The Effect of Turn Order on Outcomes in Puerto Rico

In July 2010 I began keeping track of the scores generated by family and friends in Puerto Rico games. The data recorded is limited to the date and the scores in the order in which the players played. At this time 63 games have been recorded.

For the purposes of this analysis the scores are considered by the number of players in the game. The following charts display the share of total game points in games with 3, 4 and 5 players.

3 Player games

4 Player Games

5 Player Games

Paypal: Copy an existing "Buy Now" button.

In Paypal's Simple Payments the user is allowed to create a Buy Now form which can then be entered on an external website. And also you can copy an existing one if you need a similar form. The annoying thing is that you cannot find any menu item or page to list the existing Buy Now forms in your account. Instead you create a new Buy Now button and hopefully notice the teensy-weensy link in the new form you have just opened and are now going to throw away. Why is this a li'l secret, Paypal? Why?

This post is so that maybe I will not have to hunt for an entire hour to find the link again next year.

Chrome weather report

Hey. Cute. Snowflakes.

Puerto Rico Stats

What is the effect of your turn order on how well you fare in the game of Puerto Rico? It is too early to tell, but it looks like you should try to go first or last.

Google's tiny logo

How smart is Google?

Although the logos on Google's sites are images (and these have their own clever tricks, but that's another story), there is more magic to the logo than I thought.

I got a server error message the other day while doing some work with atom feeds. A bad query on my part returned some html along with usual http error codes and messages. I noticed that Google's logo can be generated using very common, safe HTML. I stuck it in a standalone file and came out to 423 bytes. And that is without trying to optimize the html. This is so small that you can stick your logo in Error messages as a tiny text stream with no problem.

The font is Times and the colors are basic. Brilliant.

Google

Here is the code that generates this logo.

<table border=0 cellpadding=2 cellspacing=0 width=100%><tr><td rowspan=3 width=1% nowrap>
<b><font face=times color=#0039b6 size=10>G</font><font face=times color=#c41200 size=10>o</font><font face=times color=#f3c518 size=10>o</font><font face=times color=#0039b6 size=10>g</font><font face=times color=#30a72f size=10>l</font><font face=times color=#c41200 size=10>e</font>  </b><td> </td></tr></table>

MyStery

Windows Internet Explorer

One or more ActiveX controls could not be displayed because either:

1) Your current security settings prohibit running ActiveX controls on this page, or
2) You have blocked a publisher of one of the controls.

As a result, the page may not display correctly.

How to get this message:

1. Create a document in MS Word (version is Office 2003).
2. Copy the contents.
3. Switch to Outlook and create a new message
4. Paste.

What's Internet Explorer doing getting involved here?

Incidentally, once you click "OK", which is the only thing you can do, the text is properly copied into the message body. Presumably the text I was trying to paste in represents some kind of security breach, but I don't have any further steps to take, and Outlook cheerfully sends the message without complaint.

Thanks for the heads up, Internet Explorer.

Confidence boost from Linksys

I recently upgraded the firmware on my Linksys WRT54G router to this version. I include the preview because I love this icon. So sleek and mysterious.


Well actually, first I downloaded the prominently displayed firmware upgrade. It turned out to be for a later version of the router, so I got this excellent message. It's more than an error message. It's a slap in the face. It's a raging, hopeless slogan for scrawling above the door of a bombed out hospital, perhaps. Continue.


No problem, really. It isn't as dire as it sounds. "Please check the bottom of your router to make sure you have the correct version," says the guide. Just dig a little bit on the Cisco site and find the firmware for your router version. It's in Home >> Support >> Technical Support >> Downloads.

Ah, that's better! Your reward is this sunny fanfare for the credulous.

Sleep soundly. Cisco is looking after the details.