A Lifestream Experiment
A downtown Tacoma resident for 7 years and counting, Erik covers the arts, technology, and politics with a smattering of travel blogging thrown in. Email him at erikemery (at) gmail (dot) com.
"Strong Mayor" question in the Trib and on Exit133
Here's Callaghan in the Tribune:
Tuesday’s apparent change of government in Federal Way, from council-manager to strong mayor, might trigger another look in the state’s third-largest city.
If the majority holds in Federal Way, three of the state’s 100,000-people-plus cities will have strong mayor and three will have council-manager.
Federal Way will join Seattle and Spokane with mayors who run the city while Tacoma, Bellevue and Vancouver will have mayors who chair the city council. In the next rung down – cities with populations between 50,000 and 100,000 – six are strong-mayor cities and six are council-manager cities.
And Exit133 asks a salient question, "Does it even matter?"
For reference, here's my post asking the question after the Luzon.
And the City Club of Tacoma study about this in 2003 (PDF).
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We're leveling out
Today’s fall in fertility is both very large and very fast. Poor countries are racing through the same demographic transition as rich ones, starting at an earlier stage of development and moving more quickly. The transition from a rate of five to that of two, which took 130 years to happen in Britain—from 1800 to 1930—took just 20 years—from 1965 to 1985—in South Korea. Mothers in developing countries today can expect to have three children. Their mothers had six. In some countries the speed of decline in the fertility rate has been astonishing. In Iran, it dropped from seven in 1984 to 1.9 in 2006—and to just 1.5 in Tehran. That is about as fast as social change can happen.
via economist.com
From the Economist. Population trends are decreasing and it looks like we will level out between 2020 and 2050 with a fertility rate of 2.1 (the "replacement rate") thanks to family planning in the developing world. That means 8.5 to 9 billion people. Still a lot more than we have right now, but there were lots of estimates that thought we'd see 12 or 15 billion just a few years ago. The above quote is a good reason why.
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Last night's poker recap
For poker enthusiasts only!
So I entered the tournament last night with a $60 buy in. The tournament was no-limit Texas Hold'em with no re-buys. So, unlike last year's tournament, where players could routinely buy more chips if they busted, this was a "freeze-out" and when you're out, you're out. My $60 bought me $6,500 in chips and put me at a table with 8 other players.I knew going into the game that I was in the top half, perhaps even top quarter, of players. First, a healthy percentage had never played before. And second, I finished in the top 20% when I played last year. But that doesn't mean it's not hard or that luck isn't a factor, if not a defining factor. I stayed pretty average at the beginning, and right before the hour break I was able to significantly add to my stack thanks to a newbie who would just. not. fold. So after the first hour I was around $22,000 in chips. The next table I went to was a good deal more difficult, with some very good players who were aggressively playing their hands. I dropped a bit, and with the blinds moving up had to make a play. I twice doubled up with a diamond flush. I also put a player or two out, and won a few big pots with an all-in move that no one was willing to call. By the time that table broke up and we formed the final table, I'd increased to about $90,000 in chips.The final table had 8 people at it, including one guy with at least $300K in chips. And by this point the blinds were at $15K/$30K, so my $90,000 was really not too great, though still higher than about 3 others. Those three were eliminated pretty quickly, and I knocked one of them out, putting me up a little bit. The big blow was a guy who went all in and I called him with a K8 of spades. He had about half of what I did, and there was a good chance he was either trying to steal the blinds or felt like he had to go all in just to stay alive (and therefore would be much less likely to have great cards). But he had a KQ of clubs. My only hope was a flush or maybe a lucky straight, but it wasn't to be. I had almost no chance from there. I survived one more player, and then ended up all-in $40,000 on an A7 unsuited. The player with $300K (or more by that point) had AK suited, and I was pretty much sunk. Still, I got a $50 gift card to Costco out of the deal. The downside is that the buy-in was $60. So I essentially played 3 and a half hours to lose $10--a loss of about $3/hour. So in that respect, it wasn't a great night of poker--I've had much higher hourly wages at games before. But in terms of making it to the final table and all the way to being #4 ... well, that part felt pretty darn good.Comments [0]
Crossword puzzles on the iPhone
After "Wordplay" opened at the Grand in 2006, I subscribed to the New York Times, mostly for the crossword puzzle.
Turns out I'm not very good at them. The puzzles get harder as the week goes on. Mondays are easy, Tuesdays I can ususally do, Wednesdays less frequently, and Thursday and Friday are brutal. But I got tired of having papers build up, and the subscription was too expensive for just the crosswords (I still ended up reading most of my news online anyway). Then last week I discovered the NYT Crossword puzzle app for the iPhone. It's a subscription service--$1.99 gets you the app and a month of playing, after that it's $1.99/month or cheaper if you buy a year. But it's incredibly fun and very addictive. You can see the screen here. Moving around the puzzle is pretty easy with the app, and the timer is a nice feature. Sometimes Mary and I play competively, where we'll start the same puzzle on our phones. It's a really wonderful app and I'm very tempted to keep it around at $1.99/month.
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games
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