Questions and answers in The Star-Spangled Banner

The Star-Spangled Banner, by Francis Scott Key, poses several questions. It also answers them all.

Verse 1 has two questions:

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?

and

O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Both of these are answered in verse 4:

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Verse 2 asks:

What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

This is answered in the same verse:

‘Tis the star-spangled banner – O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Verse 3 asks:

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?

This is answered in the same verse:

Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,

There is also an unofficial fifth verse by Oliver Wendell Holmes, which asks no questions.

Recording a Zoom meeting both locally and in the cloud

It’s possible to record a Zoom meeting both locally and in the cloud.

Why would you want to? Because:

1. Your local machine might crash, or lose internet access. The cloud recording is generally more reliable
2. Cloud recordings mix the audio from all the speakers into a single file. Local recordings have the option to record the audio from each speaker to a separate file

Having both recordings gives you the best of both worlds.

How do you do it? It’s complicated.

1. Before the meeting – on the machine where you want to do the local recording:
   1. Install the Zoom desktop app. The web client isn’t sufficient.
   2. Log in to the Zoom desktop app.
   3. Click on your profile picture > Settings > Recording > Advanced > Record separate participant audio files
2. During the meeting – you need two hosts
   1. The person who starts the meeting is a host.
   2. The host makes another person in the meeting into a co-host.
   3. The host (or co-host) who is connecting from the machine where you want to do the local recording starts recording locally. This recording has to start first. If a cloud recording is running, nobody can start a local recording!
   4. The co-host (or host) starts a cloud recording. Now both recordings are running at the same time
   5. When you’re done, either the host or co-host stops recording. Note that this stops both recordings.
3. After the meeting – grab the recording files
   • The local recording is on the machine where you made the recording. It’s in Documents > Zoom > (folder for the meeting.) There will be a .mp4 file with the video and mixed audio; a .m4a file with only the mixed audio; and an “Audio Record” file with separate .m4a audio files for each speaker
   • The cloud recording is in https://zoom.us/recording/ with three downloadable files: a .mp4 file with the video and mixed audio; a .m4a file with only the mixed audio; and a .vtt file with captions

Pokémon Go friend codes and violence rates by gender identity

Trigger warning: transphobia

I play Pokémon Go. I’m trying to get a Vivillon with perfect 15/15/15 individual values (IVs) in every Scatterbug region. So far I have five out of 18

To farm Scatterbugs from a desired region I go to https://www.pokemongofriendcodes.com/ and search for particular countries which lie entirely that region:

• Icy Snow: Finland
• Sun: Angola, Guatemala, Kenya
• …

Then it’s just a numbers game

1. Send N friend requests to (say) Finland
2. N * x% of the requests are accepted
3. N * x% * y% of my new friends send me gifts, at varying schedules
4. N * x% * y% * z% of those gifts are actually from Finland
5. I pin each postcard from Finland to my scrapbook
6. Every 15th pinned postcard gives me a Scatterbug from Icy Snow
7. Every Scatterbug from Ice Snow has a 1/216 chance to have perfect 15/15/15 IVs

Some of my friends are liars! They claim to be from Finland, but when I get the gift, it’s actually from a completely different country. z% < 100%

Also – z% varies wildly by country! Countries with a high population have a high z%, and countries with a low population have a lower z%

• If you send a lot of friend requests to the United States, or Germany, or Japan, you will have a very good chance of getting gifts that are actually from the United States, or Germany, or Japan
• If you send a lot of friend requests to Fiji, or Cyprus, or Trinidad and Tobago, you will have only a moderate chance of getting gifts that are actually from Fiji, or Cyprus, or Trinidad and Tobago

This is not because people from different countries lie at different rates – it’s a purely statistical effect

Imagine there are only two countries:

• Bigistan (population 100,000)
• Smallvania (population 2,000)

Imagine further that 99% of people tell the truth (in both countries)

You send a friend request to Smallvania, and you get a gift. What is the chance that the gift is actually from Smallvania?

Actual country	Truth tellers	Liars	Percent truthful
Bigistan	99,000	1,000	99%
Smallvania	1,800	200	99%

Claimed country	Claimants	Claim is accurate	Percent accurate
Bigistan	99,200	99,000	99.8%
Smallvania	2,800	1,800	64%

Even though 99% of people tell the truth, only about two-thirds of the gifts you get are from Smallvania!

This is an example of error. Whenever you see a number – in this case, 2,800 – you should ask yourself how likely the number is to be correct; and, if it is incorrect, how far off it is likely to be

Now to the main point. I’m an ally for transgender people, and gender-critical people frequently trot out this infographic to prove that transgender people are “prone to sexual violence”

The relevant data is:

Actual identity	Truth tellers	Liars	Percent truthful
Cisgender man	?	?	?
Transgender woman	?	?	?

Claimed identity	Claimants	Claim is accurate	Percent accurate
Cisgender man	11,660	?	?
Transgender woman	92	?	?

How can we figure out the missing values? Let:

• P be the total prison population
• y% be the percentage of people who are actually cisgender. We will assume that this is the same in the prison population as it is in the general population
• z% be the percentage of people who tell the truth

Actual identity	Truth tellers	Liars	Percent truthful
Cisgender man	Pyz	Py(1 – z)	z%
Transgender woman	P(1 – y)z	P(1 – y)(1 – z)	z%

Claimed identity	Claimants	Claim is accurate	Percent accurate
Cisgender man	Pyz + P(1 – y)(1 – z)	Pyz	Pyz / (Pyz + P(1 – y)(1 – z))
Transgender woman	P(1 – y)z + Py(1 – z)	P(1 – y)z	P(1 – y)z / (P(1 – y)z + Py(1 – z))

Plugging in the numbers from the graphic and solving:

Actual identity	Truth tellers	Liars	Percent truthful
Cisgender man	11,660	73	99.38%
Transgender woman	19	0	100%

Claimed identity	Claimants	Claim is accurate	Percent accurate
Cisgender man	11,660	11,660	100%
Transgender woman	92	19	20.7%

This is consistent with the data but runs into quantization errors. Let’s multiply the population by 100, to include transgender prisoners falsely claiming to be cisgender:

Actual identity	Truth tellers	Liars	Percent truthful
Cisgender man	1,166,025	7,263	99.38%
Transgender woman	1,900	12	99.37%

Claimed identity	Claimants	Claim is accurate	Percent accurate
Cisgender man	1,166,037	1,166,025	99.999%
Transgender woman	9,163	1,900	20.7%

Even though 161 out of 162 prisoners tell the truth, only about one-fifth of the prisoners who claim to be transgender women are actually transgender women!

As before, when you see a number – in this case, 92 – you should ask yourself how likely that number is to be correct, and, if it is incorrect, how far off it is likely to be

Gigantamax Butterfree and Max Particles

Last time we talked about Gigantamax Lapras. This time we’ll talk about Gigantamax Butterfree.

Battling a Gigantamax Butterfree costs 800 Max Particles (MP.) How many battles can I do?

On Sunday from midnight to 5:00 PM, the following bonuses will be in effect:

• Completing a walk gives 600 MP instead of 300 MP
• Walking takes 1/2 km instead of 2 km

And from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM the following bonuses will also be in effect:

• Gigantamax Butterfree is battleable in MP spots
• The MP daily collection limit is 1,600 MP instead of 800 MP
• Slurping gives 800 + 20 MP instead of 100 + 20 MP

There is a Gigantamax Butterfree Max Battle Day Lead-Up Timed Research event with three 300 MP tasks and a 500 MP completion reward.

The Go Pass: July timed research has some MP tasks but I collected them all.

Collection strategy:

1. On Saturday, fill up the bag to (1,500 – X) MP where X is as small as possible, but still greater than 0
2. Collect a final 300 MP walk for the day
3. Complete (but do not collect) a 300 MP walk
4. On Sunday, after 2:00 PM, collect the 300 MP  from the completed walk
5. Complete and collect two more walks, at 600 MP each
6. Do a final slurp for 800 + 20 MP
7. Collect the 3*300 + 500 MP from timed research (or more, if you have it). This is the last MP that counts for spending on Gigantamax Butterfree battles, but the strategy continues…
8. Before 5:00 PM, complete (but do not collect) one last walk
9. On Monday, do six slurps at 100 + 20 MP
10. Only now, collect the 600 MP walk from Sunday

Total MP for Gigantamax Butterfree purposes: 1,500 – X + 300 + 300 + 2*600 + 820 + 1,400 MP = 5,520 – X MP. At 800 MP each I can do six battles with 720 – X MP of slack.

If you do Ambassador Community Events, you can get a timed research event for 800 MP, but I don’t bother.

How I voted – August primary 2025

I filled out my ballot today for the August 2025 primary and special election. This time I put my votes into a Google Sheets document.

(I have a bunch of my votes for previous elections in an Excel spreadsheet. I will probably move the content of this spreadsheet into the Google Sheets document over time.)

There were two levy propositions – one for a county-wide automated fingerprint information system (AFIS), and one for a hospital. I voted against both, mostly because levies are a way around property tax limits and I disagree with them on general principle.

There are a LOT of people running for King County Executive and some of them I weren’t able to find useful information on. Of those I did, Amiya Ingram was the most compelling, so I voted for her.

For Legislative District No. 48 Representative Position No. 1 honorable mention goes to Osman Salahuddin’s fabulous purple suit. Despite this, I voted for Dennis Ellis because of his financial analysis experience.

The hardest decision was for Legislative District No. 48 State Senator. Amy Walen and Vandana Slatter are both excellent candidates. I chose Ms. Walen because I found her social media profile less curated.

Gigantamax Lapras and Max Particles

Last time we talked about Gigantamax Rillaboom:

Gigantamax Rillaboom and Max Particles

This Saturday is Gigantamax Lapras:

How many Gigantamax Lapras battles can I do?

The Go Pass: July timed research event has three 100 MP rewards (if you bought the upgrade there are also three 400 MP rewards, but I didn’t) and the Gigantamax Lapras Max Battle Day Lead-Up Timed Research event has three 300 MP rewards and a 500 MP reward. These count against your MP collection limit for the day – unless you have already hit it. Alas, I collected one of the 100 MP rewards prematurely.

On Saturday these bonuses are in effect from midnight to 5 PM:

• Walk distance is lowered from 2 km to 1/2 km
• Walk reward is increased from 300 MP to 600 MP

And these are in effect from 2 PM to 5 PM:

• MP collection limit is increased from 800 MP to 1,600 MP
• Slurp reward is increased from 100 MP + 20 MP to 800 MP + 20 MP

The collection strategy that gives the most MP is:

1. On Friday, fill up the MP bag. Collect and spend to (1,500 – X) MP where X is as small as possible. Then collect a 300 MP walk to end up at (1,800 – X) MP. Finally, finish another 2 km walk, but do not collect it
2. On Saturday, collect the 300 MP walk from Friday, plus two additional 1/2 km walks for 600 MP each. Then do a final slurp for 820 MP to go over the collection limit. Finally collect all the timed research

This gives 1,800 – X + 300 + 2*600 + 820 + 3*100 + 3*300 + 500 = 5,820 – X MP

A Gigantamax Lapras battle costs 800 MP, so I can do seven of them, with (220 – X) MP to spare. I have wasted 100 MP of this already so I have to be careful.

(If you check in to a Community Ambassador event on Saturday, you can get another timed research event with a further 800 MP reward, but I don’t bother.)

Gigantamax Rillaboom and Max Particles

Last time we talked about Gigantamax Machamp:

Gigantamax Machamp and Max Particles

This weekend is Gigantamax Rillaboom:

How many Gigantamax Rillaboom battles can I do?

Saturday and Sunday are not normal days – and, this time, neither is Friday! The collection limit is raised to 1,600 MP instead of 800 MP, and slurping gives 800 + 20 MP instead of 100 + 20 MP.

The collection strategy that gives the most MP is:

1. On Friday, fill up the MP bag. Collect and spend to (1,500 – X) MP where X is as small as possible. Then do a final slurp after 10 AM to carry (2,320 – X) MP into Saturday
2. On Saturday, collect five walks for 1,500 MP. Then do a final slurp for 820 MP
3. On Sunday, collect five walks for 1,500 MP. Then do a final slurp for 820 MP

This gives 2,320 – X + 2,320 + 2,320 MP = 6,960 – X MP.

Gigantamax Rillaboom battles are 800 MP, so I can do eight of them, with (560 – X) MP of slack. This means I need have at least 940 MP tomorrow before I do my final slurp.

On Saturday and Sunday, to avoid accidentally slurping prematurely, only touch a Power Stop if:

1. My MP bag is full, or
2. I am ready to slurp

If you’re down to do the Ambassador Community Event thing (I’m not,) that will give you another 800 MP on Saturday and another 800 MP on Sunday.

Hold on, though. Five walks is a lot. That’s 10 km a day. What if we swap three of the walks for a second slurp?

1. On Friday, fill the bag as before and carry (2,320 – X) MP into Saturday
2. On Saturday, walk twice and slurp once, in any order, for 2*300 + 820 MP. Then do a final slurp for 820 MP
3. On Sunday, walk twice and slurp once, in any order, for 2*300 + 820 MP. Then do a final slurp for 820 MP

This gives 2,320 – X + 2,240 + 2,240 MP = 6,800 – X MP. I can still do eight Gigantamax Rillaboom battles, with (400 – X) MP of slack.

Gigantamax Machamp and Max Particles

Sunday is Gigantamax Machamp day

I blogged recently about collecting MPs for Dynamax Suicune:

Dynamax Suicune and Max Particles part 1 – a normal day

Since then, the “bag is full” limit for normal days has gone up to 1,500 (instead of 1,000.)

Sunday is not a normal day:

1. The daily collection limit will be 1,600 (instead of 800)
2. Slurping gives 800 + 20 MP (instead of 100 + 20 MP)
3. Walking gives 600 MP (instead of 300 MP)
4. Walk distance is 1/2 km (instead of 2 km)

There is timed research this week that gives 3*300 + 500 MP when collected. This counts against the daily collection limit, unless you have already hit it.

The collection strategy is:

1. Finish Saturday with (1,800 – X) MP with X as low as possible by collecting to 1,500 – X MP and then collecting a final walk
2. On Sunday, walk once, and slurp once, in either order, for 800 + 20 + 600 MP = 1,420 MP
3. Do one final slurp for 800 + 20 MP = 820 MP. This will put you over the daily collection limit
4. Collect timed research for 3*300 + 500 MP = 1,400 MP
5. Total MP: 1,800 – X + 1,420 + 820 + 1,400 MP = 5,440 – X MP

To avoid slurping prematurely, be careful not to touch a Power Spot unless

1. You want to slurp, or
2. Your bag is full

Gigantamax Machamp battles are 800 MP each, so you can do 6 battles; you will have (640 – X) MP left over.

If you check in to an Ambassador Community Event, you can do a 7th battle.

I have already made a serious error by accidentally collecting one of the 300 MP timed researches, but this time there is a lot more slack built in to the system, so I still have a good chance of being able to do 6 Gigantamax Machamp battles.

UPDATE: My wife informs me it is impossible to collect 600 MP as the first walk on Sunday. You have to bring a completed or partially-completed 300 MP into the day from Saturday. This changes the collection strategy.

1. Finish Saturday with (1,800 – X) MP with X as low as possible by collecting to 1,500 – X MP and then collecting a final walk.
2. On Sunday, walk three times for 300 + 600 + 600 = 1500 MP.
3. Do one final slurp for 800 + 20 MP = 820 MP. This will put you over the daily collection limit
4. Collect timed research for 3*300 + 500 MP = 1,400 MP
5. Total MP: 1,800 – X + 1,500 + 820 + 1,400 MP = 5,520 – X MP

This is still six battles, but with 720 MP left over (or, for me, 420 MP, since I lost 300 MP due to carelessness)

Chess openings of consequence

Definition

I define a “chess opening of consequence” at level x% to be an opening position that is reached in at least x% of games between master-level players.

In this blog post I show all the chess openings of consequence at level 5%. There are eight:

Sicilian Defense: Modern Variations, Main Line

1. e4 c5
2. Nf3 d6
3. d4 cxd4
4. Nxd4 Nf6
5. Nc3

This position is reached in 6% of master games:

Ruy Lopez

1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Bb5

This position is reached in 5.5% of master games:

French Defense

1. e4 e6

This position is reached in 5.4% of master games:

Indian Defense: Anti-Nimzo-Indian

1. d4 Nf6
2. c4 e6
3. Nf3

This position is reached in 5.2% of master games:

Indian Defense: West Indian Defense

1. d4 Nf6
2. c4 g6

This position is reached in 5.3% of master games:

Queen’s Gambit

1. d4 d5
2. c4

This position is reached in 7.1% of master games:

English

1. c4

This position is reached in 10.1% of master games:

Reti

1. Nf3

This nice position is reached in 6.9% of master games:

Cult of the Purified One

In this post I answer four related questions about the IVs of purified Pokémon.

Q1: How bad can a purified Pokémon’s IVs be?

In Pokémon Go, every Pokémon has three Individual Values (IVs,) each of which ranges from 0 to 15:

• Attack
• Defense
• HP

For example, this Applin’s IVs are 7/1/2:

The best possible IVs are 15/15/15. Such a Pokémon is called “4*”, or “100%” or “hundo.” The worst possible IVs are 0/0/0.

You can battle members of Team Rocket, and steal – er, rescue – one of their Pokémon. Such a Pokémon is called a “shadow” Pokémon.

This shadow Skorupi is 1/11/7. Notice the purple cloud.

You can spend some resources to deprogram a shadow Pokémon. Such a Pokémon is called a “purified” Pokémon. Purification raises each IV by 2 (capped at 15.) If I were to purify the Skorupi it would become 3/13/9.

This means the lowest IVs a purified Pokémon can have is 2/2/2… or does it?

Trading a Pokémon to a friend rerolls the IVs. Each IV will change to a random number, between a minimum that depends on the level of friendship, and 15.

Friendship level	Hearts	Minimum IVs
Friend	0	0/0/0
Good Friend	1	1/1/1
Great Friend	2	2/2/2
Ultra Friend	3	3/3/3
Best Friend	4	5/5/5
Best Friend (Lucky)	4	12/12/12

Can we get a 0/0/0 purified Pokémon by making a new friend, convincing them to trade a purified Pokémon to us, and then repeating this process over and over again until we hit the 1/16³ = 1/4,096 chance of getting 0/0/0?

No. Trades involving a purified Pokémon are “special” (there are also other special trades) and require Good Friend or better, so it is impossible to get a 0/*/* or */0/* or */*/0 purified Pokémon.

A1: The worst a purified Pokémon’s IVs can be are 1/1/1.

Q2: What would it take to get a 1/*/* or */1/* or */*/1 purified Pokémon?

You can do one special trade a day.

Each trade with a Good Friend will cost you (and them) 1,000,000 stardust, and has a 1 – (14/15)³ = 631/3,375 ≈ 18.7% chance to give you a 1/*/* or */1/* or */*/1 Pokémon.

You can do up to six special trades with a particular Good Friend. The sixth one will push your friendship up to Great Friend, and then you need to shop around for a new player to friend.

A2: A new friend (or two); ~6,000,000 stardust; and a week’s worth of special trades.

Q3: What would it take to get a 1/1/1 purified Pokémon?

Each trade has a 1/15³ = 1/3,375 chance to give you a 1/1/1 Pokémon. If you do a special trade every day you should expect to get one at around 9 years and 3 months, after burning through about 600 friends.

You could economize friends by unfriending people after the sixth trade. After 120 days of unfriended-ness, the friendship level will reset. You can then re-friend them at Friend level and start over.

The hard part, though, will be sustaining the 1,000,000 stardust/day cost

A3: About 600 friends, ~4,000,000,000 stardust, and 9 years’ worth of special trades

Q4: What if we made it a team effort?

I propose the Cult of the Purified One.

To enter the cult, you need to:

1. Have a large amount of accumulated stardust (say, 20,000,000)
2. Not be friends with anyone in the cult (accounting for the 120-day reset period)

Cult member duties are:

1. Sunday: make a new friend (accounting for the 120-day reset period.) If there are an odd number of members in the cult, one member will get a week off
2. Every day:
   • Battle a member of Team Rocket
   • Rescue a shadow Pokémon
   • Purify it
   • Trade it with your new friend of the week
   • Screenshot the IVs of the purified Pokémon you receive and report it to cult management
3. Saturday: unfriend your new friend. This restarts the 120-day reset period
4. Sooner or later you will run out of stardust. Go back out into the world and help recruit new members for the Cause

If the cult has X members, there will be about X/2 trades every day, each of which gives two bites at the apple. It will take roughly 3,375/X days to find The Purified One.

To give a rough idea, a cult of 10 will take about a year. A cult of 100 will take about a month.

A4: About 9 person-years and 4,000,000,000 stardust

Cult management should take care that members do not become so attached to the cult lifestyle that they fail to report The Purified One when it arrives.