u/bluerog

My favorite shark attacks are the ones in Kentucky, Utah, Philadelphia, Missouri, and New Mexico.

Source:

https://www.sharkattackfile.net/incidentlog.htm

and

https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/shark-attacks/maps/world-interactive/ (from which I stole most of the material).

Inspired by the 2021 CBS News article

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/shark-attacks-landlocked-states-kentucky-missouri-new-mexico/

Pick your best civ. Yes, that includes Grand Colombia, Portugal, Babylon...

How quickly can you achieve a Domination Victory? I did it 2 years ago in 147 turns. I've never even gotten close again. I'm trying again with Matthias.

Cultural victories happen by accident. Use skills to avoid that. I for instance take 3 capitals in 2 or 4 turns after a steamrolled victory is eminent to avoid Cultural.

The house came with a 10-1/2 ft by 7-1/2 ft galley kitchen and a 14' by 10' dining room. It's just wife and I; we use the dining room 4 and 6 times a year.

Took down the wall between dining room and kirchen. Moved the half bath forward 8 feet and turned it into a full bath.

Added new cabinets and a kitchen island for a much bigger kitchen.

There's really no place in the living room for a larger TV. The fireplace is the middle hasn't been used in 10 years. (Oldnowner didn't know if it was safe anymore). So... Why not keep the fireplace usable, and place the TV in front?

Thoughts are appreciated.

Cabinets were from a kit. I kind of slid the cabinet enclosure over the brick.

Note: Folks that say "fix the wood burning fireplace and start using it instead"... Probably have never had a home with a fireplace. I'm not the only person who's had a fireplace, and not used it because of the hassle, the mess, and that a fireplace is unnecessary.

I've driven the Road to Hana in Maui and Tail of the Dragon in North Carolina. Been to Ocean Drive in Miami, Broadway, Magnificent Mile in Chicago, Mulholland Drive and so on.

I just got back from Vegas. We grabbed a convertible. Las Vegas Boulevard is my new favorite street to drive.

The Iran deal was released 10 minutes ago.

The document is essentially a "peace-for-normalization" framework:

• Iran stops pursuing nuclear weapons and freezes its current nuclear activities.
• The U.S. ends sanctions, releases frozen Iranian assets, and allows Iran back into global oil markets.
• Both sides stop military operations and agree not to attack each other.
• The U.S. helps facilitate a massive economic rebuilding effort in Iran.
• A final, detailed agreement is supposed to be negotiated within 60 days.

The biggest surprise is how much the U.S. is offering beyond just sanctions relief:

• Removal of nearly all sanctions.
• Restoration of Iranian oil exports.
• Access to frozen Iranian funds.
• Support for $300 B dollars in economic development. (edited.. I forgot to add the "B")
• Withdrawal of military forces from the region.

https://apnews.com/article/mou-transcript-iran-us-war-8576fbe2be1309977e903463fbf57ee6

TLDR: Take this for a spin and give thoughts. And any ideas to speed up this up?

Here's a formula-driven blackjack engine inside Excel that deals shoes, plays the hands according to configurable rules and count-based strategy, calculates bets and outcomes, then summarizes how the betting system performs over hundreds or thousands of shoes. No visual basic or macros.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LjH6yIz51Uy0sbSEfqWIY67TiypQUBB0/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=102368984503747099936&rtpof=true&sd=true

Basic Operation: Put in the bets you want to make at different true counts, then calculate. I do this by copying the formula down in HandEvaluate a few thousand rows. Change A2 to start at a different random shoe. Then refresh pivot table to view metrics).

I**'m not going to keep it public long. But I could use ideas to speed this up. And frankly, I'd like to show it off. Use only for personal use with credit to bluerog if you need. Don't monetize it.**

At a basic level, it works like this:

1. The Shoe tab contains 1,000 randomized 6-deck shoes [XLOOKUP(SORTBY(SEQUENCE(312), RANDARRAY(312)),$A:$A,$D:$D)]
2. The HandEvaluate tab walks through each shoe card-by-card.
   1. Each row represents a step in a hand: initial deal, player action, split branch, dealer action, or resolution.
   2. Formulas track the current hand state, running count, true count, decisions, bets, results, and final win/loss.
3. The Rules and Betting tab controls rules, bet ramps, deviations options, and performance metrics.
   1. Performance merics use sumifs, but I pull those from a refreshable pivot table to speed metrics up.
4. The Matrix tab allows the user to put in basic strategy and even deviations beyond the 20 or so most valuable ones.

Key features include:

• 6-deck shoe simulation
• Hi-Lo running count and true count
• Bet ramp based on pre-hand true count
• Basic strategy matrix lookups
• Illustrious 18 / Fab 4 style deviations
• 2-card vs 3+ card strategy logic
• Dealer H17 logic
• Double after split
• Insurance at count thresholds
• Split handling up to 4 hands
• Split ace rules: including can-split and one-card-only behavior
• Dealer blackjack and player blackjack handling
• Blackjack payout logic

Metrics:

• Win/loss settlement by individual player hand
• HandID and PlayerHandID tracking
• Shoe-level metrics
• EV, SCORE, N₀, risk of ruin, dollars per 100 hands, drawdowns, and bankroll growth metrics

Objectives:

• Test whether a blackjack strategy is profitable under specific rules.
• Show how much value a bet ramp and counting deviations add.
• Verify edge cases that simple simulators often miss, especially splits, split aces, doubles, insurance, dealer blackjack, and 3+ card deviations.
• Give practical bankroll and volatility metrics instead of just “win/loss.”
• Stress-tests exact stacked decks to confirm the logic is resolving hands correctly.
• Provides a transparent formula-based model where every decision and result can be audited in Excel.