U.S. Incarceration Rate

i try not to be political in my blog. but there are some things that i have to comment on.

recently, the feds released statistics on the US prison and jail population. in the past year, it's grown by 2.6 percent-- more than double that of the population growth.

the US has 0.736% of it's population behind bars-- both the most in number AND percent of any country in the world. the next closest is Russia, with 0.53% of the population behind bars. and the NEXT highest ranking western country is the UK with less than 0.20% behind bars.

i don't know what the reason for this is... maybe we just have an excellent police force :)

but there is something wrong when the "land of the free" is by far the land of the most jailed.

i just don't think that most americans realize how out-of-whack our numbers are with the rest of the world. there are important questions that aren't being asked.

here's a link to a very political commentary: The US Gulag Prison System

Time to Change

do you remember that brady bunch episode where the bunch is in the recording studio and peter's voice changes and he sounds all awful and is really embarrassed, but the kids buck up and sing a song that capitalizes on peter's horribility?

the past few months, poker has been crappy for me. i've been making money, but not at the rate which i would like, and the frustration-factor has been so high that the game hasn't been fun to play. it all is rooted in some structure changes that PartyPoker made to their 1-table tournaments. i blame them, but the problem is also my fault for not being a very well-rounded poker player.

a little over 2 years ago, i started playing 1-table tournaments. the original idea was to get more "final table" experience, because i had been having some success in big multi-table tournaments, but not knowing exactly how to play when i got down to the last ten people or so. to invest so much time in a tournament and then blow it near the end, especially when the payout structures are so top-heavy (1st makes much more than 2nd, etc.), was silly in my opinion. the 1-table tournaments were a good way to practice.

except that the 1-table tournaments ended up being very profitable. and instead of just using them to practice, i started playing them exclusively. gradually moving up in limits, adding more tables that i would simutaneously play, and making more and more money/hr... it was easy money...

but now it's changed-- it's not easy or fun anymore for me, and after spending 2 years becoming an expert at this little niche of poker, i have to move on.

when i was living in vegas, i played a lot of no-limit cash games... it was mainly for the experience, and i wanted to augment my skills to become better at the 1-table tournaments. but from now on, that's what i'm going to play full-time. it's difficult to go from an expert at one thing to a rookie in another, but hopefully it'll work out and be for the best. i think that there is more potential there at least, and maybe i'll enjoy myself more as well.

a few weeks ago i was thinking about engineering again. i downloaded some fluid-flow software from a P2P network, opened it up, made sure that it was what i needed and that i could use it, and then i deleted it from my computer. i don't want to engineer now anymore than i did when i quit. there isn't any point in me wasting weeks or months of my time solving a problem that won't improve my life in any way.

instead, i've decided to redirect that "need for challenge" to a different task. i've decided to develop an automated trading system for the stock market. over the past week i've been mulling a few ideas over in my mind, and i have a fairly cohesive plan of how to analyze and backtest historical data from the stock market.

i'll be using some tools that i learned while i was an engineer. maybe the most useful thing that i ever learned was how to solve multi-dimensional problems with genetic algorithms, and i think that applying some cleverly thought-out genetic algorithms to stock market data will reveal profitable intraday trading strategies.

i'm also learning a new programming language, Python, specifically for this purpose.

it's not going to be easy, but i don't think that it'll be impossible either. an automated trading strategy doesn't have to be perfect-- it won't ever be perfect. it just needs to be right a few more times than wrong. in that sense poker and trading are very similar-- you take calculated risks and in the long run you have an positive expected return.

so i have a lot of things on my plate--- spanish, poker, a new programming language, and cracking the code that governs the stock market. a lot of changes, but all for the better hopefully.

oh, i'm also on a diet.

Weekly Update

i'm lazy.

this isn't a new development or anything, i just thought that some one out there might appreciate this news.

other people are lazy too, INDEED! but i think that at times, some people believe that THEY are special or something. like--- maybe THEY have some special gift of laziness that no one else can compete with.

THEY are wrong.

to illustrate my point, i will share a story which will SHOCK and AWE... in november, when i first came to buenos aires, i requested addresses and contact info from a number of friends, with the promise of a special "hi from argentina" postcard. i bought the postcards. i bought the international stamps ($2/each). i licked the stamps (bleh!), pasted them on the cards, and addressed them and wrote short postcard sized personal messages on each one.*

it was a lot of work for a lazy person. it exhausted me so much that, five months later, i still haven't been able to muster up the energy to drop those postcards in the mail.


*by the way, i HATE postcard messages. You only have enough space to say "Hi _____, it's me and I'm here in _____. I'm having lots of ____ and I could barely walk today because my ____ was so sore. Talk to you soon, ______"... BORING!

In the dirt on a dusty trail...

today i woke up with thoughts on how to simplify some calculations/simulations that i haven't thought about for over 3 years. the simulations were tangental to my research, but though i was interested in the results (more interested that in my actual research), i was never able to finish them.

actually, at the rate that my computers were going, i had estimated that it would take about 2 years of constant calculations to *MAYBE* have an answer.

but this morning (read:"early evening"), i scribbled down the ideas that i woke with, and then came a flood of other ideas... so after thirty minutes or so i had a couple pages which lay out a whole new way to approach the problem... what i think is a much more clever and simple way (though still relatively time-consuming).

a plan to solve a problem which i have no use for-- one which no one really has any use for.

i even checked my favorite P2P network to see if i could download a copy of some fluid flow software that i could use to work on it. unfortunately it was on the network, and is slowly being downloaded by my ex-engineering ass.

i need a drink.

David Frankenwelski

i've decided that i'm not ever going to break up with someone again.

if i make the mistake of finding myself in such a situation, i think that i'll just quietly slip away..... maybe not even pack my things... i'll move to a different city, a different country.

maybe even change my name.