Comment Paywalled (Score 1) 97
WSJ does not allow people to read this content for free....
KPH
Submission + - The Blackjack Player Who Broke Atlantic City
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Mark Bowden writes in the Atlantic about blackjack player Don Johnson who won nearly $6 million playing blackjack in one night, single-handedly decimating the monthly revenue of Atlantic City’s Tropicana casino after previously taking the Borgata for $5 million and Caesars for $4 million. Johnson doesn't just walk into a casino and start playing, which is what roughly 99 percent of customers do. This is, in his words, tantamount to “blindly throwing away money.” How does Johnson do it? First with Johnson, it’s all about the math, and Johnson knows it cold. But that's not enough to beat the house edge. As good as Johnson is at playing cards, his advantage is that he's even better at playing the casinos. When revenues slump as they have for the last five years at Atlantic City, casinos must rely more heavily on their most prized customers, the high rollers who wager huge amounts and are willing to lessen its edge for them primarily by offering discounts, or “loss rebates.” When a casino offers a discount of, say, 10 percent, that means if the player loses $100,000 at the blackjack table, he has to pay only $90,000. Two years ago, Johnson says, the casinos started getting desperate and offered Johnson a 20 per cent discount. They also offered playing with a hand-shuffled six-deck shoe; the right to split and double down on up to four hands at once; and a “soft 17". By Johnson's calculations, he had whittled the house edge down to one-fourth of 1 percent so in effect, he was playing a 50-50 game against the house, and with the discount, he was risking only 80 cents of every dollar he played. Johnson had to pony up $1 million of his own money to start, but, as he would say later: “You’d never lose the million. If you got to [$500,000 in losses], you would stop and take your 20 percent discount. You’d owe them only $400,000.”"
Submission + - Baumgartner Completes 13.5-Mile Free-Fall Jump, Aims For Record (google.com)
An anonymous reader writes: On Thursday Felix Baumgartner climbed into a capsule carried by a balloon, floated up to 71,500 feet, and jumped out. He free-fell through the atmosphere for almost four minutes, hitting an estimated top speed of 364 mph. "I wanted to open the parachute after descending for a while but I noticed that I was still at an altitude of 50,000ft," he said. After finally deploying his chute, he fell for a bit over four more minutes, before successfully touching down in the New Mexico Desert. This jump was to prepare him for a record-breaking jump of 120,000 feet later this summer, during which Baumgartner will break the record for highest free-fall jump — and the sound barrier. '... a 36-pound spacesuit is all that separates Baumgartner from a hostile world that would boil the blood in his body. Baumgartner will wear a chest pack crammed with data-hungry instruments to help ground controllers monitor the attempt — and log scientific data. Some will keep tabs on his heart rate and oxygen intake to see how a body in a spacesuit reacts to a boundary no one has broken (and lived to tell the tale): the speed of sound.'
Comment Re:How do you determine healthy food? (Score 4, Insightful) 455
I barely want to point this out, but, what's "affordable" has a lot to do with where you geographically live.
Fishing == rivers, oceans (ie. coasts, islands,..)
Red Meat / Chicken == land (ie. farms, mountain herds, ..)
What's missing in our 'food equation' is self-production and high-valued local produce. Whatever is good/sustainable for your region is what you should consider consuming. Reliance on cheap/subsidized imported food just won't add-up long-term.
KPH
Fishing == rivers, oceans (ie. coasts, islands,..)
Red Meat / Chicken == land (ie. farms, mountain herds,
What's missing in our 'food equation' is self-production and high-valued local produce. Whatever is good/sustainable for your region is what you should consider consuming. Reliance on cheap/subsidized imported food just won't add-up long-term.
KPH
Submission + - Chinese robots play ping pong (io9.com)
wisebabo writes: While I'm not sure I'd agree with the commentary as to their emotional disposition, I'm glad that finally someone has built a robot capable of playing ping pong. They don't seem to be that great at playing, but hopefully the technology will get better. As a side note, while the humanoid design is appealing and might help it qualify for competition, is that really the best design? I recall seeing once some Japanese robot that was decidedly not anthropomorphic that did some amazing super fast ball bouncing. Are there any other designs that have been used or even tried?
Submission + - Dennis Ritchie is Dead (google.com)
underqualified writes: Rob Pike reports that Dennis Ritchie died in his home last weekend.
Submission + - a Ritch legacy (google.com)
zenbo writes: After a long illness, Dennis Ritchie "died at home this weekend", according to his longtime friend Rob Pike. Not only the creator of C, he coauthored (with Kernighan) the first great programming book (The C Programming Language), helped develop the first versions of UNIX with Ken Thompson, and won the Turin award in 1983.
A giant in the field, dmr perhaps said it best when he quipped "UNIX is very simple, it just needs a genius to understand its simplicity." RIP
A giant in the field, dmr perhaps said it best when he quipped "UNIX is very simple, it just needs a genius to understand its simplicity." RIP
Submission + - Reddit Users Overwhelm Facebook With Data Requests
An anonymous reader writes: Reddit users have flooded Facebook with personal data requests via the service's official form. This appears to have overwhelmed Facebook’s Data Access Request Team, forcing the group to send out e-mails telling users there will be a significant delay.
Submission + - More flammable water possibly linked to fracking (wsj.com)
Gideon Wells writes: "Many water supplies in northern Pennsylvania have long contained methane, because of the area's poorly constructed water wells and unusual geological features. But the contamination in Ms. Vargson's well is among the first cases that state regulators have attributed to natural-gas drilling."
Not sure what to say really. On one hand I feel sorry that a person's water has turned flammable for any reason. On the other hand I'm just glad this wasn't the Granville, PA a county over. My county is already in heavy debates over shale drilling and how close some of those potential wells are to local reservoirs.
Not sure what to say really. On one hand I feel sorry that a person's water has turned flammable for any reason. On the other hand I'm just glad this wasn't the Granville, PA a county over. My county is already in heavy debates over shale drilling and how close some of those potential wells are to local reservoirs.
Submission + - Google Drops Cloud Lawsuit Against US Gov't (itworld.com)
jfruhlinger writes: "A year ago, Google sued the U.S. government because the government's request for proposals for a cloud project mandated Microsoft Office; Google felt, for obvious reasons, that this was discriminatory. Google has now withdrawn the suit, claiming that the Feds promised to update their policies to allow Google to compete. The only problem is that the government claims it did no such thing."
Submission + - Turbine powered Batmobile on Ebay (ebay.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The world's only Turbine powered Batmobile is for sale on Ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp3984Q2em1555Q2el2649QQitemZ280730252092QQsspagenameZSTRKQ3aMESELXQ3aIT Also, it is listed for sale on the builder's website too. www.putschracing.com
Submission + - Former TSA Agent Admits to Aiding Drug Dealer (foxnews.com)
mrquagmire writes: A former federal security officer has admitted helping a man accused of running a drug ring evade security and smuggle money through the Buffalo Niagara Airport.
Minnetta Walker was arrested in March. She admitted Friday in federal court helping the man get around airport security scanners, The Buffalo News reported.
As a behavioral detection officer, Walker was trained to observe and analyze human behavior and had unrestricted access to the airport and its security stations. Sometimes, she'd direct travelers she appeared to know, including Frank, away from security lines where body image scanners or pat-downs might detect large sums of cash, and escort them to their gates so they wouldn't be pulled aside for random inspections, authorities said. She'd also alert travelers to the presence of undercover law enforcement officers, authorities said.
Minnetta Walker was arrested in March. She admitted Friday in federal court helping the man get around airport security scanners, The Buffalo News reported.
As a behavioral detection officer, Walker was trained to observe and analyze human behavior and had unrestricted access to the airport and its security stations. Sometimes, she'd direct travelers she appeared to know, including Frank, away from security lines where body image scanners or pat-downs might detect large sums of cash, and escort them to their gates so they wouldn't be pulled aside for random inspections, authorities said. She'd also alert travelers to the presence of undercover law enforcement officers, authorities said.
Submission + - Apple Acknowledges Mac Defender Existence (net-security.org)
Orome1 writes: It took a while for Apple to react properly to the onslaught of Mac Defender and similar fake AV aimed at Mac users, but they finally did it. Only days after the revelation of internal Apple documents that instructed AppleCare and Apple store employees not to acknowledge the existence of Mac Defender and not to offer help in removing it from infected computers when asked by the users, the company has posted a support document that explains the situation and offers advice on how to avoid installing this malware and how to remove it.
Submission + - Adobe Releases Flash to HTML 5 Converter (ibtimes.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Adobe has released its Flash to HTML 5 conversion tool, codenamed "Wallaby." Wallaby is an application to convert Adobe Flash Professional CS5 files (.FLA) to HTML5 and its primary design goals were to get the best quality and performance on browsers within iOS devices like iPhone and iPad.
Submission + - A letter on behalf of the world's PC fixers (pcpro.co.uk)
Barence writes: "PC Pro's Steve Cassidy has written a letter on behalf of all the put-upon techies who've ever been called by a friend to fix their PC. His bile is directed at a friend who put a DVD bought on holiday into their laptop, and then wondered what went wrong.
"Once you stuck that DVD in there and started saying 'yes, OK' to every resulting dialog box, you sank the whole thing," Cassidy writes. "It doesn’t take 10 minutes to sort that out; it requires a complete machine reload to properly guarantee the infection is history."
"No, there is no neat and handy way I’ve been keeping secret that allows you to retain your extensive collection of stolen software licences loaded on that laptop. I do disaster recovery, not disaster participation.""
"Once you stuck that DVD in there and started saying 'yes, OK' to every resulting dialog box, you sank the whole thing," Cassidy writes. "It doesn’t take 10 minutes to sort that out; it requires a complete machine reload to properly guarantee the infection is history."
"No, there is no neat and handy way I’ve been keeping secret that allows you to retain your extensive collection of stolen software licences loaded on that laptop. I do disaster recovery, not disaster participation.""
