Wow hand April 16, 2007
Posted by dorigo in games, personal.5 comments
The strongest bridge hand I was ever dealt:
6NT were a breeze. I will now try to estimate the chances of getting 28 points or more, as in the hand above. Hmmm or maybe I will search the web… Will update. Right now, I estimate a 1 in 3000 chance, roughly.
UPDATE: It is actually a mere 19 times in a million, according to http://www.himbuv.com/pce.htm . I had estimated 1 in 3000 based on the number of hands I had ever played in my life: big mistake! The place I play in is www.pogo.com, where I suspect some algorithm is at work to give the occasional strange hand more chances to happen than normal. This, at least, is a good working hypothesis, which would explain the odd hand above and others (where oddities were different from the high-card-point count).
Re-Update: I did the computation myself ( see the next post). I find a probability of 2.9 times in a hundred thousand.
The freedom to kill April 16, 2007
Posted by dorigo in news, politics.36 comments
With bodies of the victims of the umpteenth shooting still warm in the campus of Virginia Tech University, what does Dana Perino -spokesperson of the White House- find useful to say, to reassure americans ? Worry not my fellow citizens, your right to carry guns will not be touched. Only, make sure you obey all laws.
And she might be right - what many of her countrymen who elected her boss fear most is not the occasional shooting, which always happens to somebody else. No, they fear to lose the right to caress the silvery, shining metal of the toy they keep in the drawer, or to the pitch black finish of the rifle they polish during Easter holidays.
32 died in Virginia Tech today. Quo usque tandem abutere, NRA, patientia nostra ? How many more deaths will it take ? I think a lot more than 32.
My thought and sorrow today goes of course to the relatives of the unfortunate students who were left on the ground, but just as much to those in America who love their country, but hate its penchant for guns, wars, violent assertion of dominance, revenge by law through death penalty, and trigger happiness. Those wise men and women must feel just a little bit more strangers in their own land today.
