September 18 2002 RussCon Report

pillage like a pirate

News
Game Results
Meta Game Results
Evening's Soundtrack
Ratings | FAQ
Links
23 of us played 22 games. Another big turnout!
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I make exquisite corpses at deepmachines.

News

September 19 was Talk Like A Pirate Day, so at midnight we began! I wore me black shirt with skull and crossbones to work and offered no quarter to me landlubber coworkers, firing broadside after broadside of wicked pirate talk. I started out slow, but soon got me sea legs and found it quite fun. I hope ye enjoyed the holiday too, matey!
Thanks to folks who answered my query about DSL, cable modem, etc. It seems RoadRunner has changed their pricing structure since I signed up several years ago (and of course didn't tell me). For the past year or more apparently, you can get cable modem and no television for $45/month, which is $20/month less than I've been paying, the bastards. Ok, I've switched to the cheaper pricing structure. May still go the DSL route eventually due to the static IP address and ability to run a webserver etc. but for now I'll stick with cable till I get my Linux box and LAN working and decide what I want to do next. My download rates seem to be 1600 or 1700 kbs which is better than DSL is likely to be, so that's a reason not to switch. If only there were one clear right way to go... If anyone enjoys helping newbies set up Linux boxes and LANs, please feel free to contact me about getting together...

I just got a phone call from Evan (whom longtime RussCon folks may recall) -- he's still in NYC and doing well and says he & his wife Stacey are expecting a baby in 8 weeks or so.


Game Results

Guillotine3MarkY 2 Ben 0 BradS -2
Exxtra3Ben 2 MarkY -1 BradS -1
Drakongold3William 2 JonathanC 0 JimG -2
Montgolfiere6JimG 4 Tim 4 JonathanC -1 Sarah -1 TomW -1 William -5
Raj4JonathanC 3 Tim 1 Sarah -1 William -3
Liberte6Marty 5 MarkH 3 Daniel 1 JeffF -1 Dan -3 Zack -5
Cloud94William 3 JonathanC 1 Tim -1 Sarah -3
ZirkusFlohcati3 William 2 Clayton 0 JonathanC -2
PuertoRicogold5JP 4 Whendy 2 Clay 0 Jason -2 RussW -4
Mu4RussD 3 MarkY 1 BradS -1 Ben -3
ButtonMen2William 1 JonathanC -1
Citadelsgold7Daniel 6 Matt 3 MarkH 3 JeffF 0 Zack -2 Dan -4 Marty -6
Drakongold3William 2 JonathanC 0 RussD -2
Cloud93Ben 2 BradS 0 MarkY -2
Entdeckergold4RussW 3 JP 1 Clayton -1 Whendy -3
WhatsThatOnMyHead5Matt 4 Ben 0 BradS 0 MarkY 0 Zack -4
Frank'sZoo5JeffF 4 Marty 2 Daniel 0 MarkH -2 Dan -4
Tichu2( MarkY Ben ) 1 ( Zack William ) -1
Oware2Matt 1 Jason -1
Oware2Daniel 0 Jason 0
Caesar&Cleopatra2Daniel 1 Matt -1
PuertoRicogold5JP 4 JeffF 2 Whendy 0 JonathanC -2 RussW -4

Ok, Puerto Rico is giving me flashbacks to my early games of Trainsport Austria, when I kept sucking over and over, yet enjoying the game... I played 2 games tonight and came in dead last in both games, even being beaten by a newbie in both games. If I was a lesser person who cared about winning, I'd be complaining bitterly. But no. Instead, I'll just take comfort in the fact that I totally kicked ass in Entdecker and beat my Puerto Rico rivals by a huge margin, the landlubbers!

A reminder: please write and spell clearly when recording game results, make the scores and ranks clear, and remember last initials for people with common names, thanks! Marks, please check your names in the book; there was another ambiguous Mark this week.


Meta Game

Sea Biscuit was the Meta Devil. Here is the Meta Game he mailed out:
In honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day (this Thursday, which of course overlaps RussCon by an hour or two!), the metagame this week will be Pillage Like a Pirate. After every game, you may add the amount of gold with which you finished the game to your hoard. (Record the gold you earn for each game in the Book, e.g. in parentheses after your devil points.) The player with the largest hoard at the end of the evening wins.

Note that only "gold" counts, not "money" in general. (But, for example, the paper money in Iron Dragon counts, because they call it "gold certificates" or something silly like that instead of "money". That's good enough for pirates. Arrrr!) If the smallest unit of gold you can earn in a game isn't 1, divide the amount of gold you earn in that game by the smallest unit. For example, if there's a game in which you earn 100-, 200-, and 500-gold coins, divide your gold for that game by 100. (I can't think of any specific games to which this rule would apply, but I think there are *money* games in which all the bills are multiples $100, so it's possible there are games that do the same to gold.)

You're encouraged to talk like a pirate too, of course, but deep satisfaction and the admiration of your peers will be your only reward for that.

That scurvy dog Sea Biscuit escaped, leaving me the work! I should keelhaul him! By my reckoning, this be the booty earned:
William: 5+6
Whendy: 6+2+2
SeaBiscuit: 3+3+4
Clayton: 5
RussW: 2+3
Zack: 4
Daniel: 3
Dan, JeffF: 2
Jason, JP, Marty, RussD: 1
So William be the Meta Devil! Arrrrh! Avast, William! Ye've complained about the Meta Games, so let's see ye design a fine one, ye bilge rat!

Evening's Soundtrack

Amy Atchley, Speeding
The Austin Lounge Lizards, Lizard Vision
Clandestine, The Ale is Dear
Ingrid Karklins, A Darker Passion
Al Stewart, Year of the Cat

They've all performed live at the Cactus Cafe, and by an amazing coincidence I've been there when they did!


Ratings

New Multiplicative Rank Ratings:    
 3.6243 37.5000 JP (3)
 2.9267 18.6667 Daniel (5)
 2.3026 10.0000 Matt (4)
 2.0149 7.5000 JeffF (4)
 1.5041 4.5000 William (8)
 1.5041 4.5000 Ben (6)
 1.0986 3.0000 Tim (3)
 0.9163 2.5000 MarkH (3)
 0.6931 2.0000 MarkY (6)
 0.5390 1.7143 Marty (3)
 0.2877 1.3333 RussD (2)
 0.0000 1.0000 JimG (2)
 0.0000 1.0000 Clay (1)
-0.2231 0.8000 TomW (1)
-0.4055 0.6667 Clayton (2)
-0.6931 0.5000 Whendy (3)
-0.9163 0.4000 JonathanC (8)
-1.3863 0.2500 Jason (3)
-1.8326 0.1600 RussW (3)
-1.9095 0.1481 BradS (5)
-2.0149 0.1333 Sarah (3)
-3.6243 0.0267 Dan (3)
-4.6052 0.0100 Zack (4)
New Multiplicative Win Ratings:
 3.9890 54.0000 William won 5 of 8
 2.9312 18.7500 JP won 2 of 3
 2.2336 9.3333 Daniel won 3 of 5
 1.9741 7.2000 Ben won 3 of 6
 1.4553 4.2857 Matt won 2 of 4
 1.4145 4.1143 Marty won 1 of 3
 1.0498 2.8571 JeffF won 1 of 4
 0.9808 2.6667 RussD won 1 of 2
 0.9400 2.5600 RussW won 1 of 3
 0.6931 2.0000 JimG won 1 of 2
 0.5232 1.6875 Tim won 1 of 3
 0.4700 1.6000 MarkY won 2 of 6
-0.2231 0.8000 Clay won 0 of 1
-0.4055 0.6667 TomW won 0 of 1
-0.5596 0.5714 MarkH won 0 of 3
-0.5596 0.5714 Dan won 0 of 3
-0.6931 0.5000 Clayton won 0 of 2
-0.7340 0.4800 Whendy won 0 of 3
-0.9163 0.4000 Jason won 1 of 3
-0.9808 0.3750 Sarah won 0 of 3
-1.2528 0.2857 Zack won 0 of 4
-1.4395 0.2370 JonathanC won 1 of 8
-1.7272 0.1778 BradS won 0 of 5

William is the Devil! JP is Vice-Devil. Daniel is Vice-Vice-Devil.


Links

Gary Robinson's Rant does further analysis of Bayesian spam analysis.

Interesting short piece about security and communication channels via any shared resource.

Masturbate for Peace!

The Scurvy Pirates have several MP3s available for your listening pleasure. And then there's Pirate Jenny, a band familiar to Our Most Assiduous Reader from past RussCons.


Valid HTML 4.01!arrrrh!

Russ