Poker – The loneliest sport in the world
Poker is a truly wonderful game.
The thrill of the win, the money, the game, everything is so addictive.
When you flop the nuts and people are betting into you and you are trying to look confused, or when you shove all your chips in on a complete bluff and hope that you don’t get called, the adrenaline coursing through your veins, your breathing becomes shallow and when your opponent mucks and you show him your bluff.
There are few feelings like it in the world.
But there is a downside.
A very dark and ugly roller coaster of emotions.
I found out earlier today that JP, a poker player that I played with in a couple of tourneys, committed suicide over the weekend.
Recently Brandy Hawbaker, Vegas based poker player, committed suicide.
Depression and poker are often synonymous and it would not surprise me if it turns out that JP lost some of his bankroll or was feeling incredibly lonely – remember once you get knocked out of a game, thats it, everyone else is still in and YOU’RE out.
It’s not a team sport. You don’t have team mates to console you. You are surrounded by people who more often than not are happy to see the back of you.
And that’s the gist of it.
Whenever I get knocked out of a live tourney, I don’t stick around unless I want to play a side game or have a few drinks with friends or maybe even rail someone.
Those who know me know that as soon as I get knocked out, I am gone.
There’s only one thing that can get me over the emotion of getting knocked out early or on the bubble and that’s more poker so more often than not I jump into my car and I head on home to jump online and play a sit n go or switch on the telly and watch a WPT event and study players.
On my way home I will analyze my play and my mistakes and I replay the last hand over and over in my mind trying to figure out if I can get away from the same mistake next time round.
Driving 400 km however is not the most fun thing to do especially when you have just bubbled out of the biggest tourney of your life and all you can do is think of a9 off suit and wonder to yourself why on earth you would want to play that hand in the first place instead of sending it right where it belongs, into the muck.
Poker can be very draining on your spirits, especially when you bubble.
My advice to people who intend on traveling far to play in a big game is to NOT travel alone.
Go with a friend, a lover, a family relative and NOT another player who is playing in the same tourney.
Some people might think that the best thing to do is to go with someone that you playing with but if that person makes the money and you didn’t, the drive home will be uncomfortable and visa versa. If you both bubble or both cash then great, you can be miserable together all the way home or be happy together.
A non poker playing companion or a poker playing companion that is not playing in the same tourney is perfect however because you’ll talk about other things, they will console you, rub your head, pat your back and generally land up talking about other things.
If you have a partner, lover or spouse that is going to be playing with you maybe take a 3rd party in the car, make sure the person driving is not the person that bubbled or you might find yourself heading down a ravine because he is sick of hearing you plan your trip to Vegas when the only trip he will be taking is one down misery lane.
I thank God for the friends and family that I have, those that sent me good wishes and phoned me and sms’d me – they are truly a godsend.
Wiki open source search engine?
http://alpha.search.wikia.com/about.html
I signed up and did a few searches, hoping that I was stumbled upon the next best thing to hit the net, however , like many others, I was bitterely dissapointed with the search results. The novelty of the attached mini articles will wear off, although I do like the idea, it’s pretty novel.
I just hope for their sake that their search results improve.
The idea of including a mini article on the serps can definitely be improved on, kind of like Ask, but hopefully not that over done.
Wikipedia founder’s search engine gets bad reviews
But founder Jimmy Wales is as optimistic as ever.
By Farhad ManjooJan. 07, 2008 | “We are aware that the quality of the search results is low,” Search Wikia points out in a bold-faced notice on its site, but the concession isn’t silencing many critics. The new search engine, an ambitious effort spearheaded by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, has been so long in the making — and so overhyped — that on seeing the product for the first time today, critics couldn’t contain their scorn.
TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington calls it “one of the biggest disappointments I’ve had the displeasure of reviewing.” And at Search Engine Land, Chris Sherman labels Search Wikia “essentially useless as a search engine,” and he wonders if the project can ever succeed, and, indeed, if it’s even necessary.
As Wales conceives it, Search Wikia is not just a new kind of search engine, it’s an entirely new kind of Web project.
Jimmy Wales wants people out on the Internet to help build something as complex and useful as Google, in much the same way that people took his desultory online encyclopedia and transformed it, over the years, into the world’s best reference source. In fact, this project is even more ambitious — here people are working not only to edit text but to edit computer algorithms and policies, the arcane set of systems that companies like Google need an army of developers to run.
Can such a thing ever work? Wales can be a big talker, but mainly he’s self-effacing. When I asked him, a few months ago, about the difficulties of his project, he admitted, “I could fail. I have no idea. But I’m going to have fun trying.”
He also noted that the first version of the search engine wouldn’t be very good at all. He was right. You can try it out here. I ran many searches and, like other testers, found that a great deal returned poor results.
As one example, type in Paul Greengrass. The first result is the Amazon entry for the “Bourne Ultimatum” DVD (which Greengrass directed), followed by several haphazardly ordered links to reviews, sketchy DVD stores, and questionable foreign sites. Search for the same term in Google and you find, first, a link to Greengrass’ filmography at the Internet Movie Database, and next a Wikipedia entry, which tells you Greengrass is a kick-ass movie director. The results page is superb.
Search Wikia’s spotty results are by design. The trouble with the sort of project Wales is building is that, even if it may one day succeed, it’s got to start off sucking.
At its birth, the Google search engine pretty much beat out every competitor — that’s what made it so successful so fast. Search Wikia, like Wikipedia, will improve only if people help it. The site allows you to rate the search engine’s results — you can do so by clicking on the stars that come up next to some links. You can also alter its white list (which tells the site which pages to include in its results), and, more generally, you can help create new policies determining how the whole thing will work.
Wales wants people, now, to start doing that work. In an interview a few minutes ago, he told me, “We have enough features there that people will find useful in their day-to-day work. They’ll find that a reason to stick around and use the product even while the search results are improving in quality.”
In time — a long time, at least two years, Wales says — Search Wikia will return results that are as good as those of the other engines.
But search quality is not his only goal. Wales says we need an open-source, transparent search engine — one that explains why it’s returning the results it is — because search determines how we understand the world. What we get on a Google results page is too consequential to keep the method behind those results hidden.
Really, then, the debate over Search Wikia is more about philosophy than functionality. I mentioned to Wales that he’s got a chicken-and-egg problem — he needs people to use the search engine in order to improve it, but people aren’t going to use a search engine that gives them lousy results.
Sherman suggests that Wales’ push for transparency and community may not be enough of an inducement for people to join the project:
And as searchers, do we really want or need that transparency? Ten years ago I could look under the hood of my car and fiddle with my engine when I wanted to modify something. Today, just about every system in my car is computerized, completely inaccessible to my tinkering. But given the virtually maintenance-free operation of my car I’m perfectly happy with that change and don’t long for the lost days of “engine transparency” at all.
But Wales believes people are yearning for transparency. He says that he has no worries that nobody will want to work on Search Wikia; what he worries about, in fact, is that he’ll get more volunteers than the project can effectively manage.
Wales was right about this for an online encyclopedia. Eventually we’ll know if he’s right about search, too. But not soon.
A journey of a thousand miles
Some wise man once said that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step and this post is my first step.
My name is Paul De Sousa, I am a web 2.0 enthusiast and Search Engine Evangelist in search of knowledge, a deeper purpose, the meaning of life and of course some serious linkage and better rankings.
I have been known in the past to design processes for a number of web2.0 applications, although I am not a developer, I am an analyst, an ideas person. I find faults and provide new ideas and solutions.
I am employed by JohnCom and am grateful and honoured to be involved in the “The Times” project from a search engine perspective.
My involvement thus far has been more than just the SEO aspect, but general change control management of the current build as well as various documentation on where we would like to take The Time’s site.
Being a System Analyst for the group has allowed me to be involved in some seriously awesome projects, but The Time’s was a project that I was looking forward to for sometime and one that is not only right up my alley, but definitely a place that I feel I will shine. Do what you love, and love what you do.
I’ve had a number of blogs over the years so blogging is not new to me, I also helped design a number of ideas and processes for www.blogmad.net – a traffic exchange program for bloggers who are looking for new audiences, so blogging is not new to me. And neither is laziness, which is why I have had many blogs, but none that I have maintained for more than 2 years at a time.
So I have decided to run with this blog as a progress report on my journey with The Times project as well as any cool new things which I find and decide is good enough to share.
Enjoy, stay in touch and lets hold hands and share that link love!
In the summer time
This year, 2006, has started off being a great year.
And I know that its going to be awesome.
Working together with Darryl, Dave and Ian is starting to get us places.
2 Ad agency deals to start the year off and the February beta launch of blogmad.net which is the apple of everyone’s eye at the moment.
Hopefully at the end of 2006 we’ll launch the found engine which we could in fact use in collaboration with blogmad.
I’ve gone back to starting learning css from scratch again because it was starting to become a nightmare looking through blogmad’s multiple css files trying to make sense of them. But after eventually working out how everything ties in together it’s slowly becoming second nature to me. Blogmad can be frustrating at times because I am writing content for the help & features pages at the moment and everytime I get a menu worked out, one of the developers have wangled in a new feature which;
a ) causes me to want to pull the little hair that i have out and
b ) get excited because I have lost count of the number of features we have.
The general idea was for us to launch with 2 games and a handful of features but it looks like we are going to be launching with a shitload more features than planned. Alot of the phase 2 and phase 3 features are being brought forward as Ian, Dave and Darryl go flat out and code hour after hour after hour.
and here i go back to basics with css… one day i’ll code. haha!
This year has really kicked off well.
I got 3 awesome partners, a head full of ideas and a great product.
It looks like I’ll definitely be travelling this year round June or July.
Soccer season starts soon and this year I’ll have my camera at every game.
Life at this point in time is very good.
I am the alpha male
How to win arguments
How to win an argument
(Tips by an ANONYMOUS guru)
I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don’t even invite me. You, too, can win arguments. Simply follow these rules:
Drink Liquor
Suppose you’re at a party and some hotshot intellectual is expounding on the economy of Peru, a subject you know nothing about. If you’re drinking some health-fanatic drink like grapefruit juice, you’ll hang back, afraid to display your ignorance, while the hotshot enthralls your date. But if you drink several large martinis, you’ll discover you have STRONG VIEWS about the Peruvian economy. You’ll be a WEALTH of information. You’ll argue forcefully, offering searing insights and possibly upsetting furniture. People will be impressed. Some may leave the room.
Make Things Up
Suppose, in the Peruvian economy argument, you are trying to prove Peruvians are underpaid, a position you base solely on the fact that YOU are underpaid, and you’re damned if you’re going to let a bunch of Peruvians be better off. DON’T say: “I think Peruvians are underpaid.”
Say: “The average Peruvian’s salary in 1981 dollars adjusted for the revised tax base is $1,452.81 per annum, which is $836.07 before the mean gross poverty level.”
NOTE: Always make up exact figures.
If an opponent asks you where you got your information, make THAT up, too.
Say: “This information comes from Dr. Hovel T. Moon’s study for the Buford Commission published May 9, 1982. Didn’t you read it?”
Use Meaningless But Weighty-Sounding Words and Phrases
Memorize this list:
Let me put it this way
In terms of
Vis-a-vis
Per se
As it were
Qua
So to speak
You should also memorize some Latin abbreviations such as “Q.E.D.,” “e.g.,” and “i.e.” These are all short for “I speak Latin, and you do not.”
Here’s how to use these words and phrases. Suppose you want to say: “Peruvians would like to order appetizers more often, but they don’t have enough money.”
You never win arguments talking like that. But you WILL win if you say: “Let me put it this way. In terms of appetizers vis-a-vis Peruvians qua Peruvians, they would like to order them more often, so to speak, but they do not have enough money per se, as it were. Q.E.D.” Only a fool would challenge that statement.
Use Snappy and Irrelevant Comebacks
You need an arsenal of all-purpose irrelevant phrases to fire back at your opponents when they make valid points. The best are:
You’re begging the question.
You’re being defensive.
Don’t compare apples and oranges.
What are your parameters?
This last one is especially valuable. Nobody, other than mathematicians, has the vaguest idea what “parameters” means.
Here’s how to use your comebacks:
You say: “As Abraham Lincoln said in 1873…”
Your opponent says: “Lincoln died in 1865.”
You say: “You”re begging the question.”
OR
You say: “Liberians, like most Asians…”
Your opponent says: “Liberia is in Africa.”
You say: “You”re being defensive.”
Compare Your Opponent to Adolf Hitler
This is your heavy artillery, for when your opponent is obviously right and you are spectacularly wrong. Bring Hitler up subtly. Say: “That sounds suspiciously like something Adolph Hitler might say” or “You certainly do remind me of Adolph Hitler.”
So that’s it: you now know how to out-argue anybody. Do not try to pull any of this on people who generally carry weapons!