Awwwwwww yeeaaahhhhh... for any of you tech geeks out there the new toy this week are android smart watches. While the term "smart watch" has been out for a couple of years thanks to other vendors, none of them could do it right without a major player like Google/Apple obviously. So Google released a new fork in their OS called Android Wear meant for smartwatches or anything similar in this ultra portable category. I saw some vids and talked myself into believing these things could actually be useful, plus I have been without a watch for a year since my battery died so I just said fuck it.
My first fears were that it would be some gaudy brick like monstrosity on my wrist screaming "NEERRRRDDD!" while making women's vaginas dry up like a.... like something that makes women's vaginas dry up.
Anyway I swung by my local Verizon store who had one on display without all the cumbersome security crap so I could actually wear the damn thing and get a good feel for it (which by the way I have the most amazing Verizon store in my neighborhood. They have a fucking bellhop at the door who's sole job is to just open the door for you and greet you, then they take your name and enter it on a tablet that uploads it to a sales rep who comes and somehow knows exactly who you are you without ever meeting you. They arent pushy at all, actually answer legit questions, bring out demo units from stock of anything you want. The whole store is just bustling with activity, lots of neat toys like drones and remote control devices that interface with your cellphone all on display and fully interactive for the customer to mess with. Gotta give Verizon credit here for creating this little tech mecca in their stores lately).
Oh yeah, so I try on the demo unit and I'm instantly sold. It's perfect. It's comfortable, it's snazzy, the band feels great (the band looks like a cheap piece of shit at first but it's actually incredibly soft and comfortable. I still want to upgrade to a black stainless steel one though), it's light weight, the watch face isnt some huge unsightly eyesore gathering attention and the corners dont stab me in the wrist bone. It's just a really nice feeling watch. I buy it on the spot, get it all set up and so far I'm in love with it. It does exactly what I wanted it to, and that is remove the necessity to check your cellphone every time it beeps at you.
What you have to wrap your mind around is what the watch is really for; the purpose is to serve as a notification delivery system for your phone. Sure there are apps and stuff you can interact with on the watch by itself, but the big deal is that it ties in with your phone and just relays information between the two. The watch is not a standalone device, and the sooner you come to terms with this the sooner you can enjoy it. You arent supposed to be constantly fucking with it like you would a full featured phone. All it does is display whatever notifications are in your notification bar on your phone. While this doesnt sound like much it really bridges the gap between making your phone this total seamless experience with your life. One of my major 1st world problems is the struggle of having to whip out a 5" phone from my pocket hundreds of times per day. Or leaving it on my desk in a cradle so I can observe active notifications. The 2-3 seconds it takes to do this are converted into about a fucking nanosecond when you have it on your wrist. The phone wrist vibrates, you look down and boom, you instantly have your phil ivey twitter update. 5 minutes later you get an email confirming payment for something, BAM you see that shit and disregard it. Then your girl texts you whining about dinner and KABLAMO you swipe that shit into the trash, or maybe reply if you're a good boyfriend using voice-to-text.
You think it's silly right now, but once you acclimate yourself to it and get into the groove you instantly feel like you have saved 5-10 minutes of your life every day by not having to reach for your phone ever again. It's almost relaxing in a way, because you are satiating your phone addiction by having instant gratification at all times. Think of having unlimited crack if you were a crackwhore. The pipe is always lit with the effervescent tinge of smoke swirling from its tip at all times. You want a hit? By god have one my man, this one's on me. There are still dozens of other direct watch-to-phone interactions you can conjure such as changing profile status (silent/vibrate/etc), placing phone calls while driving using Google search (just say "ok google, call Sushi Taro" even though they arent in your phone book since it uses google search to identify the business name and lookup the number for you). The list goes on.
So to any of you tech guys who have been on the rail about one of these things, you'll love it. The market is very new so there's going to be tons of competition with lots of new devices coming up. Everyone said "wait for the moto 360, wait for the HTC" blah fucking blah. Yeah I'm sure my LG watch is going to get smoked by a competitor in no time flat, but right now it's amazing and I'll just sell them on ebay and upgrade my way through as I see fit. Losing $50 in depreciated smart watches every 3 months is an acceptable sacrifice to stay bleeding edge for a guy like me until the hardware/software fully matures and you can keep stick with a device. To be honest though I see no reason why this one wont receive plenty of love from LG and the community.
Sean could have made bond the bald bad-ass super man but instead we had to wait 40 years for Jason Statham --
and he never became bond, instead, a none mainstream hipster-walking-muscle with a face
now bond has morphed into Hitler's super child: a blonde, blue eye, cyborg mind Terminator
wasn't there a group of LPers predicting massive hyper inflation in the US? financial crisis happened when 2007? 7 years later inflation isn't even 1%. i mean we've only been printing @ 90billion a month for almost a decade
i don't find david brooks to be super smart or insightful, but he seems genuinely concerned about what people, Americans as well as world citizens value in today's world. he talks about "resume bullet points" vs "eulogy bullet points". all in all i think a good read and a few insights although some of the stuff seems a bit over simplified (although it's bound to happen in such a short article which prob demanded 5 points in becoming DEEP)
interesting article albeit 90% anecdotal about the lagging reasoning part of our brain or the prefrontal cortex vs the amygdala or fear response and the potential misconceptions about our current cognitive therapy and its potential uselessness and along with anti-anxiety meds
joseph stiglitz tries to outline the "breakdown of capitalism" being more of a political issue rather than ideological one. how gains are privatized yet losses are subsidized by the american people. i think a really good job of voicing the concerns of the "occupy wallstreet" although that movement(?) has been gone for a long time.
anyone else play? new HH file type so trackers aren't working. apparently they don't give out vpp's anymore, just "bonus points" for only clearing the bonuses, and ive read on 2+2 that certain players are restricted from cashing out at all.
aside from the first part, anyone else experiencing any shit with carbon? should i try to get rakeback if at all possible if this "bonus points" thing is for real? i thought about just using the points to take shots at mtt's but idk...
Spent $64k on MTT buy-ins and buying pieces of people this summer
Sold $28k worth of action in MTTs
Cashed twice for a total of $22,867
Returned $13,428 of total cashes to backers
NET: -$26,561
Pretty shitty results for this WSOP, but one close call in my second to last event (got 21st in the little one drop for 20k) saved me from a really bad summer. I have to say I had a lot of fun playing the series this year despite a lack of results. I think I played 23 events which is probably the most I've ever played. This was completely opposite of my goal of playing LESS events and focusing on cash for the summer. Oh well, I guess I have the MTT itch again, didn't think that would ever come back. I plan on playing more tourneys this year than in years past; some highlights on the schedule are: Borgata WPT $3,500 in September, maybe the $5k 10mill gtd in florida, and hopefully PCA or Aussie millions (I've never been to either).
Haven't blogged in a while, but WSOP kind of kills all other endeavors. Looking forward to normalizing my schedule again now that poker season has ended. I put in 180 hours in June and already 90 hours in July. That will likely return to my average of about 140 hours per month in short order.
Expenses have been quite high as of late, and I expect it to remain that way if I do decide to travel for some poker tournaments and continue to pay down debt. I'm still teetering on the edge of a 10/20NL bankroll thanks to an awful May (-35k) and a breakeven summer (-5k or so net) so I have to be careful in paying off loans. Having a roll for 10/20 is much more important than paying something down that I can't get the cash back for if I downswing (student loans). One big upswing and I can pay everything off in 6 months versus rebuilding at 5/10 and still having minimum payments to worry about. I plan on charting out everything, but I estimate that if everything continues steadily (does it ever?) I'll be rid of student loan debt (~50k) and vehicle debt (~10k) in about 2.5 years and have only a mortgage (~240k) to deal with. Seems insurmountable looking the numbers in the face, but it wasn't long ago that vehicle debt was 20k and student loans were 60k. Progress!
An Indian Nation in California has opened there own site to play on throughout the state, you must be 18 years old and in Cali (maybe a citizen, not sure yet)
You are probably well aware of politicians to outright PR firms who specialize in "disinformation campaigns" to help push a certain agenda. But how often did you think regular Joe Nobody engages in this activity? Some people suspect a lot of "Joe Nobody's" are really plants by the aforementioned groups meant to blend in with the general public, but all too often such suspects have extensive online histories on a given forum that it's hard to imagine they suddenly converted to the dark side.
Today I was arguing with someone about the efficacy of EV cars and started to notice a trend in their posts. What I observed was a certain speech pattern, i.e. they went from speaking in a very casual forum sense to extremely well written grammatically punctuated responses. I got suspicious that someone else was doing the writing and did some string searches for their responses, and came up mostly empty handed. So then I decided to do a more broad keyword search and after clicking through a few links I hit jackpot. I positively identified the source of their statements coming from another author discussing the same topic. The disgusting part was that the user I was dealing with had made obvious efforts to manipulate the wording so his plagiarism would be obscured, but it was all there.
Besides manipulating the sentence structure ever so slightly to avoid detection, they also manipulated the context of everything by sourcing their information from sites that actually conflicted with their own point of view! For instance, this certain poser used an article that was actually supportive of EV's but cherry picked some of the short-comings they mentioned to paint an overall picture of why EV's are so bad. It would be like if I tried to convince you that sunlight is entirely bad for your health because it contains gamma rays. I'm failing to mention the benefits of sunlight and thus leaving you with the impression that it is all bad. I finally caught what was bugging me so much about this user; they were completely full of shit, and so heavily invested in such that they would do anything to misrepresent the facts to fulfill their agenda. They were on their own little personal disinformation campaign volunteering information nobody was even arguing about.
I'm still bugged by this because I cant imagine why someone would do it. It also bugs me because the efforts were so subtle that I'm sure this person poses for a normal every day walking guy in real life, which means he blends in with the public, which means his words can do damage because people will not have an immediate distrust for him. Why should they afterall? What does he have to gain? It's sick, when people volunteer themselves for evil for no purpose whatsoever. I guess he feels he has some kind of vested interest to "do his part" to sway history.
Well, PLO25 continues to roar along. I've played 15k hands this month which is half decent for me. Trying to step it up so that I can play at minimum 60k hands a month whilst working for the government & continuing to push through my Master's degree. Things are starting to come along in my game. Right now I'm just focused on picking apart all the different spots and learning to use my HUD more effectively. For a long time I played without one at all just to get a feel for the game. I feel like at times I'll do this especially when moving up to new stakes so I don't completely bias myself with the information. Maybe that's not necessary but it feels right.
EV doesn't really mean much, but it seems like my game is getting on the right track. Basically breaking even until things start to line up a little more. Still need to fight harder on that redline and figure out the spots where I'm bleeding coin more and more. Day by day the game seems to be coming along as I get more comfortable. I've built up 20k FPP's and it'll be a wonderful day when I reach Supernova and get that first 100K FPP bonus.
Obligatory graph. An almost zero redline over 15k hands is approaching not terrible. Hopefully I can send it above the zero mark in the future.
Work HARD now with the long term in mindby Joeingram1, July 14
I was watching a video yesterday and a person mentioned how most people that start a business only focus on the short term roi and completely neglect long term roi (return on investment). I've never really said it in that way but I talk about this idea in a different way often with my girlfriend. I talk about how if I work really really really hard now, it will pay off huge in the long term. I can say this confidently now because this is the exact approach I took when I started playing poker about 6 years ago. People who are friends with me on facebook or follow me on twitter saw a point in time where I constantly talked about partying or raging non stop. I had spent the previous 4 years playing poker 8-10 hours/day and thinking about poker 24 hours/day with the idea that if I worked hard enough now, eventually I would be in an extremely comfortable place and be able to take a break and live life. I probably went out to really drink less than 10 times in my life before this point of my life. I lived out the stage of my life that most people experience when they are 18-23 but I was able to do it all around the world and do whatever I wanted to do.
I may have taken it a bit overboard but the lesson I indirectly taught myself is something I am able to apply again now to my life. The idea that if you work extremely hard, harder than anyone else around you, right now....you will put yourself in a position to have an extreme level of success. Doing this does require sacrifice and that is something most people do not know how to do. I've had many poker friends over the years who only looked at the short term who are now unable to play anymore, wishing they worked harder when they had the chance. I think its hard for most people to have that outlook who haven't achieved any success with what they are going for. Most people tend to not have the self-confidence and belief that it can be done. I've started applying this to learning basketball, how to dance, and playing instruments in the past months but I probably wouldn't have been able to had I not had the success with poker. The confidence you get from knowing you can do something if you really put in the work is real. I wish I knew how I was able to instill this into others that I talk about it with but all I can advise to people is that if you have the belief in yourself, put in the time and you give yourself a greater chance success will come.
You can apply this to poker and you can also apply this to anything you are doing with life
I think I meant for this to be longer but I don't get motivated to write much like this so I wanted to take the opportunity to put something down while I did
not getting paid FOR HOURS FUCKING WORKEDby Gnarly, July 10
I was working two jobs until one decided to give me full time hours, which meant I had to quit the other one. I only had about two weeks for the one I quit, but they completely erased all the time I worked, meaning they won't be paying me. Nor have I been paid by the current place I'm working at. I already quit a job this year because they threatened to not pay me all of my hours worked. I don't fucking get it.
I just don't fucking know what to do.
edit: i guess i shouldn't say quit because i was trying to put my two weeks in but the manager wanted to try to work out some hours. there hasn't been anything official in terms of termination, but this is fucking ridiculous.
Well, my battle with PLO25 continues. I quickly deconstructed PLO10 and decimated it, but PLO25 has proved a more worthy foe. I'm not the best PLO player out there. I'm not even much better than most average ones. I just treat each session like a math testing lab and try to figure things out. I think my game is finally coming together. It's been 1.5 months, which is longer than I thought it would take me to figure things out at PLO25 but at least I'm finally starting to feel confident and good about my game.
Today's session was well below average. The EV stat doesn't mean much, but obviously it's not overly enjoyable to look at -150, +35 adjusted for EV. I am however learning to disconnect emotionally from those results. I'm starting to remember to post winners/odd spots on that right hand column, instead of just always the amusing beats.
It seems like I'm starting to feel no stress about the process, which is how I felt at PLO10. Part of that is helped by being very well rolled for my shot at PLO25. Part of that is reminding myself none of it really matters. I just need to keep learning and keep trying until I get there. Life is all for fun anyways. BR currently floating at 1350. Just lots of room to breathe. Worst case scenario I bust down to PLO10 at 1k, and earn 250 to take another shot. No big deal.
Obligatory graph for today and the 1.5 months of PLO25 so far. Starting to put more hands in. Just more desire to learn and keep practicing and figuring things out. Really excited to see my redline starting to go where I want. Starting to figure out how to beat this thing.
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but the lesson I indirectly taught myself is something I am able to apply again now to my life. The idea that if you work extremely hard, harder than anyone else around you, right now....you will put yourself in a position to have an extreme level of success. Doing this does require sacrifice and that is something most people do not know how to do. I've had many poker friends over the years who only looked at the short term who are now unable to play anymore, wishing they worked harder when they had the chance. I think its hard for most people to have that outlook who haven't achieved any success with what they are going for. Most people tend to not have the self-confidence and belief that it can be done. I've started applying this to learning basketball, how to dance, and playing instruments in the past months but I probably wouldn't have been able to had I not had the success with poker. The confidence you get from knowing you can do something if you really put in the work is real. I wish I knew how I was able to instill this into others that I talk about it with but all I can advise to people is that if you have the belief in yourself, put in the time and you give yourself a greater chance success will come. 
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