Paul Phillips

semi-charmed kind of life

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:37:23 GMT

Singing along with third eye blind just now, ivy says "I want something else.." then stops and sternly admonishes herself: "I don't think that's how you ask."

I'm hanging it up. This is the final blog entry. Put away the kleenex, you three. You knew it was coming. Tomorrow the future officially begins, for real this time, and blogging is going to be SO '0-X by about 10AM.

I may reopen somewhere, but if I do it'll only be about software, and niche software at that.

In case anyone wonders what happened to me the last couple years: I was reborn. It took half my (projected) life, but I unexpectedly discovered something I'd only caught in glimpses before: pure, limitless, intrinsic motivation. I am addicted to the multiplier effect which emerges as I spend more and more time on software. And most of all: "It's a great thing when you realize you still have the ability to surprise yourself."

Happy new year, and happy lives to everyone straggling across the finish line with me.

revisiting the wasteland

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:55:18 GMT

I'm heading back to vegas for the first time since god knows when. Having both jeff shulman and phil ivey at the final table was too good to pass up. Look for me in the crowd holding up a banner: "I NAMED MY KID AFTER PHIL IVEY AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY SIGN."

there's one in every crowd

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 04:49:12 GMT

How's the kool aid..

...civil liberties groups generally oppose long-term detention, arguing that detainees should be prosecuted or released.

Sure, SOME. "Generally" speaking (and I am making air quotes right now) civil liberties groups oppose long-term detention without charges, although they have to "argue" this, which tells you pretty clearly it's not true or nobody would have to argue, now would they. You have to hand it to the WP -- I am really fucking sick of how it is always assumed that all civil liberties groups walk in lockstep on the divisive subject of indefinite unreviewable detention. Embrace the broad spectrum of opinion that makes America so great.

In summary, I stand with Civil Libertarians for Harsher and Lengthier Detainment as well as the Society for the Preservation of Torture and Civil Stuff on this issue.

life's little mysteries

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:47:01 GMT

(As opposed to life's big mysteries, which were all solved a couple thousand years ago.)

If you swore to someone that you just moments ago had witnessed several impossible things, culminating in oh say someone being slain and then rising from the dead, almost anyone would deem you to be crazy - the exceptions mostly to be found in institutions.

And yet if your beliefs are identical, held with the same certainty as if you had just witnessed them (in fact higher certainty than if you had witnessed them, as presumably even if you are religious you have been conditioned by reality to doubt the impossible in your actual day-to-day life) but instead of being a witness, you read about them in a book or someone told you about them - then, your beliefs are unremarkable.

I'm sure it sounds like I'm ragging on religious people here (and things being as they are it's hard not to sound like that at all times, even if I'm just reading a shopping list) but I say this to ask a specific question about the epistemology of the rapturous: what is the calculus by which the second version is LESS crazy than the first? Shouldn't believing something impossible happened because you were there and saw it be LESS crazy than believing it happened and NOT having personally witnessed it?

more from ms. mcchainerson

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:54:05 GMT

Yesterday after ivy finished reading me the entirety of "I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!" and then made her own fancy paper chain to count down the days remaining to her fourth birthday, I told kathleen "if she doesn't need me to read or you to do crafts, we are officially irrelevant."

As they left for the store I gave ivy a hug and said "Good-bye, Ready McReaderson!" (That's pronounced "Reedy" McReaderson.)

Having heard that construct before, she replied "Also, Chainy McChainerson and Crafty McCrafterson."

The best is that she always says such things with a straight face, as if that's how everyone talks. (Around here, of course, it is.)

greatest kid comment ever?

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:11:10 GMT

We have a giant bucket of little plastic animals (doesn't everyone?) A recent visitor asked ivy about one of them.

"That's an alligator," she said, adding: "alligator is the past tense of crocodile."

poker? I don't even know her - no, really

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:49:36 GMT

I set out to write a response to naturalborn's comment and quickly realized that I might as well be trying to write a novel in swahili. I cannot express how distant, foreign and irrelevant poker now seems to me.

Still, that doesn't mean I've become incapable of appreciating this particular genius (h/t rafe, and I think that's my first "h/t" ever, usually I let people suffer in obscurity but I feel bad about it, so...)

"Return to the Sacred" by Jonathan Ellerby is an amazing book! In March, 2008 I was feeling super stressed out, and super burned out, by the dual pressures of trying to be one of the greatest poker players in history, and dealing with the fame factor that drives so many celebs over the edge. I was starting to melt down and it was affecting my health (a little bit), and I couldn't figure out why. I mean, I had the poker records, the fortune, the fame, the wonderful wife, the great kids, the 12 million "Milwaukee's Best" beer cans coming with my picture and likeness, the NYT bestselling book ("Play Poker like the Pros"), one million subscribers on my "Phil Hellmuth's Texas Hold'em" cell phone game, a column in 40 newspapers, a piece of 18 different companies, I was on television every day, and I had much, much more. So what was the problem? Why do so many celebs with so much wealth and success melt down?

Well, first my wife convinced me to go to "Canyon Ranch" in Tuscon with her, which is the world's leading health spa, for one week. Then I called my friends at Taser and borrowed their jet for the ride down there. My wife and I joined the "Life enhancement" program, although I insisted on renting one of the best houses on campus. I thought, "If we were going to spend $18,000 for the week, then why not spend $30,000 and go in luxurious style?" Since I was starting to feel horrible around my chest and stomach (just for three or four days, thank god!), I ordered every test under the sun, and when my health scores came back "Perfect" (across the board, yes!), I knew that this physical unrest was all related to the mental side of the coin.

Believe it or not, it goes on from there. I wonder how thrilled this Ellerby fellow is to have obtained such an endorsement. Were I him, it'd be lawsuit time.

how far hellmuth taunting has come

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:26:19 GMT

Hellmuth vs. hoss_tbf

why does it sound so familiar?

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:42:43 GMT

Lying With Style:

Classic style is focused and assured. Its virtues are clarity and simplicity; in a sense, so are its vices. It declines to acknowledge ambiguities, unessential qualifications, doubts, or other styles. It declines to acknowledge that it is a style. It makes its hard choices silently and out of the reader's sight. Once made, those hard choices are not acknowledged to be choices at all; they are presented as if they are inevitable, because classic style is, above all, a style of presentation with claims to transparency. ...

I am especially fond of "declines to acknowledge it is a style."

finances and oil

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:22:31 GMT

Thanks for all the stock picks. Having already been killed on USO and more recently DIG, COP, and a number of others, my natural inclination (you may recall I'm a gambler at heart) is to double up on everything. That would really stick my neck out, but hey, retirement is overrated. Here's an article "Oil Rises, Oil Falls" supporting that move. Someone talk me out of it.

let us have a serious, careful, realistic discussion

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 23:42:46 GMT

They're Coming:

Most families neither want nor need hundreds of terrorists seeking to kill Americans in their communities.

OK sure, MOST families, but wasn't this country founded on protecting the rights of the minority? What about those of us with families that both want and need hundreds of terrorists seeking to kill us in our community? Are we to be marginalized once again?

In pursuit of maximum self parody, his next line is "We need to have a serious, careful, and realistic national discussion about the ramifications of closing Guantanamo Bay." Nothing says serious and realistic like "hundreds of terrorists are coming to kill your children while you sleep -- if baby killing obama gets his way."

financial thread

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:08:52 GMT

There must be a price where it makes sense to buy XLF, right? Any guesses?

I need some new ideas. I bought a fistful of TBT -- might be the only thing I own that I feel good about. I'm going to be in the bread lines soon as this rate. Don't hold back, give me your "lock of the week" and "back the truck up" picks.

No flying cars, but I'm calling "future" anyway

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:43:42 GMT

Has everyone see this? Google can pick out the faces in your picasa pictures. How awesome and chilling is this? Facial recognition in the hands of everyone is clearly right around the corner -- just think of the endless variety of misuses to which it will be put! Good times.

three ivy tidbits to end 2008

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:39:24 GMT

We sent ivy outside with a spray bottle full of red water, courtesy of food coloring. "Only spray that on the snow please ivy, not the deck or the gazebo or the house. We don't want to get dye all over the place." A few minutes later we hear intense sobbing. "Mommy," she says through tears, "I got some on daddy's gazebo! But I don't want it to DIE!!"

Each day we learn about one element from the periodic table. We started with hydrogen on december 1st so we've made our way through zinc. On a shopping trip ivy was asked which odwalla pomegranate blend we should buy, e.g. pomegrante mango or pomegranate tangerine, and she suggested "pomegranate manganese."

Our latest chapter book is this and we're near the end. Last night we had this exchange.

Me (reading): ...and the light coming from under the door told Sara that Ermengarde was waiting, which provided some comfort.
Ivy: Daddy, what is comfort?
Me: Comfort is something that makes you feel better. Like if you bonk your head and I pick you up, I'm trying to comfort you.
Ivy: But what is Sara doing in this context?

I lost my powers of speech for a few seconds there. I better understand the feeling which must have inspired the expression "jaw on the floor". I realize she may simply have been mimicking my occasional usage of "in this context", but if it was mimickry it was perfectly executed.

summing it up, in case anyone lost track

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 19:51:55 GMT

Greenwald on Bill Moyers:

Let's just quickly describe in the most dispassionate terms, as few of euphemisms, as possible, where we are and what has happened over the last eight years. We have a law in place that says it is a felony offense punishable by five years in prison or a $10,000 fine to eavesdrop on American citizens without warrants. We have laws in place that say that it is a felony punishable by decades in prison to subject detainees in our custody to treatment that violates the Geneva Conventions or that is inhumane or coercive.

We know that the president and his top aides have violated these laws. The facts are indisputable that they've done so. And yet as a country, as a political class, we're deciding basically in unison that the president and our highest political officials are free to break the most serious laws that we have, that our citizens have enacted, with complete impunity, without consequences, without being held accountable under the law.

And when you juxtapose that with the fact that we are a country that has probably the most merciless criminal justice system on the planet when it comes to ordinary Americans. We imprison more of our population than any country in the world. We have less than five percent of the world's population. And yet 25 percent almost of prisoners worldwide are inside the United States.

What you have is a two-tiered system of justice where ordinary Americans are subjected to the most merciless criminal justice system in the world. They break the law. The full weight of the criminal justice system comes crashing down upon them. But our political class, the same elites who have imposed that incredibly harsh framework on ordinary Americans, have essentially exempted themselves and the leaders of that political class from the law.

They have license to break the law. That's what we're deciding now as we say George Bush and his top advisors shouldn't be investigated let alone prosecuted for the laws that we know that they've broken. And I can't think of anything more damaging to our country because the rule of law is the lynchpin of everything we have.

One small correction - "is" in the final sentence carries the wrong tense.

where do they pick up such behaviors

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 02:29:10 GMT

"Can I have a frozen yogurt tube?"
"Did you eat a good dinner?"
"Yes. Can I have cherry?"
"No, there's no cherry left." [Hands her a cherry yogurt tube.] "This one is... sprinkleberry."
[time passes]
"Sprinkleberry is a funny word. I like it."
"Thank you, I made it up myself."

And in a highly exaggerated mock-disbelieving tone with mock facial expression to match, she says "You made it up YOURSELF? Whaaaaaaat?"

"They have blood on their hands"

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 03:43:43 GMT

A subject that doesn't get enough (any?) press: How Foreign Aid Destroyed Africa.

quote of the day

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 01:31:14 GMT

Putting it in perspective:

"If you think of this as sort of a combination of [the hunt for] Eric Rudolph, who was the Olympic bomber, and the movie 'Deliverance,' multiplied by a factor of 10, that's really what you're focusing on in trying to find bin Laden," said Robert Grenier, the former CIA station chief in Pakistan.

I know what image 'Deliverance x 10' sends my way, and if that's accurate, their hunting strategy requires adjustments.

a conversation

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:50:26 GMT

"Why are trains so loud?"
"If you mean that whistle we sometimes hear at our house, I think it's so people can get out of the way. Sometimes people have to walk along or across the tracks, and trains are very fast. If you get hit by a train, you die, so it's important that they give a lot of warning."
"Why are trains so loud?"
"What did I just say?"
"Because people die!"
"Yes, but WHY do people die?"
"Well... when they get very old."

Also, this morning she said "yesternight" in conversation like it was an everyday word. I love that.

believe in progress

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 00:48:36 GMT

Ivy: "Why are there all those colors?"

Me: "That's for programming, it's called syntax highlighting. The purple parts mean one thing, and the green parts something else, and..."

"And the red parts, and the white parts, I get it."

I tab over to a log file, which is all white.

"Why is that one all the same color?"

"I don't have syntax highlighting for this kind of file."

She looks at me very seriously. "We'll find some."

contest is over

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:40:47 GMT

You can stop looking, we've found the greatest metaphor ever.

Blues goalie Manny Legace left after one period Friday night with a hip injury that occurred when he slipped on the carpet placed on the ice for Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

I am not sure exactly how "hockey mom" works into the metaphor.

wait... what?

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 21:25:59 GMT

The Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission”) is adopting an interim final temporary rule ...

Nothing restores confidence like the speedy adoption of a few new interim final temporary rules!

look back to look forward

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:10:37 GMT

I don't keep track of my predictions, but all my blog posts are archived. I'm as interested in how they turn out as anyone, and I'd generally rather be wrong than right because a) my predictions do not usually describe happy outcomes and b) being wrong is a lot more educational. I'm sure this is hard for some of you to believe, but I promise the last thing I want is to give up the cushy life of sorta-free sorta-civilization for either orwellian dystopia or bunkerville. So if anyone wants to trawl the archive for predictions I've made that were way off, I welcome your findings. One of the reasons the world is so messed up is that people are pretty much never held to account for whether they're right or wrong - or worse, are punished for being right and rewarded for being wrong (see: iraq.)

I'm sure that prelude sounds like I'm about to trumpet some awesome past predictions from my selective memory, but not really - I'm linking to this post because I recently discovered future imperfect is out and it's chock full of eye-opening ideas about the future. Oil prices when I wrote that post were around $63 a barrel, and have since more than doubled and are heading back to about the same level. I doubt you'd have much trouble finding doomers who confidently predicted that oil would never again fall below $100 a barrel.

Which is not to say I'm not buying energy and especially oil all the way down, because I am.

Isn't it funny what an opportunity we've been handed here: $150/barrel oil for a while, now plunging. It's as clear a wakeup call as anyone could ask for that our infrastructure is utterly unprepared for the imminent divergence of the oil supply and demand curves, while presenting an opportunity to do something about it while we still have access to cheap oil. What will we do with that clarion call? Of course: absolutely nothing! Except breathe a sigh of relief that the oil crisis has passed and get back to consuming it as rapidly as possible. Unfortunately I didn't save the link, but a couple days ago I read an article on some financial site predicting oil companies would continue to fall and that companies like first solar were the place to invest, because clearly we had learned our lesson from $4/gallon gas and would now be rapidly hastening the transition to renewables. I'd like to nominate that as the worst prediction I'm likely to see in a year already bursting with improbable predictions. (He could be right about oil stocks going down and first solar going up, it's the "because" that's soooo wrong.)

So we're not going to run out of energy, but as our politics does not allow for even minimal levels of preparation for inevitable events if preparing would mean dipping a toe into the reality-based world, there is no upper bound on how much pain will come.

ah, memories

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:37:43 GMT

I wish I had time to dig through my archives to highlight some of the more scornful comments from the last few years. I wonder if people still think I'm delusional when I say stuff like this: I think you're completely nuts if you believe you have any chance of collecting out of social security. That kind of faith only belongs in church. The key response being "Get real, or stick to scrabble." It's only been a year since that thread, but I wonder if recent events have illustrated to any pollyannas just how precarious is the situation in the united states. But hey, he's fully confident he knows what's going to happen in 2053! I'm fearful enough of 2013.

another brick in the wall

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:18:17 GMT

What, no comments on one of the great three-year-old comments of our time? You people make me sick! But I'm not giving up on you yet.

Relevant background for this one: Ivy has accumulated a pretty impressive musical database by osmosis - I think she can name more bands now than I could when I left for college.

Tonight at dinner I was explaining how fairly soon she and I are going to start spending daily "(un)school time" and we're going to need to dream up things to do. I was attempting to get her excited about doing theater, telling her we can act out different parts, do funny voices, write what happens ourselves, and so on. She waits for me to finish yammering, looks up from her plate, and says: "Hey, teacher! Leave those kids alone!"

(I am not making this up.)