pilowsky

I use the teaching table, alone and with friends, to solve problems and work out errors in my play, and system improvements. It is the most valuable resource for learning Bridge that I have encountered. Websites are the next most valuable. Then books, Then playing a lot, Then the Forum, And a distant last is everything else. What I find disappointing are complaints that lack any specificity. It's a bit like saying cars are great but I really enjoyed chatting with the Horse. Programmers are unable to read your mind. If you do not say exactly which elements you want to improve, how can they prioritise them and improve the service.

That's what they said when the 'flu pandemic ended, and after WW1, and after WW2, and when smoking was discovered to cause lung cancer; but before the 'better days' arrive, positive constructive and socially useful steps need to be taken. Amening is not going to help. I don't believe in God or theological prosperity. Our lives are determined by our actions here and now.

It's worse than you think. I have pointed out previously that 5% of men are red/green colour blind. This form of colour-blindness would likely make the red symbols on the green background harder. I believe that it is one reason that some cricketers do better in the form of the game where the ball is not red. To compound (that's a fly-eye joke) the problem - yes I know humour works best when you don't have to explain it - different shapes are easier to discern than others. There is neuroscientific evidence that more complex shapes are more easily discernible than less complex shapes. The Diamond symbol only has four sides and four 'inflection points'. The other three symbols are highly complex with an infinite (curves) number of inflection points. If a Diamond flies across your line of sight, it is not as clear as a more complex symbol. Possibly this is more of a problem in online Bridge compared with paper cards. To summarise, diamonds may be a girl's best friend, but only if they are multifaceted. On the other hand, too much complexity may add confusion.

You do realise that this not what schizophrenia is! All the same, your heartfelt incipient apology is noted.

Well, at least he was convicted 'on the balance of probabilities'. Some slight solace.

haha - I did Medicine instead of science because I was worried that science would be too hard. I read somewhere that as far as working things out went there was no difference between Science and Med students, but Med students tended to have better 'pattern recognition' memories. I've no idea if there is any truth to this.

Using Chrome this just depends on the 'Zoom' factor I have set on the browser.

The problem is not what DJT says or thinks. To the extent that he 'thinks' at all. But there is a darker side. Trump and the people that 'like' him are simply 'asserting their brand'. They do not care about you or me except to the extent that it improves their own well-being. This 'individualism' is the cornerstone of American society. It is the reason there is no universal health care, education or welfare in America. In Australia, the burden of educating, providing health care and a living wage is distributed throughout society. Even then it is understood that even though some might take advantage of the largesse, it is essential for the whole that every part is cared for. As an Australian society we are only as good as the care we take of those least able AND the extent that we nurture everyone to be the most capable that they can be. Between these two pillars lies a healthy society. Actual altruism is coupled with sacrifice for it to be meaningful. Otherwise, it's just 'branding'. When Trump said that he gave up a lot of money to become President, millions believed him. But that is not WHY he was tapped to become President. Trump became President because he was a brand that some people thought the could manipulate for their own purposes. Now the Golem is raised, the Golem wants what the Golem wants. They even look a bit orange. http://livingjourney.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/golem.jpg

FYI Australia's vaccine roll-out strategy - due to start this month. http://bit.ly/OZCOVID19

A few minutes ago I tried to enter something called the "Win Club". There were more than 14 registrants at 'starting soon' Moments later the tourney started then abruptly stopped. The conversation below took place: -pilowsky (Private): Your convention card will default to SAYC if it is not set to something else. pilowsky (Private): Welcome to WIN CLUB I Enjoy the game, have fun and GOOD LUCK! ! win td2 Tournament: This tournament has been canceled by: win td2 pilowsky (Private): please explain win td2 (Private): sorry we don't have enough player win td2 (Private): ur $ will be refund pilowsky (Private): how many players do you need? win td2 (Private): min is 8 pilowsky (Private): there were 15 listed win td2 (Private): as registered win td2 (Private): many people are offline when want to start or he's going play other tournament win td2 (Private): sorry about that happened sit, but ur $ will refund again Before the start, I glanced at the profiles of the participants and found this group. Two sets of players that created their logins on the same date. Within 10 days of each other. Two on 19 September 2020 and two on 10 September 2020. The TD id was created on 11 September 2020. Now the same TD has set up the same tourney and the same invisible players are on the list. 16 players listed as registered and only five are actually online + the TD. Apparently, there is prize money, but the amount depends on the number of entrants. The start time keeps getting delayed. Can someone explain what is happening here?

I've just discovered that Led Zeppelin is the reason that the COVID19 problem was not solved earlier. It turns out that Jimmy Page wanted to be a biologist and study germs. But he got distracted, which is a shame. http://bit.ly/JimmyPageGerms

FLASH a-ah - he'll save every one of us? http://bit.ly/FLASHsaviour Are you hoping for a .... miracle?

What they were thinking was "Let's design a system that is so cruel and iniquitous that only rich people will be able to avail themselves of an education". Any knowledge is dangerous they want to keep it away from the 'have nots'. Pricing education out of the rich of people that have no money is an excellent way to achieve this goal. For every heartwarming Hallmark story (a whole genre of American fiction) about some poor person that struggled and succeeded there are dozens of people that didn't.

Something that has always been unclear to me about American (Republican) governance compared with the style of government that I'm used to is the way that the 'People's House' operates. In the USA, the Executive Branch is torn away from the voters and placed as a 'co-equal' branch entirely separate from the representatives. The system means that there is only one "elected" official responsible for the day-to-day management of the country. It's as though a large company, nominally owned by its shareholders created a Board of Directors that had absolutely no power at all to regulate the affairs of the CEO. Trump came from the Family company model of management. Like Murdoch, whose company was passed onto him by his similarly rabid Father, Trump had a complete disdain for the Shareholders. For Trump and Murdoch, their company's sole purpose is to enrich - Trump, Murdoch and their Families. Running a very distant second are the 'necessary Courtiers' and finally, the group at the bottom - everyone else. When people like Trump and Murdoch say things like 'we love the people', They do not mean it in the sense of "I would throw myself under a bus". What they mean is exactly the same thing that slave-owners meant. I love to have these people because they generate more wealth for me to con them out of. Fairness to these people (here I am paraphrasing our own oleaginous Scott Morrison) means an equal chance to strip as much wealth out of the rest of society as they possibly can while evading a prison sentence. I am not making this up; it is in Morrisons 'fairness' speech. His mantra is "A fair go for those having a go". Mark Buckley characterises Morrisons thinking in this way: "This is a belief system called 'prosperity theology'. If you have ever had the surreal experience of watching a televangelist performing, this will be a part of his spiel. Simply, it espouses the theory that wealth is a blessing from God, and that poverty, or a lack of wealth, well, that is a sign of God's displeasure. Of course, it is! Why else are the common people poor, if not for lack of moral fibre?" This is the reason that the two get on so well. They regard people in the same way that White slave-owners regard black (substitute any word that is not a 'white anglo Saxon') as cattle. When I use the word 'cattle', I am not making up something from thin air. I watched a video of a man who had been held captive by white slave-owners. After he and his family and friends were released from captivity (Civil war, Lincoln etc.), he said: "They gave us a meal, and then we wandered off like cattle". Normally when I hear about someone who has been held captive for decades and then released there is an outrage. People cry 'How could this happen'? "The slimeball responsible should be executed." This is especially true when you learn that the captive was also sexually abused. No such thing happened in the USA. Instead, half the country yearns for the days when 'everyone knew their place'. Now they need to be subtler about it. Problem solved. They created a system of 'governance' where control of the Executive branch is kept safely away from people they don't like. Management of the electoral process is devolved into such a small scale that it is barely recognised as a plurality based system. The effect is that the rich people can pretty much appoint whoever they choose by manipulating the boundaries. This is presumably why Trump was genuinely astonished at Raffensbergers refusal to accommodate his wish to 'find the votes'. There is no genuine democracy when it can be so easily manipulated by a small group of people. Where there is no accountability. Where the strings that attach the Board of Directors to the managers are, as Kurt Vonnegut Jr remarked when describing his relationship to the characters in his books, 'like stale rubber bands rather than tight pieces of string'.

Would you like a Horse and a Buggy to go with that?

[hv=lin=st||pn|pilowsky,Crafty,Clever,Cunning|md|2SHT986DAQT4CAKQ95,SKQT875HAJ2D83CJ3,S92HKQ74D972CT872,SAJ643H53DKJ65C64|sv|b|rh||ah|Board%204|mb|1S|an|Major%20suit%20opening%20--%205+%20!S;%2011-21%20HCP;%2012-22%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|3S|an|Limit%20major%20raise%20--%204+%20!S;%2010-12%20total%20points%20|mb|3N!|an|Unusual%20notrump%20overcall%20--%205+%20!C;%205+%20!D;%2017+%20total%20points;%20forcing|mb|4S|an|5+%20!S;%2014+%20HCP;%2015-20%20total%20points%20|mb|5C|an|3+%20!C;%2016-%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|P|mb|D|an|5+%20!S;%2014+%20HCP;%2015-20%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|SA|pc|C5|pc|S8|pc|S2|pc|CA|pc|C3|pc|C2|pc|C6|pc|CK|pc|CJ|pc|C7|pc|C4|pc|H6|pc|H2|pc|H4|pc|H5|pc|H8|pc|HJ|pc|HQ|pc|H3|pc|D9|pc|DJ|pc|DQ|pc|D3|pc|H9|pc|HA|pc|H7|pc|S4|pc|SK|pc|S9|pc|S3|pc|C9|pc|HT|pc|S5|pc|HK|pc|S6|pc|D7|pc|D5|pc|DT|pc|D8|pc|DA|pc|ST|pc|D2|pc|DK|pc|D4|pc|S7|pc|C8|pc|D6|pc|CT|pc|SJ|pc|CQ|pc|SQ|mc|12|]300|300| The Practice Table. I've tried the unusual 2NT and the strange 4NT, but today I wheeled out the peculiar 3NT against the robots. I was a little concerned when West doubled, but my clever partner came through with the goods. My question is, using GIB 2/1 is there a more sensible way to do this and reach the makeable slam?[/hv]

Elsewhere, I have commented that America is a failed state. I have been castigated and taken to task by Americans with statements along the lines of "How would you know" or "But America is the greatest country in the world" or "If it were not for America there would not be Democracy in the world." All of these statements are either red herrings or demonstrably wrong. As a new publication in the Lancet shows, 40 years of incompetent economic polity in America has meant that while the America of the late 1970s America was a proud member of the so-called 1st world countries, it is now a pitiful example of what happens when you believe your own advertising. Here is the reference: https://drive.google...iew?usp=sharing Authors come from Harvard and UCSF amongst others. Figure 1 (see below) alone tells the story of what happens when rank individualism is cherished at the expense of caring for the entire community. Whenever someone in America suggests a timid policy that might benefit the population as a whole, they are derided as 'Socialist' or 'radical left-wing Democrats'. If this poverty of understanding about how a first-world country manages its affairs persists for much longer, the damage may become irreversible. Life expectancy in the USA is now ~ about 78 years in other countries around 82. This difference of 4 years means that the 'average' American is about 5% worse off than people in comparable countries. But this is much worse than it appears because the years after 65 are years where an individual ought to expect to enjoy retirement after a long working life. Instead of 17 years of retirement, an American gets only 13 years. Remove 3 years for end-of-life health problems, and the picture is even grimmer. 10 vs 14 years. Other countries get 40% more. A key point that this study reveals is that while Trump came to personify all that is wrong with governance in the USA, he arrived on fertile ground. Since this is a Bridge Forum, composed of an aging demographic, these data are even more devastating. Yet, despite all this, I hear rusted on Democrats claiming that socialised medicine is awful and that Bernie Saunders is the devil incarnate. In Australia, someone like Bernie would be considered relatively moderate in the Labor (correct spelling) party of Australia. One of Australia's most brilliant politicians, Barry Jones, wrote in 1982 about the effect of technology on work and society in "Sleepers, Wake!" - his advice is even more cogent now.

yes

I hope you aren't referring to those lovable friendly patriots that strolled quietly into the Capitol to have a quiet chat with their representatives. Charming folks.

I wish they would hold their breath.

There was a recent chrome update that could have affected your settings. Also, some extensions will change your readability settings. Microsoft Edge uses the Chrome browser in the background so this should work with Edge as well. To select size and fonts in Chrome: Click on the three dots (looks like an overgrown colon or '...' but uprightFrom the menu select 'settings' - it's near the bottom of the listThis will open a new tabin the search box at the top write 'size' or 'Font'Click 'Appearance' on the left menu (West for Bridge players)Now click the little arrowhead on the right (East) where it says 'customise fonts'On this menu, you can choose the size and type of all of your display fonts.No need to 'save' any change is made and saved immediately. If you only want to change the size temporarily, use the 'page zoom' option. When I change the page zoom number from 90 to 110 my text looks this much bigger. You can choose 'Comic Sans' if you want it to look like this. I don't recommend it .

Well, there's only one thing to do in a situation like that. Have a beer - http://bit.ly/XXXXbeer

Your guess might be slightly off; unless you are talking about Jeff Bezos, ITC professionals, people that don't get paid by Trump and neurosurgeons. "As of May 31, about one-third of people surveyed in the United States lost 10 to 25 percent of their income over the past 4 weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, it's the U.S. who, with 13 percent, has the highest share of respondents who lost all their income." This is survey data from 'Statista" - A usually reliable source. There are multiple factors at play that determine whether or not a person may require financial support in an emergency. 1. Which sector of the economy they live in. 2. The proportion of household income that they normally spend. 3. Whether or not they are included in the census data of the country in which they live. Regarding 3. The USA is notorious for vilifying 'undocumented immigrants' as they call them and then using these same people as slave labour. In America, the base hourly rate is $7.25. This is enough to buy a Big Mac, fries and a coke. Around 2 million Americans are trying to live on this. If you wonder how easy it is to sustain one person on an "income" as pathetic as this, I suggest that you read Jeffrey Steingarten. Steingarten explains in excruciating detail that the Hollywood fantasy that 'anyone can cook' is just that: a fantasy. So, what happens when the thin (gossamer in the USA) veneer of civilisation is torn away. Ordinary people starve. In the USA, absolutely everything that people have depends on continuing employment: food, health care, shelter - everything. In non-developing countries such as Australia, Sweden and Canada (to name a few). The health education and welfare of its residents are not dependent on the whim of their employer. This is just one reason why America is a failed state. If you can't even look after your own when they need it, what are you? This is - in my opinion - why Trump was elected. He lied to the people that the State forgot. he told them that he would care for them 'bigly'. He would remove all the evil people from Washington (synecdoche for the polity of the USA), so they could all get a fair suck of the sav. Of course, what Trump meant was that he wanted to eat the whole f**king sav and screw anyone that tries to stop him. In this way, Trump is the same as the phone scammer that wants to help you fix your computer problem.

Looks the same to me - and it gave me a great result http://bit.ly/newGIBgui Interesting, it took about 6 hours to reach my computer in Australia. Looks much the same to me. I assume that the extra black bit referred to by others is where the Ads would be if I were not a paying customer with an Ad-blocker. One thing that I don't like is the way that tournaments are no systematically grouped in the Daylong section. In the past, I have accidentally registered for a tournament when I meant to click on a different one. (EG Declare Daylong (MP) 1 vs my favourite the MP no 1. The problem is compounded because once you register for a daylong you cannot 'unregister' even if you haven't opened a board.

If you think economics is a dry subject (people that don't play Bridge all the time). Or if you have never travelled, Or if exchange rates don't make sense to you. Then you don't know about the macPPP - that's the Big Mac PPP - not the computer nerd one. You can read about it here: The Big Mac Index. Economists wanted to synthesise all the elements of an economy into one small packet (product). They needed something that: Is freely available all over the worldPurchased by almost everyonePurchased frequentlyDidn't cost muchWas uniform in its size shape and content.Incorporated as many elements of the economy into one unit as possible What they came up with was the Big Mac. It costs <$10; It is purchased all over the world - frequently (unfortunately), and wherever you buy it, it is the same - in theory. Hamburger companies tolerate only small variations in their products - the UK is the only place in the world where you can get sachets of vinegar with your "fries" - or chips as people living in the 'pink' countries (the colour of Commonwealth countries on old maps) call them. Mind you, since we are discussing a macPPP maybe 'chips' is a better term. So, what goes into a Big Mac that makes it so suitable for this purpose? It has extensive labour input - people have to make the thing and manufacture the ingredients. It includes all of the major components of the economy - transportation, energy, All Demographics consume it - from Pauper to President - hopefully not so much now. Like gambling, cigarettes and alcohol, it is simultaneously desirable and repellent - theirs a cost to consuming it. Large amounts of real estate are involved. Entertainment is involved. This one shitty piece of food is a microcosm of society and economy. The same is true of currency. Each currency unit contains all elements of an economy in a small banknote (even a 'virtual banknote'). To accurately compare 'economies' compare the cost of a Big Mac in each one. Currently, the USD has been steadily dropping against the UKP. In Feb 2020 it was .87. Now it is .72. The cost of a Big Mac in the USA is 5.66, in the UK it is 4.44 (in USD) giving a ratio of 0.78 this means that ATM (not automatic teller machine) the UK currency is Undervalued by >10%. Another useful economic indicator that I created is the "Capuccino test". The cappuccino test measures "opportunity cost". Suppose you see something that you quite like and it costs around $50, but you don't desperately need it. Apply the Cappucino test. Would you spend this money on a luxury item that costs as much as another 'real-world' item such as a Cappuccino? It basically creates an 'external locus of control' to decide how much you need it. In Bridge terms, a fiscal puppet perhaps? I applied the same approach to real-life Bridge Clubs - they really came up short compared to Bridge as a video game. This same principle can be modified and applied in many real-life situations. The most important and valuable thing to come out of all this is the sure and certain knowledge that you should not travel to Switzerland to buy a big Mac - they charge (in USD) 7.29 - it's like buying a milkshake at Harrods. What's the point?