Game of Thrones – Book 1

I enjoyed reading the book. That much is true. After all I seek maps of Westeros and Essos and am waiting for the G.R.R. Martin sanctioned ones. I have to note though that once you’ve read LotR, Dune and Iliad it seems that you’ve read almost all epic stories. Break for one week before I proceed to Book 2.

A nagging note: I find it funny that Amazon sells the novels for ~ $10 and Greek bookstores for ~ €24.

(Book 2)

Repairing a broken Beyblade tip

Beyblades may be cool but their tips are easily broken. Solutions for parents vary from buying a $10 (plus shipping) replacement tip to using a 3D printer to print one. In the past I used nuts and bolts in an effort to replace a broken tip. That was a hack that did not work so well for indoors though. So I went to the local hardware store and for €1.80 I bought a pack of fluted wood dowel pins. I cut one in half and kid[0] was happy again.

Beyblade with a dowel for a tip

PS: Depending the diameter, you may need to wedge it with a small piece of paper.

Telescreen

1984 was not meant as an instruction manual –from my twitter stream

The telescreens are already here. I was discussing this with a friend that was telling me that an acquaintance of his has placed a band aid over his laptop camera. They are everywhere (in the form of smart phones, laptops and tablets, all camera and GPS enabled and sometimes remotely accessible) and now with the Internet enabled TV sets they are slowly converging to what Orwell had in mind.

Damn.

skills and numbers

A lot of talk lately goes around commenting that our (Greece) political leaders use gambling terms to describe both EU’s stance and their opponents. Which reminded me something that I read at the second page of “Why can’t you just give me the number?“:

Endeavor Gets into the game Gives competitive advantage Needed to win
Poker Knowing the odds Skills Both
Business Skills Knowing the odds Both

→ [In Poker] knowing the probabilities just gets you into the game; in order to win, you need additional skills.

→ The reverse is often true in business – the players have the skills but do not understand the odds.

This pretty much sums it all.