Saturday, February 27, 2010

The Epistemology of The Strikezone

Major League Baseball is a sport steeped traditional practices. Other professional sports associations routinely alter the rules of their game to facilitate more interesting play, protect players or both. For instance to start the 1998/99 season, the National Hockey Association altered their rules requiring more space behind the goal to create more scoring chances. Three years ago the National Basketball Association moved its three point line closer to the basket to encourage more perimeter shots, and the National Football League, routinely adjusts rules governing pass coverage, and hits to the quarter-back to allow for a more open, pass oriented game.

In contrast professional baseball stands alone in the deference it pays to its rules. The baseball rulebook is considered with close to the same respect paid great works of western civilization. Baseball enthusiasts often refer to the wisdom of Abner Doubleday, and the near perfect set of rules he recorded for posterity in the summer of 1839. The fact that Doubleday may never have seen a baseball game, and that professional game was actually shaped by the play of the New York Knickerbockers in the late 1840’s does not diminish the power of the myth.[1] Like the US Constitution or the Holy Bible, Baseball’s rulebook is often considered to be a near perfect document. However, sometimes, even the rules of baseball require interpretation to fit the complexities of the modern game. These interpretations are presided over by a ‘Rules Committee’. Like the Hebrew Talmud, changes to the rule book are always merely ‘Case Book Interpretations’, which attempt to explain the meaning of the original text. When voted on by a majority of the rules committee, and ratified by the player’s association, these case book interpretations are woven into the rule book and therefore our understanding of the game.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Evening Sky

A quickly planned by seriously fun party last night on Maryland avenue. My neighbor Chris smoked a 9 pound pork butt for over 24 hours in his Big Green Egg and we all enjoyed carnitas and beer as the sun set. Here's a quick shot I took as the moon was starting to rise.





And a second of the pork before it got devoured.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Music Monday - Disposable Heros of Hiphopricy

Television, the Drug of the Nation circa 1992. This was some crazy stuff when this hit in 1992. The first time I heard it, it was being played as hype music by the sound man at a Jerry Brown for President Rally in Washington Square Park. You can laugh at the knowing earnestness, but the sad fact is bands today don't even try.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Afghanistan 2010 in Photos

The Boston Globe ran a fantastic photo essay of the Afghan War as of January 2010.

This is my favorite image because of the extraordinary colors and creativity of the bus, but click the link above to see all these remarkable photos in full size.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Virginia Highlands in the Snow


It seems like every time my parents visit from Connecticut they bring the snow with them. Seriously, the last three times they have come down we have had snow and yesterday was no different.

Here are a couple photo's of the block covered in snow.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Gigapixel Photography

Incredibly cool gigapixel photography. Short version, you attach an analog film camera to your computer and get hugely high-res. photos.

Read the long version and see more amazing examples here.



The Magical Water Tour in South America

Thursday, February 4, 2010

NWA Express Yourself

Gotta lighten it up a little after that last post. Here you go people, Eazy E, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre and the amazing sample-packed . . . Express yourself. Wonder where the sample came from?


N.W.A. - Express Yourself
Uploaded by youss71. - See the latest featured music videos.

Geekfest: Bootstrapped Credible Intervals of the Mean in SAS

Its not called 'Uncommon Reaction(s)' for nothing. This will be weird to many visitors, but that's ok. If you're not into this kind of thing just move along to the next post. If you don't care for the talky parts, I've pasted the full code without interruption at the bottom.

I wrote a little program to calculate bootstrapped nonparametric confidence intervals of the mean in SAS. Yes, I know STATA users, STATA apparently has a command that just does this, but you know what? I don't use STATA and I don't feel like learning. Besides, when I write it in SAS it reinforces my understanding of what I'm doing.

I've been using this with simulation data, but you could use the same program with observational data. Its not different. There is nothing particularly special about this, I just combined a bunch of different pieces of code from different SUGI doc's. Its just when I looked there was nothing

Here goes (and please feel free to post questions in the comments).

Who's that Girl . . . er, I Mean Bird?

Bird update. After a couple of inquiries, I think we've nailed the identity of our mystery bird as the Carolina Wren.













Here are some interesting facts about the Carolina Wren. Did you know?


  • The Carollina Wren uses the skin of snakes, hair, feathers and many other materials to build their dome-shaped nests.
  • They are known to build multiple nests to confuse predators.
  • It is the state bird of South Carolina.
  • A group of wrens has many collective nouns, including a "chime", "flight", "flock", and "herd" of wrens.

What do you think? Carolina Wren or something else? I was unsure at first, but apparently the white line on the head is a marker.

The Most Devastating Play

Another football related post? I'm sensing a theme here this week, could it have anything to do with a certain event on Sunday?

As a Giant's, Knicks, and now (since moving to Atlanta 15 years ago) Braves Fan, I'm used to my teams getting so close yet not quite being able to grab the golden ring. This excruciating form of fandom is weirdly satisfying in its own way as there is always the promise of future redemption.

Despite my history with the Yankees, (growing up watching The Goose, Reggie, Lou, and Thurman in the late 1970's and early 1980's, watching the embarrassment of the Great Mattingly surrounded by the likes of Bam Bam Muellens and Kevin Maas, and the redemption and dominance years of Jeter and the crew)I found them very easy to leave especially after they signed guys like Clemens and Randy Johnson.

With the Yankees, the meal was finished. But the Knicks, Braves, and the subject of this post, the Giants, always leave me hungry. Its common for sports fans to celebrate the spectacular. What Giant fan doesn't love to revel in the most incredible play in Superbowl History.

But being honest with myself, its the agony that keeps me coming back for the next meal. There is nothing more boring than being satisfied, and conversely nothing more motivating than coming so close and failing the first time.

In honor of that delicious agony, I present to you the most devastating play I ever witnessed as a Giant's fan.

Giant's Eagles, Dec. 4, 1989:
Late in the game with the Eagles pushed back to their 7 yard line, the score tied 17-17, Buddy Ryan keeps Cunningham on the field (an accomplished punter in college) on fourth down. From the back of the end zone, Cunningham blasted the ball 67 yards in the air. The ball skipped by Dave Meggett on the frozen turf of the Meadowlands to travel 91 yards in all. The longest punt in NFL history up to that time. Phil Simms fumbled two plays later, and the Eagles scored a touchdown and won the game.

Here is the best clip I could find:

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Why Joe Montana Won’t Even Make My Top Five Best NFL Quarterbacks of All time


By Nick Ronson

Sports writers of the world have seized the occasion of this Sunday’s Super Bowl Game in Miami to debate who is the greatest quarterback of them all.
The argument seems to be that if Peyton Manning leads the Indianapolis Colts to victory, it would be his second at the helm of a Super Bowl champion, and given all his achievements, including four MVPs, he could lay claim to being even greater than, up to this point, the greatest quarterback in history – Joe Montana.

Well, Montana doesn’t even make my top five best quarterbacks in the history of the NFL, and here’s why.

Sportswriters get caught up in numbers and narrowly define quarterback’s achievements by what can be totaled on a calculator (by this measure James Dean was a lousy actor because he appeared in only four movies). Quarterbacks don’t have to be just great athletes who lead their teams to championships.
They have to be great dramatic entertainers, magnificent presences on the field, and in the living rooms of the more than 100 million viewers who annually watch the Super Bowl.

And Montana, for all his on field prowess, played small ball, threw short passes to receivers running surgically precise routes in an offensive scheme under coach Bill Walsh that managed to take a game of great brutality, muscle and speed, and turned it into dance troupe (quite a few of them fat) in cleats.
To be a great quarterback you must be a flawed God who can heave the ball downfield to a receiver slashing deep up the sidelines or across the field, and it has to be a beautiful, majestic and poetic thing.

Joe dumped shorties.

Nick Ronson’s Top Three:

Brett Favre: Favre got beat to death by the New Orleans Saints defensive line in this year’s NFC championship game and then took a worst drubbing after the game from the sporting press for throwing an interception that prevented the Vikings from getting a last-second field goal attempt that might have won the game. Instead, they lost in overtime. So. What?

Favre is a gladiator. He plays quarterback as hard-nosed as Dick Butkus played linebacker. He rares back and heaves the ball in defiance of the quick release, put- the-audience-to-sleep doctrine that makes so many NFL quarterbacks as dull as PGA golfers who have beautiful swings and the sex appeal of Sansabelt slacks. Sure Favre made terrific, fatal blunders in his career. So did the Flying Wallendas. But they were great to watch before they plunged to their deaths.

Roger Staubach: Staubach, the Dallas Cowboy quarterback first coined the expression “Hail Mary” for a 50-yard pass heaved desperately into the end zone at the last second of a 1975 Wild Card playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings. Drew Pearson caught the ball and the Cowboys won 17-14. Stauback was the first NFL quarterback to play out of the shotgun formation. He won two Super Bowls and the MVP in one of them. He earned a couple of nicknames in his career: “Roger Dodger,” for his scrambling, and “Captain Comback,” for leading the Cowboys to 15 fourth-quarter come from behind victories. He’s a Cowboy, and I detest the Dallas Cowboys. But he was a quarterback I couldn’t tear my eyes away from even as he was tearing out my heart.


Terry Bradshaw:
Bradshaw’s hands were so large he put his index finger on the point of the ball when he threw his perfect, high-arching deep spirals to Pittsburgh Steeler receivers such a Len Swan who added to the beauty and grace of Bradshaw’s pigskin rainbows by racing under them, taking them in in full stride and gliding into the end zone. I can’t remember a single such Montana pass in a decade of watching him play. Bradshaw, like Montana, won four Super Bowls. But, unlike Montana -- whose coach would sometimes script the first 16 plays of the game -- Bradshaw called his own plays. He threw better. He thought better. He just flat looked better on the field than the onerous, cotton-candy tossing Montana.

Friends and Neighbors


I will be adding some new contributors to the site over the next several weeks as we grow. The first, Nick Ronson Private Eye, certainly knows his way around the keyboard. Shockingly, his real name is not Nick Ronson, and his real profession is not detective word. Still his prose is real and I bet he'll find his way into your imagination. Stay tuned for upcoming posts.

Bird

Guess he's flying back North for the winter, but he indulged me with his presence for a few minutes on Sunday morning.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Situational Statistics or Should You Go For Two?

Our bias towards naive empiricism leads many to falsely believe that consistently reliable predictions can generally be drawn provided data has been gathered from a controlled setting. However, as 'Coaches Still Vexed by Going For 2' illustrates, strategic decision making is inherently uncertain and context specific even in the highly controlled world of NFL Football. Social scientists have no choice but to incorporate both uncertainty and context into their conclusions. The 'takeaway' message from all of this? Beware of 'takeaway' messages.

Here's a quiz from the article. I think even nonsports fans would enjoy the full piece.

Here are 4 situations. Should you go for two?

1. Ahead by 5 at the end of the first half.

2. Behind by 2 at the end of the first quarter.

3. Behind by 10, 12:30 left in the game.

4. Ahead by 8, beginning of the fourth quarter.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Encouraging signs on Health Care Reform

Buried on page 9, column 5 of the NY Times today is this little Gem

That is why the White House and Democratic leaders — despite complaints from Republicans and centrist Democrats — continue backstage negotiations on an unorthodox plan for salvaging a comprehensive health care bill.

Under the plan, the Senate-passed bill would become the principal legislative vehicle. But it would reach the House floor only after the completion of a “sidecar” House-Senate agreement on changes designed to pass using procedures barring a filibuster by a strengthened Senate Republican minority.

Music Mondays: I Left My Wallet in El Segundo

. . . and I have this feeling that I need to get it, I really, really need to go back there and get it.

Circa 1990, Tribe Called Quest

The Taylor Swift Massacre

Does it matter that a mainstream cheese-factory like the Grammy Awards so obviously blew it in awarding Album of the Year to Taylor Swift? I think it clearly does as it reflects our society’s increasing fetish for settling on the safety of possible options even if that choice is the worst of the possible options. We may not agree on which one of Beyonce Knowles, The Black Eyed, Peas, Lady GaGa, or The Dave Mathews Band is the best choice, but surely we should all be able to agree that Taylor Swift was the worst. It’s not a coincidence that in the same month providing Health Care Reform went from inevitable to impossible (in the eyes of pundits at least) because of the loss of a single Senate seat, that the Album of the Year gets awarded to the choice that is most fully denuded of soul, passion, or sexuality. Congratulations Taylor Swift, you were the least offensive. Enjoy your Grammy.

Even if Beyonce and/or the Black Eyed Peas trigger a race panic in you and Lady GaGa makes you feel ‘a little funny’ down there, why pick Taylor Swift over Dave Mathews? Because he’s weed smoker? That used to be a feature not a bug in rock performers. It just doesn’t make sense. Not that the Dave Mathews Band hits my favorites list on my iPod, and obviously I think any choice of Beyonce Knowles, Lady GaGa, or the Black Eyed Peas would be a better choice, but at least the dude has an extended track record, can flat out play, and has a little bit of soul to him.

Yes, I am weirdly finding myself playing the part of Kanye West. How the hell did that happen? But does anyone out there think ‘She Wears Short Skirts, I wear T-shirts’ represents some type of landmark achievement, or even that it’s going to light up throwback stations 30 years from now? There is something wrong with a world in which Stevie Nicks is forced to stand second fiddle while she listens to a girl wanly trying to find the key of her classic ‘Rhiannon’. Gen Y, don’t be a hater here, listen to what that song actually sounds like yourself and tell me if your Tween pop-tartlet lives up to the standard. Yeah . . . I know! That’s the point.