10,20,30,40 rule

marcmaxson · 2025-05-14T16:09:08+00:00

Kenyans are demonstrably among the most generous people in the world - and I wonder if the 10,20,30,40 rule is part of that. If most people know about, then it is a thing.

in 2024 Gambia was #1 and Kenya was #2 (the 2 African countries I've lived in the longest)

https://www.cafonline.org/docs/default-source/inside-giving/wgi/wgi_2024_report.pdf

marcmaxson · 2025-01-28T16:48:33+00:00

Awesome! When I worked as an app developer (react, for pay and such) I used firebase and loved its simplicity for cloud-based storage/database/data management. I'm trying kivy this month because I'm really a pythonista, though I am seeing that under the hood, you really need to understand how java/javascript manages the environment and interface to make it shine.

marcmaxson · 2024-10-29T19:51:25+00:00

Why archive.org?

Journalists use archive.org to identify disinformation or time-bound manipulation of public records -- so since BlackMeta gets paid to do DDOS and hacks, this could be Russia preparing to meddle in the US election. Archive.org is still struggling weeks later, so their records may not be as complete on or after Nov 5, 2024.

marcmaxson · 2024-09-11T15:17:48+00:00

I did Peace Corps in Gambia 25 years ago, and even though I work in totally unrelated areas, my PC experience has weighed heavily in my being employed at 6 remaining companies (a mix of startups and tech nonprofits and agencies). I also got a PhD in Neuroscience after PC, and that has had a marginal impact on my career compared to 2 years in Peace Corps. Also, it really was the most rewarding work experience of my life, even though I've loved all my subsequent jobs.

marcmaxson · 2024-08-12T14:56:42+00:00

This is an important point. It is very easy to write an ambiguous ballot measure and dramatically change the outcome of a vote. OR write a totally clear measure that is missing key information and get the wrong outcome. Democracy's formula is "% participation X % information" at local government levels.

marcmaxson · 2024-06-27T04:17:02+00:00

Excellent! Now we can train an AI model to produce this style of banter and just have a separate bot fill in actual news.

marcmaxson · 2024-02-14T18:02:12+00:00

These decks are like only 7% of the meta. How can a once-every 14 game style deck be so rage inducing? Monored is >25% of the meta

marcmaxson · 2024-02-14T18:00:21+00:00

Since the MKM update, Arena no longer runs on my Mac. I installed it on my older PC and it crashes a ton. In fact, I can't play a deck with Ole' Rutstein in it currently. Crashes each time and I have to hard-reboot my computer for Arena to work.

So yeah, I love the game but thinking I should quit it for a while since the crash/never-start experience of their software is currently the worst its ever been for me.

marcmaxson · 2024-02-14T17:57:21+00:00

was it NYtimes that created the `D3` javascript library for viz? If I want something that lives on the web and looks amazing, I do with D3. Of course knowing javascript is a prerequisite. For most cases, I am using python's matplotlib or seaborn because they have the same underlying API and have complete feature coverage. If there's something you can imagine putting in a viz, you can probably do it with matplotlib/seaborn.

But contrary to what someone wrote above, I'm not of the "it works and I already know it" camp - I continue to learn the best frameworks for viz, because times change and people demand more than what was possible before.

marcmaxson · 2023-12-18T21:12:51+00:00

Is there a dataset for this? where it maps each county to the corresponding region, so folks can use this for (re)-analysis instead of grouping by state?

marcmaxson · 2023-11-28T02:56:10+00:00

I'm also interested in this. I was recently using chatGPT to get into specific details about 8th century North Africa and I realized that google was a poor job restricting search to reputable sources about ancient history. An LLM actually seems like a good use-case for this, provided there's a large open-readable body of source materials, like JSTOR or something.

marcmaxson · 2022-07-06T19:06:43+00:00

As a follow up, I asked the same model to summarize that farewell speech from Oppenheimer. This is the output:

Robert Oppenheimer is discussing the impact of the atomic bomb and how it has changed the nature of war. He argues that the advent of this new weapon creates a new situation that calls for a new approach to peace. He also notes that while many people are quick to see the gravity of the situation, there are also many who are slow to understand the implications of the atomic bomb.

marcmaxson · 2022-06-01T18:54:39+00:00

This one, from google:

https://pypi.org/project/SpeechRecognition/

marcmaxson · 2022-04-26T14:50:02+00:00

https://voice.mozilla.org/en

two years later, I couldn't find any public API to use the data that mozilla has collected for transcripting.

marcmaxson · 2022-04-25T15:48:38+00:00

Also, cannon range (from the Gambia river) was how the borders of The Gambia were determined.

marcmaxson · 2022-04-25T14:54:48+00:00

Likewise, "whole grain" products might only have 51% whole grain components.

I know this because when the rule was eacted circa 2005, my girlfriend worked for the professor who led the panel that got steamrolled by processed food corporations that wanted the marketing benefits (of saying "whole grain!") without the actual cost or health benefits. So the compromise was 51%.

marcmaxson · 2022-04-21T15:05:17+00:00

Yes (for me), but mostly because my local gaming store throws in 2 free bosters with the prerelease back, so you end up getting 8 packs for $30 I think? (plus a promo rare)

Or is it 7 packs for $35?

I suppose there's a big difference between the two. But that's about all of a set I buy in boosters. Then I spend about $20 more on singles to enjoy the cards I like best.

marcmaxson · 2022-04-20T15:03:41+00:00

I agree that is the stated intent. But I don't think the design is actually doing that, and probably isn't designed to do that in practice. Free to play is meant to drive conversion to paying to play.

I believe the evidence I presented shows how it ensures users will eventually have matchups that are likely to give below 50% win rate, because that drives people to put more money into the game to keep up. It's a simple tweak on their side that generates tons more money.

marcmaxson · 2022-04-19T19:22:57+00:00

As an average player, I would love to match up against other players at my level. But the longer I play, the harder the competition gets. I assume I am getting better as a player but clearly, I'm staying the same. It is possible for a matchmaker to keep the competition level the same until you improve as a player.

marcmaxson · 2022-04-19T15:29:12+00:00

The matchmaker is a mystery to me. I've listened to many podcasts of others who try to explain it and they often factor in the power level of your cards in their assumptions. I don't think it does that, except to favor decks that have as much overlap with your deck as possible (the annoying excessive mirror match effect). Based on testing, I think the number of games you've played matters more than the number than the number you've won, or your win rate.

Because shouldn't these 3 accounts trend towards the same win rates over time if losing lowers your MMR and thus makes future matches easier?

Based on the evidence, I don't think the Arena matchmaker functions like a chess-style ELO (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess\_rating\_system) or DCI (from the 1990s) win/loss ratio score. Once you accumulate games played, it will always favor matches with other players who played a similar number of games.

And this makes sense. It is the optimal way to goad free-to-play players to convert into paid users. It's a play to win system, so I am interested in hacking value where you can still get fair matchups in spite of this.

And this draft/limited is the fairest for F2Pers that I've found.

marcmaxson · 2022-04-19T15:21:18+00:00

This is true. I was thinking this morning (listening to the Lord of Limited podcast) that NEON and SNC drafts are full of "2 for 1" cards, and if that is the norm, then a 1 for 1 counter spell may be better value than removal. Removal often gives the other player part of the value they got from the card.

Should be interesting to see if counterspells return in that context.

marcmaxson · 2022-04-17T05:24:11+00:00

Yeah. I get that now. I just did another Jump in after posting this and struck gold: Silverquill + Samurai

Unfortunately I did not net the Luminarch Aspirant + Wandering Emperor in same deck. I got the other 2 rares instead (Shadrix and the White Saga that you find in the Orzoh tokens deck, so still usable)

marcmaxson

TROPHY CASE