Viewing profile — gerard

Our intuition is that random processes produce high-entropy output. Patterns carry less entropy and therefore offer less convincing evidence that the result is indeed the product o…

I've seen some dark satire on HN lately. What I see here is another neat implementation of an unconstructive idea, amusing for reflecting our flaws. We really should know better th…

A common rule for determining whether “who” or “whom” is right is to substitute “she” for “who,” and “her” for “whom,” and see which sounds the better. Take the sentence, “He met a…

This also requires some assumptions: That there is no minimum stake and stakes are infinitely divisible. They're important assumptions because finding yourself near zero can easily…

A good point, in that the house is not necessarily in a nett negative-ER position due to the skilled gambler. In totalizator markets the house will always make x% of the pool. In f…

You've defined a fair game [1], one which you're just as likely to win or lose, by the same amount each time. Clearly neither side of this game has an advantage over the other, for…

This implies that both side of the transaction will inevitibly go bust, bookmaker and gambler alike. It may be true, but it's like saying we're all going to die at some point. The …

> NB: Even in skill-based games, the odds still always (and I mean always) favor the house. In BlackJack, card counting can reveal plays where the odds favor the gambler. In sports…

> The format of a COM file is... um, none. There is no format. This makes any small file a valid COM file as far as Windows is concerned. NTVDM doesn't care, it will happily execut…

Not mentioned in the paper's implications section, so I'll ask, is there also a significant "bootstrapping" class of attacks on services where special access is granted to the earl…

Having no cleartext to hand over in individual cases is one form of plausable deniability. Cleverly, it also appears to offer plausable deniability of your service's "primary purpo…