Sports Gambling Post
The world of sports gambling is correctly assumed to be seedy and arcane, but I’ve been trying to figure out how it is that bookies make money, and it’s pretty cool. The wikipedia explanation is great, but it leaves out some tricks that Chad Millman explains well. Millman is a reporter, and can be best described as ESPN’s gambling correspondent.
Imagine a horse race with 5 identical horses and 5 gamblers each supporting 1 of the horses. You’re the bookie, and you set the lines at 5 to 1. Each gambler gives you $1, you have $5 in total, and the gambler who wins gets the $5. At some stage in the illustrious history of betting some dude figured out ‘overbounding.’ With overbounding, the bookie reduces the odds each contestant winning so the total paid out is less than the bookie takes in. In the horse race example, the bookie could set the line for each horse at 4 to 1. Thus the same 5 gamblers each put in $1, but the winner only gets $4, and the bookie keeps the left over dollar as profit. If you convert the lines (which are odds) to probabilities, then the bookies makes money when the sum of the probabilities of all offered bets exceeds 1, and the expected proportion of the total that will become profit is equal to the 1 minus the sum of probabilities.
What Millman reports on and is equally cool is that bookies figured out they could make even more money by setting the lines based, not on realistic probabilities, but on what the public believes are good probabilities. Say horse 1 is really popular, or just looks fast, but really is just like the other horses. Then the bookie can set the line for horse 1 to 3:1, and the gambler will still take the bet because of horse 1′s perceived speed. If that horse happens to win, the gambler only gets $3 and the bookie gets $2 rather than just $1.
According to Millman, the bookies in Las Vegas will change lines based on the day of the week. On weekends, they reduce the lines for the popular teams because that’s when all the rich idiots are there betting on the popular New York and New England pro teams, and the California and Florida college teams.
The horse racing example is probably a bad one because in real horse racing the adjust the lines based on the previous bets, but they still overbound.
For the point of view of the gambler, the task is to find the underdog horses that have been missed by the bookies. If the true odds of, say, horse 5 are 4:1 but the bookie gives you 5:1 then you’re smart to bet on horse 5. But that assumes you know more than the bookie. When you think of it this way it’s more clear that your betting against the guy who sets the lines as much as your betting on any actual contestant. And the bookie is a professional who does this day in day out. I’m a professional epidemiologist and if some random dude off tried to out epidemiology me, I’d imagine that I’d have some pretty clear advantages. Yet everyday people think they know more than bookies, and take bets with them.
All of that said, it’s still so tempting. The Vegas odds on the Celtics winning the NBA championship as of writing this are 9 to 2. I could throw in $40 and win $180. Everyone picked the Cavs last year and they didn’t even make it to the finals. What’s to lose?
Fluid: a must-have app for Mac users
Fluid is a great app for Mac users who rely heavily on web-based softwares like Google Docs, Basecamp, and Pandora. Fluid.app creates working applications out of these online tools (referred to as site-specific browsers) so that they can be launched from the Mac OSX dock, be kept in their own windows, and controled with Preferences similarly to how other regular applications can be.
You can download Fluid for free at http://fluidapp.com. Once you do, you’ll probably want to find some cool icons so that your new apps look good in your dock. You can find dock icons for over 100 popular web-based softwares in the Fluid group pool on Flickr. To get you started using the app, Scraster Professional Screencasting created a great demonstration video that you can view by clicking here or on the linked image below. If you come to enjoy Fluid, please forward the link to this video to your friends via the “share” tool on the player or tweet this URL: http://scraster.com/fluid . Thanks a lot and enjoy!
Old Jews Telling Jokes
What do you think you’ll find at OldJewsTellingJokes.com? That’s right. Older Jewish people telling some real zingers.
Clutter
Clutter is a great music listening application and the only app that comes close to re-creating the tactile enjoyment one used to get from browsing and picking through a pile of CDs, ordered in your own special way (strewn everywhere).
The developer doesn’t work on it anymore, and most of the download links don’t work. However, it does still work on the latest version of OSX. You can download Clutter here.
4 Convicted in Pirate Bay Case
Defendants Order To Pay $3.6 Million
LOUISE NORDSTROM, Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM — The entertainment industry won round one Friday in a legal battle against file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay, with guilty verdicts and one-year prison sentences handed down to four men accused of running and financing the popular site.
The defendants vowed to appeal, setting the stage for a lengthy copyright dispute between music and movie corporations and an online swap shop they say has deprived them of billions of dollars in lost revenue.
In its landmark ruling, the Stockholm district court convicted Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom of helping millions of users illegally download music, movies and computer games.
All four received one-year terms and were ordered to pay damages of 30 million kronor ($3.6 million) to entertainment companies, including Warner Bros, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI and Columbia Pictures.
“We can’t pay and we won’t pay,” Sunde said in a defiant video clip posted on the Internet. Mockingly, he held up a hand-scribbled “I owe U” note to the camera. “This is as close as you will get to having money from us,” Sunde said.
With an estimated 22 million users, The Pirate Bay has become the entertainment industry’s enemy No. 1 after successful court actions against file-swapping sites such as Grokster and Kazaa.
Lundstrom helped finance the site while the three other defendants administered it.
Defense lawyers had argued the quartet should be acquitted because The Pirate Bay doesn’t host any copyright-protected material. Instead, it provides a forum for its users to download content through so-called torrent files. The technology allows users to transfer parts of a large file from several different users, increasing download speeds.
The court found the defendants guilty of helping users commit copyright violations by providing a Web site with “sophisticated search functions, simple download and storage capabilities, and through the tracker linked to the Web site.”
The case focused on dozens of works that the prosecutor said were downloaded illegally. They included songs by the Beatles, Robbie Williams and Coldplay, movies such as “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” and computer games including “World of Warcraft — Invasion.”
Judge Tomas Norstrom told reporters that the site was “commercially driven,” which the defendants have denied.
John Kennedy, the head of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, called the verdict good news for anyone “who is making a living or a business from creative activity and who needs to know their rights will be protected by law.”
The Pirate Bay had assured users the trial wouldn’t affect the site, and it remained operational after the verdict. Authorities temporarily shut it down in May 2006 after seizing servers and computer equipment during raids in several locations in Sweden. But it soon reappeared, running on servers elsewhere.
Andre Rickardsson, a computer expert and former investigator for the Swedish security police, said the ruling could encourage the entertainment industry to threaten Internet operators with lawsuits unless they block access to the site.
File-sharing wouldn’t go away, he added, but users would likely turn to more advanced technological tools to hide their activities.
“It’s not as if people will turn around and say ‘oops, I’ll have to stop file-sharing now.’ Instead the reaction will be ‘oops, what can I do to protect myself from getting caught’.”
Sunde’s lawyer Peter Althin said he was confident that higher courts would dismiss the case against The Pirate Bay, which he described as a battle between the corporate world and “a generation of young people who want to take part of new technology.”
The verdict comes as Europe debates stricter rules to crack down on those who share content illegally on the Internet.
Last week French legislators rejected a plan to cut off the Internet connections of people who illegally download music and films, but the government plans to resurrect the bill for another vote this month.
Opponents said the legislation would represent a Big Brother intrusion on civil liberties, while the European Parliament last month adopted a nonbinding resolution that defines Internet access as an untouchable “fundamental freedom.”
Earlier this month, Sweden introduced a new law that makes it easier to prosecute file-sharers because it requires Internet Service Providers to disclose the Internet Protocol-addresses of suspected violators to copyright owners.
The country of 9 million has one of Europe’s highest rates of Internet penetration, but has also gained a reputation as a hub for file-sharers.
Statistics from the Netnod Internet Exchange, an organization measuring Internet traffic in Sweden, suggested that daily online activity dropped more than 40 percent after the law took effect on April 1.
Associated Press Writer Karl Ritter contributed to this report.
Morristown UFO hoax revealed…on April 1, 2009
In January, a friend of Earshot Presents named Andrew Rudy sent us a link to a vid of his brother Joe on the news. Joe and his friend Chris Russo were on television telling a New Jersey reporter about the UFO they saw over Morristown, around where they both live. The strange lights in the sky were seen not only by Rudy and Russo, but by a host of other people (including a seemingly reputable pilot). Media coverage was national, and even David Letterman joked that the extraterrestrials over North Jersey were probably just flying by to dump a body.
Earshot Presents hopes to talk to Joe and Christ as part of an upcoming episode of Within Earshot later this week or next. In the meantime, please enjoy a read of How We Staged the Morristown UFO Hoax, which was originally published in the eSkeptic, the email newsletter of the Skeptic’s Society. To see a number of media stories, along with the footage Joe and Chris shot of the hoax being prepared and under way, follow the links at the end of this article.
How We Staged the Morristown UFO Hoax
Chris Russo and Joe Rudy
Have you ever seen the face of the Virgin Mary on your grilled cheese? How about the image of Satan in a cloud of smoke? Or Sasquatch running through the woods? What about an alien spacecraft in the sky?
It is not difficult to find people who respond with an astounding “yes!” to one of these — or all four. Humans are, by nature, experts at finding patterns whether they are real or not, and UFOs are among the most common patterns people find in the skies. Now, you may be thinking that UFOs are only seen by a mullet sporting, tobacco chewing, dolt whose highest aspiration is to make an appearance on the Jerry Springer Show, but in fact doctors, lawyers and even pilots report seeing flying saucers, flying triangles, and aerial shapes of all manner of an unidentified nature. Even over the skies of an affluent suburban community in New Jersey. Enter Joe Rudy and Chris Russo and the great UFO hoax of 2009.
In November of 2008, we found ourselves sitting around one evening discussing pseudoscience and the large numbers of people that still believe in its various guises. We had always had a strong interest in why people were so easily fooled by such irrational superstitions as psychic ability, spiritual mediums, alien abductions, and the like. Despite the lack of evidence to support these notions, we were baffled. How could so many people in an age of science still buy into dogma that is no more or less ridiculous than the notion of an elderly obese man delivering presents to every child on Earth in one evening? And like most other people, we had always heard about the uneducated farmer spotting an alien spaceship hovering over his farm, but we wondered if that amount of gullibility could be found in our upper-middle class hometown of Hanover, NJ, and the surrounding cities.
The modern UFO phenomena began in 1947 when a pilot named Kenneth Arnold spotted objects that he described as “crescent shaped,” adding that they “moved like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water.” He was subsequently misquoted by an Associated Press reporter as having seen “flying saucers,” which he later corrected, noting: “They said that I’d said they were saucer-like. I said they flew in saucer-like fashion.” Nevertheless, the flying saucer craze was born and 60 years later, despite the fact that there is still no evidence of their existence, the UFO myth is as strong today as ever, fed by cable channel shows that prop up UFO “experts” who claim to be authorities on a subject that’s on par with astrology and palm reading. These charlatans make a career by perpetuating the E.T. fairy tale and exploiting credulous people who want nothing more than a good conspiracy theory to believe in.
It is in this context that we set out on a mission to help people think rationally and question the credibility of so-called UFO “professionals.” We brainstormed the idea of producing a spaceship hoax to fool people, bring the charlatans out of the woodwork to drum up controversy, and then expose it as nothing more than a prank to show everyone how unreliable eyewitness accounts are, along with investigators of UFOs.
We hatched the idea of tying flares onto helium balloons and launching them in a nearby field — an open yet isolated area surrounded by woods. There we were sure that we would have the privacy to prep the balloons, and that we wouldn’t have our plot foiled. From the beginning we decided to document all aspects of the project, including setting up the flares and balloons, launching them into the sky, and recording any media coverage that the “UFOs” received. The documentation was especially important in order to prevent conspiracy theorists from claiming that we were part of a cover-up of the truth when we revealed the hoax.
On January 5, 2009, we set out into the woods on the border of Morris Plains and Hanover, NJ, carrying one helium tank, five balloons, five flares, fishing line, duct tape, and a video camera. After filling up one 3-foot balloon with helium, we tied about five feet of fishing line to the balloon, secured the line with tape, then tied and taped the flare to the other end of the line. Once all five balloons were ready for takeoff (with our fingers on the verge of frost bite), we struck the 15-minute flares and released them into the sky in increments of fifteen seconds apart from each other. We filmed the “UFOs” as they floated away, and then walked the half-mile stretch out of the woods to our car. The hoax was underway.
Fox News screenshot
The media coverage the incident received over the next few days was extensive. Both local and national news stations were covering the UFO over New Jersey. The local paper had a field day with it, quoting a doctor who said the mysterious lights traveled against the wind, and quoting another man who said the object “didn’t appear to be manmade.” The most sought after witnesses were the Hurley family. Paul Hurley, a pilot, along with his family, made appearances on just about every major news station, describing the strange lights that they saw in the sky. The “Morristown UFO” became the talk of the town.
We followed up our light show with four more performances, gaining media attention every time. Every conspiracy website and radio show was mentioning it. To add fuel to the fire, we made appearances ourselves on News 12 New Jersey, on the Jeff Rense Program (a radio show that promotes conspiracy theories), and at an Illinois UFO symposium hosted by MUFON. We even provided our own footage.
The icing on the cake came when the popular History Channel show UFO Hunters featured the Morristown UFO as their main story one week. Bill Birnes, the lead investigator of the show and the publisher of UFO Magazine, declared definitively that the Morristown UFO could not have been flares or Chinese lanterns. Surely Birnes, who has written and edited over 25 books and encyclopedias in the fields of human behavior, true crime, current affairs, history, psychology, business, computing, and the paranormal, and the co-author of The Day After Roswell (a New York Times bestseller in 1997 and subsequently a documentary on The History Channel), could not have let himself be fooled by a couple of twenty- somethings with no formal education in psychology. He could.
This begs an important question: are UFO investigators simply charlatans looking to make a quick buck off human gullibility, or are they alarmists using bad science to back up their biased opinions that extraterrestrial life is routinely visiting our planet? Either way, are these people deserving of their own shows on major cable networks? If a respected UFO investigator can be easily manipulated and dead wrong on one UFO case, is it possible he’s wrong on most (or all) of them? Do the networks buy into this nonsense, or are they in it for the ratings? How can a television network that has pretensions of providing honest and factual programming be taken seriously when the topic of one of their top rated shows deals with chasing flares and fishing line? In fact, we delivered what every perfect UFO case has: great video and pictures, “credible” eyewitnesses (doctors and pilots), and professional investigators convinced that something amazing was witnessed. Does this bring into question the validity of every other UFO case? We believe it does.
VIDEO LINKS:
The Setup
The Launches
The Reactions
Spent night watching YouTubes …
Spent night watching YouTubes on both sides of the 9/11 conspiracy theories. Only thing that’s certain is that Penn Jillette is a jerkoff.
http://twitpic.com/1j0ya – Dog…
http://twitpic.com/1j0ya – Dog on roof.
$5 garage sale vacuum cleaner …
$5 garage sale vacuum cleaner works. Perhaps too well: http://tinyurl.com/ao2as2
Twitpic doesn’t like punctuati…
Twitpic doesn’t like punctuation. I like punctuation. I don’t like Twitpic. Anyone got a less picky pic solution for tweets?
http://twitpic.com/1huuj – Rec…
http://twitpic.com/1huuj – Recovered first EP mix–circa 96–amongs
Recreate the ’70s road trip you never took with Poladroid.
Polaroid film may be going the way of the dinosaur, but for Mac users, its iconic look is here to stay, thanks to a fun new software download called “Poladroid.”
Simply drag an existing photo onto the application, sit back and watch the results appear – slowly – right before your eyes. The process is done when the red mark appears and you’ll find a full-size JPEG, complete with oversized white border, in your “Pictures” folder ready to add to your online or in-print collection. You can save a copy of the photo during any stage in the “developing” process by right-clicking on the film and choosing “I want a sample now”. But there is one catch…you only get to process ten photos per application launch as that was the limitation in the original Polaroid film cartridges.
Poladroid is free, and available for download here.
Get Behind This:
