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Here's the "Verona" trundle bed or "guest bed" as they call it. The first thing that got my attention was the "save -11%" on the overview. Sure enough, when you click on it, you get a bigger view that makes it totally clear how much you're NOT saving. Original page is here.

That's not the only one like that. I went to "metal beds" and sorted them by price, highest to lowest. I found the "Amelia" bed frame was offering negative zero percent off. Huh? Yep, it appears the recommended retail price (RRP) is £149.95, but with them you pay only £149.99.

Negative zero percent, huh?

The code is obviously broken for displaying the discount. It is supposed to tell you you are saving -£0.04, but it prints it as pound, decimal, negative 4. That's strange no matter how you look at it.

I could probably find more of these, but that was enough. Pretty amusing.

I've done a couple. They're fun.

Communications in Marriage

First Day At the Office

My little boys must think it queer,
to shovel without a snow plow near.
Between the curb and sidewalk gray,
the coldest evening of the year.

They give their kid snow shovels a shake,
to ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the scrape,
of vigilante plows and rakes.

The deficit's scary, dark and deep,
but I have tax payments to keep.
And tons to shovel before I sleep.
And tons to shovel before i sleep.

Credit to one of my favorite poets for inspiring this.

I got the idea after explaining some really crappy code to my wife and how it did a ridiculous job protecting against SQL injection. I said "there must be 50 ways to inject SQL into that code." That's when she sang a couple bars and I realized it would be a great idea. Now, my singing it might not have been such a great idea, but the parody was a good idea.

I downloaded the music from a MIDI site, and then arranged it in GarageBand. Here are the lyrics:

I see your input's not validated properly
You have to check it at all tiers: 1, 2 and 3
Give me a browser and quite soon you will agree. There must be
50 ways to inject your SQL

You see it really is my business to intrude
The CTO wants to see this web app broke into
Turn on my proxy and all doubt will be removed. There must be
50 ways to inject your SQL
50 ways to inject your SQL

Try a quick hack, Jack
Add a new row, Joe
Try an insert, Kurt
Change their SQL query

Evade the regex, Rex
Encode it all in hex
Unbalance the quotes, Vinod
And change the query

Break the syntax, Max
Use a backslash, Cash
Try command shell, Mel,
And change the query

Use "one equals one," son,
Unhandled exception!
Read the stack trace, ace
and change the query

He said our application is secure against your kind
There are no simple vulnerabilities to find
I said your coders write their code like they are blind, there must be
50 ways to inject your SQL

He said our logs show unexpected funds were sent
Its probably time we started using Prepared-Statements
I said I'm glad you're seeing what I meant, there were
50 ways to inject your SQL
50 ways to inject your SQL

Break the syntax, Max
Use a backslash, Cash
Try command shell, Mel,
And change the query

Use "one equals one," son,
Unhandled exception!
Read the stack trace, ace
and change the query

Try a quick hack, Jack
Add a new row, Joe
Try an insert, Kurt
Change their SQL query

Evade the regex, Rex
Encode it all in hex
Unbalance the quotes, Vinod
And change the query

The place they went that no one had gone before? They made a good prequel. Virtually all revisits of classic things (c.f., the Transformers, George Lucas' revisits to Star Wars and E.T., Batman) are terrible. This one is the best in a long, long line of movies and TV shows.

The actors are A+. Unlike George Lucas, who only directs in clichés and can't direct humans to save his life, JJ Abrams knows how to elicit amazing performances from a cast of great actors. None of these actors is a marquee name like Patrick Stewart, but they deliver marquee performances. The major cast is Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, John Cho, Ben Cross, Bruce Greenwood, and Simon Pegg. You can tell that they studied the original actors some, but yet it's still fresh, new, and worth seeing. It's not a rehash.

Warning! Spoilers!

I'm not interested in writing a review where I can't talk about what happened, so I'm going to give up various details. If you don't want to read spoilers, look elsewhere.

Great Stuff

This is stuff that I think is really outstanding, unique and new to the Star Trek universe.

Spock is really nuanced

I'm not sure i like the fact taht he seems to have an achilles heel for emotion related to his mother, but it works. I especially like the way he gracefully gives up command, recognizing his own instability. It was dignified and played well.

Pike's best line

One of the best lines in the whole film is when Pike challenges Kirk to join Starfleet. It goes something like this: "Your father was captain of a ship for 12 minutes. And in that time he saved the lives of 800 people, including your mother and you. I'd like to see you try to do better." I thought that line was delivered brilliantly, and that it really reached out at Kirk and poked him where he was vulnerable.

All the good lines, none of the bad

All the lines you expect from the classic characters are here.

• Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a...
• Fascinating...
• I'm givin her all she's got, Captain

While there's definitely a tribute to the classic lines, they don't dwell on it. It's not like watching a rerun on TV.

New depth for Bones

Dr. McCoy has a more nuanced character. He's sorta pessimistic and gloomy, but in a way that's not too far afield from the original character. I really like his attitude. It's different, but it works. "Tell me something I don't know!"

A new spin on Scotty

Scotty gets a sort of unsung hero geek makeover. He easily gets some of my favorite lines in the movie, and I'm already a big fan of Simon Pegg's work (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz). The Rolling Stone review suggested that he was one of the scene stealers, I think he was far and away the biggest scene stealer. If he was in the scene, you wanted to watch him. The unsung hero bit is good. It makes him out to be this sorta genius whose greatness is completely taken for granted and nobody realizes how unbelievable it is. Contrast this with, say, Data from the Next Generation, where all his intellectual prowess is totally expected. Scotty is taken for granted in a different way.

Brilliant casting

I'll stop singing their praises soon. But I would watch this group of actors over and over again, assuming they were written and directed at the same quality.

The not-so-good

There were a few things I was not keen on.

Reboot

By invoking time-travel (which is already overused in the Star Trek universe—to the point of being taken for granted), they have rebooted a few things. Now Kirk never knew his father. Now Kirk was born in space fleeing a Romulan ship. Now Kirk and Spock started off hating each other and Spock was the designer of the unwinnable scenario at Starfleet Academy. Vulcan is now destroyed and they're recolonizing some new planet. Now Spock and Uhura are getting it on after hours. I feel like this was a bit of a cop-out on the part of the writers. They needed room to write new and interesting stories for the characters and the whole Star Trek universe has gotten so built up with cruft. It does sorta ignore what has come before, though.

A little George Lucas

One of the things George Lucas does a lot in the various Star Wars movies, especially the prequel abominations, is pointless travel from one place to another that does not advance the plot or the characters. In Star Wars these are like special effects solos the way there are big multi-minute instrument solos in rock concerts. But I digress.

In Star Trek there is a point where Kirk is marooned on the moon overlooking Vulcan (Delta Vega?), which appears about as hospitable as Antarctica. The wise computer tells him to sit tight, help is on the way, but he seems to think that wandering the frozen wastes is a better idea. It's not clear that he has a plan or even a vague idea which direction to go. I get the whole idea that he's a "man of action" and I realize he can't just sit still, but that looked like suicide.

So then he's walking across the wastes. This is the point-A-to-point-B thing. Where's he going? Why is he just walking? A big monster comes to get him. But the big monster is attacked by a bigger monster. This is right out of Episode I: The Phantom Menace when the main characters take a pointless journey from point A to point B "through the planet core." Twice (not once, but twice) on that journey they are attacked by a big sea creature and then rescued when a bigger sea creature eats it.

Star Trek, unfortunately, borrows this gimmick and then gets it a bit wrong. I mean: here's this Tyrannosaurus Delta Vega who was happy to attack the rabid polar bear monster because it looked like lunch. Then T-Rex sees a scrawny human and says "hey, I'd rather chase that wimpy thing that's a third the size of polar bear." This makes no sense. The bigger monster should have gone after the biggest lunch—the monster polar bear—and ignored Kirk. The scene also takes too long. It's too many minutes out of the screen play and we don't really advance the plot or learn something about the characters. I mean, Kirk isn't even ingenious or particularly interesting in these scenes. He's just running, tumbling, etc.

Finally, Kirk just happens to bump into time-travelling Spock. That's just too coincidental. This movie could have cut 10 minutes out by having Spock find Kirk (having seen the pod crash land) or by having Kirk find Spock without the goofy monster chase. Something more believable would have made things move along faster and not strained believability so much.

Of course, when the two of them set out to go to the Starfleet outpost, they arrive there without incident.

Sudden rise to the top?

I like Star Trek, but I'm not a big enough fan to know if the Enterprise was always Starfleet's flagship, or if that detail was added later. Moreover, I'm not sure I buy the timeline. Kirk graduates in 3 years from the academy when most do it in 4, and a couple amazing displays of leadership lands him the position of Captain on the Starfleet flagship? Seems unlikely. I got the feeling, in the original series, that Kirk served under Pike for more than a few hours. I think the timeline has been compressed a bit too much for believability.

Love interest for Spock?

I'm not sure I see the value or the believability in the Spock/Uhura thing. They may have gone a bit too far in the Spock-is-half-human department.

A little time travel never hurt anyone

In the end, we're all OK. The timeline has been altered, there are two Spocks running around, but nobody seems the least bit troubled by this. Nobody's studying it trying to put things right. Everyone's just happy living in an altered timeline, with only the old Spock knowing both timelines. I think this is pretty cavalier on the part of every character who understands what has happened. (i.e., only a few are aware that time travel has occured). Both Spocks, Kirk, and presumably a few others know what has happened. But nobody's worried and there's no need to fix it.

I overlooked a team of five doing blah, blah, blah...

So, did this person fail to notice a team of five that was doing a lot of important work? Or did he actually mean that he "oversaw" them?

I also notice that we can have an insight, but not an outsight. We can have an outlook, but not an inlook. We can oversee and overlook, but we can't undersee or underlook, unless we are perhaps undersea.

Bankroll Chart

That chart brought into sharp contrast where I was doing well and where I wasn't. I think I am often less objective than I should be about my money, and this is just the exposure I need.

I think a lot of people probably like the heads-up display that shows you real-time feedback about yourself and your opponents. I watch myself a lot more than my opponents, because I can't count on my own behavior, yet. I'm still learning whether I'm seeing too many flops, playing too many weak hands, trying to bluff when I have no idea what I'm doing, etc.

The Good

• It works. Just point it at your history files and off you go.
• Steve has clearly understood good graphic design, or at least some of the elements of, say, Edward Tufte. The "dashboard" gives some really simple line graphs with no axes that give you an instant feel for the way you're trending.
• It's real-time. You're getting feedback while you play. Anyone who knows anything about learning will tell you that the closer the feedback is to the action (whether good or bad), the better you learn. Doing post-mortem analysis of a session later imparts different (not less valuable, but different) lessons.
• I find the heads-up display really informative. Again, I'm pretty much a novice, so almost anything helps me.

Areas for Improvement

• As a micro-stakes guy, I'm not sure I can justify the price. I go back and forth on it. I think at $15 or $20 I'd buy it without hesitation. At $50, though, it makes me pause.
• Despite the fact that I'm not getting the most out of the features it already has, I still feel sorta second-class. That is, the Windows people have more features (not that I would know what to do with them if I had them).

I hope more Mac people get into online poker so the demand will be there for rich and useful helpers. I'm guessing the demand is far weaker than for the Windows-based ones, which is a shame.

For whatever reason, I always start with whites. After all, they need special handling (don't put the red T-shirt in with them, right Jenny?). It also seems like you get a lot done by starting with whites.

When I fold them and put them away, I often notice that I've done more for myself than I have for the others in the family. It sorta dawned on me today. Duh.

All my underwear are white. Not suprising. That's probably true for most men. I've got a pile of white undershirts and I wear one a day. Most of my business dress shirts are either white or mostly white. Doing whites goes a long way for me. My boys have all different color underwear with characters on them, they have shirts of every conceivable color (and character) and such. My clothes are all different colors, too. This isn't to say that I'm somehow monochromatic, but a load of whites dos a lot more for me (and probably many men) than it does for them. Duh.

Next time, I'll start with darks.

Game Features

These are features of the game that influence my choice of strategy.

Minimal Interactivity

There are only 3 things that you can do to another player in the game:

• Lower their health by fighting them
• Possibly plunder some item of their loot when fighting them
• Join their crew

Being on "the crew" is Reciprocal

If I'm on your crew, you're on my crew. If you had a crew of 10 and I had a crew of 5, and then I joined your crew, you would have 11 and I'd have 6. Because of this, there's no reason (I can see) not to be promiscuous and join as many crews as you can. If you're on someone's crew, they can't fight you. Perhaps at higher levels there are personalities and teams and things. As a low-level person (I'm level 19 as I write this), I can't see any reason not to join every crew I can.

Most Game Events are Random

Although whether you win a fight or not depends on your crew size and weapons, the spoils of war are largely random. In many ways this means it doesn't matter who you fight.

Strategy

This is how I play, based on the characteristics I noted above.

1. Build experience doing simple jobs

The best job, experience-wise, is called "Recover treasure from a sunken vessel" and it's on the "Swashbuckler" tab under "Plunder!" It takes 10 energy and gives you 15 experience points. If you want experience, do this job over and over again. I make my energy a multiple of 10, so I can just do this job, say, 4 times, and then ignore it for a while. If you want experience, only do this job.

2. Attack people you can definitely beat

Experience points are random, from 1 to 3, if you win. You occasionally have a bonus where your experience is doubled. There is no incentive to attack someone you might not beat. If I have a crew of 15 and I beat someone who has a crew of 20, I get the same experience as if I beat someone who has a crew of 5. Why risk it? You also get the same experience for attacking "fresh meat" (i.e., people who aren't playing). You're guaranteed to win, you're guaranteed the same amount of experience. What's not to like?

3. Arm Everyone

Make sure you have one weapon (pistols, rifles, hand grenades), one super bonus thingie (ship's wheel, golden teeth, shark army, etc.), one defensive item (eyepatch, parrot), and one vessel (rowboat, fleut, gallion) for every crew member. Unless you do, you might not beat people who have smaller crews than you.

4. Keep Coming Back

I typically drain all my energy and strength doing jobs and fighting, then I forget about it. I come back a few hours later, do a bunch of jobs, bury my treasure, then fight.

5. Keep Gold Buried

Bury your gold before you fight. Bury your gold before you leave the game alone for a while. If it's buried, it can't be stolen. Although it costs 10% to bury, you'll lose more than that overnight if you get attacked.

5. Buy the Special "Islands"

Every time you get 2 new crew members, you qualify to buy a new special island. It costs around 8000, and produces 12000 per hour. I have 17 crew members and 6 of these things. ALL the rest of the islands are stupid (see below).

6. Buy the Special Weapons

In their effort to virally market the game, the front page ("Home") always has some special offering. it's always the same: 18 attack, 18 defense, 10,000 gold. Every time you get 2 more crew members, you qualify. Always get these. They have no upkeep, they're relatively cheap, and they are the best weapons in the game.

WTFs

These are things that make me wonder why I play the game at all.

Advancement is Guaranteed

No one can stop me from advancing. My energy renews itself at a certain rate, and when I have enough energy, I do a plunder job. I move up in levels. Nobody can take experience away from me, slow me down, or change the way I move up. Because I know how to test web applications, for example, I know how to write small programs that will watch for my energy to hit 10, then will click the 'do job' button. I could just create a program to advance me in levels. What part of this is playing a game?

Gold is Static

I can earn all the gold I want, and keep it buried. When people attack, they can't get my buried gold. Although it costs me 10% to bury it, that's much less than I would lose if it was available when people attacked. I try to periodically login and bury my gold. It keeps people from stealing it. I have over 4 million gold now, and I don't know what to do with it. I wish I could give it to friends or something, but that's not possible, so it just sits.

No incentive to take risks

Who cares that I'm attacking people who are bigger or stronger than me? In most games, a risky gamble like that pays off sometimes. In this game it just doesn't matter. I'll stick to activities that are sure bets.

Most Plunder Jobs are Pointless

The "Recover treasure from a sunken vessel" has only a few requirements (and no minimum crew requirement!). Everything else that gives experience points has a worse ratio. That is, the "recover treasure" job gives you 1 experience point for every 1.5 energy you spend. Everything else requires 1.6 energy, 2.0 energy, etc. to get an experience point.

Now that I have an income of 60,000 an hour or so, I don't use plunder to get gold or loot. I get loot by attacking people and I get gold by just sitting around. The entire "Plunder" screen is useless to me except that one job.

Keelhauling is Pointless

Keelhauling is when you attack someone and their health goes to zero. They lose some experience points. I guess if I don't like someone, I can go after them. But I don't need to do that. It doesn't matter. You can earn a bounty by keelhauling, but who cares? I can earn 600,000 while I sleep. If I attack someone and I keelhaul them, I don't get extra loot, I don't get extra gold, I don't get extra experience or skill points. I just get one more "keelhaul" in my stats. Whooptie do.

Islands are Pointless

The only islands that matter are the special ones that cost 8000 and produce 12,000 an hour. Get those. The rest are so bad that they're just not worth buying. Consider a "captured island." It costs 4 million. Yes, million. It produces a pathetic 8,000 per hour. It will be 500 hours (or almost 21 days) before that thing pays itself off. Why would you pay that kind of money for something so worthless? You can get a tariff station if you turn in that captured island and pay another 5 million. The tariff station earns 50,000 an hour, which is respectable. But at 9 million gold to buy it, it will still be 7.5 days before it pays itself off.
I understand the idea of encouraging recruitment. Recruiting is the only way you get the 8K/12K islands. But this is so absurdly lopsided that it's just dumb. If I can recruit my way into the game, great, but these other options are so ridiculous that they shouldn't even be in the game.

What does it mean to win?

Given that I can just play all by myself and advance through the levels, amassing gold and gaining experience points regularly, what does winning mean? Nobody can take my crew away. Nobody can take my buried gold. Although I like my special weapons (shark armies, etc.), it doesn't really matter if they all get looted. I can advance in the game without them.

I can advance in the game without lots of crew, too. Since most jobs are tied to level, and level is tied to experience, and I can earn experience without recruiting, who cares about recruiting?

I can't figure out how to measure myself and decide that I'm doing well or poorly. I don't know what my motivation is to try hard. I click, I advance. I click, I advance.