primeradical's comments

primeradical | 10 months ago | on: Revisiting the algorithm that changed horse race betting (2023)

The algo bettors aren't using kiosks at the track. They're using dashboards and monitoring live video feeds. At least in my experience in the US.

Most of the serious younger bettors are feeding daily form PDFs into an LLM and getting analysis, and placing bets using custom apps, rarely using UIs from the larger ADWs (advanced deposit wagering company). Older bettors are using phone wagering for larger bets.

There is never a shortage of kiosks available for casual fans. Most tracks are either owned or partnered with ADWs that all have mobile apps, or sites for placing wagers, and casuals are encouraged to use those as they're more sticky after they leave the track.

Even if algo bettors are influencing the odds because they're throwing money around, the house doesn't care because its percentage cut is the same (parimutual), and the casuals aren't bothered because they can't even tell what's happening.

The totes are the ones analyzing fraud and abuse, and they don't care what tea leaves you read to place bets. They just care about avoiding government oversight and ensuring profits for the ADWs and tracks.

Source, formerly a SWE for an ADW

primeradical | 2 years ago | on: Neopets is coming back bigger and better than ever

I credit Neopets with the reason I have my degree and career.

There were many places on the site that let you inject your own HTML/CSS into the page to customize the appearance. I did this basically all through high school learning the in and outs of graphic design and front end development. It's the reason I knew really early on what I wanted to do and gave myself a clear goal.

A few years ago, I was able to get my old, old account back (2004). Some of my pages and code were still there. It was a treat to see them again! Oh and the actual pets too I guess...

primeradical | 3 years ago | on: Supreme Court leans toward web designer with anti-gay marriage stance

The debate is over Colorado law that, according to the article, "bars businesses open to the public from denying goods or services to people because of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion and certain other characteristics."

I understand wanting to make the distinction between objectionable behavior and the intrinsic characteristics of clients. But that's not a distinction the Colorado law considers. And if stuck down, SCOTUS could establish that there would be nothing baring a business to refuse service to LGBTQIA+ dog walkers.

primeradical | 3 years ago | on: Supreme Court leans toward web designer with anti-gay marriage stance

She didn't get to the Supreme Court because she was forced to serve a client whose conduct she disapproved. In fact, this case doesn't involve a specific client at all. This case is about the would-be client that hasn't even walked in the door.

And the court isn't considering whether LGBTQIA+ people fall into a protected class category, that's not this case. Metaphorically, this case is whether or not she can put up a sign on her business's front door that says "No ___ allowed." And according to the article, this conservative SCOTUS appears to be sympathetic to the "No ___ allowed" sign.

It appears SCOTUS is trying to draw line between public accommodation businesses and businesses that create speech, a distinction I believe Justice Sotomayor and KBJ countered aptly.

I could imagine an ISP denying the use of its networks to LGBTQIA+ people because they have sincerely held religious objections to transmit those customers' data across their network.

primeradical | 3 years ago | on: Supreme Court leans toward web designer with anti-gay marriage stance

I would be mortified walking into a karaoke bar with a group of friends and they ask me and my husband to leave but continue to serve our friends because they don't want LGTBQIA+ people to use their microphones.

I shouldn't have to lookup which minorities/protected classes your public business refuses to serve.

Easy to stand with her when you're not on the receiving end of that discrimination.

primeradical | 3 years ago | on: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

Totally agree, that's the fundamental principle of Mastodon and I like it.

But I think some people are just looking for "the other Twitter." Mastodon is a philosophically different idea to Twitter's centralized moderation.

I think other conversations about the network affect are apt here. Yeah, you can move to a different server all you want but in reality people want to be where other people are and don't actually want to migrate if they can help it. People aggregating in one place is the antithesis of the Mastodon federation.

If Mastodon does really catch on, it'll be a single digit number of high population servers that probably all end up having similar content moderation policy to Twitter to attract the most number of users. There won't be a grand utopia of a flat distribution of uniquely moderated servers.

primeradical | 3 years ago | on: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

Pretty clear a good portion of the Twitter users moving to Mastodon don't understand that it's a federated application, and expect a centralized Twitter clone.

If your complaint is Elon's flavor of moderation on Twitter, moving to a Mastodon server with an admin with their own fun and unique ideas about moderation isn't the tea.

primeradical | 3 years ago | on: Discover Kentucky Archaeology

Lex here, not bad for remote work, low cost of living, access to surrounding metro areas (Lou, Cinci), and Lex usually has something going on. Just got access to gigabit fiber so you're not disconnected from the rest of the world either.

primeradical | 4 years ago | on: Reverse engineering Wordle

I rebuilt Wordle from scratch using the same word list. There are actually two word lists, one from which they select the answer, and another from which they validate real words. They are just arrays of strings hardcoded in the JS bundle.

When you submit a guess, it checks to see if your guess is in either array (or at least that's how I implemented it). And just does some relatively simple string comparison.

Your progress is just stored in local storage. You can blow your data away by deleting it via dev tools.

My version just lets you try again by refreshing, I'm not storing any data.

The viral factor of the original Wordle, IMO, is the share function and the little emoji grid it generates.

https://alexmj212.dev/word-guess/

Source: https://github.com/alexmj212/word-guess

primeradical | 4 years ago | on: The Middle East is running out of water, and parts are becoming uninhabitable

Took a look at the dev console, there are 2 tracking scripts, segment and CNN specific one. Those take up the majority of bandwidth. There's also a separate CSS style sheet. The main DOM and the stylesheet are <10% of the total bytes transferred. The favicon is the same byte size as the entire DOM.

Don't think there is necessarily a consideration of byte cost, given the size of the tracking scripts. A few lines to make this manageable on wide monitors aren't prohibitive for those users.

primeradical | 6 years ago | on: The San Francisco Bay Area shelter-in-place order is being extended through May

The only people losing civil liberties are the people that die after contracting the virus because we failed to social distance for the necessary amount of time.

The "performance metric" you're looking for is the number of tests we conduct. Unless we're testing hundreds of thousands every day, we have no choice but to continue to shelter in place or stay at home. We are not even close to the amount of testing we need to know who does and doesn't have the virus.

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