Steven Engelhardt » General

Might and Magic 2

Steve — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 04:14:00 +0000

I spent many weeks of my childhood, along with a substantial portion of last weekend, playing Might and Magic 2, which I purchased in a bundle from GOG.com.

Fond memories.

Fun Illusion

Steve — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:54:39 +0000

Stare at the red dot at the center of this image for a minute or two:

What I’m Reading

Steve — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:32:42 +0000

	The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
	The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
	Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
	Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists by Joel Best
	A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
	Beautiful Architecture: Leading Thinkers Reveal the Hidden Beauty in Software Design by Diomidis Spinellis, Georgios Gousios
	A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton G. Malkiel

2009 Cubs Predictions – Take 4

Steve — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 01:59:14 +0000

Current Cubs team OBP: 0.328
Current Cubs team ERA: 3.79
This year’s prediction: 87-75 (Methodology)
Previous predictions: 82-80 (7/5), 82-80 (6/5), 78-84 (5/12)

2009 Cubs Predictions – Take 3

Steve — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 17:31:00 +0000

Current Cubs team OBP: 0.322
Current Cubs team ERA: 3.90
This year’s prediction: 82-80 (Methodology)
Previous prediction(s): 82-80 (6/5), 78-84 (5/12)

2009 Cubs Predictions – Take 2

Steve — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:36:11 +0000

Current Cubs team OBP: 0.329
Current Cubs team ERA: 4.17
This year’s prediction: 82-80 (Methodology)
Previous prediction(s): 78-84 (5/12)

Stitched Panorama Pictures

Steve — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 03:50:05 +0000

Using Hugin (based on a recommendation from Keith) and some pictures I took last summer, I have created a few stitched panoramic pictures from last year’s Wisconsin vacation:

What I’m Reading

Steve — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:43:48 +0000

Now that I have completed my degree in Computational Finance from DePaul University, I have far more time for leisurely activities such as reading books. Here’s what I’ve been reading recently:

	How to Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff and Irving Geis.
	When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management by Roger Lowenstein.
	The Underpants by Steve Martin.
	The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing (Revised Edition) by Benjamin Graham.

Fact-Checking the WSJ

Steve — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:47:04 +0000

Well, the original source of the error was somebody the WSJ quoted, but they took it the next step without correction:

Until recently, for instance, the Lincoln Navigator offered 128 options on its console alone.

“You know what 128-factorial is—it’s a lot of combinations,” Mr. Mulally joked at a conference recently, mocking the number of designs theoretically resulting from mixing-and-matching the options. (Answer: 3.85620482 x 10 to the 215th power.)

Spector, Mike. “Ford Eyes More Cuts as Recovery Advances; Earnings Improve”. The Wall Street Journal 23 April 2008: A1, A14.

128-factorial is the correct number of combinations of options only if the order in which you pick the options is important. It almost certainly is not. Instead, assuming each option is independent and can be either on or off, the correct number of combinations is 2^128—3.4 x 10^38. Mr. Mulally was off by a factor of 177.

One-Time People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive

Steve — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:39:56 +0000

Guess who People magazine voted the Sexiest Man Alive in 1992?

Yep, that’s right, Nick Nolte.