2004-11-03 RussCon Report

News

16 of us played 13 games! Welcome back long-lost Dawn (last seen 2 years ago), who brought 2 friends Kelci and Mart visiting from some frozen northern wastelands.

Many (including me) were stressed or sad from the election result. I'll pass along something I read:

A friend told me about a conversation she overheard between two young people discussing the election. The young man expressed his anger and frustration and said that he was "done" getting involved with politics. His female companion responded, "But I believe in the same things I believed in last night, and I'm still willing to fight for them. Aren't you?"

Getting rid of the faith-based president would not have magically solved everything, and him gaining another term doesn't magically destroy everything. Sure, it is bad that the population seemingly voted to affirm preemptive war, torture, detainment without legal counsel, reduction of liberties, anti-environmental and anti-science policies, anti-gay legislation, etc. (And the US doesn't seem to realize just how seriously bad our savage numbness about the Iraq invasion, massive civilian deaths, Guantanamo detainments, and Abu-Ghraib looks to outside observers.) But that's all the more reason to keep working for peace, justice, tolerance.

Lots-o-stuff happening soon that is fun:

This weekend, November 6-7, is the annual Austin Celtic Festival, with more celtic music than you can shake a stick at. I consider it the best weekend of the year and will be there, rain or shine. Even if it looks like neither Maggie Drennon nor the Killdares will be there this year, damn it.
Ankaŭ, ĉi-vendrede okazas internacia festo ĉe ACC, kiun kelkaj klubanoj ĉeestos por sciigi homojn pri Esperanto. Kaj okazos la 13-an de novembro la dua tut-teksasa kunveno, en norda Teksaso! Se vi volas kunrajdi tien, bonvolu diri al mi. Rob havas buseton.
November 20 will be camping overnight at Inks Lake (car camping, near a bathroom; not primitive camping). Currently the lineup includes me, Whendy, JP, Jeffles, JeffS, Leslie and there's room for a couple more, so let me know if you're interested.

Ratings

Rank Ratings:    
 5.2983 JP
 2.5903 Jeffles
 2.0149 SarahM
 1.0986 ToddG
 0.5754 Mart
 0.4055 Dawn
 0.4055 RussW
 0.2231 MarkY
 0.2231 Whendy
-0.5754 Ben
-0.9163 William
-1.3863 Clayton
-1.7916 MarkH
-2.3026 Marty
-2.5903 Kelci
-3.6231 KevinU

Win Ratings:
 5.2983 JP won 4 of 4
 2.7081 Jeffles won 3 of 4
 1.7918 SarahM won 2 of 3
 1.3218 MarkY won 2 of 4
 1.3218 Whendy won 1 of 2
 0.2469 William won 1 of 3
-0.4463 Dawn won 1 of 5
-0.4463 Marty won 0 of 2
-0.4463 Kelci won 1 of 5
-0.5108 ToddG won 0 of 2
-0.5108 RussW won 0 of 2
-0.5641 Mart won 1 of 5
-0.7340 Clayton won 0 of 3
-1.0217 Ben won 1 of 5
-1.0217 KevinU won 0 of 3
-1.6740 MarkH won 0 of 3

JP is the Devil! Jeffles is the Vice-Devil! Sarah is Vice-Vice-Devil!

If you are confused how the ratings work, you could peruse the FAQ.

I used GraphViz to generate the graph image.

Meta Game

I was the Meta Devil and designed the following Meta Game:

Predict the presidential election

Here's a list of a dozen states that are often cited as "swing states" - i.e. various polls find them too close to call in the presidential election.

Arkansas
Florida
Iowa
Maine
Michigan
Minnesota
Nevada
New Jersey
New Mexico
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Wisconsin

Email me (not the list) your prediction for each state. There are 3 options:

Bush
Kerry
crazy 2000-Florida-style legal chaos

In addition to those 12 answers, also tell me your prediction for the new president. Again, the 3 options are:

Bush
Kerry
crazy 2000-Florida-style legal chaos

Since these are to be predictions, I must receive them by noon Tuesday (the day of the election), before there starts being lots of reporting about how the election is actually shaping up. Since the possibility of crazy 2000-Florida-style legal chaos throws a wrench in the works, the definition of this will be based on news reports on Wednesday. I.e. a small amount of chaos will be ignored if it gets resolved quickly on Wednesday. This is inherently murky, so I'll be the final judge on whether a state is in crazy 2000-Florida-style legal chaos or not on Wednesday and I'll use a probable consensus of major news media to decide. (And of course I can't predict the future, so if a state appears resolved, but then enters crazy 2000-Florida-style legal chaos a few days later, that won't affect the outcome of the Meta Game.)

Earn one meta point for each correct prediction (12 states plus overall winner), so scores will be 0..13. High score wins.

Further ties broken randomly.

In the exceedingly unlikely event that a third party candidate is correct for any of the 13 questions, I will buy pizza for everyone at RussCon this week. :)

Remember to send your email to me, not the list, by noon Tuesday November 2.

I received 12 entries (including my own), plus 2 (Fina and Matt) which arrived after the deadline, but I include in the table anyway. In order of receipt (with # correct next to player name):

Player

President

MarkY 0

crazy 2000-Florida-style legal chaos for all questions

Jeffles 9

Bush

Kerry

Bush

Kerry

Bush

Kerry

Bush

Kerry

Bush

DaveB 5

Kerry

Bush

Kerry

Bush

Kerry

Bush

BradS 9

Bush

Kerry

Bush

Kerry

Bush

Kerry

Bush

Justin 10

Bush

Kerry

Bush

Kerry

Bush

Kerry

Bush

Tim 7

Bush

Kerry

RussD 8

Bush

chaos

Kerry

Bush

Kerry

chaos

Kerry

chaos

Fred 8

Bush

Kerry

Bush

Kerry

Dan 9

Bush

Kerry

Bush

Kerry

Bush

chaos

Kerry

MarkH 5

Kerry

Bush

Kerry

Bush

Kerry

Bush

Kerry

RussW 7

Bush

chaos

Kerry

KevinU 8

Bush

Kerry

Bush

Kerry

Fina 0

crazy 2000-Florida-style legal chaos for all questions

Matt 8

Bush

Kerry

Bush

Kerry

Actual Result

Bush

Kerry

Bush

Kerry

Bush

Kerry

Bush

# correct

As the last row shows, some results more easily predicted by people than others! Although not all results are officially counted yet, it appears there is no true crazy 2000-Florida-style election chaos, and even though there is some suspicious activity which occurred especially in Ohio and Florida, Kerry conceded rather than contesting any of it legally, so I considered all states resolved for purposes of the Meta Game. (See CNN report or other webpages.) Although the election was serious business, it was also good geeky fun to do this sort of Meta Game, I thought. Thanks for all the entries.

DaveB mentioned "I used a coin to randomly determine my predictions." Dave and Justin neglected to pick the president.

Fred and KevinU and Matt picked identically, as did MarkY and Fina.

The high score was 10 by Justin, especially impressive since he only gave the 12 states and forgot to predict the overall winner! I urge Justin to pursue a career in election prediction. Justin is the Meta Devil and will design next week's Meta Game.

Cloud9	4	Jeffles 3 Ben 1 MarkH -1 MarkY -3
Tichu	2	( Ben Jeffles ) 1 ( MarkY MarkH ) -1
Guillotine	3	Kelci 2 Dawn 0 Mart -2
SaintPetersburg	4	JP 3 RussW 1 KevinU -1 Clayton -3
Settlers	3	Dawn 2 Mart 0 Kelci -2
Tichu	2	( William SarahM ) 1 ( Ben MarkH ) -1
Crokinole	2	( JP Mart ) 1 ( Kelci Dawn ) -1
Acquire	4	MarkY 3 ToddG 1 Jeffles -1 Whendy -3
ZirkusFlohcati	5	SarahM 4 Clayton 2 William 0 Ben -2 KevinU -4
ZirkusFlohcati	5	JP 4 Mart 2 Kelci -1 Dawn -1 Marty -4
Carcassonne	5	Whendy 4 ToddG 2 RussW 0 Clayton -2 William -4
Vampire	5	JP 4 Dawn 1 Mart 1 Marty -2 Kelci -4
WhatsThatOnMyHead	5	Jeffles 3 MarkY 3 Ben -1 SarahM -1 KevinU -4

2004-11-03 RussCon Report

News

Game Results

Ratings

Meta Game

Evening's Soundtrack

Links