Mach Five

Nate Silver: Red Sox were a 278 million to 1 dog to be eliminated from the playoffs three times in 2011

2011-09-30T11:09:00.004-04:00

Nate Silver writes in FiveThirtyEight:

The following is not mathematically rigorous, since the events of yesterday evening were contingent upon one another in various ways. But just for fun, let’s put all of them together in sequence:

The Red Sox had just a 0.3 percent chance of failing to make the playoffs on Sept. 3.

The Rays had just a 0.3 percent chance of coming back after trailing 7-0 with two innings to play.

The Red Sox had only about a 2 percent chance of losing their game against Baltimore, when the Orioles were down to their last strike.

The Rays had about a 2 percent chance of winning in the bottom of the 9th, with Johnson also down to his last strike.

Multiply those four probabilities together, and you get a combined probability of about one chance in 278 million of all these events coming together in quite this way.

When confronted with numbers like these, you have to start to ask a few questions, statistical and existential.

Jesus. There's a difference between "mathematically unrigorous" and "a total sack of crap".

Penalties in soccer tournaments

2011-07-10T22:40:00.002-04:00

As far as I can tell, if a soccer match has to be decided by penalty kicks, many teams (men's and women's teams, club and national teams) simply ask for volunteers when filling out the lineup.

Call me naive, but I can't see how this is in any way optimal, either technically or psychologically. In this year's Womens' World Cup, the England side followed in the footsteps of the men's side by losing a shootout, and afterward the coach blasted the team in the press because nobody stepped up to volunteer for a penalty. In contrast, one of the coaches for the USA women's side watches the players take penalties in practice and picks the lineup from the available players accordingly.

Really, I can't see how asking for volunteers can possibly accomplish anything other than letting the players psych themselves out, and I'm shocked that teams at the highest levels of the sport do this.

Lance Berkman is my new favorite baseball player

2011-04-24T18:48:00.003-04:00

ESPN sideline reporter Wendy Nix: "You've hit more home runs against the Cincinnati Reds than any active player in major league baseball -- I don't know if you knew that. Why is that?"

Berkman: "I don't know. I think it's a statistical anomaly...I think it's just one of those things where everybody has a team that they seem to do better against, and then there are other teams, for whatever reason, you don't do well against, so I can't explain it. I've been asked that several times, but I have no legitimate explanation for it."

Random math fact of the moment

2011-04-07T19:23:00.003-04:00

The t-test is a statistical test used (among other reasons) to determine, given two samples drawn from normal distributions, whether the two distributions have equal mean. It was developed in 1908 by a chemist working for the Guinness brewery.

Dear Reggie Miller: Gus Johnson > you

2011-03-28T20:38:00.002-04:00

In Florida's overtime win over BYU in the round of 16 in the NCAA basketball tournament, Florida had the ball in the frontcourt with about 15 seconds remaining and the score tied. Gus Johnson asked if BYU should commit an intentional foul to try to get the ball back, and Reggie Miller reacted as if Gus asked him if the moon was made of green cheese. At the time Vernon Macklin, Florida's starting center (11.5 PPG in 24.5 minutes, 59.3% FG but 45.1% FT over 100 free throws or so) was on the floor, and Florida was in the double bonus (two free throws for every non-shooting foul).

I won't bore you with the math here, but suffice it to say that one can construct plausible percentages such that fouling Macklin quickly if given the chance is marginally the correct play. If Florida is in the one-and-one, it becomes a much better play. The better the offenses are, the worse the free throw shooter for Florida is, and the worse BYU's chances in overtime are (they looked pretty gassed down the stretch to this non-professional observer), the more the decision swings in favor of fouling.

What I find really interesting is that in Florida's next game, an overtime loss to Butler, nearly the same situation transpired. Florida had the ball with :30 left in a tie game. However, Florida coach Billy Donovan kept Macklin on the bench for the final possession. The only reason I can think of for this is that Donovan feared that Macklin might get fouled with significant time left on the clock, and it's quite possible that Donovan didn't think of this possibility until news of Gus Johnson's allegedly ridiculous question hit the interwebs.

I don't think it's correct to keep Macklin on the bench in the above scenario; I think it's better to have him on the line than to run a final possession without him. But it is very interesting that Donovan thought of this possibility and that he thought that Butler coach Brad Stevens would have thought of it also.

Props to Jay Bilas for not being results-oriented

2011-03-28T20:25:00.002-04:00

He stands by his claim that VCU didn't deserve to make the NCAA tournament.

Of course UAB, another team he panned, got blown out in the play-in round, but he correctly refuses to use that as post-hoc justification as well.

Egyptian protests

2011-01-30T18:41:00.002-05:00

The people of Egypt seem to be pretty pissed about the amount of time their president spends playing online poker.

Knee-jerk reactions

2011-01-11T20:59:00.003-05:00

I don't know if our current gun control laws are optimal. I am fairly confident, though, that public shootings are sufficiently rare events that drafting new gun control laws in their wake is a bad idea.

The sabermetric revolution is coming to public schools

2010-08-18T18:02:00.008-04:00

LA Times and some guy at the Rand Corporation: Some elementary school teachers in the LAUSD are much more effective than others (as measured by performance on standardized tests), and that distribution doesn't correlate particularly well with the prestige of the school, seniority beyond ~3 years, additional degrees and training, or a bunch of other factors that people usually think are important.

Head of LAUSD teachers' union: LOL Rand Corp. are a bunch of idiots, the study is flawed because of (insert super-obvious criticism here), we're boycotting the LA Times.

P != NP

2010-08-09T21:49:00.001-04:00

So some guy at HP who appears to have a pretty good reputation has claimed to prove that P != NP. Not only am I relieved that I don't have to stop transmitting sensitive data on the Internet, I also get to post this screencap from an episode of Futurama which aired in 2000.

Transpositions and S_n

2010-07-04T11:52:00.040-04:00

According to official TV listings, there is an upcoming episode of Futurama called "The Prisoner of Benda" involving a device which allows people to switch minds. The title seems to be a riff off "The Prisoner of Zenda", a novel in which a fictional king is abducted and a distant relative who happens to look like the king is forced to impersonate him.

A few months ago, one of the staff writers for Futurama leaked the following photo of a script from the new season:

(Photo hosted by Futurama Madhouse.)

The page appears to be a lemma concerning the number of transpositions required to construct a permutation on the first n elements of the set {1, 2, ..., n, A, B} when one element of the transposition is one of the first n indices and the other element is one of the two auxiliary indices. Constructing permutations out of transpositions via algorithms such as selection sort and bubble sort is of course well-known; the only wrinkle here seems to be the auxiliary set.

It seems fairly straightforward to construct the denouement of the episode (or an approximation thereof) from this information: our heroes start fooling around with the mind-swapping device and somehow end up imprisoned. They discover that the device has a limited number of charges and need to undo the mind-swapping, but they're positioned such that one end of the device is in their cell and the other end of the device is in an adjacent cell inhabited by two other people/animals/potted plants/whatever. However, it seems to me that only one auxiliary element is needed to construct a k-cycle, and that it only requires (k+1) moves, so I could well be missing something here.

Here's the basic algorithm: assume we have a k-cycle which does not fix 1; otherwise this reduces to the (k-1) case. Write out the n-cycle in two-row form. For example, the permutation 2->4->1->3->2 on 4 elements would be written as

1	2	3	4	A	B
3	4	2	1	A	B

Swap 1 and A:

1	2	3	4	A	B
3	4	2	A	1	B

Swap A with whatever element belongs in the spot it's in now (in this example, 4):

1	2	3	4	A	B
3	A	2	4	1	B

Repeat the step above (in this case, swap A and 2), and continue until done. Because the original permutation was a n-cycle, each step will involve swapping A with a different element of the set {1, 2, ..., n}, and the final step will undo the original permutation, with A in its original place:

1	2	3	4	A	B
4	2	4	1	A	B

1	2	3	4	A	B
3	2	A	4	1	B

1	2	3	4	A	B
A	2	3	4	1	B

1	2	3	4	A	B
1	2	3	4	A	B

More formally, given a n-cycle permutation sigma on {1, 2, ..., n}, apply the transposition (A, 1), then (A, sigma^(-1) 1), then (A, sigma^(-2) 1), ..., (A, sigma^(-(n-1)) 1), then (A, 1) again.

Producer David X. Cohen claimed that writer Ken Keeler (who has a Ph.D. in control theory from Harvard) penned this theorem specifically for the episode. Calling it a "theorem" is a stretch (it's about the level of a homework problem for an introductory undergrad course in discrete math), but nonetheless it's amusing that Keeler managed to work it in.

EDIT, 8/19/10: The actual episode aired tonight, and the wrinkle is that once two bodies use the mind-swapper, that same pair can never use it again. In this case, two extra bodies are both necessary (we used the A, 1 swap twice above, so the above method won't work) and sufficient to undo any permutation on {1, 2, ..., n}.

Suppose the minds in bodies {1, 2, ..., n} are permuted by a cyclic shift:

Bodies	1	2	...	n	A	B
Minds	2	3	...	1	A	B

Pick some i strictly less than n, and apply the transpositions on the pairs of bodies (A,1), (A,2), ..., (A,i) in that order:

Bodies	1	2	3	...	i	i+1	i+2	i+3	...	n	A	B
Minds	A	3	4	...	i+1	i+2	i+3	i+4	...	1	2	B

Bodies	1	2	3	...	i	i+1	i+2	i+3	...	n	A	B
Minds	A	2	4	...	i+1	i+2	i+3	i+4	...	1	3	B

Bodies	1	2	3	...	i	i+1	i+2	i+3	...	n	A	B
Minds	A	2	3	...	i+1	i+2	i+3	i+4	...	1	4	B

...

Bodies

...

i+1

i+2

i+3

...

Minds

...

i+2

i+3

i+4

...

i+1

Now apply (B, i+1), (B, i+2), ..., (B, n) in that order:

Bodies

...

i+1

i+2

i+3

...

Minds

...

i+3

i+4

...

i+1

i+2

Bodies

...

i+1

i+2

i+3

...

Minds

...

i+2

i+4

...

i+1

i+3

Bodies

...

i+1

i+2

i+3

...

Minds

...

i+2

i+3

...

i+1

i+4

...

Bodies

...

i+1

i+2

i+3

...

Minds

...

i+2

i+3

...

i+1

Now apply (A, i+1) and (B, 1):

Bodies

...

i+1

i+2

i+3

...

Minds

...

i+1

i+2

i+3

...

Every swap takes place between one element of {A,B} and one element of {1,2,...,n}, so the process by which {1,2,...,n} got swapped is irrelevant, and none of the swaps in our procedure are duplicated.

If the set {1,2,...,n} forms the only cycle that needs to be unpermuted, swap A and B. Otherwise, apply the same procedure to all disjoint cycles in succession. If there's an odd number of disjoint cycles, then A and B will need to be swapped at the end.

EDIT, 8/20/10: Welcome both of you io9 readers. Out of concern that somebody might actually read this, I've expanded the explanation of the algorithm slightly.

Note to David Ortiz

2010-04-20T23:46:00.002-04:00

Nobody's too good to have to fight for playing time. Mike Lowell and Jason Varitek realized this, perhaps because they didn't receive a two-week grace period at the beginning of this season.

"Honors is epaulets. Honors is uniforms."

2010-03-20T17:48:00.001-04:00

Life imitating Futurama

2010-03-09T21:31:00.003-05:00

A couple days ago, I got a letter from the government informing me that in about a week, they would be sending me a 2010 Census form. Obviously someone from the Department of Commerce is a Futurama fan.

"Attention Hermes Conrad: you are about to receive a letter from the Central Bureaucracy."

More LOL donkaments

2010-03-03T21:46:00.002-05:00

These are consecutive hands from a $33 heads-up match (the dollar signs in the graphics represent chips, not actual cash, for the uninitiated).

As an additional insult, Villain realized his shame and declined a rematch.

Fan noise during sporting events

2010-02-27T18:55:00.004-05:00

Apparently in curling, as in tennis, golf and some other sports, it is considered proper etiquette for fans to be silent while the players are in action. Various breaches of etiquette during the Vancouver Olympics have created somewhat of a kerfluffle.

Why exactly are the peanut galleries in these sports supposed to be quiet? It seems to me that noise per se shouldn't really be much of a problem for players in any of these sports. Sudden differentials in noise volume, however, would be a significant problem, and demanding that fans be silent exacerbates the problem -- it's a lot easier for a few obnoxious/ignorant fans to create a distraction when the rest of the crowd is silent than it is for a few thousand fans to suddenly start/stop cheering in unison.

Career passer ratings

2010-02-08T09:31:00.007-05:00

Fun game: Try to identify these NFL quarterbacks (all of whom have played in the 2000s) from their career regular season home/road passer rating splits (all statistics taken from pro-football-reference.com:

Quarterback A: 98.9/91.6
Quarterback B: 96.8/90.9
Quarterback C: 97.7/85.9
Quarterback D: 94.7/89.0
Quarterback E: 99.1/92.1
Quarterback F: 96.1/95.6
Quarterback G: 89.0/84.4
Quarterback H: 91.9/91.6
Quarterback I: 94.2/92.5

Answers in white below:

Quarterback A is Peyton Manning.
Quarterback B is Kurt Warner.
Quarterback C is Matt Schaub.
Quarterback D is Drew Brees.
Quarterback E is Tony Romo.
Quarterback F is Philip Rivers.
Quarterback G is Brett Favre.
Quarterback H is Ben Roethlisberger.
Quarterback I is Tom Brady.

For the alleged quant-fans who think that Quarterback A is the greatest quarterback of all time -- can you think of a reason why Quarterbacks A-E have such pronounced splits?

Ladbroke's welches on a parlay bet

2010-01-13T00:02:00.002-05:00

Apparently they took a parlay bet on snowfall on Christmas day in various cities around the UK and lost. Hooray for correlation!

Big Brother is watching

2010-01-12T19:15:00.003-05:00

And by "Big Brother", I mean a bunch of punkass kids fresh out of Harvard and Stanford.

Fun poker facts

2009-12-14T18:58:00.004-05:00

I just played a heads-up match against a fella who had a -33% ROI (return on investment) over 2,000 matches. I'd say that's probably statistically significant.

To put that in perspective, 32o stands roughly a 32.3% chance of winning against a random hand, according to PokerStove. Let's just call it 33%. So if he gets dealt 32 offsuit every time he plays heads-up, and always turns it faceup and pushes all-in preflop, he'll win 1 out of every 3 times and end up losing a total of 1 unit for every 3 invested, which is a ROI of -33%. Hilarious.

More bluffing with the best hand

2009-09-16T22:15:00.003-04:00

Straight draws are nice hands with which to bluff/semibluff because of the combination of fold equity and suckout equity. That being said, I was pretty sure I was toast when Villain (25/14 pf) didn't fold the turn.

LOL donkaments

2009-09-16T00:15:00.003-04:00

I just booked a wager with DA, one of my new coworkers. I'm laying 5:1 odds that Phil Ivey won't win the 2009 WSOP Main Event. The best part of the negotiations was when I proposed a small wager size, and DA immediately countered with a significantly larger wager. I feigned nervousness and swallowed hard before accepting the offer.

Anywho, although I am certainly tempting fate by opposing Phil Ivey and posting about it, the image below makes me feel pretty good about my chances.

"Everyone kills people, murders people, steals from you, steals from me"

2009-09-06T09:10:00.003-04:00

So says Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor. (Scroll ahead to 2:45 if you're impatient.) I guess if that's the case, then running a dogfighting ring is like TPing someone's house in comparison.

Anyway, there's a good reason college teams often don't let their players address the media solo. That being said, I'd like to think that if I were one of the reporters there I'd have given Pryor a chance to retract or amend his statement, but oh well.

These people aren't your friends; they're paid to kiss your feet

2009-09-06T08:25:00.002-04:00

From Marginal Revolution, we learn that some marketing company in Australia is selling "friends" to Facebook users.

I have to say that $177 for 1,000 friends is rather expensive, though. For that price, I'd expect them to attend my wedding as well.

This guy is either on super gorilla tilt, or he read my soul. Possibly both

2009-09-04T22:16:00.003-04:00

Villain here is 18/13 preflop, and I had 3bet him a couple times and forced him to fold preflop.

Bluffing in 3-bet pots is fun. Especially with the best hand

2009-08-24T22:01:00.001-04:00

Turning a made hand into a bluff, I guess

2009-08-15T18:15:00.002-04:00

How long has the (KGB/Mossad/any other foreign intelligence agency) known about the SSN algorithm?

2009-07-07T21:10:00.004-04:00

If a couple of academic researchers can decipher the Social Security Number algorithm (up to whatever randomization measures are used), I can only imagine how long foreign intelligence agencies (especially those of our enemies) have known about it. Frankly, I'm extremely impressed by their restraint.

Review: U2, Barcelona, June 30, 2009

2009-06-30T19:54:00.003-04:00

Just got back from the opening concert of U2's 360 tour. I forgot to bring a USB cable with me, so pics will have to wait until I get back home. Post is full of spoilers obviously, so if you don't want to be spoiled then go away.

Setlist:

Breathe
No Line On The Horizon
Get On Your Boots
Magnificent
Beautiful Day
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Angel Of Harlem
In A Little While
Unknown Caller
The Unforgettable Fire
City Of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Pride
MLK
Walk On

Encore:
Where The Streets Have No Name
One

Encore:
With Or Without You
Moment Of Surrender

Generalities:

The stage has the same inner platform + outer walkway from the previous two tours and a giant cylindrical silkscreen. The whole thing is capped off by this really odd inverted claw thingy. The tour has this futuristic theme -- in the middle of tonight's show, the band even held a brief conference call (only part of it intelligible) with the crew aboard the International Space Station.

Review:

Performance-wise, this is easily the worst U2 concert I've been to. Obviously some of it can be chalked up to rust, but there were other problems as well.

Let's start with the good. The setlist was outstanding -- Ultraviolet hasn't been played since the ZooTV tour if I recall correctly, and The Unforgettable Fire died out after the Joshua Tree tour. Both songs sounded great. I was pretty high up in the stands, so I couldn't see if Edge was using his Fernandes or an EBow for the sustain for the UF string part, but it had a real snarl to it. Angel of Harlem was as soulful as ever, and Bono dedicated it to the late Michael Jackson and performed brief bits of Man In The Mirror and Don't Stop Till You Get Enough at the end.

The new album material was mostly excellent as well, but I didn't really understand why Breathe was chosen as an opener. NLOTH and Magnificent are much better openers and much better songs overall, and both sounded excellent. I'll Go Crazy turned into this really wack hip-hop remix that can't be described here.

Okay, now out come the knives. U2 brought back Walk On in light of Aung San Suu Kyi's recent troubles, and for some reason they thought it would be a good idea to distribute life-size masks of her face to everyone in the audience, and also to bring out a couple dozen crew members to wear them out on the catwalk during the song. I thought it was super-super tacky and hope they abandon the idea tomorrow.

Bono's never had the most refined sense of style, but unfortunately his voice and memory seemed to have gone missing for most of the night. During numerous songs Bono had to have the audience pick him up as he either skipped lines or couldn't hit them, and he repeated the first verse of With Or Without You. In addition, his voice (speaking and singing) had absolutely no bottom end for most of the concert; instead it sounded thin and nasal. Finally, the band screwed up One pretty horribly. I'm not sure what happened, but for some reason Bono didn't go into the third verse ("Have you come for forgiveness/have you come to raise the dead") as the band played on. I'm not sure how this happened, but the crowd again tried to pick him up, and I think the crowd actually went straight into the middle-eight ("Love is a temple/love the higher law"), and eventually Bono had to tell Edge in front of everyone to go back and redo the verse. At least Edge was reasonably cool about it -- I thought there was about a 2% chance that he was going to kill someone.

Despite the band's foibles and Bono's shredded voice, U2 still put on an uplifting, energizing show. Just don't expect a bravura performance from the diva.

EDIT: After listening to a boot of the concert, I figured out what happened on "One". Bono forgot the lyrics to the second verse ("Did I disappoint you") and requested a mulligan on the second verse. The band played the verse and chorus again, then launched into the middle-eight ("Love is a temple") and the band followed, while Bono thought they were going to go into the third verse ("Have you come here for forgiveness"), and it took a minute for everything to get sorted out.

Possibly the dumbest article ever written about sports, or by a political pundit on any subject ever

2009-06-30T01:08:00.006-04:00

Fresh off the US's upset of Spain in the Confederations Cup semis and near-upset of Brazil in the finals, Gary Schmitt of the American Enterprise Institute manages to pooh-pooh soccer in the US. His primary argument is that it appeals to Europe and Central/South America's fruity socialist sensibilities and not to Americans because it's the sport in which the less-deserving team has the biggest chance to win.

Indeed, in the first two games, the U.S. was hammered by Italy and Brazil and only got into the semifinal match by beating Egypt and the fluke of a very arcane scoring system that soccer uses to break ties among teams.

Ranking by W-L record, then goal difference, then goals scored? Yeah, that's some pretty crazy tiebreaker scheme.

And even in this game, a neutral observer would have said that Spanish players clearly outplayed the Americans, outshooting the U.S. squad by a margin of 20 shots on goal.

Um, no. FIFA's match report lists the shots as 29-9, but later on where each player's shots are listed, they only total 19-8. Now this counts "shots", which is pretty much any attempt by a player to smack the ball into the goal, whether it goes in, gets saved, misses the target entirely, or gets blocked before it gets anywhere near the goal. The "shots on goal" statistic, which counts only goals or shots that are saved by the goalkeeper, favors Spain 8-2, as many of Spain's shots were blocked before they got anywhere near goal. In addition, any neutral observer who actually watched the game would have concluded that only 3 or 4 shots really gave US keeper Tim Howard any significant trouble. He played well, but it wasn't an unusual performance at all by his standards. Late in the game when the US had the lead, the team was happy to concede possession of the ball because Spain couldn't actually do anything with it. It wasn't much different from one of those frequent Detroit Red Wings games where the Wings outshoot the opponents 40-15 but lose because all of their shots were from long range or bad angles while the other guys scored on odd-man rushes or on shots from the slot.

For sure, there may be a number of reasons that is the case but my suspicion is that the so-called “beautiful game” is not so beautiful to American sensibilities. We like, as good small “d” democrats, our underdogs for sure but we also still expect folks in the end to get their just desert. And, in sports, that means excellence should prevail. Of course, the fact that is often not the case when it comes to soccer may be precisely the reason the sport is so popular in the countries of Latin America and Europe.

This season in the English Premier League, the worst team out of 20 won 12 out of 38 games for a .316 percentage, if you count wins as 1/2.

This season in MLB, the worst team out of 30 has so far won 22 out of 74 games for a .297 percentage, and teams routinely win games despite not getting on base as often because of the way scoring works -- HR + hit + hit < hit + HR.

It completely boggles my mind why ignoramuses (mostly in US sports media, but apparently also in other publications) feel the need to publish such nonsense about soccer. It's almost as if they feel personally threatened by a fantastic sport that they don't understand.

"A good career move"

2009-06-24T08:16:00.001-04:00

So said Gore Vidal about his rival Truman Capote's demise. It's also the first quote that popped into my head once I heard that Jon and Kate Gosselin were divorcing.

Shut up Simon

2009-05-05T19:03:00.000-04:00

Letters of marque

2009-04-15T10:38:00.003-04:00

After Navy SEALs rescued a ship captain from Somali pirates, Ron Paul has suggested that the US government put the free market to work by issuing letters of marque, which are essentially contracts for seafaring mercenaries whereby the recipients get to keep whatever loot they capture from enemies.

I doubt that hiring privateers will make that much of a difference; I bring it up mostly because it reminds me of Sid Meier's PIRATES!, a classic computer game from the 1980s (which has since been remade for more modern platforms).

So Aristotle thinks of two integers, and he tells Plato their product and Socrates their sum

2009-04-06T09:20:00.006-04:00

In yesterday's New York Times is an article about Larry Summers's part-time gig with D. E. Shaw, a firm that hires world-class mathematicians and scientists to create brainteasers and test them on college kids and grad students. Rumor has it that they trade stocks and bonds in order to finance their operations.

I'm sure that a fellow who was once Secretary of the Treasury, President of Harvard University and who still is one of the premier economists in the world (and also appears to be a male, to boot) was quite flattered that Shaw wanted to field-test their new brainteasers on him.

Knock it up a notch

2009-03-24T18:12:00.003-04:00

I snapped this photo of Neptunian celebrity chef Elzar in the restaurant of the Hotel Ad Hoc Monumental in Valencia.

Tots Units Fem Forca

2009-03-22T19:01:00.007-04:00

The Camp Nou, FC Barcelona's stadium.

Victor Valdes, Barca's goalkeeper, warms up before the match against Malaga. Barca won 6-0. Barca could have won 8-0 or even 10-0 with a little luck -- the Malaga goalkeeper made some fine saves during the first 30 minutes, Lionel Messi (who scored a ridiculous goal) missed one or two really easy chances, Xavi and Andres Iniesta (who sliced through the Malaga central defense like hot knives through butter) left early with injuries, and the Barca defense softened up a bit and started allowing Malaga to control the ball for the last 30 minutes of the game or so. This was a once-every-five-years performance.

Messi takes a corner kick.

Barcelona es meva

2009-03-20T21:46:00.002-04:00

Barcelona's official motto is "Barcelona es teva", which means "Barcelona is yours" in Catalan. The title above is supposed to mean "Barcelona is mine", but is likely an incorrect translation.

El Gran Casino de Barcelona.

The poker room. They had one 5-10 PLO game and three 2-5 NLHE games running. The NLHE table I sat at was quite profitable, despite the enormous rake (something like 5% uncapped). Unfortunately I have to get up early, so I only played for an hour and a half or so.

La Placa de Catalunya, a stone's throw from the hotel.

NFL competition committee keeps heads buried in sand

2009-03-19T07:22:00.004-04:00

The NFL competition committee has decided not to change the overtime rules for yet another year, despite robust evidence that the overtime coin-toss winner has a significant advantage (60-40 or so).

Cripes. How hard is it to change the spot of the kickoff (40-yard line or so) or the spot of the initial possession (15-yard line) in order to minimize the impact of the coin toss?

Pickup soccer

2009-03-13T15:53:00.003-04:00

I played soccer in a light drizzle with some folks from the math department for an hour today; it's the first real exercise I've had in several months. Despite the long layoff, I was able to run up and down the pitch without any problems.

As for my actual performance, well, let's say it doesn't compare favorably to the guys in this video. It'd be nice if I could dribble or trap a ball with any degree of skill, but oh well.

Japan sucks at math

2009-03-10T08:54:00.005-04:00

Well, maybe not the entire country, but their World Baseball Classic coaching staff certainly does.

Bottom of the 8th, down 1-0 to Korea, one out, Ichiro singles to center. The next guy promptly sacrifice bunts (intentionally). Baseball Prospectus estimates that the bunt cost them nearly two-tenths of a run on average, and that's assuming that the sacrifice bunt works 100% of the time. Historical figures from 1999-2006 indicate that the move reduced Japan's chances of winning the game by 7%.

Apparently the sabermetric revolution has not taken root in Japan yet.

EDIT: Japan coaches get pwnz0r3d by Fidel Castro's corpse.

Folding AA in a donkament

2009-03-06T17:55:00.006-05:00

Folding aces preflop is obviously never correct in a Hold 'Em cash game, but it is sometimes correct in tournaments when one sits on a cash bubble. Another situation might be when one possesses telepathic powers.

In the situation pictured above, the tournament is heads-up, winner take all. Hero has aces on the button, and Villain has shoved preflop blind, rendering Hero's telepathic powers useless. Throughout the tournament, Villain has held far more than his share of huge hands and has pulled off some astonishing suckouts, including one where he called a shove with 72o preflop and his opponent flopped a set, then died. AA is a 85-15 favorite against a random hand. What would the stack sizes have to be in order for Hero to consider folding preflop and waiting for a better spot?

Strings attached

2009-03-04T14:18:00.004-05:00

Apparently our new Obaman overlord doesn't want bailout beneficiaries taking corporate vacations in Las Vegas.

This makes me very unhappy; I think that encouraging bankers and executives to blow their personal fortunes in Vegas is way better (for the local economy and for crafty gamboolers like yours truly, anyway) than capping their salaries. How else are we supposed to recover the stimulus monies that are being taken out of our paychecks?

But I has top pair

2009-03-03T12:06:00.004-05:00

During a recent review session, it was pointed out that perhaps I get a little too skittish with top pair-type hands when I get raised on textured flops. I dunno if the villain here (22/15ish preflop, 100% fold BB to steal over 80-ish hands) perceived me that way, but I basically decided to call down unless a fourth straight card fell. The turn action makes the hand a lot less interesting poker-wise, but the outcome is hilarious.

It's getting a little dusty in here

2009-02-25T03:20:00.000-05:00

My content. Not yours

2009-02-24T05:28:00.004-05:00

Facebook users probably are familiar with the whole kerfluffle surrounding the company's attempt to update its terms of use. For whatever reasons, they decided that they wanted to retain legal rights over all content posted on their site, then were forced to back down.

Recently, I noticed that FB's notes-importing utility (which I use with this blog) stopped including external links to the original source; surely this was related to FB's desire to own all content on its site. Pretty lame. Some other annoyed FB bloggers slapped together a kludge using Yahoo Pipes that more or less does what I want. It's kind of inelegant, but it's the best solution I can find.

Is That All? A review of U2, "No Line On The Horizon"

2009-02-23T17:07:00.007-05:00

U2 is back with its first album in five years, "No Line On The Horizon". It seems to be receiving nearly universal acclaim in the music press, and I'm not quite sure why. It certainly sounds like nothing they've ever recorded before, but I count four or five tracks that are really worth coming back to. The rest of the record mostly consists of these remote, spaced-out, languid pseudo-meditations that also happen to feature some of Bono's most embarrassing writing to date.

The album starts off with two roof-busting anthems in the title track and "Magnificent". Both tracks are certain to become radio hits, but the more muscular guitars and tighter rhythm grooves distinguish them from U2's Joshua Tree-era tracks.

So far, so good. U2 then proceed to crush the momentum of the album by launching into "Moment of Surrender", a seven-minute long reflection that really belongs at the end of the album, the way "40", "Grace" and "Yahweh" closed out previous albums. Next up are "Unknown Caller", a rumination on the pervasiveness of modern technology by a wandering soul that is broken up by rhythmic chants, and "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight", a more melodic ballad. Unfortunately, both of the previous tracks feature some of the most cringe-worthy lyrics I've ever seen: "Restart and reboot yourself/You're free to go/Shout for joy if you get the chance/Password you enter here right now." "Is it true that perfect love drives out all fear/The right to appear ridiculous is something I hold dear."

Fortunately for the listener, the album picks up with the disjointed yet irresistible single "Get On Your Boots" and continues with "Stand Up Comedy", a neat little track that layers classic chimey Edge tracks upon a Hendrix-inspired groove. Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. contribute some of their best work here.

Next up are "FEZ-Being Born", which is kind of hard to describe here. The lyrics are brief and elusive, buried under layers and layers of percussive synthesizer lines. It's certainly an intriguing listen. This is followed by "White As Snow", a heavy minor-key lamentation full of Biblical imagery. The album then ends with a thud as Bono channels his inner Bob Dylan free-verse poet in "Breathe" and "Cedars Of Lebanon", neither attempt at which is particularly successful.

Well, there you go. There are a few obvious hits on the album, but large chunks of the rest of the album simply don't move me at all, making it hard to listen to the whole thing in one shot and placing it firmly below U2's two other albums of the decade.

When is a metaphor no longer a metaphor?

2009-02-17T08:18:00.006-05:00

Apparently the head of the South Korean soccer federation felt insulted by a comment the AFC chair made a while back. As is somewhat typical of Korean culture, the Korean chief is taking things just a smidge too personally:

The Korean Football Association (KFA) said it "strongly denounced" Bin Hammam's comments in Arabic about its president Cho Chung-yun, which they said translated as a threat to cut off his head.

Bin Hammam said the comment was a metaphor that had been poorly translated.

"He must offer an open apology for his remarks," KFA spokesman Yoo Young-cheol was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.

"The KFA strongly denounces (him) for making unutterable and improper remarks (against South Korean officials) in media interviews," he said, adding that the KFA would draft a petition against the president if he failed to retract the comment.

Then again, given some recent events and the general state of relations between the Middle East and the rest of the world, perhaps these Arabic-speaking types might consider laying off that particular idiom in mixed company for a while.

Dos a cero

2009-02-12T18:23:00.001-05:00

The gift that keeps on giving.

Goodbye, sweet goofbags: A detailed review of Futurama, "Into The Wild Green Yonder"

2009-02-12T17:10:00.022-05:00

(SPOILERS aplenty, so don't bother reading if you don't want to be spoiled.)
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If "Into The Wild Green Yonder" is indeed the final installment of Futurama, the series ends on a positive note. Although the epic sci-fi plot has some systemic flaws, on the whole the movie is an uplifting final journey through the lives of Fry, Leela, Bender and company and the fantastic world in which they live.

Characterization has been a consistent strength of the entire Futurama series, but seemed to suffer in some of the earlier movies ("The Beast With A Billion Backs" in particular). In that respect, "Into The Wild Green Yonder" is a return to form. Placed in stressful, uncertain circumstances and pitted against each other for large portions of the movie, our heroes remain true to themselves and, in the end, to each other.

On the surface Philip J. Fry appears to be a childlike, slow-witted fellow, but deep within lies a sensitive, courageous soul and a heart of gold. Once again the fates call upon the superhero within -- Fry finds himself thrust in the middle of an epic struggle for the future of all life and must craft a plan with very little information at hand, his allies assist him and his closest friends opposing him. In the end Fry guesses wrong and gets lucky, but this child of destiny has never survived by his wits alone.

Initially cast as the responsible, no-nonsense, butt-kicking Captain of the Planet Express ship, Leela's personality changed subtly but significantly over the course of the series. On the one hand, she became a more independent-minded personality whose passions and temper sometimes landed her in trouble. On the other hand, as details of her troubled past as an cyclopean orphan emerged, some deep-seated personal insecurities began to come to the fore. In this movie, the rebellious Leela takes center stage -- she has the option of serving a token jail sentence for her first crime, but instead opts to become a fugitive in order to stop Leo Wong's entertainment empire and save the environment. After many twists and turns in and out of the clutches of the authorities, she finally manages to fulfill her mission, only to turn it over to Fry the "villain". Why? Fry can't say, he can only plead with Leela to trust him.

Ever since Fry formally professed his feelings for Leela at the beginning of season 3, their relationship started bouncing all over the place. Though he went to extraordinary lengths to express his love, made significant sacrifices for her well-being and helped her overcome some of the demons of her past, he certainly had far more than his share of slip-ups during the interim. Leela, for her part, occasionally returned Fry's affections. However, she constantly found herself caught between this boyish addlepate who truly loved her for who she was and her romantic ideal of a man.

Though it is never explained in the movie, it is clear that at the beginning of "Into The Wild Green Yonder" Fry and Leela are on very close terms; after Fry unexpectedly offers his support for Leela's eco-vandalism mission, she says "goodbye, sweet goofbag". Aww. Of course, circumstances place Fry on the opposite side put a severe strain on their relationship, but in the end Leela's heart and the weight of their shared lives win out. The blessing Fry offers to Leela as she begins life as a fugitive -- "You're you; that's all I need to know" and that Leela repeats to Fry at the implosion ceremony is kind of clunky, but Leela's final words to Fry -- "Maybe I waited too long to tell you this, but...I love you too" -- are a simple redemption of the feelings of frustration and longing that Fry had harbored in his heart for years. Given the drama of their relationship up to this point, I was very surprised and pleased that the writers tied things up in a gentle, graceful manner.

Bender's motivations for betraying and later rescuing Leela make no sense to a human, but he has of course never been constrained by human principles of morality. To him, accumulating a long resume of felonies is just as worthy a goal as cheating on the Donbot's wife or winning a poker tournament. Fortunately for our Planet Express crew, they rate pretty high on his list of priorities as well.

Amy and Prof. Farnsworth are both relatively minor characters in the plot, and as such their characters and motivations aren't filled out very much at all in the movie. The combination of her parents' greed and patronizing attitude finally give Amy the impetus she needs to break away, while Farnsworth makes a rather abrupt 180 from a corrupt quack to the concerned scientist he's supposed to be. Farnsworth is, of course, pretty notorious for his comical lapses of ethics throughout the series. To see him treated as a blatantly corrupt and unsympathetic stooge throughout most of the movie is rather disappointing, perhaps the only real failure of characterization throughout the movie.

As mentioned before, the core plot of the movie concerns this epic struggle for the future of biological life between the Dark Ones and the Encyclopods. Since the plot is almost entirely self-contained -- the only key callback from the series is Fry's immunity to mind-reading, a consequence of his missing delta brainwave -- all of the main players in the tale have to enter and exit in the space of 60 minutes. Unfortunately, the quick development and resolution of these massively important players leaves plot holes and dangling questions all over the place. How is it possible that the Dark Ones, allegedly the pinnacle of evolutionary success, are a nearly-extinct species of leeches living in a single mud puddle on Mars? Given their telepathic killing powers, how haven't they been able to coerce Leo or someone else into destroying the violet dwarf by now? After having reached the implosion ceremony, why wouldn't the Dark One have killed off Leela and others to make sure the implosion proceeded as planned? Are the Dark Ones innately evil, or is it a result of natural circumstance? (This ethical dilemma is squashed in favor of a cheap yuk when Zoidberg consumes the last remaining Dark One.) The plot does a good job of serving the principal characters, which is much better than the reverse, but on its own it is kind of sloppy.

Of course, no discussion of a Futurama episode would be complete without evaluating the humor in the script. The overarching comic absurdity in the movie is, of course, Leo's massive mini-golf course and his plot to blow up a precious ecosystem to create a black hole that can be used as a ball sink. Only in Futurama does something like this happen. The first 22 minutes of the movie are packed with funny cultural references and parodies, but once the main plot gets going, the movie tenses up noticeably and the breadth of the humor gradually peters out, with the running war-of-the-sexes gags becoming especially stale. (EDIT: After rewatching the movie, the second half of the movie doesn't feel quite as tense to me as before, perhaps because the anxiety and anticipation of the finale is gone. Thank God for Zapp Brannigan.) Another minor disappointment is the paucity of nerd jokes -- the vast majority of jokes in the movie are either character-specific or aimed at a general audience.

Although the final movie isn't constantly laugh-out-loud funny and is confusing at times, it's still faithful to the main theme of the series -- that our Planet Express crew are a bunch of oddballs with their own unique quirks, foibles, and personal issues, and that no matter what conflicts or absurdities the universe throws at them, they manage to stick together. In the end Fry gets to hear those three words from Leela he's longed to hear all his life, and our crew head off into an uncertain future, knowing that their shared experiences have forged bonds of friendship, loyalty and love that won't be broken.

Viva Mars Vegas: A quick review and plot summary of Futurama, "Into The Wild Green Yonder"

2009-02-11T14:44:00.030-05:00

(Note: this post has been edited several times. I don't think I'm erasing any truly important content though.)

Well, the last of the four feature-length Futurama episodes is currently circulating through unofficial channels. At the time of this post, future installments of the series still have not been commissioned, so "Into The Wild Green Yonder" has a huge task to accomplish; it needs to generate enough interest and profit from both fans and noobs to convince Fox or some other outlet to consider relaunching the television series, but needs to end in somewhat open-ended manner that still manages to ties up some loose ends in case this is the end (as seems pretty likely).

Among die-hard Futurama fans on various fanboards, "Into The Wild Green Yonder" seems to be receiving mixed reviews. I wouldn't rate it a rousing success, but it certainly produced enough laughs and poignant moments to satisfy me, and I'll certainly be purchasing the Blu-Ray version of the movie once it's released. I'll give a quick review first, then a plot synopsis and more detailed review below.

QUICK REVIEW

Very solid character interaction and development throughout the movie -- Fry, Leela and others act the way you would hope they would during some very tense and difficult situations. Non-stop laughs (both clever and crass) during the first quarter of the movie, but the movie becomes tense and the humor starts to dry up a bit once the main epic ecological plot of the movie begins (during the second half of the movie, I'd say that the majority of the jokes are running gags that have worn out). The plot itself is preachy, clumsily presented and motivated, with none of the subtleties of Futurama's previous eco-minded episdodes. In addition, it suffers from some outstanding holes and questions -- it serves the characters well (and sometimes seems as if it was written just for that purpose) but struggles to hold up on its own. The major outstanding thread of the series -- Fry and Leela's relationship -- is handled in a manner that is delicate, graceful and not overwrought, yet genuinely touching. The final scene of the movie is a cliffhanger that should satisfy fans if it is indeed the end, but will leave them hoping for more.

Definitely pick this up now if you're a fan. If you're not that familiar with Futurama, start with the original series or Bender's Big Score instead. As for the future of the show, hopefully it comes back as a proper TV series, as the heavier, slower story arcs of a feature-length production throw Futurama's balance of satire, sci-fi action and character development out of whack.

SYNOPSIS (SPOILERS BELOW)
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The movie opens with a shot of a black dwarf emitting some sort of green radiation field, followed by a shot of a mysterious violet dwarf orbited by a number of asteroids. After being irradiated, a bunch of molecules on one of the asteroids combine to form a familiar DNA helix...which promptly turns into a shot of a roller coaster ride in Mars Vegas, launching the opening Sinatra-styled number sung by Seth MacFarlane.

Of course, just as in the original Las Vegas during the last years of the second millennium, nothing lasts forever here, as we and the Planet Express crew see mega-tycoon Leo Wong implode the city to pave way for the creation of the New Mars Vegas, a new bastion of entertainment and excess. And do we ever mean excess -- Wong lays waste to all sorts of natural habitats and resources, drawing the ire of both Leela and a (weak, ineffective) eco-feminist collective led by Frida Waterfall. As Leo shoos away the protestors, a piece of Frida's jewelry lodges itself in Fry's brain, knocking him unconscious. Leo insists that he has conducted a proper environmental survey and received approval for his projects -- by buying off Prof. Hubert Farnsworth, as it turns out. Still, Leela manages to save the last Martian desert muck leech amid the destrucion. To compensate Fry for his accident, Leo gives Fry a free entry token to the Universal Poker Championship and the rest of the crew a free vacation at the Wong Hotel and Casino upon completion of the New Mars Vegas.

A short while later, our crew return to the completed New Mars Vegas. With the piece of jewelry lodged in his brain, Fry begins hearing voices in his head. He soon learns, thanks to a transient named Hutch, that they both have telepathic powers. However, Fry appears to be unique because his mind apparently cannot be read. Hutch advises Fry to wear a tinfoil hat to keep other people's thoughts out of his head, ominously warns him about "The Dark Ones" and admonishes him never to reveal his powers to anyone.

With his free token, Fry decides to enter the Universal Poker Championship and book an easy win. Meanwhile Bender checks out a "Circuit Du Soleil" show, falls in love with and begins an illicit affair with erotic dancer Fanny, the Mafia Donbot's wife. In order to impress Fanny, Bender enters the UPC as well; Fanny saws off her husband's "lucky foot" and gives it to Bender to assist him. The Donbot begins to suspect something is afoot when Bender luckboxes his way through the tournament; his suspicion is confirmed when Bender beats Fry heads-up for the prize. The Robot Mafia eventually abduct Bender and Fanny, shoot them and bury them in shallow graves; having been suitably warned, they break off the affair and Fanny returns to the Donbot.

Leo takes his daughter Amy, Fry and Leela to his ultra-exclusive mini-golf country club and proceeds to piss off the ladies by cheating, taking mulligans and berating their skills. He then reveals his future plans for the golf course -- to blow up 12 percent of the galaxy in order to build the biggest putt-putt course in the universe, all pending "proper" environmental clearance from the transparently corrupt Farnsworth.

Farnsworth and the crew take the Planet Express ship to conduct their survey and discover the asteroid from the violet dwarf system teeming with all sorts of prehistoric life forms. Unfortunately, the violet dwarf system sits at the end of Leo's proposed 18th hole; Leo plans to implode it and use the resulting black hole as a ball sink. Despite the crew's discovery, Farnsworth approves Leo's demolition project, angering both Leela and Fry.

While Earthican president Richard Nixon and Leo schmooze on the mini-golf course, Leela joins the eco-feminist collective in protesting the destruction of the violet dwarf system. In the resulting confrontation, the feminists accidentally mutilate vice-president Spiro Agnew's headless body with a golf cart, and they flee the scene. While hiding from the authorities, Leela convinces the feminists that they need to take more radical action. The feminists appoint Leela as their new leader and begin their campaign of eco-vandalism.

Still on the lam, Leela briefly returns to Planet Express to retrieve the Martian Leech for use as an unofficial mascot. As Leela leaves, she is surprised when Fry offers her his blessing. The two of them say a quick, tearful goodbye, not knowing if they'll see each other again.

While walking around, Fry again runs into Hutch, the transient telepath he met on Mars, and Hutch takes Fry to the secret lair of the Legion of Mad Fellows, led by the No. 9 man. No. 9 explains that the Legion are a society of tinfoil-hat-wearing telepaths who have been observing and tracking the behavior of the "Chi", a mysterious life force responsible for the proliferation of species of life across the universe. After ages of recession and the extinction of many species, they sense a resurgence of the Chi and believe that the violet dwarf star in Leo's putt-putt course holds the key to the reemergence of lost species and the dawn of a new Green Age. Fry is told that he is destined to keep the violet dwarf star safe from the Dark Ones, a mysterious race of enemies who can read all minds but his own. In order to protect the Legion from the Dark Ones, they swear Fry to complete secrecy. Fry then infiltrates Leo's empire by getting a job as a security guard, planning to stop the destruction of the violet dwarf system.

The eco-feminists come out of hiding to vandalize a gorilla-shaped structure on the 18th hole of Leo's golf course. On the news, Morbo denounces the vandalism, while the more sympathetic Linda broadcasts a message from Leela and the eco-feminist collective. Wary of the threat from the eco-feminists, Leo pulls a few strings with President Nixon and enlists the services of General Zapp Brannigan and Lt. Kif Kroker. Jealous of Leela's rapidly-growing rap sheet, the shamelessly treacherous Bender offers to help apprehend Leela and the eco-feminists. To track Leela down, Bender visits Fry at the golf course and plants a Rube Goldberg-esque wiretapping device on his cell phone. Things get tense when Amy sees Fry working for her father. Since Fry is unable to explain his true intentions to Amy, Amy denounces Fry as a traitor and disowns her father.

While leaving the mini-golf club, Fry runs into Frida. Desperate to explain his true intentions to Leela without blowing his cover, he instructs Frida to give Leela the message that "her sweet goofbag is working to save the violet dwarf star, just as she is." Unfortunately, while back at the hideout one of the Dark Ones reads Frida's mind and suspects that Fry may be a member of the Legion. The Dark One's unseen voice demands that Frida reveal Fry's identity. As Frida knows nothing more about him, the Dark One telepathically murders her; Frida cries out to her long-lost brother to avenge her death.

Leo contracts the remaining Planet Express employees (Farnsworth, Hermes and Zoidberg) to deliver a large security fence to keep protestors away from the violet dwarf star; they are captured by the eco-feminists (now joined by Amy, LaBarbara Conrad, Diane and others), who lock them up in a cage and commandeer the Planet Express ship. They return to their hideout to discover that Frida has been murdered. Amy suspects foul play on Fry's part; Leela decides to call Fry on his mobile phone in order to clear things up.

After another day at the golf club, Fry runs into Hutch again, who takes him to the Legion's new hideout on Mars. No. 9 tells Fry of the origins of the Dark Ones, who seek to destroy all species, and the Encyclopods, who seek to thwart the Dark Ones by befriending all species and preserving their DNA in order to recreate them. As the life-giving Chi faded, the Encyclopods went extinct, the violet dwarf star being the only remaining Encyclopod egg in the universe. With the present resurgence in the Chi, the revival of the Encyclopod species and of all other extinct species is at hand. Since the Dark Ones are able at close range to murder anyone who knows the secret of the egg, and since Fry alone is immune to the Dark Ones' attacks, he alone must save the egg. Unfortunately, due to eons of evolution they do not know what the current physical form of the Dark Ones is -- animal, alien or possibly humanoid.

Leela calls Fry in the middle of his discussion with the Legion. Fry asks if Leela got Frida's message, arousing Leela's suspicions. Fry realizes that the Dark Ones must have killed Frida and desperately arranges a secret rendezvous with Leela. Having tapped Fry's phone, Brannigan, Kif and Bender ambush Leela in the Starship Nimbus. Leela accuses Fry of treachery and is about to surrender, but is rescued by the eco-feminists and the Planet Express ship. As Leela escapes, she drags Fry with her and locks him up with the other Planet Express prisoners.

Brannigan immediately chases the eco-feministas through Leo's golf course. At the end of the 18th hole, the Planet Express ship flies by the asteroid in the violet dwarf system, now teeming with life. Clearly hurt by her dear friend's apparent betrayal, Leela again demands that Fry explain his intentions, but to no avail. Eventually Leela and the feminists are caught by Brannigan, Kif and (to everyone's immense shock) Bender and are sentenced to 50 years in prison.

With the eco-feminists out of the way, Leo completes his plan to implode the violet dwarf star. Fry consults the Legion again for advice, and No. 9 warns Fry that he also needs to worry about unmasking the identity of the Dark One who will try to stop him. No. 9 gives him the mysterious Omega device, able to disable the Dark One at point-blank range. For fear that the Dark One may destroy them, the rest of the Legion dare not give Fry any ideas about how to accomplish his mission, but Fry deduces that while he is at the implosion ceremony, he can scan the audience and search for an unreadable mind.

In prison, the unseen voice of the Dark One tells Leela that the feminists must break out of prison and get to the violet dwarf star. Leela pulls the Martian muck leech off her leg and attempts to use it to burrow out of prison, to no avail. Fortunately for the feminists, Bender arrives to bust them out of prison (all to boost his rap sheet ahead of Leela's, of course). However, only Bender, Leela, Amy and LaBarbara manage to escape; they are rescued by Hermes, Zoidberg, Scruffy and a repentant Farnsworth in the Planet Express ship.

In front of a crowd featuring almost every Futurama character, Leo and Fry prepare to implode the violet dwarf system. While Brannigan gives a blithering, long-winded speech, Fry unsuccessfully scans the audience for the unreadable mind of the Dark One, coming to the Minority Report-esque conclusion that he himself is the Dark One.

The Planet Express ship crashes the detonation ceremony, and Leela and the crew (dressed in eco-feminist garb) show up armed. After a brief struggle, Leela manages to wrest control of the detonator from Leo. However, as she is about to disable the detonator, Fry implores her to stop, still unable to explain his ultimate plan. Caught between her eyes and her heart, Leela gives the detonator to Fry. To her shock, Fry presses the plunger; the screen pans up and down to reveal that Fry has wired the detonator to the Omega device and is holding it against his heart in an effort to destroy himself.

Unexpectedly, the Omega device sprouts mechanical legs and arms, then erupts in a green flash enveloping both Fry and Leela but leaving them both unharmed. Leela's Martian muck leech reveals himself to be the lone surviving Dark One, then falls to the floor in agony. Suddenly the asteroid flies into the violet dwarf star, creating a fertilized Encyclopod egg which quickly develops into a fully developed Encyclopod (a flying manta ray-like creature carrying a biodome of extinct animals in its pouch). Hutch walks up to the podium to explain the origins of the Encyclopod to the crowd, but the Dark One latches onto Hutch's neck, killing him. As he lies dying, Hutch pulls his sister Frida's piece of jewelry out of Fry's head, and the Encyclopod incinerates the Dark One with a laser blast from its eye. A debate about whether to preserve the Dark One's DNA is quickly quashed when Zoidberg eats the Dark One's remains.

Zapp Brannigan, being the pompous fool that he is, attempts to round up the Planet Express crew and bring them to justice, but they (along with Kif) quickly manage to escape in the ship. Brannigan immediately pursues them in the Nimbus. Here's how the final scene unfolds:

[Hermes and LaBarbara hold hands, Kif and Amy embrace]
Fry (to Leela): Well, this is the end. There were so many things I wanted to say to you.
Leela: Like what?
Fry: Like, "this is not the end". But mostly just...I love you, Leela.
(ship is hit from behind)
Leela: Maybe I waited too long to say this, but...I love you too. (looks up) Wormhole!
Hermes: Sweet topology of cosmology! It's huge!
Farnsworth: If we fly into it, it could take us trillions of light years away! There's no knowing if we'll ever return!
Fry: Wh-what do we do? Should we go for it?
Bender: (pulls out a bottle of Olde Fortran malt liquor) Into the breach, meatbags. Or not. Eh, whatever.
All: Go! Go! Go!
[Leela and Fry kiss, and the ship disappears into the wormhole]

God bless Joseph Fourier

2009-01-30T08:04:00.006-05:00

I never would have expected to find a piece on mathematics and Beatles music in the WSJ, but here it is. Among other revelations, the opening 12-string guitar chord to "A Hard Day's Night" also contains a piano note. Graph theory also features in the article, as a tool to attempt to partition authorship of various songs in the Beatles' catalogue between John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

This piece reminds me about a famous critique of "Not A Second Time" that appeared in the London Times back in 1963:

William Mann: "...harmonic interest is typical of their quicker songs, too, and one gets the impression that they think simultaneously of harmony and melody, so firmly are the major tonic sevenths and ninths built into their tunes, and the flat submediant key switches, so natural is the Aeolian cadence at the end of 'Not a second time' (the chord progression which ends Mahler's Song of the Earth)..."

John Lennon: "To this day I haven't any idea what Aeolian cadences are. They sound like exotic birds."

Merry Christmas

2008-12-24T19:42:00.000-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T12:31:00.002-05:00

Wait a second. We don't get Thanksgiving off in Ireland.

I guess a century and a half after the potato famine, a good harvest is taken for granted around here. Bah.

Actually, that's not really true. There are a bunch of Celtic pagan harvest holidays. My 'bah' still stands though.

Why are these people allowed to vote again?

2008-10-13T08:49:00.003-04:00

From the Columbus Dispatch last week:

If there were a guarantee that the Dow would be at 13,000 on Monday, Nov. 24, if Ohio State loses to Michigan on Nov. 22, would you make that deal?
41% Yes
59% No

(HT: Vegas Watch)

Random photos from Cork, Ireland

2008-09-30T15:53:00.005-04:00

A video poker machine (real money) in a tiny little Middle Eastern restaurant.

Fulltiltpoker.com (not Fulltiltpoker.net) advertisement on TV.

Potatoes are serious business here, although I would guess that that bag contains about a kilogram of dirt.

This is what a sportsbook looks like in Ireland (and UK also). Inside you'll find a couple guys taking wagers and a bunch of TV screens, but no cocktails or cocktail waitresses. Lame.

Various photos of my new apartment in Cork (taken shortly after I moved in).

Not only does this shirt get the mascot of Oregon wrong, it also somehow manages to use Oregon State colors. Epic fail.

A few photos of the English Market in Cork city centre.

Stacking 8-high in overseas shipping is good. In Omaha hi-lo, it's so-so. In Hold 'Em, it's terrible.

Anybody still looking for a Wii? Given the exchange rate and shipping costs, it'd cost about $400 USD total.

Sponsorship

2008-09-16T04:25:00.003-04:00

English Premier League soccer is very popular over here in Ireland, as one might expect. You can't walk more than a couple blocks without running into someone wearing a Manchester United, Chelsea or Liverpool shirt. (By my count, Arsenal is a distant fourth.)

Of course, given the recent turmoil in the US financial industry, I can't wait to see the current Manchester United shirts (picture below) be replaced with a model that has the words "THIS SPACE FOR LET" across the front.

In Ireland

2008-09-02T05:52:00.002-04:00

I arrived in Ireland yesterday.

The people here speak some approximation to English, it appears. I asked a bus driver how much bus fare was. He said "1 Euro, *unintelligible mumble*". I pulled out a 1 Euro coin and asked again how much it was, and he repeated the unintelligible mumble. So I just handed him another 1 Euro coin and counted the change -- 55 cents.

The vagaries of gymnastics scoring, part the second

2008-08-18T13:34:00.006-04:00

After examining these articles from SI and from USA gymnastics, and taking a look at an official gymnastics scoresheet, I am forced to conclude that gymnastics officials are completely innumerate.

As you may know by now, a gymnastics score for a given routine is given by adding the difficulty score to an execution score. The difficulty score is determined by one offical scorer, while the execution score is obtained by a panel of six judges. Each judge submits a score, and the middle four of the six scores are averaged to yield the official execution score.

However, since scoring resolution only goes down to 1/40ths of a point, ties are bound to come up now and then. For the individual event finals, gymnastics has put together a completely arbitrary and unnecessarily complicated scheme for breaking ties.

The first tiebreaker goes to whoever has the higher average execution score. Kind of arbitrary, but simple enough.

The second tiebreaker goes to whoever has the lower average deduction among the four relevant execution judges. However, as far as I can tell from looking at the official scoresheet, execution score is defined to be 10.0 minus deductions, so this second criterion is completely redundant.

(EDIT: This article from AP also seems to subsume the first two criteria into one; it seems more likely now that only one of these two equivalent criteria is actually written into the rules.)

The third tiebreaker is determined by taking the lowest three deductions among the four relevant execution judges and giving the tiebreaker to whoever has the lower average deduction. Given that the first tiebreaker is in effect, this is equivalent to simply tossing out the fifth-highest execution score.

Clearly, this tiebreaking scheme is wholly unnatural and arbitrary (why eliminate the fifth-highest score instead of the second-highest?) If one isn't overly worried about corrupt or incompetent judges, then averaging all six execution scores makes more sense (which would actually give He the gold). But given that the high and low execution scores are discarded and the average of the remaining four execution scores is the same, awarding two gold medals makes more sense than awarding a tiebreaker based on discarding additional information about the scores in an arbitrary manner.

The vagaries of gymnastics scoring

2008-08-18T01:23:00.002-04:00

If the landing comprises approximately 30% of the work of vaulting and only 5-10% of the work of an uneven bars or balance beam routine, a botched landing on vault probably should be penalized more harshly than a botched landing in one of the other events.

As it is, Alicia ~~Sacralicious~~ Sacramone finished 4th in the vault finals, behind a Chinese girl who landed one of her vaults on her knees and a 30-year-old German man. So rigged.

Buzzkill

2008-08-10T01:21:00.003-04:00

The photo below has by now been widely circulated on teh Internets.

Unfortunately, the story behind it is rather disappointing:

Bush knuckled off a couple of lobs, but defending gold medalists Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh gave the chief executive some pointers. Then after a good play, in the tradition of female volleyballers, May-Treanor turned, bent over slightly and offered her bikinied rear-end for the 43rd president to slap.

"Mr. President," she said, "want to?"

Want to has nothing to do with it in public life.

As the son of a president, a husband of nearly 37 years, the father of two daughters, the subject of some attempted tabloid exposes and a seasoned political veteran, who is not a female athlete but knows that every camera for a half-mile is trained on him, Bush wisely chose instead to brush his hand across the small of May-Treanor's back.

The Olympics are okay. NBC sucks

2008-08-10T01:17:00.001-04:00

If NBC does a piece on how the pandas in China have been waking up at 5:30 every morning to go to the gym to train and staying up until 1:00 to finish their schoolwork, I will put a gun to my mouth.

Finally, a writer talks some sense about Manny Ramirez

2008-08-03T01:02:00.003-04:00

Over at Slate, Charles Pierce offers his two cents on the Manny Ramirez deal.

The treatment Ramirez has been receiving in the Boston and national media (the Globe, the Herald, ESPN and FOX) has generally ranged from biased to appalling. Certainly Manny has behaved poorly over the last weeks, but the Red Sox front office have acted very unwisely and from the outset.

Coming into the season, Ramirez was in the last year of his 8-year, $160 million contract that he had signed at the beginning of 2001, but the Red Sox held options to extend his contract for 2009 and 2010 for $20 million per year.

Normally the Red Sox don't hold contract negotiations with players in the last year of a contract until after the season, and normally you wouldn't blame them for keeping their options on a somewhat gimpy 36-year-old player open, but when Ramirez hired Scott Boras as his agent, that was a pretty clear sign that he was angling to a new multi-year deal. (Since Ramirez's agent had negotiated his current contract, Boras stood to make exactly $0 if the Red Sox picked up Ramirez's options.) In fact, Ramirez showed up for spring training in the best shape of his life and declared that he wanted to play for another four to six years. Furthermore, the Red Sox already had firsthand experience with Nomar Garciaparra in 2004 with how horribly wrong things can go with contract negotiations if they are allowed to fester during the season

Apparently the Red Sox thought the "four to six years" comment was a throwaway comment, because they pretty much stuck to their guns for the next four months -- that they'd reevaluate things after the season -- and appeared not to have any significant contact with Boras during that time. Eventually Ramirez got frustrated to the point where he popped off with the "I want no more shit where they tell you one thing and behind your back they do another thing" comment.

In retrospect, it seems that the Red Sox had made up their mind then and there that they were getting rid of Ramirez, because that's when the stories started popping up in the media. Rumors circulated that Manny was faking an injury. Peter Gammons claimed that Manny sits out against hard-throwing pitchers. Theo Epstein told Joe Buck and Tim McCarver during a weekend series against the Yankees that he was open to trading Ramirez, and they relayed the announcement on national TV. Eventually the chorus line becomes "Manny's quitting on the team." (Manny only hit .347/.473/.587 during Boston's horrendous July. What a fraud.) The same pattern of hit-pieces popped up in the media before Garciaparra was traded in 2004 and before Theo Epstein (temporarily) resigned in 2005. Apparently Larry Lucchino and others think that it is absolutely necessary to grease the skids when it's time to let a popular star go. By the time July 31 rolled around, the Red Sox front office had completely poisoned the well, and the relevant question became exactly how many cents on the dollar they could get back in exchange for one of the greatest hitters of all time. (Jason Bay's a pretty good hitter in his own right and definitely a better defender than Ramirez, so all hope is not lost.)

To recap, the Red Sox' mistakes were threefold:

- They never touched base with Manny and Boras in any meaningful way before the season.

- When Ramirez expressed frustration about the contract negotiations, or lack thereof, the Sox stubbornly stuck to their guns when they could easily have made a decision on his 2009 option (either decision would be, at the very worst, a small mistake) or discreetly explored the possibility of trading him;

- Apparently feeling that they had been shown up by Ramirez's comments about his contract, they employed scorched-earth tactics in their effort to run him out of town, painting him as the scapegoat for the team's miserable month of July.

So long, Manny, and thanks for the memories. (Most of the images below appear on SoSH.

Trip report: Los Angeles Angels of Disneyland

2008-07-20T22:17:00.003-04:00

This is what a sellout at Angel Stadium looks like. The split was about 40% Angels fans, 40% Red Sox fans, and 20% invisible people.

This is what a little girl filming one of those Rally Monkey spots for FSN West looks like.

I just threw up in my mouth

2008-07-18T01:55:00.001-04:00

On NBC's Poker After Dark, Phil Hellmuth rags on some band called "Dextrous Midnight Runners" (never heard of them either) and compares himself to U2.

Range, Equity, Maximize

2008-07-08T22:50:00.009-04:00

Ok, so in tonight's Red Sox-Twins game Boston has a 6-5 lead in the top of the 9th, with Jonathan Papelbon in to close. Since Papelbon had apparently left his split-finger fastball in the bullpen, he throws about 48 straight fastballs to Nick Punto, and Punto fouls them all off. On pitch 49, Punto dumps a soft line drive into center field. Coco Crisp gets not such a good break on the ball, charges in, dives for the ball, and the ball lands in front of him and trickles by, giving Punto second base for free. The next guy bunts Punto over, giving the Twins a man on 3rd with one out.

Fortunately for the Red Sox, Papelbon strikes out the next chump and completes the inning for the save. Shortly after the game, it is reported by some guy on SoSH (actually, I'm 99.9% sure that it's the guy who writes this personal poker blog) that

Dave McCarty compared coco's dive to being pot committed in poker. He says once you get past a certain point you can't play it safe so you might as well take the chance.

I think we need to take up a collection to buy Covelli a copy of Professional No Limit Volume 1. Dude needs to make a commitment plan earlier in the hand.

After I saw a replay it seemed to my that Coco's last-ditch dive for the ball was pretty strong; it didn't look like he was of two minds split between diving and playing it safe. However, there's another side to his decision-making process to consider.

One of the first concepts introduced in Professional No-Limit Hold 'Em Volume 1 is the REM process, meaning Range-Equity-Maximize. The idea is that anytime you have a decision to make, you want to assess the Range of possible hands your opponent(s) have and the Equity (expected profit) resulting from your possible moves. You then want to choose the move (checking/betting/calling/raising/folding) that Maximizes your Equity in the hand.

Let's look at Coco's REM analysis. The Range of possibilities is as follows: if he pulls up short, the Twins have a man on first with no one out. If he dives and makes the catch, the Twins have no one on base and one out. If he dives and doesn't make the catch, the ball probably gets by him for a double, as it did tonight, and the Twins have a man on second with no outs.

The Equity of the various outcomes can only be calculated approximately, but on Fangraphs one can obtain figures for expected win percentage based on a given situation in the game. After poking around a few sample games, we can obtain win expectation values as follows (I think Fangraphs always assumes that each batter and pitcher is league-average): 71.7% (man on first, 0 outs), 90.5% (no one on, 1 out), 63.6% (man on second, 0 out).

So if Coco estimates that his probability of making the catch is x, then diving for the ball Maximizes the Red Sox win equity if

x(0.905) + (1-x)(0.636) > 0.717

or if

x > 0.301

Coco has to have a 30% chance of making that catch for diving to be correct. Now if we assume that there's some chance of the hit not getting past him for a double if he dives, then that tips the scales in favor of diving. Furthermore, Papelbon is an elite strikeout closer, so relatively speaking, having a man on second base with 0 out isn't quite as disastrous as it is for most pitchers. Of course, Papelbon increases the win expectancy in each situation, but I suspect the man-on-2nd, 0-out situation gets increased the most.

On the other hand some of the Red Sox win equity comes from the game going into extra innings, which imposes additional costs upon the Sox bullpen. If instead of using win expectancies, we decide we want to finish the game in the top of the 9th, then we want to consider the probabilities that the Twins do not score in the inning. According to Baseball Prospectus, they are 58.3% (man on first, 0 outs), 83.5% (no one on, 1 out), 37.5% (man on second, 0 out). Using this criterion, Coco's break-even requirement for catching the ball is 45%, which is a stiffer threshold. Again, this all assumes league-average batters and pitchers; with Papelbon on the mound I think the requirement would be lower.

All in all though, I think Coco's decision to dive for the ball is more sound than it seemed at the time.

Further proof that Kevin Love is awesome

2008-06-27T23:50:00.001-04:00

Tiebreakers

2008-06-11T17:00:00.004-04:00

So, in Group A of the Euro 2008 soccer tournament, Portugal currently sit in the catbird seat with 6 points. Czech Republic and Turkey are tied with 3 points, and Switzerland are in the basement with 0 points (2 losses).

The last round of games feature Portugal v. Switzerland and Czech Republic v. Turkey. Top two teams in the group advance to the playoffs.

There is no provision for extra time/penalty shootouts in group play, so if Czech Republic and Turkey play to a draw, they'll finish tied for 2nd place in the standings. Fortunately, UEFA/FIFA have a tiebreaker procedure in place. In order, the criteria are:

Heads-up record (or total points in games between the tied teams, if more than two teams are tied)
goal difference in matches between tied teams
goals scored in matches between tied teams
If two or more teams are still tied after the first three steps, repeat them using only matches between the teams still tied
goal difference in all group matches
goals scored in all group matches
fair play conduct score
coin flip

Well, Czech Republic and Turkey both have scored 2 goals and allowed 3. If they tie their last game, they'll be tied all the way down to the "fair play conduct" score. If by some act of God that score is tied, then they flip a coin.

UEFA and FIFA could probably learn a thing or two about organizing tournaments from the Ultimate Players' Association. I'm thinking 11-man ro-sham-bo between the teams on the pitch to settle the score.

EDIT: According to section 7.08 of the UEFA manual, if it's just a heads-up tie, penalty kicks are used. This is several orders of magnitude worse than a 11-man rosham.

On the button

2008-06-03T03:39:00.002-04:00

See, the thing is that going last in the bidding round is supposed to be an advantage.

Suck it MLB

2008-06-02T16:09:00.003-04:00

The Supreme Court has refused to hear Major League Baseball's appeal of a lower court decision that baseball statistics can be used freely without their permission.

Not sure why MLB wanted to kill off a fantasy-sports industry that has probably increased interest in their product significantly over the last decade or so, but that's Bud Selig for you.

When you get to the end zone, act like you've been there before

2008-06-01T03:23:00.004-04:00

I guess this fella has never been chip leader in a MTT before.

FWIW, the guy is a regional manager for Domino's Pizza and is the son of a US Congressman.

Midlife crisis

2008-05-30T01:03:00.000-04:00

The pie shall be cut in two, and each man shall receive...death. I'll eat the pie

2008-04-27T01:34:00.002-04:00

Two kids from Honolulu come out to watch ~~Spiceman and the Seven Dwarves~~ LA Galaxy in an exhibition match. After the game, David Beckham notices the kids (who apparently are best friends) holding up signs, and gives his shirt to one of them; it's not clear who he meant to give it to.

Parents of kid #1 suggest that they share the jersey. Parents of kid #2 agree.

The next night, parents of kid #2 magically produce another Beckham shirt with an unrecognizable Sharpie mark on it which they claim is Beckham's signature and try to pass it off on kid #1, then decide that kid #2 is going to keep the original shirt. Lawsuits ensue.

Who says American soccer is boring?

Securities and Exchange Commission to begin testing for performance-enhancing drugs

2008-04-21T22:04:00.002-04:00

No, not really, but perhaps they should.

Retarded scorekeepers

2008-04-01T18:34:00.008-04:00

During Thursday's UCLA-Western Kentucky game, Kevin Love threw a pass the length of the court to Russell Westbrook, who took a dribble and naturally blew the layup, leaving James Keefe to clean up the garbage to make the score 48-30. Of course I heckled Westbrook loudly for costing Love an assist. One of my friends then claimed that it wouldn't have counted as an assist since Westbrook took a dribble.

I did some research, and apparently some scorekeepers do use the rule that any dribble by the scorer negates any assist, as shown in Love's zero-assist box score line from the game below:

Naturally, these are probably the same scorekeepers who had all of America thinking that Greg Paulus was an elite point guard because his passing allowed JJ Redick to drain threes with guys in his face 5.2 times a game in 2006.

Lamest Final Four EVAR

2008-03-31T01:43:00.000-04:00

Home-court advantage in the NCAA tournament

2008-03-30T03:32:00.003-04:00

Every year various teams in the NCAA basketball tournament get shafted when the game venues are chosen. East #1 seed North Carolina just played four games in its home state, while South #1 seed Memphis gets to play #2 seed Texas in Texas for a spot in the Final Four. Meanwhile, scores of lower-seeded teams are forced to bear huge travel costs by flying cross-country for their games.

I think the NCAA really needs to smooth out these home-court inequities in the future -- either keep every team in its natural geographic region to cut down travel costs, or spread the travel burdens around equally. There is absolutely no reason for any team to be burdened with excessive travel or a significant home-court disadvantage.

However, in the libertarian spirit of this blog, I would propose another solution (which, needless to say, will never fly): when the selection committee selects its 64 65 teams, seed them 1-65 and let them choose, in order, which regional they want to play in. Obviously the very lowest seeds are still going to get screwed over, but it would be very interesting to see exactly how low a seed a team would be willing to take in exchange for playing close to home. I think avoiding a cross-country trip is easily worth a drop of one seed, and possibly two.

Federal government to bail out losing gamblers at taxpayer expense

2008-03-29T15:32:00.003-04:00

From the WaPo:

The Bush administration is finalizing details of a plan to rescue thousands of homeowners at risk of foreclosure by helping them refinance into more affordable mortgages backed by public funds, government officials said.

The proposal is aimed at assisting borrowers who owe their banks more than their homes are worth because of plummeting prices, an issue at the heart of the nation's housing crisis. Under the plan, the Federal Housing Administration would encourage lenders to forgive a portion of those loans and issue new, smaller mortgages in exchange for the financial backing of the federal government.

Viral

2008-03-23T22:31:00.004-04:00

Somehow "Sweet Caroline" has become the anthem of the Davidson basketball team. Ordinarily I'd be outraged that they stole one of the Boston Red Sox' oldest and most precious sacraments, but since they made me a quick $25 over the weekend I'll let it slide.

Dear Cuban soccer kids,

2008-03-13T20:56:00.001-04:00

If you want to come to the US that badly, the least you could have done is not to bone us over by playing your full squad against our team and then defecting.

RIP Gary Gygax

2008-03-05T12:24:00.002-05:00

The inventor of Dungeons & Dragons passed away yesterday.

Having learned a little bit about the regular Platonic solids when I was a kid, I remember the first time I saw a 10-sided die. It blew my mind.

Muddy Waters must be homotoping in his grave

2008-03-02T02:50:00.002-05:00

Topologist Scott Carter plays the Quantum Gravity-Topological Quantum Field Theory blues. (Lyrics are here.)

"This time, I really need the money, because my car insurance rates have gone through the roof."

2008-02-24T02:44:00.003-05:00

I'm not a huge Billy Joel fan, but I figured that if I want to ever see him in concert, I probably should do so soon.

He's actually pretty funny in concert, full of self-deprecating humor and silliness. Thanks to him, I learned about this amusing controversy during Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign from 2000.

Setlist from February 23, 2008 in Anaheim:

Prelude/Angry Young Man
My Life
Everybody Loves You Now
The Entertainer
The Ballad Of Billy The Kid
Allentown
New York State Of Mind
Zanzibar
Root Beer Rag
Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)
Don't Ask Me Why
Captain Jack
She's Always A Woman
Keeping the Faith
River Of Dreams
Highway To Hell
We Didn't Start The Fire
It's Still Rock And Roll To Me
You May Be Right
Scenes From An Italian Restaurant
Only The Good Die Young
Piano Man

I would've liked to hear Goodnight Saigon, This Night, The Downeaster "Alexa", Leningrad, Say Goodbye To Hollywood, Stiletto...oh well. I'm also surprised that Uptown Girl was omitted; the only time I've ever seen it performed is in the clip below.

Alberto Gilardino plays inline hockey in Los Angeles

2008-02-13T03:27:00.003-05:00

That's right, the AC Milan striker (pictured above) apparently plays inline hockey in Los Angeles on his off days.

Tonight, when our team led 1-0 with 3:00 to go, he camped out in front of our goal. While I was in the process of lifting his stick, he held my stick with both arms and fell down much in the manner shown above. I hardly need to mention that they scored on the ensuing power play and again afterward.

As he was leaving the rink, I yelled out to the referee, "Hey ref, which sports book do you like best? I think I prefer Caesars Palace." Well, actually I didn't, but I wish I had.

The waiting is the hardest part

2008-02-02T16:22:00.000-05:00

Waiting five days before owning a gun is nearly as awful as waiting fourteen days for the Super Bowl.

Train wreck

2008-01-29T19:08:00.000-05:00

In case anybody wonders what kind of program UCLA's new football coach ran the last time he was head of a college team, the Seattle Times is running a four-part series on it. Prepare to be horrified. (And not by the NCAA basketball pool he participated in, which doesn't bother me in the least.)

Part 1 features Jerramy Stevens, who up until now was best known to me for stinking up the 2006 Super Bowl for the Seattle Seahawks.

Hiring a coach who tolerated this sort of criminal behavior from his players at his previous school is completely unacceptable for a university of UCLA's class.

Arbing for pennies

2008-01-26T13:37:00.000-05:00

Finished making some Super Bowl bets this week. It's not every day you see 40-cent arb opportunities. Some of these sports books could learn a thing or two about handicapping from this guy.

Germany sucks

2008-01-04T01:36:00.000-05:00

Via Bloomberg:

Germany to Ban Online Gambling Jan. 1 Under Accord by States

By Karin Matussek

Dec. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Online gambling will be banned in Germany as of Jan. 1 after German states ratified an accord that preserves the country's state monopoly for lotteries and most forms of betting.

At least 13 of Germany's 16 states have submitted the ratification documents, Eric Braum, a spokesman for the Hesse government, which monitors the process, said in an interview today. ``That's the required majority and we expect to have all the rest coming in by New Year's Eve.''

All 16 state legislatures voted by mid-December to approve the new online-betting laws, which the states negotiated after the Federal Constitutional Court ruled in 2006 that the former model was unconstitutional. The new rules, which expire at the end of 2011, have drawn criticism from Internet betting companies and lottery brokers like Bwin Interactive Entertainment AG, Fluxx AG and Tipp24 AG.

The new rules ban any form of Web-based gambling or brokering of games over the Internet. The states may order Internet service providers to block Web sites of illegal betting operations and banks to stop money transfers to them. The rules' definition of illegal gaming includes placing a bet from German territory over the Web with a company based outside Germany.

The regulations also will outlaw advertising of gaming over the Internet and on television. Advertising in print and other media may no longer ``directly invite, incite or prompt'' customers to play; it may only ``inform'' about the possibility to do so.

Unlike the ban in the USA on banks funding online gaming sites, I would guess that Germany intends to put some actual teeth in this law. Nanny-state laws in general seem to be a lot stronger over on the other side of the pond.

This is quite disappointing. A disproportionate number of fishies whose online poker monies I have been winning seem to have come from Germany. Maybe the EU will force Germany to overturn the ban, I dunno.

Merry Christmas

2007-12-25T01:50:00.001-05:00

Have you ever wondered what it would sound like if U2 dropped into a bar on karaoke night and Bono took the stage after having a few pints of Guinness? It'd probably sound something like this.

Letter grades bad. Numerical grades good.

2007-12-21T03:47:00.000-05:00

If universities around the world (or at least UCLA) would adopt numerical grades of 2 or 3 digits of precision instead of letter grades, I wouldn't have to deal with emails from 10 students per quarter who think they got hosed.

That is all.

From the archives: the mathematics of the electoral college

2007-12-19T14:24:00.001-05:00

This post was originally written on September 29, 2004.

Many folks seem to think that in Presidential elections, voters in smaller states have more power than voters in larger states to influence the Presidential election. Actually, that's not really true. The two extra senators and possible roundoff errors in population don't come close to compensating for the fact that bigger states can more easily swing the election, thanks to electoral college bloc voting.

In general, in a state of population n, the probability of the vote being split equally is then

(n! / (n/2)! (n/2)!) * (1/2)^n.

We use Stirling's approximation to evaluate large factorials:

n! = (approx.) (n/e)^n sqrt(2 pi n)

Hence, the probability of the vote being equally split is approximately

((n/e)^n * sqrt (2 pi n) / (n/2e)^n * (pi n)) * (1/2)^n

= sqrt (2 / pi n).

If you live in a state of population n, this is the probability that you hold a swing vote in your state. (Yes, n should really be the number of voters, not the population. Oh well.)

Calculating the probability that your state is a swing state is a bit trickier. Suppose your state has k electoral votes; we're then interested in finding the probability that the other states give between 269-k and 269 electoral votes to Bush. Again it's hopeless to try to compute this probability explicitly for every state, but we can make a few simplifications.

Each state votes as a bloc; it gives either j or 0 votes to Bush. The variance (standard deviation squared) in this quantity is j^2/4. A basic theorem of probability is that if you have a bunch of independent random variables, the variance in the sum is the sum of the variances.

Looking at the current electoral vote map and summing j^2 over all states, we get that the sum of j^2 is about 10000. So the variance in the number of votes that the other states deliver to Bush is about (10000 - k^2)/4, where k again is the number of votes in your state. The standard deviation is the square root of the variance, so the standard deviation would range from about 43 if you're in California to almost 50 if you're in a small state. Call the standard deviation sigma, as is customary.

The basic simplifying assumption we can make is that the distribution of electoral votes in other states going to Bush is a normal distribution (bell curve) with standard deviation as calculated above, centered at (538-k)/2. The probability that your state is a swing state is the area of the probability function lying over the interval (269-k, 269); this interval lies in the center of the probability distribution and has radius k/2.

Recall that sigma is in the 43-50 range. The interval we're looking at has radius at most 28 (if you live in California); this is less than two-thirds of sigma. The bell curve is actually pretty close to flat if you only go two-thirds of sigma away from the center. So the probability that your state is a swing state is pretty close to a being linear function of k. The bell curve has height 1/(sqrt(2 pi) sigma) at the center, so the probability that your state is the swing state is about 1/sqrt(2 pi) (k/sigma).

Recall that the probability that your vote is the swing vote in your state is about sqrt (2/pi n). Hence the probability that your vote decides the election is about

sqrt (2 / pi n) (1/sqrt(2 pi)) (k/sigma) = 1/pi sqrt(1/n) (k/sigma).

Recall that k = (n / 660,000) + 2, or something like that (plus roundoff error). For n large, we can neglect the 2. The probability that a voter in a big state decides the election is thus proportional to sqrt(n), i.e. voters in big states have more power. If you do the math, the extra votes in states with 3 electoral votes help a bit; it's the voters in states with 4 or 5 votes that get screwed.

Plugging in some numbers:

California: n = 35,000,000
k = 55
sigma = 43

Probability of your vote being a swing vote in state= 1.35 x 10^-4
Probability of California being a swing state = 0.51
Probability of your vote deciding the Presidential election = 6.88 x 10^-5

Pennsylvania: n = 12,000,000
k = 21
sigma = 49

Probability of your vote being a swing vote in state = 2.30 x 10^-4
Probability of Pennsylvania being a swing state = 0.171
Probability of your vote deciding the Presidential election = 3.93 x 10^-5

Colorado: n = 4,500,000
k = 9
sigma = 50

Probability of your vote being a swing vote in state = 3.76 x 10^-4
Probability of Colorado being a swing state = 7.18 x 10^-2
Probability of your vote deciding the presidential election = 2.70 x 10^-5

Nevada: n = 2,200,000
k = 5
sigma = 50

Probability of your vote being a swing vote in state = 5.38 x 10^-4
Probability of Nevada being a swing state = 3.99 x 10^-2
Probability of your vote deciding the presidential election = 2.14 x 10^-5

Wyoming: n = 500,000
k = 3
sigma = 50

Probability of your vote being a swing vote in state = 1.13 x 10^-3
Probability of Wyoming being a swing state = 2.39 x 10^-2
Probability of your vote deciding the presidential election = 2.70 x 10^-5

A caveat: The "probability of your vote deciding the presidential election" is a conditional probability: it is the probability that your vote decides the election, conditioned on the event that everyone else votes randomly. We can't add up these probabilities, since they're conditioned on different events. That's how we get probabilities of the order 10^-5 in a nation of 300,000,000. But they are valid for comparing voter power in different states.

Oh, dear God

2007-12-03T00:55:00.000-05:00

Apparently Michigan will play Florida in the Capital One Bowl. Since the last three games Michigan played against spread offenses with mobile QBs went so well, this should be a dandy.

Harvard basketball beats Michigan

2007-12-01T21:06:00.000-05:00

No joke.

At this point Michigan should consider joining a conference that better fits its academic and athletic aspirations. Since the Ivy League clearly is too good for them, the Division III MIAA might be more up their alley.

Well, we just blew billions of dollars on subprime mortgage-backed securities. What are you doing with your money?

2007-11-15T13:41:00.000-05:00

Oh, cruel irony.

The Writers' Guild of America can go have relations with themselves

2007-11-08T12:39:00.000-05:00

I don't take sides on business disputes about which I know nothing, but the Writers' Guild of America were the primary reason that traffic on Pico Blvd. westbound was clogged up this morning.

Well, actually, they were the secondary reason (the primary reason being the scores of dumbass drivers who had to stop and hold off traffic in order to stare and honk), but you get the idea.

You chose to end the nonresponsive program, iTunes

2007-11-05T01:14:00.000-05:00

It always sucks when an application hangs or crashes during an important stage of a project.

Ow

2007-11-02T23:32:00.000-04:00

In case anyone was wondering how to pronounce Junior Seau's last name, his ESPN stat page explains how:

Lolpaps

2007-10-30T01:45:00.000-04:00

Televised baseball is way more exciting in Japan

2007-10-27T17:32:00.001-04:00

Below, Daisuke Matsuzaka destroys some chump.

One sports book currently offers a prop bet on whether Matsuzaka will make contact in his first plate appearance of tonight's game (-200 No, +160 Yes). Turns out that this season he had four plate appearances. No hits, but he made contact in each at-bat, and the two strikeouts were against some guy named Randy Johnson. Considering that the Rockies' pitcher tonight is junkballer Josh Fogg, this bet seems like printing monies to me.

EDIT: Fortunately, a foul tip counts as contact. Whoo.

Broomball

2007-10-27T03:53:00.000-04:00

Well, after one game of broomball I currently sport a stellar GAA of 54.24. (The previous figure is completely made up.) I was pretty invincible when only one ball was in play, but once all of the balls (8-10 of them) were in play I estimate my save percentage went down to about 50-60%. I played in goal for what felt like an eternity, picked up my watch, and saw that 15 minutes had elapsed. Eventually I let another guy take the second shift in goal, then came back for the last 5-10 minutes.

Basic rules (very, very informal): put the ball into the net using your broom. Mostly like non-checking hockey except without all of the rules that noobs would find confusing (offside, icing). No stoppages of play, and there should be a general understanding that you can't score when the goalie is fishing a ball out of the net, but this understanding was pretty flagrantly violated several times by the opposing team. There's probably also rule that the goalie is the only defender allowed in his own crease unless a ball is there. We played 28-on-28, and a team could probably be unbeatable by sealing up the crease completely with 10 defenders, but that's the epitome of lameness.

I wore volleyball kneepads and played like a stand-up hockey goalie would -- stay low, spread out, go to one knee for most kick saves. The butterfly style (which I used in MIT D-league ice hockey) or slinky-for-a-spine Hasek style is probably unsound without leg pads and with multiple balls in play. The rink staff left the ice nice and snowed up for us when we began, and I had no problems moving around in boots on the scuffed-up ice. After about 15 minutes or so, the ice in front of the goal smoothed out, and moving up-and-down and side-to-side became a lot harder. At that point, just standing by one post and holding the stick out to the side might be better technique.

Team naturally seemed to divide up into defenders, midfielders and forwards. Forwards and defenders played inside the blue line, midfielders at center ice.

It's really hard to get any steam on a wrist shot with a taped-up broom; slap shots or half-slap shots might be better from any distance.

Most defenders on both sides basically sat in front of the crease and attempted to sweep balls away from the goal instead of marking the forwards. This is poor strategy in 5-on-5 ice hockey, and it's not so hot for multi-ball broomball either (unless you have enough defenders forming an impregnable wall as mentioned above). It's natural to want to face the offense and see all the balls, but unless the goalie claims the balls, the O can shoot and rebound at will. When I took a shift as a forward, I scored two or three wraparound goals with no pressure. In addition, if the defense is playing back, the goalie also has to stay back in the goal instead of coming out in the direction of the biggest threat and cutting down the angle.

Finally, although we had divided up teams by counting off odd-even, the other team ended up having all of the other players on the ice who had hockey experience. Rigged.

Asshattery

2007-10-24T00:43:00.000-04:00

Well, it took quite a bit longer than I expected, but here's the first instance I can find of a major media outlet giving a celebrity's expert opinion on this week's fires in Southern California. It might surprise Ms. Curtis to know that there are very few places in the United States where one can be completely protected from natural disasters -- there are tornadoes and river floods in the heartland, snowstorms in the north, hurricanes in the east, and so forth.