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In 1938, Dr. Frank Benford, a physicist at GE, noticed that pages on a logarithm book were dirtier if the pages contained digits starting with 1. After studying more than 20,000 data sets, he derived a theory that says real statistics have a preclusion to begin with the digit 1. So, for instance, a normal person trying to fake an amount on, say, their taxes, would probably pick 5 or 6 to start the fraudulent number ($584 in deductions, say). Statistically, however, a real deduction might be something like $1,097. This even works with different scales so the theorem holds true for dollars, yen, half-lives of radioactive elements, town populations, etc.

They’re even writing software to run through tax and accounting data looking for patterns that don’t fit. It’s not perfect, but what a weird thing to fall out from someone who was observant enough to notice dirty pages on a book.

Link [via digg]

IF KANYE WEST HAD BALLS, he’d pose as Mohammed, instead of Jesus. But he doesn’t. Efforts to be controversial have become so predictable. Yawn.

Check.

Instapundit

Part of the joys of owning a home is interacting with your local municipality. Mine happens to be Chelsea, MI. One of the services offered to the city residents is free curb-side pickup of recyclable materials. It’s a pretty good program; I get a majority of my consumables taken away for free and the city gets to sell these materials to whoever they want. I hear recycling makes some money, not a lot, but enough to keep it going.

Well, I’m sick of dealing with the people they send to “pick up” my recycling. I use quotes there because rarely, if ever, have they taken all of my things. In fact, I often find things they deem unacceptable left either in the bucket I put out or, usually, in my driveway. I can deal with that (really I can). It’s not a glamorous job, I get that. I’d probably be pretty pissed if once a week I had to tool through town and pick up other people’s garbage, no matter how non-organic it is.

But when these anonymous people start leaving me meaningless notes in the containers, which still contain the items I put out, I’m pretty much through. I’ll still recycle, but I’ll do it myself. I got this in my paper bucket today (with paper still in it).

Click for full size

First, let’s break down the message here. I’m supposed to separate “paper, magazines, and cardboard”. Which is fine, except that if I take my recycling (as I will be doing) to a drop-off I don’t have to do that. I can shove all the newspaper, printouts, shreddings, napkins, paper plates, magazines, and tech manuals I want into the same slot. It’s called “Miscellaneous Paper”. The other slot is “Cardboard”. (Side note, it’s corrugated paper; cardboard is not the same thing.) I digress… I can handle that, that makes sense to me. What doesn’t make sense is this OCD-like need to separate newspaper from other “paper”. Why do I have to do that at the curb-side, but not at the bloody huge collection dumpsters located everywhere? And while the technology for paper recycling is up to snuff that I can leave staples and tape on the cereal boxes I put out, it’s not sophisticated enough to differentiate between white office paper and newspaper.

Second, why the hell is every friggen line on the page highlighted? How does that accentuate the message? And what the hell is a bottle “with a thin neck”? What’s the threshold for necks on plastic bottles? I don’t know, but I know it’s somewhere between a milk jug (which they’ll take) and a bottle of Pom (which they won’t take). Or, maybe it’s closer to a bottle of Planter’s peanut oil, which got picked up the second time I put it out. Maybe they should issue micrometers with the recycling buckets so we can spec our recyclable containers. Don’t even get me started on numbered plastics.

So, I’m done with curb-side recycling, at least here. I’ll still bring my stuff to the dumpster recycling stations; apparently that’s the Wild West of recycling; anything goes (and I’m not kidding, you should see the crap people dump there). My only question is, now that I’ve scanned this leaflet, does it go in with my office paper or, since it apparently was to me, the news?

Online search engine leader Google Inc. has agreed to censor its results in China, adhering to the country’s free-speech restrictions in return for better access in the Internet’s fastest growing market. [AP Story]

I await the outrage and venom aimed at Microsoft and Yahoo! to be dealt to Google with much greater enthusiasm. Scoble should have a permagrin on his face for all the egg his “critics” will have to eat.

Ok, this is a confession/rant. I’m a WoW addict. I would play all day, every day if I could. The fact that I don’t is a testament to myself of my own committment to things other than WoW. (Note, others may disagree; this is not about them!)

That said, I couldn’t have cared less that Blizzard made this contest in the latest release for servers to compete in order to earn the right to have a new instance opened on their server. That is, until I realized what they had created. What they created was insanity. Thousands of people logged onto the server to see the Gates of Ahn’Qiraj open; I happend to be lucky enough to be on that server. My wait went from 20 to over 800 in a week. Let me repeat that: I’m now waiting for over an hour to log onto the server for which I pay monthly fees to use. Now, in the FPS world, this isn’t an issue usually because I can go to a different server and take my character with me (see BF2 for a good implementation). WoW doesn’t allow that. If I want to go to a different server, I have to start over.

So, last night, as the gates got closer to opening, the whole realm decided to take a crap and start crashing. Granted, the whole realm didn’t go down. No, you had to be lucky enough to be in specific areas. Half the world disappeared around 11pm, which is when I found a place to log off.

I see on Slashdot today that it only got worse from there. The whole thing was a disaster from a technical and PR standpoint, with a few dozen other servers to go.

I work on a web app in real life, I get how hard it is to scale, I really do. That said, Blizzard has been doing this for over a year and knows what kind of traffic they have to deal with. Building a contest that could foreseeably increase the load on one realm should have been managed ahead of time. Blizzard eventually disallowed new accounts to be created on Medivh, but only a few days prior to the contest closing. The patch should have done this. The sharp uptick in people on the realm has made the point of spreading users across servers worthless. Blizzard actively encouraged people to create level 1 characters and run then cross-country to the gates. The response of porting players under level 30 away from the area should have been unnecessary in the first place. It’s not a purely technical problem; it’s a change management problem (man, someone at work would die to read that).

I’m disappointed, I really am. I expected a lot more from the game and from Blizzard. They’re very smart people; I hope they realize that all problems aren’t solved with sys admins.

Demonstrating once again why it’s one of the funniest comics today, Foxtrot today takes a passing (and deserving) shot at James Frey, author of “A Million Little Pieces”.

Frey, who’s supposedly autobiographical book details his drug-fueled binge of violence and self-destruction cum salvation story, has come under some pretty severe criticism. While this isn’t normally a big deal, this book got an Oprah endorsement which guaranteed its meteoric success. Frey may have made up pretty much everything in the book, but that hasn’t stopped Oprah from standing by her cashcow endorsement.

Link to Foxtrot

Perhaps bordering on “too geeky”, but what the hell. Make your own.

[via DataWhat]

I made patychkys today (well, yesterday and today with the overnight marinating) based on the recipe from Mr. Anchovy (which I found via Garlicster). Wow! I used steak for mine since I didn’t feel like running out to buy a pork loin, but I’m sure picking one up next time out because these things are awesome.

Basically, you marinate 1″ cubes of pork, chicken, or beef in an insane amount of garlic (I used around 30 cloves) and beer or sherry (I used beer). Let them marinate overnight, skewer them, into an eggwash, coat in breadcrumbs, brown all sides lightly and then bake them at 350⁰ for an hour. Dead easy, but what a great snack. A new favorite around here.

I know I’ve posted on him way too much already, but this couldn’t go without comment. Jack Thompson, the same crusader who thinks that he’ll sue his way to infamy, has started a new tack; gamers are involved in a “masturbatory activity, meaning senseless self-stimulation”, but one that’s an affront to God. In a letter to MetalGearSolid.org’s, a forum where a gamer recently made his suicide threats reality, Jack decided that what really needed to be said at a time like this was “Sad, sad for all of you.” Only, he wasn’t expressing sympathy for the loss of a community member. No, he was sad that the gamer who had committed suicide had chosen a thing “not of God.” (See the whole letter here)

Yep, gamers are evil, and not in the selfish, shoulda-done-something better for an hour. Nope, they are actually Evil with a capital E because they decided to do something ungodly. Between insulting the entire board and the memory of an far-too-dead kid, Jack decides that now is the time to insinuate a little Jesus into the argument. The extended entry has a letter to Jack; it does contain some coarse language.

Dear Jack,

Fuck you. Fuck you and everything you stand for. Your fear mongering has reached a depth even God himself shouldn’t stand for. You have twisted your beliefs into something so other-worldly, it makes even your supporters whistle as they look elsewhere. You are what you hate, Jack, and you have become just like the stereotype you rail against: vengeful, impulsive, with pride bordering on hubris.

I have news for you. There are literally millions of us out there, gamers, that is. Millions. There’s one of you. You may have a few religious-pandering politicians in your pocket, but I won’t be voting for them again. Oh, wait, did you miss that part? That’s right, there are millions of us who vote. Vote (or, more appropriately, don’t vote) for the candidates you are soliciting. And we’re keeping score. (Like that tie in, Jack? There’s more coming.) We’re keeping score. And every November, as you piss more and more of us off, we’re turning out. We’re going to make sure your lapdog’s don’t get a second chance. Since we can’t vote you out (which is a crime in and of itself), we’ll take away the little power you do have.

Barring that (wait for it), we’re going to do whatever it takes to get you to stop practicing law. Some of us already have, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. I even heard a judge got sick of your grand-standing. Get ready for that to happen a lot more. My parents, the boomer generation, have starting to figure out that I’m pretty much able to run my own life. They talk to me about people like you. You know what I tell them Jack? Let’s just say it’s little bit nicer than “he’s a fucking idiot”, but not much, mostly because swearing should be reserved for appropriate times (see this letter as an example). And they listen to me because a) I’m a pretty smart guy and b) I’ve been gaming for about 20 years and they see that I’m not the stereotype you paint for everyone else.

I know this is a little long and too coherent for you, Jack (I’ve seen your postings), so I’ll wrap this up. But before I do, let me ask one thing. Knock off the God crap. We know how that works; we’ve seen it before. Sure, you’ll get a few groups to fall in with that line, always happens. But no one takes them seriously, except for the aforementioned pandering politicians. And you’re insulting those of us who do believe that God is a little more intelligent than to take a side on video games. God has more important things to worry about besides my score on Halo.

Wishing you a quick trip to obscurity,

Ryan

The beta for Feeddemon 2.0 is out. One word: folders.

Get it here.