Sometimes a strange notion. It may not seem like it, but I often resist. 
Happy 4th 
Everybody!
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And this timeā¦ you didnāt.
I cannot unsee that. More therapy please.
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Hmmmmm. They do both tell long stories.
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Even this time, I conferred.
By a clever manipulation of the Wyze API I managed to maintain on the same cam simultaneously Cam Plus Lite and Cam Plus subscriptions which it so happens is the access key to their advanced neural network and machine learning hardware portal.
Speaking in complete sentiences āweā weighed the issue together - though I have to say āheā was a little pushy.
Ultimately āweā decided it was in the best interest of āsocietyā to post.
So I did.
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Well.
I was of course referring to Gabeās shaggy dog uncle stories et al. alongside the carverās meticulous completist tomes.
Youāre good.
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Meticulous completist tomes. I like this phrasing. It has the appropriate weight. 
Sometimes I live in the country
Sometimes I live in town
Sometimes I have a great notion
To jump in to the river and drown
Leadbelly (1933)
Ken Kesey (1964) 700 pp
Paul Newman / John Gay (1971)
Paul Simon (1975)
Ā
Speaking of time, the āGreat Notionā film is a throwback to a time when movies lasted 2+ hours and you saw a couple at a time in a theater. āTakesā were long and you had time to study the action before a cut took you somewhere else.
In modern parlance, āboring.ā
But, if youāre the type that can stand things like black-and-white, the film letās you steep in a time and a place and a people for a while.
Somewhere in the US, I think. 
Happy 4th!
Ā
I just randomly saw this thread today, 4 days late (often I am just checking notifications based on my profile preferences to tell me about new topics in specific subjects/tags, so sometimes I miss a bunch of threads like this).
Man, that is one good-looking guy. I might have to grow out a mustache now.
Corrected the below for you:
There, now itās a bit more accurate 
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We were wondering where you were. Tending to the professional poker playing I expect.
Hmm, something in the sizing I guess, but peep afforded you a far less luxurious stache for some reasonā¦
At least he didnāt pick Carver, P.I. and have you pushing reverse mortgages extra hard because itās not your first time at the rodeo. ("Itās not some scheme that will make you lose your home!* < reads on-screen fine print > Itās a scheme that will make you lose your home.)
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Heh, I would suck at professional poker playingā¦though not for the reasons you would thinkā¦itās not that I am not good at playing poker.
The last few times I played poker, I won a lotā¦the problem is that I always feel bad for the people I took everything from, so when I am done and ready to leave, I always give back everything I won to the people who I either took the most from, or who are the most in debt or in need in some way.
Iāve seen gambling destroy friendships and such from people needing someone to project their negative emotions onto. I play games for fun, so I go into these situations with the commitment that when I am done I will leave with nothing, and if I have more than nothing then I give it away before I leave, preferably through selective distribution of who is most in need, rather than from ālosing itā to the house or someone else during risky behavioral choices.
I donāt like contention, etc. and I have found that the above ensures that nobody tries to project their negative feelings about ālosingā as me abusing them in some way. So I enjoy myself a lot more, and I never leave playing being upset if I āloseā either because I already committed that I wouldnāt leave with anything. What I entered with was just my fee to play and enjoy myself. I donāt think I ever left ālosingā anywayā¦I do like to be very analytical and use some logic and math with my playingā¦but I have no interest in gambling.
I mostly prefer other games like Chess (I am constantly playing multiple games at a time through the chess dot com app)ā¦andā¦donāt think less of meā¦but my favorite card game is Magic the Gathering! Which is arguably possibly the most complex strategy game on earth. Exponentially more so than Chessā¦though I donāt play it too often, I do love it.
Yeah, total nerd and softie at the same timeā¦I mean, what kind of crazy man gives away their winnings to the losers when theyāre done?
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Understood. I hate gambling too. Even just the mechanics of āplaying for moneyā are a pain in the rear. Games are much more fun without it.
But I was really just looking for some gratuitous Selleck bashing.
Oh, on a related note, Jerry and Marge Go Large is a mildly amusing old person romp around math and the lottery.
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Harder to achieve than one might think.
Heh. At no time do you risk maintaining control of your property. Itās a lock!
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Had the S.O. wrap her tongue around this in your honor. āHappy to do it,ā she purred.
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Heh, didnāt see that coming. Laughed out loud. Chuckled, even.
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So youāre competitive but you donāt like to beat people. The paradoxical Mr. C.
Cheers, brother.
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Iām competitive, I like to beat people, but I donāt like people to be beaten down. I prefer non-zero sum game competitions when possible.
For example, @spamoni @R.Good and I have countless competitions against each other. Who has the most of certain kind of forum badges, or forum stats or Other Wyze badges, and a whole bunch of other things just for fun.
The more either of them ābeatsā me in any of those ways doesnāt actually take anything away from me. I can 100% celebrate their achievements and encourage them for more while also spurring myself to try to catch up or beat them in those ways while maintaining my lead in the others and good naturedly rubbing it in that I am the king in some areas. Honestly, everyone wins. We love it, it continually incentivizes us to continue to do better and improve, and the real winners are the community members we are always helping out. In reality thatās what the stats and badges represent or symbolizeā¦ How much weāve helped and contributed to the community. So our friendly competitions with each other are not just enjoyable and not taking away anything from each other for any one of us to get āmoreā or get ahead in some way so none of us is ever upset even if weāre not in the āleadā because itās all positive and all represents positive things. We started doing all this before we were even Mavens. We got together in a DM and worked together to decide how to help people out and have fun with it as much as possible and here we are still going at it years later with a strong brotherhood that was founded on helping the community and improved through friendly competition with each other using a non-zero-sum game strategy for progress and improvement.
It works for us, but itās not for everyone. That kind of uplifting support where everyone comes out better for it and nobody needs to have hurt feelings is by far my preferred kind of competition and way I enjoy ābeatingā a friend without ābeating them downāā¦
That being said, I still play a lot of chess every day and I still never āletā people win, but I do celebrate with them when they make excellent moves, even strangers, and when they beat me. I treat chess as more like life as if itās more of a dance than a competitionā¦ There is no āloserā in a dance, itās just beautiful choreography involving action and reaction and making the best responses without necessarily being āwrongā moves in certain perspectives. Even when ālosingā I can enjoy the game and continue to make the best action/reaction with whatever position I find myself in just as one would in a dance. I donāt see it as a win/lose outcome but the playing out of a beautiful choreography.
When I have opponents who do get frustrated at losing I will often use the ELO rankings statistical predictions to help them feel better about it. For example, one guy who continually challenges and asks me for advice was frustrated heās only beat me 10% of the time. I showed him that based on our ELO estimated rankings he should only be beating me 5% of the time. Which means that from that perspective he is winning because heās performing higher than the statistical prediction. As long as he is winning more than 1 in 20 matches heās actually the winner out of that set of matches because he beat the balanced tournament style calculation. It gives him something true to feel better about without being so focused on the micro-scale. There are different ways to turn a zero sum game into something less emotionally charged and still enjoyable for all.
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Competition is always fun and allows us to rise to the challenge. But only when it is done in a positive way.
As Stated, We compete on things a lot but we also support and recognize each others achievements.
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