Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[Tal]

One of the newsreaders on the TV news channel in Family Guy (Quahog 5 News) was replaced a couple of years ago by a younger model. Joyce Kinney used to go to the same High School as Lois (Peter's wife) but we learn that Kinney is a stage name. Her real surname is Chevapravatdumrong.

I love those little nods; the in-jokes. The adult comedies like Family Guy and The Simpsons are absolute masters at them (although I'd argue the latter is the absolute Daddy). The Simpsons is full of maths jokes, some obvious and some far less so. This is because the senior writers are almost exclusively very talented mathematicians (postgraduate qualifications at Ivy League colleges). There's an episode where Apu is being cross examined by the terrible lawyer Lionel Hutz. Hutz questions Apu's memory. The episode was written by two of the junior writers (non-mathematicians) and Apu's original response was that he was well known for his memory and that, in fact, he had appeared in four hundred films in India relating to how good his memory is.

When the script reached the senior writers, they saw an opening for a maths joke. Instead of the movies, Apu would respond that he can recall pi to four thousand digits. This was, at that time, the record. (Pi is, for those who are less geeky, a number that is the link between the diameter of a circle and its circumference. It starts 3.141592...and never stops.)

Apu then delivers the brilliant line: the last digit is one.

He's right, of course.

[Junior Senior]

Tikay, i hear you make reference to SEO in a former post and was amazed you'd heard of it... what with you being the wrong side of 80 an all.  So with that knowledge gap bridged, i thought i'd venure a post in your here inauspicious weblog. I deal with SEO almost daily in my job. It reminded of a joke i heard.

An SEO specialist walks into a bar, pub, lounge, hostelry, irish bar, and orders a drink, beverage, beer, wine, house wine...


you get the picture.. I thought it quite clever.

cool story huh?

Afternoon Gregory, & welcome to this inauspicious weblog. It'd rare I discuss online poker here, so it makes a nice change. 

You may well be "amazed" at my knowledge of SEO, but it's a key ingredient for an Online Poker business, as you presumably know.

When I was in business, pre-retirement, computers, internet, SEO were in their infancy, & I shunned them as much as I was able.

I joined Sky Poker in 2006, & it was a real culture shock to see how important SEO, (& latterly Social-Media) are in today's Online Gaming world where it is about persuading people who want to play poker online to choose this or that site. They have a whole team of people employed specifically to sweat these areas, & everyone in the Business gets trained in their use, & importance. I get my arse kicked daily by players who think they know better how to run a poker site, & I understand that, because I also used to have that lack of awareness of what makes an Online Gaming Site work.

Essentially, acquisition (signing up a constant flow of new Clients), & CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) are critically important. A new Client has an annual & lifetime EV to a Business. Pay too much in CPA, & the numbers go haywire. Acquire new Clients for less than their Annual/Lifetime EV, & you have a winner. EV includes, of course, that the churn rate is factored in. Players tend to pass through poker, some go busto, others retire, or die, some open restaurants, move to other sites, some stay around forever, but the point is, a constant flow of new blood at a sustainable CPA is required.

So SEO becomes a vital tool, & the use of keywords paramount.

I could blather on all day about this sort of stuff, but I'd best leave it at that, I think, as I prefer this Diary to be a relaxing place where I can escape the unpleasantness & personal attacks my job seems to arouse in some.

So, back to your cool story - yes, very good.

In return, I've emboldened three phrases in my reply......

Online Poker

Poker

Play Poker Online.

The value of those three keywords/key phrases is monsta, absolutely monsta, because a Online Poker Site always strives to be in the top 4 results when those words are googled. Achieve that, and a very big box is ticked. 

So, moving on, how is your golf these days? Still +2, or whatever ridic handicap it is?

What do you do for a living, anyway? No need for names & pack drill, just what line of work?

Yes i wondered just how much you'd have to bid to be a-top page 1 of google for 'online poker'. must be a fortune.  Fortunately it costs me slightly less for things like airport jobs and jobs in retail, or beauty jobs.

I manage recruitment for a very well know high street retailer that set its very roots in my home city and has its about 500 feet from the door of DTD (handy for early afternoon day 1's).

Without using your friend Wiki, have a guess at how many shops Boots has in the UK. I was amazed when i researched it before my interview. Still am.

Golf... on the back burner for now and the interest has waned somewhat. still +1 handicap... that means i have to add them on at the end of the round rather than take them off like women and old timers get to do.

Hopefully see you soon, at least at the next sky jobbie where no doubt with a fair wind and good health i'll be making an appearance.

[tikay]

Tikay, i hear you make reference to SEO in a former post and was amazed you'd heard of it... what with you being the wrong side of 80 an all.  So with that knowledge gap bridged, i thought i'd venure a post in your here inauspicious weblog. I deal with SEO almost daily in my job. It reminded of a joke i heard.

An SEO specialist walks into a bar, pub, lounge, hostelry, irish bar, and orders a drink, beverage, beer, wine, house wine...


you get the picture.. I thought it quite clever.

cool story huh?

Afternoon Gregory, & welcome to this inauspicious weblog. It'd rare I discuss online poker here, so it makes a nice change. 

You may well be "amazed" at my knowledge of SEO, but it's a key ingredient for an Online Poker business, as you presumably know.

When I was in business, pre-retirement, computers, internet, SEO were in their infancy, & I shunned them as much as I was able.

I joined Sky Poker in 2006, & it was a real culture shock to see how important SEO, (& latterly Social-Media) are in today's Online Gaming world where it is about persuading people who want to play poker online to choose this or that site. They have a whole team of people employed specifically to sweat these areas, & everyone in the Business gets trained in their use, & importance. I get my arse kicked daily by players who think they know better how to run a poker site, & I understand that, because I also used to have that lack of awareness of what makes an Online Gaming Site work.

Essentially, acquisition (signing up a constant flow of new Clients), & CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) are critically important. A new Client has an annual & lifetime EV to a Business. Pay too much in CPA, & the numbers go haywire. Acquire new Clients for less than their Annual/Lifetime EV, & you have a winner. EV includes, of course, that the churn rate is factored in. Players tend to pass through poker, some go busto, others retire, or die, some open restaurants, move to other sites, some stay around forever, but the point is, a constant flow of new blood at a sustainable CPA is required.

So SEO becomes a vital tool, & the use of keywords paramount.

I could blather on all day about this sort of stuff, but I'd best leave it at that, I think, as I prefer this Diary to be a relaxing place where I can escape the unpleasantness & personal attacks my job seems to arouse in some.

So, back to your cool story - yes, very good.

In return, I've emboldened three phrases in my reply......

Online Poker

Poker

Play Poker Online.

The value of those three keywords/key phrases is monsta, absolutely monsta, because a Online Poker Site always strives to be in the top 4 results when those words are googled. Achieve that, and a very big box is ticked. 

So, moving on, how is your golf these days? Still +2, or whatever ridic handicap it is?

What do you do for a living, anyway? No need for names & pack drill, just what line of work?

Yes i wondered just how much you'd have to bid to be a-top page 1 of google for 'online poker'. must be a fortune.  Fortunately it costs me slightly less for things like airport jobs and jobs in retail, or beauty jobs.

I manage recruitment for a very well know high street retailer that set its very roots in my home city and has its about 500 feet from the door of DTD (handy for early afternoon day 1's).

Without using your friend Wiki, have a guess at how many shops Boots has in the UK. I was amazed when i researched it before my interview. Still am.

Golf... on the back burner for now and the interest has waned somewhat. still +1 handicap... that means i have to add them on at the end of the round rather than take them off like women and old timers get to do.

Hopefully see you soon, at least at the next sky jobbie where no doubt with a fair wind and good health i'll be making an appearance.

Without googling?

3,500.

Off to see how daft I look now.

[tikay]

Bugger.

I feel daft now.

[Junior Senior]

good guess, although perhaps the very question made you double the initial thought you perhaps had.

its circa 2500. 32 just in the UK's airports and 13 in Heathrow alone. Glasgow area has about 14.

[RED-DOG]

One of the newsreaders on the TV news channel in Family Guy (Quahog 5 News) was replaced a couple of years ago by a younger model. Joyce Kinney used to go to the same High School as Lois (Peter's wife) but we learn that Kinney is a stage name. Her real surname is Chevapravatdumrong.

I love those little nods; the in-jokes. The adult comedies like Family Guy and The Simpsons are absolute masters at them (although I'd argue the latter is the absolute Daddy). The Simpsons is full of maths jokes, some obvious and some far less so. This is because the senior writers are almost exclusively very talented mathematicians (postgraduate qualifications at Ivy League colleges). There's an episode where Apu is being cross examined by the terrible lawyer Lionel Hutz. Hutz questions Apu's memory. The episode was written by two of the junior writers (non-mathematicians) and Apu's original response was that he was well known for his memory and that, in fact, he had appeared in four hundred films in India relating to how good his memory is.

When the script reached the senior writers, they saw an opening for a maths joke. Instead of the movies, Apu would respond that he can recall pi to four thousand digits. This was, at that time, the record. (Pi is, for those who are less geeky, a number that is the link between the diameter of a circle and its circumference. It starts 3.141592...and never stops.)

Apu then delivers the brilliant line: the last digit is one.

He's right, of course.

[tikay]

good guess, although perhaps the very question made you double the initial thought you perhaps had.

its circa 2500. 32 just in the UK's airports and 13 in Heathrow alone. Glasgow area has about 14.

Yeah, my initial thought was 3,000.

13 in Heathrow!

I have a bit of an interest in the Boots family. Boring story incoming, unless you can pre-empt it by identifying the connection between Jesse Boot and Jersey, CI.

[Junior Senior]

wasn't he born there or his Dad? i vaguely remember some connection from my induction.
the company is huge on its history and there is a whole building on the site which is the Boots archive.

On a seperate note, did you realise that the footprint of the Boots site at Beeston (next to DTD) is bigger than the footprint of Monaco. Its Mahooosive

[tikay]

One of the newsreaders on the TV news channel in Family Guy (Quahog 5 News) was replaced a couple of years ago by a younger model. Joyce Kinney used to go to the same High School as Lois (Peter's wife) but we learn that Kinney is a stage name. Her real surname is Chevapravatdumrong.

I love those little nods; the in-jokes. The adult comedies like Family Guy and The Simpsons are absolute masters at them (although I'd argue the latter is the absolute Daddy). The Simpsons is full of maths jokes, some obvious and some far less so. This is because the senior writers are almost exclusively very talented mathematicians (postgraduate qualifications at Ivy League colleges). There's an episode where Apu is being cross examined by the terrible lawyer Lionel Hutz. Hutz questions Apu's memory. The episode was written by two of the junior writers (non-mathematicians) and Apu's original response was that he was well known for his memory and that, in fact, he had appeared in four hundred films in India relating to how good his memory is.

When the script reached the senior writers, they saw an opening for a maths joke. Instead of the movies, Apu would respond that he can recall pi to four thousand digits. This was, at that time, the record. (Pi is, for those who are less geeky, a number that is the link between the diameter of a circle and its circumference. It starts 3.141592...and never stops.)

Apu then delivers the brilliant line: the last digit is one.

He's right, of course.

Most of the Simpson's maths stuff is over my head - I see the clues, & references, but I don't really understand them.

I'm becoming addicted to Family Guy, on a much more guttural level.

I was sat at home last night, watching an old episode, & this scene totally cracked me up.

Lower class, me.

[tikay]

One of the newsreaders on the TV news channel in Family Guy (Quahog 5 News) was replaced a couple of years ago by a younger model. Joyce Kinney used to go to the same High School as Lois (Peter's wife) but we learn that Kinney is a stage name. Her real surname is Chevapravatdumrong.

I love those little nods; the in-jokes. The adult comedies like Family Guy and The Simpsons are absolute masters at them (although I'd argue the latter is the absolute Daddy). The Simpsons is full of maths jokes, some obvious and some far less so. This is because the senior writers are almost exclusively very talented mathematicians (postgraduate qualifications at Ivy League colleges). There's an episode where Apu is being cross examined by the terrible lawyer Lionel Hutz. Hutz questions Apu's memory. The episode was written by two of the junior writers (non-mathematicians) and Apu's original response was that he was well known for his memory and that, in fact, he had appeared in four hundred films in India relating to how good his memory is.

When the script reached the senior writers, they saw an opening for a maths joke. Instead of the movies, Apu would respond that he can recall pi to four thousand digits. This was, at that time, the record. (Pi is, for those who are less geeky, a number that is the link between the diameter of a circle and its circumference. It starts 3.141592...and never stops.)

Apu then delivers the brilliant line: the last digit is one.

He's right, of course.

Ali G tried to understand what "infinity" means. That works for me, because I can understand it.

"....but what number is infinity + 1?......"

[tikay]

wasn't he born there or his Dad? i vaguely remember some connection from my induction.
the company is huge on its history and there is a whole building on the site which is the Boots archive.

On a seperate note, did you realise that the footprint of the Boots site at Beeston (next to DTD) is bigger than the footprint of Monaco. Its Mahooosive

Jesse Boot (son of the founder, John) was born in Nottingham, but his wifey, Florence, who was the real driving force behind Boots early success (500 shops before World War 1), was born in Jersey. I'm not sure where John was born.

I was walking along the cliffs above St Brelade's Bay Jersey one day, &, almost literally, stumbled across the "Boot Family Grave". I'm not clear why I remember it so well, or why it fascinated me so, but it did, as I had no idea that there was a connection between Boots & Jersey. Told you it was boring.....but odd things stick in our minds. It was 45 years ago when I saw the grave. 

The Boots Beeston complex? Yes, I'm interested in large industrial complexes (yawn....), & that is one of the UK's biggest, or used to be, in terms of acreage though not employment. It includes several Listed Buildings, & I did quite a bit of RC & CE work there in the 80's & 90's. 

But "big" is relative, bear with me while I bump a post Doobsy made here recently about a Korean (?) factory site.

[tikay]

I got the NHS and army ones, and kind of gave up after that.

Just googled Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd as I had never heard of them.  I had heard of ipod factories, but some of these numbers...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn

Foxconn's largest factory worldwide is in Longhua, Shenzhen, where hundreds of thousands of workers (varying counts include 230,000,[19] 300,000,[21] and 450,000[22]) are employed at the Longhua Science & Technology Park, a walled campus[8] sometimes referred to as "Foxconn City"[23] or "iPod City".[24] Covering about 1.16 square miles (3 square km),[25] it includes 15 factories,[23] worker dormitories, a swimming pool,[26] a fire brigade,[8] its own television network (Foxconn TV),[8] and a city centre with a grocery store, bank, restaurants, bookstore, and hospital...   a quarter of the employees live in the dormitories, and many of them work up to 12 hours a day for 6 days each week

Now THAT is a big complex! It's Taiwan though, not Korean as I suggested.

Even if we take the middle estimate, three hundred thousand folks work there.

That's almost as big as infinity. Until that "World's Biggest Employers" thing a few weeks ago, I'd never heard of Hon Hai Precision Industries or Foxconn.

Seemingly, 40% of ALL consumer products in the world are assembled by Foxconn, & so the likelihood is that we have their goods in our homes.  

These products include iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Blackberry, as well as a large range of children's toys, such as X-Box & Playstation.

What a thing google, Wiki & the internet is. As a child, it would have taken me months to research all that utterly fascinating stuff. Don't worry if you want to laugh at me for finding such stuff of interest, I even find it funny myself. 

[Tal]

One of the newsreaders on the TV news channel in Family Guy (Quahog 5 News) was replaced a couple of years ago by a younger model. Joyce Kinney used to go to the same High School as Lois (Peter's wife) but we learn that Kinney is a stage name. Her real surname is Chevapravatdumrong.

I love those little nods; the in-jokes. The adult comedies like Family Guy and The Simpsons are absolute masters at them (although I'd argue the latter is the absolute Daddy). The Simpsons is full of maths jokes, some obvious and some far less so. This is because the senior writers are almost exclusively very talented mathematicians (postgraduate qualifications at Ivy League colleges). There's an episode where Apu is being cross examined by the terrible lawyer Lionel Hutz. Hutz questions Apu's memory. The episode was written by two of the junior writers (non-mathematicians) and Apu's original response was that he was well known for his memory and that, in fact, he had appeared in four hundred films in India relating to how good his memory is.

When the script reached the senior writers, they saw an opening for a maths joke. Instead of the movies, Apu would respond that he can recall pi to four thousand digits. This was, at that time, the record. (Pi is, for those who are less geeky, a number that is the link between the diameter of a circle and its circumference. It starts 3.141592...and never stops.)

Apu then delivers the brilliant line: the last digit is one.

He's right, of course.

Ali G tried to understand what "infinity" means. That works for me, because I can understand it.

"....but what number is infinity + 1?......"

Infinity is something that fascinates me. I'm definitely one who prefers numbers over statistics; it's the beauty of maths which butters my mathematical parsnips.

Last year, I read The Infinite Book, by John D. Barrow. It's a corking read, full of oddities and theories about this unfathomable concept of something too big to count.

Take the Infinity Hotel. It's a hotel with an infinite number of rooms. So, if you arrive and ask for any number you can think of, you can have the keys to that room with pleasure.

One day, a bus arrives and an infinite number of guests pile out, each wanting a room.

"No problem. We have a room for each of you."

Her Majesty the queen pops in. "Would one be able to stay this evening?'

"Certainly, Ma'am. Room one." We hurriedly move the occupant of room one to room two, two to three, three to four and everyone else up one, too. Done.

The next minute, another bus arrives and an infinite number of new guests turn up. We already have an infinite number of guests in an infinite number of rooms. Now what?

Well, we ask the occupant of room one to move to room two, room two to move to room four, room three to room six, four to eight, five to ten and so on. For any number you can think of, you just send them to the room with the number twice as large. This leaves a room for each new guest (all the odd numbers - and there's an infinite number of odd numbers). Problem solved. Phew!

Due to "restructuring", the Infinity Hotel's sister hotels (you guessed it, an infinite number of them, each with an infinite number of guests) all have to close. Now what?!

Assign each hotel with a prime number (that's a number which can only be divided by itself or one). Then, your current guests can stay in all the rooms 2/4/8/16/32/64 and so on, the next hotel's guests 3/9/27/81, the next 5/25/125/625 and you can keep going because there are an infinite number of primes. Her Majesty can stay in room one, too!

This was the work of a German mathematician called David Hilbert

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hilbert

One of his students committed suicide after failing to solve a problem that had driven him mad. Hilbert was asked by the family to speak at the funeral. He did so, explaining where the student had gone wrong.

[RED-DOG]

I had no idea that there was a connection between Boots & Jersey.

It all depends on how long your legs are.

[Tal]

5.387 billion cans sold in 2013 of Red Bull.

5,387,000,000.