Chris Roat's Thoughts

Google New

2009-05-23T09:35:00.000-07:00

Once in a while, when I meet someone and it comes up that I work at Google, the person often asks what the 20,000 employees are up to. While I can give a direct answer to what one person is doing, and wave my hands in the air about what the 100 people in my area are doing, it usually ends there. I do know that we launch something seemingly every day I'm at work, and this post is a start at trying to collect some of that information for my friends, family, and random passerbys of my blog. Here is a short summary of some things that have happened in (approximately) the last week - either new features, new products, or site updates. It's not perfect, so if there is something I've missed, please leave a comment!

Suggested Driving Directions Google's

Driving directions just got better. Whenever there are 2 similar routes from A to B, Google Maps will now list both of them in the left sidebar for you to compare. For example, back in the day, it was common for my friends to wonder: is it better to take US Route 101 or Interstate 280 to the DNA Lounge?

Migrate to GMail

I've had several friends complain about their email accounts and want to switch (either to GMail, or any other provider). This is actually a difficult problem, not made easier by most email providers. Now, GMail has made it easier. And GMail has always provided ways to get your email out with POP
and IMAP, should you decide it's not for you.

Chrome 2

Google's web browser for Windows just got way faster! If you haven't checked it out yet, definitely give it whirl. In addition to speed, you'll also get several new features and improvements

Disneyland Paris in Google Earth

Google Earth's 3D landscape just picked up some extra inventory: Euro Disney! Just open Google Earth and search for Euro Disney, and you'll be flown straight there. You can then zoom in and fly around the various 3D models of the resort. Check out some screenshots.

Redesign of Google Earth Outreach

In other Google Earth news, the outreach program has completely overhauled their website. If you are unfamiliar with Google Earch Outreach, you can watch the video embedded on their site.

Maps Ad Unit (Advertising)

If you are making (or want to make) money on the web through hosting advertising on your site, there is now another revenue stream: Ads on your maps. If you have a map on your site, you can now request an ad unit be placed somewhere on your map, and you can earn money from clicks on it.

Google Labs: Maps Data API (Technical)

If you've ever used the "My Maps" feature of Google Maps, you know that you add markers, lines, and routes to maps, which you can then share with friends. Now, Google has made it possible to programmatically interface with this data through the Google Maps Data API. This will allow web programmers to more easily store geographic data on the web and make fancier map-related applications.

WPT Championship Debriefing

2009-04-29T23:11:00.000-07:00

This week I played in the WPT "World Championship". I put the tourney title in quotes because anyone can buy their way in... it's quite a bit different than other "sports". I did happen to qualify back in November with a win in the Doyle Brunson classic, so I felt a bit more qualified than some; but by far I was one of the most inexperienced at this level. This was only my 2nd 5-figure buy-in event.

First of all, thanks to everyone who followed the Facebook/Twitter/Friendfeed updates... both for following and for the support. It was nice to have the home team rooting for me.

Day 1

The first day I sat down at a table that had a couple people who might(?) be recognizable to people who follow a lot of poker: Kristy Gazes, Russell Rosenblum, Allen Kessler, Joe Beevers. From the play, it was obvious that these 4 really good players. The table also had 2 internet-types, who played a lot of cheap small pots trying to hit disguised big hands. They were aggressive, and unfortunately I had one that was two to my left. It kept me tight (which is good), but I had a lot of good hands early. The guy two to my left kept playing a lot of my pots, trying to get under my skin. It actually turns out that I had a lot of patience and was OK folding a few hundred chips here-n-there to his positional play on me. It set me up nicely for a later hand....

A bit into the first day, we were at 100/200 and I raised to 600 with XXx (my hand is encrypted, to see if you can guess it.) Mr. Aggressive two-to-my-left came in behind me with a re-raise, which I flat-called. The flop came QJT with two spades. I about 2/3 the pot; he calls. Now there is about 7k in the pot. The turn comes a 3rd spade. I check, he bets about the pot, I raise about 10k. He thinks, and calls. The river comes a 4th spade. I do my best non-Hollywood Hollywood ever - letting out a small disguised sigh that I think barley registers. I think for a while, and slowly check. He bets 30k. I think and think... the table is quiet, as this is one of the biggest pots of the day at our table. I reraise him 40k and he immediately mucks. I have to say that folding a few thousand chips to him in 3 hours was more than made up for in this hand!

This is where I reached my maximum of 140k chips right around this time. From there out, I kept running into trouble with good hands. I got QQ twice and it was the end of me. The first time was with a two-suited J-high flop. I raised pre-flop in early position and got a caller in late position. I bet 2/3 pot and got a call. The turn was gave a 2nd flush draw and I bet 1/2 the pot (probably too weak). The original caller came over the top for most of my chips. It could have been AJ on one of the flush draws... or it might have been a set. I had to lay it down... it was too risky the way he played it. I could have been behind, or even had to dodge a flush card on the river.

The 2nd time I got QQ, I was 2nd to act. UTG was Joe - a very good, tight player. He raised and I flat called. I don't like to overplay my QQ in such early position, trying to disguise it a little. Mr Aggressive re-raises to 5k (~5k in pot) and the rest of the table folds. Joe mucks. I decide to see where I'm at with a 10k re-raise. I was worried about a big hand out there - re-raising a flat-call by me behind a UTG raise by Joe... that's gutsy - this was Mr. Aggressive, but it wasn't Mr. Stupid. I figured if I got re-re-raised, I'd muck. However, when Mr. Aggressive went all-in, I got loopy. I had to know I was beat, or at best in a coin flip against AK. I thought and thought... it wasn't all my chips... only 2/3rds of them. Somehow I rationalized a coin-flip or a 20% chance to grab a huge pot was worth the risk. This is totally against my normal playing mode. I had the cards in my hand, about ready to muck... and at the last second decided to call. Mr Aggressive turns over KK and it holds. Ack! Really dumb call. Sent me to short-stack.

I finished the day with 23k chips and in 296th of 301 remaining (338 started the tourney). I was nearly out.

Day 2

We redrew for seats and I ended up at a table outside the main room - we were to be the 2nd table to break to fill in seats as people busted in the main room. Only one person was recognizable to me: Steve Brecher, who had won the Bay 101 Shooting Star just a month ago. Since I was so short stacked, I tried my best to put on the "super nice guy, people just have to like me" demeanor. I knew I needed to steal some small pots to start building chips, and the more sympathy I had, the better.

I was barely at this table for a round. I raised a pot and got re-raised all-in, to which I folded. The pot odds were nearly right given my meager stack, but those last few chips are insanely valuable. I waited until a little while later when some put in a too-big raise (which is almost always a small pair) and I pushed with KJs. He flipped 77. I won the coin flip and got to 30k.

That table breaks and I go to the main room. I recognize several faces. I can't place everyone, but there are two that I know. One is a guy I played with in LA in the Celebrity Classic. (He knocked me out when I had inside-straight & flush draws to his set. I also had top pair, but his set made that moot.) The other is Scotty Nguyen (baby!). In contrast to his final-table TV appearances, Scotty is stone-cold sober and super-tight. We seemed to have both gone card dead, as neither of us was playing many pots.

At one point, I'm down under 20k and the blinds + antes are 500/1000 + 100. It's getting expensive for me to play hands at this point. I raise UTG with AJ to 3k and immediately get re-raised to 10k. Reraising the short-stack shows a lot of strength... probably a decent pair, but maybe AK. At this point, I know I need to double up and decide to push. Probably a bad play - I could wait for better spots. Turns out, the raiser has KK, so I'm a 2.5:1 dog or so. Fortunately, this works out for me and I made the nut full house. So now I'm healthy again.

I play only a pot or two after that, and spend hours nursing my stack. I'm around 40k, when the button comes to me. It's 800/1600 + 200. We get one limper in early and then Scotty limps. Given Scotty is in a pot, I know the blinds won't get frisky, so I can lower my standards a little bit. However, I look down at A9d, which is easily playable in this position, even without Scotty in the pot. I call, small blind calls, and BB checks. Whoa! Five limpers and antes makes nearly 10k in this pot. (In retrospect, I shoulda just raised all-in and taken it down... but I feared Scotty and the early limper.) The flop comes J-high with two diamonds. It checks to Scotty. Scotty bets 5k. I raise to 15k with my flush+over. Everyone folds. Scotty thinks and pushes me all-in. (In retrospect, the 10k raise didn't buy me as much fold-equity as I hoped... shoulda pushed here.) At this point, I don't think I'm up against AJ, so I think I've got nearly a coin-flip to a pair and the pot is huge compared to the rest of my stack. I'm comitted and call. Scotty shows KJ. The turn gives me a gut-shot with my 9... giving me 15 outs on the river. But alas, none of them came. Scotty was super-nice, as was the rest of the table, as I left (except maybe the KK that I had busted... she didn't talk to me much after that hand.)

Scotty went on to take 6th place and nearly $300k. I went out and decided to play some cash games that netted me $3k. Not quite the same order, but I'll take it.

The highlights didn't show me much that I already didn't know:

I made mistakes that I don't normally make. It's not good to gamble a big chunk of your stack early in a deep tournament.
I did have to play a lot of good cards early and have to learn how to deal with that image. I'm still not very good at that.
I played aggressive players out of position fairly well. I've had to do this before, and I sorta get it. Not perfectly, but I'm doing OK.
I got a couple double-ups that went my way... but I'd rather reserve that sort of play to when I'm up against short stacks or in the money.
I need to raise all-in to gain more fold-equity when I feel I'm committed to calling all-in anyway.

It was a good learning experience, and I'll be less nervous if/when I do it again...

New Year, New Project

2009-01-16T18:40:00.000-08:00

Starting this year, I've started on a new team with a new project. The team is just ramping up and I'm the only one who doesn't have other responsibilities at the moment. Over the next month or two, we will transition a few more engineers and have their undivided attention.

Google generally encourages people to switch teams with some frequency. I think it is hoped that people stay on a project for 1.5 years - I was on my old project for just over 2 years. My group ran a behind-the-scenes data crunching pipeline. While it had impacts on many, many changes to what people saw, we didn't actually make visible changes ourselves.

My new project will actually alter what you will see on google.com, so I'll be sure to let you know what to watch out for and when. :) Today I got some of my code approved to go into "live" servers. It won't make any changes; it's more to enable the changes I want to make later. Exciting stuff!

It's a lot of fun to start on something new, and I think people should be encouraged to shift job functions every couple of years. When you start something new, you are totally unshackled - free to start contributing at a fast pace. You are learning lots of new stuff and are very engaged. After a couple of years, depending on the job, cruft can start building up and a lot of stuff starts to seem tedious instead of fun. I'm excited to have moved onto something totally new, and I really feel good about this new transition!

Online in '08

2008-12-31T01:22:00.000-08:00

Here's some of the things I enjoyed from the internet in '08. Some I've known about longer, but didn't really become regular for me until this year.

Podcast: 60-Second Science
Music: Pandora
News: Newser
Puzzle Games: Blocks With Letters On and Auditorium
Intellectual Blogs: Good Math, Bad Math and This Week In Evolution
Fun Blogs: I Can Has Cheezburger? and Indexed

Big Poker Payout

2008-12-09T20:25:00.000-08:00

Many people have heard, but last weekend (Nov 29-30), I won a fairly large poker tourney in Vegas. Instead of continually repeating myself to people, I promised to put up this blog post to document the experience. So, here it goes....

Pretext

The trip to Vegas was motivated by two ideas: I hadn't had a poker-only trip in quite some time, and it was my birthday. To reward myself for my birthday, I rounded up 3 other poker enthusiasts - Simon F-L, Scott K, and Scott S - and got a room at Planet Hollywood. My plan was to play two of the intro tourneys for the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio. PH is a decently priced strip hotel that is perfectly located right across the street from the Bellagio.

Since the buy-ins for the tourneys I was interested in were on the high-end of my comfort range (at $1590 and $2100), I asked a few friends if they would be interested in staking me to help diversify the risk. Four agreed, and I ended up selling approximately a 7% stake in each tournament. Not much diversification, but that is how it goes....

Our group arrived in Vegas on Friday afternoon, and the first big tourney I wanted to play in was Saturday. We spent Friday night playing a short tourney at the Venetian in which Scott K made in the deepest, but not quite in the money. After that, we just played some cash games for a while, and then closed out the night with some free drinks while playing BlackJack switch over at the Casino Royale.

On Saturday morning, I headed out the door around 11am to sign up for the first tourney at the Bellagio. The buy-in was $1590, down 25% from the original posting. Turns out that Vegas is feeling the economic downturn as well. I grabbed some pulled-pork sliders at Snacks, and then wandered over to my table. I was one of the first to arrive, and sat around for a bit chatting with the dealers.

Tight, Tight, Tight

The tournament started with 25/50 blinds, with 4500 starting chips. There were ~205 people entered, which meant the top 18 win money, with 2/3rds of the money is in the top 3 places. (Update: included in the first place prize is a tournament bracelet and an entry into the $25,500 buy-in World Poker Tour World Championship) The levels were 1 hour, with breaks after even levels. It was a fairly comfortable 90x big-blind start with nice long levels, so I wasn't in any hurry.   I estimated we were playing 1 hand every 2 minutes, which gives a lot of time for skill to win out over dumb luck.

The first few hours of the tournament are of very little interest. I was by far the tightest player at my tables. After 20 minutes, I played my first hand. Someone asked "Is that his first hand?" and other answered immediately "Yes." The whole table had noticed I was waiting for good hands. From then out, every time I played a hand, someone would shout out the current count of hands I played. It was a fun group, and everyone was really nice.

I enjoy having a tight image at tournaments, as it is especially useful in the late going. Over the course of 3 hours, I think I played just 8 hands. When I did come in (always with a raise), I usually took down the pre-flop pot. Once I did get some action when coming in from early position, but a continuation bet on my part took down the pot right after the flop. It was a bluff, but given my image I was pretty sure it would work.

After 3 hours, about half the people were gone, and I had only gained enough chips to pay for my blinds. I was well behind the average stack. I got switched to a new table, so had to start my image all over again; although, an unknown image isn't half bad either.   My new table had two named pros at it: David Sklansky and Max Pescatori. While I had started poker by reading David's book, I didn't find out who Max was until later. (I actually think that by not watching poker on TV, I was not able to be intimidated by some of the pros.)

Tough Going

The next three hours were topsy turvy. I was starting to feel some pressure, as the blinds were basically doubling each hour. I started to make a little headway with some pots, and then got tangled up and had to fold some decent hands. My tight image did pay off, and I didn't lose nearly has many chips as I could have in some cases - people were very leery of me holding a monster. I do believe I got outplayed by Max for a decent pot, when he shoved a huge bet on the river when a low card paired. I couldn't call with top pair, though I'm fairly sure I was ahead. After 4 hours of play, there were 80 people left. I was still at 4k chips, while the average chip stack was over 11k, and we were putting in 600 chips before any action. I was definitely getting low.

After the break, I started pushing all-in in good spots, and managed to accumulate a few chips. I managed to get to 8k in chips without to much confrontation, and I felt comfortable about playing a bit more normal. At one point I opened with a standard raise in mid-position with KQo. The big blind came over the top all-in. From his actions and a few remarks he made, I was pretty sure he didn't have a big hand. Once I convinced myself he didn't have AQ or better, and I convinced myself that I needed to double up or go home, I called. Usually, I won't call into a potential coin-flip unless the situation is getting dire. My opponent flipped over pocket 4s. My 50/50 opportunity worked out, and I doubled up. In retrospect this was very questionable, and may be the only thing I'd change about how I played that day. I hung out at about 16k chips until the end of hour 6, at which point the average stack was 20k and there were 41 people left.

Acceleration into Dinner

I was comfortable almost at the average stack, and knew the 1 hour levels were going to give me some time. Around this time, we got down to 27, and we redrew for seats in the final 3 tables. At my new table, I recognized a few familiar faces from earlier, but it was mostly new people to me. (I didn't know it at the time, but Toto Leonidas was at my table.) Being nearly average stacked, I went about my business waiting for good situations. I was getting a little hungry by 6 hours in, having eaten all the fruit snacks I had brough by this point. Dinner was after hour 8 of playing, which was 9pm, after including 45 minutes of break and a little slop.

People were starting to get feisty, as the blinds were starting to eat into the small stacks. I knew well enough to stay out of the way. I think I stole one or two decent pots to add some chips, but the big moves occurred the last three hands before dinner. I managed to get two players all-in, one with my QQ vs their JJ (I called) and one with my AQ vs their AJ (he called). In both cases, the dealer didn't improve my hand, but at least managed to not lay down a J on the board. Phew! I then stole the blinds with pocket 4s on the final hand, to end with my chip stack at 85k. The average stack was 38k, with 23 players left. I was way ahead!

We went on dinner break, and I felt pretty good about things. The Bellagio comp'd the remaining players all dinner. (They owe me a couple free ones for knocking out 2 players right before dinner...) We could have brought guests, but all my buddies were busy playing over at Ceaser's Palace. I couldn't eat a whole lot, so spent a big chunk of time walking around and then talking to Scott S, who had come over from Caeser's toward the end of the break.

The Final 18

After dinner, I just sat back and waited. I was in great position and in no hurry. I had easily enough to get into the money, and knew the short stacks were not amenable to reasonable poker play anymore... the terrain had gotten a lot more dangerous. When we got down to 18, we again redrew for seats, and I got to sit again with Toto, as well as three "internet punks", as I call them. These punks are the guys who sit around talking poker to no end, telling random stories from online play, and spouting about their hot assistants who do their dishes. I think it is 90% bulls**t. They didn't make it far, pretty much in inverse proportion to how punky they were. None made the final table.

Our table drew most of the chips, including the chip leader, who was one of the internet punks. Since we had most of the chips, our table was a bit boring. No one wanted to really tangle, except for a few folks who were a bit low.

It was at this table where Toto and I started getting into a bit, and where I started to discover he was a pro from the table talk. Toto was 2 to my left, so always the big blind to my button. I feel kinda bad for the poor guy in the small blind. When I was on the button, it would usually fold around to me, since I was a big stack and you just do that if you value your tournament life. I counted about 7 times that I raised in this setup, and I think 5 times Toto raised me back all-in. My hands were all decent, but I could never call Toto's re-raise. I knew it was coming almost every time, but I kinda had to do it to show that I wasn't scared, and to setup for a time when I had a monster. Unfortunately, the monster never came.

In the final 18, I remember three hands that played out a bit. In one, I did get Toto all in with my AK vs. his TT - he raised 40k all-in early with TT, and I called (my stack was 120k) - but he won that coin flip.

In another hand, I had 66 in the blind, and there was a single raise from cut-off. I called and flopped a set, with an ace on the board. I fired at the flop, and got a call. He had an ace! On the turn, I came out firing again. Instead of trapping, I was disguising the disguise of my set. Unfortunately, it was the wrong play, and my opponent folded, claiming he had AJ. I tend to believe him, as he thought a long while before folding. I was really hoping he had a stronger kicker or two pair. I might have been able to milk it for more, so this is another play I might have screwed up.

In the third hand, I was also big blind. Toto raised early, and the cut-off (same guy) pushed all-in. I looked down at KK. I called with a bigger stack, and Toto laid down. The cut-off flipped QQ, and my pair held up again. Phew! The cut-off was pretty large at this point (he was an internet punk who had crippled the chip-leader internet punk earlier), so I grabbed a ton of chips with that hand.   I was feeling really good now.

From there, I coasted until the end of the day. We played until the end of round 14, if I remember right. It was after 3am, and I was mentally tired. I was chip leader with 201k chips, with 10 people left. There were 920k chips in play. I grabbed the guys, and we went and had a beer and played some blackjack for a short time to help unwind. Then we hit the sack.

Day 2

I woke up at 8, after only about 4 hours of sleep. I was totally wired and couldn't sleep. Scott S had also woken up early, so we decided to head out and hit the Bellagio cafe. It helped get my mind off things, though we did talk some strategy along the way.

The tourney got going again around 3pm. My plan at this point was to avoid the small stacks and snarf up chips from the blinds/antes. Toto was sitting diametrically across from me, so our chance of confrontation preflop over the blinds/antes was minimized. There was one stack at 130k two to my left that I would have needed to worry about had it not been for an exciting early hand....

The first time the big blind came to me, the short stack on my immediate left raised all-in UTG. With the blinds coming, he could be playing anything, and the guy with 130k must have known that and raised up over him. It folded to Toto, who thought for a while and made a good read: he went all-in over the top of that. Interestingly, the player to Toto's left woke up with a great hand and went all-in as well. Four people nearly all-in! Everyone else was excited - 3 people were about to be knocked out or crippled and we'd all move up in the money! The cards flipped and we saw (in order) AQo, 77, TT, and AA. The hand went to Toto with the underdog TT (actually a favorite if the AA hadn't been there) when a 3rd T fell on the turn, much to chagrin of AA.

While I wasn't thrilled that Toto was now ahead of me, I wasn't too upset given that the other large stack was crippled (and went out a couple hands later) and 2 others were gone.   For the next couple hours, Toto and I just played smart poker and slowly mopped up the stacks. After about 3 hours, the last of the small stacks were eliminated and I had gained on Toto. I was at 480k chips and Toto was at 440k.

Being up against a pro, it was time for me to deal: first place was ~$90k + $25k WPT seat + tournament bracelet, second place was ~$60k. The moment 3rd place was eliminated, I offered Toto to split the money at ~$75k each and play for the seat + bracelet. He agreed, though as we were about to play offered to end it there with an additional deal (him taking the bracelet and some extra cash; me taking the seat). I preferred to play on.

Heads Up

(For those not familiar with heads up play: the button has the SB and acts first on the first round of betting, while the BB acts first on the final three rounds of betting.)

Playing Toto heads up turned out to be quite the marathon chess match. There was a lot of raising, re-raising, and folding. The blinds and antes put about 25k or so in the pot (I'm averaging over the 3 hours), so neither of us was in much trouble unless we fell under 200k. Hardly anything went to the flop. I pushed hard on him initially and picked up chips, widening my lead to about 600k to 300k. At that point, I raised from the SB with a small pair. He came over the top. I hoped he didn't have a pair and called. He had KQ and went on to win the coin flip, giving him the 2:1 advantage. Damn!

From there, it was a lot of pounding back and forth. He wore we down and chipped away at my stack, but I kept pushing back on him before I was too small. He was very scared to let me double up, which kept me in the game.

However, at one point, I stepped into a bad situation. I was below 200k - Toto raised his SB, and I re-raised all-in with 35o. This happened a lot. I was pushing with a lot of crap hands, and was getting desperate. This time it didn't work. He called with TT and I thought my tourney was over. Lucky for me, I hit a 5 on the flop and a 3 on the river to win with 2 pair. This doubled me up and got me back in the game.

Another noteworthy hand, where I think I made a great play, started with me having 34h in the BB. I was a bit behind Toto here, but I don't recall the exact stacks. Toto raised, as usual, and I called... also quite usual. The flop had some high cards and two hearts. I made a decent bet, about 2/3rds the pot, having caught a nice draw, and hoping Toto would just fold right there. Toto decided to call. As happens in about 1 in 5 cases, a heart fell on the turn to nab me the flush right there. Now it was time to try and outplay Toto. I bet a little less here - probably 1/4 the pot, feigning fear of the flush and that I didn't want to commit too many more chips. In reality, I was only marginally happy with my low flush and really was hoping another heart would not come. Toto called again. The river brought a blank, which made me happy inside. I played it off quite well, just checking it to Toto. He thought for a bit and then pushed me all-in. I called and won a huge hand. I didn't force Toto to show, though it would have been interesting to see what he had.

By the way, if you thought my 35o was a bad play, I did manage to catch Toto raising with 58o when I had 77. The cards almost stop mattering during pre-flop heads up play (and some post-flop play). Anything could be a winner, and it really comes down to how aggressive you play, how well you can read, and how well you throw off the other player's reads.

Now we're on to how I finished off the tourney. The play developed over a couple of hands. It might be all in my head, but I think I had set Toto up for this sequence, and I think I managed to outplay him solidly. I had 78o in the BB and called a raise. The flop came 2 suited with an 8 as the low card. So there I am, stuck with 3rd pair and not much going. Of course, there's a good chance Toto didn't have a pair yet. I bet out a decent amount, and got a call. The turn brought another overcard to my pair and completed the flush. I'm not sure exactly what I was thinking here, but I trusted my spider senses and pushed all-in. I hadn't done this move much, so I suspect it projected a lot of strength. Toto thought for a long time - I would love to know what he was thinking. I'm tempted to think he had nothing, but I think he was worried about the possibility that I had a decent piece of the board with a 1-card flush draw. Who knows. He ended up folding, seemingly in a lot of pain, which gave me a decent pot and put me ahead in chips. As I mucked my cards, I flipped to show him my 4th pair. I was hoping at this point his blood started to boil.

On the next hand, I looked down at the SB at 66. Now, I should point out that when I had the chips to spare, I would call the SB with junk hoping to see a flop - to which Toto responded about 80% of the time with a raise. I folded in that situation most of the time. This time, when I called in the SB, Toto raised all-in. I think it was a bit large of an all-in, but I think I may have tilted him with the previous hand. The large bet lead me to think it was not a big pair (when strong, play weak... and vice versa), and after 5 seconds of convincing myself to take a coin flip... I called. Toto showed 67o, giving me much better than a 50-50. My 6s held up, and I took down the seat and the bracelet!

Discovery-News.com: NASA Plans Next Journey to Moon

2008-07-02T17:26:00.001-07:00

You may remember Matt D... he's got a gig at Discovery News now! Sweet!

Matt was the guy who stayed with me for a day on his penniless 80 day journey around the U.S. last year.

My Group at The G in the NYT

2008-06-01T23:01:00.000-07:00

Hat tip to Simon who spotted this article in the New York Times about the group of folks we work with at Google in "Ads Quality". (Simon and I work together on one of the dozen or so teams within Ads Quality.)

Numb What?

2008-06-01T16:28:00.001-07:00

(West) Lafayette in the house! Our boy Sameer took home first prize. After this bit of comic relied, he went on to win by spelling "guerdon".

Overdue Update

2008-05-31T11:05:00.000-07:00

This blogging thing just ain't gonna become a regular thing. Here's a random assortment of updates on life...

Jeep: What I thought was a bad bearing in the transmission just turned out to be vibrations from a U-Joint that had worn out where the drive shaft meets the rear differential. The U-Joint wore out because the shims that mounted the rear axle on the leaf springs were inserted backwards. Sigh. My mechanic took these pics of the new U-Joint prior to fixing the shims. Next tasks: bleed the brakes (hope there isn't a brake leak) and get her passed smog.

Google: Work is still going great. I am ramping down a project that makes our data-crunching code a bit more robust and easy to use. It's a system that will (hopefully?) also be used by folks outside my project, too. It is getting used by two teammates now, and I'm squashing the last few bugs and implementing a few suggested features. One thing I have learned is that I wish I had released it a little sooner for scrutiny, because I'm getting a lot of good and useful feedback. It's useful watching people stretch and hack your code to it's limits. While this project ramps down, I'm ramping up another short-ish project to transfer our data to a new warehouse. I've spent most of my time so far reading and talking to folks about the new warehouse, getting my head around all that will need to happen. I'll probably enlist a few colleagues to help with bits, but the whole transition should be mostly done in a month.

20%: As I mentioned in the last post, I've been helping with "readability reviews" in sawzall. The load is roughly one review per week, though they don't always complete in a week, so I'm usually juggling 2 or more at any given time. The reviews I've done have been going fairly smoothly so far. Additionally, I'm reviving some code for some old colleagues on galaxy shape fitting. Compared to code I write now, the old code is pretty atrocious: insanely long functions and no testing. Right now, it's a matter of getting it compiled and writing a few docs... maybe I'll come back to whipping it into shape later.

Swimming: I've been slowly getting to more workouts now that the weather is a bit nicer and the evenings are better lit. I picked up a slight shoulder injury, so I haven't been pushing it... but I am getting regular doses of swimming, running, or gym workouts. For me, the hardest part is picking back up the routine.

Puzzling: I did three different events in 5 weeks this spring. It's looking likely that I'll get a team together to play another week-long game on the east coast in August. Around the Bay Area, the only other announced game is happening this fall (though, I here they have more interest then they can handle, so it's not clear I'll be able to play). For the fall game, I'm bringing in a bunch of new folks to experience the game. I'm trying to do this for about one game a year, since I know a lot of folks who would definitely like this sort of thing but just don't know about it. Plus, it's great to see new folks get interested, form teams, and even run one of their own hunts!

ZOMG Piggy! ZOMG Pony!

2008-03-07T10:00:00.000-08:00

I'm always a little late at reporting things, but last week there was a petting zoo at Google. Yes, you heard that right. They brought in a real pony, as well as a few other farm animals. Here's a clip of one of the pigs....

In addition to the animals, there was beer, ice cream, and cupcakes. The party celebrated the intergrouplets, the groups of people who work on things that cut across large portions of the company. Intergrouplet members work on things like code testing, documentation, hiring, fixits (whereby thousands of engineers all stop working on their main projects to fix something that would take a single person far too long to accomplish), and readability. I'm in the latter grouplet - readability - which means I help engineers new to our sawzall computing language learn how to write code that is consistent with the other engineers.... learn the Google dialect so to speak. Once someone passes a readability review, they are then allowed to check sawzall code into the main code base.

A Hometown Local Paper Reference!

2008-03-05T22:20:00.000-08:00

My mom recently sent me a couple of newspaper clippings from the ol' Lafayette Urinal, er, Journal & Courier. The clippings were from a couple weeks ago, when the Indiana High School State Swimming Championships were getting underway. In the 9th stanza of the first article, you can read the bit about my school record... you know you are getting up there when it seems important to point out the number of years ago you set the record.

Anyhow, it is pretty exciting to see 3 guys from the same county, one - Ben Russell - from my old school, in contention for the state title. Back in my day, I managed 2nd place at the high school state meet with that time... and, I might add, went on to beat the winner by a wider margin in a rematch at the USS (now USA Swimming) state meet a few weeks later.

And not to hold you in suspense... here is the article with the results of the state meet. Unfortunately, Ben did not break my record, though he did manage to drop over 6 seconds and come in 9th by winning the consolation heat. An awesome performance. Good luck to Ben at Kentucky next year.

Who Creates the Google Doodles?

2008-02-23T10:56:00.000-08:00

A man by the name of Dennis Hwang:

Or... potentially you or a classmate of yours, if you win the Doodle for Google contest (open to K-12 only).

Wisdom of the Masses in Maps

2008-01-26T11:59:00.000-08:00

Recently, Google Maps enable a feature where you can edit locations on a map. This means now that everyone can contribute to making map information more accurate. Below are two images. The first is a cropped screenshot showing the usual Google Maps marker and info bubble for a location (actually, a pizza place just down the street from me). In it, you can see an Edit link, which when you click on and select "Move Marker". That will give you instructions you seen in the 2nd image.

I just updated the location of my parent's house, which was off by about 30 meters. If you want to check out what people are updating, see the Google Maps Recent Edits Viewer.

Making The World A Better Place

2008-01-17T09:58:00.000-08:00

Today, Google.org, the philanthropic side of Google announced it's core initiatives. The following list are the 5 main areas on which it will focus it's giving over the coming years. Google is growing as a global company, and appropriately these areas reach far beyond US borders, where we are headquartered.

Preventative Health Care
Public Service
Small Businesses
Renewable Energy
Plug-in Vehicles

It is definitely great to be a part of a company that has such lofty goals and ideals!

Science Funding Slashed

2008-01-16T09:27:00.000-08:00

In mid-December the US science community got a lump of coal in its stocking. After many fields struggled for years or decades, this latest blow wreaked havoc on budgets that were already stretched thin. Physics, especially high-energy physics - the community I was a part of for nearly 10 years, is seeing top projects stalled and possibly killed. Hundreds of people at our national labs are being laid off, and international commitments are being broken. (Let's not get into the ridiculously wasteful International Space Station... a project we should never have been in, but yet it somehow will survive as US priority.) From the American Physics Society's letter to it's members:

The Omnibus Bill is a disaster for the very sciences that our
political leaders have repeatedly proclaimed essential for our
national security, economic vitality and environmental stewardship.

(Here is a separate APS press release.)

I did my Ph.D. at SLAC, where the longest linear particle accelerator lives. BaBar, the project on which I did my thesis, has continued to run for the last few years; but it is now being shut down early. You can read the transcript of the new lab director's All Hands meeting (a bit detailed for non-physicists), which details how all the projects, and the lab itself, will deal with the cutbacks.

All of this seems to be the result of political bickering, with Democrats and Republicans both to blame. Negotiations broke down on the total spending limit, so to make a point, the Dems decided to cut some of the GOP's top priorities. Real grown-up like. It seems this sort of thing always happens during election times, where short-term tactics to gain arguing points wins out over looking at the long-term health of the country. It's bad enough that the US has lost a lot of political clout in the world and it seems to be on the brink of recession - now we are eroding our technological and economic edge.

If you can, please consider writing your Congress-person, and letting them know that this sort of politicking is not what you had in mind.

Norman Borlaug > Bill Gates > Mother Theresa

2008-01-15T21:37:00.000-08:00

Who do you think has had an impact on the world?

Borlaug, father of the “Green Revolution” that used agricultural science to reduce world hunger, has been credited with saving a billion lives, more than anyone else in history. Gates, in deciding what to do with his fortune, crunched the numbers and determined that he could alleviate the most misery by fighting everyday scourges in the developing world like malaria, diarrhea and parasites. Mother Teresa, for her part, extolled the virtue of suffering and ran her well-financed missions accordingly: their sick patrons were offered plenty of prayer but harsh conditions, few analgesics and dangerously primitive medical care.

From Steven Pinker's article in last week's NY Times; take a read.

Google Finally Catches Up With Me ;-)

2007-12-14T10:28:00.000-08:00

A couple years ago, I had this (slowish) idea for displaying astronomical data using Google Maps. The Google Maps API was great for this, but the data source I was using (the Sloan Digital Sky Survey web interface) was not designed for the load my app needed. Hence, the darn thing runs extremely slowly. It wasn't my data source, so I couldn't do anything to speed it up. At that time, I had setup some internal data sources from my project's data set with higher throughput, though they had never gained much use.
At long last, Google has ingested astronomical data (see Google Sky) and - starting today - has provided it through the Google Maps API. And, if you haven't noticed, Google sure knows how to serve up data real fast! So, now you expect that every Average Joe can recreate what I did with ease, and with more speed! I'll probably migrate my app to the new data source and push it to a public site over the holidays. I'll let you know when it gets there!

Gmail tips

2007-11-27T00:05:00.000-08:00

In keeping with tonight's plan to only blog about what other people have already produced, check out the little Gmail features you may not know about. I'm a huge fan of the keyboard shortcuts, especially ']' (archive and next in conversation view) and 'shift-n' (display the newly arrived emails in your current thread) since they negate the need to really ever use the mouse - in addition to j/k/x/y which I use a lot, as well. I get several hundred emails a day, so filtering and shortcuts are my good friends.

What is a Google SWE thankful for?

2007-11-26T23:54:00.000-08:00

catspaw wrote it for me - read her whole post. While she was inspired to write by Kitchen Confidential, I find her post's timing with Thanksgiving to be serendipitous - American Thanksgiving, that is. :) She and I made it to the Obama talk together, and often have our afternoon tea together.

What's with those snippets?

2007-11-26T23:50:00.000-08:00

Google engineer Matt Cutt's has a nice blog that sometimes dives into cool things about the Google search engine. Here's a video (with some crackly audio) about the sometimes complex things you see in a Google search result.

Weather in Google Earth!

2007-11-09T16:14:00.001-08:00

Everyday, I see cool new launches coming out of the Googleplex. You might not notice them, 'cause sometimes they are things we do for advertisers or publishers, and you might not be one of these. And on occassion, something comes along that makes me nearly jump out of my chair. Today was one of those - clouds, weather, and forecasting has come to Google Earth. Think of it... the next big weather disaster (think, New Orleans), and you'll get nearly real-time footage. Here's a screenshot of what it looks like:

Update:

Here's another screenshot after zooming in. You see radar and current weather.

Need a Consensus?

2007-11-03T07:56:00.000-07:00

A couple of friends are using this cool Web site called Doodle to find a good time for us all to get together for a discussion. I could have used this in the past sooo many times. It's a web-based tool to allow people to vote on a meeting time, a movie to watch, or whatever else you need a group vote on. Well, besides a country voting for President, since we all know that electronic voting machines can be rigged should be smashed to pieces with a sledge hammer. Definitely check it out!

Things That Make You Go Hmmmmm.....

2007-10-29T23:55:00.000-07:00

From Mike Wesch in Kansas - two great videos... one on Web 2.0...

and another on digital information...

I Pissed Off Annie Duke

2007-10-28T13:42:00.000-07:00

Funny story, but not unbelievable if you realize that you, me, and tact don't hang out together unless you are the one bringing tact. The quick summary: I essentially asked Annie, "How do you like being in a career that has no net benefit to society?" Now, I meant to ask it a bit more diplomatically, but I'm afraid it didn't come out a whole lot better than that.

The full story was that I was attending an event sponsored by the Decision Education Foundation, at which Annie was speaking. Now, I'm a big fan of any program that promotes logical, rational thinking, so I was happy just to attend and learn more about the foundation. (And thus, I'll go ahead and provide this link and encourage you to make a donation.) The reason I was invited was that a friend's former advisor's girlfriend works for the foundation, and my friend, also named Chris, was invited. He was kind enough to invite me to come along, knowing my fondness of the game and knowing I was one of few people who would attend that would know who Annie actually was. If you don't know, she is arguably the best female poker player around.

The evening consisted of hor'dourves (sp?), a talk by Annie, and some dessert. The talk was excellent, and included some insight into the game of poker. Annie is a really great presenter - she has some good energy, talks at the right level, and is able to tie a lot of concepts together without going off on tangents. She did a good job relating poker concepts to real life, including the "all-in" ultimatum. The majority of the time, much more can be accomplished with a lot less risk, if you think through the choices before you. There's never much need to risk all your "chips," so to speak. Good advice.

Given my recent success at poker (which I've decided labels me semi-pro, since I have a W2-G and plan to deduct my Vegas travel receipts as business expenses for tax purposes), I was curious how one approaches making a living where you are basically taking advantage of people. It feels weird to me, given how I've spent my working life doing things that produce measurable, material benefit to society. This is probably a question probably best talked about over drinks for several hours, but yours truly thought it was somehow a good idea to broach the subject at a charity event. Needless to say, it was a bit awkward and she was a bit defensive at first, but she was kind enough to share some of her thoughts.

One thing to realize, and Annie did point out, is that a that a ton of poker pros give back... and Annie joining the board at the Decision Education Foundation is part of that. There is also a group of pros that raised a bunch of money toward the crisis in Darfur. The problem I have with this argument,though, is that I'd guess that not every poker pro goes into poker figuring they will be someday raising thousands for charity. But kudos to do those who actually do help out in the world.

In addition, she feels that poker is providing entertainment for the public, and I agree - it's sort of the like pro football/baseball/basketball in that way. I'd wager the benefit to having a role model that inspires you to learn math and good analytical skills is more beneficial than someone who makes you think that jumping high and running fast is a useful skill. In either case, I think there are positive impacts on society in the long run.

The point was also raised that it's not necessary for your job to be part of your life's contribution. I see her point, but personally, it would be hard for me to give up Google (or physics, if that is something I ever return to) for poker. In Annie's case, I get the impression that she had already left her academic pursuits (I believe she has or almost got a Ph.D. in cognitive society - btw, if you are interested in that kind stuff, here are a few cogsci blogs I follow), and that her turn to poker was to help support her 4 kids after a divorce. To me, that is the part of her story that I really wanted to hear about. For her, it doesn't seem like it was a decision to give up one thing for another. She was good at poker; it made her good money; and her family depended on her.

In the end, I don't really think I pissed off Annie, though I definitely think I made an impression. Hopefully that doesn't mean I have a bulls-eye painted on my forehead should I ever meet her at a table.

One Year at the 'Plex!

2007-10-23T22:30:00.000-07:00

Again I haven't posted for a while, but today, my 1 year anniversary at Google, is bringing me back out into the blogosphere. (Notice that, in celebration, Google stock lept 25 bucks!) Today was actually pretty darned busy, as things have really picked up as of late. Just lots of things going on in parallel, so sometimes it feels that there isn't much progress, but overall things are going forward. I have a goal to finish off a bunch of little projects by the end of the year.

As far as perks of late, we had Matchbox 20 come and play a short acoustic set for us yesterday. They were around for about an hour to both play and talk about music and technology. I happen to really like their music, but I've never seen them in concert... but will make a point to now. They were entertaining both musically and as performers. Rob Thomas, the heart-throb-for-the-women lead singer, even invited a woman up on stage for a kiss! (Her question was essentially: "I don't have any brainy intellectual question about music or technology... I've just had a long day - can I have a kiss?")

Matchbox has been around for over 10 years (with a short break for some solo work), starting back when bands were still having to decide to make a Web site. Duh! Today, it's a no brainer! Back then, it was bumper stickers and cassettes. Nowadays, bands are trying new and innovative things on the web and with other high-tech hardware. Matchbox just released their latest album on a USB key integrated into a bracelet. Now that is pretty neat - I'll probably pick one up. I should probably also plug Rob's charity, the Sidewalk Angels Foundation, which he talked a little about.

In non-Google news, I've managed to get myself in a couple of vlogs in the last couple weeks - one over at Rocketboom (OK, this one didn't really feature me, per se) and one over at the Around America Project. Matt from AAP stayed with me for a day, and I took him around SF and the Google headquarters. In the outtakes at the end, you'll even see I took him to see my favorite Will Farrel impersonator. Matt was a nice guy with a pretty fun plan. He's basically documenting how cool the people in this country are - 65 people are willing to take this guy in and feed him, just to help him see the country. Okay, okay, maybe the guy is just a brilliant freeloader. I can tell you that he'll have a lot better stories to tell on his deathbed from this trip than us working stiffs have in 80 days of the grind (even those of us at the Googleplex).

Outside of tech, some might know that I'm an avid poker player. I play about once a week with my buddy Scott at a local card club, and we've both hit some streaks that I think show we've gotten the swing of the game (at least at the limits we play). I've been playing 20/40 Limit and he plays a 2-5 No Limit... and we both usually average about $100/hr in a session lasting a few hours. On our bad days, we come out even. I took my game to new limits recently with a very successful tournament run at the Bellagio in Vegas last weekend. It was my biggest tourney to date - $500 buy-in with 92 players. I made it quite far! I came in 2nd (with a 4-way unequal chop), despite having my legs chopped out from under me when my pocket Aces fell to pocket Queens with 13 players remaining. My net payout was $8050, which unfortunately will get taxed at the end of the year.... though I will be able to claim my flight and hotel as "business expenses". Hah!