Adam Selene

Independence (Sovereignty Recognition) as a commodity

2009-12-17T02:16:20Z

I absolutely love the last paragraph of this article (regarding Nauru's recognition of Abkhazia).

“There is no question of morality here,” Mr. Markedonov said. “It’s the smallest country in the world. It has no potential, just to trade in independence. Independence is a commodity — people will trade it.”

Sweet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/world/europe/16georgia.html?_r=1&hp

FUCK IMMIGRATION

2008-11-15T09:57:32Z

Pure chauvinism, racism (Spaniards don't like Latinoamericanos), and megalomania is the only explanation.

In their words, no woman travels alone, without husband or children.

I sent my wife to Europe as a Christmas present. She was going to the Canary Islands to visit a friend, back to Madrid for Christmas shopping, planned to either catch a round-trip flight to Paris or Marseilles for a few days, and flying back from Madrid in December; just over three weeks.

Instead, immigration police in Madrid airport tell her she has no business traveling alone, throw her in jail were she is stripped searched, abused, yelled at, interrogated, deprived of sleep, deprived of water, deprived of counsel, deprived of use of telephone, cannot call me, cannot speak to the Costa Rican embassy; they frequently enter her cell to take away her blanket or book, yell at her, take her away to other rooms, accuse her of having drugs in her stomach, telling her she must confess to crimes, telling her if she has medical problem they won't even call for help, she can die in her cell, etc. A social worker who was said to be coming never showed up.

Apparently the police will escort her into a flight, like a criminal, back to Costa Rica at noon.

Merry fucking Christmas.

Angry doesn't begin to describe my mood. No wonder people blow stuff up in Spain.

Spanish Immigration (Lost Wife)

2008-11-15T05:40:22Z

My wife flew to Madrid yesterday, and was supposed to catch a connecting flight to Tenerife (Canary Islands), to visit a friend.

I find out this evening she never made it to Tenerife (7 hours after her flight was to arrive). I find out a few hours later that she's being held by Immigrations in Madrid, for reasons unknown. She called her friend finally (12 hours after arriving in Madrid). Apparently she is unable to call me (no international calls?!). And I still don't know why she's being held, neither did her friend. WTF! Immigrations offices are closed for the day, I get to wait until 2am to start calling Spain.

She's never traveled internationally alone before. She's only left Costa Rica twice, both 30 minutes flights (to Panama City and to San Andres), both times with me, and both times in the last 6 months. She's talked for years about wanting to travel to Europe (esp. France & Italy)... if this goes badly....

FUCK.

My hands were shaking when I got home. Making dinner for the kids settled me down, but I'm not doing well now, despite a few drinks.

First flight to Madrid leave at 9am. I'm tempted to take it. But I won't arrive until Sunday morning in Madrid. 17 hours in transit (+6 hr time difference); through Atlanta, there aren't any non-stop flights on the weekend.

Update: Friend called me again, my wife called her again. Immigration hasn't told my wife either why she's being held and denied entry into Spain. Costa Ricans need no visa to visit Spain for up to 90 days. She was on a direct non-stop flight from Costa Rica.

Speculating on the unknown is terrible. Why would she be denied entry? Copyrighted material on her Kindle? Interpol warrant regarding her very large e-gold account? (U.S. charged e-gold with money laundering). Are they arresting her, or sending her on the morning flight back to Costa Rica?

My hopeful guess is they don't like her old passport. I had her get a new one last year, the migration office just stamped an extension in the old one; refused to give her a new one. I'm reading information now that Spain may require a Machine Readable Passport. The kids have new ones, but the readers in San Andres wouldn't read them. There's a CR consulate in Madrid. Would they really deport her back to Costa Rica? The airline checked her passport at check-in, I'd want a refund or complementary tickets, AT LEAST. Hands shaking a little less.

Wii, Aduanas and Desktop VR

2007-12-23T07:52:53Z

Our 5yr old is getting a Wii for Christmas.

Or at least we hope Santa will bring it on time. How do you explain to a 5yr old that aduanas (customs) has his Wii? Perhaps I can use the opportunity to deeply ingrain a hatred for taxation and government inefficiency -- Aduanas has your Wii!

Crossing my fingers the courier will get it out of customs on the 24th, so I won't be tempted.

Anyway, while the Wii remote seems quite cool, I look forward to playing with it, this guy takes it to a whole 'nother level.

Now I can't wait for Nintendo to pick this idea up and make a Wii 2 with point-of-view-tracking 3D enabled gaming.

Ron Paul advocates competing legal currencies, including gold & silver

2007-11-09T20:04:52Z

"...we could legalize competing currencies. I mean we compete with currencies around the world all the time, but why can't we have gold and silver competing as a currency, and let people say 'get the taxes off currency, you can't tax money', so there's a way to develop a competing currency under the current situation, and if people don't like the fiat currency that continues to lose its value, they can opt-out and start dealing in gold and silver." — Ron Paul, CNBC Talking Monetary Policy (11-8-07)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=hZsZ0_OLer4

adam__selene @ 2007-11-08T23:39:00

2007-11-09T05:40:49Z

I'm the first person to transcribe this video, as far as I know. Feel free to redistribute its contents (with attribution to the Financial Times).

Jim Rogers on the dollar, Ben Bernanke, and US economy

FT: You said you're selling US assets. So what makes you so bearish on the dollar?

Jim Rogers: Well the US dollar is a terribly flawed currency. As recently as 1987 the United States was a creditor nation. We're now the largest debtor nation the world has ever seen in only twenty years. We owe the rest of the world over thirteen trillion with a "T" US dollars. That's a bad number, but what's worse is our foreign debts are increasing at a rate of one trillion dollars every 15 months. It's simple arithmetic at how fast it's going to go up, but its pretty terrifying arithmetic. I don't want to own a currency which is being debased that way. The central bank in America has said that they're going to print as many dollars has they have to drive down the value of the currency. The secretary of the treasury is trying to drive down the value of the currency. I mean it doesn't take a genius to figure out that it's a currency that's going to be going down for some time to come. They want to debase the currency. The head of the central bank has been printing money since he got there for two years. He's printing money very rapidly now, especially since this summer. This is a man who his whole intellectual career has been spent studying the printing of money. Now America is giving the printing presses. I don't want to be in a currency like that.

FT: So what's your assessment of Bernanke's performance so far?

Jim Rogers: Well it's been a disaster.

Did I make myself clear? He's been a disaster. I mean he's been printing much too much money, since the beginning. Last summer he bailed out his friends on Wall Street, said there was some kind of problem. I mean the stock market was down 6%. If a 6% decline in the stock market causes the man to go and cut interest rates by a half a percent, when inflation is running rampant, when the dollar is under pressure anyway, what's he going to do when the market is down 36%? What's he going to do when they have a real crisis? I mean he's going to print money until we run out of trees! I don't want to own US dollars in an environment like that. I don't know why you would. I don't know why anybody would.

FT: So is the US already in a recession?

Jim Rogers: In my view yes. We know that housing is in worse than recession. We know that automobiles are in worse than recession. We know that many parts of the financial community are in worse than recession. We know that machinery — Caterpillar Tractor, one of the largest machinery companies in the world, has said it's the worse they've seen in 50 years. There are a lot of sectors of the American economy that are in serious trouble, shall we say. The government says it's not a recession. I'd like to know from them, what's keeping it up, that if all these other sectors — and you know housing and automobiles are two of the very largest sectors — what is not in recession? Retail sales are down; I could go on and on.

FT: So what's next? What do you think is coming?

Jim Rogers: Well for the dollar? Well probably the dollar is going to have a big rally about now, because everybody in the world is short the dollar. In my experience in the investment markets, when everyone is on one side of the boat, you'd better think about going to the other side of the boat for a while. I suspect there'll be a rally; I have no idea what will cause it. And if there's a rally, for a few weeks, a few months, I would urge you to sell that rally — that's my plan — to get the rest of my money out of US dollars.

FT: You've actually been bearish on the dollar for more than a decade. So why are getting headlines now? Is it to do with promoting your new book?

Jim Rogers: I didn't know I wasn't getting headlines, you called me, I didn't call you. The dollar has been steadily going down, as you know, for several years. It's not been a wonderful place to be. I have no idea. Maybe it's because now the dollar's starting to crescendo a little bit more. And actually now that I think about — I don't think it has anything to do with me — as you probably know, the dollar has never gone below 80 as an index, which is a federal government report; it's never gone below 80 in the history of the world. Until the last two or three months, when Bernanke started printing all this money and cutting interest rates; in a terribly inflationary environment he was cutting interest rates. It's broken below that level, so it's now going to the lowest level in history. So maybe that's why more and more people are starting to pay attention to the dollar.

FT: You're known for being apolitical. Are you backing anyone in the next year's US presidential election?

Jim Rogers: Well, yes. A pox on both of their houses, as far as I'm concerned; the Democrats and the Republicans. I rarely if ever pay much attention — I always vote – but I don't pay too much attention to them, because I know they're pretty hopeless. However in this election, if Ron Paul gets anywhere near the nomination, I will certainly support him. I mean he's the only one I've seen in American politics that seems to have a clue about what's going on in the world.

FT: Will he win?

Jim Rogers: If I'm backing him, there's no way, no way I assure you. Poor Ron.

The GOP has stepped off the path, nominate Ron Paul

2007-10-29T21:34:51Z

"If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. … The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom, and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is. … I think that libertarianism and conservatism are traveling the same path."

— President Ronald Reagan

Absolute Scapegoat? AbsPoker blames rogue programmer.

2007-10-21T00:59:38Z

Absolute Scapegoat? AbsPoker blames rogue programmer.

Absolute Poker manages carefully spun press coverage blaming a rogue programmer for biggest scandal in online poker history. “This is literally a geek trying to prove to senior management that they were wrong and he took it too far.” Absolute BS?

http://www.egamingtoday.com/Article/AbsolutePoker/Fraud.html

Digg it, most complete write-up for anyone not on 2+2.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day

2007-09-19T17:53:41Z

Play a cool Pirate video slot machine for International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

I'm sure there are plenty of good flash Pirate games on the Net, but my company actually wrote this one, so I'm proud of it (BetGold being one of many licensees, but is the coolest as they accept DGC's). The game may even be coming to a land-based casino near you... (well, if you live in Latin America anyway).

Ron Paul coinage

2007-07-03T23:36:36Z

The $1000 Gold Ron Paul Dollar measures 32 mm and contains one Troy ounce of .9999 fine gold.

http://www.ronpauldollar.com/

For-Profit Philanthropy

2006-09-14T23:39:40Z

News.com has an article about Google's unusual approach to philanthropy.

http://news.com.com/Googles+unusual+approach+to+philanthropy/2100-1014_3-6115533.html?tag=nefd.top

Google.org will be a for-profit corporation. Although that's really a not-for-profit corporation without all the artificial government-imposed restrictions, given I wouldn't expect it would ever return profits to its "owners" (Google.com) [although the article does mention the possibility].

What is more interesting, however, is that it may engage in traditionally commercial activities (which achieve philanthropic goals), and actually generate revenue & profits.

I've often thought that the best model for philanthropic organizations, after being seed funded by grant(s), is to reduce and/or completely eliminate dependency upon future grants and be self-funded. One way to do this is to only spend the interest earned on the initial grant(s); but best way is to develop revenue sources synergistic with the philanthropic mission.

One such model I've thought about is a solution for education. Imagine a school, initially funded by grants, that accepts students based on a contractual obligation that its students pay a small percentage of their annual income to the school every year after they graduate. Now that school has incentive to find the best students with the highest potential, has incentive to push those students to reach that high potential, in order to maximize the school's future revenue. That's synergy.

Winning AA the really hard way

2006-08-23T06:32:41Z

(Pokerstars) My AA versus QQ on a Q44 flop. I win.

I win, without an Ace hitting the board.

[to my credit I did have him all-in preflop]

Illegal Re-raise

2006-08-17T03:10:23Z

My wife's been cleaning up on Pitbull freerolls -- almost always makes the final table and as won several times.

However... see a problem here:

rayjan calls ( 1000 )
hh87 raises ( 4000 )
jimshoe75 folds
HITandRUN folds
Donny folds
pflower folds
xvegaschas folds
crashbandy calls ( 4000 )
doyce folds
Maydi calls ( 4000 )
rayjan raises ( 4929 ) [All-In]
hh87 raises ( 12313 )

Where's a real life dealer when you need one.

As a software programmer -- a casino software programmer -- I really hate seeing basic rules screwed up.

As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours.

2006-06-20T03:07:20Z

"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software," he said. "Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." (Bill Gates on software piracy in China, July 1998)

This is one thing I think Microsoft always got right. Although they seem to be moving away from it, or perhaps "figur[ing] out how to collect", via Windows Genuine Advantage nonsense. With Gates gone, I hope they don't take a fascist turn to their historically pragmatic stance on piracy. (Or if I had a competing product, I wish they would.)

Piracy and price are reversely correlated numbers. Office, for example, is quite expensive. Office 2003 Pro retails for $499. Very expensive for a student, absolutely prohibitive to the third-world computer user, a great bargain for any major corporation.

Now if they reduce the price, they reduce the piracy rate. But that may suffer a net loss overrall. So let's consider they've set the price to maximize profit, despite the large number of users they price out.

Now, what about those users they price out? Should they use another product? No, actually Microsoft would much rather they not fund a competitor, but pirate Office. Isn't this ridiculously obvious? Students are going to learn Office they've stolen, and when they move into the corporate world they reinforce the cycle of Office. The third world users are going to learn and develop upon pirated Office, and the developing economy will be able to afford more and more licensed copies as it grows.

I take great offense to antipiracy propoganda claiming every copy pirated * retail price = amount of lost revenue. No, it isn't. Not even close.

"As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours." Great words of wisdom.

The pursuit of Galt's Gultch

2006-06-20T01:49:18Z

Werner K. Stiefel’s Pursuit of a Practicum of Freedom by Spencer MacCallum.

A tribute to the late Werner K. Stiefel, whose pursuit of Galt's Gulch is still very much in the dreams of a later generation (e.g. seasteading ). We can hope to build upon his groundwork.

I very much like the notion of "designer" multi-tenant projects, and a city made up of multiple such projects, independently operated and funded. The only question is when and where.

Given the worsening of the caribbean tropical storm season, the Caribbean Sea seems less desirable a location.

WSOP Almost

2006-06-19T04:49:15Z

So the villian who took me out, whose short-stack I had all-in several hands ealier QT versus my QJ, who got a lucky break when the river paired and we split the pot; cashdaddy69, took 7th place and earned an entry in the WSOP $1500 event. He's going to Las Vegas. LOL.

Winner!

2006-06-17T20:03:59Z

Yeah, 1 in 5 ain't bad afterall. LOL.

Although damn the suspense. The casino went down right when they should have announced the winner, I had to wait until this morning to find out.

We'll see if I can make that a lucky streak in tomorrow's PokerStars World Blogger Championship.

Risk Averse

2006-06-16T00:47:55Z

I find I am naturally very risk averse, which is in great conflict with my rational mind (and developing poker mind) which says, EV positive!

I'm playing a contest whereby each hand of blackjack played wins a chance at a jackpot drawing (one hand picked each hour at random over 5 days, one hour picked each day, one day picked wins it all).

The contest has a positive expectation. The jackpot in this case is $5000, so each hourly spot has an EV of $41.67, and each daily spot an EV of $1000. I average $15 playing Blackjack at $0.40 per hand to win an hourly spot. Given I'm trying to maximize the number of hands I play, I have no expectation to actually win money playing blackjack.

So far I've spent $300 and won one daily spot (EV $1000). Great! Great? Still, I only have a 1 in 5 chance. Would you risk $300 for a 1 in 5 chance at $5000? Math geek brain says, hell yes. The rest says, hmmm.... 1 in 5!

Now if the both the opportunity and funds were available to do this over and over again, no question.

But such a contest is only available on occassion. For $300 I have a 1 in 5 chance of winning... 20%. I have the exact same probability of losing this time, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next. Losing 7 straight 1 in 5 draws also has a 20% chance of happening (20.97%, it's **more** likely).

Variance is a cruel mistress.

[Actually the amounts are all in grams of gold, but translated into round dollar figures for convenience of the reader.]

[I should also mention that there is no labor cost involved given I wrote a robot to play blackjack for me.]

[And also mention the Casino in question does not run on any casino platform I am or have ever been affiliated with, and robots are explicitly allowed in their rules & terms. Don't try this at home.]

Why Startups Condense in America

2006-06-12T23:21:53Z

A very good article about the requisites necessary to create a start-up friendly environment, and the challenges of other countries in doing so.

http://www.paulgraham.com/america.html

I had thought about doing some software startups in Costa Rica. By far the largest problem is the need to import programming talent. I thought this could be overcome (what a better place for a working sabbatical than Costa Rica) but I've since changed my opinion.

One new trend that is not mentioned is the emergence of transnational startups. For example, a programming office in Vancouver, marketing office in New York, call center in Costa Rica, and a brass plate incorporation in Panama, BVI or Gibraltar.

I've thought seriously about setting up an offshore Venture Capital/Incubator that specializes in early seed capital, and services related to company formation and front office. Let the core "brain" office form in San Francisco, Seattle, or where it will, but allow them at the same time to take advantage of the features other countries do offer.

PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker

2006-06-08T23:13:27Z

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 7010094

Costa Rica versus Germany

2006-06-08T22:02:56Z

Costa Rica plays Germany in the inaugural game of the 2006 World Cup, in Germany, tomorrow. Everyone here expects Costa Rica to lose, but it will be a crazy country if Costa Rica wins.

2nd place and Tequila shots

2006-06-06T21:48:03Z

Last night we took 2nd place in the freeroll tournament.

Earlier, a very aggressive bully came to the table, stole all the blinds and pots for a while. Maydi gets angry at me for telling her to fold. But I get the opportunity to show her the "rope a dope" strategy when we flop a set of Qs on an otherwise harmless board, called the bully down including an all-in river bet bluff and doubled up to the chip lead.

Next time I'll let her play heads-up for the final. Back and forth for twenty minutes, we finally got the shorter end of the stick; she was disappointed at the 2nd place finish. High in-the-money is good I try to explain, Tequila shots are still in order.

No Rake

2006-06-03T01:33:14Z

No rake! Might be the slight edge I need.

World Poker Exchange, by WSEX
http://www.worldpokerexchange.com/

Software's not bad, not great. Playing a freeroll tournament right now to try it out.

No rake, but they do still charge fees on SNGs and tournaments.

Surveillance State

2006-06-01T02:08:11Z

I left the United States because it was fast becoming a fascist surveillance/police state.

I left six years ago.

Systems change steadily but gradually at a rate that people within the system tend not to notice, like a slowly warming fishtank. However, having left the fishtank, it is truly frightening to witness.

Now that he is officially sworn in as the new head of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gen. Michael Hayden plans to build a vast domestic spying network that will pry into the lives of most Americans around the clock.

Article: http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_8753.shtml

The Death Ship

2006-06-01T01:18:07Z

The Death Ship (German title: Das Totenschiff) is a novel by the pseudonymous author known as B. Traven. Originally published in German in 1926, and in English in 1934...Set just after World War One, The Death Ship describes the predicament of merchant seamen who lack documentation of citizenship and cannot find legal residence or employment in any nation. (src: Wikipedia)

An interesting novel on a subject that is still very much a point of contention today. I'll have to read it (when it arrives from Amazon).

Following the Wikipedia link to passport I learned something more. I'd thought that passports came about during/after World War I, but in fact they were only formalized then. *However* they had been used primarily as documents permitting *inland* travel, seaports were considered open trading points. I presume the open nature of seaports changed during World War I, and hence our merchant seamen's predicament.

On the topic of new countries or sovereign cities, I've often thought the defining nature should not be "laissez faire/libertarian" (although the governence should be setup as such, of course) but that it is an open and free international city (port).