Horse Racing

May 1, 2021

Today is the Kentucky Derby, so while horse racing is on my mind, let me tell you about a certain match race.

A match race is quite simply a race between exactly two horses. Always very exciting, because they’re relatively rare. There’s usually between 5 and 20 horses in a race, not 2.

Mike Smith is a very-well-known hall-of-fame jockey. A tough, ragged and talented guy who’s ridden some of the best horses in the last 30 years.

Chantal Sutherland is a Canadian model, TV personality… and jockey. She’s been in in Sports Illustrated, Vogue, and has been one of People magazine’s “100 Most Beautiful People”.

Those two dated for a while. Then they broke up… and then someone decided they should do a match race – a Battle of The Exes. A winner-take-all sort of thing.

This was ten years ago, so who cares… except that it was one of our horses that was chosen to race. The track that hosted the event, Del Mar, picked two relatively-evenly-matched horses… got the OK from the owners/trainers (that was a very interesting phone call with our trainer, Carla Gaines…) and once the horses were picked, a coin was flipped to decide which jockey got which horse. Or vice-versa, I suppose.

As it turns out, Chantal got our horse “Parable” and Mike Smith got the other one, “Joker Face”… which added an extra layer of competition… American owner/jockey vs. Canadian owner/jockey

That was a fun weekend… we flew down for the race, participated in all the pomp and circumstance, had a great time… and, as you might expect when Canada goes up against the U.S., finished second.

In the race, Mike Smith controlled the pace beautifully. Forgetting how evenly the horses may have been matched, he really out-jockeyed Chantal. He went out in front, stayed exactly where he needed, kept her exactly where he wanted, and, as they say, had plenty of horse left to win easy.

But let’s talk about another match race that we’re all involved in…

When it comes to vaccinations, the U.S. got off to a terrific start… just like Mike on Joker Face, exactly where you’d expect them to be. Except… if this were a horse race, you’d now say they’re running out of horse. They’re fading. And here comes Canada, flying on the outside.

If you look at the two larger graphs below, you can see what I mean… the one on the left is a graph of what percentage of the population is being vaccinated every day. There was a time where it hit above 0.60% in the U.S., but they’re down to around 0.35% these days… and that number keeps dropping. In Canada, we’ve slowly been rising… and are pretty-much doubling our southern neighbours. We’re in the 0.70% neighbourhood, and have been out-performing the U.S. since around April 8th.

The graph on the right shows how the gap in vaccinated population is narrowing, and assuming things continue at this pace, the Canada horse will blow by the U.S. around May 26th… and will never look back. This extrapolation is relatively consistent with what the government is telling us… that 75% of adults will have had their first jab by mid-June. It looks like 80% by July 1st, according to how things are trending. And if this holds, the U.S. may have trouble breaking 60%… though this is all speculation and just numbers.

It’s speculation and numbers that just lost me a few bucks on the Kentucky Derby… but this other horse race is far more important… and I know where my money is.

By |2021-05-01T17:07:02-07:00May 1st, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Sports & Gaming|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |4 Comments
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April 28, 2021

“It is often easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.”

It was Admiral Grace Hopper, a legend and pioneer in the world of computer science, who said that… though it’s possible she didn’t quite realize the extent to which people would eventually lead their lives by it. It makes sense sometimes to bend the rules, but you have to know where and when to pick your spots. It’s not a free-for-all for reckless decisions.

You think you already know what I’m about to say, so instead of repeating what I’ve been saying for a year, here’s are some different examples.

Perhaps the shortest existence of a professional sports league in the history of the world took place last week. If you don’t follow football (ie soccer) on a global level, there’s a good chance you missed it entirely. Basically, a small group of the biggest teams in the world, spanning multiple leagues, announced they were forming their own super-league. Forget rankings and playoffs… this league of elites is by invitation only, and here’s $5 billion TV deal to go along with it, just for them.

Imagine the uproar you’d hear in Canada if the top 6 NHL teams decided to break away and form their own little league… and now imagine it on a global scale. The backlash from literally millions… of fans, players, coaches, reporters… pretty much everyone… was a tidal wave that, when you think about it, was completely to be expected.

“OK ok we’re sorry… forget the whole thing!! Jeez!!” – said the ringleaders… who no doubt are re-thinking their ridiculous, stupid assumptions that led to it in the first place. And who are now facing significant consequences for their failed mutiny.

Closer to home, the existence of Playland being open lasted just as long. The backlash was swift and expected. What else is going to happen when a few hours after announcing no inter-provincial travel, you announce the opening of one of Canada’s biggest amusement parks? “Sorry sorry yeah you’re right”. Playland will be open one day, just not when anybody from out of town isn’t supposed to be there in the first place.

Speaking of Playland, I really like that midway horse racing game… the one where you’re trying to fire the balls into the right hole which makes your little horse-in-lights move along. If I can’t have real horse racing, I’ll take that for now.

And speaking of horse racing, this weekend’s running of the Kentucky Derby notwithstanding, there’s an interesting sort of horse race that’s easier to explain if you visualize it… so, see below.

Replacing all of the tiny vaccination graphs today is one big one; this is what the provincial horse race of vaccinations looks like. This graph is based on vaccination percentages, using 10% as the same starting point for everyone.

What exactly does it tell us? You’d never have known that Manitoba seems to be vaccinating people, per capita, faster than anyone. Conversely, Alberta is the slowest.

At the end of the day, it’s not a big difference. It took Manitoba 23 days to go from 10% to 25%. It took Alberta 31 days. Everyone else is somewhere in between (B.C. is 26 days). By any definition, it’s a tight race. Also, who cares… the idea is we all get to the finish line, and then we all win.

But just to circle back to the premise of this entire piece, we get there not by doing stupid things and begging for forgiveness. Better to ask first… and act responsibly.

By |2021-04-28T17:03:11-07:00April 28th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |2 Comments
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October 1, 2020

I just got back from the track a few minutes ago (it’s closing day of a very memorably-odd 25-day season… but it was great to see some familiar faces), where I watched my horse “Blueprint” run 2nd in one of the most prestigious races of the year… so that’s good. But that “2” is about the only good number around.

Canada, today, saw its 160,000th C19 case… and recorded 22 deaths, the largest 24-hour total since July. When you look at the chart below, at the Canadian growth numbers, you’ll see them all above 1% over the last 5 days. And if you look further back, you’ll see them all below 1%… going all the way back to May. We slowed it down from the end of May onward, and now it’s crawled back… and, if you look at the corresponding graph, it’s crawling rather steeply.

It’s interesting to look at the trends of the other charts, too. Notably, B.C., which briefly looked like it was going to spiral out of control… hasn’t. Things have tailed off recently. That meteoric rise has slowed and backed off. Maybe Dr. Henry managed to scare us back into order.

Alberta is fighting to keep its growth flat, and while things could be better, they could also be worse. They’re fighting to keep their spread in schools under control, and it’s not looking great; let’s hope for the best.

So what’s driving this national growth? The usual, of course… Ontario and Quebec… who both, at some point, were looking to have things well under control. Not anymore. The numbers, the graphs, the deaths; none of it is good. Everything sliding in the wrong direction.

My horse “Blueprint”, to be honest, is probably not destined for greatness. He really stepped it up today and I’m proud of him… especially because there’s only so much you can do. Our very excellent trainer Dino does what he can to prepare the horse, but once the starting gate springs open, anything can happen.

Similarly, the national blueprint for handling a pandemic requires the involvement of everyone. The trainer does what he can; the jockey does what he can. But it’s ultimately up to the horse… and horses, like people… they can be stubborn.

You can lead a horse to water… you can even jam his face into it and hold it down… but if he’s stubborn enough, he’ll drown before he’ll drink any. It doesn’t make any sense. But neither does not sticking with a blueprint that’s been shown to work.

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By |2020-10-08T01:08:39-07:00October 1st, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Sports & Gaming|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |3 Comments
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September 21, 2020

Dr. Henry’s “back to school” ad rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, and I was one of them. It painted a completely unrealistic picture of what classrooms would look like. As any student or teacher or parent (of either of those) will tell you, most classrooms have more than 6 kids and most classrooms don’t have a sink for convenient and frequent handwashing. The explanation given was that it was simply a setting for Dr. Henry to be explaining things to a group of kids; it didn’t necessarily represent the norm. They could’ve shot that ad outside or in a gym or in a playground or wherever, but they chose to talk about classrooms… in a classroom – but a classroom that doesn’t actually look like what classrooms will look like. Hmm.

When I was in school, the most frequent thing from teachers was “Settle down” or “Be quiet”. Until recently, it was “Get off your phone”. These days, all of that has been replaced with “Put on your mask”.

Seeing some of the pictures my kids are sending from school (both are in high school), it seems one thing hasn’t changed; a lot of kids aren’t great listeners and will do whatever they want.

In another sort of horse race that nobody wants to win, the province of Alberta has recorded more than 100 school outbreaks, and they’re growing quickly. B.C. is presently at around 20. For comparison, as of a few days ago, Ontario had seen around 90 school outbreaks… and Quebec, around 270.

Interestingly, a few minutes after I signed and submitted some forms promising to keep an eye out for symptoms in the kids before sending them off to school, the B.C. Ministry of Health removed more than half the symptoms, among them sore throat and runny/stuffy nose. To be clear, the directive is this: IF you are a kid and IF you have only that symptom… sore throat and/or runny/stuffy nose – chances are, you’re ok.

I get it, and I don’t get it. It’s a tough situation. As anyone who has kids (or has ever been a kid) knows, every single kid at some point between now and March will have a sore throat and/or runny/stuffy nose. All of them. And, for the vast majority of them, it will not be C19. They certainly never were in the past. Yet, almost certainly, some will slip through the cracks and there will be outbreaks. And then what? I guess we’ll find out. And it’s not an “if”; it’s a “when”.

Speaking of “not if but when…”, our numbers aren’t looking great. Not just here, but AB, ON and QC as well. Looking at these little graphs, it’s pretty evident. Those 7-day moving averages, from across the country, are not encouraging. I’m not saying we’re beginning a second wave, but if we were starting one, this is exactly what it’d look like.

And a final “not if but when”… John Horgan just called a Provincial Election. Funny, I was recently having this discussion with someone, pondering whether an election would be called sooner than later. Although, purely (and only) for political reasons, it makes some sense now… I thought they’d hold off. Because, by the exact same token, the NDP is going to face an enormous backlash. People have far more to worry about in the next month than this… and the very tenuous balance-of-power held by the present government could end up swinging in a different direction.

Be prepared to hear a lot more about this… #infectionelection

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By |2020-10-08T01:08:43-07:00September 21st, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Sports & Gaming|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |6 Comments
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September 5, 2020

No local numbers today, so just some local observations.

On some particular Friday evening, the Canucks played a valiant game 7… but unfortunately, came up short, and got knocked out of the playoffs. The following day, Saturday, was the running of the Kentucky Derby. The weather outside was sunny and pleasant, but not too hot.

The preceding paragraph could’ve been mapped to any typical first weekend in May of the last 50 years. But, of course, this year is anything but typical.

The Friday in question was last night, and this year’s Kentucky Derby was run today, on the first Saturday… in September.

From that point of view, we’re exactly four months behind… which sort of lines up with the way I envision the near future. Just like March seemed to last about 79 days, this year is probably going to feel like it lasted 16 months.

If you ask me when I think things might start looking like any sort of normal again, I’d be guessing exactly that… 4 months into 2021… which coincidentally is the beginning of May. When the weather will be getting better. When the Canucks will get knocked out of the playoffs (hopefully not, of course), and the Kentucky Derby will go back to being run on its normal day (hopefully, of course), like it’s been for the last 145 years.

And the vaccine situation will be greatly clarified, with numerous options, most of them available to the majority of people.

And the American election furor, whatever that might look like, will have died down.

But who knows. Here’s one last, accurate observation… I was wrong about who’d win last night’s hockey game… and I was wrong about who just won the Kentucky Derby.

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By |2020-10-08T01:09:08-07:00September 5th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19, Life in Vancouver, Sports & Gaming|Tags: , , , , , , |4 Comments
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August 23, 2020

On one hand, I’d like it if B.C. and Alberta, like they used to, reported numbers over the weekend… it’d help keep things up to date… and I like accuracy. On the other hand, if one or both resorted to that, it’d imply things are getting out of hand enough that it’s important to do so… which means, for now, I guess we’re happy to have to wait for Monday. Even today’s U.S. numbers look suspicious (I’ll correct everything later, or tomorrow).

Even so, unraveling the weekend data into component bits isn’t always easy when, sometimes, single clumped numbers are reported on Mondays. “356 new cases and 5 deaths since Friday.” Great… Where? Who? When? This is like the mechanic saying, “Yeah, we fixed everything… that’ll be $4,500” and you asking “What and why!? What did you do? Where’s the breakdown of the parts and labour??” and they say, “Yeah… well, don’t worry about it… it’s kind of technical and very complicated.”

I do worry about it; even if I don’t understand what they’re talking about… even if it’s complete B.S…. “Yeah, see… the muffler bearing was rubbing up against the flywheel bracket… and your car… it’s a model without an exhaust impeller, so we had to machine not only the suspension elbow and rotary pistons, but also replace the fuel pump linkage.” I’d prefer that nonsense to just a single final obscure total.

Speaking of cars… here’s the story of my first car…

I bought it in 1986. I’d been saving up money over the years, and was actually still a couple of thousand short for what I wanted… when, that Summer — and all the racetrack people here will appreciate this – I hit the Sweep Six. This is the wager at the track where you try to pick the winning horse in six consecutive races. It’s obviously hard to do, and very lucrative when you manage it. The few thousand dollars I picked up for that put me over the top.

I paid cash, exactly $9,200 for that new red Ford Mustang LX, and over the next 12 years, put over 280,000km on it. I could write a book on all the memories that car provided me.

By 1998, it was time for a new car… and I’d been so happy with this one, the next one was also a Mustang… a blue 1998 GT.

The old one sat in my parents’ driveway for a while… my intention was to sell it privately, thinking I could get a lot more for it than the trade-in value that I’d been offered. It sat there for weeks… months… my parents over time wondering when I’d remove it, gently asking when I’d sell it, implying in stronger language that it’s time to get rid of it, and finally telling me to get it the hell out of there already.

One summer morning in 1998, I decided it was a good day to do this: I would drive up Kingsway, which is littered with used-car lots, and simply sell it to the first place that would offer me what I was after. I wanted $2,000 for it (yeah, I know, ha ha).

The first place offered me $500 cash. I was offended and laughed at that. The guy laughed back.

The next place didn’t want it. Nor did the place after that. And after that… place after place, not interested, or ridiculous low-ball offers like $100 or $200.

By then, I’d reached the intersection of Kingsway and Victoria. That’s the intersection where the McDonalds is, but kitty-corner to that, there used to be the best Indian food in town, a restaurant called Rubina Tandoori. I had a sudden idea… for sure I was going to spend a bunch of money there in the future; why not trade the car for some Rubina credit?

So I wandered in there and spoke to guy who greeted me, and explained my offer… $1,000 of Indian food credit for the car. He didn’t know what to think, but he went and got his father, the owner of the place.

Then the three of us went outside, where the two hummed and hawed and inspected the car… they popped the hood, literally kicked the tires, scratched their chins, hummed and hawed some more, but ultimately… decided they didn’t want it. I dropped my offer down to $500 worth of credit but they still didn’t want it. And that was that.

I did U-turn, went back to the first place, and told the guy I’d take $500. Nah, he said… I changed my mind. I don’t want it.

So back on the road I went, past Rubina, heading towards Burnaby and New West, and zero luck. I got all the way to the end, and to say I was upset about how this day had turned out… would be an understatement.

Give up or continue? It was now late afternoon… I decided to give it one more shot, and crossed the bridge into Surrey. I stopped at the first lot I found, and while waiting for someone to attend to me, an older lady who was there looking for a car approached me. She offered me $400 for the car. I’ll take it, I said.

“Well, I only have $200 cash with me, but I can give you some post-dated cheques.”

“Sure”, I said… “No problem.” Ha ha.

Conveniently, she had all the necessary papers to sign over the car… so we filled it all out, right there on the hood of the car, signed everything… and that was that. I sold my car for $200 in cash, $200 in cheques, and a ride to the SkyTrain.

But the story doesn’t quite end there.

First of all, the cheques all bounced, and I was unsuccessful in tracking her down… so I guess I actually sold the car for $200. But that’s not all.

About a year later, I got a frantic call from an insurance agent in Surrey. Apparently, this woman was trying to renew the insurance on the car… but couldn’t, because the car was still in my name. Whatever paperwork we’d done didn’t properly transfer the car to her, and she’d somehow been driving my car, with NO insurance, for a year. I hightailed it over there and signed what was needed.

Many great memories with that car… and I still have the license plates, hanging on the wall in my garage: SWEPT 6

Look, I managed to write a whole update without mentioning Trump… and barely mentioning the pandemic. Sometimes, it’s nice to set aside the present day and dig up some good old memories. There are plenty to choose from. And there are also plenty of new ones, waiting to be made.

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By |2020-10-08T01:09:43-07:00August 23rd, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Life in Vancouver, Sports & Gaming, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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July 30, 2020

Ages ago, there used to a fiddler who’d stand outside the west entrance of the racetrack, sawing away at his instrument… the open violin case in front of him, ready to catch the loose change offered by fortune-seeking horseplayers. Because that’s how Karma works, right? You magnanimously throw a dime at a beggar, and you’re sure to hit the Trifecta for $780.

A lot of people must have thought that way, because the guy did ok. He was always there on the way in, and he was certainly there on the way out, to catch the loose change… or hopefully, bills… of the actual few winners who managed to cash in on that last race. As per every racetrack or casino in the world, the trick isn’t winning; the trick is leaving the place with your winnings still in your pocket. And when you manage to do that, you’re usually feeling pretty generous.

I’d wondered what the guy did with all that change… did he go home and meticulously roll it? Show up at the bank with bags of change? Did he just spend it, and make people wait at the cashier lineup while he carefully counted it out? It turns out the answer was much simpler.

One day, I happened to be standing at the bottom of the entrance ramp just moments before the last race of the day… and down the ramp came fiddler guy, holding his case wide open.

At the betting windows, all of the mutuel clerks (ie. tellers) saw him coming, and all of them instantly slammed their [Closed] shingles in front of their windows. Well, all but one unlucky teller who’d been busy, looking down… and didn’t notice his impending arrival. The guy made a bee-line, straight to her, and, just as she looked up, he dumped the entire contents of the violin case… probably more than $20 worth of quarters, dimes, nickels… but mostly pennies… on the counter and floor and everywhere else.

“All of it to win on number 6!”, he screamed at her.

“I told you not to do that!”, she screamed back.

Number 6 didn’t win, which might mean the guy wasn’t too good at picking horses. But you can’t really tell with a sample size of one. However, what he also wasn’t good at was… playing the fiddle. And that sample set was a lot bigger. Back in those days, racing was 5 days a week, from mid-April to mid-October. Let’s do the math… 24 weeks x 5 days = 120 days, and he was out there at least 8 hours a day… so close to 1,000 hours a season. And for at least 10 years, there’s 10,000 hours… that magic number that Malcolm Gladwell claims in his bestseller “Outliers” is the number of hours needed to master anything. Ironically, he mentions music – specifically violins – as a good example. Anyone can pick up a violin/fiddle (they’re the exact same musical instrument, by the way…) and master it by just putting in the hours.

Well, horseshit. If you, having never picked up the instrument, walked into a music store and just tried it, gingerly sliding the bow across the strings, making some sort of squeaky sound… that’s what that guy sounded like. Always. It never changed. He never improved. More than ten thousand “wasted” hours.

Which just proves the point, it’s not all about the hours. I’m not sure what the right number is, but that’s not even the point. The point is – quality time versus quantity time. Quantity means nothing if the quality isn’t there, and I’d venture to guess that 100 quality hours of practice beats out 10,000 hours of doing it wrong.

We can forgive Gladwell, because his sample set of musicians were from an actual music academy. That’s not a random sample set, and it certainly doesn’t include some degenerate gambler/Charlie Daniels look-alike.

This all came to mind while banging away at the piano, on a difficult piece I’ve been working on for… well, not yet 10,000 hours, but it’ll likely take that long. Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp minor has probably had far more talented musicians bang away at it for far less time… yielding far better results. Nevertheless, I’m enjoying it… and maybe that fiddler enjoyed his fiddling too.

And these days, this pandemic is going to keep us pretty isolated for a while. Lots of time to put in the hours… you can draw, write, sculpt, paint, cook, plug away at the piano/violin/clarinet/trumpet/harp/whatever… just be sure you’re enjoying it, and not just putting in the hours.

Quality… not quantity.

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By |2020-10-08T01:10:33-07:00July 30th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Business & Economics, Sports & Gaming, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , |7 Comments
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July 6, 2020

It’s so strange… the duality of trying to experience normal things… in this (for now, at least) not-so-normal (NSN) world.

Three months behind schedule, Hastings Park finally opened for racing. It’s been more than 30 years since I’ve missed the opening day at the track. And to miss it on a day where we have horses running is off-the-charts inconceivable. But… no fans – not even owners – and only 25 days of racing… but it’s something. And… might I add… our first horse of the year… running in the very first race of the year…won! Way to go, Molesley. So… for at least 20 minutes, we were the leading owners, and we owned the best horse here. I can also say with certainly, by the time you’re reading this, “It was nice while it lasted.”

Also this morning, in this NSN world, I went for a haircut. I wrote about that experience a few weeks ago, but what hit me this time was the emptiness of the place. I was missing the external chatter that I’m often trying to filter out… especially one of the other hairdressers that’s sometimes there (certainly not today), who speaks Hungarian. I grew up around Hungarian as all four grandparents spoke it, and it was the language my parents spoke to each other when they wanted to discuss something not for childrens’ ears. As a result, of course, I learned to understand a fair bit. What also helped was my grandmother and her sister and their friends, all of whom spoke it to each other, and it especially helped that they always talked about the same things…. like food.

If you want a discussion about food in Hungarian, I’m your man. Where’s the food, what’s the food, bring the food, eat your food, this is great food, this is too cold, this is too hot. Actually, wait – “this is too hot” has never been uttered by an older Hungarian person. They will consume soup that is bubbling and boiling and will peel the inside of your mouth… and insist it needs to go back on the stove a bit longer.

On a few occasions at the hairdresser, I’m treated to overhearing a discussion in Hungarian, and it’s wonderful. Hungarian is a ridiculously unique and bizarre language, easily distinguishable from others… and it’s popped up in the strangest of places… including the racetrack, where a small group of old Hungarian guys used to hang out and yell the most incredible profanities at the horses, the trainers, the jockeys… and each other. It was great fun hanging out near them, overhearing it.

And at the hairdresser one time… a Hungarian couple, the older lady getting her hair done, her husband who’d gotten dragged along complaining about how long it was taking, the hairdresser telling him to shut up and let her work, he complaining to his wife that she promised they’d go elsewhere after but there won’t be time, the wife telling him to shut up and let it get done right, the guy saying that’s it, I’m never joining you here at the hair place again, both women telling him to shut up and stop being such a crybaby. Best haircut ever. Back in the non-NSN days… which will be back, one of these days… small steps, but surprised and delighted to announce this… in Ontario today, zero COVID deaths. Zero. First time in ages. And Quebec, just three deaths.

Like Molesley, Canada was out of the gate quickly and took control of the situation. Unlike Molesley, we haven’t won this race yet… still a half-mile to go… but we’re looking good. I think I’ll go cook some scaldingly-hot Goulash and round out a really good day.

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By |2020-10-08T01:21:26-07:00July 6th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Business & Economics, Life in Vancouver, Sports & Gaming, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , |22 Comments
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Day 97 – June 21, 2020

Many years ago, well before my ownership of horses entitled me to free parking, I found a great place to park when going to Hastings Park or the PNE.

All of the PNE lands are bordered to the north by McGill Street, and to the north of McGill street is New Brighton Park. And whereas parking at the PNE was $10, parking at New Brighton was only $2. There was a guy there, orange vest and little pad of paper, wad of cash for change if needed… he’d take your two bucks and let you in. It was a bit of a hike, because you had to walk up, and all the way around.. but no big deal; it saved a significant amount of money, especially if you added it up over time… and this went on for years.

One day, the PNE called up the City of Vancouver and said to them, hey… your guy at New Brighton… he should be charging more. And the City of Vancouver replied… what guy? And so unravelled what can only be labelled as an excellent example of opportunistic creative entrepreneurship… or simply, a scam.

Scammers come in all sorts of shapes a sizes… an infinite array of criminal opportunists. A very common one these days involves scam emails. Nigerian princes with fortunes to hide, Powerball winners with millions to give away, ex-army officials with bricks of gold to launder… an endless list of creative criminals.

I have an email address — fake name, fake address… that I use exclusively for mailing lists and subscriptions where I want to read content, but not interact. They don’t need to know who I am. As you might imagine, this email address has become polluted with spam…. and scam emails. At least one a week… some version of “I have millions of dollars to send you; please send me some small amount of money so we can process it”. I sometimes reply with one sentence, and it turns into a conversation until they eventually figure out I’m just wasting their time. But two relevant stories… one was years ago… here’s what happened:

The guy (in Nigeria) wanted to send me a gift card with $200,000 on it… but needed me to send him $50 to pay for shipping it to me. That there are people who would fall for this baffles me. But anyway, I said to him… sure… I sent you the money… here’s the Western Union MTCN number… and made up a string of digits. He wrote back and told me he went to WU and tried to cash it in… but the number I’d sent was no good. It was only 9 digits, and the MTCN should be 10. Oh… I’m sorry, you’re right, I missed a digit. Here’s the correct number… and I just added an extra digit in the middle of it.

He wrote back two days later, angry that he’d once again gone to WU, and been rejected. I told him I’m so sorry… looking at it now, I think I said 4 to one of the digits, but it’s probably a 9. Bad handwriting from the WU clerk.

Two days later he wrote back… very angry. He’d gone again, been rejected of course, and been told that if he shows up again trying to scam WU, he’d be arrested. Then he gave me a whole sob story… how he’s an old man, he has to take a bus 90 minutes into Abuja to get to Western Union, he doesn’t time for this and so on. Oh… I felt bad. Poor scammer.

So I got an official WU form and filled it out with great precision. Even the handwritten MTCN number, with a digit that could be either a 4 or a 9. I made it look official, put some official time stamps and everything on it. It was a real work of art. Then I sent him an angry email, with a scan of my masterpiece… saying… listen you idiot, I’m not sure if you or the Western Union people are the brainless ones. Here’s the official paperwork I got when I sent the money. Take this to WU… and go get your money and send me my giftcard. Jeez.

Well… I never heard from him again. And there are a few possible scenarios, one of which is he’s in jail. I hope so. One less scammer preying on gullible people.

The second story is happening right now, and I’m not sure what to do. I recently answered one of these scammers with a sort of “I already sent you the money” email. Note… this is an excellent way to engage… because if they fall for it, they’ll think they’ve got “a live one” on the hook. I sent that message, and it turned into a back-and-forth, but what happened recently was this… I told her I’d send the money again, and she said great… and sent me all of her banking info. Real name, real home address and bank account info. Huh… now what. Call the cops? FBI? Ship her a glitter-bomb? Blackmail her? So many possibilities!

The vast majority of the time, the scams are all about money. Follow the money, and you will find the scammer. But once in a while, it’s about something totally different.

Such was the case last week and yesterday, with a bunch of teenagers using TikTok and other social media, and totally scamming the Trump presidential campaign. It fooled everyone, including me. I thought there would be hundreds of thousands of people crowding downtown Tulsa, because we were told how much interest there was in that rally. They had expected to fill 22,000 seats inside, and an extra overflow of 40,000 outside. In the end, the inside had a little over 6,000 people. The outside was cancelled.

Ironic of course, that the rally was to pay homage to the biggest scammer of all. And interestingly — perhaps appropriately — this rally might actually end up being the beginning of the end. There’s only so much people can take, and every time Trump goes off-script, all bets are off. He’s said many stupid things “off the cuff”, when he switches from the teleprompter to his brain, and usually the damage control can take care of it. But this time? Even his own people had nothing. They served up the lamest of the lame excuses, the one that works ok in grade 1… when you don’t quite get it… when you’re still refining your sense of humour. When Jimmy has dipped Cindy’s ponytail into paste, thinking it’s funny. But it’s not, and she’s crying… so Jimmy serves up the good old “I was just kidding”.

Well… what are they going to say, to remove the Trumpian foot out of his mouth? There’s nothing to say. “I was just kidding” isn’t going to fly; not because it’s not funny, but simply because he wasn’t kidding.

What Trump said basically was… “My reelection is so much more important than all of you, that I really don’t care if you all die… well, ha ha, not all of you… but let’s not go crazy testing you all… because we will see numbers that will make me look bad. So let’s just slow down this testing, and pretend things are not as bad as they are.”

That’s a heavy dose of reality for a lot of people to wrap their heads around. The guy you’ve been defending for more than four years, telling you, in your face, literally… it’s ok if we don’t know you’re all sick. That’s not as important as my re-election.

Maybe, just maybe… some people will wake up and see… that they’re being scammed, by the greatest scammer of them all.

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By |2020-10-08T01:22:24-07:00June 21st, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, The First 100 Days, Politics, Life in Vancouver, Humour, Sports & Gaming, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |13 Comments
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Day 60 – May 15, 2020

“Collect as much data as you can for now.” — this is a mantra that is common in many different disciplines, especially the ones where you’re not sure what data matters. One day, you’ll have a chance to look back on it and figure out what matters, but for the most part, especially initially, the thing to do gather as much as you can, and eventually learn from it.

“Eventually” could mean decades from now. It could also mean tomorrow. In fact, it could even mean 15 minutes from now. On that note, as you’re reading this, somewhere, on the periphery of your focus, there are ads and sponsored posts and other slight differences that are being thrown at you; an experience that will differ slightly for someone else. Some of it is based on your history, but some of it is just data collecting… like, does it work better to use this ad or that ad? Does it work better in red or green? Does it work better positioned here or there? This data is all being crunched, often in real-time — to deliver to you the most pleasant experience possible. Haha, sorry, not quite — to deliver to you the most profitable experience for someone… is the better answer. Facebook is worth $500 billion, and their revenue stream has to come from somewhere, since 99.999% of the people who use Facebook have never given them a penny… so, rest assured, those who are paying want to make sure they’re getting their maximum bang for the buck.

And, of course, an awful lot of data is being collected about this virus, and there are disagreements about what’s important. As per above, it’s always a good idea to gather it all and then figure out later what matters and what doesn’t. Sophisticated modelling techniques do this all the time. For example, a neural network. That sounds a lot fancier or scarier than it really is. It’s not some sort of artificial brain which can think for itself, become sentient and launch an attack on humanity… rather, it’s just software for taking a ton of data, much of it possibly unrelated, and grinding through it in such a way that it “learns” what inputs are relevant to outcomes, and which are noise. A properly trained neural network can be very useful for predicting outcomes that a person may not as easily see, because it’ll have filtered out the irrelevant aspects and focused only on what makes a difference.

A simple example would be trying to train a neural network to predict the outcome of horse races. This is a project that as been on my “to-do” list for about 30 years, and perhaps if enough horse racing returns soon, and I’m still locked up at home, I’ll finally have a chance to work on it. And I will tell you exactly what I plan to do, and what I hope to find. The first thing is to take tens of thousands of historical races and format the data in a way that it can be fed into a neural net. Then, it will grind away on it, “learning”… and I would assume it’ll find a high correlation for specific horses with respect to things like fractional quarter-mile times, weight carried, relative class of opponents and track-surface-conditions. It’ll find a low correlation with things like the name of the horse, what time the race was run and what day of the week it was. That’s the beauty of the neural network; just throw all of the data at it, and let it figure out what matters. It might figure out correlations for specific horses… that even the most astute handicapper or sharpest bookie might miss.

I know a lot of people reading this are thinking whoa dude, that’s pretty cool. Yes, it is… it would be. I’ll keep you posted.

More relevant to all of us are our local numbers, and there are many to look at. We are on track (haha!!) for opening things up soon, and, at least around here, it makes sense. It’s been a while since I’ve talked about “Time To Double”, so let’s look at that a bit. The graphs below don’t do justice entirely to where we’re at, because TTDs when presented in this fashion becomes a “lagging” indicator. Things are better than what those graphs imply, if you’re looking at the TTD lines.

Recall, back in the day… like back in March, which seems like it was 20 years ago… we were looking at some scary TTD numbers. The new-cases numbers were increasing by about 25% day-over-day, a TTD of about 3. Scary exponential growth.

If we take some averages of the last 5 days of confirmed new cases… the TTDs and percentages look like this:

B.C.: 130 (0.53%)
Ontario: 43 (1.63%)
Quebec: 37 (1.89%)

Canada: 44 (1.62%)

These are obviously very-flattened curves, compared to where we were.

I am well aware of the people standing up screaming that those numbers aren’t real. Have a seat, and let’s discuss the obvious. Of course not. There are more, and have been more, cases than we’ve “known” about. We will in due course know how “off” we were… like is the real number 10x that? 100x? 1,000x? I’d love it, if it were 2,000x because that’d mean we’ve all been exposed to this, and if you believe that gives you immunity (and that seems to be the case with coronaviruses in general), we’d be in great shape. That number is way too big, but while I’m here, in an effort to make numbers and guesses and projections more accurate for all of us, I urge you all to visit the bccdc dot ca site and take the survey. You may even get a serological antibody test out of it.

Inaccuracy of those particular numbers aside, there are some concrete ones which are indisputable… hospitalizations, ICU cases, “pressure on the medical infrastructure” and excess deaths… to name a few of the most critical ones. These numbers vary wildly around the world, but they’re the best indicators, along with new cases, to indicate how close jurisdictions are to phasing-in re-openings. At least around here, those numbers look good… good enough that we’re marching ahead to the next phase.

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By |2020-10-08T01:24:24-07:00May 15th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, The First 100 Days, Science of COVID-19, Travel Stories, Sports & Gaming, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |5 Comments
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