pilowsky

First, congratulations on producing the longest forum title in recent memory. Secondly, the solution that you propose would not solve the problem that you are imagining. In my (limited) experience, better players are often perfectly happy to let a weaker pair bid like maniacs and then double them for a good score - it used to happen to me all the time and sometimes still does. Thirdly, the ranking that you see means very little until it gets above about 10 because, below that, the numbers rise on a logarithmic scale. Fourthly, many excellent players have very low rankings because they don't play on BBO much. One of the better players on this forum has only 0.9 BBO points giving him a rank of 0. On the other hand, I am 7+, but this is only because I generally get points against weaker fields. Against people that know what they are doing I get bubkas. Best advice - play your best game; This seems to be the advice in Mike Lawrence's "Judgement in Bridge", where he also suggests being more aggressive against good players so they can't just walk all over you with their amazing systems.

The Australian government is so concerned about the environment it has decided to release a FFS discussion paper. You can discuss it, FFS, right here - https://www.industry.gov.au/news/future-fuels-strategy-discussion-paper-have-your-say If you want to say something FFS you can even send them an email: I mean... If we manage to make up our tiff with the French we can form a FAUKUS alliance - to go with it.

I don't think it matters too much what the people writing on this forum think about racism. We aren't affected by it. I have trouble understanding the need for separate competitions (in mind games) for people that self-identify as female. Yet there still seems to be a need for the American Bridge Association. I'll be a lot more impressed that there is a commitment to equality when Bridge is played as a single competition. Discrimination is everywhere but we all still engage in it and tolerate it. I don't think people suffering from discrimination anywhere are much concerned about the nuanced claims or feelings of a bunch of old white males (myself included). That's isn't the racism that is systemically preventing some people from fully participating in a so-called equal society. The preamble in the US D of I reads This preamble is often held up as evidence that the "Founders" thought that "all men were equal". When read in context with the whole paragraph it is clear that they meant "all men are equal but some are more equal than others". At the time it is apparent that white being = to black was not what they had in mind. Americans being = to British yes. Black people didn't enter into the equation.

It's 18 minutes long and includes a (wildly inaccurate) Python simulation of the game.

This year the Nobel prize for economics (some would argue an oxymoron) went to Card (Canada) for "Empirical contributions to labour economics" and to Angrist (USA) and Imbens (Netherlands) for "Methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relationships". All three now work in the USA. The idea is that natural experiments are everywhere (Card), and careful observation allows one to infer causal relationships when examining the data appropriately (Angrist and Imbens). Natural experiments have been around for a very long time. I think that it was the development of the mathematical modelling that was so exciting to the Nobel committee. This award led me to wonder what we can infer from uptake rates of the vaccine in countries where it is freely available. I don't know enough about the methodology, but I see that the literature is already pretty rich in this kind of work. Here are two commentaries in Circulation (a very highly ranked journal in the field of cardiology):https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.120.048671 and https://www.ahajourn...AHA.120.047538. Uptake of COVID vaccination in Australia seems to be reaching a plateau at about 90-92% of people aged 16 and over. Many factors can be considered important when comparing these data to underdeveloped 2nd world countries such as Florida where the uptake rate for vaccination seems a little lower. One could argue that the concept of 'mateship' which is deeply embedded in Australian culture has led to our excellent uptake despite the efforts of the Murdoch press here to **** us up, and despite the ingrained contempt for the government (and pretty reasonable it is too), Australians have a well-developed sense of helping their mates (other Australians). Even so, there does seem to be a population of about 5-10% who are as silly as a wheel. Nothing will convince them not to die. I've met many of them; reality is just not their thing.

This proves my point unequivocally. Without a shadow of a doubt and on the balance of probabilities beyond reasonable argument. OWTTE.

Not just teenagers - read 90%+ of this Forum. How often do you read posts that say, "Oh yes, I was completely wrong about that, and you were right - how could I be so foolish - what was I thinking..." Just for the record, it is widely accepted that in science where one would expect a little bit of rigour most stuff that is published turns out to be wrong. This is why religion is so appealing - it doesn't need to be 'right'; you just have to believe it for it to be true. For 'it', insert words to the effect of things that are of benefit to me personally.

The location of the machines that make processors for computers is an even bigger problem.

Where things are made is a significant issue - Here's a graphic showing where cars are made - the USA makes 5.5% of the cars in the world but has 4.25% of the world population. I suspect this means the USA imports a lot of cars given that much of the population in the world don't buy new cars. Here's a geo map of world car manufacturing (thank you worldometer) - ABout a third of the cars are made in China. In 2020 Chinese customers bought 25,311,070 cars and US customers bought 14,452,890. (Statista).

Something like this? Is 3NT the best stab in the dark? Or would 4♥ be worth a shot?

On the other hand, a little bit of philosophy goes a long way. I used to play at a club where one of the players wore a Jumper that was gold in colour and had the brand name, Kant. When I commented that he seemed to be taking comfort from the golden wool I was met with a surly expression.

I just watched the press conference where the announcement of the winners of the Nobel prize for chemistry (2021) was made. The award was made for an impressive breakthrough in the way that chiral molecules can be produced using organic molecules. Imagine for a moment if someone discovered a way to make squeeze play comprehensible to average club players. The press corps was extremely well-prepared and were able to think of 6 questions before they gave up and went back to their more usual onerous tasks. After the winner had gone back to having coffee with his wife in Amsterdam the guy from the associated press asked why the prize wasn't given to someone else. The prize is commonly divided amongst 3 people and totals $1,000,000. This is 25% less than the person who comes second gets in a tennis game.

Only once for me.

[hv=pc=n&s=sk83hakj983dt3ckq&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1c1h3np4sp]133|200| I quickly worked out that the North robot was unlikely to have many Hearts. Normally in this sequence bidding 3NT over a minor opening in a best hand tournament lands one in a fairly safe game contract. But not today. What does the North robot have? What would you bid?[/hv]

Underneath the little boxes that say 'other styles' 'Arial' and a number is a list of icons. Use the one on the end that looks like a spade symbol. That brings up an interactive menu that will let you reconstruct your amazing deal - or just one part of it if you want to titillate the readers for a day or so. Or, get the link to your hand by going to History => recent hands and click the three white bars (called a hamburger in America because that's what their food looks like) and then export. From the menu choose Handviewer link. it will look like this https://tinyurl.com/y5cyf6te Open it in a new window and copy the really long string from the search bar. It will look like this: 'https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?lin=st||pn|pilowsky,~~M2387skg,~~M7357bax,~~M2466ldx|md|3SQJ4HQ6DAKQCQT743,SA93HA984DT3CA985,SKT762HKJT75DJ9CJ,S85H32D876542CK62|sv|o|rh||ah|Board%201|mb|P|mb|P|mb|1N|an|notrump%20opener.%20Could%20have%205M.%20--%202-5%20!C;%202-5%20!D;%202-5%20!H;%202-5%20!S;%2015-|mb|P|mb|2H!|an|Jacoby%20transfer%20--%205+%20!S;%2011-%20HCP;%2012-%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|2S|an|Transfer%20completed%20to%20S%20--%202-5%20!C;%202-5%20!D;%202-5%20!H;%202-5%20!S;%2015-17%20HCP;|mb|P|mb|3H|an|New%20suit%20--%205+%20!H;%205+%20!S;%2010-11%20HCP;%2012-%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|3S|an|2-5%20!C;%202-5%20!D;%202-3%20!H;%203-5%20!S;%2017%20HCP;%2018-%20total%20points|mb|P|mb|4S|an|5+%20!H;%205+%20!S;%2010-11%20HCP;%2012-%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|HA|pc|H5|pc|H2|pc|H6|pc|H4|pc|H7|pc|H3|pc|HQ|pc|S4|pc|SA|pc|S2|pc|S5|pc|CA|pc|CJ|pc|C2|pc|C3|pc|H8|pc|HT|pc|S8|pc|SJ|pc|SQ|pc|S3|pc|S6|pc|D8|pc|C4|pc|C9|pc|S7|pc|C6|pc|SK|pc|D7|pc|C7|pc|S9|pc|ST|pc|D2|pc|CT|pc|C8|pc|HK|pc|D4|pc|CQ|pc|H9|pc|HJ|pc|D6|pc|DA|pc|D3|pc|DJ|pc|D5|pc|DK|pc|DT|pc|DQ|pc|C5|pc|D9|pc|CK| I put ' in front so you can see the whole thing. Now the fun bit. Put [ hv= in front and ]300|300|[/hv] at the end. But don't leave a space between [ and hv - I just did that so it will show up. - hv stands for handviewer. Be careful with the | symbol. now it looks like this: [hv=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?lin=st||pn|pilowsky,~~M2387skg,~~M7357bax,~~M2466ldx|md|3SQJ4HQ6DAKQCQT743,SA93HA984DT3CA985,SKT762HKJT75DJ9CJ,S85H32D876542CK62|sv|o|rh||ah|Board%201|mb|P|mb|P|mb|1N|an|notrump%20opener.%20Could%20have%205M.%20--%202-5%20!C;%202-5%20!D;%202-5%20!H;%202-5%20!S;%2015-|mb|P|mb|2H!|an|Jacoby%20transfer%20--%205+%20!S;%2011-%20HCP;%2012-%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|2S|an|Transfer%20completed%20to%20S%20--%202-5%20!C;%202-5%20!D;%202-5%20!H;%202-5%20!S;%2015-17%20HCP;|mb|P|mb|3H|an|New%20suit%20--%205+%20!H;%205+%20!S;%2010-11%20HCP;%2012-%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|3S|an|2-5%20!C;%202-5%20!D;%202-3%20!H;%203-5%20!S;%2017%20HCP;%2018-%20total%20points|mb|P|mb|4S|an|5+%20!H;%205+%20!S;%2010-11%20HCP;%2012-%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|HA|pc|H5|pc|H2|pc|H6|pc|H4|pc|H7|pc|H3|pc|HQ|pc|S4|pc|SA|pc|S2|pc|S5|pc|CA|pc|CJ|pc|C2|pc|C3|pc|H8|pc|HT|pc|S8|pc|SJ|pc|SQ|pc|S3|pc|S6|pc|D8|pc|C4|pc|C9|pc|S7|pc|C6|pc|SK|pc|D7|pc|C7|pc|S9|pc|ST|pc|D2|pc|CT|pc|C8|pc|HK|pc|D4|pc|CQ|pc|H9|pc|HJ|pc|D6|pc|DA|pc|D3|pc|DJ|pc|D5|pc|DK|pc|DT|pc|DQ|pc|C5|pc|D9|pc|CK|]300|300|[/hv]

How to random using lava lamps - Cloudflare.

Shocking - do you charge for mangling your metaphors?

And that is presumably only referring to those eligible to vote - which is what the survey was about. The real number of indigent unprotected poor in the USA - and many other wealthy countries including Australia - is likely much larger.

Was your partner's name Cupid?

I thought we put that to bed last year. You cannot psych a robot. The essence of a psych. is that you create in the mind of your opponent a false impression. How exactly do you create a false impression in the 'mind' of a computer program? The correct bid in a best hand robot tourney is 4S and hope for the best.

Actual data - published in 2015 with data from 2012. Table 1: Individuals with Confirmed ID by Ethnicity _____________PERCENTAGE OFPOPULATION_____CONFIRMED ID______________NO CONFIRMED ID White_________________71% ____________________95%_________________________5% Black ________________12% ____________________87% ________________________13% Hispanic _____________11% ____________________90% ________________________10% Other _________________6% ____________________89% ________________________11% Don't Know ____________1% ____________________49% ________________________51% Total _______________100% ____________________93% _________________________7% 14% of surveyed Americans "live" on less than $25,000/year (I don't know how you do that in the USA and still afford a car/internet/phone plan etc., not to mention food). Here's the problem. If you are a person who is entitled to vote in a country, then the burden of providing sufficient evidence that you are a person is on the country as a whole, not the individual attempting to exercise their right. Voting is a right conferred on every person. Put another way; free speech is a cherished right in the USA. You can say any stupid thing you want (read this forum), but nobody demands a photo ID when you say it. If you want to insist on voter ID, then the burden sits with you to ensure that everyone entitled to vote has equal access to it. If you don't, then you are discriminating. If you make laws requiring something that the lawmaker doesn't provide, your discrimination is systemic. Since the data shows that the discriminatory action differentially denies the right to vote from people of certain races, it is, by definition, systemic racism. Interestingly, it also differentially affects young people, so it is also ageist. If you disagree, then you are disingenuous. If you are racist and didn't realise it, now would be a good time to wake up. Instead of ranting, try reading - we'll all be better off.

Nobody likes critical files. It's bad enough when your partner complains.

I just tried it in Chrome on my mac and found that I can access everything, but I get nothing when I click on a movie link. Oddly, if I click on a LIN file link, a pop up asks me where to save it, but if I wait about 5-10 seconds, the file opens in Bridgewebs (Bridgesolver online) - I don't have to save the file - it just opens a new tab.

I think that's the point.

Yes, I'm a Prime member (ATM) so I can tell you. Your score was excellent. Mind you not all the answers were correct.