Legenda -boleh dibilang begitu- hidup Meksiko ini memang tdk begitu lama merumput di Eropa dan jg bukan bergabung brsama klub elit Eropa. Kapten sekaligus striker Meksiko ini pernah bermain brsama Real Valladolid di liga Spanyol selama 2 musim, 2000-2002. Selebihnya merumput di beberapa klub tanah kelahirannya, Meksiko. Sejak 2007 hingga skrg, bergabung bersama klub liga Amerika Serikat, Chicago Fire.

Kelebihan pemain yg satu ini, menurut saya, passing dan umpannya yg akurat-makanya sering jg diposisikan sbg gelandang serang- trus tendangan bebas yg akurat dan kemampuan membaca permainan. Saya sendiri hanya sekali melihatnya tampil, saat membela klub Meksiko, America, di pertandingan Piala Dunia antar Klub.

Nah, kembali ke topik kita, yg paling terkenal dr pemain ini, tak lain adalah gerakan mengelabui lawan dgn melompat sambil mengangkat bola dgn 2 kaki menjepit bola: Cuauhteminha.
Istilah ini sering disebut jg 'Blanco Bounce' yg mana diberikan oleh salah satu petinggi FIFA. Tentu sangat jarang gerakan seorang pemain sampai diberi julukan khusus. Hrs bener2 spesial dan khas pemain tsb tentunya. Dan memang baru beliau seorang yg mengadopsi gerakan 'tak lazim' ini. Hehehehe..

Zen, the autistic daughter of Thai and Japanese gangsters, acquires preternatural combat skills by imitating Muay Thai fighters training and watching martial arts flicks (including Prachya Pinkaew's earlier Ong Bak, I believe). She is called upon to use these skills to collect her mother's old debts to pay for medical treatments when she falls seriously ill. As HIFF's staff introduced the show, "Imagine Rain Man had grown up watching Black Belt Theater instead of the People's Court".

Once again, the folks at Twitch have a trailer. Over at Deknang they have stills, posters, and more. If only I understood Thai.

★★★★★

Very cool Italian motorbike display at a police anniversary performance in Rome (1950s?)

Any suggestions as to what skills and who will take the session?

As a supplementary part of jump starting your blog, here is another essential points you should learn. Many blog beginners having difficulty filling the blog's content. They often feel "somehow incapable" to write appealing contents for their blog. They tend to feel "something is wrong with my blog" or for short let's call it "always incomplete feeling". Many of them ask themselves "will there any one will actually like my writing ?"

Well, you can try these tips to make your writings appealing :

1. Write with your peace of mind. Write with no pressure, no rush, and everything will be just fine. You will not have notable obstacles to seek for suitable words to flow out of your head. Write down everything you want to write. A good blog usually have original content, written with sincerity. So, basically you can write down anything you like, to let your soul flow within the text you type so it has a "touch of feelings".
2. Write only useful things. A successful blog knows best what the readers want to ensure every one reading the blog don't leave the blog with empty hands. The blog readers will expect to have something new and useful for them every time they visit the blog. Give plenty of information every one can use. Do not disappoint their visit to your blog.
3. Find solutions for others. First, before trying to solve other's problem you should know for sure who are your blog readers. After recognizing them, then you can predict what kind of problems they might have which lead them to your blog. After that prediction, you can accurately make an analysis about the right solutions for their problems. The problem is, what if you don't currently have any readers? New bloggers have this problem for sure. No problem, don't panic and start by reading other blogs with similar reader group. Let's call it a blog reference for you. If you are completely out of ideas to offer solutions for the visitors, try to understand the problems from the readers at the reference blogs. Usually at the comment section, readers submit their problems. After that you can submit your own version of solutions.
4. Don't just write about your self. No one will like to read a long page describing only about your self and nothing else. They will think your blog is useless, and nothing they can take advantages of. Statistically, a diary-like blog usually have only a small number of reader, for a short period of time, unless the site contains something else and its useful. Psychologically, writing about your self too much on your blog will reduce the creativity within your mind, thus killing your spirit to keep writing your blog further. So, what should you remember to NOT make your blog like a diary ? Always remind your self that you are writing not only for your self, but mainly for others, all around the globe. Share to others your personal life, about what is happening with you every day and also share what people learn to others. That way you will avoid writing all about your self and only your self.
5. Touch your readers. Try to interact with your readers. How ? Don't just reply to the comments your readers write. Aim for something more creative i.e. commenter will be rewarded by free ebooks.
6. Make an attempting headline. Headline or the main title is one of the deciding factor whether your blog will be read or not. Why ? The answer is simple. Every body who wants to join in your blog will start the decision process by reading the headline. No matter how important the content if the headline is not attractive the content will never be read. Yes, you read that right : NEVER. So, how can we make a powerful headline for us ? Just use the W.I.M method : Watch, Imitate, and Modify. To become highly skilled at making deadly headlines, first you watch other blogs, magazines, newspapers, or other sources widely available on the internet for free. Take a note on the headlines in the famous blogs. Find out how those headlines can be so irresistible for you. After that just use the second technique : imitate. Just imitate the style they use. Do they use question marks ? Do they use "how to"s ? Simplified newspaper style ? Just imitate the style you like. After that you can use the final technique : modify. Make a better style from the one you imitate earlier.
7. Focus on the important. Don't waste your time and efforts for things that will not increase your blog's traffic. Are there such things can waste your time and energy ? A lot of things like too much looking for a perfect picture for your blog, or too much redesigning the blog lay out can waste your time and energy for no impact on the traffic. Spend your time on the essentials only for your blog. Writing the content and interact with the readers are two most important thing, more than anything. So make sure you minimize anything else not connected to these activities to gain more productivity.

The 7 habbits above are the essential habbits every good bloggers must have. After that if some how you still feel incapable of writing, just wipe that feeling away. Good or bad of a blog's content is decided by the readers, not you. ;)
Now, do you still have problems writing an interesting content ? If you answer yes, let's share it here... I'll be waiting :) ok ?

-          one in-pig gilt [young female pig], average litter size 8 – 10, 2.1 litters per year.

-          calculate 8 potential sales of a mixture of pedigree breeding stock, weaners and ultimately boxes of pork.

-          prospects good, gross income conservatively projected: 3 pedigree registered gilts @£95, 2 weaners @£ 60, and 3 fat pigs cut and butchered @£300 = @£1305 x 2.01 = £2623.05

-          offer shares in The Piggy Bank PLC to buy more pigs

-          deposits received and purchases made.

-          the gilt farrows prematurely has 5 piglets, 3 alive, 2 dead

-          spend half a day tending to their needs and they begin to look potentially viable but with a long way to go

-          the gilt lays on the best one of the three

-          two  weaker piglets are left, both boars with no future breeding potential and doubts that they will survive long enough to turn into pork.

-          potential income possibly zero

Annual expenses per breeding pig  [feed - home grown ration £179, straw £25, vet £30, labour £1850, use of boar £40, capital expenditure (25%) £120, Misc. incl. Heat, light, power, registration, fuel, hygiene, advertising and marketing etc £273.

The viability of The Piggy Bank PLC is severely threatened and Government support is called in. There is nothing to offer the share holders except a handful of dead piglets and the vague notion that next time will be better.

This example above may read harshly and may be upsetting to some readers but it is the stark reality of livestock farming, and is an agricultural illustration of the recent turmoil on the world's banks.  

It is also the actuality of living and tangible assets, and farming in an environmentally friendly and welfare conscious way. Here at Prosperous Farm economies of scale, combined with the other livestock enterprises help to cut many of of the costs and the figures given above are just an example to show exactly how tight the margins are.

However, parody aside: this life and death situation, which many livestock farmers deal with a on a regular basis, is also a type of evolution – ensuring up to a point - survival of the fittest animals and ensures that the breeding stock that does survive is both hardy and viable. And this in turn ensures that only the fittest farm businesses survive too, those with the best stockmanship skills combined with good financial management. However these events must also be averaged over many years as no year or season is ever the same and every farm has good years and indifferent ones too.

We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes.

by: Rev. Charles Swindoll, Source Unknown

If we are charge of our attitudes, we can also control, change and, of course, improve them. That's what DMI trainings are all about. We deal with the essence of human beings so they can take control over everything else in life. You or your friends are never too late to 'empower your life'!

]]> http://syahadahfc.wordpress.com/?p=164 Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:25:46 +0000 syahadahfc http://syahadahfc.ro.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/taktik-individual-bertahan/ Strategi bertahan sebagus apapun tidak akan banyak berguna jika tidak didukung oleh taktik individual yang bagus dari para pemainnya. Setiap pemain harus mengetahui dan terlatih bagaimana secara individual masing-masing dari mereka bisa bertahan.

Pertama-tama yang harus dilakukan oleh setiap pemain dalam bertahan adalah berusaha untuk memotong umpan (passing) yang dilakukan oleh lawan. Jika ini tidak bisa, hal yang harus dilakukan tergantung pada posisi pemain lawan yang sedang menerima umpan.

Jika pemain lawan tersebut dalam posisi yang dekat, maka pemain kita harus berusaha mengganggu dan merebut bola darinya begitu ia menerima umpan. Tekanlah bola secepat mungkin. Jangan biarkan ia berlama-lama memegang bola. Bergeraklah ke arahnya ketika bola masih dalam perjalanan, sehingga begitu bola sampai ke kakinya, saat itu pula dia sudah akan menerima gangguan kita. Dan sebaik-baik waktu untuk mengganggu lawan adalah ketika pertama kali dia menerima bola (saat mengontrol bola pertama kali).

Lakukan pressing dengan ketat sehingga pemain lawan tersebut kesulitan (baca: tidak bisa) untuk berbalik menghadap ke arah Anda. Jangan biarkan ia berbalik menghadap ke arah Anda. Sebaliknya, press ia dengan agresif dan berusahalah merebut bola dengan agresif, tanpa harus melakukan pelanggaran. Sebisa mungkin pula, giringlah ia menjauhi daerah berbahaya tim Anda.

Adapun jika pemain lawan yang menerima umpan berada dalam posisi yang jauh, maka pemain kita hendaknya bergerak mendekatinya untuk selanjutnya membayanginya (meng-contain). Dalam membayangi, jarak dengan pemain lawan yang membawa bola janganlah terlalu dekat karena ia akan mudah lewat. Namun juga jangan terlalu jauh sehingga ia terlalu leluasa.

Kuda-kuda yang biasa dipakai ketika membayangi adalah kuda-kuda samping. Kuda-kuda ini mirip dengan kuda-kuda kumite dalam pertandingan karate atau taekwondo. Satu kaki agak maju dan yang lainnya agak ke belakang. Tubuh menghadap serong ke depan samping. Pergerakan dilakukan mengikuti pergerakan pemain lawan yang sedang membawa bola. Jangan sampai kalah cepat.

Satu hal yang tidak boleh dilakukan adalah melakukan step-in (Jawa: njangkah) ketika lawan mengontrol bola secara closed (bola dekat dengan kakinya). JIka ini dilakukan, hampir pasti lawan yang skillful akan bisa lewat dan mengecoh. Anda baru boleh step-in untuk merebut bola pada saat bola berada agak jauh dari kakinya. Temukan celah tersebut, dan silakan melakukan step in.

Cara yang cukup praktis untuk merebut bola adalah dengan menempatkan tubuh kita diantara lawan dan bola. Selamat mencoba dan selamat berlatih.

Left the house on time, a little early actually, and I got to the train station before Sam. So we got into the 1st car and sat down. When the train started (we're at the first/last stop on the route) and we made our way to Lisa's stop (which is after Karolina's but we didn't see her get on) Lisa got on, and we were talking for a bit, and I was annoying Lisa, distracting her while she tried to read Siddarthur for English class. Anyway, when we finally got to our stop and got off, we went to the street vendor that's on the way to school. I got my breakfast - a bacon, egg and cheese on a roll - and as we were waiting, Karolina walked up to us, apparently on the same train as we were, just a different car. So we all walked to the school together, meeting another friend of ours on the way there, Raquel. So the 5 of us are making our way to school, and are about to cross the street...and we look across. "What the f**k [I'm censoring because I want to get the most readers possible so if people have blockers or safe search or something, yea]..." im not sure who said it..it doesn't really matter. All we saw was a HUUUUUUUUGE line of students! It wrapped around from the entrance all down the side of the block and AROUND the corner and down that side! We didn't know what the heck was going on and we didn't have time to stop and ask, we just hurried to the end of the line. So we were standing around for a while, wondering what's up..but not too concerned because then we'd be late to gym and Lisa would be late DDP, both some of our least favorite classes. Then we hear 'They're checking bags and taking electronics'.

Oh

Em

Gee

!!!

WE FREAKED! We totally lost it! Karolina had only gotten her phone back the other day because our DDP teacher took it away from her (even though class hadn't started yet and she was shutting it off) and the school "lost" her phone (a Blackberry btw) but then they "found" it when her mom came to the school. And to top it off..there were pictures of the inside of the school on her phone...But yea, so she JUST got her phone back, she couldn't have it taken again. She also had a Zune with her. I had my iPod (which might not show up on metal detectors since its part plastic) and it happened to be the ONE day that I decide too bring my f**king camera with me! Sam had his NEW phone and his iPod, Lisa had her phone and her iPod. Those things are like our LIFE. We were losing our minds! We were freaking out trying to think of places to put it! Maybe hide it somewhere or something, they couldn't take our stuff! We heard some seniors say to give it to the guy at the pizzeria-yea right! So we were totally freaking out. There were security guards everywhere and they were saying to put everything in your bag: keys, coins, belts, everything. So we stuffed all our stuff in there, even though we didn't want them to take our stuff. The craziness was really getting to us, especially Karolina. She got completely delirious lmao. She had just bought a pack of gum earlier and had given us pieces. But now she was freaking out thinking that she would get in trouble for having gum as well, and that the pack would show through her skinny jeans. So she was acting all freaked out and telling us all to take pieces of gum lmaoo.

Anyway, we got closer to the doorway, and we had to scan our ID cards to get in the building. Then we were crowded into the area in between the first floor and the outside doors. So as we entered the first floor, the whole center was PACKED. And we saw security guards everywhere and there were giant metal detectors and machines and it was insane! There was a bunch of like, police tape, that was breaking off different areas of the floor. We were all freaking out, the craziness of the situation overwhelming us. We fussed for a bit, trying to get into an order, people not wanting to go first or last. I was so freaked that I even thought of faking an asthma attack to get out of it! But it was too late and before we knew it, we were right in front of the detectors. Sam and Karolina began towards the left and another row and I went to follow but the guy made me stop. 'Oh no!' I didn't want to get split up. So the guy told me to give him my bag, I went to give it to him (reluctantly) but then I remembered..

OH CRAP!

I had frozen my water bottle the night before so it would melt but stay cold throughout the day. When you do that, you put aluminum foil around it so it doesn't wet the other things in my bag... But what does a large cylindrical metal covered object look like?!?!?! A FREAKING BOMB! I almost DIED as i handed him my bag. And since it's such a small bag, everything is packed together, it'll be harder to tell what is what, especially with something that looks like that! So I told the guy in panic, "I have a water bottle covered with aluminum foil!!!" lmao I must've sounded ridiculous. But he nodded. So he put the bookbag in the machine and I walked through the detector. I was fine. But then, as my bag went through, the guy shouted

PHONE!!!!!!

And I heard the same thing, a few areas away where my friends were!!!

PHONE!!!! PHONEEE!!! I was terrified at what would happen next. They made us all walk to another area and then we had to go towards the auditorium. As we were going, I saw students being scanned with the wand thing! So we went in to the auditorium and it was PACKED! All of these students are students who were going to have things confiscated. We saw people going in and being directed to different areas of seats. We saw some people going up the stairs in the Auditorium, so we followed them, thinking that perhaps we were going to the balcony of the auditorium. We were going up and up and up, and we were confused and lost, not a clue where we were going, and then...

WOOSH. We opened a door and the light flooded us. It was quiet, unlike the auditorium, and there were no security guards...It was bright, and empty, and I swear it felt like Heaven. In reality, it was the 3rd floor.

We looked at each other, confused and in awe...we had gotten out of there! We were supposed to have our stuff taken away, but we escaped! It was like a crazy twist in an adventure movie! We had gotten away! And ironically, our first class was on the third floor anyway. By that time, we had all had a heart attack from the previous events (especially me) and we could care less about rushing to class. We walked to the room, in a bit of a daze. 1st period was almost over anyway, so we got to miss half of double gym :). Plus, because of the lines outside, we weren't allowed to go out and across the street to the park to run track. THANK GOD, because it was freezing out.

That's what you call luck..and a little bit of accidental skill. Haha crazy

_____________________________________________________

Tuesday:

I woke up at freaking 6:23!! I was soo late! I'm supposed to wake up at 6! So I threw on some clothes and grabbed my stuff and bolted out the door. I missed my usual bus so I had to take a later one. So we got into the 1st car and sat down. Once the train started and got to Karolina's stop, I saw her walking towards the front, but she got into the second car. Sam and I followed and met up with her, though she was mad about that, lol, just because she was being Karolina. Then, Lisa got on at her stop, but in the first car so I had to go get her.

Anyway, so now the 4 of us are in the second car, and after a certain point, there train got emptier so we were all chilling and hanging out. I had to do my math homework so I opened my book but was distracted so I didn't start it. The train stopped at a station, it's doors remaining open. Normally, the would close right after and we would start moving, but today, this wasn't the case. The train stopped, not moving. The train conductor announced over the speaker that..There was a power outage on the main track. Brilliant, just brilliant, however, it bought me some time to do my math homework, so I thanked God for that. So anyway, apparently all the trains had to use the express track so there were a bunch of delays as we made our way to our stop. By the time we got to our stop, we were already quite late, so we decided to stop at the street vendor as Sam bought my signature breakfast. We were late already..so what the hell. Then we stopped at the deli where I bought a bag of chips and Karolina bought a bag of Reese's Pieces. So, by the time we got to school, we were 20 minutes late to first period. We agreed, after the matter, that we should've been later because it wouldn't have made a difference. We tried explaining it to our DDP teacher (1st and 2nd period class for that day) but he pretty much just shrugged it off.

And to top it all off, we got grades back for a quiz we took at I got a freaking 17. Yes, out of 100. But it was a 3 question quiz so each question was 33-34 points. I got 17 because I apparently answered half a question. I tried to ask him if he would give me more credit because I had all the right answers, in the right order...just not in the right answer spaces. I didn't remember the differentiation of each step in the desgin process so I ended up clumping step one with step two, and then putting the answer for step three in the step 2 spot...They were all the right answers, but he refused to give me credit. Ugh Whatever. I honestly can't stand DDP because of my teacher. He is completely monotone, boring, and unfair. I'm actually thinking that I might fail this class...seriously. He doesn't grade fairly, AND he says he'll drop the lowest grade of THE ENTIRE YEAR! WTF! When teacher's drop the lowest grade, they do it per marking period, that's how it counts! He's saying that in June, he'll drop the lowest grade. And he's got this bullshit thing where he says that he can understand if we end up just having a bad day and getting a low test score which is why he'll drop the lowest, but if you've got 5 or 6 bad days, then it's not bad days, you need to study or relearn or whatever, basically he thinks its just not possible. Ermm.. only 6 out of like 270 days of school...wow, yea, I'll never have more than 6/270 bad days...HA YEA RIGHT. He also says that the reason he won't give me credit on my quiz is because you "Can't go to second base before you go to first". BUT MY ANSWERS WERE IN THE RIGHT ORDER!!! That's not going for second to first. That's going from first to second to third.

If because of his bad grading, if my average dips down because of him, UGHHH I don't know...I just hate it. And it's not like I can't take a bad grade. I can. I know when I deserve it. But I also know when I don't. Grr.

-------------------------------------------

Wednesday:

I had a newspaper meeting after school. Sam came because he was going to quit. Lisa was going to wait for us, but then said that she would meet us at a certain street corner. The meeting was going to be quick, but half-way through, Sam just told them that he was quitting and he bolted out the door, laughing at me because he was leaving and saying that he wasn't going to wait for me. Anyway, I never found them. So when I got home, I got online and got into a fight with him, and he lied to me about what he did after he left. Anyway, it doesn't matter, just some stress. We got over it.

---------------------------------------

Thursday:

I didn't have any school today because of the Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur. I love the Jews! lol. Anyway, got into ANOTHER argument, this time on Facebook..ugh. I'm not going to bother explaining.

---------------------------------------

Friday:

I woke up at 6:40!!!!!!!! I PANICKED! For the first 4 minutes, I was just standing there, confused not a clue what to do. I was so screwed! I was rushing, and losing my mind, knowing I'm so late. But then my mom said that she would drive me to the train station, THANK GOD. Because I knew that the next bus that would come might be too late. So we rushed in the car, and we were almost there..but I saw the clock in the car say 7:00...my train had left..But I thanked my mom, got out of the car, got into the station..and realized that there were two trains there... MY TRAIN DIDN'T LEAVE YET! I slid my card in the machine and bolted through the turnstyle and ran into the train just in time. In moments, I heard "Stand clear of the closing door please" and I made my way into the first car where I found Sam. The clock in my car was 2 minutes fast!! It was actually 6:58, (exactly when the train leaves). I got on in time! hahaha.

Anyway, later on, afterschool, I was supposed to meet Lisa, Sam, and Karolina to go the mall..because they didn't want to go the school Pep Rally afterschool (which I wanted to go to). I waited for them for like ever to go to the mall..they went to the f**king pep rally.

What a lovely week, eh?

huaahhhmmm. i just find it hard to stay working for just 2 hour straight.  we dont talk 8 hours. its 2 hours! i just cant force myself to get silent on IM. unnecessary ? chat with my friends is necessary. God.. give me that skill.

Please tell me they mean to do this with a tool not manually!

Option 1

scanning/auditing tool - 500

2 dev days 2000

total cost 2,500 job done

Option 2

less experienced dev through agency

3 months (of mind numbing error/omission prone busy work) @ 300 per day (200 to dev 100 to agency (kaa ching))

Total cost 18,000 job mostly done, probably.

Bearing in mind it was on a well known job site and not some freelancer website I think I know which it is.

I guess someone could take it on, do the job in a couple of days with use of (a self funded) tool, then spend the rest of the 3 months doing something more fun.

It doesn't say if the role is in one of the many unstable financial institutions - if so, I think I'd be wanting payment in advance. One of my mates suggested he was going to start looking for payment in gold or fine art. I'd do the above job for a Banksy.

Have you seen any interesting jobs recently?

cheers

Simon

Holding the steering wheel with his right foot and using his left foot for the floor pedals, the man demonstrated his driving skill. The state policeman who administered the test admitted, "He drove very well. He is very capable."

The man with no arms commented, "I don't feel handicapped at all. A handicap is a state of mind!"

Just think how much more could we do as Christians if we did not excuse ourselves on the grounds of being incapable! When we are asked to do something at church, to witness for Christ, or to serve in some other way, how do we answer? "Oh, I can't do that!" If so, we are handicapped by our state of mind..

God tells us, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Then Paul declares, "Therefore I will boast gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."

Even if we have a handicap, God is not limited in what He can do through us. In fact, He often uses us for His glory all the more. As we depend completely on the Lord, He empowers us with His Spirit and enables us to do His will.

When we allow the Holy Spirit to work through us, our efforts will be far more effective than if performed by some highly talented or gifted person who relies on himself and fails to depend on God. The Apostle Paul was brilliant, but his thorn in the flesh brought him down to complete reliance upon the Lord. And this is what made Paul's ministry so fruitful.

Some most outstanding Christians have been greatly used for Christ in spite of personal handicaps. Fanny Crosby was blind; yet her music has stirred hearts through the years.

Has God spoken to you about doing something for Him? Have you resisted, thinking yourself inadequate? Don't handicap yourself! Appropriate Philippians 4:13: "I can do everything through him who gives me strength."

"Oh, Lord, fill me with Your Spirit and use me for Your glory however You wish."

Have I been holding back from something I feel God is asking me to do? Am I willing to rely completely on His strength and to step out in faith?

- Sources make stress

- Solve the stress

- 6 powers of human

Courtesy to Pokernews.com, they just posted an article about how a Dutch Professor has used a formula to calculate that poker is more of a skill game that it seems to be. Using the formula, it has been used to compare games of skill to games of chance. The formula  they used was

Skill = Learning Effect/ (Learning Efect + Chance Effect)

A game of total chance has a skill rating of 0 such as dice. Poker was examined as .4 which is apparently quite high compared to fantasy sports which scored a .3. It also scored way higher then blackjack.

Poker to me seems to be compared to blackjack more then it would be compared to chess in a person's mind. People automatically assume that poker is more like blackjack because of the casino quality and maybe the old time thought they have in their head of old people saying "All-in" in savy texan accents. I would rather assume its closer to chess though. With each decision there comes benefits and consequences in both games. Each one relies on the skill of the player to make the correct decision every time. When making the correct decision every time in poker, statistcally if luck is favored in each players way, then the person who makes better decisions wins more money. Though, if this is true, poker bots would theoretically beat humans everytime, but they haven't. Poker bots do not have the instincts that humans do. While pokerbots do the correct decisions now, humans have reasons they might have caused a mistake, or use their mistakes to influence their future decisions. And also, there is the factor of luck.

Even though, I love the fact of people coming up to me and telling me how they can beat me in poker. This means that it is spreading quite quickly and I encourage it go also. For people who do believe poker is a luck game, all they have to do is get lucky right? When you watch poker on TV, whent he amateurs get lucky, Pros can get away most of the time. But when the pros get lucky, then what can you do? Professionals are professionals because they earn the most money, and thats true. The more money you have, the more famous you are, and then when your a constant winner, your a professional. If poker was just a luck game, there would not be any professionals. Because there is a skill involved, and the pros are still constant winners, that means luck cannot be that big of a factor. There are blackjack professionals because there is some skill to blackjack. While being only maybe 2% favorite over the house, that is still a favorite and that small amount of skill sometimes does change if they go home a winner, or if they keep on losing.

So if you wanna play poker, LEARN it, and then call me up or play with me at Pokerstars sometime. I'm not that good, but I have learned it.

Currently that is suggesting over 5 million downloads in the last 30 days, and seems to be improving. I think the chart means 1.2 million per week. Interesting but not startling on its own.

Back in May (5 months ago) I reported from the same page, and downloads were running at 2.7 million a month.

WOW! - an increase of 100% in the space of 5 months?

(Apologies for the crappy chart May 08 and Oct 08 numbers are actuals, everything else is estimates)

If they keep that quantity of increase (0.5 million additional per month - orange bars) then in Apr 09 downloads will be 9 million, and in the 12 months then ending there will have been 70 odd million downloads. (12 months later on the same linear trend = 220 million in the 24 months).

If they keep that rate of growth (16% month on month - purple bars) then in Apr 09 downloads will be 13.4 million and in the 12 months there will have been almost 82 million downloads. (12 months later on the same rate there will have been 550 million downloads in the 24 months!)

[Or did I do something dumb in my 'analysis'?] [Or is Oct 08 an anomaly? - time will tell]

Of course this is just downloads, no mention of freebies on magazine covers, or non OOo downloads (eg OxygenOffice etc) or the version thats on every Linux net book, Or the Google pack which includes Star Office. etc etc

MS were estimating the office productivity suite market to be in the region of 500 million, or that may just be MS Office licences. Either way OOo is/will be over 10% and heading for 20%.

Now we can argue forever (and I'm sure some of us will ;-)) about skews, freetards and whatever, but this looks to me like a significant trend that us office dev types should be following closely. I certainly will be, what about you?

Anyone care to hazard a guess at O2007 marketshare?

cheers

Simon

Encho_451

Стъкло....

Модел фотоапарат : nikon D70

Another area on which I wish to focus in today's post is that of the far-right and how important it is that we prevent them from gaining credence as a feasible political party. Earlier this week, I attended an anti-fascist seminar in Sheffield, and one of the speakers warned of the BNP taking the same path as UKIP. I am not generally one to quote David Cameron, but on this occasion he is right in his assessment that UKIP are in fact a party of "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists". Yet increasingly, they are regarded as a legitimate political party. We must find methods to discredit the idea that parties of the far-right be taken as moderate products of the democratic process, lest the BNP be next to place a representative on the BBC's panel of candidates on election day.

It is time, then, to take to the streets and to the telephones, and to educate the voters that the bright future lies within the Labour party, not within the false rhetoric of the Conservatives, and certainly not in the so-called 'agendas' of the far-right. Now more than ever, the core labour voters must not pander to the hollow promises of the Tories, much less to the populist verbosity of the fascists. We must be strong in our resolve to win back the Labour vote. We must not fail, and we must not falter. The result of the next election remains in the hands of Labour.

Some others may offer this one as well:
An activity characterised by a balance between winning and losing that is governed by a mixture of skill and chance.

I love playing poker. it is the best past time I've found to date, it's a game of skill and chance, it rewards aggression, intelligence, fearlessness. It allows the completely clueless to beat the best of the best occasionally, but allows the best to always win it all in the end(albeit the end could be very far away). I do NOT consider poker gambling, besides the fact that it does involve chance(luck), it rewards skill and the better you are, the more money you make. It is completely different from the slew of other casino table games: blackjack, Spanish 21, paigow, craps, roulette (worst odds ever), 3 card poker, 4 card poker, war, Caribbean stud, baccarat, and what else... oh..the money wheel!...just to name a few :)

And to consider a game gambling simply due to the chance factor is subjective. In a game of odds, as long as you know the odds and understand in the long run you will come out on top, you are in control of your results. you know you will beat the other players 60% of the time? give it a year of playing and you will be that much richer. Some may suffer long stretches of statistical anomaly, but it will eventually return to normal. You can get hit by a car when you walk out your house, struck by lightning, get attacked by a crazy man, slip in your shower, have your tv explode on you....Small chance? it's still a life of chance. Everything involves chance, but that does not stop us from waking up in the morning, I would not go as far as saying life is a gamble, but in essence it is not far from it. But just like poker, understanding what is involved and at stake, then you are in control, and that is not gambling anymore. Think stock market, even more luck involved than poker, much less frowned upon.