Louis Gray

Will we have to wait until 2016? - WoH: Professor MOTHRA

I've got nothing else, but I know he's cooking up something. I just hope it's not meth. - Eric - Final Countdown

"In the process of moving from my aging 2011 Galaxy Nexus on Verizon, I'm now on T-Mobile. This means in the space of five or so years, I've gone from an iPhone on AT&T, to an HTC Evo and Samsung Epic 4G on Sprint, to the Galaxy Nexus on Verizon and now the Nexus 5 on T-Mobile. You could say I've tried all the big carriers here in the US, and experienced their positives and negatives. And in my experience, what they deliver, for the most part, is good enough." - Louis Gray

Do you know about https://republicwireless.com/ ? Sounds like something Google would do, but not from google. - Brian Johns

I only learned about Republic Wireless recently, with their making the Moto X available. Interesting. - Louis Gray

"There's a fine line separating an enthusiastic user from that of an evangelist, even if the two terms are often thrown out there as equals. For as excited as a user may be about consuming your product or your ideas, it takes an extra level of effort - working as a partner, testing early versions of products, and seeing where a product is headed to be truly considered an evangelist." - Louis Gray

"Ten years ago was a time of change, or so it seemed. I'd just gotten married, and Silicon Valley was in the throes of a deep recession. The once-packed highways became easy to drive again. Parking lots were empty and constructed buildings didn't have any tenants. Two-plus years into my job, we'd already seen our unfair share of peaks and valleys. The CEO had been replaced, as had our VP of Sales, and the Marketing team had almost completely turned over, making me one of the more senior folks, surprisingly. But while I believed in our technology, our future was not certain, so when a former colleague gave me a call, asking me to interview at his new startup, I figured I'd give it a try." - Louis Gray

"For the past 15 years, I've been working in Silicon Valley, and I've encountered an incredible mix of people who perform as if they are on different gears. Some work incredibly hard, and are driven to succeed at practically any cost, refusing to let traditional limits get in their way. Others seem almost crestfallen if they can't keep up with those gracing magazine covers simply by being in the right place at the right time. And the truth is that life's not perfect. There is an intersection of skill and luck that very often sees great employees at bad businesses punished for their career choices, while less impactful employees at incredible companies gain the benefit of their colleagues' work." - Louis Gray

Hm. Jimminy and Cristo liked it. I should close the blog. - Louis Gray

Now, if only one of them was wearing an ff shirt. - Joe

FriendFeed is always in our hearts, Joe. - Louis Gray

"You're wrong. Sorry, Louis." (Seems like that's all I've written in reply to the last few posts you've written; having not yet read this one, I'm just going to mock myself.) - OCoG of FF, Jimminy

I think your intern was sleeping. - OCoG of FF, Jimminy

"Again we have a choice - to a more modern platform with more opportunity for a rapidly-evolving set of users for whom the Web and anytime access are a given, and for whom nearly all their time is spent in the browser. Making the leap as a developer to a lesser-known path may involve some risk, but unlike that time at the beginning of the last decade, you don't need the overwhelming majority of a small market base to upgrade and get to your product. Most of those online are already there - and they want your app." - Louis Gray

Johnny, Mozilla did that 3-4 years ago with Prism. Unfortunately, it's been dead for a few years. https://mozillalabs.com/en-US... - OCoG of FF, Jimminy

Boo. TiVo.com issue? - Stephen Mack

Often, sir Stephen. - Louis Gray

Gimme the steps to reproduce and I'll file a bug! - Stephen Mack

Log into Tivo.com. Go to your season passes. Delete a season pass. - Louis Gray

"An Italian card shark has been sentenced to two years in prison after using infra-red contact lenses to count cards marked with invisible ink." - Louis Gray

Hard to catch that scam if the cheat is careful. - Stephen Mack

Infrared contact lenses!??! How does that work?? - Amit Patel

Cute! Also: Cosign. I also had mixed success in dressing my kids weather-appropriately today: It ended up being shorts and jackets, like yours. - Stephen Mack

is 15 degree C, really freezing ? LOL - Peter Dawson

nice click - Chickenmeuk

"Our platforms, and their limitations, are changing the way we communicate. Rather than accommodating the many ways we as humans like to share and engage with others, most of the online services we use have limits in how much we can share, how items can be staged, and how easily others can discover or respond." - Louis Gray

Thanks, Tin! - Louis Gray

"For all our talk about how much information is produced every year, and how every little piece of our lives is being shared and instantly discoverable, it is surprising how difficult it can be to find information on the Web, in its original state from just five years ago, let alone ten or fifteen." - Louis Gray

Hahaha! - Stephen Mack

ADD ME FRIENDS - Wahyu Cah Brosela

"Poker is a game of skill and intuition, of bluffs and traps. The familiar adage is that in poker, you play the player, not the cards. This machine does that, responding to opponents’ moves and pursuing optimal strategies. But to compete at the highest levels and beat the best human players, the approach must be impeccable" - Louis Gray

You might be interested in this guy's (Dr. Michael Bowling) AI CS poker research group. http://poker.cs.ualberta.ca/ - Joe

I read this article this morning and was going to share it but Louis (as always) beat me to it. I was fascinated. The section on page 5 detailing the pro who thinks he's beaten it has really jumped out at me: "A very few poker professionals, particularly those who specialize in one-on-one limit Texas Hold ‘Em, actually have a shot at winning regularly. Michael Reed, a pro gambler from Pittsburgh, credibly claims to fall into that category. So far, over the course of 500 hours, he says, he averages about $135 per hour in profits, playing at the $20- or $40-bet level. This means that by making the maximum bets throughout a hand, he can win or lose $500 in seconds. He has not seen many others turning a profit. “Over all, this machine crushes people,” he says. “The machine is far too aggressive and steals far too many pots.” How does Reed manage to overcome a machine that has been so hard to beat? He says it “gains its edge by being the aggressor. It almost never check-calls, or simply matches an opponent’s bet without a raise. The bot gives credit to your hand when you raise and reraise.” Unseasoned players, Reed says, have a habit of folding hands that might seem inferior. Reed has discovered that playing connecting cards like 7 and 8 can have unexpected value. “If a high card comes on the flop, the machine often folds to a bet from you, believing that you have made a high pair. So you have the middle range [of flopped cards] from which you can make hands, and the high range from which you can bluff. If you don’t bet, the bot will want to.” It’s been estimated that Reed is among 100 or so people in the world who can steadily beat the machine. I relayed this to Bill McBeath, Aria’s former president and a high-stakes poker player in his own right, and he laughed. McBeath said that when somebody tells him that he can beat the machine, his reply is: " ‘Come back and see me in a year, pal.’ The game does not have a statistical advantage over players, but the imperfections of human capabilities mean that it inevitably wins.” I started to explain Reed’s experiences, and McBeath cut me off. “Look, there was a 24-year-old who had beaten it for a while. Now he’s broke. And I think this machine had something to do with his demise.”" - Stephen Mack

"With a cobbling together of a few products, and thankfully, the continued support for standards like RSS, I was able to reboot the "LG Stream", as friend Thomas Power has long referred to it, and you can once again subscribe to follow the posts I pick from my journey on the Web, getting a hand-curated selection from the land of tech blogs and beyond. And again, you can follow the stream in your favorite RSS reader or on Twitter." - Louis Gray

Ken, you're right. I don't see a way to make these a full feed, but you know I'd like the same. I'll keep looking. - Louis Gray

"Woe be unto the companies and achievements of yesteryear, who once held lofty positions in business, made headlines with their every rumor or news leak, and broke the rules on the way to setting records. For once their time has past, proud memories rapidly decay in a world that focuses on the new shiny thing and casts them out as no longer being relevant." - Louis Gray

Finished today with 52,000+ steps, 25+ miles, 5,000 calories burned. How to beat it tomorrow? - Louis Gray

Because you were a major burner, Mr. Mack. Nice job! - Louis Gray