500 club

500 Card Game Course
A brief introduction.
500 is a card game suitable for 3, 4 or 5 players. It has been around for over a hundred years because it is easy to play and very enjoyable after one learns the basic rules.
It has elements of Bridge and Euchre in it but is unique in having a kitty that allows imagination and bluffing as well as card skill to dictate outcomes.
It is fun to play with unpredictable outcomes and surprises and an ability to choose to win or lose tricks.
The course will be over 12 weeks.
Each teaching session will be brief, 15 minutes, and to the point.
The first lesson will cover the basic rules and two practice hands.
Every session will then have an hour of actual play with supervision as required.
Small points to note.
The teacher is always right unless she/he is wrong.
There are many local rule variations and these can be adapted or adopted if desired.
I hope that there will be experienced players as well as beginners.
People who know how to play should encourage and assist those who are learning.
Remember outcomes in this game can be due to both good luck and skill.
The course will run for 12 weeks on Tuesday afternoons.
There may hopefully be some cross pollination with dedicated card players.
At the end of the course I would hope that a core of players might be happy to continue on a fortnightly basis or form a club if they so desire.
Alternatively we may just run monthly sessions for the rest of the year if requested. 500 is a game that does not need a club once you have established how to play. It is ideal for quiet times with friends on holiday, friends at home and in families, as well as a club setting.
The rules are available on the internet and in packs of 500 cards. Generally the best game of 500 is with a standard deck of cards which does not include the rules. Tactics are a different dimension. Bidding has certain formalities. Misere is a special subclass of 500 play.
So come along and learn the rules, play some games and develop a new life skill as well as interacting with other U3A members in a friendly setting that you might otherwise not have met.
H Lee. ex member Monash University 500 Club 1970.

 

 

 

ATTP wipeouts

angech says:
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December 1, 2019 at 1:48 pm

ATTP
“we tend to focus more on what we think will probably happen and not enough on what might happen. Even though what will probably happen could be pretty severe, the low-probability, high-impact outcomes carry the greatest risk. So, I do think we should be talking more about the potential worst-case scenarios.
A lot of what is suggested about tipping points is quite speculative; it’s very difficult to quantify the actual likelihood of them being triggered. Also some (like ice sheet retreat) might still be quite slow and may not even be truly irreversible.”

Perhaps if we compare what we do with diagnosing patients and what scientists do with diagnosing climate science it might offer another perspective.
The first comment is that looking for low probability high risk diagnoses is definitely not the way things are done.
Talking about them is interesting but practically they are of little value.
Concentrating on them, worst case scenarios is bad for two reasons.
Missing the obvious diagnosis and treatment is one.
Second is that it can be very upsetting to the patient and their family to be scared about things that are very unlikely to happen.
Medico legally we can see this when you sign a consent to an operation.
Worst case scenarios have to be brought to the attention of the patient.
When done in a one size fits all manner people can become so scared that they do not go through with an operation they desperately need.
angech says:
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December 1, 2019 at 2:05 pm

Tipping points and turning points, what is so hard? Apart from watching people turn themselves into pretzels being politically correct.
A tipping point is when one condition suddenly changes into another.
Importantly it does not have to be irreversible.
IPCC describes it as an event “The tipping point event may be irreversible.”
The best example would be actually tipping a glass of water onto the floor or breaking an egg.
The trouble with using analogies is that the are not actually the object under discussion and it may behave quite differently in other ways than the example.
Droughts, Floods, Racing and the Stockmarket.
“Its simple. sometimes we know things by modelling.”
Same problem.
The tipping points are “quite speculative”.
We do know after the event but are generally clueless before, despite having a lot of information.

 

 

4/6/2019

angech says:

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Willard says:
Let me put forward one single challenge:
1) Define just WTF you are talking about.
Don’t come back before you do-

No fair,
On three grounds.
You let Willis comment first without preconditions.
You then let people attack him ad hom incessantly.
Then you arbitrarily ban him for asking you, first, to 1) Define just WTF you are talking about.

While them that make the rules, enforces them, it leaves a lot of commentators on this site feeling slightly disgusted.