dustinst22

Are you really using antecdotal hands to justify a convention. I think many methods can get you to slam here, but that's not the point -- cherry picking hands to "illustrate" why a convention is useful is about the worst way imaginable.

sorry I missed, will be there this Sunday

Sounds like a good trip. Gordon, we gotta do an AK regional one of these months. I need an excuse to take a trip there.

Interesting read. Reminded me of this: http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/04/my-students-dont-know-how-to-have-a-conversation/360993/ *****'s getting real in the streets -- new generation of kids will be haves and have nots -- not based on material stuff, but those in charge to lead and those who are sheep. They will be too stimulated and 'trained' dumb to do anything but comply. It's really scary and imo will represent massive inequality far beyond anything we see now.

[hv=http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?lin=pn|dustinst22,~~M38967,~~M38965,~~M38966|st||md|3S5AH37JKD367AC89A%2CS3689H8AD49TJC45Q%2CS27KH49TD2QC2367T%2C|rh||ah|Board%205|sv|n|mb|p|mb|1D|an|Minor%20suit%20opening%20--%203%2B%20!D%3B%2011-21%20HCP%3B%2012-22%20total%20points%20|mb|1N|an|One%20notrump%20overcall%20--%202-5%20!C%3B%202-5%20!D%3B%20|mb|2D|an|5%2B%20!D%3B%206-10%20total%20points%20|mb|2S|an|4%2B%20!S%3B%2011-%20HCP%3B%208-12%20total%20points%20|mb|p|mb|p|mb|p|pc|H2|pc|H3|pc|HA|pc|H4|pc|DJ|pc|DQ|pc|DK|pc|DA|pc|D7|pc|DT|pc|D2|pc|D8|pc|S3|pc|SK|pc|SQ|pc|S5|pc|HT|pc|H5|pc|H7|pc|H8|pc|H9|pc|H6|pc|HJ|pc|S6|pc|S9|pc|S2|pc|S4|pc|SA|pc|D3|pc|D4|pc|S7|pc|D5|pc|C2|pc|CJ|pc|CA|pc|C4|pc|HK|pc|S8|pc|C3|pc|HQ|pc|D9|pc|C6|pc|ST|pc|D6|pc|SJ|pc|C8|pc|C5|pc|C7|pc|CK|pc|C9|pc|CQ|pc|CT|]499|350[/hv] One of the stranger bids I've seen. I've seen GIB make this bid in a similar auction quite often with only a 4c major, which is strange enough, but 3 is really from another planet.

You'd be surprised what Google allows to run across its display network -- malicious downloads don't suprise me in the least. It's surprising because Google is a very trusted brand in the ad space. The only reason I know of what they allow is because I spend considerable amounts of $ and time on their platform. On Google owned properties (i.e. google search ads), they are much more stringent about what they allow to run. But on their display network (which is google adsense utilizing doubleclick) they are very loose, figuring it's not their own brand to protect.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57614544-93/kentucky-police-chief-to-be-paid-in-bitcoin/

Well, apparently it's possible. How many people are doing this I have no idea, but I imagine there are some. http://www.coindesk.com/get-paid-bitcoin-bitpays-payroll-api/

Thanks for the sarcasm, I was just curious what Pam was referring to. Anyway, it appears the Newsweek story has been debunked already and Satoshi is not Dorian Nakamoto: We are getting trolled by Satoshi Nakamoto This story keeps getting more and more interesting. Original Forum Post http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/06/satoshi-dorian/

From what I could gather, it doesn't appear that his family knows. Or maybe there is something I missed?

The poll questions are actually delivered via what's known as "content locking". The questions are served across the DoubleClick display network (which google acquired many yrs ago) and a user can't access the content of various news/content sources until they answer the question. In my opinion, for certain types of surveys you will have much greater bias than other types (depending on the type of question being asked). Additionally, since the nature of the content sites tend to be news-related for the most part, the demographic is likely a more educated demo. An example: http://www.hitchedmag.com/article.php?id=1803 Another issue is, how accurate are responses to a survey when the user simply wants to answer something quickly to receive their "carrot"?

The major problem with a survey like this is that I think you will get a higher response rate amongst those who actually play. I imagine when you ask a random survey question to a random Internet user who isn't forced to answer, those who know the subject will be more willing to answer the poll. Especially if it's a niche subject (in this case Bridge) it will attract more attention to those who know the subject. I think the only way to get an accurate representation for something like this is to somehow "force" every person asked to answer. On the other hand a poll asking an opinion on who will win a presidential election is likely going to get a fair representation, thus making the Google consumer survey very accurate for those types of polls.

The Face Behind Bitcoin

States do determine minimum wage, the federal minimum wage is just a baseline. Every state that falls in the higher cost of living category has a higher minimum wage than the federal wage.

Eric Rodwell answered why he prefers serious 3NT here: http://bridgewinners.com/article/view/in-the-well-eric-rodwell/ I'm going to make the assumption that if Rodwell thinks it's better than non-serious, that non-serious probably isn't a "way better agreement" as you put it. That said, Justin made an interesting point I think regarding MP versus IMPs. Maybe we aren't concerned in IMPs about giving away information with a cue bid when looking for slam, but in MP's where every trick is critical it becomes more damaging.