Koshervision Studios

My posts on politics are usually few and far between, so this is something to cherish.

Details of a Halloween party held at the White House by the Obamas in 2009 recently went viral, thanks to a book by NYT journalist and author Jodi Kantor.  When I first heard about this, something seemed strange.  Hadn't I heard about an Obama Halloween party recently?  I had...at Cracked.com, back in October.

There are a lot of people talking about how this wasn't covered at all by the media.  Well, not really.  The AP did a story, which was picked up by major media outlets.  It mentioned trick-or-treating children and a party for and in honor of military members and their families.  (The Cracked article does pick up on Johnny Depp being there in Mad Hatter regalia, which the AP does not.)  It doesn't call the party lavish, nor does it really give any details about the party.  Was there a concerted effort to downplay the party?  I have no idea.

Was it a case of bad optics?  It's hard to make the argument that honoring military members and their families is bad optics.  The White House historically has been a location for being decorative during the holidays and other celebrations; I can't blame the White House for going all-out.  It might have seemed a little incongruous at the time, though, what with unemployment over 10% and Obama on the stump talking about the tough time Americans were having.  (He would sign an economic stimulus bill a week later; whether you agree with his politics or not, he was aware of American hardship and he was dealing with it in his fashion.)

What can we conclude from this?  Cracked.com is a great source for up-to-date news.

One more thought that probably should have gone in State of Fear.

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I have a tendency to just...phase out from time to time. I'll disassociate and withdraw into my own world. I notice the goings-on around me and the efforts that some make to reach out. But it doesn't always penetrate; or, rather, I just don't feel the urgency to respond or reciprocate.

And I'm concerned about this aspect of myself as I sequester myself on the West Coast, miles and miles from anyone I know. I'm not the kind of person that talks about work stuff to my friends and family, which leaves a great fraction of my life an utter mystery to those who know me best. (Conversely, I historically don't talk that much about my personal life to my co-workers. I'm not as bad as Leela's former boss, though.)

As I drove into work that first Tuesday, ready to start a new job, I drove from beneath a sun shining brightly into a dense fog bank, one that shrouded the base. It's as if the military requisitioned it to add to the secrecy of what goes on behind the gate. And I can't help but wonder if that's what everyone I know saw as I departed: myself, walking into a dense fog, their gazes unable to penetrate and discern the path of my life from that point forward.

I forgot to include a timeline of events leading up to my taking a job with the Air Force and moving out to California. The whole process was somewhat of an emotional roller coaster, and it took longer than it needed to. It affected my stress levels, my commitment to the job I had at the time, and it definitely screwed with my sleep patterns. But, I'm here now. I have a new life and it's going to require some reinventing of myself, whether I like it or not.

You'll see from the beginning of the timeline that I'd been looking for a new job for a while. I feel very fortunate that I was able to get the one I have now.

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7/16/2010 - Earliest date USAJobs has for an application of mine.
1/3/2011 - Received e-mail about rotational analyst assignment in Germany (25 month tour of duty).
4/8/2011 - Interviewed with Army Capabilities Integration Center.
6/24/2011 - Interviewed with Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC).
7/1/2011 - Received tentative verbal offer from JSpOC.
7/6/2011 - Sent SF-50 (personnel form) to HQ Air Force Personnel Center.
7/13/2011 - Got a call from supervisor-to-be, wondering why I hadn’t yet accepted the tentative written offer; responded “What tentative written offer?” Received and accepted tentative written offer that day.
7/25/2011 - Went to take drug test.
8/9/2011 - Found out I needed to re-take drug test.
8/10/2011 - Re-took drug test.
8/15/2011 - Heard about Air Force hiring freeze.
8/19/2011 - Confirmed that hiring freeze would not affect me.
8/23/2011 - Found out that person working my transfer at Army Civilian Personnel Advisory Center no longer worked there.
9/1/2011 - Visited CPAC to determine status of my drug test result. I passed it; the result had been available for over two weeks. Sent to Air Force.
9/6/2011 - Gave apartment complex two months’ notice.
9/8/2011 - Received firm offer date of 10/9/2011.

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It's somewhat dry and clinical in this form, but I spent about two months in a job situation where pretty much everyone knew I was leaving but no one was really sure when. It was very aggravating, and after a while, I didn't want to talk about it with anyone. The rumor spread like wildfire at work; in my personal life, it went a lot slower and I'm extremely grateful for that. I learned a lot about job transitioning, and if I ever need to do it again, I'll be much more discreet about the entire affair.

Probably the worst part was the drug test fiasco. When I arrived to take the drug test the first time, I wasn't able to provide enough so I had to drink some water and re-do. I guzzled a liter of water and gave the sample. The result came back "NEGATIVE DILUTE" which for some reason the Army was not allowed to release as a valid result. So I had to do it again. And I ran into the same problem on 8/10, an inability to provide a sufficient sample right then. I was smarter about it this time, though, and drank only 1/2 of a bottle of water and waited 2.5 hours to give the sample (I had 3 hours in which to go again). This sample came back "NEGATIVE"...and CPAC just sat on the result since the person working it from the Army side stopped working for CPAC. The result just sat in a folder and would have sat there indefinitely if I hadn't shown up in person to resolve the issue.

The part that blows is that the delay forced me to shell out another month's worth of rent for my apartment in Maryland, since I kept not hearing anything. And it was at a stupid-high rate. But it's water under the bridge now. I have a new apartment I'm moving into in two and a half weeks, and it should make my last apartment look like a slum.

The wheel that was stopped begins to turn. The time that was frozen starts to thaw.

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My family moved from California in 1986, the year of the Challenger disaster. I don't remember much about the time we spent in California, but I do remember that. What I didn't know is how that event affected Vandenberg AFB and the surrounding area. Prior to Challenger, Vandenberg was to be the west coast site for shuttle launches. That was scuttled in the wake of the disaster, and the area went into recession. 25 years later, I've returned to California and am working for the Air Force on space stuff. I can't imagine what this place would look like had the O-rings not been so substandard.

It's very difficult to express how nervous I am about moving out here to the Central Coast. I know next to no one. It's America, but it seems so foreign. I've yet to move into an apartment, but I am staying with a kind couple that retired here. My family knew theirs 17 years ago; the mother worked for mine.

Everything is so spread out here. Driving from town to town is like driving from Fairfax to Manassas, but without any of the suburban sprawl that is local to Northern Virginia. Just mountains, or fields, or desert. It's breathtaking.

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All of my belongings are in a container, waiting for a call from me. It's surreal to look at a shipping container and see one's life contained therein. Objects collected over time, memories of years gone by. There's a story behind everything.

What's really important in the katamaris we roll? Is it the mailboxes from different addresses, the tv sets, our houses and cars? I think the insubstantial katamari of our memories and experiences is far more important. But our material possessions can help us remember; we need to consciously make that connection, however.

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California's state motto is "Eureka!" I have found it! But it seems to me a more apt motto would be "Deimos kai Phobos": Horror and Fear. California is in a constant state of fear. Fear of guns, of outside flora and fauna, of unhealthy food, of a host of things. It's remarkable that the state is able to even get out of bed in the morning, there's so much to be afraid of.

Fear is paralyzing. Fear holds us in place, makes us stagnant. Change can be positive or negative, but it is inevitable. Fear only keeps one at the mercy of change. One must go forward, take control, direct the change. Don't be afraid. Be proactive. Make it work for you.

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The wheel that was stopped begins to turn. The time that was frozen starts to thaw.

So, let's say that you, like Kaiji, had an opportunity to gamble on a pachinko machine. You fire small metal balls into a pinball-like machine, hoping that one of them falls into the jackpot hole, which wins you...more balls. Sounds stupid, but when you consider that these pachinko balls are convertible to cash, it might not seem so. And at 4000 yen a ball (~$50), it could add up quickly.

Let's say that you win the jackpot, estimated to be 500,000,000 (5 hundred million) yen. Would you be able to carry all those pachinko balls? Get a friend or two to help?

Pachinko balls weigh about 5.5 grams (about 1/5 of an ounce). 500,000,000 yen divided by 4000 yen/ball is 125,000 pachinko balls. 125,000 balls times 5.5 grams/ball = 687500 grams = 687.5 kilograms (~1500 lbs). That's about the weight of a dromedary camel. That's more weight than any human has ever lifted, using any technique.

How much volume do 125,000 pachinko balls take up? A pachinko ball has a diameter of 11 mm, which is a radius of 5.5 mm or 0.55 cm. Volume of a sphere is (4/3)*PI*r^3, so a pachinko ball's volume is (4/3)*PI*(.55^3) = .6969 cm^3; 125,000 pachinko balls have a volume of approximately 87113 cm^3, or about 23 gallons.

I'm sure if you won $6.25 million worth of pachinko balls, you'd find some way to move them.

[Edit: Screencapped. -MDH]

Zawa zawa, y'all. I'm here to talk about Kaiji some more. We have our first gamble of the second season, Chinchirorin. It's a dice game where the object is to beat other players by rolling better hands. The variant in Kaiji has some different rules. Here are the rolls in order of priority from highest to lowest:

1-1-1 (pays out 5x wager)
Any other triple (pays out 3x wager)
4-5-6 (pays out 2x wager)
Pair Plus Singleton (singleton becomes the point that players must attempt to beat)
No matching numbers (except for 1-2-3)
1-2-3 (bettor pays 2x wager)

A player gets three chances to make a qualifying roll, but once a player makes one, that's his roll. So a successful roll on the second attempt precludes a third attempt. Players roll to attempt to each individually beat the dealer, who rolls first. Players can beat the dealer by rolling a higher point or higher hand in general. If the dealer rolls 3-3-4, his point is 4 and players must roll to beat it. 2-2-5 would beat it, since the point in that hand is 5. 6-6-1 would not, since the point is 1. 4-5-6, and any triple would beat a hand that had a point.

So, some things to keep in mind. There are 216 ways the dice can come up (3-4-5 is not the same, technically, as 3-5-4): 6 choices on the first die, 6 on the second, and 6 on the third yields 6x6x6 = 216. The narrator says that there are 108 qualifying bets. That means that exactly 50% of the possible rolls qualify and 50% don't. Let's count them, shall we?

The qualifying hands are the triples, 4-5-6, Pair Plus Singleton...and 1-2-3. You might say that 1-2-3 is a losing hand, and that's true. But it also qualifies and disallows future rolls. So, how many hands are there? Well, there's 6 triples. For 4-5-6 and 1-2-3, it's 3x2x1 = 6 each, so we're up to 18 in total. As for Pair Plus, it's 6x1x5 (any number will do at first, but then you must match it and select any other number as the third) = 30. But that's not all. In Pair Plus, the first die could match the second, or first could match third, or second could match third. So multiply by 3 and we get 90. 90+18 = 108. Sounds good to me.

Are there 108 non-qualifying rolls? A non-qualifying roll is defined as a set of three numbers where no two numbers match: 6x5x4 = 120. But 4-5-6 and 1-2-3 are qualifying rolls, so subtract out those 12 sequences: 120-12 = 108. 108+108 = 216. Seems like it works.

What are the odds of not getting a qualifying roll? Up to three chances, so failure on all three rolls is (.5)(.5)(.5) = .125. There's a 12.5% chance of not making a qualifying roll, so there's a 87.5% chance of succeeding before the first roll of the dice.

Look forward to next time.

I haven't written a blog post in a very long time. So, let's talk about Kaiji. Specifically, the first episode of the new, second season. More specifically, how Kaiji deals with money, interest, and payments.

Kaiji, the eponymous character, has gotten into debt. He attempted a series of gambles to rid himself of it, and possibly even come out ahead, but he just put himself further behind. As of the beginning of S2E1, Kaiji had a debt of 6.68 million Yen. He also had medical bills to re-attach his left ear and four of his fingers (don't ask); this cost him 2 million Yen. Total obligation is approximately 8.68 million Yen. We are told by the narrator that it's been a few months, and the obligation now stands at around 9.5 million Yen. We're not given any information about how many months it's actually been or what the interest rate is. So we have to go back to the previous season for some information.

We learned in the very first episode that Kaiji cosigned for a loan at an insane interest rate of 20% per month. We also learned that the syndicate was willing to work with Kaiji at a more reasonable interest rate, 15% per year, to pay off the loan. The former is most definitely not the interest rate on the 8.68 million, since after one month the debt would rocket over 10 million. So let's assume that the 15%/year is the valid rate.

After 1 month: 8,680,000 x 1 + (15/100/12) [monthly rate is 1/12] = 8,788,500
2 months: 8,898,356
3 months: 9,009,585
4 months: 9,122,204
5 months: 9,236,231
6 months: 9,351,683
7 months: 9,468,579

So, after 7 months, we're just under 9.5 million and will definitely be over that by the 8th month. So we can assume that Kaiji's been going back to being worthless for 7 to 8 months.

He is finally captured by the debt collectors. The collector says that Kaiji is going to have to work in an underground quarry/prison for about 15 years to pay off the debt. There's a statement for you. How'd he come up with that?

We come to find out that debtors are paid for their work. Furthermore, while in the prison, the compounding interest rate is forgiven, so any money they earn goes straight toward the principal. (Any interest accrued prior to being retrieved must still be paid off.) They get 91,000 Perica every month (10 Perica = 1 Yen, so 9100 Yen). 9100 Yen for a month's work? That's insanely low. Well, wait. We find out that they're actually getting paid 3500 Yen (35000 Perica, so to speak) every day. 2000 goes toward debt payment, and 1150 goes toward room and board. That leaves 350 yen per day as money that a debtor can use in the underground economy as 3500 Perica, paid at the end of the month. 91000/3500 = 26. 26 days of work and 4 days of rest, to make up a full month? Sounds about right.

Some more math to find out how long until the debt is paid off. 2000 yen/day * 26 days = 52000 yen/month. 52000 * 12 = 624000 yen/year. 9,500,000 / 624000 = 15.22 years.

The creator of this work certainly did his homework.

I've been reading a lot of articles by Tim Rogers on Kotaku lately. The man is insane. He writes long, novella-like articles about video games, Japan and its culture, and a whole host of other things that somehow manage to tie back into video games. I have no idea how this man's mind works. Maybe it's because he up and moved to Japan to work in the game-design industry. It may have made him crazy. But it's all very fascinating. I would love to write like he does, just remarking on a bunch of stuff, making tenuous by interesting links between different topics, and possibly having it all come back to a central point (but not necessarily). But I think that in order to write like he does, I'd have to think like he does. And I don't. And I probably won't.

How does one change the way one thinks? I'm kind of reminded of a book I borrowed from a friend: Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. He said it was a book about thinking. I've gotten about two chapters in, and I've moved on to other books. I've also stopped reading other books I started reading after having put GEB down. I have finished a few. But I can't quite say for sure why I stopped in the first place. Maybe I wasn't making enough progress? Maybe I didn't find the book interesting? I don't think that's the case. I could have brought the book back at any point in the last, er, year that I've borrowed it. I feel like I'll get back to it in time.

I've also started and put down The Illuminatus Trilogy and Quicksilver, two books as hefty as GEB. It's not that I am unable to read books of such length. I hope. Does Harry Potter count? I think the font size in the Potter books was a bit larger. Maybe an easier read, too. But I've read other Neal Stephenson books. Hell, I've read Tad Williams books. Quicksilver shouldn't be a thing. But it is, and it pains me. I can turn around and look at Heinlein's I Will Fear No Evil, and the bookmark I've placed in it. I've gotten quite far into it. And it's compelling. I've been on a Heinlein kick for quite some time now, and the path that this is leading me down will end, unequivocally, with Isaac Asimov. Which I'm looking forward to. Both Asimov and Heinlein were authors that I rejected in my youth for reasons that I could not even make up at this point in time.

This entire post feels somewhat unfleshed out. It seems like there were some thoughts of greater import, swirling around in my head, hoping to find their way onto the screen. And it hasn't happened. Maybe I'm close to being able to write the way I want to write. But am I close to thinking the way I want to think? I don't think so.

I'm not sure when the X-Games died in my mind. I remember staying up until the early morning, watching events such as Street Luge and Sky Surfing on ESPN 2.

But the X-Games has turned into something terrible. No more of those two events. No Speed Climbing. No Inline Skating. No Wakeboarding. Surfing has managed to not be in the X-Games for two consecutive years, despite initial promises to bring it back this year.

Instead, we have four disciplines. BMX (necessary), Skateboarding (ditto), Motocross (...yeah, okay), and Rally Car (wtf?!). That's it. Also terrible are the events within each of the disciplines. Both BMX and Skateboard have that awful Big Air event. How boring. I couldn't give a damn. Both have added an event called "Street" which seems to consist of launching from the top of a staircase, doing a trick, and not eating pavement. Pretty lame. Skateboarding needs two events, and two events alone: Vert (aka halfpipe) and Park (a freestyle run through an area with pipes, rails, walls, and the like). BMX needs four: Vert, Park, Flatland (doing tricks on a space of pavement), and Racing. You know, that thing that BMX used to be known for?

Rally Car just needs to die.

The X-Games has gone in a retarded direction since it was conceived in 1995. It's hemorrhaged events and athletes all in pursuit of "stadium events." Guess what, guys? Extreme things don't happen in a goddamn building. They happen outdoors, on the streets, in the air, on the water.

Maybe when you guys realize that again, I might start caring. Until then, I want no part of it.

It's been a few months since I touched this thing, but I figured that with a change of scenery, the time was right to begin again...again.

I will be spending the next 14 weeks in Hopewell, VA, just outside Fort Lee. I'm down here to take the Operations Research/Systems Analysis Military Applications Course (ORSAMAC). I've been with the Army as an analyst for almost 21 months. If this course doesn't give me a decent idea of what being an ORSA in the Army is all about, nothing will. I don't think I've not done ORSA stuff, but I don't feel like it's been a big part of my job. I want to do well here, get course credit for grad school, and improve my prospects for my next assignment, wherever it ends up being.

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Today was administrivia (that should definitely be a word in Webster's, instead of "ginormous") and intro to Probability. Refresher for me, but a lot of the military guys in the class haven't dealt with it before. There's only three or four civilians, with the rest being military, and most of them seemed to have business degrees (I did hear one accounting and one industrial engineering). I don't mind helping the military guys with this stuff. I tutor on the side for Kaplan; I like to help math make sense to people.

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I haven't really explored the area yet. Been a little busy setting my room up, buying food, yadda yadda. I might stick around this weekend, I might not.