My 2 cents on the Confederate flag uproar
Not much to say that hasn't been said elsewhere, but to me, this tells me two things:
1) The other Democrats are desperate to blunt Dean's momentum. The way that they've seized onto this issue, it looks like they're desperate for an angle with which they can gain an edge (to ruthlessly mix metaphors).
2) Fundamentally, Dean is right, even if he didn't exactly express himself in the best way possible. However, I can't see the Democratic party reversing its losses in the South in the near future without a major sea change.
Thursday, November 06, 2003
Two political links of the day
First, the most distinctive ballot measure you're likely to see (not counting San Francisco's Proposition BB of about ten years back, which is a close contender): this measure in Bolinas.
Second, apparently the Democratic party switched from winner-take-all primaries to proportional representation. Yes, really. This should make for an interesting convention. Read about it in CalPundit.
First, the most distinctive ballot measure you're likely to see (not counting San Francisco's Proposition BB of about ten years back, which is a close contender): this measure in Bolinas.
Second, apparently the Democratic party switched from winner-take-all primaries to proportional representation. Yes, really. This should make for an interesting convention. Read about it in CalPundit.
Wednesday, November 05, 2003
Political question of the day
There's no shortage of actors who have become Republican politicians. There are the obvious examples (Schwarzenegger, Reagan), and I'm sure without too much difficulty you could find a bunch more minor people (Fred Thompson, Sonny Bono, Fred Grandy, etc.). However, when Juliana and I were searching on this question the other day, we were able to find one actor who became a Democratic politician: Ben Jones, who played "Cooter" on the Dukes of Hazzard. He served two terms in the House (winning his first term after the incumbent was indicted for perjury), and made a few more unsuccessful House runs. As far as profile goes (both as an actor and as a politician), it's considerably lower than the Republican side of the ledger. And according to this article, he's only the third ever, after Helen Gahagan Douglas (who was a theater actress) and Shiela Kuehl, a California State Senator with a rather undistinguished acting career. Hardly an impressive slate.
To me, at least, while some of the reasons are obvious, it seems surprising that the disparity would be that large. Anyway, this post was inspired by seeing this article.
There's no shortage of actors who have become Republican politicians. There are the obvious examples (Schwarzenegger, Reagan), and I'm sure without too much difficulty you could find a bunch more minor people (Fred Thompson, Sonny Bono, Fred Grandy, etc.). However, when Juliana and I were searching on this question the other day, we were able to find one actor who became a Democratic politician: Ben Jones, who played "Cooter" on the Dukes of Hazzard. He served two terms in the House (winning his first term after the incumbent was indicted for perjury), and made a few more unsuccessful House runs. As far as profile goes (both as an actor and as a politician), it's considerably lower than the Republican side of the ledger. And according to this article, he's only the third ever, after Helen Gahagan Douglas (who was a theater actress) and Shiela Kuehl, a California State Senator with a rather undistinguished acting career. Hardly an impressive slate.
To me, at least, while some of the reasons are obvious, it seems surprising that the disparity would be that large. Anyway, this post was inspired by seeing this article.
Technical note, concluded
Okay, I think I've fixed the issue with the comments. Let me know if there appear to be any problems.
For those interested in the details: At some point when I wasn't looking, probably when Blogger changed their engine, they moved from 8-digit post ID numbers, which are reasonable, to 18-digit post ID numbers, which strike me, personally, as just a little bit of overkill, but what do I know? Anyway, in the past, the post ID numbers were passed to the comment script as numbers, and everything was fine. But now, passing an 18-digit number as a number gets it truncated. So I changed things to pass their numbers as strings, and it should work happily.
Okay, I think I've fixed the issue with the comments. Let me know if there appear to be any problems.
For those interested in the details: At some point when I wasn't looking, probably when Blogger changed their engine, they moved from 8-digit post ID numbers, which are reasonable, to 18-digit post ID numbers, which strike me, personally, as just a little bit of overkill, but what do I know? Anyway, in the past, the post ID numbers were passed to the comment script as numbers, and everything was fine. But now, passing an 18-digit number as a number gets it truncated. So I changed things to pass their numbers as strings, and it should work happily.
Tuesday, November 04, 2003
Interesting legal issue of the day
So, I'm not an expert on copyright law, but I have read enough to have heard of Feist v. Rural Telephone (though I don't think I would be able to remember the name offhand). To make a long story short, a white pages publisher used information from a rival company's directory; the other company sued for copyright infringement, but the Court ruled that the information in the white pages, being factual, was not entitled to copyright protection, and the presentation, being merely alphabetical, was not sufficiently original to warrant protection either.
Now, it appears possible that these actions might be made illegal. I'm actually of a very mixed opinion about this. I suppose the sticking point is that after a company has put all this work in to create a database of information, it doesn't seem fair to me (for lack of a better term) for another company to be able to take it and make money from it. It's the last point which is key, at least in my own personal ethical system. (It's also why, of the two bills mentioned in the article, I would vastly prefer the spirit of the Bliley version; I obviously benefit from having directory information available online for free.)
I learned of this initially when reading about baseball-reference.com. b-r is simply the best baseball reference site there is, and I frequently use it and am very glad to have it as a free resource. (I believe it's also the only website I've outright donated money to -- this was well before their sponsorship system, and though there was an offer to use old donations towards sponsorship, I didn't really want to bother.) b-r gets a large (though declining, these days) percentage of its information from Sean Lahman's baseball database, which is also free. But what I didn't know is that, apparently, much of the original information in the Lahman database was extracted from a CD-ROM version of Total Baseball, which is not a free product. And, oddly, though I know that this process was (and is, for now) perfectly legal, it still makes me feel a little uneasy. I know it doesn't make sense.
So, I'm not an expert on copyright law, but I have read enough to have heard of Feist v. Rural Telephone (though I don't think I would be able to remember the name offhand). To make a long story short, a white pages publisher used information from a rival company's directory; the other company sued for copyright infringement, but the Court ruled that the information in the white pages, being factual, was not entitled to copyright protection, and the presentation, being merely alphabetical, was not sufficiently original to warrant protection either.
Now, it appears possible that these actions might be made illegal. I'm actually of a very mixed opinion about this. I suppose the sticking point is that after a company has put all this work in to create a database of information, it doesn't seem fair to me (for lack of a better term) for another company to be able to take it and make money from it. It's the last point which is key, at least in my own personal ethical system. (It's also why, of the two bills mentioned in the article, I would vastly prefer the spirit of the Bliley version; I obviously benefit from having directory information available online for free.)
I learned of this initially when reading about baseball-reference.com. b-r is simply the best baseball reference site there is, and I frequently use it and am very glad to have it as a free resource. (I believe it's also the only website I've outright donated money to -- this was well before their sponsorship system, and though there was an offer to use old donations towards sponsorship, I didn't really want to bother.) b-r gets a large (though declining, these days) percentage of its information from Sean Lahman's baseball database, which is also free. But what I didn't know is that, apparently, much of the original information in the Lahman database was extracted from a CD-ROM version of Total Baseball, which is not a free product. And, oddly, though I know that this process was (and is, for now) perfectly legal, it still makes me feel a little uneasy. I know it doesn't make sense.
On a more pessimistic note
Despite my ill-founded optimism below, I have to admit that now is not the best of times to be a Bay Area sports fan. Not counting the minor teams (which actually have done quite well, with the Earthquakes and CyberRays both bringing home a title in 2001, and the Sabercats winning in 2002), none of the area teams has won a title since the Niners won the Super Bowl in '94 (well, technically the Super Bowl itself was '95, but it was for the '94 season), and none seem particularly well-positioned to in the future. I don't need to tell anyone here how close the Giants came in 2002, but they probably can't win with their current personnel (especially given the age of a lot of the team) and they don't seem to have the money (and definitely don't seem to have the minor-league talent) to replace them, with Magowan looking to cut payroll. The A's are probably going to stay in contention for a few years, but it'll require a steady stream of shrewd dealings and good minor-league developments just to keep them treading water, given their financial constraints; it's hard to see them getting noticeably better in the near future, so essentially they'll need a healthy dose of playoff luck to get a title, and they haven't exactly been showing that in spades. The 49ers are in a similar situation: while it looks that the team they'll have is going to be at least competitive, I can't see it getting measurably better in the near future, and I can see it getting a lot worse if they fail to retain a lot of their current players. York's performance as an owner has not exactly inspired confidence so far, either. The Raiders, like the Giants, came close in 2002 (though the '03 Super Bowl was much less close than the '02 World Series), but they also were looking at a very short window of opportunity, and judging by their performance and injury record this year, it looks like it's already closed. The Warriors, though I might be optimistic about their relative performance, are not going to contend for a title any time in the foreseeable future. And finally, the Sharks, which were a trendy pick for a Stanley Cup winner a year ago despite never even reaching the conference finals, instead sunk straight to the basement, traded away all of their talent, and saw the one player who looked like he might be a franchise cornerstone (Nabokov) instead revert to mediocrity. Since they're also cursed with penny-pinching ownership, the outlook here is not so good.
Well, at least I have all these past memories to console me...of course, they only apply to the Niners anyway.
Despite my ill-founded optimism below, I have to admit that now is not the best of times to be a Bay Area sports fan. Not counting the minor teams (which actually have done quite well, with the Earthquakes and CyberRays both bringing home a title in 2001, and the Sabercats winning in 2002), none of the area teams has won a title since the Niners won the Super Bowl in '94 (well, technically the Super Bowl itself was '95, but it was for the '94 season), and none seem particularly well-positioned to in the future. I don't need to tell anyone here how close the Giants came in 2002, but they probably can't win with their current personnel (especially given the age of a lot of the team) and they don't seem to have the money (and definitely don't seem to have the minor-league talent) to replace them, with Magowan looking to cut payroll. The A's are probably going to stay in contention for a few years, but it'll require a steady stream of shrewd dealings and good minor-league developments just to keep them treading water, given their financial constraints; it's hard to see them getting noticeably better in the near future, so essentially they'll need a healthy dose of playoff luck to get a title, and they haven't exactly been showing that in spades. The 49ers are in a similar situation: while it looks that the team they'll have is going to be at least competitive, I can't see it getting measurably better in the near future, and I can see it getting a lot worse if they fail to retain a lot of their current players. York's performance as an owner has not exactly inspired confidence so far, either. The Raiders, like the Giants, came close in 2002 (though the '03 Super Bowl was much less close than the '02 World Series), but they also were looking at a very short window of opportunity, and judging by their performance and injury record this year, it looks like it's already closed. The Warriors, though I might be optimistic about their relative performance, are not going to contend for a title any time in the foreseeable future. And finally, the Sharks, which were a trendy pick for a Stanley Cup winner a year ago despite never even reaching the conference finals, instead sunk straight to the basement, traded away all of their talent, and saw the one player who looked like he might be a franchise cornerstone (Nabokov) instead revert to mediocrity. Since they're also cursed with penny-pinching ownership, the outlook here is not so good.
Well, at least I have all these past memories to console me...of course, they only apply to the Niners anyway.
Minor annoyances at work
There are two things which happen at work which annoy me disproportionately:
1) People taking the elevator for one floor. I always take the elevator in the mornings from the basement to the sixth floor, and in the evenings I make the reverse trip. I'm always astounded by the number of people who will hop on the elevator to go up or down just one floor. I frequently have to go down to the 5th floor, and I always use the stairs. What's the point of taking the elevator?
2) People who don't run for the bus. If the bus is sitting there, and you're late (I can understand not making an effort if you know the bus isn't going to leave yet), then it's more than a little inconsiderate to nonchalantly stroll to the bus and expect everyone to wait for you. Show some hustle!
Yes, I know that not everyone at the Lab is in as good physical condition as me (not to say that I'm in great condition, but at least I'm young and healthy). But these are perpetrated by all sorts of people.
There are two things which happen at work which annoy me disproportionately:
1) People taking the elevator for one floor. I always take the elevator in the mornings from the basement to the sixth floor, and in the evenings I make the reverse trip. I'm always astounded by the number of people who will hop on the elevator to go up or down just one floor. I frequently have to go down to the 5th floor, and I always use the stairs. What's the point of taking the elevator?
2) People who don't run for the bus. If the bus is sitting there, and you're late (I can understand not making an effort if you know the bus isn't going to leave yet), then it's more than a little inconsiderate to nonchalantly stroll to the bus and expect everyone to wait for you. Show some hustle!
Yes, I know that not everyone at the Lab is in as good physical condition as me (not to say that I'm in great condition, but at least I'm young and healthy). But these are perpetrated by all sorts of people.
Monday, November 03, 2003
I know I'm a fool to type this...
...but I'm actually moderately optimistic about the Warriors. Oh, don't get me wrong; I'm hardly expecting them to make the playoffs, but I think they could actually be decent this year. Starting the season with two of their top players hurt and another suspended, they managed to pull out a victory over a decent team and hung in against two of the best teams in the league. And that's all I need for unsupported early-season optimism!
...but I'm actually moderately optimistic about the Warriors. Oh, don't get me wrong; I'm hardly expecting them to make the playoffs, but I think they could actually be decent this year. Starting the season with two of their top players hurt and another suspended, they managed to pull out a victory over a decent team and hung in against two of the best teams in the league. And that's all I need for unsupported early-season optimism!
Lyrics quiz!
This is a very amusing variant on the old lyrics quiz (it's fill-in-the-blank, rather than just name-the-song). The comments in the scoring were also good. Overall, though, my score was pathetic (32). See if you can do better!
This is a very amusing variant on the old lyrics quiz (it's fill-in-the-blank, rather than just name-the-song). The comments in the scoring were also good. Overall, though, my score was pathetic (32). See if you can do better!
Saturday, November 01, 2003
How I spent my Saturday
So today was the first major quizbowl tournament of the fall that I actually participated in (unlike WIT, two weekends ago, where I merely staffed). Now, the Berkeley team has been thriving lately; overall, we fielded five teams, each with a full complement of 4 team members. This was good! Of course, this also meant that we thus comprised 5/8 of the teams and 20/29 of the people, so a lot of the matches were intra-Berkeley matches. Still, it's a good way for the newbies to get tournament experience.
We figured if we concentrated all of the good players, then the newbie teams would just spend all of their time getting whomped; given that this tournament was 14 rounds and, total, took over 7 hours, this is not exactly a fun way to spend your day. So, instead, we spread the strength around -- with the exception of the Bastard Team, which had the two people not currently enrolled (Juliana and Ray), Nick, and David Farris (who just decided to play at the last minute). This had the very beneficial effect of making the overall field very even -- no team had fewer than 3 losses, and only one team (with 2 wins) had fewer than 5 wins. So, I certainly hope much fun was had by all.
Overall, my team was 5-9. That looks worse than it is, I think; we had three rounds which were decided on the last tossup, and we lost them all. I definitely was very streaky; there were some rounds where I did excellently, and there are some rounds (and some particular buzzes within those rounds) where I did poorly. The newbies on my team also acquitted themselves well, so that was definitely a good sign, especially since at Technophobia (next weekend) we are tossing them onto teams by themselves, since we figure it'll have to happen sooner or later and it'll be as good a tournament as any to start with.
Anyway, after a marathon like that, I think I could use some sleep.
So today was the first major quizbowl tournament of the fall that I actually participated in (unlike WIT, two weekends ago, where I merely staffed). Now, the Berkeley team has been thriving lately; overall, we fielded five teams, each with a full complement of 4 team members. This was good! Of course, this also meant that we thus comprised 5/8 of the teams and 20/29 of the people, so a lot of the matches were intra-Berkeley matches. Still, it's a good way for the newbies to get tournament experience.
We figured if we concentrated all of the good players, then the newbie teams would just spend all of their time getting whomped; given that this tournament was 14 rounds and, total, took over 7 hours, this is not exactly a fun way to spend your day. So, instead, we spread the strength around -- with the exception of the Bastard Team, which had the two people not currently enrolled (Juliana and Ray), Nick, and David Farris (who just decided to play at the last minute). This had the very beneficial effect of making the overall field very even -- no team had fewer than 3 losses, and only one team (with 2 wins) had fewer than 5 wins. So, I certainly hope much fun was had by all.
Overall, my team was 5-9. That looks worse than it is, I think; we had three rounds which were decided on the last tossup, and we lost them all. I definitely was very streaky; there were some rounds where I did excellently, and there are some rounds (and some particular buzzes within those rounds) where I did poorly. The newbies on my team also acquitted themselves well, so that was definitely a good sign, especially since at Technophobia (next weekend) we are tossing them onto teams by themselves, since we figure it'll have to happen sooner or later and it'll be as good a tournament as any to start with.
Anyway, after a marathon like that, I think I could use some sleep.
Friday, October 31, 2003
Sports observation of the day
The economics of sports just keep getting weirder and weirder.
Basketball, with its odd soft salary cap, still leads the league in bizarre transactions for financial reasons. For example, this past offseason, the Atlanta Hawks participated in a trade in which they traded away someone who had scored more than 20 points per game for them that year (namely, Glenn Robinson), in order to obtain a player who was on the injured list with injuries that were likely to prevent him from ever playing again and had announced that he was retiring (Terrell Brandon), solely for the purpose of obtaining salary-cap space. (To be fair, the Hawks also did move up a bit in draft picks, but that part is unlikely to matter. All of the quotes from Atlanta officials indicated that they were interested primarily in obtaining the cap room.)
I believe at one point (though I don't remember enough details to find it via Google) that the Clippers, owned by notorious cheapskate Donald Sterling, once obtained some players in a trade which they then promptly waived, just in order to meet the salary floor. But I could be misremembering on that.
Now, baseball, despite not having any official salary caps and floors, has been seeing more and more economically-driven transactions of late. The Rockies, for example, practically gave away Mike Hampton just to be rid of his contract (hey, the faint voice in my mind is telling me that I already wrote something about this), but at least they got something in return. In general, teams trading away good players with overinflated contracts have gotten less back then if they had a reasonable contract, and bad players with big contracts are essentially of negative value in trade discussions, but it's not the case that a good player with an overinflated contract has actually been a negative.
Until now, that is. The Red Sox placed Manny Ramirez on irrevocable waivers on Wednesday, meaning that anyone willing to pick up the 5 years and $101.5 million left on his contract could have him without sending anything back to the Red Sox in return -- and no one was interested. Now, no one doubts that Ramirez is one of the top hitters in the league; he's been in the top 10 in MVP voting for five years running, and this year is extremely likely to be a sixth; it's just that no one wanted to pay that much money. Is that weird?
Well...maybe not as weird as it might seem at first glance. You see, at the end of 2000, Manny Ramirez was a free agent. Thus, when the Sox signed him, they were, pretty much by definition, the team that had the highest valuation of what his services were worth. So, given that Ramirez hasn't improved substantially over the past three seasons (not to say that he's been a disappointment, either; his production has pretty much been in line with reasonable expectations), it stands to reason that the Sox' valuation would still be higher than anyone else's; that is, that no one else would want to have him for the price that the Sox were paying him.
There's been a lot written about how free agency creates a "Winner's Curse", in that the team that signs a player in free agency is always the team that overestimates the player's value by the greatest amount, so I won't bother rehashing that, but I wonder if people realize that this is essentially the same thing, just three years later.
The economics of sports just keep getting weirder and weirder.
Basketball, with its odd soft salary cap, still leads the league in bizarre transactions for financial reasons. For example, this past offseason, the Atlanta Hawks participated in a trade in which they traded away someone who had scored more than 20 points per game for them that year (namely, Glenn Robinson), in order to obtain a player who was on the injured list with injuries that were likely to prevent him from ever playing again and had announced that he was retiring (Terrell Brandon), solely for the purpose of obtaining salary-cap space. (To be fair, the Hawks also did move up a bit in draft picks, but that part is unlikely to matter. All of the quotes from Atlanta officials indicated that they were interested primarily in obtaining the cap room.)
I believe at one point (though I don't remember enough details to find it via Google) that the Clippers, owned by notorious cheapskate Donald Sterling, once obtained some players in a trade which they then promptly waived, just in order to meet the salary floor. But I could be misremembering on that.
Now, baseball, despite not having any official salary caps and floors, has been seeing more and more economically-driven transactions of late. The Rockies, for example, practically gave away Mike Hampton just to be rid of his contract (hey, the faint voice in my mind is telling me that I already wrote something about this), but at least they got something in return. In general, teams trading away good players with overinflated contracts have gotten less back then if they had a reasonable contract, and bad players with big contracts are essentially of negative value in trade discussions, but it's not the case that a good player with an overinflated contract has actually been a negative.
Until now, that is. The Red Sox placed Manny Ramirez on irrevocable waivers on Wednesday, meaning that anyone willing to pick up the 5 years and $101.5 million left on his contract could have him without sending anything back to the Red Sox in return -- and no one was interested. Now, no one doubts that Ramirez is one of the top hitters in the league; he's been in the top 10 in MVP voting for five years running, and this year is extremely likely to be a sixth; it's just that no one wanted to pay that much money. Is that weird?
Well...maybe not as weird as it might seem at first glance. You see, at the end of 2000, Manny Ramirez was a free agent. Thus, when the Sox signed him, they were, pretty much by definition, the team that had the highest valuation of what his services were worth. So, given that Ramirez hasn't improved substantially over the past three seasons (not to say that he's been a disappointment, either; his production has pretty much been in line with reasonable expectations), it stands to reason that the Sox' valuation would still be higher than anyone else's; that is, that no one else would want to have him for the price that the Sox were paying him.
There's been a lot written about how free agency creates a "Winner's Curse", in that the team that signs a player in free agency is always the team that overestimates the player's value by the greatest amount, so I won't bother rehashing that, but I wonder if people realize that this is essentially the same thing, just three years later.
The die is cast
In other news, I went in and gave our landlord the obligatory written notice that we'll be moving out at the end of November, so I'm now officially committed to moving out. I'm hoping that the housing search will go somewhat more smoothly than the last time I did it (and was that really three years ago?!), especially since, well, I only have a month to find somewhere new.
The place itself I have no particular regrets about leaving; after all, you don't need me to tell you its negatives. If anything, I'm mostly annoyed that I didn't leave a while ago. However, finding somewhere new and then going through the whole process of actually moving there is still not something I'm looking forward to. So if you're reading this, it's highly likely I'm going to draft you to help me move at some point.
In other news, I went in and gave our landlord the obligatory written notice that we'll be moving out at the end of November, so I'm now officially committed to moving out. I'm hoping that the housing search will go somewhat more smoothly than the last time I did it (and was that really three years ago?!), especially since, well, I only have a month to find somewhere new.
The place itself I have no particular regrets about leaving; after all, you don't need me to tell you its negatives. If anything, I'm mostly annoyed that I didn't leave a while ago. However, finding somewhere new and then going through the whole process of actually moving there is still not something I'm looking forward to. So if you're reading this, it's highly likely I'm going to draft you to help me move at some point.
*shiver*
So, over the weekend, we were enjoying the proverbial Bay Area Indian Summer -- it more commonly is around in late September/early October, but I guess it was a little late this year, because all of a sudden it was nice and warm. Then, it just went away, and all of a sudden it's really cold. And today it was raining!
Boo. Lousy winter.
So, over the weekend, we were enjoying the proverbial Bay Area Indian Summer -- it more commonly is around in late September/early October, but I guess it was a little late this year, because all of a sudden it was nice and warm. Then, it just went away, and all of a sudden it's really cold. And today it was raining!
Boo. Lousy winter.
Thursday, October 30, 2003
And now, back to sports
Or more specifically, fantasy sports.
It might surprise you to learn that, for all of my baseball fanaticism, I've never actually played a season of real, old-fashioned fantasy baseball. Back in college, I used to play ESPN's Baseball Challenge regularly; in 1999 (I think), I was even dedicated enough to employ the tactic of changing my lineup every day to take advantage of matchups, Coors Field, doubleheaders, and so forth, which was enough to get me near the top, though I never got the extra burst of good fortune which would have put me in the top 50 or so. Of course, that way was less fun, since you never got emotionally attached to your players (although certainly, emotional attachment is usually a bad thing if what you're trying to do is win). There is, or at least was, Simbase, which was kind of an outlet for many of my fictional baseball needs, but it's nowhere close to fantasy ball.
This last year, I was dragged into Scoresheet, which is an excellent form of baseball, but it's also quite different. And, to be honest, this year was pretty boring after the draft -- it was readily apparent that the 37 good things that needed to happen for my team to contend weren't going to happen, so mostly I just prepared for next year and was careful not to trade Bret Boone for Chris Hammond because I needed to fill my hole in the bullpen. (Actually, this league is pleasantly free of insultingly bad trade proposals. Of course, it's largely free of trade proposals entirely, which is perhaps not as good.)
With Scoresheet firmly in its offseason, this means that the only fantasy league I'm currently involved in is the LZA, our long-term keeper fantasy basketball league. However, it seems like the fantasy basketball aspects of the LZA are dying (well, actually, have been dying for a while). By its very nature, the LZA requires pretty close involvement from its players to succeed. Being a keeper league naturally requires more care, since every transaction has to be evaluated not only by its impact on this season, but many seasons down the road. And the LZA is also an extraordinarily deep league -- the NBA has 29 teams, with each team having a 12-man active roster and 3 on IR. The LZA has 28 teams, with each team having a 15-man roster with 10 starters. This means that practically everyone in the NBA is going to be seeing playing time in the LZA, so you have to keep track of even the scrubbiest bench players if you're playing to win. When it started out, the LZA certainly drew that level of involvement, but now most people don't seem willing to keep up with it (and my own interest has been flagging over the past few years, too).
This means that, unless Simbase is unexpectedly resurrected sometime soon, it's likely that Scoresheet will be my only fantasy outlet. And that's just fine with me.
Or more specifically, fantasy sports.
It might surprise you to learn that, for all of my baseball fanaticism, I've never actually played a season of real, old-fashioned fantasy baseball. Back in college, I used to play ESPN's Baseball Challenge regularly; in 1999 (I think), I was even dedicated enough to employ the tactic of changing my lineup every day to take advantage of matchups, Coors Field, doubleheaders, and so forth, which was enough to get me near the top, though I never got the extra burst of good fortune which would have put me in the top 50 or so. Of course, that way was less fun, since you never got emotionally attached to your players (although certainly, emotional attachment is usually a bad thing if what you're trying to do is win). There is, or at least was, Simbase, which was kind of an outlet for many of my fictional baseball needs, but it's nowhere close to fantasy ball.
This last year, I was dragged into Scoresheet, which is an excellent form of baseball, but it's also quite different. And, to be honest, this year was pretty boring after the draft -- it was readily apparent that the 37 good things that needed to happen for my team to contend weren't going to happen, so mostly I just prepared for next year and was careful not to trade Bret Boone for Chris Hammond because I needed to fill my hole in the bullpen. (Actually, this league is pleasantly free of insultingly bad trade proposals. Of course, it's largely free of trade proposals entirely, which is perhaps not as good.)
With Scoresheet firmly in its offseason, this means that the only fantasy league I'm currently involved in is the LZA, our long-term keeper fantasy basketball league. However, it seems like the fantasy basketball aspects of the LZA are dying (well, actually, have been dying for a while). By its very nature, the LZA requires pretty close involvement from its players to succeed. Being a keeper league naturally requires more care, since every transaction has to be evaluated not only by its impact on this season, but many seasons down the road. And the LZA is also an extraordinarily deep league -- the NBA has 29 teams, with each team having a 12-man active roster and 3 on IR. The LZA has 28 teams, with each team having a 15-man roster with 10 starters. This means that practically everyone in the NBA is going to be seeing playing time in the LZA, so you have to keep track of even the scrubbiest bench players if you're playing to win. When it started out, the LZA certainly drew that level of involvement, but now most people don't seem willing to keep up with it (and my own interest has been flagging over the past few years, too).
This means that, unless Simbase is unexpectedly resurrected sometime soon, it's likely that Scoresheet will be my only fantasy outlet. And that's just fine with me.
Usenet sociological note #25831
I still read a surprising amount of regular Usenet -- not as much as I did in past days, but probably still more than I ought -- but I still post very infrequently. Mostly, this is because I have to meet three criteria before I'll actually bother to post something:
1) No one else has said it
2) Saying it will actually be worthwhile
3) I know what I'm talking about
Mostly, this is because posts violating any of these three criteria irritate me immensely. Repeating what other people have already said (1) is annoying, arguing with trolls or idiots or other people who aren't going to change their mind (2) is really annoying, and getting something wrong that you can easily look up (3) is the most annoying of all.
Of course, given the volume and the nature of Usenet, the likelihood that something I want to say will pass these tests is quite low. So mostly I just content myself with absorbing information.
I still read a surprising amount of regular Usenet -- not as much as I did in past days, but probably still more than I ought -- but I still post very infrequently. Mostly, this is because I have to meet three criteria before I'll actually bother to post something:
1) No one else has said it
2) Saying it will actually be worthwhile
3) I know what I'm talking about
Mostly, this is because posts violating any of these three criteria irritate me immensely. Repeating what other people have already said (1) is annoying, arguing with trolls or idiots or other people who aren't going to change their mind (2) is really annoying, and getting something wrong that you can easily look up (3) is the most annoying of all.
Of course, given the volume and the nature of Usenet, the likelihood that something I want to say will pass these tests is quite low. So mostly I just content myself with absorbing information.
Yeeek!
So apparently Matt either has much more persistence in checking my blog than I would, has an incredible sense of timing, or is watching me at work, since he managed to spot the fact that I had resumed posting here practically instantly. This, of course, eliminates my option to sneak away quietly if I decided I didn't have enough things to keep my recent spate of posting going. But perhaps that was Matt's devious plan all along...
So apparently Matt either has much more persistence in checking my blog than I would, has an incredible sense of timing, or is watching me at work, since he managed to spot the fact that I had resumed posting here practically instantly. This, of course, eliminates my option to sneak away quietly if I decided I didn't have enough things to keep my recent spate of posting going. But perhaps that was Matt's devious plan all along...
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Reopening old wounds
So, most of the time I'm a regular reader (though infrequent poster) at the Giants newsgroup (that's alt.sports.baseball.sf-giants for those of you who care). Around playoffs, though, a combination of several factors (namely, increased volume, decreased quality, and very strongly decreased desire to read even more about what I had just seen altogether too much of) led to my abandoning the newsgroup. Well, being the compulsive type that I am, I can't just mark all those read and done with and move on to the new stuff; I feel the need to read all of it. It's not that much more pleasant to do so; time has dulled the horror of it all, but it still makes me tremendously disappointed.
It continues to appall me just how easily many of the people in the newsgroup wholeheartedly embraced rooting for the Marlins. I could never bring myself to do so, yes, even though their opposition was the Yankees -- it's at least more excusable to embrace the Marlins under such circumstances, but many of the people had chosen the Marlins before either of the League Championship Series were done, which is just awful, in my opinion. When a team crushes your dreams like that, in such excruciating fashion, I sure as hell am not going to turn around and root for them.
To tie another thread to this skein, it suddenly became cold around here, so I put on my 1997 NL West Champion sweatshirt. I will freely admit that in 1997, things were different. In 1997, the Giants were a surprise team -- no one expected them to do well, and merely making the playoffs was a delightful achievement, after eight years of drought with one particularly painful near-miss in the middle. Sure, I would have been ecstatic if they had managed to do well in the playoffs, but after such a wonderous season it wasn't hard to accept their playoff loss. Under those circumstances, I could have rooted for the Marlins, especially since their ownership hadn't yet been proven evil (though I did actually root for the Indians, since they were more deserving in my opinion, and also had Matt Williams). But the fundamental difference is expectations. In each of the Giants' last three playoff appearances, I've actually hoped that they could win the World Series, and so when they fall short, it's always a bitter disappointment.
So, most of the time I'm a regular reader (though infrequent poster) at the Giants newsgroup (that's alt.sports.baseball.sf-giants for those of you who care). Around playoffs, though, a combination of several factors (namely, increased volume, decreased quality, and very strongly decreased desire to read even more about what I had just seen altogether too much of) led to my abandoning the newsgroup. Well, being the compulsive type that I am, I can't just mark all those read and done with and move on to the new stuff; I feel the need to read all of it. It's not that much more pleasant to do so; time has dulled the horror of it all, but it still makes me tremendously disappointed.
It continues to appall me just how easily many of the people in the newsgroup wholeheartedly embraced rooting for the Marlins. I could never bring myself to do so, yes, even though their opposition was the Yankees -- it's at least more excusable to embrace the Marlins under such circumstances, but many of the people had chosen the Marlins before either of the League Championship Series were done, which is just awful, in my opinion. When a team crushes your dreams like that, in such excruciating fashion, I sure as hell am not going to turn around and root for them.
To tie another thread to this skein, it suddenly became cold around here, so I put on my 1997 NL West Champion sweatshirt. I will freely admit that in 1997, things were different. In 1997, the Giants were a surprise team -- no one expected them to do well, and merely making the playoffs was a delightful achievement, after eight years of drought with one particularly painful near-miss in the middle. Sure, I would have been ecstatic if they had managed to do well in the playoffs, but after such a wonderous season it wasn't hard to accept their playoff loss. Under those circumstances, I could have rooted for the Marlins, especially since their ownership hadn't yet been proven evil (though I did actually root for the Indians, since they were more deserving in my opinion, and also had Matt Williams). But the fundamental difference is expectations. In each of the Giants' last three playoff appearances, I've actually hoped that they could win the World Series, and so when they fall short, it's always a bitter disappointment.
Picking on everyone's favorite target
I nearly wrote this to Gregg Easterbrook himself, but decided that he'll probably have enough mail saying the same thing (so why, you might ask, do I feel the desire to post it here, when no one's even reading? Well, mostly as a therapeutic thing. Thanks for reading -- hey, where are you going?)
Anyway, the Easterblogg has this entry. For those of you too lazy to follow the link, he basically says that no one has a problem when science postulates all sorts of invisible, unseen dimensions, but if religion goes and theorizes that there's an unseen spiritual dimension, everyone will think that you're crazy.
Fundamentally, there are two big problems with this argument:
1) It is true, so far, that there is no experimental evidence to support the hypotheses of string theory (specifically, the ones about the number of dimensions lying around). This does not mean that scientists are blithely ignoring the need for experimental evidence sooner or later. Easterbrook references research by Maria Spiropolu; the specific article has made its way into the NYT archives, but other things I've read about her have indicated that what she's looking for is precisely that -- evidence of missing energy in certain reactions which could be explained by additional spatial dimensions in which particles could escape. A couple years ago, I went to a colloquium on possible experimental tests of string theory, and the place was packed. It's an issue of great interest, and to imply that physicists don't care about whether string theory can be verified or falsified is simply not the case. Most of the predictions of string theory, unfortunately, are currently well beyond our experimental reach, but as the theory matures and our experimental abilities (hopefully!) increase, the experimental tests will determine whether the theory enters the realm of generally-accepted scientific fact, or is relegated to the proverbial Dustbin of History.
2) To say that bringing up religion among scientists will get you "laughed out of the room" is patently not the case. It is true, however, that attempting to place religion on an equal footing with science will get you a fair share of scorn, and rightly so. Religion is not science, and by its fundamental nature it is extrascientific. It, by definition, can not ever be verified or tested using the scientific method. This is not to say that it is wrong to believe in it, just that such a belief can never be a scientific one.
I nearly wrote this to Gregg Easterbrook himself, but decided that he'll probably have enough mail saying the same thing (so why, you might ask, do I feel the desire to post it here, when no one's even reading? Well, mostly as a therapeutic thing. Thanks for reading -- hey, where are you going?)
Anyway, the Easterblogg has this entry. For those of you too lazy to follow the link, he basically says that no one has a problem when science postulates all sorts of invisible, unseen dimensions, but if religion goes and theorizes that there's an unseen spiritual dimension, everyone will think that you're crazy.
Fundamentally, there are two big problems with this argument:
1) It is true, so far, that there is no experimental evidence to support the hypotheses of string theory (specifically, the ones about the number of dimensions lying around). This does not mean that scientists are blithely ignoring the need for experimental evidence sooner or later. Easterbrook references research by Maria Spiropolu; the specific article has made its way into the NYT archives, but other things I've read about her have indicated that what she's looking for is precisely that -- evidence of missing energy in certain reactions which could be explained by additional spatial dimensions in which particles could escape. A couple years ago, I went to a colloquium on possible experimental tests of string theory, and the place was packed. It's an issue of great interest, and to imply that physicists don't care about whether string theory can be verified or falsified is simply not the case. Most of the predictions of string theory, unfortunately, are currently well beyond our experimental reach, but as the theory matures and our experimental abilities (hopefully!) increase, the experimental tests will determine whether the theory enters the realm of generally-accepted scientific fact, or is relegated to the proverbial Dustbin of History.
2) To say that bringing up religion among scientists will get you "laughed out of the room" is patently not the case. It is true, however, that attempting to place religion on an equal footing with science will get you a fair share of scorn, and rightly so. Religion is not science, and by its fundamental nature it is extrascientific. It, by definition, can not ever be verified or tested using the scientific method. This is not to say that it is wrong to believe in it, just that such a belief can never be a scientific one.
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