fuckin probability

for what it's worth, i was actually pretty good at discrete math, calculus, and the little bit of probability i took in college.
came across the monty hall problem this morning. this is one of those weird things in math that gets a lot of smart people arguing and calling each other idiots. the setup for this is simple, and based off the show 'let's make a deal': you pick one of three doors, one has a car behind it, the other two doors have goats. the host, monty, opens a door, which has a goat behind it, and offers to let you switch which door you've picked. does switching doors help your chances of winning the car?


the fuck you solution is that, yeah, it does. by a lot. but only under certain circumstances that almost everyone already assumes.
eg: if monty opens a door at random that still always has a goat behind it, it changes the percentage of how often you win if you choose to switch doors. the solution above only works when monty will always open a door with a goat behind it, after you've chosen your door, and knows which doors have goats behind them, and always offers you the opportunity to switch doors.

now that i've got a handle on this, i'm going to take a crack at the two envelopes problem.

nintendo.

so, this comic made me look to see if this game was really a thing.
it is!
i'm wondering how many suicides and divorces are going to crop up in the sony offices this year.

yes please

since blogger's layout is being a pain in the ass.

this clip is giving me a strange sensation. i . . . i think it might be joy.

also: lennart green, card ninja.

wherein i fail to register any measurable amount of surprise

i am well aware of the irony in using google's blog service to write the following.

so, facebook has a new batch of privacy controls in place now. raise your hand if you think this changes anything. facebook already got caught, more than once, violating their own privacy policy for information on their site. as in, they are selling your stuff to advertisers.
rest assured: they are going to continue to do this.
THE SITE IS FREE. BANDWIDTH IS NOT.
and really, nothing's going to change. people are going to keep putting stupid shit on the site, along with enough information for anyone anywhere to identify them, and facebook is going to keep using all of that to pay the bills. employers are still going to be able to weed out applicants based on people having a bong in their profile pics, psychotic and abusive exes are going to continue to stalk their former wives / husbands, and zuckerberg is going to buy a new bentley and keep on thinking you're all retarded.
the company with all your information is not going to stop using it for their own purposes just because a press release said so. anything that goes on the internet never really goes away.
just sayin'

dio, and now this

between this and dio, the average height in the world has gone up by about 4" in the last couple weeks.

old school

just found graeme norgate's site. he apparently did all the kick ass music in videogames around the n64 era.
you can go there and download tracks from perfect dark, timesplitters, killer instinct, goldeneye, and the best mindless destruction game ever: blast corps.

fuck yes blast corps. any game where you can fit the instructions on an index card is a good game, when that card only has the words "fucking destroy everything with mechs and heavy construction equipment" is a monument to simplicity of design. that game was incredibly fun, satisfying, and brutally difficult. totally worth the $20 i paid for it sometime in the late 90s.

fuck you dell

dell has officially made my shit list as of this morning.
put in two (2) orders through their website three weeks ago. upgrading all the computers in the office, picked up 10 new inspiron machines. since their website was designed by diseased minds, the products that are displayed in any one category are different depending on how you reach that category while traversing the arcane mess that is their site layout. when ordering the machines, their fucking order system will not allow you to order more than 5 computers at once. so, two orders of 5.
fast forward to this week, when i get the first batch, and spend a couple days setting up the new computers. oddly enough, the second batch never arrives.
fortunately, as i am doing this for the office, i still have receipts and whatnot, so i check on the order status. dell, in their infinite wisdom has cancelled the second order.
i call their customer support line. their response:
"we have no idea why your order was cancelled. is that a problem?"

YES THAT IS A FUCKING PROBLEM. YOU CANCELLED MY GODDAMNED ORDER, DID NOT NOTIFY ME OF THIS, AND NOW I HAVE HALF AN OFFICE FULL OF PISSED OFF PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR 3 WEEKS FOR THEIR FUCKING COMPUTERS.

dell's customer rep was unable to resolve this issue. now i am waiting on a call from a manager some time in the next couple days to possibly reinstate said order. which will mean waiting another three fucking weeks. in what world is it ok to just cancel an order without notifying anyone? no email, no call, nothing. hell, it even says on my order that they didn't bother to send me any notification. goddammit dell, i tried to give you a couple thousand dollars. now you can go fuck yourselves, i'm picking these computers up from best buy, i don't have time to deal with this nonsense.