFs a lot because whatever table of contents existed on the PDF usually doesn't work after it gets converted to Kindle format. I haven't annotated much, but I probably will, as I read quite a few tech books where annotations help out. Since I get to the States every few months (I haven't been there yet since receiving the Kindle), I guess they'll get backed up when I bring my Kindle there. Let's just hope if my Kindle needs restoring that I'll be there too or else the backup will be worthless!

One annoying thing about the lack of WhisperNet is that the device thinks it is unregistered. This means that when you go into certain menus, the Kindle will stop you and ask you to type in your Amazon login information. This means that I can't access the "Settings Menu" on my Kindle until I fly back to the States and register it there. I don't even know what's on that menu! I've never seen it because the Kindle won't give me access.

Don't get me wrong. I really love my Kindle and I'm quite happy with the purchase. I know I'll eventually move back to the States in the next year or so and I'll be able to use the Kindle the way Jeff Bezos intended.

Cheers

Slingbox Issue Resolved

2007-04-21T11:20:00.000-07:00

I was able to resolve my Slingbox connectivity issue last week. I rebooted the Slingbox and I was able to access it afterwards.

I don't believe this exonerates Time Warner. I still believe they purposely degrade their quality of service for their customers who use the most internet traffic. I think Time Warner reads my blog and they were worried about the can of whoop ass I was going to release on them. Time Warner -- you're in my radar. Don't mess with me again.

Slingbox Conspiracy by Time Warner?

2007-04-15T07:04:00.000-07:00

I am an avid supporter of Sling Media and their flagship product, the Slingbox. I am living overseas so my Slingbox in Palm Springs is my window to the world of US television. I have been using it for the past 8 months to watch my favorite US shows while living in Ireland.

The Slingbox allows you to stream content from any video source over the internet. While away from your TV, you can view it using their media player, which is available for the PC, Mac and even Windows Mobile enabled phones. You can read this post to see how to set it up and get it up and running.

I have had a fair amount of success with my Slingbox installation. I have it set up at my mother's house, where she has a broadband connection through Time Warner (formerly through Road Runner). The only problems I have had so far have been ISP related.

The first problem that we experienced was that my mother's internet connection simply stopped working. She couldn't connect to the internet at all. Obviously, this would impair my ability to stream content from her home. After a phone call from my mom, a Time Warner technician came over to "fix" the problem.

He resolved the issue by completely disconnecting the router I set up and connecting her network card directly to her cable modem. My mother isn't highly technical, so she assumed everything was OK and let the technician go on his merry way. I really can't blame her. Her cable TV worked, she got her email, she could "search the Google," so everything worked fine in her mind. She had no way of verifying whether my Slingbox was working or not at that point.

The Time Warner technician was either an idiot or only concerned with closing the ticket. Putting a computer directly on the internet with no firewall is extremely dangerous. Removing a router from a home network will prevent other computers in the house from connecting to the internet. I believe he took advantage of my mother's lack of technical expertise.

After a 2 hour call, I was able to get my mother to re-install the router. Luckily, it still had all the network settings I originally set for it. After this, the Slingbox hummed along for another few months.

Now, I am experiencing a different problem. The TiVo is on and working, my mother's internet connectivity is working as well, but I can't connect to the Slingbox. There can only be one of two things going on. My Slingbox is either broken, or her ISP is blocking the port that I opened for the stream. I have tried to connect from work and home and even from my mobile phone, so I am sure it is not a connectivity issue on my side.

I believe Time Warner is blocking ports that they don't recognize if there is a lot of outbound traffic. They may also be using tactics like purposely degrading service for high-consuming customers in order to get them to jump to another ISP. Unfortunately, I won't be able to confirm or disprove this theory until I go back to the States in May. If this is true and if other ISPs follow suit, it will have severely detrimental effects on the success of the Slingbox.

Slingbox, hold tight! I'm a comin'! Don't you a-fret! I'll never quit you!

Vonage UT Starcom Review

2007-04-15T06:14:00.000-07:00

I have been using the UT Starcom F1000 handset by Vonage for about 7 months now. Overall, it has been doing the job well, but there is lots of room for improvement. It is a good thing that Vonage does not have a lot of competition in terms of hardware.

I am currently living overseas, so using a phone adapter is out of the question. I've already written a post about the details, but let's just say that you have to use a plethora of adapters to get everything working. My best bet is to use a standalone WiFi Vonage phone. Right now (over a year after this model came out), the F1000 is the only option.

The UT Starcom F1000 is a WiFi phone that uses your existing 802.11b network and broadband connection to connect to the Vonage network and provide a Voice over IP (VoIP) access.

Pros:

This is the only WiFi handset that Vonage offers - period.
If you have a good broadband connection, the quality of the call is satisfactory. I have only had a few people complain about the quality of the audio.
The phone is fairly reliable. It rings when people call it. When you dial, it will ring on the other end.
Setting up the connection to your WiFi network is relatively easy. If you know how to set up your WiFi access point, you can connect to it in a jiffy.
The AC adapter will support 100v to 240v connections so you can use it overseas with just a plug adapter.

Cons:

Just like every broadband VoIP solution I have used, there is lag between the person talking and you hearing the audio. This often results in tons of hilarity as you and your friends talk over one another.
When you pick up the handset, you immediately realize how little Vonage cares about style. The platic they used is cheap. The buttons feel cheap when you press them. The design of the phone won't be copied by Apple.
You have to hold the phone perfectly up to your ear or you won't be able to hear the person on the other end.
There is no way to mod any part of the phone. The 6 built in ring tones are all annoying and there are only two volumes: low and high.
There are no volume control buttons on the phone. If the phone is ringing and you want to lower the volume on the fly, you can't (although you can send the phone directly to voicemail).
The UI is not intuitive. You would think that the big red button on the phone could be used to hang up the phone. You would be wrong.
Even if you have a good broadband connection, you are at the mercy of your WiFi connection. It seems that you can't wander too far from your access point without affecting the sound quality of your call.
The battery life is not great. The unit can go approximately 2 days without charging with no use. This isn't a big deal since you will mostly use the phone around the house. This can be annoying if you forget to charge the phone and you have to stay tethered to the power cord for a long call.
There is no hands-free speaker phone mode.

This isn't a critique of the Vonage service. Overall, I think the Vonage service is a great solution for lots of people. This is mostly a review of the UT Starcom handset itself. If you need a Vonage handset, you should get the UT Starcom F1000. When Vonage comes out with a better phone, you should buy it and chuck your F1000 out the window.

Moving the Taskbar

2007-04-15T03:25:00.000-07:00

Whenever I log into a new computer, I go through an extensive script of customizing and tweaking the default settings to get everything just the way I like it. Since I have to do this quite often (because of getting new computers or reinstalling Windows), I try to keep this script short. I don't like to customize my environment too much because it becomes disorienting and frustrating when you use someone else's computer and your settings are not in place (and when someone uses your computer). This is the same reason many left-handed people don't switch their mouse buttons to make the right-click work like the left-click.

I know a handful of co-workers who dock their Start Menu to the left-hand side of their desktop. Whenever I would get "behind the wheel" at their workstation, it always takes a few seconds to figure out what the hell is wrong with their machine. Pressing the Windows key usually answers the question that I am asking in my head: Where is the friggin' Start Menu?

After cursing these co-workers for months, I decided to try it out for myself.

When you start using this layout, it can be a bit disorienting. When you look for the clock, it's not where you want it to be. When you go to click the Start Menu, your mouse will drift to the wrong corner. Of course, this is all to be expected and it only takes a few days to get used to.

The benefits become very obvious after just a few hours:

You are making better use of the desktop. When you are editing documents, you typically have a lot of wasted space on the left or right side of the desktop. This is especially true if you have a wide aspect-ratio display (e.g. 1920 x 1200 resolution).
You can fit a lot more applications in the Quick Launch section.
You can see more running applications in the Taskbar. This makes it easier to switch tasks.
You can turn off the annoying "Hide inactive icons" because you will have enough room to show all items in the Notification area (formerly known as the "Systray"). Seriously, how many times have you went to click on something in the Notification area only to have Windows hide it from you one nanosecond before clicking?
The clock will display the date and day of the week. It sounds like such a small benefit, but it really helps out a lot.

With every non-standard customization, there are always drawbacks.

Some applications assume that you are using the Start Menu at the bottom of your desktop. This will cause some windows to appear with the left side under the start bar.
When you click the Start Button, the popup menu will cover a large part of the Taskbar.
For some reason, the Taskbar resizes itself each time I restart my machine (this only happens on one of my machines).
Every time someone uses your computer, they will ask the annoying question, "Where is the friggin' Start Menu?"

I am now fully converted to the left-docked Taskbar camp. The biggest overall benefit is that you will end up using your desktop more efficiently. You'll be like the Native Americans who use every single part of the buffalo. Now go open a casino.

Using Vonage Overseas

2006-08-31T06:23:00.000-07:00

I recently moved out of the United States and I needed to take care of two things in regards to my phone situation. I needed a way to retain my US phone number that I have been using for the past 10 years, and I needed a way for friends and relatives to call me without paying an arm and a leg. The best solution that I found was to use Vonage's Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) service.

Vonage is an internet-based telephone service that allows you to get low cost phone service over an existing broadband connection. Basically, you connect a Vonage adapter to your existing router and then you plug a regular phone into their box. The adapter connects over the internet to one of their phone switches, which relays the audio to and from your phone.

Getting a traditional Vonage set up in a foreign country is a bit of a pain. If you follow the terms and conditions of their service, using their service is not allowed. I really don't think it's because they have a problem with people using their service in a foreign country. I think it is primarily because they don't want to have to deal with issues related to this set up from a customer service point of view.

I already had Vonage service in the US, so I figured it would be pretty easy to set up overseas. I contacted Vonage customer support and inquired about the voltage requirements of their adapter. My Vonage box has a 110 watt adapter, and my host country uses 220. Vonage does not have a 220 watt version of their device, so the customer support person suggested that I get a step down transformer. You can get these at Frys or Radio Shack for around $40. I got one, but it was much larger than I expected.

I was skeptical about getting this set up to work. I heard too many stories about fellow ex-patriates plugging in their 110 watt equipment and frying it beyond repair (even when using a step-down transformer).

Here's how to set it up:

Make sure your router is up and running and that you can connect to the internet from a connected computer.
Make sure you have a DHCP server running somewhere on the network. This is usually enabled by default on the router. This will allow your Vonage adapter to pick up an IP address and connect to the Vonage service.
Connect your step-down transformer to the wall, using the appropriate plug adapter (e.g. US to UK adapter). Make sure the main power is turned off.
Plug the Vonage device's AC adapter into the transformer.
Connect the Vonage adapter to your main router with a network cable. If the Vonage adapter is also a router, you can connect the "WAN" or "Internet" connection on the Vonage adpater to any regular port on your main router. You can also connect a regular port on your router to a regular port on the Vonage device if you have a crossover cable.
Plug your phone into the Vonage adapter's "Phone 1" port. In my case, I bought a UK phone, so I had to also use a UK to US phone adapter.

That's it! It's as easy as 1-2-3!

This set up is not a whole lot more complicated than a traditional Vonage set up. The only additional components are the US->UK plug adapter, the step-down transformer, and the UK->US phone adapter. After setting it up, however, I realized that this was much more complicated than it needed to be.

After setting up this monstrocity, I decided to go with Vonage's other product, the WiFi UTStarcom F1000. This is a WiFi enabled phone, which has a 220/110 watt charger, so I would be able to cut a lot out of the picture, including the Linksys adapter. After I recieve it, I'll be sure to post a review.

Slingbox Review by Televangelists

2006-08-31T05:42:00.000-07:00

I saw this on YouTube. It is the married televangelist couple that Jimmy Kimmel always shows. They are raving about how awesome the Slingbox is. The YouTube caption is "Slingbox - endorsed by God?".

For the YouTube page, click here.

Slingbox Review

2006-08-24T17:46:00.000-07:00

The Slingbox is an internet enabled device that allows you to stream video content from your Television to any other computer on the net. I recently set one up to allow me to watch American television shows while I am living abroad.

My review? Two thumbs up...way up. No, it's not perfect, but it fills a need that no other device even comes close to doing.

Who needs a Slingbox? I have compiled this list of people who could use one:

Expatriates who need to watch television shows not available in their host country (you must have a very understanding friend with broadband who will let you keep the Slingbox at their house!)
Business people who travel a lot and have extended stays in hotels
Commuters who want access to their TiVo via their mobile phone

Even though I think the Slingbox is great, it still has its shortcomings:

In order to stream the content reliably, the content needs to buffer for about one minute. The stream is not completely blank, instead, the content is streamed at a very slow rate (as low as 4 frames per second). The normal rate is 25 to 30 frames per second. The lag results in both stuttering and slowness. You can tell because when you start a TV show, the theme music will always sound really slow.
Since the content is buffered, the actual content being displayed on the TV is on a 10 second delay. When you press a button on the remote control, you can't wait for the content to catch up, or else you will have to wait 10 seconds between clicks. When you use the remote control, the player goes into "Control Mode", where the player trys to display the most up-to-date content. This also results in choppiness and slowness, and can become somewhat frustrtating as you try to anticipate the remote control prompts.
Since there is a bit of time-shift when using the remote control, it becomes very difficult to fast forward through commercials. If you have a TiVo, you should learn the "backdoor hack" that allows you to implement the 30 second commercial skip button. This is your best chance for skipping commercials, but even this becomes a bit of a game trying to hit the start of your programs perfectly.
The on-screen remote is also frustrating. For most navigation functions, you have to click on the graphic within the button you want to press. For example, if you want to press "Channel Up," you need to click on the triangle on the button, you can't just click the top half of the button. Since you often have to stay 2 or 3 clicks ahead of the player, this can add to the frustration when navigating through menus.

If you want to see the Slingbox in action, take a look at these video samples (from YouTube):
Slingbox over Windows Mobile
Watching Slinbox from China
Slingbox on a Motorola Q phone

I think most people will be happy with the Slingbox if they can use it in conjunction with a TiVo. Simply trying to watch live TV would just be too frustrating. You can't use the Slingbox if you like to channel surf, because the video choppiness would make you want to shoot yourself in the head. Using the Slingbox with a TiVo (or any other supported DVR) is great because when you press play, you can "set it and forget it" and you will experience very little performance issues.

Setting up my Slingbox

2006-08-24T16:49:00.000-07:00

I recently moved out of the US and I needed a way to get my daily 5 hour dose of American television while abroad. I found that Sling Media's Slingbox was the best solution.

The Slingbox allows you to stream content from any video source over the internet. While away from your TV, you can view it using their media player, which is available for the PC, Mac and even Windows Mobile enabled phones.

I would wager that most people use the Slingbox to watch their own live TV remotely. On the other hand, I chose to use attach mine to my TiVo. This means that I can queue up hours worth of content and watch it at my own leisure. I couldn't bring my TiVo with me anyway, since the video format for my host country is PAL, and my TiVo is NTSC.

The Slingbox comes with an IR blaster, which allows you to control a number of devices, most importantly a TiVo DVR. The software even includes a TiVo remote control which works just like the real thing.

Here are the components that I used:

Broadband internet connection at the video source
Time Warner Cable television service with HBO
Slingbox with a non-wireless connection to a router (they do have wireless adapters available, but I would guess that the quality would degrade quite a bit)
Series 2 TiVo with lifetime subscription and expanded 456 hour capacity and wireless NIC
Broadband internet connection in the destination location

I found sympathetic relatives who allowed me to park my equipment in their home and leech off their broadband bandwidth. They had a cable modem and router. I just got a coax splitter and plugged one end into my TiVo and the other into their cable modem. Then I configured their router to allow entrance through a specific port so I could access the Slingbox.

The setup worked fine at their house, but I needed to test it from outside their network to be certain that it would work for me overseas. I wouldn't want to find out that it was screwed up after my 10 hour flight! I would have been up shit creek, since my relatives are not technical enough to fix the problem without me present. To test the remote viewing, I drove to the nearest WiFi enabled coffee shop and fired up the player. It worked!

I am extremely happy with the Slingbox. I would be dead without it. Sure, there is plenty of room for improvement, but I can't think of an easier way to watch my shows. Yes, I could pay $1.99 for some of them on iTunes, but that would get very expensive. I could also BitTorrent them all, but that takes lots of time and is illegal anyway. The Slingbox allows me to watch the shows that I normally watch with very little change to my daily routine.

Poker Tournament "Alternates" Part II

2006-08-06T15:04:00.000-07:00

I had some questions regarding my post on Poker Tournament "Alternates" so I turned to Excel for the answers. I made a spreadsheet of the chip distribution numbers by table for the WSOP tournament that I entered. It shows how different the average chip stacks vary depending on what table you are seated at. As expected, the players with the worst situation are the ones who come in as alternates near the end ot the end of the alternate entry period. In the worse case scenario, the non-broken tables are a 5 to 4 favorite over the table of alternates (T1927.25 to T1500).

View Spreadsheet

The left column displays the table number. The columns to the right of that indicate the number of tables that have been broken up to let alternates come in. The data at the heart of the spreadsheet shows what the average chip stack at each table should be.

It is pretty easy to determine the average chip stack per table. The new alternate table's average chip stack is always T1500. All of the other 199 tables share the chips from the table that was just broken up.

If you want to maintain the best advantage in a tournament that allows alternates, you want to be one of the last tables seated. Seating is random for large scale tournaments such as ones in the WSOP, but I believe that the randomness is confined to groups of tables. For example, the first 110 players might be randomly seated in the tables 1 through 10, and then the tables 11 through 20 are filled in a similar fashion. My brother and I registered back to back for the same tournament and we were seated within 2 tables of each other (both tables in the 150's). If you see anyone registering for your tournament, ask to see what table they got. You can gauge what table group you will fall into if you register shortly afterwards. Anything after table 100 should be acceptable.

Poker Tournament "Alternates" Part I

2006-08-03T02:42:00.000-07:00

I recently played in a World Series of Poker event in Las Vegas. The WSOP is the largest series of poker tournaments, with 45 total events and it boasts the largest poker tournament (the "Main Event") year after year. The fields are so large that the casino cannot accommodate all the entrants at the start of many of the events. Typically, the tournament area can hold up to 2000 starting players. This year, the WSOP Main Event was so large that the "first day" was broken up into 4 first days (day 1a, day 1b, day 1c and day 1d) to accommodate the 8500 entrants. Harrahs, the casino operator that manages the tournaments, has implemented several other changes to satisfy the public's desire for these large tournaments.

One thing that they did is sqeeze 11 players per table instead of the typical 9. This makes play rather uncomfortable (11 players plus the dealer!), but it is probably a necessary evil. Casinos have to compete with online poker rooms, which typically seat 10 players per table and can easily accommodate HUGE tournaments, with 5000+ players.

The other measure that they take is the notion of "alternates." The casino will initially seat as many players as possible and then the rest of the entrants are designated as alternates. These players will fill the empty seats as the seated players bust out of the tournament.

When I first heard of this, I thought that these alternates would be at an extreme disadvantage. This is because I assumed that the alternates would come into a table where a seated player was just removed, with his chips being spread around the 10 already seated players. Since (with all other factors being equal) players with more chips are more likely to win, you would usually be at a disadvantage to these 10 players. This would very likely result in the alternate player being eliminated and the next alternate player would have to take your seat, where he would be at an even greater disadvantage. This would result in somewhat of a "black hole seat," where each alternate sitting in this seat getting sucked into the netherlands of space.

This was not the case. As players are eliminated, the dealer hands a card representing his seat to the tournament director. The tournament director would wait until he had 11 of these cards and he would go to the first unbroken table (first table #1, then table #2, etc) and distribute the 11 cards randomly to the players seated there. All 11 players at this table would have to move to the seats designated on the card they received.

After this, 11 alternate players would be seated at this empty table. They start with the same amount that the non-alternates started with, so they are at almost no disadvantage. There is very little chance that they will fall into a "black hole seat" like the situation that I described earlier. Yes, they are at a slight disadvantage compared to the rest of the field, but the disadvantage is greatly mitigated by this method.

If you want to know why, you can consider the tournament that I entered. My tournament started with approximately 200 tables, each 11 handed with each player starting with $1500 in tournament chips (T1500). That was approximately 2200 seated players, with around 800 alternates waiting at the rail. During play, I heard the tournament director introduce around 50 new tables, or 550 alternates.

Let's consider the very first alternate. After the first player is eliminated from the tournament, the average chip stack for the table would be (11 initial players x T1500) / 10 players left = T1650, but you would only have T1500. Instead of having 9.090909% of the chips at your table, you would only have 8.333333%.

On the other hand, with the "fill new tables with alternates" method, you are at an even playing field with the rest of the table. There are only two ways that you will be affected by the fact that you are an alternate:

A player from another table is moved to your table.
You are moved to another table.

If a player from another table is moved to your table, in the best case scenario, you will actually have an advantage over this player. This is usually true at the beginning of a tournament when a player is eliminated from your table. This is because you will have T1650, but the average chip stack will be (200 tables x 11 players x T1500) / (199 tables x 11 players) = T1507.54. Of course, your advantage would have been negligibly higher if you were amongst the initial field of 2200, but not by much.

It is very unlikely that you will be moved to another table if you are an alternate. You would only be moved if there are more alternates than non-alternates, since tables are not broken up a second time (alternates only sit at broken tables) until all non-broken tables have been broken.

A few things are true when considering alternates. The alternates brought into the tournament near the start have the smallest disadvantage compared to the rest of the alternates. You might even say that they have somewhat of an advantage because there is almost no chance that they will have a seat change. This gives them the opportunity to study their players more. When you are moved to another table, you have to re-learn who the weak and strong players are.

Alternates brought into the tournament near the end of the eligibility period are affected much more. Not only do they have to contend with bigger blinds, but their relative chip size is greatly affected by the rest of the field. If you are the 50th alternate table, you start with T1500, but the players not at your table will have (249 tables x 11 players x T1500) / (199 tables x 11 players) = T1876.88. This means that when you eliminate someone from your table, the person who sits at your table will most likely have more chips than the rest of you.

I think this method is very well thought out and it is good for live poker. If you play in a WSOP event, I would try to enter late in the registration period to ensure either a high table number or a low alternate number. Don't register 5 minutes before the tournament starts. Try to register 1 or 2 nights before. This will put you in the best position to stay in the same seat throughout the tournament (or at least the majority of the first day).

ANOTHER eBay Con Artist Buyer!

2006-08-01T15:25:00.000-07:00

Another friggin' eBay buyer tried to scam me this week! I sold an old laptop (purchased in 2000) for $81. The buyer ignored the details of my listing and requested the following two things:

He wanted to ship the item to Russia via EMS (I stated continental US only)
He wanted to make the payment through Western Union (I stated PayPal only)

First of all, I was pissed that this asshole bid on my auction without reading the clear instructions that I took the time to write. I was enraged when I realized this guy was trying to scam me.

Both of his requests were red flags to me. Furthermore, his account only had two positive feedback responses and he was only an eBay member for 6 months.

I was willing to compromise on shipping the item to Russia, but I was not willing to budge on using Western Union. I was completely unfamiliar with using Western Union and I was not willing to get out of my comfort zone to accommodate this illiterate ass-clown.

I told him "no dice."

Upon further investigation, I found this posting:
http://www.joewein.net/419/fraud-western-union-bidpay-ebay.htm

It basically says that in cases like these, you will recieve an email from Western Union stating that a payment has been made to you. The buyer will then request that you ship the item immediately. Of course, the email is fake email sent from the con artist OR it is a real email from Western Union that requires a special code to redeem. If the case is the latter, the con artist will never send you the special code.

Ok, cancel deal, i leave good fedback for you, and hope you leave good for me. Usual americans agree sent to Russia, but as you wish.
Regards Oleg

Gee thanks, ass-wipe. Consider yourself reported to eBay Safe Harbor.

Crime and Greed in Las Vegas

2006-07-31T01:30:00.000-07:00

There is no such thing as a free lunch. Sometimes when someone is fast-talking and you get caught up in the moment, you forget this. It has happened to all of us. I witnessed this last week in Vegas, where some mark lost $100 to a 3 Card Monte dealer in front of Treasure Island.

The World Series of Poker is going on in Vegas right now. This is the world's largest poker tournament series (45 total events), with the main event consisting of a $70M prize pool. Needless to say there are lots of people in Vegas with money to burn. I have been to Vegas more than 50 times over the past 15 years and I have to say that this trip was the worst when it comes to witnessing crime.

Hookers were everywhere -- and I mean everywhere. The high-priced good-looking hookers hovered mostly at the Rio, where the WSOP events were taking place. They would show up around 10pm in the area outside of the tournament and be very up front about propositions. I saw a few negotiating their terms with tricks up in the food court. The skanky ones were right smack in the middle of the strip, in front of Harrah's and the Flamingo, walking up to cars that stopped.

A guy ran by me when I was outside of Ceasar's Palace. He was clutching a purse. A few minutes later, a woman with a bloody shoulder walked by in a daze asking where she could find a cop or a security guard. The purse was torn from her posession by the assailant. My brother and I almost got jumped by three guys trying to start shit outside of Harrah's at 4 in the morning.

One thing that I saw was a fishy 3 Card Monte game. This is a game where the con man shuffles 3 cards face-down in front of you and you try to pick a card (usually a queen) after he is done shuffling. If you get the card, you win! If you don't, then you lose. There is a team of people involved in the scam. The majority of the scam is based on sleight of hand and misdirection. What this con man was pulling was much less sophisticated.

There was a pretty large crowd around the con man. He would shuffle the cards and just ask a random guy to pick the queen. The random guy didn't need to put up any money, it was just for fun. The guy picked a card and the con man flipped it over, showing that the guy was wrong. It didn't really matter, because no money was exchanged. He did this a couple of times before he found his mark.

He shuffled one more time and had the mark pick a card. The mark picked the card on the right. The con man peeked at the card and said "You got it! Just show me the $100 and I'll let you have it! I can't pay you unless I know you were serious about the bet." At this point, the mark did two serious things wrong. The stupidest thing that he did was pull a wad of cash out in front of strangers on the Vegas strip. You should NEVER do this in Vegas. I am reluctant to let people know how much money I have even when I am buying in at the blackjack/poker tables. The second stupid thing that he did was pull out the five $20 bills and hands them to the con man. At this point I can tell the mark was second-guessing himself. The con man tugged the $100 and you can tell he was resisting. The con man gave one final tug and said "OK, now flip it." The card was NOT the queen and the mark was $100 lighter.

The mark seemed like a normal guy who just got caught up in the moment. There is a lot of craziness going on and first time Vegas tourists get lost in the lights, booze, money and scantilly clad women that they forget what how the real world works. I think there are a few things you can do to make sure you aren't getting ripped off:

Figure out how the con man is making money. No one ever gives money away. Sometimes they will lose a few bets in the beginning and hustle you for a ginormous bet at the end, but the con man went for the jugular right from the start.

Let someone else go first. Even though the other person might be in on the scam, it doesn't hurt to see someone else take the first punch.

Know that you are at the disadvantage in situations like this. This is like when you try to negotiate prices with a car salesman. They are in this same exact situation dozens of times every day and they know all the angles. Unless you spend a fair amount of time analyzing the situation, you should assume you are getting scammed.

Preventing Phishing Attempts

2006-07-31T00:39:00.000-07:00

I give props to ING Direct, who is really taking a stand against phishers. ING Direct is a US-based online bank. They just released a new login process which makes the protecting the customer's identity its top priority.

This is their description of their new security feature:

Introducing a whole new way to feel safer.

Our new state-of-the-art security feature is a way to make you feel even more secure when you login.
By adding this new layer of security, you get added peace of mind that you are on the authentic ING DIRECT website (https://secure.ingdirect.com). No other user or website would know what image and phrase you choose – only you and ING DIRECT know.

Here’s how it works.

You will be asked to select an image and create a phrase when logging into your account. Images can be chosen from our library of images and the phrase you enter can be any words you choose, such as “Home Run” or “Dream Car.”

The enrollment process is easy and will take a minute or two. And you will only have to do this once. After enrollment, when you login, your image and phrase will be displayed so you’ll know immediately that it’s safe to enter your Login PIN. To make your login experience even easier, you can “register” your computer with us, so that the next time you login from that computer, we will recognize you.

Their login process goes through the following steps:

You type in your customer number and submit the form.

The next page will show an image and text phrase that you previously chose. If you do not see the image and phrase that you chose, then you either typed in the wrong customer number, or you are NOT at the real ING Direct web site.

If you see the proper image and phrase, then you click on your PIN using a keypad that is on the web page.

If you are NOT logging in from a computer that you have registered with ING Direct, then they will ask you one of 5 different security questions (such as "What is the street number of the house you grew up in?").

The image and phrase verification is used to prevent phishing. If someone sets up a fake web site and they are trying to get you to type in your password, then they would need to know your selected image and phrase to get you to continue with the login process. Of course, this assumes that the consumer knows why they are being asked to select an image and phrase. If the person sets up a fake site and just ask for your customer number and PIN and you forget that you were supposed to see the image/phrase, then you are screwed.

The on-screen keypad is there to prevent keyboard logging. This is very prevalent in places where computers are shared or in open areas. When I worked for a K-12 school district in Orange County, this came up much more frequently than you would think. Students are more devious than most adults give them credit for. You can put in a piece of hardware called a keylogger between the keyboard and the computer that will capture every keystroke that the user types in. The hacker later removes the hardware and goes through the stored logs of key presses. If the hacker knows your username, this makes the search easy. They just search for [username]+TAB and then the next set of keystrokes is the user's password.

There are already a few things that a user should expect when logging into a web site. If they do not already expect these things, then no amount of security will protect them:

The protocol that the web site should be https instead of http.

They should see the yellow padlock in their browser indicating that the communication channel is secure and that the SSL certificate is valid.

When they type in their password, the password is not echoed on the screen. It will show up as asterisks instead.

I really think that the login process will dramatically change over the next few years. Most people don't know why they have a CVV number on the back of their credit card, but they learned what it was when online retailers started demanding it. Most people don't know why most websites have email verification as part of their registration process, but they have learned to expect it. Users will need to educate themselves in order to keep their identities private. Phishing is one of the most prevalent forms of hacking that I have seen in the last 5 years. Security precautions like the ones ING is implementing will slowly become a standard across the internet.

Looking for the special person

2006-07-30T23:34:00.000-07:00

For some reason, I found this this spam email quite interesting:

Hello my friend. My name is Sveta.
I am very sociable and clever girl.
I have good sense of humour. I am very like romanticism.
My birthday on Semtember, 6, 1979. I have finished the
state university, a trade the manager.
I work in big low corporation.
I am looking for the person which will not play with me in
games and to ask me erotic photos.! For me it is necessary
simple kind and able to love the main thing the person.
I want serious relations and I dream of the present family.
I am very trustful, naive, but can and take offence if I will
understand that use me. I do not like very much when
someone deceive me. If you this person which I need that
please write to me! =) I will be glad to find out you in
more details. I use the Internet because I want to increase a
circle of search of my second half. The previous attempts
to find the love, have ended with failure. The Internet for me
is a new thing. And except for mail I do
not know as it still it is possible to use, but I hope
I will soon learn. My hobbies equestrian sport to skate.
I very like to float. I love dances Very much! If you want
to comunicate with me, please write me: sveta@moscowlights.com
I shall answer any questions. I wait for your reply very soon.
Sveta.

The interesting thing about this email is that I know it is complete crap, but I still want to email the sender back to see what the deal is. Are they going to follow through if I request pictures and a phone number?

The sender's email address is largw@projekt-suedkurve.de, which is a German domain name. I went to the www.projekt-suedkurve.de web site, and it looks like a small German internet cafe. "projekt suedkurve" translates to "project southcircle," but that doesn't really mean much to me.

The other domain name that this person used was "moscowlights.com," which looks like it is a Russian law firm. The sentence "I work in big low corporation..." must be a misspelling of "law corporation."

It just seems so inplausible that some Russian girl would be sitting at home so lonely that she would buy an email list and proceed to spam everyone on it in search of her better half.

Since the moscowlights.com URL looks legit, I have to believe that sveta@moscowlights.com is a real email address that goes to a real person. I couldn't find anyone named Sveta on the company's "Legal Team" page, so I assume it is a non-lawyer type employee.

Most likely, some disgruntled employee or ex-boyfriend chose the passive-agressive route to getting back at poor Sveta. He got access to some email list and spammed everyone on it with this fake tale of desperation.

eBay buyers commit fraud, too!

2006-07-10T01:37:00.000-07:00

Jesus Christ. Internet scams are popping up to the left and right of me. Maybe it's because I make so many transactions online that the law of averages just catches up with me.

I recently sold a T-Mobile Sidekick mobile phone on eBay. The phone was barely used and in near mint condition. I got a pretty good price for it and packed it and shipped it with great care.

After the buyer received the product, she emailed me with the following bullshit message:

Jack, I have been tossing and turning last night, and became nausea because I spend $ on this pager and I am finanically struggling. I am hearing impaired and I live on this pager. The screen isnt working and didnt look right at all. I wouldn't send any negatives on your feedback because I am not that kind of person. I would send everything back to you, the pager, the case, chargers. You have been kind, and I feel upset about this. I need the $ back and look for another pager. I really need one . It might happen during mail? Please respond asap. Thank you. "cuntgal"

I was immediately suspicious because I know I took great care in shipping the product. I took a look at her eBay feedback history. The last positive feedback that she got was for a Sidekick phone back in April (3 months before purchasing my phone). I was pretty confident that she damaged the older phone and planned to scam me for a discount or free phone.

Here was my reply:

The Sidekick that I sent you was in near perfect condition. I packed it very carefully in bubble wrap and I cannot imagine that it got damaged unless you received the box crushed. What do you mean when you say that the screen doesn't look right? Can you send me a picture? What is the IMEI of the Sidekick that you are referring to?

The IMEI number is like a global serial number that spans all mobile phones.

She emailed me the pictures but they were blurry. I could barely read the IMEI on the phone and she never sent it via email. I didn't really want to deal with a big hullabaloo, so I told her I would refund $50 of the purchase (it was not insured) or I would give her $75 if she shipped the phone back to me.

She was both stupid and greedy. She wanted the extra $25 and she shipped the phone back to me. The picture of the phone with the IMEI was not the same unit that she shipped to me. The IMEI in the picture was xxxxxxxxxxx2689. The IMEI of the one she sent back was xxxxxxxxxxx9758.

Also, the phone was registered to the username "cuntgal". You could not see this on the phone because the screen was severely damaged. Since I have a lot of development experience with the Sidekick, I was able to take screenshots off of the phone. She also had a lot of games that I have never purchased still on the phone. This was clear evidence that she used the phone for many weeks before it was damaged.

I can say without a doubt, this cunt was trying to scam me. The most incriminating evidence is that the picture she sent me does not match the phone she shipped me. Guess what, cuntgal? You get nothing!

Some of the differences to note:

The IMEIs simply do not match. The one I shipped her ends with 2689. The one she shipped ends with 9758

The item she photographed says "Sidekick II". The one she shipped me does not.

The item she photographed says "PV-100". The one she shipped me says "Model: PV-100".

The item she photographed is not damaged near the camera. The one she shipped me is clearly damaged near the mirror and lens.

Here are some tips you can use to prevent this from happening:

Before you ship an item, take a picture of the Serial Number and make that picture part of the eBay posting.

Ask the person to send you clear pictures of the item and the damaged box.

You can also add a non-damaging mark to your item so if they ever ship you the product back, you will have to confirm this mark.

INSURE ALL ITEMS WORTH MORE THAN $100 at the buyer's expense.

ONLY offer a refund if they return the item to you. When you receive it, make sure that it is the exact item that you shipped. If the serial number is on a sticker, make sure they did not just peel off your sticker and slap it on the damaged product.

Here's a great link regarding someone else who has run into this issue:
eBay Buyer Scams

More Social Engineering

2006-07-06T22:02:00.000-07:00

I have been on personal high alert regarding phishing and other social engieering scams over the past few months. A few of my associates fell victim to an IM phishing scam a few weeks ago. More recently, a relative of mine was almost fooled by an email con. When I say she was almost fooled, I don't mean she was about to start forking over thousands of dollars; I mean she was genuinely sad because she thought a distant relative had died tragically.

Here is a copy of the email she received:

>From: " Walter Oko" <walteroko@wanadoo.es>
>To: walteroko@wanadoo.es
>Subject: APPOINTED AS NEXT OF KIN TO MR. ACECROFT
>Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2006 15:57:22 +0200 (CEST)
>
>FROM : THE PRINCIPAL ATTORNEY
>OKO & CO (LEGAL PRACTITIONERS).
>11 RUE DU BOULEVARD
>LOME-TOGO
>TEL: 228 9385782
>
>DEAR ACECROFT,
>
>I KNOW THAT THIS MAIL WILL COME TO YOU AS A SURPRISE, PLEASE ACCEPT THE
>CONTENT IN GOOD FAITH. I DO NOT INTEND TO CAUSE ANY GRIEF TO YOU AND
>YOUR FAMILY. THE REASON FOR SENDING THIS MAIL IS VERY FUNDAMENTAL TO
>THE DOCTRINE OF HUMAN PRIVILEGES AND RIGHT. I AM BARRISTER WALTER OKO,
>A SOLICITOR AT LAW, PERSONAL ATTORNEY TO A NATIONAL OF YOUR COUNTRY AND
>A MEMBER OF YOUR FAMILY SINCE HE HAD THE SAME FAMILY NAME WITH YOU MR. M.A.
>ACECROFT, AND USED TO WORK WITH HIS COMPANY IN LOME TOGO. HERE IN AFTER
>SHALL BE REFERRED TO AS MY CLIENT.
>
>ON THE 25TH FEB 2002, MY CLIENT, HIS WIFE AND THEIR ONLY DAUGHTER WERE
>INVOLVED IN A CAR ACCIDENT ALONG NOUVISSI EXPRESS ROAD. ALL OCCUPANTS
>OF THE VEHICLE UNFORTUNATELY LOST THEIR LIVES. SINCE THEN I HAVE MADE
>SEVERAL ENQUIRIES TO YOUR EMBASSY HERE TO LOCATE ANY OF MY CLIENTS
>EXTENDED RELATIVES, THIS HAS ALSO PROVED UNSUCCESSFUL. AFTER THESE
>SEVERAL UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPTS, I HAVE REASONED VERY PROFESSIONALLY AND
>I FEEL IT WILL BE LEGALLY PROPER TO PRESENT YOU AS THE NEXT OF KIN OF
>MY DECEASED CLIENT, SO THAT YOU CAN BE PAID THE FUNDS LEFT IN HIS FINANCE FIRM.
>
>I THEREFORE SEEK YOUR CONSENT TO PRESENT YOU AS THE NEXT OF KIN TO THE
>DECEASED SINCE YOU ARE AT AN ADVANTAGE, BEARING THE SAME SURNAME AND
>EQUALLY FROM THE SAME COUNTRY, WHICH THE PROCEEDS OF THIS FINANCE FIRM
>VALUED AT $8.5M CAN BE PAID TO YOU. WE SHALL BOTH SHARE THE FUNDS 40%
>FOR YOU AND 55% FOR ME, WHILE 5% SHOULD BE FOR EXPENSES OR YOUR
>GOVERNMENT MAY REQUIRE TAXES. THE SAID FINANCE FIRM HAS ISSUED ME A
>NOTICE TO PROVIDE THE NEXT OF KIN OR HAVE HIS ACCOUNT CONFISCATED. I
>EXPECT YOUR URGENT RESPONSE INDICATING YOUR FULL INTEREST IN THIS GREAT
>BUSINESS TO OUR BOTH MUTUAL TRUST.
>
>YOUR TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBER WILL BE NEEDED FOR FURTHER COMMUNICATION.
>
>YOURS IN SERVICE,
>
>BARRISTER WALTER OKO. B, B.L,
>OKO & CO (LEGAL PRACTITIONERS).
>11 RUE DU BOULEVARD
>LOME-TOGO.
>
>Ahora con Amena el CD del futuro es el presente en tu móvil. Descarga
>las canciones que van a hacer historia
>http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;33438710;7829128;n?http://www.especialesa
>mena.com/minisites/idols/es/

She figured out that this email was not on the up-and-up by herself. In case you missed some of the key clues, here are some of the tip offs:

The sender's email address is walteroko@wanadoo.es. If you go to wanadoo.es, it is a Spanish portal site (kinda like the Spanish version of Yahoo!). Receiving an email from this address is akin to receiving an email from someone @hotmail.com. Most likely, it is a throwaway email address that someone created for the purposes of conning marks and not leaving a trail. If the guy were really a lawyer, he would have a respectable email address with his firm's domain name prominantly displayed.

The email is from a lawyer, someone who makes a living manipulating the English language. You would think that someone who is this articulate would refrain from using ALL CAPS when delivering their message.

Tome-Logo? Where the fuck is that? Google Map it and you will see that it is in West Africa. Why would someone with an email address from Spain have a law office in Africa?

"DEAR ACECROFT"? Who addresses someone in a professional letter using their last name (without the "Mr." or "Ms." prefix)?

"...PERSONAL ATTORNEY TO A NATIONAL OF YOUR COUNTRY AND A MEMBER OF YOUR FAMILY SINCE HE HAD THE SAME FAMILY NAME WITH YOU MR. M.A. ACECROFT, AND USED TO WORK WITH HIS COMPANY IN LOME TOGO." - I don't even think this makes grammatical sense. Someone is related to me because they have the same last name? My last name is not that uncommon. It took 4 years for you to find me?

"Ahora con Amena el CD del futuro es el presente en tu móvil. Descarga las canciones que van a hacer historia" - This translates to "With now Pleasant the CD of the future it is the present in your moving body. It unloads the songs that are going to make history" according to Google translate. It's the imbedded advertisement at the bottom of a wanadoo.es branded email.

http://www.especialesamena.com/minisites/idols/es/ is a retarded Flash movie promoting the advertisement in the line item above.

http://ad.doubleclick.net? This lawyer needs to use an email service that tracks banner clicks? This is just retarded.

40% for me and 55% for you? WTF? If you're going to screw me, please have the kindness to make me feel like I'm getting the better end of the deal.

I think this guy wanted his hands on the 5% of the $8.5M bounty. That translates to $425,000. Most people don't have this amount of money lying around, but I'm sure that kind Walter would bend over backwards to cover you if you could only pony up $50k.

Barrister Walter Oko, please suck my fucking balls.

Prison Break Permutation

2006-07-02T03:39:00.000-07:00

In an episode of the Fox television show Prison Break, the main character, Michael Scofield, had to punch in an unknown secret code on a 10-key keypad. His whole 5 month plan hinged on his ability to figure out the code in a matter of seconds.

He brought along a container of baby powder that he applied to the keypad. The baby powder adheres to the 4 unique keys that are used in the code. The viewer is made to believe that pressing the keys so often would cause them to retain deposits of oil from the prison guards' fingers (never mind that the guards often wear gloves!).

If you are certain that no number is repeated, then there are 4! = 4x3x2x1 = 24 possible combinations. The flagged buttons were 1, 3, 5 and 8, so he would need to try the following combinations:

1358, 1385, 1538, 1583, 1835, 1853,
3158, 3185, 3518, 3581, 3815, 3851,
5138, 5183, 5318, 5381, 5813, 5831,
8135, 8153, 8315, 8351, 8513, 8531

It took me 75 seconds to type in those 24 combinations. If you were an engineer (like Scofield) and you had to type in these numbers, you would most likely use some algorithm to enter the numbers. This way, you could rifle through the numbers without writing down the already tried combinations. I chose to type in the numbers in ascending order. Instead, Scofield types in these combinations as his first three:
1358, 3581, 8135

It almost looks like he is using some "wrap-around" algorithm for entering the numbers. The only thing is that the third number in the sequence should have been 5813 instead of 8135.

Assuming that he had a method to his combination selection, he should have tried the following combinations (in this order):
1358, 3581, 5813, 8135
1385, 3851, 8513, 5138
1538, 5381, 3815, 8153
1583, 5831, 8315, 3158
1835, 8351, 3518, 5183
1853, 8531, 5318, 3185

This list uses an ascending order for the initial number, then takes the first digit off and appends it to the end. It's not the most intuitive algorithm for entering numbers, but it works.

My point is that I think I can buy the whole baby powder sticking to the keys thing, and maybe he watches the guards with an eagle eye and he was positive that there were exactly 4 numbers in the secret code. The only thing I don't buy is that this guy is a meticulous engineer who executes all his actions in a robot-like manner, yet he punches in the sequence of numbers in a non-sensical fashion.

Beating Netflix

2006-07-02T02:33:00.000-07:00

I absolutely hate Netflix. Netflix is an evil company spawned by Lucifer. Netflix employees all have sex with their siblings and they eat their own excrement.

In case you don't know, Netflix is a DVD rental service where you queue up movies online and receive/return them via USPS mail. You pay a fixed amount per month and you can have 2 to 5 DVDs (based on your plan) "checked out" at a time. When you return a DVD, the next available one in your queue is sent to you. Netflix is even courteous enough to pay for your return postage.

In theory, this service is great. If you rent a lot of movies, it can be a very good service. Just pay $18 and you can conceptually rent 20+ DVDs per month. That's less than $1 per DVD with no late fees!

I signed up with them in 2000 when I bought my first DVD player. They started out great. I was getting tons of movies and I was cranking through them three at a time. I probabaly churned 15-20 DVDs a month for the first 4 months of my subscription.

After my 5th month I noticed things started to change. The number of days between returning a viewed DVD and receiving a new one started to increase. In some cases, I never received the DVD at all and I had to fill out a form on their website (and wait several weeks) to resolve this issue. On other occasions, I would receive a damaged DVD and would waste 4+ days returning it and waiting for a replacement. Another big headache was that the "New Releases" would never show up. They would show up in the queue with the text "Long Wait" next to the title.

I suspected that a couple of things a couple of things were in effect (keep in mind that these are just theories):

Netflix wants to provide maximum customer satisfaction to new customers. They want the new customers to become satisfied with their decision to use their service. The day the customer decides that online DVD rental is the way to go, Netflix changes gears and lowers the customer's priority in the rental queue. If 100 customers all have the same movie at the top of their queue and there is only one DVD in stock, then the newest customer will have first dibs.
Netflix purposely delays shipment of DVDs by one or more days on a somewhat random basis.
Netflix purposely delays reporting returned DVDs by one or more days on a somewhat random basis.
I believe that Netflix does not necessarily throw away damaged DVDs. If they have a scratched or broken DVD, they would ship it to an unprofitable/low-profit customer with high turnover. I believe it is in Netflix's best interest to provide low customer satisfaction to these customers to encourage them to abandon their service.
Netflix may randomly not send out the DVD at all or report the DVD as never received. It will take a few days for the customer to report the DVD as lost in the mail and will result in a slower turnaround rate.

I have seen this pattern happen each of the 3 times that I have subscribed to Netflix. At one point, I was getting the number 12 DVD in my queue. Each time I subscribe, I end up cursing the company and all the bastards that work there. I have read several web postings of other disgruntled Netflix customers with similar experiences.

The most valued asset in Netflix is the New Release DVD. If you are an established customer, it is very difficult to have these DVDs sent to you. Most of the time, you will just see the "Long Wait" message next to your pick. Below is a list of tips you can follow to get these coveted DVDs before the newer members:

Subscribe to an feed of new DVD releases. You can use some of the ones listed on http://movies.yahoo.com/rss Make sure you use an RSS reader on a regular basis (I prefer my.yahoo.com). You must know what new releases you want to see BEFORE the DVD is released. DVD releases usually happen on Tuesdays.

Figure out how long it takes for your returned DVDs to get to Netflix. Netflix sends you an email the day after they receive your returned DVD.

Count backwards from Tuesday (not counting Sunday) and make sure you return your DVDs on that day. If it takes two days, then mail at least one DVD back on Saturday. If it takes three days, try to mail your DVDs back on Friday.

This method has worked very well for me. I now get new releases on a regular basis. This is because Netflix doesn't usually promote new releases until they are available. They will only show up in search results when smart customers like you and me seek them out.

Running it Twice: Analysis

2006-06-29T00:35:00.000-07:00

Many poker spectators were recently introduced to the concept of "Running it twice" on the television show High Stakes Poker on GSN. When two players agree to "run it twice", they are agreeing to complete the hand with two sets of outcomes. If there is one card left to be dealt, then two cards will be dealt, each card acting as a the final community card for two separate outcomes. When a hand is run twice, the unknown cards are not shuffled between the two outcomes.

If you win both times, you win the entire pot. If you lose both times, you lose the entire pot. If you win one and lose the other, then the pot is divided in half and distributed to the two players. Players who opt to run the hand twice are trying to lower the variance of the outcome. When you run a board twice, you are giving up some of your odds of winning in exchange for tieing a good percent of the time. This is an option that is only available in a cash game (as opposed to a tournament). In a tournament, players are not allowed to make any deals that affect their chip stacks.

It is easy to see that your variance will go down. There are many opportunities to tie and your chances of winning or losing both decrease. What many people do not immediately understand is that your expected value (EV) does not change.

The easiest non-trivial situation to analyze is a one outer situation with one card to be dealt. An example of this would be
Player 1: 2♥ 3♥
Player 2: A♥ K♥
Board: 4♥ 5♥ 9♣ Q♥

Both players have flushes, but player 2 has the higher flush. The only way player 1 can win is if the river is a 6♥, making a him a straight flush. There is a 2.27% chance that he will hit his one outer (1/44 chance). The total EV of this situation is 0.0227.

If the players run the board twice, he has absolutely NO chance of winning. Since cards are not shuffled between the deals, it is impossible to hit his one out both times. He does have a 4.55% chance of tieing though.

This is easy to calculate because it is 1 - the probability of losing. The probability of losing is (43/44) x (42/43). When calculating the EV for the 2x board, it is just the probability of winning plus the (probability of tieing)/2.

EV = P_win + 0.5 P_tie

So

EV_{run it 1x} = 0.0227 + 0.500 x 0.000 = 0.227

EV_{run it 2x} = 0.000 + 0.500 x 0.0455 = 0.227

I created an Excel spreadsheet with all of the possible outcomes for every situation with 1 or 2 cards to come (assuming there is no possibility of tying or redrawing). In every situation, the EV is identical.

Download Spreadsheet

Synergy Keyboard and Mouse Sharing

2006-06-17T18:08:00.000-07:00

Working with multiple computers at the same time can be a pain if you don't have everything set up nicely. Many people use some type of KVM device to share the same Keyboard, Monitor (V=Video) and Mouse. Typically, you will plug one keyboard, one monitor and one mouse into the KVM and then plug special cables from the KVM into each of the servers. You can switch which computer you are controlling by pressing a button on the KVM or pressing special keyboard combinations.

Synergy
Another option is to use an open-source program named Synergy. Synergy allows you to use the same keyboard and mouse for multiple computers. Each computer still uses its own monitor. When you roll your mouse cursor off one monitor, it will appear on the monitor of your other computer.

The biggest difference between a KVM and Synergy is that Synergy is a software solution. The keyboard and mouse actions are sent from one machine to another over the local network. Synergy can be used on different operating systems including Windows, Mac and Linux. This is an awesome solution if you have a lot of computers, a lot of desk space and a lot of monitors.

Who Needs Synergy?
At my work, our QA team has to run multiple operating systems at their desks. They also have the luxury of having 3 twenty-inch (and sometimes 24") flat panel displays at their disposal. Their PCs typically have a dual monitor set up and the third monitor is hooked up to their Mac. This allows them to bounce back and forth between computers without pressing a button on a KVM. It also allows them to watch processes on both computers concurrently.

Setting Up Synergy
First, you must decide which computer will be the server. The server is the computer whose keyboard and mouse will be shared. The other computers will be clients. To set up Synergy, you must do the following (in this example the server is on the right and the client is on the left):

Download the executable from SourceForge.net
Install the program on the client
In the Synergy program window, make sure the "Use another computer's shared keyboard and mouse (client)" radio button is selected
Type in the name of the server in the "Other Computer's Host Name" textbox

Click the AutoStart button
Click the Install button under the "When Computer Starts" text

Now click "Start"
That's all you need to do for the clients!

Install the executable on the server
In the Synergy program window, make sure the "Share this computer's keyboard and mouse (server)" radio button is selected
Click the "Configure..." button
Click the "+" button under Screens
Type in the Server's name under "Screen Name" and click OK

Click the "+" button under Screens again
Type in the Client's name under "Screen Name" and click OK
In the "Links" section, set it to "0 to 100% of the left of [RIGHT_COMPUTER] goes to 0 to 100% of [LEFT_COMPUTER]" and then click the "+" button
In the "Links" section, set it to "0 to 100% of the right of [LEFT_COMPUTER] goes to 0 to 100% of [RIGHT_COMPUTER]" and then click the "+" button
Click the OK button on the "Screens & Links" window
On the main Synergy window, click the AutoStart button
Click the "Install" button in the "When Computer Starts" section
Finally, click the "Start" button in the main Synergy window

Now, run your mouse off the left of the server onto your other computer! w00t!

Save this to disk, bitch!

2006-06-05T17:40:00.000-07:00

Microsoft's Internet Explorer has a nice security "feature" that prevents you from saving certain files to your hard drive if the web site is using the https protocol. This is most noticable with Microsoft Office documents. This is true whether the file is saved on the web server or if it is generated and served as a byte stream.

With Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1, the default setting changed to "Do not save encrypted pages to disk". This was done in an effort to prevent certain files from residing in the Temporary Internet Files folder once the user has logged off. The affect of this is that NO ONE can save certain file types at all (most notably XLS, and DOC files).

If you have access to an SSL protected public web server, all you need to do is save an Excel spreadsheet on the server to see this in action. Upload the file and try to access it over the https protocol (make sure that XLS files are set to "Confirm open after download" under Control Panel | Folder Options | XLS | Advanced | Open). You should get a popup that looks like the following:

Notice that the filename changed from test.xls to test_xls. That is the first sign that something has gone wrong. If you try to save or open the file, you get another error:

This is easy to resolve if you are the user. Just make 5 clicks and you can undo Microsoft's "security enhancement". The big problem is when you are the one running a web site and your Customer Service team gets thousands of complaints from non-skilled internet users.

One super easy way to get around this issue is to use an IFRAME. If you have a blank page that just contains an IFRAME with the width and height set to 100%, you will get the appropriate prompt to save the file.

<html>
<body topmargin="0" leftmargin="0">
<iframe src="test.xls" width="100%" height="100%" />
</body>
</html>

This seems to work well and FireFox supports IFRAMEs, so it is cross-browser compliant. Yes, this is a complete hack, but don't blame me, blame Microsoft. If you want to get sophisticated, you can check the USER-AGENT value and only implement this solution for IE 6.

I finally figured this out after almost an entire fun-filled day of trial and error.

Baccarat Analysis

2006-05-09T01:38:00.000-07:00

The game of baccarat is a game that most people find intimidating. It has been portrayed in James Bond movies as a game for the sophisticated and uber upper class. The game is so special, that it is the only game where the casino lets the players deal the cards.

The only decision you have to make
Playing the game is very simple. As a participant, you only have one of three decisions to make per hand. You can either bet with the "player", bet with the "banker" or bet on a tie. Even though the banker or player might draw more cards, once you make your bet the decision-making part of the game is completely out of the picture. Once you make your bet, your fate is set. The people sitting at the table have no influence on the outcome of the game. They cannot tell the player or the dealer to draw or stand.

Game Play
The game play is somewhat simple as well. Two hands of two cards are dealt on the table. One hand represents the dealer's hand and the other represents the player's hand. The card values are all face value, with the face cards representing zero. The object of the game is to get as close to a 9 total as possible. If a hand value is greater than 9, then the first digit of the total is ignored. For example, a hand of 8 and 7 is worth 5.

If the player or dealer is dealt an eight or nine, the game is over. An initial total of 8 or 9 is called a "natural" and no cards are drawn. Both players show their hands. If they both have the same total, then it is a tie. Otherwise, the higher total wins.

If both the player and the dealer have a total of seven or less, then the player acts first. Based on his total he either draws a single card or stands pat. The dealer then acts, drawing a single card or standing based on his hand total and what card the player drew.

Hit or Stand?
Whether the player hits or stands is simple. If he has a 5 or less, he always draws.

The dealer's decision is a little more complicated.

If the player did not draw a card, he will stand with a total of 6 and hit with a total of 5 or less.
If the banker's total is 2 or less, he always takes an additional card.
If the banker's total is 3, then he stands if the player drew a third card and it was an eight, but hits otherwise.
If the banker's total is 4, then he hits unless the player drew a 0, 1, 8 or 9.
If the banker's total is 5, then he hits unless the player drew a 4, 5, 6, or 7.
If the banker's total is 6, then he hits unless the player drew a 6 or 7.
If the banker's total is 7 he always stands.

The House Advantage
The house always has an advantage after every shuffle. If you bet on the player hand, then your Expected Value (EV) is -1.36% (for a typical 8-deck game). This means that for every $100 you bet on the player, you will get back $98.64.

So betting on the banker must mean that for every $100 you bet, you will get $101.36, right? Yes and no. When you bet on the banker and win, then the house usually takes a 5% commission on your winnings. So if you bet $100 and win, you only get $195 back, for a net profit of $95. This results in an EV of -1.17%. Betting on the banker in Baccarat is probably the best bet you can get in a casino without learning complicated Blackjack Basic Strategy charts or wagering tons of money on the craps table.

On the other hand, betting the tie bet is one of the worst bets you will find in a casino. Most slot machines in Vegas are in the -2.5% to -7.5% EV range. Betting the tie in Baccarat (which usually pays 8 to 1 when you hit it) on the other hand, has an EV of -14.12%! This is almost three times the negative EV of roulette!

The Analysis
If you think about it, there are not many possible hand outcomes. The cards are only valued from 0 to 9, so you only have to consider the values of 10 different types of cards (the affect of removing a King is the same as the affect of removing a Ten). Also, there are only two hands, that can have at most 3 cards each. This means that there cannot be no more than 1,000,000 possible hands. Since there are many situations where the player or dealer does not take a card, this number is actually much smaller.

If the banker starts with a Jack-9 and the player has a King-Ten, then only four cards (instead of 6) are used and neither participant draws a card (because the banker has a Natural). This means that our field of 1,000,000 possible outcomes has been reduced by 99. If you only look at the possible outcomes, there are only 339,400 possible banker/player hand combinations.

Another interesting factoid is that only certain card combinations are viable. For example, if the first four cards dealt are all fours, then only four cards will be dealt in the hand. Why? Because both the dealer and the player will be dealt a total of 8. Since they both have naturals, there will never be a 5th or 6th card drawn. The same thing is true if there there are three tens and one nine in the first four cards. Either the dealer or the player will have an initial total of nine.

For each discrete hand combination, there are only a few possible outcomes. For example, if we know that only 4 cards are dealt and we know that the four cards are a 6, 8, 9 and a ten, then we know that 12 times the player will win, and 12 times the banker will win -- there are 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 possible hand combinations (24 total) and 12 of them will result in the player winning and 12 of them will result in the banker winning.

Here is the breakdown of the possible outcomes:
Dealer 9, 10 - Player 6, 8 - Dealer wins with a total of 9
Dealer 9, 10 - Player 8, 6 - Dealer wins with a total of 9
Dealer 10, 9 - Player 6, 8 - Dealer wins with a total of 9
Dealer 10, 9 - Player 8, 6 - Dealer wins with a total of 9
Dealer 8, 10 - Player 6, 9 - Dealer wins with a total of 8
Dealer 8, 10 - Player 9, 6 - Dealer wins with a total of 8
Dealer 10, 8 - Player 6, 9 - Dealer wins with a total of 8
Dealer 10, 8 - Player 9, 6 - Dealer wins with a total of 8
Dealer 8, 9 - Player 6, 10 - Dealer wins with a total of 7
Dealer 8, 9 - Player 10, 6 - Dealer wins with a total of 7
Dealer 9, 8 - Player 6, 10 - Dealer wins with a total of 7
Dealer 9, 8 - Player 10, 6 - Dealer wins with a total of 7

Dealer 6, 8 - Player 9, 10 - Player wins with a total of 9
Dealer 8, 6 - Player 9, 10 - Player wins with a total of 9
Dealer 6, 8 - Player 10, 9 - Player wins with a total of 9
Dealer 8, 6 - Player 10, 9 - Player wins with a total of 9
Dealer 6, 9 - Player 8, 10 - Player wins with a total of 8
Dealer 9, 6 - Player 8, 10 - Player wins with a total of 8
Dealer 6, 9 - Player 10, 8 - Player wins with a total of 8
Dealer 9, 6 - Player 10, 8 - Player wins with a total of 8
Dealer 6, 10 - Player 8, 9 - Player wins with a total of 7
Dealer 10, 6 - Player 8, 9 - Player wins with a total of 7
Dealer 6, 10 - Player 9, 8 - Player wins with a total of 7
Dealer 10, 6 - Player 9, 8 - Player wins with a total of 7

If you only look at the possible card combinations that can be dealt, there are only 6958 different situations to look at! This means that if we know the exact composition of the deck, we can just loop through a small set of discrete situations and get the house advantage (or disadvantage) for each bet in just a few cpu ticks.

The Program
What can someone do with this information? Why write a program to figure out which bet to make, of course! I have done it already at the following link. Just input in the composition of the deck and click the "Calculate" button. It will tell you your EV for the banker, player, and tie bet. There are some parameters you can change, but it is best to stick with the defaults (they are the default rules at 99% of all casinos).

Calculating the percentages takes less than a second. Most situations are negative EV, meaning the banker, player and tie bets will lose money in the long run. I orginally developed this program to see if there were any possible card counting exploits that might be used against the game.

There are certain situations where the player has a pretty good advantage, but these situations only come up very rarely. This is much different than blackjack, where positive EV situations come up around quite often.

Once I had the analysis in place, I ran millions of hands through my simulator. My simulator would keep track of the results of several betting strategies (betting a certain amount when you had a disadvantage and betting another amount when you had an advantage), and the results were less than impressive. I read in several articles that baccarat could not be beaten (with reasonable betting limits) with any card counting system and with my analysis, I was able to prove it to myself.

Theoretically, the game can be beaten. In practice, this is not the case. To beat the game, you would most likely have to sit out EVERY hand unless you came across a positive EV situation (probably a few times every few hours), or bet the table minimum on every hand and then bet 100 times this amount (or more) when the deck "gets hot". Following either strategy would most likely get you kicked out of every casino, the same way that blackjack card counters are barred from play.

Searching for IM Phisher II: They're Biting!

2006-05-03T02:31:00.000-07:00

Shit. This thing is really getting out of control.

I just got my third IM phishing attempt in the last month. It's really sad to see that people are so trusting that they will click a link and proceed to give away vital private info. Didn't you guys read my previous post?

IM Phishing Blog Post

On Monday, I got a call from Adelphia, my local cable company. They told me there was some problem with my auto-billing.

"If you'd like, I can take your credit card info over the phone and we can settle this right now."

I told her, "No, that's OK, I'll just log in to your web site and take care of it myself."

You should NEVER give away private information to a person who initiates communication. It is OK to call your bank and give them the last 4 digits of your SSN, but if some Jack Ass calls you and tells you he works for your bank, why the fuck would you believe him? Just tell him you'll call him back and then call the number published on their web site (make sure you type in the URL yourself!).

It turns out that the Adelphia billing issue was legit and that Adelphia's auto-billing system is a piece of crap. But you should still be skeptical of jerk-offs who call you, email you, IM you, or walk up to your front door and ask for your family jewels.

My TiVo Season Passes

2006-04-24T00:40:00.001-07:00

Even though this blog is supposed to about math and programming, I thought I would share my current list of TiVo Season Passes along with a short description of the show.

Grey's Anatomy
Doctor Merideth Grey starts her new job at Seattle Grace Hospital where all of the doctors are models. Everyone has sex with each other.

Lost
Oceanic Air Flight 815 crash lands on a mysterious island that appears to have a mind of its own. The only people who survived the wreck were models and a guy named Hurley.

CSI
Models protect the city of Las Vegas by taking fingerprints, performing DNA tests, and shining florescent lights on everything. Their crime lab and morgue are both nightclubs.

Prison Break
Michael Scofield must vindicate the unjust imprisonment of his brother Lincoln. To do so, he gets himself arrested and he plans to break himself and his brother out. Who will help him escape? Hint: All of his allies are models.

The Apprentice
Donald Trump must decide which model has the brains to run some tiny division of some shit company that he owns but cares nothing about.

The OC
A realistic look at life in Orange County, California, if you ignore Stanton, Santa Ana, Placentia, and most of the non-beach cities. I think it revolves around the students at a school for models.

Scrubs
This show is exactly like Grey's Anatomy except Grey's Anatomy is funnier. One of the models used to be on show Roseanne.

NCIS
I don't know how this got on my Season Pass list. I think CBS was hoping I would mistype CSI and not notice the difference.

Searching for IM Phisher

2006-04-12T03:07:00.000-07:00

Today I got a instant message from a friend that had a link to a geocities web page. On this page, there is a caption that says "View My Pics" and a box that appears to be a Yahoo! login form. If you type your username / password and click on Submit, guess what happens? You've been friggin' jacked! You have officially been introduced to the wild and wacky world of phishing.

There is nothing new about phishing. I have received dozens of emails trying to get me to enter my eBay or PayPal passwords. The only thing different about this scam is instant messenger based AND viral.

What is happening is this:

Someone sent out a bunch of IM's to a bunch of Yahoo! IM users.
The message contained a link to a page that has a fake Yahoo! login form.
When the victim enters their username/password and logs in, the username/password is captured and emailed to the perpetrator.
The phisher takes the list of usernames and passwords and sends it to a bot that logs in as each of the victims.
The bot downloads the victim's Yahoo! contact list.
The exact same IM message is sent to everyone in the hacked Yahoo user's contact list.
The phisher proceeds to "Rinse and repeat".

The golden rule is...
NEVER ENTER YOUR USERNAME AND PASSWORD ON A WEBSITE VIA A LINK THAT SOMEONE SENDS YOU! You should always follow the rules below when submitting your username and password to a web site:

Never click on a link in an IM or email and then login.
Never login from a URL that has a different web site address than the site you are trying to log in at. For example, do not log in from http://br.geocities.com when you are trying to log in at http://www.yahoo.com. It is possible that the www may be different, but be VERY weary of a site where the last two parts (following the last two periods) of the web site name are different.
If you are trying to log in to www.google.com, then the following urls may be ok:

www.google.com
login.google.com
user-login.google.com
authenticate.google.com

If you are trying to log in to www.google.com, then the following urls are probably phishers:

www.googlelogin.com
login.googlesite.com
www.blogspot.com
www.geocities.com

Phishers are getting more and more aggressive and you need to be on high alert before you type your username and password and click submit. Always make sure you know what site you are logging into before clicking that submit button. In this case, I did not fall victim to the phishing attempt, but two of my friends did. Luckily, the phishing bot did not change the victims' passwords.

I reported the phisher to Yahoo!'s phishing crew (phishing-abuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com). The link is now dead.

If you aren't familiar with phishing, then you can read more about it on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing

Deal or No Deal Game Analysis

2006-04-06T00:42:00.000-07:00

At the urging of a coworker, I TiVoed the new NBC game show, Deal or No Deal, hosted by Howie Mandel. The game show is probably the most brainless game show out there, but entertaining never the less.

The basics of the game are as follows:

The player is presented 26 briefcases to choose from, and he must select one of them. This is the player's prize (assuming that he keeps the briefcase until the end).
Each of these cases contains a different cash prize, randomly (?) determined from a fixed and constant field of prizes. The lowest prize is $0.01 and the highest prize is $1M. The sum of all 26 prizes is appx $3.4M.
The player is then allowed to reveal the contents of the non-selected briefcases one at a time. There is a "scoreboard" that everyone (players, host, and audience) can see which displays which prizes have been revealed and which remain. When the contents are revealed, the only thing that changes is that the player knows what prize he will not get.
At different intervals during the revealing process, the player is asked whether they want to make a deal. The options of the deal are

either accept a fixed amount of money (the "Deal") and walk away, or
continue revealing contents of the unselected cases

The deal that the banker offers is based on

the total amount of unrevealed money and
the total number of unrevealed cases

If the player uncovers prizes that are low in value, the next offer that the banker will make will generally be higher in value. If the player uncovers prizes that are high in value, the next offer that the banker will make will be lower in value.
There may be other factors that determine the value of the deal. If I were a gambling man (and I am), I would wager that the amount is also based on

How many unrevealed cases are valued higher than the EV
How many unrevealed cases are valued higher than the proposed offer

There are also posssible factors that may come in play, but these all assume that certain aspects of the game are not completely random.

The value of the case that the player initially selected

The number of the case (I would guess that most contestants pick cases numbered from 1 to 12...how often is 23 someone's lucky number?)
The hottie factor of the girl cradling the case - If there is a Jessica Simpson look-alike cradling a briefcase, I'm pretty sure I would pick her (and I'm sure the case would hold one red cent).

The game is mind-bogglingly simple. If there were no fanfare, each game could be over in a matter of seconds. However, since this is a TV game show, the 60 minutes are peppered with overly dramatic music, 26 Vanna White type models, a silhouetted "Banker" who calls Howie to announce the deal, and a glass-enclosed "Doomsday Button" that indicates whether the player wants to make the deal or not.

The analysis is easy as well. This is a simple "Expected Value" (EV) problem. Expected Value is the amount of money that you would expect per decision if you were to make this decision many times.

To calculate the EV, just divide the total amount of unrevealed money by the number of unrevealed suitcases (including the one you have claimed) and that is your expected value. If the offer that the banker makes is greater than the EV, then statisticians would tell you to take the deal.

Here are some interesting things that I have observed:

The EV of being a contestant is $131,477.54 before any briefcases are opened.
Every offer (I've only seen a handful) has been less than the EV.
As you reduce the number of unopened cases, the offer will converge (very slowly) with the EV.
The best strategy is to pick a suitcase, shut your eyes, stick your fingers in your ears and keep shouting "No Deal" until they kick you off the set. It really helps if you say "La-la-la" really loud if Howie tries to get your attention.

As far as I have seen, every offer has been under the expected value. This is reasonable because you should assume that there is some value to going with a "sure thing" as opposed to taking on some risk. The producers of the show also want to make sure they get maximum airtime with each contestant (they don't want people just pulling a "hit-and-run"), so this further lessens the value of the offer.

The suprising thing was how low the offers were compared to the EV. For example at the first decision making waypoint, a typical offer is $22,000. In both of the cases I have witnessed, the actual EV was appx $130k.

I have created an Excel spreadsheet that you can use to quickly determine your EV if you are following along on TV or trying to stratgize for an upcoming appearance on the show.

You can download the spreadsheet at
http://jackace.com/blog/Deal_or_No_Deal.xls

To use the spreadsheet, change the 1 to a 0 in the "Case Remains" column as the corresponding prize is revealed. As you do this, the EV cell will change. If you want to enter the banker's deal, you can update the "Offer" cell and the two cells to the right of it will show you the number of unopened cases that are of higher value and the percentage of cases that are greater than the offer.

There will likely be more analysis of this game in days to come. I will analyze data from the offers to see if there is any correlation between what the contestant is holding and their offers. I also plan cracking the Flash version of the game on NBC's web site to see how the web-based version of the game calculates the offer.

Stay tuned and enjoy!

Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp - Dialogue

2006-03-29T01:20:00.000-08:00

When I was a 11, my cousin, my brother and I would excuse ourselves after a hearty meal to go "jogging". In reality, we would skip over to the 7-11 to watch my 15 year-old cousin play Dragon's Lair (my brother and I were too young have our own quarters).

If you don't know Dragons Lair, here are some of its vital stats:

It was the first video game that cost two quarters instead of one to play
It was the first laser disc based video game
It was the first video game that used cel-based animation as opposed to computer rendered sprites
It was animated by Don Bluth, creator of "An American Tail," "All Dogs go to Heaven," and "Anastasia."
The short animated scenes were saved as tracks on the laser disc
User input (limited to up, down, left, right and sword) determined which scene would play next
If you executed the correct action, the story would play in the intended order
If you executed an incorrect action, another clip would play, where the main character, Dirk the Daring, dies

The video game kind of worked like a modern (well...modern for 1983) 2-XL. If you don't remember the 2-XL, it was a trivia "robot" that was based on an 8-Track tape player. The robot would ask you questions with multiple choice answers. When you pressed the button corresponding with the correct/incorrect answer, the player would change tracks and tell you if you were right or not.

My cousin could finish Dragon's Lair with one credit. That made him cooler than shit in my book. He would even die two times on purpose in the last scene to maximize his score (kind of like a cocky batter taking two strikes before hitting a pitch out of the park).

When I was finally old enough to pay for my own video game habit, I saw an old friend with a new face -- Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp.

I used to play it a lot at Ackerman Union at UCLA when I was a freshman. The game is great because the levels are themed and longer. The original game has dozens of short scenes where you would use the joystick or sword 5 or 6 times. Time Warp has 7 long levels where you have to execute dozens of actions.

In this game, Princess Daphne is kidnapped my the evil wizard Mordor. While searching for her, Dirk the Daring runs into Mordor's brother, who happens to be a time machine. Dirk travels to different times and surreal lands (including through Lewis Carrol's Looking Glass) to destroy Mordor and reunite himself with the Princess.

I just bought Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp for the PC off of eBay. My first contribution to the blogging world will be the complete dialog (with apologies for minor errors) from the game. Enjoy!

Level 1: At the castle

Queen: Kidnapped? I guess they kidnapped her again, idiot!
Don't talk!
You'd better find my daughter...or else!
Coward!
Dirk!
I know you're in here!
I didn't raise a princess who'd marry a troll!
Dirk!
Hold still!
You can run, boy...
You cannot hide!
Scottish snake: Theif!
Time Machine: You must be Dirk, Dirk the Daring
Fetch me a drink from yonder well
Daphne's lost in the halls of time
A prisoner - she's...under a spell.
Hasten, lad, hurry, we'll bring her back!
and defeat the foul wizard - my brother in fact.
Scottish snake: Theif!
Queen: Oh, shut up!

Level 2: The Land Before Time

Mordor: Aha!
So, dear brother, you bring Dirk here
You curmudgenous clanky piece of junk.
Boil in the mud, you meddling old fool!
Dirk will be helpless once you've been sunk!
Ah ha ha!

You want Daphne? Go get her! Ha ha!
Daphne: My hero!
Dirk: EEEEOWWW!
Time Machine: Get the sword! Hurry, son, hurry!
Mordor: Daphne's mine! Farewell, you fool!

Level 3: Through the Looking Glass

Twiddle Dee: How do you do...
Twiddle Dum: ...good sir knight?
Twiddle Dee: Will you join us...
Twiddle Dum: ...in a fight?
Random Card: Make way for the queen, if you know what I mean! Weeee!
Queen of Hearts: Stop that bouncing!
Random Card: Off with her head! Off with her head!
Queen of Hearts: Assassin!
Mordor: Princess Daphne is mine, idiot!
Mad Hatter: After that rabbit!
Rabbit: One lump or two?
Mad Hatter: Don't mind if I do! After that rabbit!
Mordor: Farewell, fool! Ah ha ha!
Cheshire Cat (from Jabberwocky?):
Twas brillig and the sithy toves
did gyre and gimble in the wabe
all mimsy were the borogroves and the mome raths outgrabe
oh ha see ha ha ha!

Level 4: Eden

Cherub: Go away! No visitors!
Back! St-stop right there!
One more step and you're finished! Oooo!
Eve: Ooo -- yum yum!
Serpent: Hang on, brother, don't eat him!
Dirk here is our ticket to fame and fortune.
Lookie here...I'll get you the princesssssss...
If you bring Eve to me!
Eeeeeeeve!
Apple!
Eve: Oh, no, dear!

Level 5: Beethoven's Fifth

Time Machine: Dirk the Daring, stay put ol' chum!
Never fear a creative gust.
For the winds that upward reach
All too soon will downward sink!

Dirk! Over here!

Level 6: The Great Pyramids

Time Machine: We've found her this time, boy!
Daphne: Dirk...this way!
Dirk...
Dirk, I'm in here!
Hurry please!
Mordor: Ah ha ha!
Time Machine: Hurry, son, hurry!
Oooo -- it's hot! Oooo -- hot!
Dirk! Dirk! Dirk!

Level 7: The Grand Finale

Mordor: Ah ha ha! You fool!
You want Daphne? Ah ha ha! Go get her!
Dirk!
Aaaaah!
Daphne: Dirk! Dirk!
Dirk: D-Daphne!
Daphne: Dirk -- My hero!
Dirk Jr 1: Mom!
Dirk Jr 2: Dad's Home!
Queen: Daphne!
Dirk Jr 3: Look at that!