Day: July 13, 2006

You’re playing Texas Hold’Em. ~ Which of the following has the best chance of winning?

Jack-10 suited (e.g., a Jack of diamonds and a 10 of diamonds)
Ace-7 unsuited (e.g., an Ace of spades and a 7 of clubs)
Pair of sixes

The answer, to nobody’s suprise, is: it depends! ~ The absolute probability that you will win obviously goes down if you are playing against more opponents with randomly-chosen cards, just because there are more ways they could beat you. But, much more interestingly, the ordering of which hand is best also changes.

What happens if, instead of putting one of these three hands against some other random cards, we put them up against each other, two at a time?

Sixes are likely to beat A7, and A7 is likely to beat JTs, but JTs is likely to beat a pair of sixes. It’s a kind of combinatorial rock-paper-scissors situation.

1. Find the Big Dipper and the North Star, as shown on the face of your Star Clock.

2. Face the North Star, as shown on the front of the clock.

3. Hold your Star Clock so the current month, ~ is AT THE TOP.

4. Turn the smaller disc until its stars line up with those in the sky.

5.. Read the time in the window.

Try it online

Sky Wheel with more constellations

I’m an engineer. I decided to approach weight loss as an engineering problem.

Bob Bickford, computer and video guru, defined the true essence of the hacker as “Any person who derives joy from discovering ways to circumvent limitations.”

You don’t need a computer to use The Hacker’s Diet; easy-to-work paper and pencil methods are presented in the book. But if you have a computer with Excel or a PalmPilot, the companion tools may save you time and provide more insight into the engineering underpinning of the methods described in the book, while producing an illustrated log of your progress.