January 29 2003 RussCon Report

News

This was Zack's last RussCon (and Chad's moving into Zack's newly vacated place!), and this time REALLY Daniel's last RussCon for a while, as he's getting secret military technology surgically implanted into his body or something... details are hazy...

Clandestine's last appearances were good stuff. I'm bummed that I'll theoretically never see them play again, but glad for all the great shows I did see.

Dan suggested I reorder the Reports so that the ratings immediately follow the results, which sounds sensible on the face of it. I think originally I did it the existing way to draw out the suspense and let the reader savor the exquisite anticipation, or some such stupid shit like that. What do other people think? Do you like the existing layout or think the results and ratings should be together? If you ever wanted to thwart Dan's desires, now is your chance to oppose him!

Game Results

Blokus	4	JP 3 Matt 1 RussW -1 Zack -3
CircusMaximus	5	MarkG 4 JimG 2 MarkY 0 Dan -2 William -4
Carcassonne	4	RussW 3 JP 1 Zack -1 Clayton -3
PuertoRico	4	Daniel 3 Carly 1 Matt -1 JonathanC -3
Tichu	2	( Steve Fred ) 1 ( Ben MarkH ) -1
TajMahal	4	MarkY 3 Marty 1 JP -1 JimG -3
Exxtra	4	Steve 3 Ben 0 Fred 0 Chad -3
GreatMuseumCaper	5	Dan 3 RussW 3 William 0 Zack -3 MarkG -3
PuertoRico	4	Daniel 3 JonathanC 1 Carly -1 Matt -3
Blokus	4	Steve 3 RussW 1 William -1 Zack -3
Bluff	5	Steve 4 JonathanC 2 William 0 Zack -2 RussW -4
Can'tStop	3	Chad 2 MarkY -1 JP -1
Can'tStop	3	MarkY 2 Chad 0 JP -2

It seems Ben did something shocking that only makes sense to Tichu players...

Blokus continues to reign as a hot new game. Also, Sea Biscuit brought the new buildings for Puerto Rico which went over quite well as they played two games in a row with them!

Thanks Dan for bringing back the Great Museum Caper game. We had a blast with it. It's very suspenseful and adrenalizing sneaking around avoiding the other players (who are guards), trying to steal famous paintings by artists like that famous Mordorian guy whose name William can't quite remember... Our match went dramatically, too: Zack was the first thief and got caught. Then Dan escaped with 3 paintings, which is pretty good. Then William escaped with 2 paintings after running around for a very long time before finally escaping. MarkG snagged 1 painting but not content with 3rd place at best, he continued sneaking about and was eventually caught. Finally I was the thief, and managed to steal 3 paintings as well, thus tying Dan for 1st place and a satisfying conclusion to the lengthy match. We should definitely play more of this fun sneaky game.

The Carcassonne game had a huge point spread, as I almost lapped Clayton twice (I had 99 more points than he did!)

Meta Game

Zack was the Meta Devil. Here is the Meta Game he mailed out:

E me a quote from a movie, the title of the movie and the name of the character saying the line. I will compile a list for Wed. When you get the list at Russ's, read through the quotes and identify the movies you know. Knowing character names will be the tie-breaker.

Example:

Dear Zack,
The movie is- Raising Arizona
The character is- Ed Mcdunnough
The quote is- "Gimme that baby you warthog from hell."

Even if you don't think you'll participate in the game itself, feel free to e me a movie line anyway.

I dedicate this game to William and his deep love of trivia

Here are the quotes Zack passed out (and the numbers of how many people identified them):

"Dyin' ain't much of a livin'."
"With anyone else [...] I'd say what's gonna happen to you would teach you a lesson. Only you're gonna need more than one lesson. And you're gonna get more than one lesson."
"Shut the fuck up, Donny!"
"Raindrops on roses and warm woolen mittens" (9)
"I believe in unemployment, but I don't believe in hell."
"Get used to disappointment." (2)
"What kind of sick game are you playing?" (2)
"You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!" (9)
"Gort, Klaatu Barata Nikto!" (7)
"Future events like these could happen to you, in the future." (3)
"The penis is evil." (1)
"Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?" (5)
"Baby steps to the front door. Baby steps down the walk. Baby steps."
"Is it safe?" (5)
"Hello, gorgeous."
"Crush your enemies. See them run before you. Hear the lamentations of the women." (9)
"Normally, both of you would be dead as fucking fried chicken by now, but since I'm in a transitional period, I don't want to kill either one of your asses." (4)
"Well that's great, that's just fuckin' great man, now what the fuck are we supposed to do? We're in some real pretty shit now man... That's it man, game over man, game over, man! Game over! What the fuck are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?" (6)
"Life is pain. Get used to it!" (2)
"Laugh-a-while you can, monkey boy!" (5)
"How 'bout a Fresca?"
"They say taupe is a very soothing color."
"Do you understand the words that are coming outta my mouth?" (2)
"Have you guys ever watched the show?"
"I got better." (8)

Answers are here. Thanks to folks who emailed fun quotes to Zack. My movie buffness was especially buff as I identified 12 of them, more than anyone else:

12 RussW
11 Fred
9 Matt
7 Ben Clayton JimG JP Marty
5 Dan Daniel (who bogusly got credit for saying Princess Bride instead of Aliens!?)
4 William (who bogusly got credit for saying Alien instead of Aliens...)

So I am the Meta Devil and will design next week's Meta Game!

Reminder of the new incentive to compete in the Meta Game: The Meta Devil gets full table rights, just like a regular Devil from now on, so they could stake out the dining table or the kitchen table. Of course Vice-Devils continue to get secondary dibs on the tables if no higher-ranking Devil or Meta Devil takes a table.

Ratings

New Multiplicative Rank Ratings:    
 5.0752 160.0000 Steve (4)
 2.7726 16.0000 Daniel (2)
 2.0794 8.0000 MarkY (4)
 0.6931 2.0000 RussW (5)
 0.6931 2.0000 MarkG (2)
 0.6931 2.0000 Fred (2)
 0.4055 1.5000 Marty (1)
 0.2231 1.2500 Dan (2)
 0.0000 1.0000 Carly (2)
-0.1178 0.8889 JP (5)
-0.2877 0.7500 Chad (3)
-0.2877 0.7500 JonathanC (3)
-0.6931 0.5000 Ben (2)
-0.6931 0.5000 JimG (2)
-0.6931 0.5000 MarkH (1)
-1.3863 0.2500 Clayton (1)
-1.3863 0.2500 Matt (3)
-2.0149 0.1333 William (4)
-4.7875 0.0083 Zack (5)

New Multiplicative Win Ratings:
 5.0752 160.0000 Steve won 4 of 4
 2.7726 16.0000 Daniel won 2 of 2
 1.8563 6.4000 MarkY won 2 of 4
 1.5041 4.5000 RussW won 2 of 5
 1.0986 3.0000 MarkG won 1 of 2
 0.6931 2.0000 Dan won 1 of 2
 0.4055 1.5000 Fred won 1 of 2
 0.4055 1.5000 Chad won 1 of 3
 0.0000 1.0000 JP won 1 of 5
-0.2877 0.7500 Clayton won 0 of 1
-0.2877 0.7500 Marty won 0 of 1
-0.5108 0.6000 JimG won 0 of 2
-0.5754 0.5625 Carly won 0 of 2
-0.6931 0.5000 MarkH won 0 of 1
-0.7985 0.4500 JonathanC won 0 of 3
-0.8630 0.4219 Matt won 0 of 3
-0.9808 0.3750 Ben won 0 of 2
-1.2448 0.2880 William won 0 of 4
-1.5970 0.2025 Zack won 0 of 5

Steve is the Devil! I think he's been the Devil fairly often lately; clearly beneath Steve's innocent facade lurks a secret f*&^$%@ Russcon game God! Daniel is Vice-Devil (but swears he won't be here next week). MarkY is Vice-Vice-Devil. Then me, then MarkG, then Fred & Dan. Poor Zack leaves for Santa Fe as the Generous Angel.

Links

In Matt Blaze's Master-Keyed Lock Vulnerability, a cryptologist looks at real-world physical locks and presents an attack algorithm on master-keyed systems, whose weaknesses have apparently been known for over a century, but the locksmithing profession believes in security through obscurity.

A Spanish art historian has uncovered what was alleged to be the first use of modern art as a deliberate form of torture, with the discovery that mind-bending prison cells were built by anarchist artists 65 years ago during the country's bloody civil war.

Jaron Lanier's Mindless Thought Experiments (A Critique of Machine Intelligence)

Blokus online vs AI or other players, plus a Palm version

My coworker Tony spent New Year's Eve in Sweden's ice hotel

Who's the best Athlete? is fun philosophizing about athletics (by David Anderson of SETI@home)