Be Smiley

The Effect of Turn Order on Outcomes in Puerto Rico

2012-01-04T06:14:00.000-08:00

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.

2011-02-23T16:50:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-24T07:46:00.000-08:00

Hey. Cute. Snowflakes.

What do you want for free?

2010-09-20T15:25:00.000-07:00

You should not rely on Google Calendar. Sooner or later your heart will be broken. As a tombstone for our dead dreams I have installed a feed on this site from just one of the many Google Forum threads where Google Calendar users beg for help. In vain.

Puerto Rico Stats

2010-08-22T14:23:00.001-07:00

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

2010-04-23T07:04:00.000-07:00

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

2009-11-09T08:09:00.000-08:00

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:

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

2008-12-06T04:03:00.000-08:00

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.

Using "Create Event" action in Gmail

2008-11-15T15:09:00.000-08:00

I am a fan of the integration of Gmail and Google Calendar, but one thing that isn't clearly explained is that you need to put event details in the subject line of your email. Even then the results can be unexpected. I did some light testing of various date strings. Here are some results.

Today is Sunday the 16th of November 2008. You have just learned of a screening of the film "Foo" in the evening and want to forward it to Eddy. Here are a few Subject: lines and their results.

Success
Subject: Foo Screening at 7pm
Subject: Foo Screening: Sunday Nov. 16 - 7pm
A Week Late
Foo Screening: Sunday at 7pm

Month Long Event
Foo Screening - Sunday, November 16 - 7:00pm
Watch out for hyphens in your date. In this case they indicate a date range. Google Calendar appears to have a default of one month for an unfinished date range. The end date is set to December 15 2008.

No Event Detected
Subject: Foo Screening - Sunday, November 16 - 7:00

Improvised Entertainment Device

2007-10-25T18:47:00.000-07:00

Celebrate the kid's birthday in style. Get an old broom handle. Write I.E.D. on it with a magic marker. Blindfold the kid and let him unleash his explosive energy underneath this U.S. Army Humvee with troops inside. Is it an up-armoured model? There is only one way to find out.

I hate boing-boing.net because they beat me to it. They already made fun of this a year ago.

Wedding Badminton

2007-10-18T14:14:00.000-07:00

Katie and Joel got married at an old farm near St. Andrew's NB. Afterward the guests enjoyed games in the yard. Pete and Amy took on a rotating squad of Nancy, Barb and Cara at badminton. I took photos as quickly as my camera could write them to memory.

Proportional Rep. in Ontario: The Podcast

2007-10-04T12:31:00.000-07:00

TVO's Big Ideas has this audio of a panel discussion on the Ontario referendum on changing the electoral system to proportional representation (called MMP).

The good thing about this podcast is that the particpants know what they are talking about and bring up points I had not heard before. Almost everyone I know is planning to vote in favour of MMP, so it was good to hear cogent contrary views.
The bad thing is that there is a lot of discussion about MMP and it's implications for democracy in Ontario. It is pretty nerdy.
The worse thing is that I rewound about six times while listening to make sure I understood what the speakers were saying.

Licensed to score

2007-10-03T16:03:00.000-07:00

I am pretty happy with my latest purchase. Some intimidating dart flights for the next tourney. I don't think anybody will mess with me when they see the logo for the IPOA. If you don't know, the sleeping lion represents the trade organization for mercenary companies. Oops, I mean the peace operations industry.

A steal at £10.

Illegal substitution

2007-10-03T06:07:00.000-07:00

This screen shot is from the Rogers Sportsnet coverage of a match between Canada and Costa Rica in June 2007. Early in the second half Costa Rica decided to change strategies. For the first 50 minutes they were content to play a containment game. At this point the coach decided to go for regime change and pulled President Bush Sr. out of the game, in favour of more shooting prowess.

As every footie fan knows Bush wears 43 in honour of his son, the 43rd President of the United States. Or perhaps he lost a bet and is forced to wear it.

Birth Announcement

2007-10-01T08:52:00.001-07:00

David Meslin writes:

Working with other groups such as the Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation (TCAT), Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists (ARC), iBikeTO, Toronto Bicycle Network and many others, the Cyclists Union will build our community into a strong, diverse, fun and effective network of thousands of bike riders fighting for change.

To get updates on the development of the Cyclists Union over these nine months and to find out how to get involved you can:

1) Subscribe to monthly updates.

2) Join our facebook group.

Unbreakable Links in Mail.app

2007-10-01T08:36:00.000-07:00

Your GMail friends hate the links in your email messages because they appear to be broken. It isn't your fault. It is just that you use Apple Mail. Many simple fixes for this behaviour have been proposed, such as surrounding your link with "< >". Only a few actually work. In future other email readers will handle links the way Apple does, or perhaps Apple will add a preference setting to let users opt for old-fashioned handling of text. In the meantime, Apple Mail users can do this:

1. Use Rich Text as your setting for composing mail.

2. Copy your URL link.

3. Type a short phrase describing the location.

4. Select the phrase and right click it (Control-Click) to get the contextual menu. You can also use "Add Hyperlink ..." from the "Edit" menu.

5. Select "Edit Link..." and paste your URL.

Thanks to Hawk Wings for the analysis and solution.

Scoring play

2007-09-27T09:12:00.000-07:00

This is a slide show in which the slides are individual bars from the score and the accompanying music is ... well, you get it. The fun thing is that it will play on a Nano iPod. So now you don't have to carry a box of sheet music around with you when you want to follow along. It's okay for piano, but for orchestral works you will want a larger screen.

Manual upload to picasaweb

2007-09-12T06:47:00.000-07:00

Picasaweb is a great service, but its uploading tools require MacOSX 10.4. I have been coaching my mother to get photos of her paintings on her picasaweb site. She runs MacOSX 10.3 on her G4 laptop. There is no documentation on manual uploading of photos to picasaweb from iPhoto.

Here is a procedure for exporting an album of photos from iPhoto. It is not very fun, but it should work for everyone.
1. In iPhoto create an album of photos you want to have on your Picasa web site
2. select the album and do File>Export ... from the menu.
3. select "File Export" from the tabs in the dialog that appears

4. create a new Folder to hold the exported photos. (I like to put it on the Desktop in a folder named after the album name). Select "Desktop" and click the "New Folder" button. When you are done, go ahead and export the photos.

5. In Safari, go to your picasaweb account and log in. Create a new album and name it. The other options can be edited later. Click the "Upload Photos" button. The file upload form allows you to upload 5 files at a time. Tedious. Click one of the Browse buttons, and a file selector window will open. Find your new album folder on your Desktop, and select a photo file in it. Repeat with four more if you want. Click "Start Upload".

This will take a while to save. When it is done you should be redirected to your new album with uploaded photos displayed in thumbnail. You can upload more photos to an existing album. There is a link to do so on the left hand side.

Push with forefoot

2007-08-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

Stand on bathroom scales with left forefoot. Keep heel raised and bear as much weight as possible. Place a block in front of the scales to prevent the heel from dropping. Do not touch the block with your heel.

Learning to pee the bed

2007-06-16T17:19:00.000-07:00

My first night in hospital was spent in emergency on a gurney. They had me on a morphine drip so my leg wasn't bothering me much. The only thing was the peeing, which I hadn't done in 14 hours.

Overcoming 4 decades of training in mattress preservation is not a simple matter. Mind tricks are needed.

One thing that helps is headphones, both to block out physical surroundings and as a focus of attention.

But especially that first night I needed something conrete. I needed familiarity but also engagement. For a while I tried being in my bathroom at home, but I think it was either too boring or not believeable. Eventually I found something that worked.

All the male patrons of La Hacienda will know this painting well. If you had to, you could probably remember how many towers there are on the island castle.

Now whenever I go to the gent's at La Hacienda I remember trying to pee into a bottle at the emergency ward.

The thanking dog

2007-05-07T10:31:00.000-07:00

My mom sent me this for my birthday yesterday.

I have to go buy some filberts immediately.

It was better with you here

2007-05-01T08:28:00.000-07:00

Somebody has to let the shareholders know what is going on with Bell. I switched my home phone service away from Bell, and took my number with me. You can finally do that here in Soviet Canuckistan. So what do I get in the mail?

This sad sack card. It took me about an hour to conclude that it wasn't a cruel joke by Rogers. Inside it says "Even though you are no longer using Bell for your home phone service we are still thinking of you." I should go check that there isn't a Bell van parked across the street. Creepy.

Dry foot

2007-04-11T04:59:00.000-07:00

Ever since I got out of hospital the skin on my left foot has been very strange. It has been dry and scratchy. I put lotion on it but the dryness remains. So I finally got around to realizing that it was not coincidental and that it must mean something. I did a little web searching on "nerve damage dry skin".

Since diabetic symptoms include neuropathy, especially in the feet and legs, and since diabetes is such a common disease, all the hits were diabetes education sites. They are practical and use simple language, e.g. This lack of feeling is caused by nerve damage, also called diabetic neuropathy (noo-ROP-uh-thee). They explain that nerves tell your sweat glands when to sweat. Sweat helps keep our skin moist and soft.

So my left foot isn't sweating. Which I find slightly creepy.

Dream

2007-04-05T04:02:00.001-07:00

I dreamed that I was at a party with friends and acquaintances. I put my crutches down for a second and realized that I was walking normally. I was very excited about this and started calling attention to it. But nobody thought it was of interest. I was annoyed.

GABA

2007-04-04T09:29:00.000-07:00

I am taking pregabalin which promises to moderate the transmission of nerve signals in my body. It also makes me vague and dizzy. For now. Apparently the side effects of the stuff settle down after a few days. I am still getting plenty of nerve excitation in my foot. Who knows how much there would be without pregabalin? After all, the exact mechanism of action is unknown.