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7 Jan 2008
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14 Dec 2007Flickr stats
Some of the highlights from my Flickr stats
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13 Dec 2007I activated mine, but it taken them a while to spin up. Tomorrow!
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6 Dec 2007I'm in love.
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19 Nov 2007I'm sure I've linked to the play stats that Valve gets through Steam before, but the death maps (for instance of the climactic battle) are pure gold.
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10 Oct 2007
For some reason, I've been thinking about Klondike solitaire probabilities a lot lately. Primarily, I'm wondering what the likelihood is that a game will have zero legal plays. I'm certain it happens, but it's got to be pretty rare. It's a complex game, though, so here's my plan towards solving it:
- Given two non-ace cards, what is the chance that one cannot be placed on the other, using standard Klondike rules?
- Given three non-ace cards, what is the chance that none can be played on any other?
- Given seven...?
- Given two (three, seven) cards, what is the chance that there is no legal play (placing one on another or moving an ace to the foundation)?
There are more steps after that involving the eight deck cards, but it gets pretty complicated pretty quickly. I'll be happy just getting this far.
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6 Jul 2007All of the Democratic candidates' websites except for Hillary's are running on Open Source. Most of the Republicans are running on Windows.
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9 May 2007Excellent. I'm not moved over yet, but dear god that UI looks much better. The old UI was a bit of a bear.
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3 Apr 2007One man's audit of his life so far. I so want to do this.
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9 Nov 2006
Anyone with more than a passing familiarity with baseball knows that there's at least one important rule difference between the American League and the National League: in the AL, the pitcher never bats, and is instead represented by the Designated Hitter, a player who never takes the field. Interestingly, the rule that governs this is 6.10, which begins by stating "Any League may elect to use the Designated Hitter Rule." Apparently the NL has simply elected not to use it. More interestingly, there are a few minor official rules that specifically apply to only NL or AL teams:
- 1.16(b) - All NL players have to wear a double ear-flap helmet while at bat. According to 1.16(c), almost all other players are simply required to wear one with at least one ear flap. (Aside: Rule 1.16(c) actually grandfathers in players who chose in 1982 to not wear a helmet with ear flaps. Tim Raines was the last player to wear a helmet without ear flaps. He retired after the 2002 season. Julio Franco is the only still-active player who would qualify under this rule. Unfortunately, he chose to wear one-flap helmets, even before they were required.)
- 4.10(a) - The National League can adopt a rule changing one or both double-header games to be seven innings long. The AL does not have that right. As far as I know, such a rule has never been adopted.
- 4.12(a)(7), 4.12(a)(8), and 4.12(a)(9) - The NL can adopt a rule making games that have been stopped before regulation (for instance, because of rain) a "suspended game" instead of "no game".
- 6.02(d) - The NL had to follow this experimental rule in 2006, essentially saying that the batter could not leave the batter's box unless either team was making a substitution or calling a conference. I have no idea if they're planning to make it permanent.
- 10.23(b) - In the AL, the league pitching champion must have pitched at least as many innings as the number of games each team played that season (162 this year). In the NL, the champion only needed to have pitched 80% that many innings (129.6). As far as I can tell, this rule rarely, if ever, actually matters. The top pitchers in both leagues usually pitch at least 190 innings a year.
