Posts tagged “gambling”

• Japan’s sushi legend Jiro Ono turns 100 and is not ready for retirement
• Wait. What? College golfer aces same hole twice in one day!
• Feisty Otters Are Once Again Hijacking Surfboards in Santa Cruz
• “When people learn with ChatGPT instead of following their own searches, they end up knowing less, caring less, and producing worse advice, even when the facts are the same.” – via Joe Hanson
• Like the HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, researchers say some AI models may be developing their own survival drive, seeming to resist being turned off and even sabotaging their own shutdown.
• New to me: Italian time
• The average energy bar is anywhere from 6 to 15 times more expensive per calorie than a good ol’ PB&J.
• Hoo boy. Care to read about how chatfishing has made finding love on dating apps even weirder? – via kottke
• “[On] Sunday, [October 26, 2025,] the [New York] Times had more column-inches dedicated to urging readers to gamble on football than to China’s control of rare-earths minerals.” – via TMQ
• Some good reasons to vote:
  • Before [POTUS], and Before the Young Republicans, There Was the Dartmouth Review – via my dad
  • [I] really resent the continued assertion that there’s so much anger on both sides, as if the causes of the anger are equally legitimate. [W]e’re angry because masked maniacs are violently snatching our family and neighbors off the street, and they’re angry because we’re calling them out for it. – via Marisa Kabas
  • As improbable as it had seemed just minutes ago, it now appeared that I really was texting with interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan. [See also: New York AG Letitia James pleads not guilty to mortgage fraud charges]
  • “the speaker of the House is refusing to seat a duly elected member of Congress to protect the president from a vote to investigate his extensive connections [to] the world’s most notorious human trafficking pedophile” is one of those things you simply cannot put into New York Timesese – via ryan cooper

• What beats rock?
• Pope Francis denounced the current administration’s plan to carry out mass deportations of migrants in a letter to U.S. bishops Tuesday, while appearing to take a direct jab at Vice President JD Vance.
• For decades, casinos scoffed as mathematicians and physicists devised elaborate systems to take down the house. Then an unassuming Croatian’s winning strategy forever changed the game.
• Why is Hawaii the rainbow capital of the world?
• Is gold hidden under a California peak? This treasure map says so.
• These JETech iPhone screen protectors are a great investment.
• Forensics Experts Challenged the FBI. So the FBI Tried to Censor Their Conference. This story includes a timely reminder that — with the exception of DNA matches — most of the highly-regarded techniques used to put people away (fingerprint examinations, ballistics and toolmarks comparisons, blood pattern analysis) “were developed by law enforcement agencies for law enforcement, and not by scientists first subjecting them to standard, rigorous testing processes designed to ensure they stand on a solid scientific foundation.”
• How did a life-saving pediatric drug – discovered and developed using money from American taxpayers, and spurred by the grassroots fundraising of desperate parents – end up costing $2,000,000 per dose?
• In the span of just weeks, the U.S. government has experienced what may be the most consequential security breach in its history – not through a sophisticated cyberattack or an act of foreign espionage, but through official orders by a billionaire with a poorly-defined government role.
• Harrison Ford said the recent California wildfires burned several Shrinking sets.

• Bacon and Games is a new blog for video game developers. It’s full of great articles on how to make games better (and not only by adding bacon). See also: Bacon floss
• The Alot is better than you at everything.
• The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which “people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it”.
• It really bothers me when people argue that marijuana is a completely harmless drug. It’s not.
• “Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.” That’s usually the first thing I think when someone explains to me (yet another) brilliant idea for a website. My first question is always, and I mean always, “How are you going to make money?” Eyeballs don’t pay the bills.
• I suppose on some level it’s pretty cool that Microsoft has created a FixItCenter website that lets you troubleshoot and resolve problems with Windows. My opinion, though, is that it sure would be much better for their image if they’d simply sell a product that didn’t constantly require fixing.
• If you’re a gambler, check out the odds on Tebow.

Postings will be sparse for the next few days. I’m in Vegas with my dad. We golfed today and will be golfing again tomorrow… and the next day… and the next day… This is my third or fourth trip to Las Vegas since I moved to LA in 2000. I’m not much of a gambler, but I think I have finally deciphered the game of craps. I turned $20 into $225 and had a blast hanging out with my dad at the new Hooters Casino. I’m taking a ton of photos and will update when I return to the City of Angels.