xv, xvidix

"It's not about blaming anyone..."

Oh, of course it's not. It's just about finding how we averaged 70kWh daily in Dec. Which is..what? £210!!! Yeah, that is a lot...but, frankly, it's not all my fault. And even if it were, I would never admit it because I have nothing to gain and everything to lose. Electrical heaters just drink power. Mine draws 1.5kW, which is pretty huge but still even if it were running constantly (which it was not), you'd be looking at...36kWh a day. So, mmm, where do the other 34 come from? I've established that computer's idling draw ~350W which is constant. Throw in the NetBSD box which I have iced for now and that's ~450W.

My now frugal usage has me at ~10kWh per weekday. I checked his and it was 25kWh in the same time period. Um, so that will be double mine. Eh, I think I found the culprit: Maximum draw on the heater shows...3kW. Yes, that's a stupid number. Times by 93 hours a week and you have ~£30 a week. Oh well, I'm glad winter is so mild now.

Yeah, I am sorry. No, I will not admit guilt, nor pay money towards previous bills. The question becomes: What should I do now? Should I spend money and clock in ~50kWh a day deliberately? Inflating my usage just can I can go, oh, wow, I didn't realise I used that much, I had better cut down...Something to ponder. I think I need to do this to an extent, just because it looks so god damn suspicious to go from 1mWh to next to nothing.

But, let's put it this way, even if I was using 45kWh a day, or £135 a month, my rent was £300 including water and electricity. They do zero upkeep on this place. So, um, oh, the problem is you aren't exploiting me enough? OH, my bad.

Anyway, I think I'll aim for ~190kWh a week. Then I can have my revelation and drastically cut usage.

Right

I am getting close to giving up. Just like I was saying the other day, regardless of the actual EV of my hand, I always lose. 5T6hh flop, all-in with KK against JT, Jack on the turn. Woo-freaking-hoo. I "welcome" that call because "in the long term" I will "win". Will I fuck.

AQs, AA3ss flop. Check/minraised by an UTG limper. I go into lose the least mode...and don't get to showdown. He has to have exactly A3/33 there. A3 is highly unlikely, 33 is possible. He has 28% WSD, just fucking push and get called by a weaker Ace you pussy. Sure, his line 'looks' scary, with the c/mr, lead turn, lead river. Yeah, yeah, you may have played correctly against his exact hand this time (possibly) but against his range (Ax), not so good. Yeah, yeah, he must 'know' you have an Ace to call the flop and turn raises/bets. And then the flush comes on the river and you really do beat nothing.

So well done, you lost 'the least' and feel like shit about it. Congrats.

11W E14

Looking at energy saving bulbs now. Pretty sure it would be a wise investment. Well, maybe. Cost of running 4 ordinary 60W bulbs averaging 10hrs a day: £87.60 per annum. Cost of running energy saving bulbs: £16.60 p.a. Cost of purchasing bulbs: £16.50. Zomg, huge savings!!!1 And, well, you can look at the per annum purchasing cost of energy saving bulbs as ~£8.25 since they have 8k hours of lamplife. God knows what the purchasing cost of ordinary bulbs adds up to over a year. I'd say it was comparable.

I was actually hoping for a higher wattage E14, say 15W (equivalent of 100W) but I only found that on Made-in-China.com. Which is a really interesting site, to say the least. I don't know how useful it is to me specifically but it is interesting, nonetheless.

Watts up?

Power consumption from computer's and periphery is way lower than I expected: ~340-360W. Each monitor is a huge ~100W. That's the good news. The bad news...electric heater is 1.5kW! Ugh, 'oops'. Unplugged instantly and now I'm cold. It's all swings and roundabouts, though, because now I have to increase my gas consumption on the heating. Given I'm now paying for both electricity and gas, I'm not sure which is the more economical option. Given I was using about ~£60 per month with the heater, I think it's safe to say that it's probably gas.

I'm slightly pissed because I hadn't intended to do this bullshit right now. I was going to play some poker as per normal but I got 5 seconds notice that he was fitting a meter today. So no poker tonight :(

And just to go back to that flushdraw vs. flushdraw hand. To take the EV (0.83) isn't really helpful because, frankly, villain never is calling with a lower flush draw there. Yes, he did that time but 99/100 times at least, he doesn't. And the one time he did, I lost anyway. Which brings me back to the "EV is a fantasy" argument. I'm not entirely sure I believe my own argument...but then I'm not entirely sure I don't.

Like I've said before, I don't know that it matters if I make +EV plays or -EV ones. Both seem to lose so whatever equity I may have had...collapses to 0. Oops, there goes another buyin. Yeah, yeah, sample size. I play ~20k hands a month. It's not a 'lot' by some standards but it's not entirely trivial, either. I just never seem to realise the equity like other players do. I'm not whinging particularly I would just like to know why so I can start making thousands. Is that too much to ask? :)

Hmm... Maybe I need to start downloading less mp4's and more dvds? Jesus, almost filled a 284GB drive. Oh yeah, October was a quite month...Dec/Jan I've been really busy.

3bet

I've been thinking a little about 3bet pots with 100BB stacks recently and I came to the somewhat obvious conclusion that little matters besides your cards because there are only enough chips for one, sometimes two, rounds of betting postflop. Now that I'm opening a lot more, I've found myself being 3bet more too, and rightfully so. However, I need defend against this. The only true defence that I can see is moving to another table. The other aggressive options (shoving on resteals, calling and shoving most flops) are super high variance. The path I'm taking now is always call with pairs OOP unless I think that I have no implied odds to hit a set, or that I won't be able to play a marginal pair profitably (e.g. JJ). I also call with suited connectors/gappers in position sometimes although I don't really like doing so if I don't think there's any FE postflop. Because even flops that improve your hand greatly still mostly have you as the underdog (i.e. you're only flopping draws). And you need to push all flops that hit you since calling a flop bet is pretty horrible in regards to stack size & pot size going to the turn.

So, anyway, my ramble was that 3betting light is relatively new to SSNL but doing it too liberally is a recipe for disaster. I may experiment some more with the guys who defend their blinds too much. I'm talking about the guys who, every time I open in the CO/BTN, instantly repop with any pair, AQ+, and probably SCs. Okay buddy, you want to keep your SB/BB? If you abuse it, I'll start calling and floating you on every flop. Or pushing flops. If you're playing crap, and I'm playing crap, if I have the better position, I win. Simple as. And then you have to make tremendous adjustments to your calling range.

4-high vs 9-high

Well, that's the first time that I can recall losing to a lower flushdraw when they hit a 2 on the river. Guess my equity? Yeah, 83.3%. Typical bet, check/raise, I think he probably has a flushdraw and can't call so...repot, he pushes and I call the remaining...2BB. Yeah, somehow I can't imagine folding much there. I donk off more chips. At another table I 3bet a minraise OOP, guy calls...I check/fold the turn. Meh. Got 3bet a ton which is fine. I can either do what I did with Mr. 42s and call with pairs, including AA, and C/R all-in. Mr, 42s did not suck out a King after he instacalled the flop push with KK. Not that I can fault him particularly for going broke AA v. KK on a 2-flush flop.

I then flopped middle-pair and a flush draw multiway 200BB deep with 73s. Not sure I played it optimally since I checked after I turned a 3 for two pair. Guy did not oblige me with a turn bet, and then folded when the Ace of spades made the flush on the river. I guess whatever he had he misplayed.

And that was it. I would have played more earlier but Sixth Sense was down.

So, instead, I've been checking out N64 emulators...and playing Zelda: Majora's Mask, gamecube version. It looks pretty sharp. I'm not far into at all since it's crashed a few times on me. I also downloaded a gamecube emulator but considering the performance of Mupen64, I don't think it will do me much good. I only really want to play Windwaker and Metroid on it. Mmm, clocktower's opened, have to go.

Superb

What a great little session that was. 3bet constantly...I made a move against the guy on ATT flop with A4s...he pushes, fuck. I flop a set of Aces, AJx flop, Ten turn. Guy minraises the turn, pots river. Are you fucking kidding me? No, apparently not. Congrats on the gutshot. Sure, next time I'll fold top set to a guy who I have 30 hands on. I think I should have pushed the turn to maximise against his range (two pair/sets...straight). I hate the way I played it, two calls with the last one being an absurdly large check/call.

In fact, I definitely should have pushed the turn. I hate the way I played it. I might be sitting here bemoaning his sucking out if I had pushed into the nuts...but I think I would recognise that it's the best way to play it.

And then he goes broke with J5o calling down on a 5-high, 3 flush board. Obviously.

Edit: Just finished another great session. Did not stack off but then didn't win a big pot but lost plenty of small-medium ones. Fantastical. Full Tilt went down so that was my queue to leave. Good job too since I was beginning to play weakly (e.g. 668r flop, turn & river bring overcards [KJ] and I decide to check down Queen high since I don't think I can get him off a PP). I still can't get over how badly I played the set of Aces hand earlier.

Watched Harry Potter 3. Actually enjoyed it somewhat. Maybe it's because I can relate to adolescent drama a little better than prepubescent escapades. Although, the second one was considerably better in that regard.

Here's Dr. Weir topless: LINK

Flabbergast

I still can't get over the audacity he has to accuse me of 'stealing' so much electricity. In fact, his claim would mean I was using 1400kWh p.m. However, he also claims that he is paying £400 p.m. in bills. So, which is, fucktard? There is no way they are charging you 2.5p/kWh, and there is no way I am averaging ~4.2kW or anywhere close to it. Even if, and it's a big if, my old UPS was faulty and drew 1.4kW constantly...that's still only a third. Whatever, I've ordered a socket meter, I will do extensive testing, record the results. If I find a fault with the old UPS that would account for a huge draw, I may omit that part...but hopefully I won't and can include that in my report.

"I would like to start this report by first saying: Fuck you."

No poker tonight, FT upgrade didn't go smoothly and then Sixth Sense wasn't working after. I did watch the GP 10/25 vid. Pretty cool. He made some interesting plays, a tough but what looks like a good fold with KQ and a good OOP bluff with AJ. Although I didn't really like his a) table selection (if there is such a thing at 10/25) and b) lack of PF aggression. Sure, it might be working for him right now but in that particular video, it was just horrible, call button raise in the SB with KJo and check/fold the flop. That's pretty bad taken in isolation, as were some of his other passive calls. Anyway, regardless of how that's working for him right now, I don't think it's good in general and especially not for me in particular.

Dilbert says

Linux is superior. Hah!

KW/h

Uh, got informed that my power consumption might be too high by the landlord. Again. I'm now stressing out about this £3 thousand bill. The alleged monthly power consumption is 16000 hours! That's 4 times the 'average' home. He wants me to use a monitor...I want that monitor ASAP.

Could it be me? Well...I sure as shit hope not. I don't 'think' so but it may. My actual devices aren't that high but I am thinking it could be the UPS, no? But even 1400VA 24x7 is only £1200 a year. That's still a shit load but it's not even close. Could account for a hike to the energy bill. However, I am very glad I have a 800VA one now.

I 'know' that my actual devices can't be accountable on their own, the only worry for me is the UPS. But, again, I don't think that's culpable either. Which means it might just be his 8kW showers...multiplied by a 5 person household. Right there that's 10kWh per day (he said his wife's showers were twice as long). And they have a tumble dryer...and a washing machine...and a dishwasher. Oh yeah, it must be me and my many computers! Everyone knows computers use lots of electricity! My devices are all under 500W (except the microwave), those things are measured in kilowatts.

Jigga-WHAT?

Although, in all fairness, I did have 3 computers running 24/7 for a long time (only two now...). I'm not counting the iBook. It's 45W for crying out loud. And when I do turn off the mains on my 800VA UPS, I only have about 5 minutes...In fact, it went instantly when I had the monitor on so I guess it's next to useless. And, oh yeah, I run 4x60W bulbs in my bedroom. Like, whoa!

So, in conclusion, I don't think it's me but if I plug the monitor in and it starts spinning insanely I will be apologetic but that's about all. I guess I don't mind paying my own electric in future...but I'm certainly not paying any arrears as that is not what I agreed to when I moved in. And frankly, I feel like I am paying too much for what I have anyway (yes, it's nice [inside at least...] but it's tiny).

Whatever. Poker: Played some, think I did okay. Notable hands I lost were flopping top set OOP against PFR and caller behind him. Due to my terrible position...and relative position, I took the most +EV line I could think of on the spur of the moment, which was check/raise. However, PFR checked and shortstack caller bet which meant I would be facing the PFR with huge action if I stuck to my original plan and raised. So I called. Turn completed the flushdraw, all thoughts out the window, I checked again, shortstack bet 11BB or half pot, leaving 16 behind. Rebuying and sighing at how I butchered the hand as I did so I put him all-in (I can't fold top set to a half-PSB, I can't call and fold the river if it doesn't pair). IF I ever see such a turn situation again, I am leading since his calling (or shoving range) is greater than his betting range. So that was one set. I managed to completely mangle that. Should have b3b. The other lose was where I 3bet JJ to a LP raise (CO IIRC), guy calls. Flop is Ten high. I do my standard 3bet cbet, he calls. Turn is a Queen, I check, he checks. River is the only card that will get me to put more money in: A third Jack. I valuebet. Guy takes FOREVER to CALL(!) with QQ. Oh noes, I might have AK and your retarded slowplay may have backfired! And then, I just got super owned at that table. Two super-passive calling stations on my left, this guy on my right who was more of an aggressive station (i.e. would bet & raise but much preferred to call and go to showdown). I tightened way the hell up and played in valuebet mode (for the most part) but nothing worked.

But that was about it for bad news. Stacked a few people, made some moves that worked, and just felt like I was playing pretty winning poker. Played Omaha-Hi since the mixed games were empty. Played a hand wrong but sucked out: Raised QT84ss on the button against a limper, flop was TTxhh. Trips + FD. Pretty good flop, but some major downsides. Got all-in against ATxx, runnered two Queens. Then, raised 7758s, flop was 495r (IIRC). I turned the nut straight. When a 6 dropped off. River brought another 5 and he pushed into me. Ugh, less than PSB...I call and MHIG. I don't know if I should have actually folded. With a 45xx5 board, if I had a read he was a good player, I think I have to fold. Unknown limping guy, I call and pray.

Hiatus

So heroes is back from hiatus now...Great! 4 episodes left to air until the end of the season. Uh, great...

As I understand it, it's the only primetime show that NBC has had any success with so I'm sure it won't be away for long.

primatechpaper.com is interesting but not very feature rich so far. Perhaps it will turn into an ARG of some sort but so far you only get put on a mailing list.

24: Jack's brother = mastermind from seasons 4 & 5? I honestly don't know. Yeah, checked, 'Gray' or Graham Bauer is that guy. Not sure what to make of that...for now I'll go with 'cool'.

4bet

Hi, this is your results: People are not 4betting marginal premiums against you, they are waiting for AA/KK. Therefore, you can safely fold everything but AA when they 4bet. And, do not think you have any fold equity when you push with AKs. Please think more carefully about the situation before pushing: He's a 15% PFR with a 16% WSD raising UTG. He's probably (mistakenly) only calling with TT-QQ. Kill yourself.

Other than that...spewed chips everywhere, didn't seem to get any back. Which is nice. But my stats are much higher!11 Kill myself.

I don't get it. I'm giving plenty of action. I'm getting some action but the moment I have the best hand that action melts away. Every fucking time like clockwork. Or, say I 3bet or get 3bet with TT/JJ. Flop is AKx/AQx/KQx. What the fuck am I supposed to do there? Check/call or call? Hope he doesn't put any more pressure on me?

Also I was getting 3bet constantly by a 13/10 type guy. Which is good play by him, I guess, but how do I adapt? Finding another table would have been one option but I have two ridiculously loose players on my right. Why can't he just FOAD? He was two to my left and it's not as if I was 3betting him light. I started to at the end because he was pissing me off. But, no, he would 3bet medium pairs like 99 and play them for more than set value when calling (i.e. had insufficient implied odds to just set mine). Fucking joke. Of course, he ended up doubling with KK against one of the loose guys on my right while I got raped without hands and no value with my AA.

Okay, so...things learnt today: 4bet = nuts = fold AK. Got it.

2000 ;-)

"Uh, do you 24?" "Yeah, but it's divx." "Oh, that's for only computers right?"

Welcome to last decade. Jesus! I'd be more tolerant if he had some excuse like not working with computers everyday or being over 40. Hell, in a society where we have mp4 players on our mobile phones, you'd think that he would have at least made some attempt at entering the digital media age. But it's good news for the MPAA that there are still people hooked on the obsolete distribution paradigm.

Interestingly, a friend of this guy who is slightly older is almost infinitely more clued up. He doesn't understand it exactly but he knows enough that lossy encoded media is a good thing...and has worked out (with a little help) how to view it.

Anyway, people who aren't interested in learning don't merit much more attention.

Severe weather warning. Expected to be a few centimetres of accumulated snowfall on the roads. Zomg, whole centimetres! This country cracks me up. A little wind and we lose power for 14 freaking hours, a little snow and the roads will probably be impassable.

Watched Harry Potter 1&2. Big fat 'MEH'. I guess it's entertainment of a sort but the adults that are enthralled by this drivel deserve a good smack.

Downloaded a lot of porn this weekend. It's more of a habit than anything else because there is no way I'll watch it all. A lot by my standards is pretty freaking huge too.

Disappointed with realtime scheduling. Mplayer still froze periodically while using it. Don't know what the root cause of that was either, because I did try shutting down vmware to lighten system load.

Clustering again. Not entirely sure it's worth the effort. I'm not going to let it run past ~8 hours anyway.

New BSG 3.5 tomorrow. Yes! New CR video too. New Stargate episodes Tuesday, Wednesday. SGA finale blurbs looks like it's going to add something new and exciting to the whole SGA universe. At a guess, it's being able to fly the city. I'm not sure quite how amazing that's supposed to be so I could be way off. Samantha Carter is also signed for 14 SGA episodes in season 4. If only they could get Jackson and Adria too...

Going to work on my poker a lot more now. Well, as much as I can part-time. Found myself completely outplaying some guys in some circumstances...and getting completely outplayed in others. One thing, I need to make bigger calls with TP on the river when busted draws are likely I think. Since it's so rare that I'll actually have TP with a reasonable kicker anyway.

Truth be told, though, SSNL is not hard at all. Many players have such huge leaks that so long as you have fewer/smaller ones, you'll beat the games. Even in my nascent lag-tag state, I'm mostly doing okay - sans variance - and I'm still learning.

The good

Well, I gots some free money: Posted my BB, got dealt KK. Raise, SB 3bets. Hmmm, best way to play? Push. He makes a call with QQ. I flop top set, he doesn't make a straight for once.

That was the good, this is the bad: 3bet AKo from the blinds, 50VPIP loose-passive buddy limp calls with Q6o (I think he called the original raise). Flop is a disarming KQT. I bet, he calls. Turn is the 6 of hearts giving me TPTK+FD+gutshot (IIRC, I may not have had the gutshot). I don't know what to do but I think I probably need to get all-in so I bet and call his push. Of course, of my 21 outs (3A+2K+3T+4J+9H) I hit none. Booyah!

Just to add: KQT6 board and he not only thinks Q6o is worth a call on the flop (wow, you beat JJ...and only JJ) but thinks that some crappy two pair is good on the turn. Um? I can have any of the sets, including 66 if I'm feeling frisky and repoped that pf. I can have the flush. I can have the straight. I rarely 3bet KQ/QTs but I can have those too. So what part of my range is Q6o good against, exactly? Oh, yes, that's right the one hand I actually had with 21 outs (~44% equity) on the turn. Don't worry, I can run bad forever.

Another 'bad' instance was when I had JJ against a laggy tag and a shortstack. I called from the SB with JJ...flop was T26dd. I check, shortstack bets, PFR calls...and I check/raise trying to get all-in against the shortstack. The PFR then 3bets. WTF? The guys stats were ~25/~19/12, iirc. Admittedly I put myself in a bad spot by just calling preflop but his play makes almost no sense. What is he smooth calling with on that scary board? And then deciding it's good enough to push? I mean, it really makes no sense to slowplay a big hand like a set that way...and it doesn't make a lot of sense to play a FD like that either.

The ugly: All-in pf with AA...against AA. Bah.

The Game

Rewatched SGA3x15 (The Game), mostly because it guest stars the beautiful Laura Harris (Marie Warner 24, The Faculty). Then 3x13 because I love Lucius.

Anyway, my pokering is improving but: 3bet AQo from the blinds against unknown. Flop Qxxr, bet and call. Turn another Queen and I love my hand; there is now a flush draw. Something about his timing of his preflop call and postflop call make me think that I may have just outdrawn KK/AA. So I check. He bets enough so that I only have 30BB left if I call. Now here's the mistake: I call. Is having 30BB behind OOP on the river in a 140BB pot 'good'? No, it's terrible pot control. (It's also terrible in that I should check/call the river if I elect to do that, not push.) There is almost nothing he can fold on the turn (AKs, overs+FD) if I just push, calling is terrible.

Other things: Table awareness. My HUD is great but I can't always tell who has cards (need to remedy this). This has lead me to mistakenly cbet whiffed flops OOP when they are 3 handed. Also, I need to be aware of everyone's stack sizes at all times. Then there's general image awareness to take into account too. And I should do a lot less folding preflop based on feeling. Because the one time I do fold X, I'll flop something great. Finally, my VPIP should be approaching 100% on the first orbit, even if that means playing marginal hands OOP. I need to play anything decent and raise everytime it's folded to me. Two reasons for this: If I actually hit something, no one will give me credit at all, and it's very noticeable. Peoples first impressions are generally very strong and hard to disgorge so if opponents see that I've played almost every hand so far they will instantly peg me as super-loose. It's pretty gimmicky but it seems to work. It takes a lot longer for people to notice that you've tightened up after...if they notice at all.

And in closing: Avoid shortstacks at all costs. They are just terrible for LAG play. Not only because they routinely shove preflop (and postflop) if they think you can't call, but because they destroy your postflop options. E.g. if they bet/raise, you can't come over the top of them effectively because you don't have the spectre of future bets to act as added fold equity. True, you probably aren't following through on the threat if you have nothing and they call but they have no way of knowing that. To a shortstack that's moot since they only have to call once.

Computer hand

Meh. Played some pokerpoker. Not doing too well. My VPIP/PFR aren't high enough either. Not going to relate the bad beats (bottom two, runner-runner 4 card straight, etc.) but one hand does bear mentioning. Guy minraises (lol...), I 3bet AKo in the SB, BB who's been policing me/floating me/annoying me coldcalls & minraiser folds. Flop is 2Jx, I cbet, BB calls. Turn is a 9x, I double barrel it. He calls again. River is a blank, I check, he checks Q9o. Fantastic play there: Cold calling 3bet with it, calling flop with no pair no draw, calling turn with a low second pair in 3bet pot. I mean, obviously he's giving money away JUST NOT TO ME. That's kind of a key point.

Anyway, I'm not entirely sure LAG is the correct play (at these stakes) because the most frequent mistake people make is calling too much. Like in GP's 3/6 video where he's on 'life tilt' and keeps betting pot he says "These players are so bad that their either calling or folding, never raising, so I can get away with potting it." At these stakes, however, people don't call or fold they only call. The more aggressive players try and win every pot by floating (in position...sometimes seemingly OOP too), the weaker players call every flop bet with such a huge range of hands it's staggering. See my Q9o rant above.

Another thing I have noticed is that some players 3bet stupidly at these levels. I know people 3bet light all the time at 1/2+ but this is another level. They 3bet total junk quite often, and also they call with random crap that I would consider a clear fold, e.g. Guy opens A9s OTB, BB 3bets 98o...I mean, it worked out great for A9s since he flopped a flush draw and turned a flush only having to call one bet postflop. Better still, 98o pushed all-in. Great result, terrible play. Because what does A9s do when he doesn't flop a flush draw or trip 9's? Check and fold because you have no high pair value and no connectivity. B-but it's suited! I would much rather call with something connected there, and I'm sure that's the winning play. Axs in a 3bet pot I imagine is breakeven at best...

Anyway, whatever. One thing I'm trying to make sure of now is that I keep the pots that I have small hands in under 40BB and that I always have a big hand if the pot goes over that. This means no 3rd barrel ever. Why? Because people call far too much at these stakes. I also think if I do 3rd barrel it's going to be just small enough to fold a busted draw. No more.

Special Ed

It's true, I am a special kind of stupid. I mean, I can do things that are incredibly intricate and horrendously complex, and at the same time make such a large dumb mistake that it's unfathomable.

The latest in this line is clocking my CPU. As I complained previously, the generic stick didn't work. It's probably my fault since I had my CPU FSB up spectacularly wrong ages ago and never corrected it. I had 200MHz FSB and 11x multiplier because those were the '3200+' as seen by the board's CMOS. I now know how nonsensical that is: 400MHz FSB on 333MHz chip, hmm, asking for trouble. Why I skimped so heavily at the time on reading is beyond me. (CMOS settings are half the actual rate, presumably because it's 'dual-channel'.)

So, today's little exercise resulted in my chip 'overloading' at idle (getting so hot that the mobo powered off, i.e. 90C) several times for some reason. I'm still not entirely sure why: Voltage was 1.65 (er, mostly, a few times the CMOS set it to 1.84), FSB was underclocked, and multiplier was at 11 and it was still cooking...Finally, however, I fixed it at a steady 170MHz FSB/13x/1.65V. That shows a a low 50s/high 40s idle temp, which is not awesome but bearable. I think I could possibly get some more but with such a high temp already I'll take any stability I can. 2210MHz (+21%)/340MHz FSB is not shabby, and hopefully sustainable.

Anyway, I ran memtest86 and everything checked out this time so things are looking up. I installed stress but I haven't used it yet. So far everything feels fantastic but I haven't done anything other than run firefox.

Speaking of which, I have installed several tab add-ons (tab mix plus, faviconize, & iswitchb-tabs). Tab mix plus seems to be a FF2.0 replacement for 'Tabbrowser Extensions'...since TBE doesn't look like it's getting ported any time soon.

WoW

The more I find out about Warcraft, the more I know I can't play it. WoW is the opiate of the underachiever.

If I were to become engaged I would think nothing of sinking 40 hours into it a week. Hell, I did that to Q3 in college and it's on a totally different level. I recently played Zelda non-stop for days on end and only stopped because I completed it. WoW is a never ending Zelda.

And that's a problem because, 40 hours of Warcraft and 40 hours of work would leave me, hmm, lets see, carry the one...

No. I can't afford to be stuck in some dead end existence hooked on WoW. Sure, if I had more free time and a better rounded life, I might dabble but as it is: One way ticket to rock bottom.

Mkay. PAHUD's behaving 'oddly'. Not really caching too well by the looks of things...

Checked my stats and they are approximately what I thought. Yeah, they shouldn't be that bad (I'm talking 300BB with KK, two suckouts, one colddeck) but I'm sitting on a 500BB hole. The aforementioned KKs and the nuisance 99 (I severely overplayed the weakest overpair)...and the heroic call with J9o TP...GREAT KICKER (technically, correct, but against his range terrible). So, that means on the rest of my downy hands I'm breaking even. The good news (?) is my much vaunted VPIP/PFR is 23/21. I'm so ecstatic about that. Okay, that's my sarcastic defence mechanism: Life gives you lemons, you try not to die from your citrus allergy.

I'm missing value with good hands (BET THE RIVER) by going for check/raises. I'm bluffing too much. I'm overplaying draws (hammer two streets, don't bluff river, these guys call too much, see previous). I'm getting no action with big hands (variance).

Carson

Well, wow, Carson is dead in SGA. He will be greatly missed.

Wouldn't you have hated to be the hapless disposal expert, though? Talk about being slightly overshadowed.

What does this mean for the series? Beginning of the end? Losing a central character like that is pretty pivotal, and the tumour weapon seems like it can end the war. Part of me says they should. I mean, I love it but I don't know if I can take 10 seasons, and frankly looking at some of the SG1 episodes that I've seen, it's all over the freaking place. Dr. Weir assumes command in 8x19 and is gone by 9x01. I know these are production related problems but they're still major glitches. But if they can maintain continuity and high production values in SGA, I'll happily watch (if they can't, I'll unhappily watch...).

Oh, I haven't mentioned this I see: Trashed vmware image. By default, snapshots are enabled but with the free version I'm running you're limited to one. Only...I managed to have several, through some software error. Which presented a problem because I couldn't merge them (snapshots are deltas of the...original data) and I was trying to free space. I ended up modifying the original data (not by much, as soon as I realised that I was loading the original file, I powered off the machine but it was enough) so that all deltas no longer worked. Oh bugger.

So, I reloaded everything. Not that much, really. Firefox, 7-zip, Pokertracker, psql-driver, PAHUD, Sixthsense, FullTilt, AHK & scripts, VLC, and WMP10. That meant finding registration keys/usernames and configuring. Now it seems setup. I was intending to run the backup with an immutable disk so as I could mine more tables but 'FullTiltTableOpener' doesn't work in observer mode. Hmm, just looked at the script and there may be a way to fix that. Um, no, and even if possible, observers don't actually store HHs and I'm not willing to create an account for that purpose. I've heard FT takes a harsh stance if you start dicking around with multiple accounts and bizarre logins. Plus there is obviously a temptation to collude with myself. Even now I'm eyeing TOR...but the problem with that is, and I don't much care about the ethics because I'm sure it is being done, it's easy to get caught and you lose a lot (all funds & ability to use network). Hmm, maybe if I created multiple dataminer accounts and attempted to anonymize them while logging out my main account...Bah! Too much effort, too little reward.

Guess I'll just have to learn how to win at poker.

Just to add, I'm trying to download Fearless from abm.divx as it's being posted. 19/120 files, don't think I'll be able to watch it tonight :(

Crucial

Uhm. Crucial stick works. Well, VMware has crashed twice on me...but that seems to behind us now.

I don't even know where to begin with poker. I have dropped 3 buyins with KK, 2 overpairs, one 2nd nut boat. Both the overpairs were versus AQ, both times a Queen fell. The quads hand, meh, I played the river badly. Should have shoved over the minraise for value, not raised and called another raise all-in. Pretty unsurprising my hand is no good after that action but I can't fold. I have dropped probably 2 buyins with flushdraws. Fortunately vmware crashed before I could bluff the river on the last one. It's crazy, crazy. Obviously now I'm playing a lot of hands preflop and extending my aggression postflop. However, the moment I have something, no action. Which is just frankly ridiculous. Yeah, great, I can raise a flop with 6-high and they fold/shove/call some of the time. Raise the same flop with a set, they fold all the time. Just to say I acknowledge one mistake I made when I turned top two with AQ. I checked the river to let him bluff his missed draw. He had bottom pair and checked it. But what happens if I shove top two there? He folds bottom pair, eh? He calls if he runner-runnered broadway or hit a set. He bluffs if he was on a draw. Fuck it, next time I valuebet/shove when I think villain has pair/draw and I can beat one pair, even if I think it loses value from missed draws.

So here's the thing. I understand that since I'm unused to it, my play in the small-medium 'loose' pots will be -EV. So I'm going to losing more than my fair share of steals, busted draws, multi-street bluffs, etc. OKAY, FINE. But then to loose every big hand too...or get no value from my big hands even though I'm playing like a freaking loony tune, is tilt inducing because I may as well be avoiding the -EV of the loose pots altogether with the way things are.

Whatever, 63% of Keeley porn done. That's the important thing.

Update: Had the audacity to mv some large files without scheduling them as batch/idle and system locked up...(well, it may have unlocked eventually but I'm impatient). Lost Rapidshare download, found it on usenet. No more waiting!

Perfection

So...been trying out my new LAGGIER style. Not going so well. QQ on TT4r flop and nit raises me after I open UTG. Am I beat, am I good? Who knows. Given my read on the nit, I think not. Play my pair+FD aggressively OOP. Limped AJo calls down perfectly (86cc on 8A5cc75 board). I guess I shouldn't have tried bluffing a calling station, I guess, but it's my first fucking hand.

Just to further express my incredulity that people win at poker. Stackadonk turn w/ overpair vs top pair, top pair trips on the river. River 3rd nuts with KK (JxJxJ), guess who flopped trips, turned boat, & rivered quads? Of course. And of course even though I represent the flush perfectly, my bluff gets called by second pair. I mean, I can take people calling my bluff with top pair but come on.

I don't actually give a shit if people call my bluffy valuebets light. And I don't give a shit about sucky hands that are 'setups' or suckouts. Actually winning ONE hand at showdown would be nice, though.

Finalizing

E6600 system is go! I think the Asus P5W Deluxe is my best option for OSX86 and/or Linux. Not having 5.1 sound is a let down but whatever. Um, things are looking pretty uber expensive, however. Spending far too much on motherboard (£150) + CPU (£200). Probably a little too much on RAM (£150). Graphics card I might do without if I can use old PCI one. Not sure how useful a 7600GT actually is to me anyway. Still, I really want to be spending about half as much on core components (£250 instead of £500).

However, such a system is pretty good because it's quadcore ready and will easily be upgradeable in a year or two. 6400 RAM is not all that expensive either compared to say 3200. Obviously the main expense there is mobo+cpu. Hopefully it will drop soon. Alternatively I can finance it or buy say, items unlikely to depreciate much (RAM, case, cables, cooler, & PSU) and just store them.

As the Conroe OC database shows, later E6600's overclock very nicely. Should be able to get 3.4GHz with Zalman 9500 quite easily without going over 1.5V.

Finished watching SG1 9x/10x and SGA. It's annoying because now I have to wait for episodes. Also, SG1 won't be getting another season, just straight to DVD movies. I can't say I'm surprised. Compared to Atlantis, it's not that exciting. I do like the Ori storyline and, of course, Morena. Jackson is okay but the rest of the team is pretty mediocre. I honestly don't know how people can find Carter attractive. In the SGA episode where Rodney crashes the jumper in the ocean, she tries to show her sexiness. *shudder* I also don't get Teal'c. What is the point of Teal'c?

Atlantis is awesome. I love all the characters. Teyla and Ronon are semi-weak but still likeable. Weir and Beckett are stronger but not that much. Essentially it's the McKay and Shepard show with the rest supporting. Shepard has the Kirk thing going for him and McKay is just hilarious. Even the producers recognise the importance of McKay with episodes like Mrs. Miller & Two McKay's (or whatever) and The Tao of Rodney.

End of Torchwood

You are a piece of shit that I no longer have to watch. Goodbye.

rm Torchwood -rf

Generic error

Well, now I know why people in the know avoid generic RAM like the plague. Got stick today (sweet!), can't even post with it (sucky!). Could have been worse, could have killed my system. RMA'd. Ordered a Crucial 1GB stick.

Tried exercise 3 ("no calling"). It...was too rigid. Not being able to call really fucked things up and got me stacked. E.g. I raise QQ, J23r flop. I cbet, guy who's been pretty innocuous c/raises me. Hmmm. Well, if I raise now (i.e. push) WHFBHC but my hand is too good to fold. Well, this is dumb. I push, he finally calls with KK. Of course, smothcalling with KK pf happens to be perfect play against my style right there. I mean, of course. Anyway, my point was that both folding and raising were terrible options there. So maybe I learnt that from the exercise...

A few more situations cropped up. 22 pf, raise, get 3bet, and since I can't call...I fold. JJ pf, ton of limps, a raise, and I prefer to play Jacks for set value in what will be a large multiway flop OOP if I call there. But, no, I have to raise or fold. So...I choose fold. Far too rigid a construct but it was informative. E.g. I raise AJ, cbet nothing flop, guy puts in a small raise in position, I think he's full of shit and 3bet the flop with AJ-high. My read is right and he folds.

These aggro-aggro exercises are interesting. I wouldn't say I've got it but I think I'm beginning to see something. Need more practice, though.

Um, need to add that I reclocked my CPU to 3200+ (200x11) after cleaning out the heatsink/fan. Hopefully it will stay cool enough. I think one of the blackouts reset my BIOS config and my processor was well underclocked (like 100x11).

I forget

I am getting sick of writing the same thing because 'Iceweasel' crashes all the time. Piece of fucking shit.

Anyway, bought a 1GB PC3200 stick to tide me over. Means I'll be slotting 1GB, 512MB, & 256MB. Should help ailing performance and RAM is cheap. Might even get another one next month if it helps matters.

Will upgrade soon. Going intel, E6600 route. In theory, I should be able to get 3.4GHz on air out of it according to reports. Although, if that's a little too hot, I'd be happy with 3.2. I think 3.4 will probably be quite easy by now since it was commonly achieved months ago.

I'm going to wait for the E6600 to drop in price first though. Even still, I may have to finance building a new system. Not sure what motherboard to go with. Want nvidia board but I'm not seeing one...

apple.com/iphone. Hell, yes, I want one.

Um, overslept which was bad. Didn't even hear my alarm. Unless I killed it as soon as it went off and just don't remember. Either way, that equals sick day.

Freaking torrents. 15KB/s down on SG1_10x11. It will probably be posted on usenet and I'll be able to grab it from there before the fucking torrent is done. And for some reason OSX86 ISOs seems to be almost exclusively distributed via torrent. Mostly on demonoid...which has some crappy limited registration system.

Paste

1kfacials

UM. Played poker today. FUNFUN. Blind battle with QQ. SB was (40/20/3) and 4bet me. I push and he has AA obviously. I love play pokah. Thinking about the QQxx hand again. Think pot, pot, push is fine. I don't see how I can check/fold on the river. Or check/call. And if I check, he probably checks behind bottom set. And I noticed that according to my stats I was playing 5/5 or someshit. Uh, that's what happens when you get dealt random offsuit junk EVERY fucking hand (Q2oUTGALLIN). Trying to not cbet obvious flops where I'm going to get unwanted action.

Finally got first session later on today (need to grab some sleep first). It will be interesting if he can actually teach me to be a winning player. I thought I might have been on to something after Christmas but it doesn't look like it at all now. Downside, I have to play poker and talk poker for 2 hours. And I hate poker. Nth time: WHY CANT I PLAY ZELDA/QUAKE/SOMETHINGNOTSHIT for money online?

Yeah, yeah, my attitude has gone to shit again; it's not a game, it's an extended test of analytical ability with random elements. In other words, about as fun as eating glass.

Looking more at my Hackintosh, and I'm definitely going to try to install OSX. Also, might go for 2GB ram at initial build with another 2GB added later. And I'm also thinking about going the Duo (darkside) route...

Cut once

Okay. I need to stop and think before I do things. E.g. resurrected old Debian Wifi relay station. I wonder if I can put vmware on it to stop my system performance degrading so badly...Um, first, it's a 433MHz cele without much ram. That right there is a deal breaker. THINK. How is that computer going to be able to 1) run pokertracker and, more importantly, 2) datamine 16 tables 24/7. It's not going to, is it? Second, how about measuring how big the vmware images are before 1) making the partition(!) and 2) scp'ing them? It takes no time at all to make sure you have enough room. WTF are you thinking?

Also, when you set it up using a 5GB drive, why did you allocate so little space to the root partition? And so much to home? Now you have to fix it. What a shoddy job.

Schedule

Yep, really disappointed with the scheduling in 2.6.19-beyond2. Whether the cause is vmware, nvidia, 2.6.19, or the patchset, I have no idea. I just know it sucks even worse than 2.6.17-beyond4. MMM, new nvidia driver, trying upgrading...

Played poker, stacked some people, got stacked with a set of aces v. OESD hit on the turn. A362 Not much to say, mistake by me was thinking the 2 would only hit a gutshot but, of course, the 6 makes him an OESD. The guy was aggressive and check/raised the turn all-in which is well played. I can see him having worse hands and draws a lot there. Really folding there would require much better reads, and as I said he was aggressive enough to pay him off. Decent action at that time of day (~1/12pm), was going to play now I'm up to date on SG-1 but tables look quiet.

2.16.19

First things first: wget http://media.egotastic.com/media/pictures/0602/jessica-alba-ass-{01..33}.jpg

Began the new year with a new kernel. It, um, sucks? For some reason even after I read about the the libata SATA changes, it still took several recompiles to get right. In the end, make xconfig, enabling libata and my driver, and then leaving everything else the fuck alone seemed to work. I also added a no panic blink boot parameter to stop my keyboard from locking up. And then...I had to patch vmware to compile vmnet against it properly. So a lot of crap to get going and so far I'm not overly enthused with performance. Horrible scheduling?

Watching Stargate SG-1 season 9+ for lack of stuff to do. Probably watch Atlantis too. Interestingly, 10x03 is an Atlantis crossover. Trying to get my sleep schedule back to normal today.

Haven't played poker today. No motivation since I feel I'm playing decently (1 huge mistake for...6BB) and yet, still losing. I'll probably fuck it off today (especially since FT seems to be down) and then try some more tomorrow.