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[2013-11-13 14:21:08] - Which makes some sense, the Chick Fil-A bid usually goes to the runner up of the ACC championship game, and as long as we win out we'll probably end up there after being demolished by Florida State. - mig
[2013-11-13 14:19:24] - http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/bowl-projections-post-week-11-edition-135304002--ncaaf.html first bowl projection that I've seen so far - they currently have tech going to Chick Fil-A vs. Georgia. - mig
[2013-11-13 14:12:48] - xpovos: I'll agree with that, certainly the "well i'm going to be fired anyways, I'll just piss off as many people and burn all the bridges as I can." is very idioitic and defintiely would breed my contempt. - mig
[2013-11-13 13:34:25] - Paul: She's the blonde, blue-eye caucasian. Of course she's a good guy. Esp. compared to that evil rasta Tosh. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-13 04:46:36] - mig: I just realized that the HotS trailer answered a debate we had a few years ago... apparently Nova is a good guy after all. -Paul
[2013-11-12 21:30:38] - mig: Ding. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-12 21:30:29] - a: Agreed. Borderline, but toss his ass for being an idiot and sticking to his idiotic guns. I hate those bitter clingers. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-12 21:13:51] - xpovos: i'm asssuming this is referring to the "saussage making of politics"? - mig
[2013-11-12 21:03:20] - xpovos: i think i agree. but i probably agree with mig as well. this is only borderline-fireable behavior even if its un-coachlike. and certainly he (likely) hasn't broken any laws. regardless, the media is going to go overboard as they always do. ~a
[2013-11-12 21:02:56] - Obama is a terrible butcher. http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/189917-how-immigration-died-%E2%80%94-part-1 -- Xpovos
[2013-11-12 20:49:26] - That's why it's the coach's responsibility to make sure things stay on the "up-and-up". Instead this one is engaging in activities on the DL. That's un-coachlike behaviour. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-12 20:47:40] - a: To high school. One of the hallmarks of high-school aged children is the inability to make quality life decisions because of rebellious tendencies mixed with a feeling of superiority to the point of invincibility. Therefore, the high school students are not going to be the ones saying going to Hooters is a bad idea. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-12 20:46:26] - mig: I'm not panicked. This isn't a common thing (else it wouldn't be news) and it's considered controversial enough that even a here would be hesitant if it were high schoolers, depending on factors. I'm content with that situation. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-12 20:36:51] - panic" outcry that we're going to inevitably hear is going to be a bit overboard. - mig
[2013-11-12 20:36:31] - Though I have to ask, is a minor going to hooters really a big deal? It's obviously not illegal, and maybe not the best judgement call, but i'm not sure it's worth hyperventilating over, unless you are the parents of those kids who weren't informed beforehand. Either way, yeah, probably fire the ooach if he wasn't already on his way out, but I'm not sure the "moral
[2013-11-12 20:31:29] - xpovos: i remember being in high school, and the crazy shit we did when the coach was *not* around. i'll admit, all functions where coaches were present, most things were on the up-and-up. we would have gone to hooters, but not if the coaches were there. otoh, i can imagine a world where that would have been normal: where hooters and the coach could intersect. ~a
[2013-11-12 20:28:47] - xpovos: so, lets focus the conversation on high school since we probably agree on middle-school and college. i've been on a ton of high school teams: permission slips for the team are very broad and all-encompassing. the kids (if they were on a high school team) would have a signed permission slip to go to team-related functions *including* celebrations. ~a
[2013-11-12 20:19:11] - a: College, no issue. High school, less controversial, still stupid. Probably warrants firing, but it would be a harder sell, and a lot depends on culture and issues like parental permission slips, etc. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-12 20:11:03] - i'll admit, middle school is over the line imo. if this story was instead about a high-school coach (or even less controversially about a college coach), my opinions on the matter would be different. ~a
[2013-11-12 19:49:58] - http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Portland-football-coach-takes-team-to-Hooters-despite-controversy-231303101.html "worth losing my job over". Idiot. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-12 18:43:58] - i'm fine with a 3pm time (since it'll be a little warmer), but i'm not married to it. ~a
[2013-11-12 17:55:12] - mig: The comments on that article were a delightful stroll towards insanity's edge. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-12 17:39:29] - a: Why what? The frisbee time? I'm just wondering what time it might be this weekend so I can try to plan things around it. -Paul
[2013-11-12 15:58:10] - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-11/hope-is-all-obamacare-has-left.html a rather dire picture painted. I think most people were expecting some troubles with ACA, but ummm, wow, the worst case scenario looks even more bleak than even I would have thought. - mig
[2013-11-12 15:09:13] - Though the existence of the steam workshop (basically, anyone who's good at 3d modelling can submit stuff to valve and they can make it available for sale and the artist will get a cut of the sales) makes a lot of that possible, so maybe that's a little too much to hope for. - mig
[2013-11-12 15:03:11] - Also, you after you play a game there's a small chance you can win a cosmetic item, and you are actually guaranteed to get a cosmetic item after like playing 10 games or so. Though because it's completely random what you get and there's like 100 heroes, chances of it something you actually want is small, but at least you can trade the item. - mig
[2013-11-12 15:00:41] - The cosmetic stuff in DotA 2 is also pretty nice. While you can buy what is effectively a full skin, you can purchase elements of that skin separately. Like say you like a sword from one skin, and a helmet or custom hair from another skin. The mix and matching you can do makes it fun. - mig
[2013-11-12 14:58:27] - It doesn't look like it, but I'd hope it go for a similar model that DotA2 uses. You pretty much have access to the entire game for free. The only thing that requires a monetary transaction are 1) cosmetic items, 2) tickets to watch tournament games within the game client. - mig
[2013-11-12 14:42:27] - Most F2P games that are somewhat competitive make it a point not to make a microtransactions that can be construed as pay-to-win. - mig
[2013-11-12 14:35:11] - me off LoL, honestly), or 3) Special effects, like for example maybe Diablo's fire breathing attack gets replaced by rainbow animations or something like that. -mig
[2013-11-12 14:33:51] - paul: If you're talking about upgrades that affect gameplay, probably not. There's 3 possibilities about what they might do microtransactions with. 1) Custom skins, like the Murloc Diablo and Medic Armor Uther, which I think is a given 2) Access to some heroes could be part of a microtransaction, though I would be sad if they did that (That aspect sort of turned
[2013-11-12 14:23:45] - paul: why? ~a
[2013-11-11 21:40:36] - mig: I can't remember... is this one of those free to play games where you can buy upgrades? Or is it a more traditional model? -Paul
[2013-11-11 21:39:50] - mig: Pretty cool trailer for HotS. Nova certainly got a lot of airtime (and cute moments) despite her seemingly minor role in the SC games so far. I could probably be convinced to give the game a try, even though I still don't really comprehend the gameplay no matter how many times it's explained to me. -Paul
[2013-11-11 19:53:44] - Xpovos: Yeah, I found it hilarious too. -Paul
[2013-11-11 19:01:03] - Paul: That's so horrible on so many levels that I have to laugh. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-11 18:38:04] - http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57611671/white-candidate-wins-after-leading-tex-voters-to-think-hes-black/ Wonder what the African American vote breakdown was for this race. -Paul
[2013-11-11 17:47:06] - a: Is 3pm the new normal time for frisbee? -Paul
[2013-11-09 16:51:43] - http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/11502591/diablo%C2%AE-iii-reaper-of-souls-%E2%84%A2-blizzcon%C2%AE-2013-round-up-11-8-2013 round up of all the diablo stuff so far. - mig
[2013-11-09 16:44:23] - xpovos: the protoss on the screenshot is apparently tassadar I'm told. - mig
[2013-11-09 16:20:57] - kind of strange though the cinematic uses the diablo 3 version of diablo, but the in-game model is the classic version of diablo. - mig
[2013-11-09 16:20:08] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpjNhZsSh10 and as usual, an all out effort on the game's trailer. - mig
[2013-11-09 15:59:02] - out the team. Just looking at what they are doing different from DotA and LoL is the emphasis is allowing those who end up in random matchmaking to have a good time. - mig
[2013-11-09 15:55:20] - And it seems the team levels and no farming is also meant to allow people to be more flexible in creating teams. A recurring problem in DotA playing in the solo queue is that you can very easily get these horrific team makeup (like all melee carry heroes) because people will get stubborn and select the hero they want to play rather than picking a hero that will help
[2013-11-09 15:51:07] - trying to set it up where team play is still important, but avoid situations where one person can throw the game majorily in the other team direction if that player plays poorly, which is something that is a problem in LoL and DotA - mig
[2013-11-09 15:49:08] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnhI_JotfcY yeah looks like they are definitely going for a more casual type game with heroes. No items/gold so there's really no farming. The maps look much smaller than other mobas. Experience is shared across your entire team so you have team xp levels rather than individual leveling. I think what they're trying to go for is ...
[2013-11-08 20:59:51] - mig: Hmm I guess we've only had raids / instances set in different time periods so far. Will be interesting to see how a whole expansion set in a different era pans out. -Daniel
[2013-11-08 20:51:32] - daniel: TL:DR - sounds like the setting will be going back in time to either around the time of the 1st war (Warcraft I) or sometime before it. - mig
[2013-11-08 20:50:11] - mig: more than we already had in Caverns of Time? -Daniel
[2013-11-08 20:42:17] - mig: Wow. Now they can retcon anything they like. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-08 20:38:45] - the new wow expansion will involve .... timetravel?? ARHRHRHRHGHGHGHRHRHGHRHRHRGHRGHRGHGHRHHGHRHGRHRRHGHRHRGHRGHRGHRGHRHG!11!111!11!!1!! - mig
[2013-11-08 20:37:20] - I'll take a guess that they're going to try to avoid the game having noob unfriendly vibes that are the typical complaints of DotA and LoL (I can speak for the former personally, not sure about the latter). - mig
[2013-11-08 20:35:01] - paul: going by the direction blizzard is taking with their games (with maybe the exception of starcraft 2) they seem to be designed with people playing casually in mind. - mig
[2013-11-08 20:14:01] - mig: Ah, ok. I don't suppose there's any chance of being decent at the game without investing a lot of time, is there? -Paul
[2013-11-08 20:08:37] - Essentially, it was a custom map somebody made for Warcraft 3 that grew into this super popular thing, which is why we've seen more games of that ilk pop up over the years. - mig
[2013-11-08 20:07:32] - Blizzard never owned DotA technically. It was maintained by basically one guy, who ended up getting a job at Valve, which is why Valve has DotA 2. - mig
[2013-11-08 20:06:38] - paul: that's what Heroes of the Storm morphed into. Originally, they were going to come out with Blizzard Dota for Starcraft 2. Then the whole kerfluffle with Valve over the trademark of Dota made them change the name to Blizzard All Stars, and then there was the name change again to HotS. - mig
[2013-11-08 20:02:59] - mig: Didn't Blizzard have their own update of DotA? Or am I missing something? -Paul
[2013-11-08 20:00:54] - originally it was going to be just a custom map, like the original dota was, but it got morphed into it's own standalone thing, though I think it will still use the sc2 engine. - mig
[2013-11-08 20:00:02] - paul: yeah it's their version of dota/lol. - mig
[2013-11-08 19:58:41] - Ok, so I'm a little embarrassed to be asking, but what's the main idea behind Heroes of the Storm? Is it like DotA and LoL? -Paul
[2013-11-08 19:46:29] - Looks like Fenix. But they style choices made me mis-identify some of the other ones at first too. So, grain of salt, etc. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-08 19:42:11] - http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2013/november/bconOpening12.jpg wheee, some heroes revealed. Quite an ecletic mix. The Lich King, Diablo (I think, but he's ... blue?), Tyrael, Anduin Lothar, Nova, Kerrigan, Tychus Findlay, Female Barbarian (YAY), Demon Hunter, Illidan. At least those I can quickly identify. Is the protoss Tassadar or Fenix? - mig
[2013-11-08 19:32:12] - opt-in for the beta, that is. - mig
[2013-11-08 19:32:00] - screenshots of gameplay! also, for anyone who does happen to be interested in it, you can opt-in now from your battle.net account page. - mig
[2013-11-08 19:26:42] - they opened up blizzcon with heroes of the storm, strange choice, thought they'd go straight to the WoW expansion. - mig
[2013-11-08 19:02:53] - fair enough. my guess is that sean lives in Florida, saw a need, and is a fucking amazing human. ~a
[2013-11-08 18:38:08] - a: Interesting. More power to them. But how do they use bitcoin (other than just accepting donations in bitcoin)? Reading the site it's about leverging world-wide power for the charity because of the ease of monetary transition. Spiff. But that probably matters more to sub-Saharan Africa than it does to Pensacola. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-08 18:36:31] - http://thehill.com/blogs/regwatch/technology/189681-fec-to-allow-bitcoin-donations-to-political-campaigns FEC to allow campaigns to accept bitcoin donations. - mig
[2013-11-08 18:29:23] - I think it's incomprehensible on purpose. its all btc all day for me! http://ryepdx.com/seansoutpost/ this guy calculates how much seansoutpost can put out per btc. if you haven't heard of Sean's outpost, they feed homeless people in Florida via bitcoin. http://m.imgur.com/RiKElxw http://seansoutpost.com/ ~a
[2013-11-08 18:05:42] - a: That flowchart is incomprehensible. Thankfully the replies are good, as you note. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-08 18:04:56] - One version of an actual business sort involves 128 'bins' at the top level, so I pivot first then bin, bin and alpha (sometimes requires binning if any of the 128 bins has a big chunk). It's definitely faster than anything else I've tried, but with 700 items, it still takes a long time (~3 hours). -- Xpovos
[2013-11-08 17:57:47] - yeah I understand Andrews compliant though. 26 8.5x11s take up a lot of desk space. you need a more complicated setup to make that work well. ~a
[2013-11-08 17:49:13] - a: bin sort is very efficient. i use it for magic cards, if you want to sort ~1,000 cards alphabetically, it's very easy if you just sort them into ~26 piles, then sort those 26 piles alphabetically. it's the fastest human sort that i've tried anyways - aaron
[2013-11-08 17:47:04] - "I deposited some dollars into a bank and left my ATM card on a table at Starbucks with my PIN written on it and now all my money is gone, who should I complain to?" ~a
[2013-11-08 17:41:39] - http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1q6otu/have_you_guys_heard_of_the_dollar_im_thinking/ thank you, reddit. first reply is priceless. ~a
[2013-11-08 16:13:10] - I just want release dates for RoS and Hearthstone, I think. Everything is looking good. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-08 16:03:23] - blizzcon begins very soon. Lots of stuff for just about everyone it seems this year. Hearthstone, the blizzard moba, WoW expansion, Diablo expansion. No hints of anything new Starcraft wise, but maybe there'll be some Legacy of the Void info. - mig
[2013-11-08 16:00:44] - Maybe I'm just using bad search terms... -- Xpovos
[2013-11-08 15:58:01] - a: I've googled it a bunch, but a lot of it is non-technical, and there's a bunch of misinformation too. For as common a problem is, I wasn't able to find much genuine study. It's like everyone always figures it's solved and/or beneath them. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-08 15:55:10] - yes. I bet your problem (paper sorting) it's well documented. have you googled it? I think some human mail sorting uses bin sort. ~a
[2013-11-08 15:53:54] - a: Gotcha, I see that in the Postman's sort example too. "cn" where c is the key size. I'm surprised the number of buckets doesn't impact the efficiency. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-08 15:52:35] - a: Anyway, the point I was getting to (trying to) is that each operation (sort/comparison) takes a time value, which is more in the real world than digital as always. If the actual algorithm being used can be improved, that's awesome, but the time coefficient is unlikely to change. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-08 15:51:04] - I'm on my phone so I'm going to have a hard time explaining it without a keyboard, but basically it's a constant which represents the size of people's names. I usually call bin sort o(n), but with the qualifier that it doesn't work with general data. ~a
[2013-11-08 15:47:58] - a: I don't see k defined on your wiki link. What's k in this context? -- Xpovos
[2013-11-08 15:46:19] - "real world size limitations" yes you'll need room for 26 piles but you'll save so much real world time on any n log n or n^2 solution I can think of. ~a
[2013-11-08 15:42:10] - Without those folders, (or my expansive desk space for similar sorts) the hand sort of paper would be much worse. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-08 15:41:32] - a: It's like a multi-pivot quicksort, yeah. I do similar things, but the problem is that the bins need resorting (second, third, fourth?) and the real world size limitations. We have some nice folders that actually do this, but they're limited in size, and our sort samples are pretty big. I think that's why the efficiency appears to track n*log(n). -- Xpovos
[2013-11-08 15:40:56] - longer explanation: obviously you'll now need to sort each bin and you have a couple options on how you want to do that. ~a
[2013-11-08 15:39:12] - short explanation: create 26 bins, one for each letter and throw each paper into the right bin. ~a
[2013-11-08 15:37:44] - its surprisingly o(n), but it doesn't work on all sets of data (it requires constant sized inputs). ~a
[2013-11-08 15:33:29] - for sorting papers you can actually beat n·log n (and even do it quickly with paper) by using bin sort ~a
[2013-11-08 15:16:21] - xpovos: oh i missed the first n and just read it as "log(n)", yes, you're right. - mig
[2013-11-08 15:15:08] - mig: That's smaller than n*log(n), right? As long as N is more than 10. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-08 15:12:34] - O(N)? - mig
[2013-11-08 15:07:15] - So... what's between n(log(n)) and n^2? -- Xpovos
[2013-11-08 14:57:18] - It could be that the algorithm used isn't n*log(n) efficient (something worse), but the analysis of a 6-second coefficient seems to hold up pretty well at both ends of a sorting project. E.g. a 200 takes ~45 minutes and a 700 takes more than three hours. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-08 14:56:15] - I'm analyzing alphabetizing paperwork (cause I'm middle management and this shit matters). Assuming the sorting algorithm being used by the alphabetizer is efficient (n*log(n)) what might a reasonable time coefficient be for each operation. My experimental data is indicating it's about 6 seconds, but that seems steep. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-08 14:06:48] - a: would be nice, but probably no one is going to pester him about that given he's no longer in office. - mig
[2013-11-08 03:40:41] - : wow that was unexpected. now we just need bush to apologize for iraq. ~a
[2013-11-07 23:44:46] - http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/barack-obama-i-am-sorry-affordable-care-act-obamacare-99559.html?hp=t1_3 welp there go. That wasn't so hard, was it? - mig
[2013-11-07 22:01:39] - "test\0\ntest" gets shown as "shade brother glad yellow trick trick kid war war" ~a
[2013-11-07 21:55:42] - while i'm bothering you guys about mathematics stuff, i found this yesterday: http://brainwallet.org/#converter . . . look at the "poetry" mode. it lets you encode arbitrary binary data as a list of easily distinguishable words. it reminds me of NATO phonetic alphabet but allows for binary data. ~a
[2013-11-07 21:53:25] - hah, yeah it's been getting lots of "press" on the bitcoin sub today. ~a
[2013-11-07 21:39:31] - http://static.adzerk.net/Advertisers/5af77cf0094d4303bb308b955dd05992.jpg ok this made me chuckle a lot. - mig
[2013-11-07 20:57:22] -
~a[2013-11-07 20:54:00] - "I don't we're starting to argue different points" Ugh, my mind switched tracks in the middle of the sentence. Basically, I don't think we're arguing different points. -Paul
[2013-11-07 20:53:17] - a: Ok...? I don't we're starting to argue different points. In fact, if you're trying to defend how hard Obama works as president, that kinda proves my point in that it's hard to believe he didn't know a lot of these things that were going on. -Paul
[2013-11-07 20:47:14] - . . . and the president(s) work(s) on vacation. ~a
[2013-11-07 20:42:45] - Aaron: Well, I was tongue in cheek referring to the mini-controversies about all the vacations that he takes with his family, but it wasn't supposed to be a serious complaint. But it's also not apples to apples to compare vacations with days off of work. Pretty sure at least half of my days off work aren't used for vacations. -Paul
[2013-11-07 20:37:00] - paul: oh okay, i thought you were complaining about obama taking too much vacation or something. i was just pointing out that presidents don't really get weekends off.in all likelihood they don't even get full vacation days off. so, it's not really apples to apples to say "i didn't take 19 days off last year" - aaron
[2013-11-07 19:53:03] - aaron: And like Miguel mentioned, it's not like this was unknown to a lot of people. It was a feature (not a bug) that was intentionally done. Doesn't anybody remember the whole debate about covering contraception? -Paul
[2013-11-07 19:51:37] - aaron: Or to stop and think that maybe, if you add a bunch of restrictions on health insurance including mandating that they all had to cover certain things, just maybe that might cause some policies to be unprofitable and have to be canceled. -Paul
[2013-11-07 19:50:15] - aaron: And my point is basically that I didn't think vacations plus drone strikes would take up enough time to where Obama couldn't check in with the head of HHS every few months to see how the website was doing... -Paul
[2013-11-07 19:48:47] - aaron: Also, I think you're kinda missing my point. I didn't say he didn't work hard or long hours or anything like that. The whole point of my posts was to figure out why he seems to be so uninformed about his signature piece of legislation. -Paul
[2013-11-07 19:48:26] - Back at home, Cuccinelli scores a victory among independents? http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/11/06/Extremist-Cuccinelli-Crushed-McAuliffe-Among-Independents Yes, yes, Breitbart, I know. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-07 19:38:34] - aaron: I'm not sure what you're referring to. Weekends and holidays plus vacation? If that's the case, I don't really consider days that the entire company gets off to be taking "days off work" anymore than I consider it to be taking time off work when I go home at the end of the day. -Paul
[2013-11-07 19:30:00] - s/how/who
[2013-11-07 19:29:50] - paul: well i can't imagine it does either. I mean they pretty much admit that in a lot of cases they don't even know how they're targetting with drone strikes. - mig
[2013-11-07 19:24:35] - a: And I basically went on a little mini-rant of snarky comments (hence my post right after that). It was supposed to be a little silly. I mean, I don't really think the drone strikes take up a lot of his time either. -Paul
[2013-11-07 19:22:44] - a: (1) I never said I was comparing presidents. Maybe you were, but then we're talking about different things. (2) I know this is going to be hard to believe, but I didn't actually intend that whole diatribe to be an honest "attack". Like Miguel said, I was speculating why Obama never seems to know what's going on in his administration when big things go down. -Paul
[2013-11-07 18:53:07] - With the situation now, more than likely most bare bone plans cannot practically be grandfathered in, so now my preferred option is no longer available. Now maybe I qualify for subsidies that might make my plan more appealing than my original one. But let's say I don't. In my eyes, then, I would say I was misled by the president's statement. - mig
[2013-11-07 18:50:02] - paul: plus, i work shorter days than obama - aaron
[2013-11-07 18:49:46] - paul: i took about 630 days off work over the past five years. i don't know how many you took off, but i bet it's at least half that. - aaron
[2013-11-07 18:49:22] - catastrophic instances, if I hear the president say that "if you like your plan, you can keep it period, exclamation point, etc", my expectation is that the general gist of my plan won't change. Of course things are going to be different across enrollment years, co-pay, premiums maybe some coverage is added or removed, and what not, but the general plan stays intact.
[2013-11-07 18:46:39] - And it's at the point where the administration apologists points about technicalities are at this point are red herrings. Yes, in the indivdual market, plans get modified/cancelled yearly, and pretty much everyone currently in the individual market knows this. If I'm somebody in the individual market who's personal preference is a bare-bones insurance to cover
[2013-11-07 18:36:22] - So even if they didn't know what insurance companies would do, the intention of the law very clear on what they wanted insurance companies to do. - mig
[2013-11-07 18:31:47] - Moreover, the intention of the law was such that the cancellation of these plans was in ACA's eyes - a feature, not a bug. - mig
[2013-11-07 18:30:48] - Well, let me amend, it's a lot more complicated than that. His promise more broadly, was assuring people that there was nothing in ACA that would force people off their current plans if they liked what they had, which at a very technical level is somewhat true, but practically with the realities of the individual market, that promise wasn't going to hold. - mig
[2013-11-07 18:30:08] - paul: lol. "I agree with this quote: 'I thought it was silly when people attacked Bush for going on vacation, so I'll be consistent and say it's silly when people attack President Obama for going on vacation'" ~a
[2013-11-07 18:23:26] - daniel: most fact-checkers have concluded yes it is. - mig
[2013-11-07 18:22:18] - Is the lie that Obama said you could keep your plan if you like it but he knew that companies would cancel plans? -Daniel
[2013-11-07 18:19:56] - "he was just throwing out possibilities why" incorrect possibilities yes. ~a
[2013-11-07 18:18:35] - "I'm not sure what you are trying to refute with that data". i'm comparing all 44. it's hard to say that he's been taking lots of vacations, when relatively he's taken very few. ~a
[2013-11-07 18:16:18] - paul: that's a lot more vacations than you're been on in the past 5 years . . . and so what? are you the president? we're comparing presidents here, and he's basically taken (by a relative measure) very few vacations. more source data. ~a
[2013-11-07 18:12:29] - a: http://news.investors.com/121412-637171-states-reject-obamacare-exchange-at-deadline.htm Here's something from December of last year, "HHS maintains they'll have these things up and running by October 2013. I don't know anyone who is confident about that and I'm ready to predict that they will not." -Paul
[2013-11-07 18:11:52] - anyways, I think his main point was that the president does seem peculiarly aloof about quite a bit of things that his administration supposadly oversees or should have a vested interested in overseeing, and he was just throwing out possibilities why. - mig
[2013-11-07 18:05:43] - a: unless paul's argument is that Bush was a paragon of responsibility (which I'm pretty sure it's not), I'm not sure what you are trying to refute with that data. - mig
[2013-11-07 18:04:07] - a: 96 days over 5 years is 19 days a year. I get 18 days of PTO (sick time and vacation time) total in a year, and I would say at least half of those are spent on decidedly non-vacation things. Kinda hard to figure out if the number of rounds of golf is reasonable or not, since I don't really play golf. -Paul
[2013-11-07 18:02:14] - a: "Obama is on his 15th vacation trip, covering all or part of 96 days total" Uh, ok. I don't know about you guys, but that's a lot more vacations than I've been on in the past 5 years (I assume these numbers are for when he was in office). -Paul
[2013-11-07 17:58:32] - a: Nobody I know predicted the website would have problems when the law was passed, but the signs were definitely there weeks and months before the launch. -Paul
[2013-11-07 17:53:17] - the numbers are even worse for your case when you go back further. ~a
[2013-11-07 17:50:35] - shut up, paul ~a
[2013-11-07 17:48:46] - "He apparently had no idea the website was going to crash and burn" there are likely many things you may think you correctly predicted about this law, but nobody here predicted the website would have problems. ~a
[2013-11-07 17:47:02] - That's probably enough snark for me for today.
-Paul[2013-11-07 17:46:43] - mig: I know he spends a lot of time golfing and he goes on a lot of vacations with his family, but this is like THE signature law for his legacy here. Does figuring out who to drone kill next really take up that much time? -Paul
[2013-11-07 17:45:05] - mig: But I have to wonder what is taking up all his time. He apparently had no idea the website was going to crash and burn, he couldn't be bothered to look into the details of his signature law regarding promises he kept emphatically making... -Paul
[2013-11-07 17:44:04] - mig: Right, which is why I have been trying to make sure I always qualify it as, "looks like" and "appears to". I'm leaving open the possibility that his administration knew that he kept on going out there telling blatant lies and nobody wanted to tell him or he couldn't figure it out himself (even though it seems pretty clear that it would happen). -Paul
[2013-11-07 17:33:56] - He had to state things authoritatively, though, because of things like Pelosi's infamous, "we have to pass the bill to find out what's in it," and related issues around the confusion at the time of passage. Obama had to be emphatic because no one else was. And the law wouldn't be passed otherwise. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-07 17:27:24] - paul: yeah i don't think it's necessarily a given that he, personally, knew what he was saying was bogus. But people in his administration certainly did, and probably should have told him that maybe repeating that emphatically was probably not a good idea. - mig
[2013-11-07 17:12:12] - mig: My favorite part of the article is him getting sent the $6K bill for the 'medical procedures' he underwent. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-07 17:11:33] - http://doodlealley.com/2012/11/07/hug-the-elephant/
[2013-11-07 17:09:34] - a: http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/28/21222195-obama-administration-knew-millions-could-not-keep-their-health-insurance I don't know if anybody has directly tied the president himself to knowing, but his administration appears to have known for awhile. -Paul
[2013-11-07 17:06:30] - "he knew it was wrong even while saying it" you've said this twice, but i hadn't heard this. do you have a URL? ~a
[2013-11-07 17:01:30] - a: Sure, and that helps explains how he is acting now, but it doesn't explain his actions while he was making those lies. -Paul
[2013-11-07 16:59:47] - mig: I'm not over it, mostly because it was repeated so often and so emphatically and it appears he KNEW it was wrong even while saying it. He can say "my bad", but it still doesn't change the fact that it looks like he knowingly completely lied about Obamacare multiple times in order to get it passed. -Paul
[2013-11-07 16:57:20] - It just still perplexes me how far some politicians will go to defend mistatements and missteps, when it seems that simply admitting the error, while damaging in the short term, probably saves you longterm headaches. - mig
[2013-11-07 16:55:08] - I mean, I'm looking at the whole Rand Paul plaigarism bruhaha. At first Rand was acting all incredulous about the accusations, which was dumb, because it caused people to find even more instances of improper attributions in other speechs/op-eds. So after all that, he issues his mea culpa and promises to make sure it doesn't happen again. - mig
[2013-11-07 16:54:32] - paul: "it's basically impossible to believe all those three things at once". cognitive dissonance: i find myself doing it all the time. basically, we don't like thinking about stuff that is contrary: BO doesn't spend any time thinking about this thing he said, because it's not fun to think about, and you'd do the same thing if you were in his position. ~a
[2013-11-07 16:51:11] - paul: I'm kind of over the whole "was the original promise a lie or not". Politicians oversell and overpromise all the time. I think a lot of this might start to go away if he just issued some sort of "my bad" response, but I guess they fear it sort of "gives in" to republicans somehow if they did. - mig
[2013-11-07 16:50:40] - a: Exactly! It was like his big climactic point talking about how the critics were wrong! It wasn't just some throwaway line in his speeches. And to find out that he knew it was false at the time he was saying it too.... -Paul
[2013-11-07 16:49:42] - I mean, I believe he is an intelligent man, and I believe he is a good man who is doing what he thinks is right, and I don't think he thinks of himself as a liar, but it's basically impossible to believe all those three things at once sometimes. -Paul
[2013-11-07 16:47:40] - mig: well it's not too late, before BO leaves office in 2017, he could take snowden on as part of his administration. ~a
[2013-11-07 16:46:16] - *and. ~a
[2013-11-07 16:46:12] - "He said it so many times" an so emphatically. ~a
[2013-11-07 16:45:41] - a: no, not really. Whistleblowers kind of indicate that you are definitely not being transparent enough. - mig
[2013-11-07 16:45:40] - mig: Yeah, it's a little ridiculous to suggest he has to resign over this, but it's also a pretty bad and blatant lie. He said it so many times despite critics of the law stating that it was untrue (and apparently his own administration knowing it was completely untrue) that it really just makes him look like a deceitful person. -Paul
[2013-11-07 16:44:33] - unless you count edward snowden as part of the administration, heh. ~a
[2013-11-07 16:44:10] - retcon, lol. i think we can give up on this being the most transparent administration in the history of mankind. ~a
[2013-11-07 16:41:00] - I really wonder is it really so hard for the administration to issue some sort of mea culpa, rather than trying to retcon what they originally said? I understand they don't want to give republicans political ammunition but come on, this is supposed to be the most transparent administration in the history of mankind, right? - mig
[2013-11-07 16:35:14] - http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/nov/06/sorting-out-truth-if-you-your-plan-you-can-keep/ a rather nuanced summary of the whole "if you like your plan you can keep it debacle". I do wonder if this is Obama's "read my lips" moment although I find the conservative assertions that nixon resigned over smaller lies than this to be quite ludicrous. - mig
[2013-11-07 15:48:20] - xpovos: and as I wonder if police abuse can get any worse in this country ... well here we are. - mig
[2013-11-07 09:28:50] - title: found this quote today: Edward Snowden "has revealed evidence of what appears to be crimes against the Constitution of the United States" -AL_GORE_really_al_gore_yes_really_al_gore
[2013-11-07 01:33:19] - truth it's stranger than fiction department:http://mobile.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/11/05/man-seeks-millions-after-nm-police-force-colonoscopy-in-drug-search -- Xpovos
[2013-11-07 00:29:23] - TIL - I've been replaying an old game, Vampire The Masqeurade, and suddenly realizing one of the characters is voiced by John DiMaggio (bender) and another by Phil LaMarr (hermes conrad). small world i guess. I'm also reminded how many game glitches I was willingly to tolerate back then. - mig
[2013-11-06 22:37:00] - grumble. ~a
[2013-11-06 22:24:55] - Or, put another way (which might drive Adrian crazy again with my use of statistics), the same percentage of Democrats voted for George W Bush as the percentage of African Americans. -Paul
[2013-11-06 22:24:06] - aaron: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/5297138/ I'm not sure I buy the whole "African Americans are defensive of Obama" thing as a significant reason, though. Even before Obama was president, African Americans were going 88% to 11% for Kerry over Bush in the 2004 election. That's about the same breakdown as Democrats! -Paul
[2013-11-06 22:20:54] - a: No problem. I mean, you didn't necessarily criticize anything yet, so no apology needed.
-Paul[2013-11-06 22:18:50] - Aaron: Love the article. Pretty much exactly what I'm talking about. I didn't know the stuff about Cuccinelli questioning where Obama was born. -Paul
[2013-11-06 22:16:37] - Who Has High Ethical Standards? Only Cuccinelli: Voted for McAuliffe: 2%. lol. why not 0%?! ~a
[2013-11-06 22:16:11] - aaron: ok, i guess i understand your description. sorry, paul, i guess i didn't understand what you were saying if that's what you were saying. ~a
[2013-11-06 22:14:18] - Like, for all the talk of the gender gap, I think Cuccinelli lost among women by 90k votes. He lost among African Americans (a much smaller population) by 330k. (All numbers are rough estimates, btw). -Paul
[2013-11-06 22:13:20] - paul: this article lists a few possible racial issues. cuccinelli supported voter ID laws, and questioned where obama was born. many black voters are defensive of obama, and probably would vote democrat no matter who ran against him - aaron
[2013-11-06 22:12:20] - Aaron: Yeah, that's probably a lot simpler way of putting it. Basically, I feel like the explanation for almost every Republican loss can pretty accurately be described as, "Republicans get their asses handed to them by Democrats among African American population again". The other gaps just seem insignificant in comparison. -Paul
[2013-11-06 22:11:36] - a: "an argument can be made" was my preface to indicate I don't necessarily believe it. - mig
[2013-11-06 22:10:46] - Aaron: Thanks. I'm not trying to do any kind of crazy statistical proofs or anything. It's just mind boggling to me. The media always talks about how the Republican party is struggling so badly because of demographics like women and Hispanics and young people and whatnot, but those gaps are so tiny compared to the one for African Americans. -Paul
[2013-11-06 22:09:54] - a: paul's point is that republicans are alienating certain minority groups, and somehow they're alienating black virginians even more than they're alienating pro-choice virginians. i don't even understand how that's possible but it's what the polls show. if republicans alienated blacks less, then they'd win elections - aaron
[2013-11-06 22:07:38] - a: Basically, as long as the Republican candidate didn't get insanely blown out among the African American population, he probably would've won. -Paul
[2013-11-06 22:07:05] - paul: i understood your point - aaron
[2013-11-06 22:07:03] - a: Would you prefer I use 80/20? Even that extreme split in favor of McAuliffe would've had Cuccinelli winning, I think. -Paul
[2013-11-06 22:05:02] - a: *Shrug* Which split should I use? I chose 50/50 because the math was easy and it seemed to be just as reasonable a split as any for proving my point. -Paul
[2013-11-06 22:04:04] - why the heck would the african american vote be split 50/50? you imply that african americans should have voted for cucinelli in a 50/50 margin for some reason? ~a
[2013-11-06 22:01:02] - a: What's crazy about it or about my 50/50 statement? -Paul
[2013-11-06 22:00:24] - This is about an entire ethnicity consistently voting for a party so consistently that it's close to the numbers for party identification. -Paul
[2013-11-06 21:59:26] - paul: "If the African American vote were to just split 50/50" i don't even know where to begin with that statement. ~a
[2013-11-06 21:58:26] - paul: "A higher percentage of people who think abortion should be "always legal" (14%) voted for Cuccinelli than African Americans" ooh that's some crazy math. ~a
[2013-11-06 21:57:15] - I know it's not really "news" that African Americans overwhelmingly vote Democratic because it happens in almost every election, but I feel like it's a really bizarre occurrence that deserves more attention than it gets. It's not like we're talking about party identification or ideology or stances on issues where you might expect huge voter gaps. -Paul
[2013-11-06 21:55:06] - McAuliffe won by around 65k votes. If the African American vote were to just split 50/50, then it goes from a squeaker win for McAuliffe to a fairly comfortable 270k vote win for Cuccinelli. -Paul
[2013-11-06 21:53:08] - Or people who oppose the tea party movement (9%). To my knowledge, there were no real big racial issues in this election (Cuccinelli appears to be anti-immigration, but I don't recall it being brought up much and I wouldn't think it's a hot button issue for most African Americans), and they're both white males. -Paul
[2013-11-06 21:52:59] - "he was actually being a spoiler to..." hearing you use this language surprises me. candidates can spoil themselves; candidates cannot spoil others. ~a
[2013-11-06 21:50:45] - But then you get to the race breakdown, and the African-American vote just blows those margins out of the water (8% to 90%). A higher percentage of people who think abortion should be "always legal" (14%) voted for Cuccinelli than African Americans! -Paul
[2013-11-06 21:48:39] - Lots of stories in the media about how the gender gap hurt Cuccinelli (42% to 51%) or how he was too extreme for moderates (34% to 56%) and he did lose those categories by decent sized margins... -Paul
[2013-11-06 21:47:31] - compared to his rather close margin of victory. - mig
[2013-11-06 21:46:48] - An interesitng wrinkle in the poll numbers from last night. Post election polling indicated that Sarvis was drawing a lot of his support from more liberal voters than conservative ones. An argument could be made that he was actually being a spoiler to McAuiffle rather than Cucinelli, and the fact that everyone expected McAffile to win easily ...
[2013-11-06 21:46:02] - http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2013/images/11/05/va.gov.exit.polls.1120p.110513.v2.final%5B1%5D.copy.pdf I always find it interesting comparing the analysis in the media about why a candidate lost an election and then checking out the numbers to see how it compares. -Paul
[2013-11-06 19:34:01] - mig: Yeah, but I don't know if they actually "print" money anymore. Pretty sure it's all just done digitally now. -Paul
[2013-11-06 19:28:22] - paul: well, that's not technically true. The amount of paper and ink in the world is still finite. - mig
[2013-11-06 19:27:34] - Hmmm... http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cheapassgames/get-lucky-the-kill-doctor-lucky-card-game -- Xpovos
[2013-11-06 19:26:04] - a: Haha, I was going to say... At this point the only scarcity properties for US Dollars are the whims of the federal reserve chairman. -Paul
[2013-11-06 19:05:37] - except dollars i guess. ~a
[2013-11-06 19:04:08] - especially virtual property that can be issued or copied at zero cost? i have a hard time imagine putting faith in virtual assets that have zero scarcity properties. ~a
[2013-11-06 18:50:35] - So, should we be fearing a virtual property bubble? - mig
[2013-11-06 18:49:40] - ok so I think I found the record holder. From a game I've never heard of. And the virtual property has quite a history. - mig
[2013-11-06 16:57:40] - maybe? or maybe graphics cards and time cards are the only things allowed. honestly i've never played the game, but one of my afghanistan buddies is very in to it. ~a
[2013-11-06 16:43:44] - as it's not directly*
[2013-11-06 16:43:19] - a: so you can trade things to other people for eve stuff, as long as it's directly some sort of real currency? - mig
[2013-11-06 16:35:44] - oh wait, now I'm remembering it better. You don't actually trade for items, actually, you trade the time cards for the in-game currency (ISK), so it's even less direct. Ok, so actually I can see one person trading away a lot of timecards for lots of in game money that could exceed $38k easily. - mig
[2013-11-06 16:34:55] - mig: there are other ways. graphics cards (real non-virtual graphics cards) are another barter/exchange of currency that is permitted. ~a
[2013-11-06 16:33:24] - IIRC the way you sell and buy virtual items on EVE is that you essentially have to buy what are essentially 1-month time cards from CCP directly and in turn you can trade those time cards for items. I think it would be hard to have really big transactions that way because it's hard to imagine any one person needing lots of time cards past a certain point. - mig
[2013-11-06 16:28:57] - I've definitely heard of catastrophic monetary losses that exceed well over $38k from eve, not sure about actual transactions. It's kind of hard to narrow down $ values for actual transactions becuase the way things get sold in eve can be obtuse (if it's the same as I remember it) and they police illicit direct transactions very rigorously. - mig
[2013-11-06 16:18:09] - maybe the price of the dollar has just gone down. i have to readjust what 38k means i guess. ~a
[2013-11-06 16:17:25] - the record has to be in eve, i agree, but even for eve 38k seems high. ~a
[2013-11-06 16:13:34] - mig: record has to be in EVE. -- Xpovos
[2013-11-06 16:05:36] - Does anyone know what the record on money spent on a virtual item transaction? I've been reading on reddit about a DotA 2 item being sold for $38k, and am curious how that compares. - mig
[2013-11-06 15:46:45] - mig: I think the problem is that sometimes it takes awhile for these things to come to light. I would put my money on later on in his term, maybe similar to like what happened with McDonnell. -Paul
[2013-11-06 15:45:45] - Huh, lots of "surprised" in that last statement by me. -Paul
[2013-11-06 15:45:32] - Daniel: Not surprised. I feel like that's how a lot of elections go now (although I am constantly surprised by how often some people genuinely do like their candidates). Thanks. I'm sorry he didn't break double digits as well, but I'm not too surprised. -Paul
[2013-11-06 15:43:16] - I'll give them 2 years. - mig
[2013-11-06 15:39:50] - Anyways, now that the governorship is settled, anyone want to put the over/under on the timeframe that some crony corporatist scandal will embroil the McAuliffe administration? - mig
[2013-11-06 15:20:39] - Pretty sure I know at least three people (not me) who voted for McAuliffe primarily to vote against Cuccinelli. Sorry Sarvis didn't get to 10% Paul
-Daniel[2013-11-06 13:51:14] - "I have McAuliffe winning fairly easily (maybe 49% - 43%) with Sarvis falling short of the double digits (unfortunately) with 7%" Looks like my prediction wasn't bad. Only 1-2 percentage points off for each candidate. -Paul
[2013-11-06 13:48:58] - a: Ah, thanks. No idea how I missed that. -Paul
[2013-11-06 02:23:11] - unfortunately, it looks like sarvis is going to be stuck at 7%ish. - mig
[2013-11-05 22:35:34] - paul and mig: in the gallery itself it does mention him. ~a
[2013-11-05 22:32:54] - paul: mig just mentioned that. ~a
[2013-11-05 22:13:45] - http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/polls-open-across-virginia-in-hotly-contested-governors-race/2013/11/04/06c6205c-45d2-11e3-bf0c-cebf37c6f4 Wow, I think the picture in this article is of Sarvis and his wife voting... but I don't see any mention of that anywhere. -Paul
[2013-11-05 22:08:36] - a: I mean, candidate Obama spoke eloquently about not raising the debt ceiling, was against things like gay marriage and individual mandates, and sounded good on tons of other things like softening the drug war and closing Guantanamo bay, but none of those things worked out. -Paul
[2013-11-05 22:06:51] - a: I don't put much stock in empty words like that, though, and instead try to look into the actions of politicians to try to see how they might actually govern, and everything about McAuliffe screams sleazy crony capitalist to me. -Paul
[2013-11-05 22:04:26] - a: "i don't really care abuot cuccinelli" Not sure I buy that, but I'll agree that on paper, McAuliffe probably looks pretty good (at least to liberals). Heck, I'm sure if you presented Romney's platform to me (without a name attached) I would probably say it was halfway decent. -Paul
[2013-11-05 22:02:27] - of the major party candidates, somehow manages not to mention sarvis even once. - mig
[2013-11-05 22:02:07] - http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/polls-open-across-virginia-in-hotly-contested-governors-race/2013/11/04/06c6205c-45d2-11e3-bf0c-cebf37c6f4 I guess I couldn't get end the day without being annoyed at mainstream media coverage. An article on WaPo that features a photo of Sarvis, also mentions the general voter dissaffection with both
[2013-11-05 21:55:58] - paul: i agree with most of Terry McAuliffe#Political positions. i had to sit and read over both candidates i was considering mcauliffe vs sarvis before voting. but no, paul, if i had voted for mcauliffe it wouldn't have been because i can't stand cuccinelli. i don't really care abuot cuccinelli and i guess mcauliffe's shady dealings didn't get much press. ~a
[2013-11-05 21:28:24] - mig: Pretty sure the vast majority of his vote total are people who can't stand Cuccinelli. -Paul
[2013-11-05 21:28:10] - mig: I do actually think there are people who genuinely support Cuccinelli at least (see Xpovos), but I think it's a fairly small percentage. He's like the anti-Romney. He has strong stands on lots of issues regardless of whether it endears him to people or not. I agree that I can't imagine many people being genuinely excited about McAuliffe, though. -Paul
[2013-11-05 21:24:25] - I definitely agree with the MJ article. It's stupifying how someone with a rap sheet of that many shady dealings has managed to be a political player for this long, let alone get elected to anything remotely important. - mig
[2013-11-05 21:22:57] - sorry got the double posts today. phone plus low signal... Xpovos
[2013-11-05 21:21:33] - mig: Go Cuccinelli! -- Xpovos
[2013-11-05 21:21:31] - mig: Go Cuccinelli! -- Xpovos
[2013-11-05 21:21:26] - well believed in this case. - mig
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