Sosa update
So, apparently, the 76 of Sosa's bats that were confiscated after the game were tested and found to be clean. I find this a tremendous relief, not just because it makes sense (after all, if Sosa had more corked bats, you'd think that one of them would be noticed earlier) but because it raises my hopes that it won't end up tainting his whole legacy. It's possible that Sosa's explanation was legitimate; or perhaps, as I've seen suggested, he was just depressed by his slump and resorted to desperate measures, but either way, I'm hopeful that this was just a short-term thing.
Wednesday, June 04, 2003
Depressing link of the day
So, apparently, the average Ford of today has a worse fuel economy than the Model T of nearly a hundred years ago. Of course, Ford defends itself by pointing out that they can make more fuel-efficient cars (and some are indeed quite impressive), but the fact that the poor fuel efficiency is driven by marketing, rather than technology, is in itself more than a little bit depressing.
So, apparently, the average Ford of today has a worse fuel economy than the Model T of nearly a hundred years ago. Of course, Ford defends itself by pointing out that they can make more fuel-efficient cars (and some are indeed quite impressive), but the fact that the poor fuel efficiency is driven by marketing, rather than technology, is in itself more than a little bit depressing.
Scandal of the day
So, apparently, Sammy Sosa was caught using a corked bat.
Despite the fact that I've never been the biggest of Sosa fans (still bitter from his 1998 MVP win, I suppose), I really do hope he turns out to be innocent. His explanation is certainly plausible enough (though maybe that's just because I want to believe it), but who really knows? I guess they're going to look at the rest of his bats which they impounded, and hopefully they won't find anything more incriminating.
The question of just how beneficial the cork is is, of course, another matter. The physicists claim that cork provides a negligible benefit to the actual power you can impart to the ball, but it's of course quite difficult to measure the impact of a lighter bat in a game setting. And the sample size for corked bats being used in MLB is quite small (well, at least that we know of -- I have no doubt that it's noticeably higher than has been measured so far). Norm Cash produced arguably the greatest fluke season in baseball history (I'll bet even the most baseball illiterate fan can find it on that page) with what he later admitted was a corked bat; on the other hand, it didn't seem to help Wilton Guerrero much. Albert Belle certainly hit fine after his big corking scandal, though if Omar Vizquel is to be believed that's because all of his bats were corked. The other cases I don't know enough about to say anything useful, but it sure seems like the evidence is inconclusive.
In light of this, I guess I'm just disappointed that a player like Sosa -- who I think everyone can agree doesn't need cork to hit the occasional ball out of the park -- risked tarnishing his reputation (which, sadly, has pretty much irreversibly happened now) by trying this, even if his intentions were the best, as he claims.
So, apparently, Sammy Sosa was caught using a corked bat.
Despite the fact that I've never been the biggest of Sosa fans (still bitter from his 1998 MVP win, I suppose), I really do hope he turns out to be innocent. His explanation is certainly plausible enough (though maybe that's just because I want to believe it), but who really knows? I guess they're going to look at the rest of his bats which they impounded, and hopefully they won't find anything more incriminating.
The question of just how beneficial the cork is is, of course, another matter. The physicists claim that cork provides a negligible benefit to the actual power you can impart to the ball, but it's of course quite difficult to measure the impact of a lighter bat in a game setting. And the sample size for corked bats being used in MLB is quite small (well, at least that we know of -- I have no doubt that it's noticeably higher than has been measured so far). Norm Cash produced arguably the greatest fluke season in baseball history (I'll bet even the most baseball illiterate fan can find it on that page) with what he later admitted was a corked bat; on the other hand, it didn't seem to help Wilton Guerrero much. Albert Belle certainly hit fine after his big corking scandal, though if Omar Vizquel is to be believed that's because all of his bats were corked. The other cases I don't know enough about to say anything useful, but it sure seems like the evidence is inconclusive.
In light of this, I guess I'm just disappointed that a player like Sosa -- who I think everyone can agree doesn't need cork to hit the occasional ball out of the park -- risked tarnishing his reputation (which, sadly, has pretty much irreversibly happened now) by trying this, even if his intentions were the best, as he claims.
Simpsons Quiz of the Day
Simpsons characters sure are a thankful bunch. Identify the source of each of these quotes (speaker and context):
1. "Thank you very much, State Supreme Court."
2. "Thank you very much, Warren Christopher."
3. "You're screwed, thank you, bye."
4. "Ja, thank you, ja, that's nice."
5. "Oh, thank you, kind innkeeper."
6. "Thank you, NASA."
7. "Thank you, door!"
8. "Thanks a lot, Steve!"
9. "Thank you! You have fulfilled our dreams and the dreams of our ancestors!"
10. "Thanks a lot! Now *I* look crazy!"
You can email answers to me, or just post them in the comments. Enjoy! Answers later.
Simpsons characters sure are a thankful bunch. Identify the source of each of these quotes (speaker and context):
1. "Thank you very much, State Supreme Court."
2. "Thank you very much, Warren Christopher."
3. "You're screwed, thank you, bye."
4. "Ja, thank you, ja, that's nice."
5. "Oh, thank you, kind innkeeper."
6. "Thank you, NASA."
7. "Thank you, door!"
8. "Thanks a lot, Steve!"
9. "Thank you! You have fulfilled our dreams and the dreams of our ancestors!"
10. "Thanks a lot! Now *I* look crazy!"
You can email answers to me, or just post them in the comments. Enjoy! Answers later.
Rant of the day
After working with code on physics projects for three summers now, I've come to a very simple conclusion: 95% of all physicists can't write good code to save their life. This is undoubtedly because they're just unfamiliar with the rules of good programming, so they tend to be extremely overly cautious in some areas and just plain sloppy in others. Physicist coding seems to follow a few simple rules, enumerated below. (All rants apply to C code. I could rant about the Fortran code too, but I think its mere existence is really all I need to say on that front.)
1) The purpose of -Wall is to produce all those pretty warnings. That gives you an impressive feeling of just how long your program is. (Seriously. I don't think I've ever compiled another person's code with -Wall which didn't produce at least two screenfuls of warnings. This is true even when their own makefile included -Wall.)
2) All functions must be declared "int", but if you don't really need to return anything, then don't bother with those pesky return() statements! Conversely, when calling a function that returns a value, you must always carefully save that value, even if you have absolutely no plans to ever do anything with it.
3) Code should never actually be deleted. If you need to take out a particular piece of code, always comment it out. After all, even if the old code is flagrantly wrong or outdated, you'll never know when you might need it again!
4) Loop variables should be given descriptive names such as "loopvar", thus freeing up the precious single-letter variable names for more important variables. The capital single-letter variables are used for strings, of course.
5) Comments of the form
i += 2; /* adds 2 to i */
are perfectly reasonable. Under no circumstance should a comment attempt to explain why one might want to add 2 to i, however.
6) Function prototypes should be strewn throughout the source file, preferably right in front of the function that needs to use the prototyped functions. Under no circumstances should they be placed in a header. Similarly, one never needs to include the header files for library functions -- the compiler knows what they are, right?
7) A char array that you're planning to use as a string should be as big as the number of characters in the string. (My favorite!)
8) The word "const" does not exist. (This might seem like a petty gripe. It's just that I always cringe when I see declarations like
char *filename = "some hardcoded filename";
and not just because of what's on the right side of that assignment.)
9) It's perfectly okay to name an ordinary variable LIKE_THIS, as long as you don't really plan on changing it. Similarly, a #define'd value you might want to name like_this, in case you want to change the value later.
10) Indentation, placement of braces, and so forth should be done as inconsistently as possible. To ensure the best possible performance in this area, maximize the number of people, each with their own programming style, working on a single source file.
11) Source code management does not exist. As per (10) above, have as many people as possible working on a single file at once. However, should you need to branch the code, make as many copies of the original source code as you need for each situation you might have to deal with and modify each one independently.
I'm sure I'll think of more items to add to this list as time goes on.
After working with code on physics projects for three summers now, I've come to a very simple conclusion: 95% of all physicists can't write good code to save their life. This is undoubtedly because they're just unfamiliar with the rules of good programming, so they tend to be extremely overly cautious in some areas and just plain sloppy in others. Physicist coding seems to follow a few simple rules, enumerated below. (All rants apply to C code. I could rant about the Fortran code too, but I think its mere existence is really all I need to say on that front.)
1) The purpose of -Wall is to produce all those pretty warnings. That gives you an impressive feeling of just how long your program is. (Seriously. I don't think I've ever compiled another person's code with -Wall which didn't produce at least two screenfuls of warnings. This is true even when their own makefile included -Wall.)
2) All functions must be declared "int", but if you don't really need to return anything, then don't bother with those pesky return() statements! Conversely, when calling a function that returns a value, you must always carefully save that value, even if you have absolutely no plans to ever do anything with it.
3) Code should never actually be deleted. If you need to take out a particular piece of code, always comment it out. After all, even if the old code is flagrantly wrong or outdated, you'll never know when you might need it again!
4) Loop variables should be given descriptive names such as "loopvar", thus freeing up the precious single-letter variable names for more important variables. The capital single-letter variables are used for strings, of course.
5) Comments of the form
i += 2; /* adds 2 to i */
are perfectly reasonable. Under no circumstance should a comment attempt to explain why one might want to add 2 to i, however.
6) Function prototypes should be strewn throughout the source file, preferably right in front of the function that needs to use the prototyped functions. Under no circumstances should they be placed in a header. Similarly, one never needs to include the header files for library functions -- the compiler knows what they are, right?
7) A char array that you're planning to use as a string should be as big as the number of characters in the string. (My favorite!)
8) The word "const" does not exist. (This might seem like a petty gripe. It's just that I always cringe when I see declarations like
char *filename = "some hardcoded filename";
and not just because of what's on the right side of that assignment.)
9) It's perfectly okay to name an ordinary variable LIKE_THIS, as long as you don't really plan on changing it. Similarly, a #define'd value you might want to name like_this, in case you want to change the value later.
10) Indentation, placement of braces, and so forth should be done as inconsistently as possible. To ensure the best possible performance in this area, maximize the number of people, each with their own programming style, working on a single source file.
11) Source code management does not exist. As per (10) above, have as many people as possible working on a single file at once. However, should you need to branch the code, make as many copies of the original source code as you need for each situation you might have to deal with and modify each one independently.
I'm sure I'll think of more items to add to this list as time goes on.
Much ado about QuesTec
For those of you non-baseball-followers reading this, you probably haven't heard much about QuesTec. (Those of you who have can skip this paragraph.) QuesTec is a system introduced by baseball last year, which uses computers to judge balls and strikes. Umpires who don't agree with the computer's calls at least 90% of the time can be disciplined by MLB. Needless to say, the umpires are hopping mad about this; perhaps slightly more surprisingly, the pitchers are equally irate. Curt Schilling, angry after a poor start, destroyed a QuesTec camera (in a karmic retribution thingy, he later broke his hand), and several members of the Braves also expressed unhappiness with the system after blowing a lead.
Perhaps much less surprisingly, the pitchers who were complaining were pitchers who did badly; I certainly haven't heard a pitcher who pitched a good game saying the first thing about QuesTec (nor, for that matters, have I seen any comment from the hitters). And this is pretty much human nature -- after all, a pitcher will naturally look for a scapegoat, and the QuesTec system is an obvious target -- a nice inanimate object to take out your frustrations on. Pitchers destroying hapless water coolers have been a fixture of baseball for years; why shouldn't QuesTec, which in a pitcher's mind can easily be responsible, be any different? And as Schilling himself admitted, his opposing counterpart on his day of destruction was pitching a two-hitter, so it's hard to argue that he was suddenly terribly hurt by QuesTec.
I don't mean to say that QuesTec is perfect, but I have to ultimately side with this quote from Sandy Alderson: "What this is about is Curt Schilling wanting pitches that are balls, called strikes... If that's what he wants, he should go to the rules committee. Otherwise, he should stop whining and go about his business."
For those of you non-baseball-followers reading this, you probably haven't heard much about QuesTec. (Those of you who have can skip this paragraph.) QuesTec is a system introduced by baseball last year, which uses computers to judge balls and strikes. Umpires who don't agree with the computer's calls at least 90% of the time can be disciplined by MLB. Needless to say, the umpires are hopping mad about this; perhaps slightly more surprisingly, the pitchers are equally irate. Curt Schilling, angry after a poor start, destroyed a QuesTec camera (in a karmic retribution thingy, he later broke his hand), and several members of the Braves also expressed unhappiness with the system after blowing a lead.
Perhaps much less surprisingly, the pitchers who were complaining were pitchers who did badly; I certainly haven't heard a pitcher who pitched a good game saying the first thing about QuesTec (nor, for that matters, have I seen any comment from the hitters). And this is pretty much human nature -- after all, a pitcher will naturally look for a scapegoat, and the QuesTec system is an obvious target -- a nice inanimate object to take out your frustrations on. Pitchers destroying hapless water coolers have been a fixture of baseball for years; why shouldn't QuesTec, which in a pitcher's mind can easily be responsible, be any different? And as Schilling himself admitted, his opposing counterpart on his day of destruction was pitching a two-hitter, so it's hard to argue that he was suddenly terribly hurt by QuesTec.
I don't mean to say that QuesTec is perfect, but I have to ultimately side with this quote from Sandy Alderson: "What this is about is Curt Schilling wanting pitches that are balls, called strikes... If that's what he wants, he should go to the rules committee. Otherwise, he should stop whining and go about his business."
Names
I have this weird paranoia about people's names -- I'm always afraid that I'll call someone I don't know all that well by the wrong name, and they'll think I'm a complete flake. This manifests itself especially strongly with my students; I usually pick up most of their names pretty quickly, but I'm extremely hesitant to actually use them. When I hand back labs or quizzes for the first time, I always have this fear that I'll give the wrong one back to somebody and they'll look at me disapprovingly, and even after that goes successfully (as it always has) I still feel wary.
The other day at LBL, I saw one of my former students. I remembered his name immediately (he was one of the more memorable people in the section), but I still didn't actually get around to using it. It's all very silly, I know, but I wish I could break myself of this habit.
I have this weird paranoia about people's names -- I'm always afraid that I'll call someone I don't know all that well by the wrong name, and they'll think I'm a complete flake. This manifests itself especially strongly with my students; I usually pick up most of their names pretty quickly, but I'm extremely hesitant to actually use them. When I hand back labs or quizzes for the first time, I always have this fear that I'll give the wrong one back to somebody and they'll look at me disapprovingly, and even after that goes successfully (as it always has) I still feel wary.
The other day at LBL, I saw one of my former students. I remembered his name immediately (he was one of the more memorable people in the section), but I still didn't actually get around to using it. It's all very silly, I know, but I wish I could break myself of this habit.
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
I have the bestest timing ever
So I began work today. Work definitely looks like it's going to keep me busy for the near future, and my need to be productive means I'm not likely to be doing extensive blogging from there, either. So I may have to scale back my grand plans. Fortunately, they weren't actually that grand in the first place.
So I began work today. Work definitely looks like it's going to keep me busy for the near future, and my need to be productive means I'm not likely to be doing extensive blogging from there, either. So I may have to scale back my grand plans. Fortunately, they weren't actually that grand in the first place.
Tuesday, May 27, 2003
Forgiveness vs. responsibility for one's own actions
So I was just reading this article, "The Virtue of Hate". It argues that the main difference between Christianity and Judaism (aside from the whole Jesus issue, of course) is that Christianity belives that any sinner, no matter how awful, can ultimately be forgiven and redeemed if they accept Jesus, while Judaism believes that people should and must be punished appropriately for their misdeeds.
The article itself is very interesting, but I also find it fascinating that the Right (which tends to be Christian) tends to espouse the latter view, while the Left (which probably has the majority of Jews, and certainly has the majority of non-religious people) is much more strongly on the "forgiveness" side of the fence.
So I was just reading this article, "The Virtue of Hate". It argues that the main difference between Christianity and Judaism (aside from the whole Jesus issue, of course) is that Christianity belives that any sinner, no matter how awful, can ultimately be forgiven and redeemed if they accept Jesus, while Judaism believes that people should and must be punished appropriately for their misdeeds.
The article itself is very interesting, but I also find it fascinating that the Right (which tends to be Christian) tends to espouse the latter view, while the Left (which probably has the majority of Jews, and certainly has the majority of non-religious people) is much more strongly on the "forgiveness" side of the fence.
I'm not making any promises...
Before, I tried to make a conscious effort not to let my posts be just links to interesting things. There was no real rational reason behind this; it was mostly just a desire to be different for no particular reason (there's that perfectionist impulse kicking in again; if you want a reason why it took me so long to finally punt the offending post and get things started again, you need look no further).
Anyway, I think that it's probably more interesting to have a post which contains only a link to an interesting thing than no post at all (and hopefully you agree; if not, well, feel free to disagree!) So I'll probably be attempting to increase the quantity of content at least somewhat via this method.
Before, I tried to make a conscious effort not to let my posts be just links to interesting things. There was no real rational reason behind this; it was mostly just a desire to be different for no particular reason (there's that perfectionist impulse kicking in again; if you want a reason why it took me so long to finally punt the offending post and get things started again, you need look no further).
Anyway, I think that it's probably more interesting to have a post which contains only a link to an interesting thing than no post at all (and hopefully you agree; if not, well, feel free to disagree!) So I'll probably be attempting to increase the quantity of content at least somewhat via this method.
A completely useless announcement
So this weekend we're hosting BANG 3, a puzzle hunt. BANG is pretty low-key, at least compared to ridiculous extravaganzas like The Game, which probably require months of planning, thousands of dollars of expenditures, and a cast of dozens if not hundreds. Ours is just a little simpler -- and cheaper -- but I'm still quite excited about it. All of this activity and effort I've been putting into it makes me regret the fact that I missed the couple of opportunities to go hunting this last semester -- a combination of too busy, too expensive, and too little interest from teammates -- but on the other hand it looks like there'll still be fun stuff this summer.
So this weekend we're hosting BANG 3, a puzzle hunt. BANG is pretty low-key, at least compared to ridiculous extravaganzas like The Game, which probably require months of planning, thousands of dollars of expenditures, and a cast of dozens if not hundreds. Ours is just a little simpler -- and cheaper -- but I'm still quite excited about it. All of this activity and effort I've been putting into it makes me regret the fact that I missed the couple of opportunities to go hunting this last semester -- a combination of too busy, too expensive, and too little interest from teammates -- but on the other hand it looks like there'll still be fun stuff this summer.
Catching up...the short version
So it's summer already -- my favorite season of the year, as I will generally tell anyone within earshot. Often mid-spring (early April or so, before final stress begins to weigh in) will compete for these honors, but this year the weather was really quite unimpressive up until about the beginning of May, so summer is the clear favorite for this year, barring meteor strike or somesuch.
Anyway, Mike's graduating, I'm moving on to a new research group (and very much looking forward to it), and I'm probably happier than I've been in quite a while. This is a good thing, I suppose, though I do wish I was a little closer to graduation myself.
So it's summer already -- my favorite season of the year, as I will generally tell anyone within earshot. Often mid-spring (early April or so, before final stress begins to weigh in) will compete for these honors, but this year the weather was really quite unimpressive up until about the beginning of May, so summer is the clear favorite for this year, barring meteor strike or somesuch.
Anyway, Mike's graduating, I'm moving on to a new research group (and very much looking forward to it), and I'm probably happier than I've been in quite a while. This is a good thing, I suppose, though I do wish I was a little closer to graduation myself.
Bet you weren't expecting this
All right, I've decided that it's time to brush the dust off of this thing and get to writing again. If you're wondering why the extremely long delay, it's because I got about halfway through the next installment of Sports Philosophy, got bogged down, and then never actually got around to finishing it, and then just kind of let things lapse, as you probably were able to figure out.
Anyway, for obvious reasons, I'm going to not announce a proud resurrection quite yet. If they're not obvious, it's because (a) if this burst of energy turns out to be fleeting, I don't really want to look like an idiot, and (b) it's more fun for me to tell people that this is back once I have 10-15 posts up to read, rather than just this one post telling you that this is back. Or maybe you'll just see this by accident and it'll be a pleasant surprise.
All right, I've decided that it's time to brush the dust off of this thing and get to writing again. If you're wondering why the extremely long delay, it's because I got about halfway through the next installment of Sports Philosophy, got bogged down, and then never actually got around to finishing it, and then just kind of let things lapse, as you probably were able to figure out.
Anyway, for obvious reasons, I'm going to not announce a proud resurrection quite yet. If they're not obvious, it's because (a) if this burst of energy turns out to be fleeting, I don't really want to look like an idiot, and (b) it's more fun for me to tell people that this is back once I have 10-15 posts up to read, rather than just this one post telling you that this is back. Or maybe you'll just see this by accident and it'll be a pleasant surprise.
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
On comfort reading
A sure sign that I'm feeling in better-than-normal condition is when I get around to actually reading things. Normally, reading is one of those activities that I keep meaning to get around to but rarely actually do, since I always feel that I have work I should be doing instead of lazing around with a book. So when I can actually get myself to sit down and curl up with a good book, it makes me happy.
Of course, in these times I don't always have new things to read lying around, so often I'll find myself looking on my bookshelf. Peculiarly enough, this more often than not leads me to Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books. I first was recommended to the series on rasfwr-j (that's rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan for those of you not familiar with the acronym -- yes, I did read Robert Jordan once -- no, I don't see why that's relevant to my past -- can we please stop asking questions about that now?), and darned if I can remember who it was (Kate Nepveu, maybe?) who said that they were good comfort reading. And it's really true -- they're light enough that they're a pleasure to read, Brust has a delightful writing style, and the plot is sufficient to keep me entertained even though I know how it's all going to end. All in all, the perfect combination for something to read when I just want a nice break from the rest of the world.
(Whee, I sound like a back-of-the-book blurb.)
A sure sign that I'm feeling in better-than-normal condition is when I get around to actually reading things. Normally, reading is one of those activities that I keep meaning to get around to but rarely actually do, since I always feel that I have work I should be doing instead of lazing around with a book. So when I can actually get myself to sit down and curl up with a good book, it makes me happy.
Of course, in these times I don't always have new things to read lying around, so often I'll find myself looking on my bookshelf. Peculiarly enough, this more often than not leads me to Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books. I first was recommended to the series on rasfwr-j (that's rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan for those of you not familiar with the acronym -- yes, I did read Robert Jordan once -- no, I don't see why that's relevant to my past -- can we please stop asking questions about that now?), and darned if I can remember who it was (Kate Nepveu, maybe?) who said that they were good comfort reading. And it's really true -- they're light enough that they're a pleasure to read, Brust has a delightful writing style, and the plot is sufficient to keep me entertained even though I know how it's all going to end. All in all, the perfect combination for something to read when I just want a nice break from the rest of the world.
(Whee, I sound like a back-of-the-book blurb.)
Monday, February 17, 2003
Sports Philosophy II
(Part 1 of a 3-part series, time permitting)
Ultimately, the goal of any sport is to determine who the best team is. Now, of course, the question of what the "best" team is a difficult philosophical nut to crack in the first place, and often you'll see heated arguments on this subject when the participants don't even agree on the fundamental goals they're trying to prove. So I'll try to tackle the question of what makes a better team from several different angles. In the scientist's way, I'll start out with a deliberately simplified model.
Consider three teams (which, for lack of imagination, I'll call A, B, and C). They play a round robin, at the end of which each team is 1-1. This is the classic Circle of Death you'll see in quizbowl tournaments all the time. To make the example a little more fleshed-out, add, say, five more teams which always lose to A, B, and C, so we have a eight-team division with three teams at 6-1 and three teams at 2-5. Now, let's make an assumption that these results fairly reflect the quality of the three teams. This is arguably not a safe assumption, but we're not going to get interesting results without dong something, so we'll make it. And I can certainly think of quizbowl tournaments where this would be an accurate thing to say. Okay, now it's pretty obvious that we can say that A, B, and C are of the same intrinsic quality (assuming that it's meaningful to speak of an "intrinsic quality" in the first place; again, without making this assumption we're not going to get very far, so I'm just going to say it and move on).
Now, let's conduct a little gedanken experiment. Suppose team C's bus gets stuck in snow, or they forfeit all of their games due to their star player accepting throwback jerseys, or something else happens to take them out of the picture. All of a sudden, we have a pretty surprising result: team A is now 6-0 and team B is 5-1, so pretty much anyone sane would say that team A has done better than team B, despite the fact that our assumption that their intrinsic qualities are the same still holds.
All right, this might seem a little excessively contrived, but let's add another little wrench into the gedanken experiment. Let's say team A suffers a loss to team F somewhere along the line, so now team A and B are both 5-1. Now, we've made team A worse than its previous baseline, so if our previous assumption still holds true (and I sure haven't done anything to change it), then team B's intrinsic ability is actually a little better than team A. And yet, based on the fact that team A has beaten team B head-to-head, you'd see most people agree that team A is the better one.
At this point, I suppose you're going to say that this experiment is arguably a little silly. And so it is -- after all, just because our mythical team C exists in this case doesn't mean that we can always add a mythical team C to any given setup like the one above. Nevertheless, I think this serves to illustrate a broader point: many people, given two teams with equal records, will value a "good" win over a "bad" win, especially in the case of a head-to-head tiebreaker. But the team who loses the head-to-head tiebreaker has suffered a "better" loss than the other team, by definition. Why should we believe there's any a priori reason that a "good" win plus a "bad" loss is somehow indicative of a stronger team quality than a "bad" win plus a "good" loss?
This is not to say I oppose looking at indicators like strength of schedule -- in fact, I think it's something all-too-frequently overlooked (I'll talk about this more in the next part). But unfortunately, a lot of the time, strength of schedule is used by boosters of a particular team who will say things like, "Well, our team beat X, Y, and Z, and they're all good teams, so that must mean they're good!" while completely overlooking that the team also lost to J, K, and L, which were pretty bad teams. There are two sides to every coin, and if a good win is accompanied by a bad loss, then there's no basis to judge it better than a good loss and a bad win (in the absence of other information, of course). Trying to get further rankings out of this basis is merely trying to get something from nothing, and is essentially circular reasoning.
In the next part, I'll try to actually accomplish something productive.
(Part 1 of a 3-part series, time permitting)
Ultimately, the goal of any sport is to determine who the best team is. Now, of course, the question of what the "best" team is a difficult philosophical nut to crack in the first place, and often you'll see heated arguments on this subject when the participants don't even agree on the fundamental goals they're trying to prove. So I'll try to tackle the question of what makes a better team from several different angles. In the scientist's way, I'll start out with a deliberately simplified model.
Consider three teams (which, for lack of imagination, I'll call A, B, and C). They play a round robin, at the end of which each team is 1-1. This is the classic Circle of Death you'll see in quizbowl tournaments all the time. To make the example a little more fleshed-out, add, say, five more teams which always lose to A, B, and C, so we have a eight-team division with three teams at 6-1 and three teams at 2-5. Now, let's make an assumption that these results fairly reflect the quality of the three teams. This is arguably not a safe assumption, but we're not going to get interesting results without dong something, so we'll make it. And I can certainly think of quizbowl tournaments where this would be an accurate thing to say. Okay, now it's pretty obvious that we can say that A, B, and C are of the same intrinsic quality (assuming that it's meaningful to speak of an "intrinsic quality" in the first place; again, without making this assumption we're not going to get very far, so I'm just going to say it and move on).
Now, let's conduct a little gedanken experiment. Suppose team C's bus gets stuck in snow, or they forfeit all of their games due to their star player accepting throwback jerseys, or something else happens to take them out of the picture. All of a sudden, we have a pretty surprising result: team A is now 6-0 and team B is 5-1, so pretty much anyone sane would say that team A has done better than team B, despite the fact that our assumption that their intrinsic qualities are the same still holds.
All right, this might seem a little excessively contrived, but let's add another little wrench into the gedanken experiment. Let's say team A suffers a loss to team F somewhere along the line, so now team A and B are both 5-1. Now, we've made team A worse than its previous baseline, so if our previous assumption still holds true (and I sure haven't done anything to change it), then team B's intrinsic ability is actually a little better than team A. And yet, based on the fact that team A has beaten team B head-to-head, you'd see most people agree that team A is the better one.
At this point, I suppose you're going to say that this experiment is arguably a little silly. And so it is -- after all, just because our mythical team C exists in this case doesn't mean that we can always add a mythical team C to any given setup like the one above. Nevertheless, I think this serves to illustrate a broader point: many people, given two teams with equal records, will value a "good" win over a "bad" win, especially in the case of a head-to-head tiebreaker. But the team who loses the head-to-head tiebreaker has suffered a "better" loss than the other team, by definition. Why should we believe there's any a priori reason that a "good" win plus a "bad" loss is somehow indicative of a stronger team quality than a "bad" win plus a "good" loss?
This is not to say I oppose looking at indicators like strength of schedule -- in fact, I think it's something all-too-frequently overlooked (I'll talk about this more in the next part). But unfortunately, a lot of the time, strength of schedule is used by boosters of a particular team who will say things like, "Well, our team beat X, Y, and Z, and they're all good teams, so that must mean they're good!" while completely overlooking that the team also lost to J, K, and L, which were pretty bad teams. There are two sides to every coin, and if a good win is accompanied by a bad loss, then there's no basis to judge it better than a good loss and a bad win (in the absence of other information, of course). Trying to get further rankings out of this basis is merely trying to get something from nothing, and is essentially circular reasoning.
In the next part, I'll try to actually accomplish something productive.
Wednesday, February 12, 2003
A digression on the scientific method
I'm sure you've all seen this in some form, but I like laying it out clearly.
Suppose I have two coins. One of them is a two-headed coin; the other one is a normal coin. I choose one of them at random and flip it; it comes up heads. What is the chance that it is the two-headed coin? Well, this is a pretty simple exercise in using Bayes' Theorem. The total probability of getting heads is 3/4, and the total probability of picking the two-headed coin and getting heads is 1/2 x 1 = 1/2. So, by Bayes' Theorem, the probability of it being the two-headed coin given that it came up heads is P(2-headed given heads) = P(2-headed and heads) / P(heads) = (1/2)/(3/4) = 2/3. No problem.
All right, let's move on. I have a coin, and I flip it. It comes up heads. I say, "I have a theory: that this happened because this is a normal coin." My friend comes into the room and says, "Oh yeah? I have a better theory. Your coin came up heads because it was a two-headed coin. And look! You just proved that my theory has a 2/3 chance of being correct." Well, yes and no. If we assume that, a priori, the coin was equally likely to be a regular coin and a two-headed coin, then yes, it's true that the coin has a 2/3 chance of being two-headed. But we have a better knowledge of the a priori distribution than that -- we know that normal coins are far, far more common than two-headed coins, so the probability of it being a two-headed coin is still very small, even given this one piece of information.
But notice the key feature of this: the experiment (such as it is) can't give us a full picture of which hypothesis is more likely without some a priori assumptions about which hypothesis is more likely in the first place.
So, I'll bet you can see where this is headed. I have a coin, and I flip it. It comes up heads. I say, "I have a theory: this happened because this is a normal coin." My other friend walks in, and says, "Well, I have a theory that this happened because invisible angels manipulated the trajectory of the coin to make it come up heads." The scientific method is completely helpless to resolve this dispute; you have to use your own a priori knowledge to adjudicate it. This is where we like to talk about what makes a theory "scientific", but all that really means is setting out an objective framework for deciding what's likely in the first place and what's not. It's a big mess.
I'm sure you've all seen this in some form, but I like laying it out clearly.
Suppose I have two coins. One of them is a two-headed coin; the other one is a normal coin. I choose one of them at random and flip it; it comes up heads. What is the chance that it is the two-headed coin? Well, this is a pretty simple exercise in using Bayes' Theorem. The total probability of getting heads is 3/4, and the total probability of picking the two-headed coin and getting heads is 1/2 x 1 = 1/2. So, by Bayes' Theorem, the probability of it being the two-headed coin given that it came up heads is P(2-headed given heads) = P(2-headed and heads) / P(heads) = (1/2)/(3/4) = 2/3. No problem.
All right, let's move on. I have a coin, and I flip it. It comes up heads. I say, "I have a theory: that this happened because this is a normal coin." My friend comes into the room and says, "Oh yeah? I have a better theory. Your coin came up heads because it was a two-headed coin. And look! You just proved that my theory has a 2/3 chance of being correct." Well, yes and no. If we assume that, a priori, the coin was equally likely to be a regular coin and a two-headed coin, then yes, it's true that the coin has a 2/3 chance of being two-headed. But we have a better knowledge of the a priori distribution than that -- we know that normal coins are far, far more common than two-headed coins, so the probability of it being a two-headed coin is still very small, even given this one piece of information.
But notice the key feature of this: the experiment (such as it is) can't give us a full picture of which hypothesis is more likely without some a priori assumptions about which hypothesis is more likely in the first place.
So, I'll bet you can see where this is headed. I have a coin, and I flip it. It comes up heads. I say, "I have a theory: this happened because this is a normal coin." My other friend walks in, and says, "Well, I have a theory that this happened because invisible angels manipulated the trajectory of the coin to make it come up heads." The scientific method is completely helpless to resolve this dispute; you have to use your own a priori knowledge to adjudicate it. This is where we like to talk about what makes a theory "scientific", but all that really means is setting out an objective framework for deciding what's likely in the first place and what's not. It's a big mess.
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
On the Commodification of A Priori Egalitarian Systems
(Why yes, I am feeling in an academic mood today. How could you tell?)
So, I'm sure you've read this study of the economy of Norrath. (For those of you who haven't: Norrath is the virtual world in the game EverQuest, and this paper is a fascinating analysis of its economy. Possessions in the virtual world are often bought and sold online for real money; you can even establish an exchange rate given these transactions, in which the Norrathian platinum piece comes out as stronger than the lira or yen. But if you haven't, read the article. It's fascinating stuff, and humorously written.) Now, as you might expect, all characters are created equally; everyone starts out as a Level 1 weakling with nothing to his, her, or its name. In EverQuest's many predecessors (note: I've never played EverQuest itself, but I'm familiar with MUDs, the ancestor of MMORPGs like EverQuest), the only way to build up your character was by expending time in the virtual world -- time spent improving your character's abilities, obtaining equipment and money, and forging friendships and alliances with other characters. But now, with the ability of outside wealth to influence a player's ability, one can substitute cold, hard US cash for expenditure of time in the world of Norrath. As Castronova notes, "Unfortunately the equality of opportunity is beginning to erode...It has become possible to start a new avatar and use US currency to instantly endow it with vast virtual riches and expensive equipment." (p. 15) I've seen enough complaints about rich kids buying their way to success to figure that this is an issue which makes people unhappy, and with good reason. (If you want to get all Marxist, you can insert the appropriate rhetoric: the bourgoisie, with their capital -- capital not even acquired within the world of the game! -- can use this capital to take advantage of the labor of the proletariat. Wasn't that fun?)
Now, Sony has attempted to prevent this kind of trading (not, of course, for any kind of socialist utopia reasons, but because they believe -- arguably correctly -- that the game's property is their intellectual property), but although they've tried to stamp out auctions in eBay and Yahoo, it's awfully hard to prevent the black market. Castronova says, "My impression is that the ban has had little impact on trading. Sony, effectively the government of Norrath, is fighting a war of trade restrictions that no government has ever won." (p. 19) The truth is, as long as these commodities have value to people, they will be bought and sold, regardless of what Sony wants to enforce.
It's hard to feel too worked up about this issue, since it is a game I don't play after all (although I suspect I might be a little annoyed if I actually did play the game). But an issue that hits a little closer to home is the Google vs. SearchKing issue. Now, of course I fully support Google; it's hard not to feel that businesses like SearchKing are a little sleazy. Google has always cast itself as the promoter of egalitarianism; their description of PageRank touts itself as relying "on the uniquely democratic nature of the web" and strongly emphasizes that only a page's merit will determine its PageRank. But reading through this article, and then James Grimmelmann's article in LawMeme (another excellent read), brought me to this open letter from SearchKing CEO Bob Massa. The letter, of course, portrays SearchKing as a company just trying to help those struggling little mom-and-pop web sites; you can make your own decisions about just how truthful it is, but Massa makes a very troubling point in his letter: "People are going to start selling PR [PageRank] regardless of what Google does. If there is value in it, someone is going to sell it."
And the simple truth is, regardless of whatever the truth may be about SearchKing's real mission, Massa is right. In the world of Google, a high PageRank is valuable, and, well, if a less-reputable site wants to offer money to a site with a high PageRank to get them to link to them...Google can try to go after the SearchKings of the world, like Sony can go after the obvious auctions on eBay and Yahoo, but on a practical level, there's no way to stop it. You and I might find it distasteful, and Google almost certainly has an interest in quashing it, since it reduces the value of their rankings without any compensation to Google, but that can't stop it from happening. Does this mean that I think PageRank is ultimately doomed? I have confidence that it's currently too impractical to significantly boost one's ranking this way, especially when the alternative of making a higher-quality site is available, but the fact that SearchKing had succeeded in improving the reputation of itself and its clients does indicate that it can be done. The invisible hand is just too powerful in these situations; a black market will always spring up even if the government tries to prohibit commerce in these goods.
(Why yes, I am feeling in an academic mood today. How could you tell?)
So, I'm sure you've read this study of the economy of Norrath. (For those of you who haven't: Norrath is the virtual world in the game EverQuest, and this paper is a fascinating analysis of its economy. Possessions in the virtual world are often bought and sold online for real money; you can even establish an exchange rate given these transactions, in which the Norrathian platinum piece comes out as stronger than the lira or yen. But if you haven't, read the article. It's fascinating stuff, and humorously written.) Now, as you might expect, all characters are created equally; everyone starts out as a Level 1 weakling with nothing to his, her, or its name. In EverQuest's many predecessors (note: I've never played EverQuest itself, but I'm familiar with MUDs, the ancestor of MMORPGs like EverQuest), the only way to build up your character was by expending time in the virtual world -- time spent improving your character's abilities, obtaining equipment and money, and forging friendships and alliances with other characters. But now, with the ability of outside wealth to influence a player's ability, one can substitute cold, hard US cash for expenditure of time in the world of Norrath. As Castronova notes, "Unfortunately the equality of opportunity is beginning to erode...It has become possible to start a new avatar and use US currency to instantly endow it with vast virtual riches and expensive equipment." (p. 15) I've seen enough complaints about rich kids buying their way to success to figure that this is an issue which makes people unhappy, and with good reason. (If you want to get all Marxist, you can insert the appropriate rhetoric: the bourgoisie, with their capital -- capital not even acquired within the world of the game! -- can use this capital to take advantage of the labor of the proletariat. Wasn't that fun?)
Now, Sony has attempted to prevent this kind of trading (not, of course, for any kind of socialist utopia reasons, but because they believe -- arguably correctly -- that the game's property is their intellectual property), but although they've tried to stamp out auctions in eBay and Yahoo, it's awfully hard to prevent the black market. Castronova says, "My impression is that the ban has had little impact on trading. Sony, effectively the government of Norrath, is fighting a war of trade restrictions that no government has ever won." (p. 19) The truth is, as long as these commodities have value to people, they will be bought and sold, regardless of what Sony wants to enforce.
It's hard to feel too worked up about this issue, since it is a game I don't play after all (although I suspect I might be a little annoyed if I actually did play the game). But an issue that hits a little closer to home is the Google vs. SearchKing issue. Now, of course I fully support Google; it's hard not to feel that businesses like SearchKing are a little sleazy. Google has always cast itself as the promoter of egalitarianism; their description of PageRank touts itself as relying "on the uniquely democratic nature of the web" and strongly emphasizes that only a page's merit will determine its PageRank. But reading through this article, and then James Grimmelmann's article in LawMeme (another excellent read), brought me to this open letter from SearchKing CEO Bob Massa. The letter, of course, portrays SearchKing as a company just trying to help those struggling little mom-and-pop web sites; you can make your own decisions about just how truthful it is, but Massa makes a very troubling point in his letter: "People are going to start selling PR [PageRank] regardless of what Google does. If there is value in it, someone is going to sell it."
And the simple truth is, regardless of whatever the truth may be about SearchKing's real mission, Massa is right. In the world of Google, a high PageRank is valuable, and, well, if a less-reputable site wants to offer money to a site with a high PageRank to get them to link to them...Google can try to go after the SearchKings of the world, like Sony can go after the obvious auctions on eBay and Yahoo, but on a practical level, there's no way to stop it. You and I might find it distasteful, and Google almost certainly has an interest in quashing it, since it reduces the value of their rankings without any compensation to Google, but that can't stop it from happening. Does this mean that I think PageRank is ultimately doomed? I have confidence that it's currently too impractical to significantly boost one's ranking this way, especially when the alternative of making a higher-quality site is available, but the fact that SearchKing had succeeded in improving the reputation of itself and its clients does indicate that it can be done. The invisible hand is just too powerful in these situations; a black market will always spring up even if the government tries to prohibit commerce in these goods.
Monday, February 10, 2003
J-Lo, and how we know what isn't so
(apologies to Thomas Gilovich for stealing his title, and my readers for inflicting this rhyme, but I couldn't resist)
So, it's a well-known fact that Jennifer Lopez has a large butt. It's been the (ahem) butt of a thousand remarks (the majority unflattering; although I can believe that at least some of them are in a positive spirit, there's certainly a fair amount of meanness in a lot of what I see, too), but they say any publicity is good publicity, and it certainly hasn't hurt her. After all, if you were to walk up to a random stranger on the street and ask them to name you someone with a large butt, they'd almost certainly put her near the top of the list. I could go on about how this is some reflection of how America always wants to find fault in its celebrities, but that's not really my point here.
The point is that the emperor has no ass. That is, if you actually ask anyone reasonable, they'll agree that her butt is by no means larger than average. It might be slightly above the average of Hollywood, but it's hardly large, even taking Hollywood as a norm, much less the American populace, where it's still definitely below average (to state the obvious). Why does this happen, then? Well, it got started out somehow, and people liked to talk about it (for whatever reason), and since no one was particularly interested in arguing the other side (what's the point, after all?), it just spread to the point where, if there's anyone in America who hasn't actually seen J-Lo, they're probably convinced she must have a butt the size of Refrigerator Perry.
Now, in J-Lo's case, this is pretty harmless (and, despite the meanspiritedness, probably beneficial, on the whole). But the way with which something with such a tenuous basis in fact can spread to the point where it becomes accepted as common knowledge, simply by virtue of being constantly repeated, is more than a little alarming.
Tom Tomorrow can tell where I'm headed with this.
(apologies to Thomas Gilovich for stealing his title, and my readers for inflicting this rhyme, but I couldn't resist)
So, it's a well-known fact that Jennifer Lopez has a large butt. It's been the (ahem) butt of a thousand remarks (the majority unflattering; although I can believe that at least some of them are in a positive spirit, there's certainly a fair amount of meanness in a lot of what I see, too), but they say any publicity is good publicity, and it certainly hasn't hurt her. After all, if you were to walk up to a random stranger on the street and ask them to name you someone with a large butt, they'd almost certainly put her near the top of the list. I could go on about how this is some reflection of how America always wants to find fault in its celebrities, but that's not really my point here.
The point is that the emperor has no ass. That is, if you actually ask anyone reasonable, they'll agree that her butt is by no means larger than average. It might be slightly above the average of Hollywood, but it's hardly large, even taking Hollywood as a norm, much less the American populace, where it's still definitely below average (to state the obvious). Why does this happen, then? Well, it got started out somehow, and people liked to talk about it (for whatever reason), and since no one was particularly interested in arguing the other side (what's the point, after all?), it just spread to the point where, if there's anyone in America who hasn't actually seen J-Lo, they're probably convinced she must have a butt the size of Refrigerator Perry.
Now, in J-Lo's case, this is pretty harmless (and, despite the meanspiritedness, probably beneficial, on the whole). But the way with which something with such a tenuous basis in fact can spread to the point where it becomes accepted as common knowledge, simply by virtue of being constantly repeated, is more than a little alarming.
Tom Tomorrow can tell where I'm headed with this.
Thoughts from the road
As you probably know if you've ever driven on an interstate, usually whenever there's an exit sign on the right, there's a corresponding sign on the left telling you where the continuing freeway goes. "280 San Jose", or whatever. When I was driving in Southern California this weekend, I was inordinately amused when I found myself on 605, and those signs read "605 THRU TRAFFIC". The freeway wasn't actually notable for going anywhere, it was just there to carry traffic. I think there's some kind of deep social commentary to be gleaned from this.
On another note, my luck finally ran out and I got a speeding ticket. Oddly enough, despite my having pondered this very question often while driving, I still was momentarily stymied when the officer asked me if I knew how fast I was going. Part of it was that I actually didn't, since I didn't have my eye on the speedometer at the moment, and part of it was that I was trying to figure out what the best answer was. Finally, I figured that I probably shouldn't say anything over 90, and I wasn't sure anything under 90 was plausible, so I settled on that and hoped it was actually accurate. He seemed to agree, so I guess I was right.
As you probably know if you've ever driven on an interstate, usually whenever there's an exit sign on the right, there's a corresponding sign on the left telling you where the continuing freeway goes. "280 San Jose", or whatever. When I was driving in Southern California this weekend, I was inordinately amused when I found myself on 605, and those signs read "605 THRU TRAFFIC". The freeway wasn't actually notable for going anywhere, it was just there to carry traffic. I think there's some kind of deep social commentary to be gleaned from this.
On another note, my luck finally ran out and I got a speeding ticket. Oddly enough, despite my having pondered this very question often while driving, I still was momentarily stymied when the officer asked me if I knew how fast I was going. Part of it was that I actually didn't, since I didn't have my eye on the speedometer at the moment, and part of it was that I was trying to figure out what the best answer was. Finally, I figured that I probably shouldn't say anything over 90, and I wasn't sure anything under 90 was plausible, so I settled on that and hoped it was actually accurate. He seemed to agree, so I guess I was right.
Wednesday, February 05, 2003
Sports Philosophy I
The team that you normally root for is in the conference championship (or league championship, or whatever), and loses. When the Big Championship comes around, assuming all other things equal, do you:
(a) root for the team that your team lost to, so you can say that you lost to the best team?
(b) root against the team that your team lost to, out of revenge?
(My own answer, somewhat cowardly: it depends on exactly how they lost, but normally I trend closer to (a) than (b).)
The team that you normally root for is in the conference championship (or league championship, or whatever), and loses. When the Big Championship comes around, assuming all other things equal, do you:
(a) root for the team that your team lost to, so you can say that you lost to the best team?
(b) root against the team that your team lost to, out of revenge?
(My own answer, somewhat cowardly: it depends on exactly how they lost, but normally I trend closer to (a) than (b).)
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