pilowsky

About 2 months ago I discovered that in some places in BBO it is possible to see all the cards - of both partner and opps - when playing on the web version. It seemed wrong to pay for a "Club" when there is the possibility that your opponents can see all the cards. The method takes about 5 seconds to implement so is basically undetectable. I look forward to the repaired implementation. In fairness, I gave up playing in the Prime area after being told that the hands on offer were commonly played by different versions of GIB. I am tempted to rejoin soon because of the value of the teaching table and the ability to replay (BridgeMaster style) hands I have botched.

Senator Slime is reported as saying that he might start doing the job he's paid for if Big Corporations don't stop being more human.

RealBridge has only existed for 7 months. There are only two Directors: GP Hazel and S Mohandes. I'm sticking with the BBO and Stepbridge until they have a proven track record.

Thank you - hard to believe that anything could go wrong with computers

Something funny going on. I just got the results of round 1 - 5 times in my messages. Just played number 2 but no provisional score. so I tried to play it again - which usually forces the provisional result to appear. This time (first ever) it reopened the tournament to board 11 that I had just played and let me bid it - again.

I see the outcome of a local tourney I just played. But, no provisional or final results for daylongs. 18:27 AEST

Leave him alone Ken, he's on a roll. Yes, 70.58% of doses doesn't mean 70.58% have had 2 shots. That's not what I said and it isn't what the data shows and it isn't the main point of the post. But congrats on your stats Richard.

If things weren't "easily misinterpreted" we wouldn't be in the pickle we're in now. Every time I look up COVID anywhere, about 10% percent of the stuff is a conspiracy theory. Even in the scientific literature, there are a lot of "false narratives" as the NSA likes to call lies. Thanks for that one Fiona Hill. If 70.58% of the population has received at least one shot then even if they had all only received one dose (obviously not true - even Trump has had a full course) then the protection afforded to all of the 70+% is (likely) => 80% of the 70% In addition to a lot of other immune people. As it happens this is an undercount anyway since many of the unvaccinated covidiots who are vaccine refuseniks may have had the disease and be immune - or not be susceptible to getting it anyway. What we don't know is how many of these undocumented "immunizens" are "Typhoid Mary's" - capable of carrying and transmitting the disease without being aware that they have it. Estimates of sub-clinical infection (got it but don't know it) are 80-90% of the infected population. Biology is a tricky business. So is restraint, but it's getting a pretty heavy workout today.

And the point that I am making is that there is a difference between an individual being immune, an individual being immune enough not to get really sick and an individual being given two doses of a substance 3 weeks apart. To understand the data, you need to have considerable knowledge about medicine, vaccines, immunology and more. Trump was using the same graphic source in his infamous interview with Johnathon Swan. I was surprised at the time that the President of the United States had to rely on graphs from an open-source internet site instead of the CDC, NSA and CIA. I probably shouldn't have been. You are muddying the herrings in the water. I don't know why.

This impression does not reflect the realpolitik of vaccine production. The problem is nothing to do with "releasing the IP tomorrow" - which is itself a red herring. The problem is that the technology was not open-source from the beginning. It was always obvious that COVID19 was a global emergency that required global action. What did the USA and others do? they restricted the supply chain (of knowledge and production) from the start. Vaccine nationalism is as big a problem as vaccine hesitancy - possibly bigger.

The term "fully vaccinated" just refers to whether or not an individual has been given the number of doses as set out in the schedule. I think that you will find that one dose confers very substantial protection. The first dose of any immunogen (the thing that provokes an immune response) effectively immunises about 70-90% of the population. (look at the data on Hepatitis vaccination). Subsequent doses improve the immunity to 90-99%. If 56% of the population have had 1 dose then I would expect that about 50% of the population have a lot of protection. I have produced dozens of antibodies using various methods over the years. There are many considerations. Including host, dose, carrier, the immunogen, timing of vaccination and many other more technical factors.

This tournament is still running and has 5.6 hours left to go - as of 09:25 Australian Eastern Standard time on 2 May 2021. My provisional result is not looking promising.

Don't be mean. In his heart, she was very much alive.

There are a lot of people out there who, for one reason or another, are not vaccinated against all sorts of things https://ourworldinda...nation-coverage Although the USA has reached >90% for most things (97% for polio). Regarding coronavirus, it seems that the USA is doing really well in many places. Even Florida - which is an internet meme for COVID incompetence has reached 70.58% https://ourworldinda...100?time=latest. Combined, the USA is still just short of 50% (as of today), but the situation globally is dire. Only 7.57% of the world population has received at least one dose as of today. https://ourworldinda...SA~URY~OWID_WRL. The problem is made worse because the Trump organisation, in collusion with other Western "democracies", decided that it would be a good idea to NOT make the vaccine 'open-source' so that rich companies could get richer. The Western way. Trickle-down economics doesn't work with infectious diseases. As JK Galbraith once remarked when asked to comment on a statement that the "level of political killings in El Salvador was at an acceptable level", - he replied: "My question is: What is an acceptable level of political killings?" For those of you that haven't heard JKG speak, here's a great sample http://bit.ly/JKGspeak. He talks a lot about the relationship between economics and science.

Here's the original reference: MR2874817 68T35 Ginsberg, Matthew L. Dr.Fill: crosswords and an implemented solver for singly weighted CSPs. J. Artificial Intelligence Res. 42 (2011), 851–886. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1613/jair.3437 (I think that a CSP is "communicating sequential processes" and not Concordia University St Paul, a Certified Safety Professional or Cloud Solution Provider.) I note that Ginsberg writes "Dr.Fill" - I assume that this is also computer phraseology since Dr Fill is grammatically correct. Abstract We describe Dr.Fill, a program that solves American-style crossword puzzles. From a technical perspective, Dr.Fill works by converting crosswords to weighted CSPs, and then using a variety of novel techniques to find a solution. These techniques include generally applicable heuristics for variable and value selection, a variant of limited discrepancy search, and postprocessing and partitioning ideas. Branch and bound is not used, as it was incompatible with postprocessing and was determined experimentally to be of little practical value. Dr.Filll's performance on crosswords from the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament suggests that it ranks among the top fifty or so crossword solvers in the world. Ginsberg is well-known for his speedy visit to the club.

Find a philanthropist who feels that this would be a good use of their resources.

Just in case anyone thought Trumpism was a malignancy confined to the USA, here is the latest offering from our Education minister Alan Tudge. As Johnny Cash might have said: "that should not come at the expense of dishonouring our Western heritage" - with house guests like our friendly British colonists and their genocidal tendencies, it isn't surprising that there is a desire for some actual history in the history classes. You can read all about Tudge's deep respect for Family and tradition here: Wiki entry - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Tudge

There is also the possibility that the breadth of the curriculum varies between countries. Obviously, the "cream always floats to the top" - except in politics and in some areas of management where the other stuff has a much higher buoyancy (see Mr Wikipedia for excellent explanation with fun equations). The United States ranks 25/40 in Science (no masterpoints for them), 28 in reading and 24 in Science. Here is an interactive heat map I just made in google sheets for Maths. http://bit.ly/WorldMathsRank The Brighter the red colour (or color for post-Suess readers), the higher the rank. It's a bit out of date - not sure about the current state. Hong Kong, Finland and South Korea are =1st. Tunisia, Indonesia and Brazil are =38th. White countries did not participate. (Data Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD PISA (Program for Student Assessment) 2003 database).

That's an outstanding excuse. Can you provide a ranked list of your "important calls" with a cut-off point for importance? Sometimes my poodle needs to be taken out for an important call. Where does this rank on your list? We need an open-ended importance scale.

Am using an iMAC - updated yesterday. can login with Safari and Chrome

Don't think anyone is "having a go at you" - just the opposite. I don't think something learned at High School can be terribly advanced - although I just looked at the curriculum and it looked a bit scary. Glad I don't have to do it again.

It's a bubble that includes all the kids that did advanced maths in high school. In Australia, this means about 12% of males and 8% of girls. http://bit.ly/MathsInAustralia People sometimes tell me that they just don't have the maths gene. Lucky for them they weren't born in China since they also don't speak Chinese.

I still agree with you! I also think that personal experience can illuminate general principles. So I enjoy reading your comments in the context of the way you experience your life. As I tried to say above, although most people may not be able to formulate Bayes theorem, they still manage to behave in a way that reflects the operation of Bayes theorem. Why else would they look both ways when crossing the road in a ghost town like Adelaide. People with no comprehension of how to formulate Newtons laws still understand that (most of the time) when an apple falls from a tree, it ends up on earth. Where they have difficulty is when I ask them, "If the earth is rotating, and you jump into the air, why do you land in the same place?" An American physicist called Julius Sumner Miller used to have a TV show about physics in life when I was a child. Here's a sample. Miller was a great one for explaining the effects of heat - or lack thereof.

I agree with the statement, "Most people - including those that have heard of Bayes theorem - would be unable to explain it adequately." Most people seem to have difficulty explaining anything to anybody. I suspect that this is the major cause of bidding misunderstandings - and on a broader stage - relationship discord. I am saying that to navigate our way through life safely, we unconsciously apply the thinking that is formulated in these laws and theorems. Adolescent risk-taking is a good example of a failure to incorporate "Bayesian thinking" into daily life. So is being a Trump supporter, not wearing a mask or being an anti-vaxxer. The power of prayer will only get you so far, but it won't move the King to the other hand - except in BridgeMaster.

In fact, people use Bayes theorem all the time in their daily life. Suppose you leave the coffee shop and want to cross the road (to get to the other side - of course). The odds of being hit by a car if you don't look both ways are fairly high because the coffee shop is in the middle of town and there is a car driving past every 5-10 seconds. A combination of the central limit theorem, and basic probability theory suggests to you that looking both ways and THEN crossing is a good idea. Newtons three laws help you decide exactly when to cross. Why go through all this? Because being hit by a car is a very serious problem. What if you are on a deserted country road? Say in downtown St Pauls? Would you still look both ways? Yes, Bayes theorem in action.