Sunday, June 29, 2008

Weekly Prescriptions 6/29/08

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Welcome back folks. Hope it was a good week. I hope my remedies for your maladies (your boring life and your ugliness...jk) were helpful. Oh, they were? I don't even know why I asked because, after all, I am the Doctor, and the Doctor knows best. For this week, another treasure trove of web gems (no, not the web gems on ESPN, the ones that StumbleUpon shows me). The picks come after the jump. And you'd best take your time to view them, because they are hilarious and moving as always.

1. Today's Big Thing
This is a site that, apparently has something cool that's NOW on the internet for that day. I can't attest to the quality of the site over time, but today's (Sunday's) was in fact pretty well done. That girl may not have boobies, but she's one of the most impressive I've seen all week. But I would beat her ass in any sport, contest, or anything physical at all. But I am the friggin' Doctor, mind you, so don't think you're necessarily better than her.

2. xkcd
If you haven't heard of xkcd already, you are simply missing out on the best web comic ever. It is clever, funny, and nerdy as hell. I linked you to one that is sort of pertinent given the atrocious cost of gas these days, but feel free to read every single one. It is definitely worth your time and effort. And if you're like me, you have absolutely nothing better to do.

3. Coca-Cola
I'm no graphic designer or anything, but as SoBDD and I know, it is simplicity and a certain "classic" look that makes any design great. For us, we like to apply that logic to sports uniforms most directly (we are avid fans of UniWatch), but I still no how to appreciate genius design when I see it. And unless you've been under a rock for the best decade, you've probably noticed the tendency in all things design to get away from "classic" and move towards something called "trendy" or "modern." I would say leave that to the messenger-bag-toting flannel-wearing hippies of our time that love muted colors and different shoes. What the average consumer and design fan can appreciate is class and simplicity, and I think this short article, whether this is actually the new face of Coca-Cola or not, can show us.

4. Cute Penguins
A short and sweet dose of doctor love, this is just a really cute ass picture. I'm a huge fan of lolcatz and cute dogs with human-like expression being assigned quotes, but this one doesn't need a quote. Just a cute picture of a cute couple. Lovely.

5. Wedding Test
This last one is to leave you smirking and/or laughing. A compact little joke to send you off with. If it doesn't make you laugh, be sure to not let me know. I don't care if you can or cannot find the humor in a tasteless joke about marriage. Haha infidelity. Yes, it's wrong, but that just makes it funnier. That may or may not be true, but read it, have a laugh, and bother me never.

Alright folks, hopefully that will get you through the next 30 minutes of your lives. But let the emotions these modest websites elicit within you carry you from this evening through Friday. It's a long week, but keeping laughter, joy, and love in mind can only make it easier. And that's what the Doctor ordered.

Rx - Laugh and smile and dance and love. As much as possible. All the time.
Signed,
Doctor Dozer

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Thursday, June 26, 2008

I'm Conservative... About Ya Motha

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It's rare to see the Doctor making house calls (unless it's to slay bitches or something cool like that), but it might be even more rare to see him break into the realm of politics. So consider yourselves damned lucky. I stumbled across (or upon if you're cool in that way) an article on www.cnn.com written by someone whom I thought I hated. He's got a baby face, sounds like a gay? Yeah, you know who I'm talking about. Anyway, he wrote a pretty great article on conservative politics today, and I thought I'd give a reflection on it. And a colonic. Find out what a colonic is (and where to sign up to receive one) after the jump. A colonic is a 45 minute enema. Yes, that long. Yes, a hose in your butt. Having doubt? Steven Jackson got one (no joke, look it up on Yahoo! Sports). Back to YA BOY Glenn Beck on CNN. A link to the article is here. Anyway, let me tell you about my political ideology before I begin. I am a pretty devout Catholic and identify as a Republican for that reason. I vote on lines of respecting human life, respecting religious practice of all kind, and rejecting anything totally contrary to my beliefs. Sure I have other ideas and issues I take a stance on, but the ones I care most strongly about are religiously affiliated and that sort of thing. So yeah, I'm a Republican. Or so I thought. See, despite having my strong Catholic views which steer me to the Republican party, there are a number of things I dislike. The opposition to gun control laws. Some of our foreign policy stances. Tax cuts (or loopholes) for the ridiculously wealthy. Oil lobbyists. Big business influencing Washington. Things like that. Now some of those things aren't solely done by Republicans, but people definitely associate those things with them. For that reason, for this "lesser of two evils" quality of our two-party system, I've always wondered if I'd prefer a different form of political organization in America. Maybe a parliamentary system or something like that. I don't really know. But I did realize, at some point, that my heart did not wholly belong to the Republican party. I was something else. I was, and am, a conservative. And I discovered that when I read the article that Glenn Beck wrote. I always thought I was a conservative because I knew I was definitely not a liberal, but I admit to not knowing much about conservative ideology outside of two things: they opposed liberals and conserve means "don't change." But Glenn Beck's attempt to define conservative beliefs, to lay out most if not all the points of contention that conservatives agree upon, really showed me what the ideological camp that I had ascribed myself to was. I could not help but nod my head with everything Glenn Beck wrote in his article, all of which he wrote in a careful, deliberate, and honest manner. Two of the points he made really grabbed my attention: The right to fail. I've been thinking those things for so long, but no politician could ever say it at the risk of losing votes. Yes, yes and yes! The only society that can offer the chance to succeed fairly and without bias is one that must also allow you to fail. There's something that America requires, and it's drive and work ethic. The American Dream isn't given, it isn't handed over. It is earned and deserved. All the way back to our founding and up through the times of Horatio Alger's Ragged Dick (yes I just wanted to say Dick, you caught me) right up until today, America is a land where you earn what you keep, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Families. I think that really should be the core of everything in this country. The building block, if you will. It's what we were founded on, and it's not something that needs to be changed. This is a good example of something not exclusive to either party. Some people emphasize this point and it's not important to others. I was raised eating dinner at the table with my family every night, and it's something that simply cannot be replaced. This quote, attributed to a Hasidic Rabbi (if you know the author please let me know, I couldn't find it), says a lot about how I feel about the family. I heard it in 8th grade English class with Mrs. Black.

When I was young, I set out to change the world. When I grew a little older, I perceived that this was too ambitious so I set out to change my state. This, too, I realized as I grew older was too ambitious, so I set out to change my town. When I realized I could not even do this, I tried to change my family. Now as an old man, I know that I should have started by changing myself. If I had started with myself, maybe then I would have succeeded in changing my family, the town, or even the state— and who knows, maybe even the world.
 
The rest of what Mr. Beck writes is well said, of course, but those two really got to me. The respect for life and others, the small government, the power of the private and financially independent individual, they all seem to resonate within me, as well. Glenn Beck seems to have struck a chord with his article, at least for me and my political views. As such, I plan on repaying him, in kind, with a handj. The Doctor

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Sunday, June 22, 2008

A Modest Proposal

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Yesterday--Sunday the 22nd, though blogger is giving me crap, telling me that today is Sunday the 22nd--I watched two soccer games, both of which started just after 2:30 and ended around five. But that's about all they had in common, as the games were quite the study in contrast. On ESPN2, Spain played Italy in the UEFA Euro 2008 quarterfinals, while over on ESPN Classic, the United States topped Barbados in World Cup qualifying. The Euro game, played in Ernst Happel Stadion in Vienna, featured 48,000 screaming, chanting fans, as twin seas of azzurro and roja saw two top-flight European sides battle it out for the right to face Russia in the semis. Spain finally took the game down in penalty kicks, breaking their June 22nd curse with a 4-2 PK victory. Meanwhile, the Americans, needing only to avoid an eight goal loss to advance to the next round of qualifying, sent out what was essentially a B-team and boringly rolled to a 1-0 victory over an amateur (that is, they were actually amateurs, like, their real jobs are as construction workers and electricians) Bajan squad. The listed attendance on the website of USSoccer was "TBD", but as the stands only surrounded half the stadium, and the fans barely filled half that, I bet it won't be 48,000.

So, yes, a study in contrasts. (Contrasts or contrast? When I googled 'em--my go-to move when determining proper usage--I got almost the same amount of hits for each. You make the call.) But it needn't necessarily be. Sure, Italy and Spain are better than us, but not by a long shot. We tied the Italians in group play in the 2006 World Cup despite some shady-ass refereeing that forced us to play a man down for half the game, and we recently gave the Spanish all they could handle before falling 1-0 in Spain. But as these teams played tough competition in front of millions of worldwide viewers, the American national side slogged through 90 minutes of soccer with a team that might charitably be called a minnow.

And so it goes in CONCACAF qualifying--the United States is forced to endure a seemingly never-ending parade of minnows, guppies, and polliwogs en route to the World Cup, an event at which their attendance is nearly assured from the start. (The American side has reached each of the last five World Cups, an honor it shares with just six other teams: Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Italy, South Korea, and Spain. Those teams are more than good.) Crushing tiny island nations and overmatched Central American squads fails to prepare the Americans for the biggest stage, as evidenced by our poor performances in European-based events. And I can't imagine the blue-collar workers of the Bajan national team particularly enjoyed being steamrolled, no matter how few fans are around to watch them get embarrassed. But as the title of this piece promises, I have a modest proposal that will help cure American soccer ills.

Inspired by the recent example of Australia, as well as the continued practice of Israel and Turkey, I think the United States should leave CONCACAF and join CONMEBOL, the South American governing body of soccer. Other squads have shown soccer regional governing bodies need not be tied strictly to geography, and there's no reason the United States needs to let our lack of competition hold us back. CONMEBOL features two top five teams in Brazil and Argentina, as well as respectable squads Paraguay, Uruguay, and Colombia. CONMEBOL World Cup qualification, in marked contrast to CONCACAF qualifying, is simple and straight-forward, as each of the 10 members all the others in a home-and-home series, with the top four advancing to the Cup while the fifth place team takes on fourth place finishers from CONCACAF. The opportunity to face this competition, in extremely hostile environments, would be forge the Americans into a mentally tough side able to get results in any conditions.

Just as the Socceroos of Australia were welcomed with open arms into AFC, the Asian federation, so, too, would the South Americans be glad to add us to the mix. We have gained some measure of respect worldwide in soccer, and our arrival would probably secure an additional qualifying slot for CONMEBOL. Our developed and (normally) strong economy could be of some benefit, as American fans could inject touristy-stuff in South America. And our foreign policy, generally unpopular in South America, could be challenged on the pitch. (If that doesn't make sense, just tune into the USA-Cuba qualifiers later this year. It will then.) The addition of the American side could help raise the level of play and qualifying in CONMEBOL, while also providing the United States the opportunity to take its game to the next echrlon.

The obvious drawback to this plan, of course, would be the loss of a heated rivalry with Mexico. El Tri has given us all we can handle and then some, and passion runs deep on both sides of the Rio Grande. But sometimes you just need to say, "Adios!"

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Weekly Prescriptions

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Hey guys,

Welcome to the most recent concoction of old-fashioned medicine from Doctor Dozer himself. "Weekly Prescriptions" will be a Sunday evening posting by yours equivocatingly of websites that I've stumbled upon over the course of the preceding week. For those of you that don't know, StumbleUpon is an add-on for web browsers (FIREFOX 3!!!) that asks you to tell if preferences, and in return, upon clicking on its button somewhere in your browser window, it directs you to sites you may enjoy. My tastes trump those of all other individuals, so I figure its only fair to pass on the wonderful sites that StumbleUpon suggests to me based on my perfect interest to you the reader. So weekly I will link you to sites ranging from beautiful pictures to articles on blogs or news sites to web games or videos or anything else you can think of. I wouldn't post it here if it weren't earth-shatteringly awesome, so take the time to check it out. Good luck.

World of WifeCraft
I am not a WOWer myself, but I found this video to be both refreshingly clever and downright funny. Basically, it's about a group of gentlemen that are big nerds, love World of Warcraft, but suck as husbands. To solve their marital problems, they are hypnotized into believing that their marriage is a MMORPG. That's the outline, but it's much more hilarious than that, so give it a watch.

15 Unfortunately Placed Ads
The short-sightedness of others never fails to make me giggle, and this is a perfect example of that tendency. The people that posted these ads are quite simply idiots. But as such, it makes me laugh quite hard. Take a look, have a laugh.

Australia Day Perth
This is just a really pretty picture. Not much more I can say about it. It'll take literally 20 seconds for you to look at it, so what are you waiting for?

The 75 Skills Every Man Should Master
Immediately after reading this I sent it to a number of friends and told them to read it because of the nostalgia, elation, and contentedness I felt after reading it in its entirety. One of my friends told me that those feelings were the result of the gay pornography I had blaring on my TV, but all the same it's a good read. It'll bring back the glory days and give you good ideas about how to spend your free time (without, of course, sacrificing any of the time spend reading our blog).

The Napkin Project
This is a great site with a ton of stories to read. Basically, Esquire send out napkins to all these contemporary authors and asked them to write down any kind of story they wanted. They were simply limited to the canvas of the napkin. Their responses were nothing short of amazing in the span of styles and stories that they responded with. Click through the stories in your spare time and find some gems.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the first segment, and be sure to check back next week (and every week) for my over the same. And I almost forgot; you smell like BENGAY!

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Commissioning A Pretty Sweet Fantasy Football League: Why It's Important And How I Do It

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As our dear friend SOBDD mentioned, we enjoy our fantasy sports at BIBTTP. What he may or may not have mentioned (so I didn't read his most recent post that closely) is that he and I are in the same league. We call it "The Bush League." Maybe that's not the most original name we could have come up with, but you know what? Ya motha. It's a decent name, a strong one, and one we won't easily forget. What's more important about the league than it's name, however, is the commissioner: Doctor Dozer.

This is a guy that built a multi-hundred dollar seasonal not-for-profit business from nothing. He used already-created websites that host fantasy football leagues to support his entire infrastructure. From there he recruited investors, raised capital, and increased utility of all investors (even if he didn't give them all equally sized returns on the assets under management). He's a great man, and his story is certainly worth looking into.

At least that's what I can hear John Madden saying about me when they run a special about me on ESPN Fantasy (which I'm sure they'll have sooner than never, and I'm sure he'll be around to comment on it). And on the special, they'll talk about four keys to running a successful fantasy league: enthusiasm, organization, honesty, and innovation.

But before I get to those qualities, why does it matter? What's the big deal about having a good fantasy league? How can the commissioner even help that much in that regard? Well, certainly owner interest and participation are important, but if the commissioner isn't there to give some sort of feed back to guys that bring that sort of enthusiasm to the league, they might start looking elsewhere for their fantasy jollies. The commissioner also plays a huge part in obtaining these serious and competitive owners, sort of like the producer of a movie. You have to bring characters together that will interact well with one another and make for some solid entertainment. His role as an arbiter is equally important, for disputes do arise in fantasy sports. People are accused of video taping the prep work of another or taking too long on draft day or backing out of a trade after it was already agreed upon, and the commissioner has to keep everyone happy and playing fair. Finally, fantasy sports is always getting better, and the commissioner is the conduit to those improvements. Even if the league has a guy like that in it that is not the commissioner, the changes won't be made without a unifying, Genghis Kahn-like voice that brings it all together.

OK, so at this point you should understand the importance of the role of fantasy football commissioner. If you don't, suck a wang bone. If you do, but you don't appreciate me telling those that didn't to suck a wang bone, SUCK YOURSELF A WANG BONE. Alright. Now for the how-to section of this article. For all of you that have been sitting there thinking, "DAMMIT, Doctor, show me how to live already!" your wait is over.

Enthusiasm: If you're not excited about it, you'll never take care of it. Just think how quickly you love doing chores as opposed to how quickly you love playing Madden [Enter newest version here] as soon as you get it. Fantasy football itself needs to be that exciting to you. If your research of and preparation for your own season as a fantasy owner starts to lack, how can the league itself take precedence to anything at all in your life? We all know how busy life can be with families, jobs, religious affiliations, other hobbies, etc. If winning your fantasy league starts to roll down your list of things that matter, don't even think you'll have the dedication to the fantasy league that it takes to be successful as a commissioner.

Organization: You just can't be a slob. The night of the draft (which should always be done live), there's a lot going on that you need to take care of. Down the road, when you need to decide if a player is keeper eligible based on when he was taken, you need to open up your Excel sheet (and you have to be a master of Excel, obviously), click on the tab that says "Any and all player transfers this season," and tell everyone exactly what went down 10 weeks ago. If you can't see yourself maintaining that kind of information about the league and doing it well, the league WILL suffer at some point, and it will be your fault. If you aren't organized, you really can't do this job as it requires you to be on top of any dispute, any question, or any fact about your league at a moment's notice.

Honesty: Yes, I'm a cheater. I used to steal used golf balls from the golf course I worked at in high school. I would also get a 50% discount on ice cream and candy in the pro shop, so when I worked the register and someone would buy an ice cream, I'd charge them full price but ring it up as two discounted ones for me. That way that cash was all there and the inventory was accounted for. If only that witch ever looked to see how many toasted almond ice cream bars were eaten a day at the discount price. "Chris, there's no way you ate 12 ice cream bars today!" "You're right... I ate six..." and I'd punch her in the face and run. Anyway, the league simply can't have that sort of nonsense going on. There are a ton of times when I could easily say, "Well it's 1:05, and Willie Parker just broke his leg. I'm sure no one would notice if I subbed in Ryan Grant..." And they wouldn't notice. I'd get away with it easily. But the league's integrity is huge, and once that is gone, you're basically trying to steal your friends money, and that's crap. The integrity of the league matters, and that means the commissioner's honesty matters. If you don't trust yourself to stay out of league funds, appoint a treasurer. If you don't think you'll be honest in reviewing transaction requests at the end of the week, have a friend outside the league do it with you or for you (what I'm really talking about is playing with weiners, but it works with commissioning a league, as well).

Innovation: This, I think, is the most important aspect of commissioning an enjoyable and kick-ass fantasy league. Keeping your league on the cutting edge of everything. Making it exciting and rewarding and FUN! Without that kind of initiative from the commissioner, the league stagnates and gets boring. You're right, you can't fix something that isn't broken, but I'm sure as shit your league isn't perfect, queer, so pull your thumb out of your dog's ass and face facts. You can make it better year in and year out. You just have to be willing to a) think up cool ideas, b) take the time to explain them to everyone, and c) make them work even if it requires some extra work on your part. Over the past three years, my league has made a ton of changes. We've experimented with divisons and conferences and sizes of both (settling on a system of 4 divisons of 3 teams each). We've attempted to add an auction element to our weekly transactions (and it's working well). We've made our redraft league into a semi-keeper league that rewards people that take young players that breakout in the season ahead (Brandon Marshall) by allowing them to keep them at the cost of a draft pick two rounds ahead of where they were taken last year (as long as they were taken sometime after the first 6 rounds). We've changed our draft style from serpentine to third round reversal to improve league parity and make things more interesting. And that's just the major stuff. We're constantly tweaking scoring and scheduling and drafting and keeper options and waiver options. Most of it starts with me, but even if it doesn't, the commissioner has to field ideas and make them work. Keep your league on the cutting edge, or it's blade will dull and will cut your sack when you shave your balls at the start of next season.

Anyway, that's my take on fantasy league commissioning. Get it done, but above all else enjoy it. Who knew operating a league that has owners pretending to own a team of athletes that they'll never be half as good as could be so fun?

The Doctor

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Saturday, June 21, 2008

Fantasy Football Defense (Part 1, Methodology)

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Blogsquatch and the Dozer aren't the only nerds in town, you know. I'm a bit of a nerd myself, which manifests itself in two ways--playing fantasy football, and being way too serious about numbers when playing fantasy football. This will be the first of a series of posts going inside the numbers, hopefully for your edification. As team defense is often an overlooked position, and I've done a lot of looking over it already this year, I figured it was a good place to start.

Something to keep in mind while reading this is that fantasy defenses score points just like any other fantasy position. And how many points they score will undoubtedly be affected by what offense they face. So when I talk about "defense points scored" and "offense points allowed", do not be alarmed. If it's really that confusing for you, just imagine everything in this post flipped upside down and describing real-life offenses scoring points against real-life defenses instead of fantasy defenses scoring points against fantasy offenses.

My first step was researching each team's predicted fantasy points this year. I went to a couple different websites and averaged my results, making sure all the inputs were based off of my league's point value. Our scoring system for defense is as follows:



So all the calculations are based off that.

From there, I took the total projected points and divided by 16, to get a projected points per game. But a defense won't score the same amount of points every week; offenses faced contributes mightily to defensive success. Because I was unable to find "projected points scored for a defense facing this particular offense" anywhere, I made my own using last year's numbers. For some of the numbers, you can get away with taking a straight average to find the prediction for each week, because counting stats are counting stats. I multiplied turnovers by two, sacks by one, and all the rest of it, but 'points scored' posed a bit more of a problem. If an offense averages, say, 22 points a game, simply punched in the average value, would mean you'd end up predicting defenses will score 0 points against them every time. Likewise, if you have a defense that scores 27 points a game, the defense will get 0 in that category. Obviously, that doesn't make sense, as an offense that scores 22 points a game will (often) score 17 or so points in games and (less often) 31 or so points in games, while a 27 point averaging team will score 31 points more often than it scores 17. So I figured out each team's average points per game and standard deviation from last year. I plugged those figures in an online normal distribution calculator that I cannot currently find, and determined the probability of any particular offense scoring between 0 and 6 points a game, 7 and 13, and so on. I admit I fudged it a bit, as I didn't want to grind through 256 online trials (32 teams, 8 different point ranges), so I picked about 10 different categories (14-15 points per game, STD 8-10) and put each team in a category. I had a chart that looked like this:



I then multiplied each probability by the points received to determine average points per week attributable to "points allowed". (This is the step shown in the screenshot. New England has a 20% chance of scoring between 28 and 34 points in a game, and if a defense allowed that, they'd be docked one point.) When coupled with the counting stats, I determined how many points each offense was expected to score each week. (I know that football scores are not normally distributed, and I screwed up a bit counting the number in each range--I set ranges at 0 to 6, 7 to 13, and so on, so all fractions between ranges were lumped into the 0 points set. I think, because it replaces extreme scores with scores of 0 points, it will have some normalizing--not in the same 'normal' sense, I'm afraid--effect, but it won't be the last time we see something like that.) Imperfect, I know, but the best I could do.

At this point, I had "defense projected points per week" and "offense projected points per week". I wanted to determined how many points would be expected when any particular offense played any particular defense, but this was easier said than done. You can't simply average these numbers, as that would pull extremes towards the center much too much. (Just as I promised!) Say you have an offense that is so dominant, they only let the average fantasy defense score two points a week. But an average fantasy defense, against an average offense, might score eight points a week. By averaging them, in the end you'd have an offense that's supposed to be only allowing 2 points a week allowing 5 points a week. I couldn't think of a better way to bridge the gap, though, so I settled on a compromise. I averaged the two numbers, then multiplied the averaged numbers by the percentage that the new total fell short of what the total should be, for both offenses and defenses. I did it again, and I got total numbers very close to what they should be, so I was happy with that. At this point, my excel sheet looked something like this:



I've included another image in case that one is hard to read, although you can simply click on it to enlarge. This one's only the top left corner of the original.



In each one, though, you can see the offenses down the left side--arranged by predicted points allowed per game--and the defenses accross the top, arraged alphabetically. So, when the New England offense--which is fantastic--faces the Cardinals defense--which is pretty good, Arizona can be expected to bank 2.0 points, slightly above the New England average of 1.6, and way below the Arizona average of 8.0.

I took all these potential match-ups--1024 in all--and put them on the real schedule. In Week 4, Arizona faces the slightly above average Buffalo offense, and can therefore be predicted to score a slightly below average 7.9 points. But the problem with simply converting matchup chart into a 16 week schedule is the total projected--through the use of individual matchups--points generated by the 16 teams on the slate will not necessarily equal the total projected points I started with for each defense. Arizona's overall sched is so easy, by simply plugging in each projected matchup, I ended up with a total about 7% higher than it should've been. So I took each team's individually-generated result and multiplied it by the inverse of the percentage it was off the original projection, and did that for each game. As it turned out, Arizona should only be projected to score 7.4 points against Buffalo. Hopefully, this step cancelled out the averaging issues I had on the per-game basis, because the outside generated numbers were complied with strength of schedule in mind, so this throws it back into the equation.

So now I can predict how many points every team will score in every week of the season, based on their past results, current professional projections, and future matchups. Now came a (relatively) simple step of matching every team up with every other team, and saying 'if I had both these defenses on my roster, and I could always play the one projected to score more points, how many total points could I score?' Unsurprisingly, two average defenses, when managed well, can outscore an excellent defense. More posts on this will follow, including all my results, but I just wanted to get my methology out there. It took almost as long to type up as it did to generate, and it's much more unclear in this format, so if you have any questions, hit me up in the comments. I can't necessarily justify anything I did mathematically--I don't have that kind of training--but I have an intutive sense of how things should go and should fit together, and I think my results make sense on some level. There's no way you're still reading this, so I'm just going to take this opportunity to say the Doctor touches babies.

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Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Bigfoot's Fuzzy Facts

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I've decided to start writing about random facts that have recently been brought to my attention. I thought maybe having a little more condensed and concentrated spontaneity would make our blog more enjoyable for the reader. So here it goes, the first edition of Bigfoot's Fuzzy Facts. This week's edition: iPods powered by t-shirts, Steve Jobs' sneaky plan at becoming filthy rich, and a look at Monica Lewinsky and how she isn't the only one making money off her knees.

Apparently scientists ath the Georgia Institute of Technology are in the works for developing a shirt with a type of technology that would use your movements to generate enough electricity to power small electronics, like an iPod.
-Exactly what will we get from this? It's not very re-assuring to know that I'm going to be buying surge protectors for my clothing. Can you say "not-so-spontaneous human combustion"?

For investors out there: now that technology keeps getting smaller and smaller, wouldn't it be smart to invest in a company that develops miniaturization technologies? Think about it.

Yes Apple has brought down the price for the new iPhone to $199. So really they couldn't be making that much more of a profit...could they? Some analysis points to the cost of the newest batch of iPhones to be as low as $100. OK so its still not that much...? Actually.... with AT&T's subsidizing efforts, Apple is selling these babies close to $400 to AT&T. With over 70 countries targeted for iPhone release by the end of the year, Steve Jobs should be a contender for biggest/sneakiest money maker of 2008.

Tiger Woods won the US Open, with one knee. He's undergoing knee surgery soon to repair a torn ligament that has been bothering him for...the last 10 months! That means he also won the 2008 Buick International,the Dubai Desert Classic, the Accenture Match Play Championship, and the Arnold Palmer Invitational all with a torn ACL. He's made enough money this year (about 5.7 million) with one knee than Monica Lewinski ever made with two knees.

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Chuck Norris vs. Blender

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Chuck Norris doesn't read books, he stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
Chuck Norris is so fast he can run around the world and punch himself in the back of the head.
Chuck Norris is responsible for China's over-population. He hosted a Karate tournament in Beijing and all women within 1,000 miles became pregnant instantly.
Superman once watched an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger. He then cried himself to sleep.
'Icy-Hot' is too weak for Chuck Norris. After a workout, Chuck Norris rubs his muscles down with liquid-hot MAGMA.
Chuck Norris doesn't play god. Playing is for children.

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UAV's Controlled By iPhone

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Yep, the Center for Collaborative Control of Unmanned Vehicles (wow), has found a way to give tasks to unmanned aerial vehicles. The iPhone can't control the vehicle, but as you can see in the video, it seems as though they are figuring out ways to use the iPhone for other interesting things.

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Thursday, June 12, 2008

Superhero Fashion Emergency

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Ever stopped to think about Superheros' attire? Well, now you will.

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Tuesday, June 10, 2008

What's Missing From the New iPhone and Why

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So, people are upset because several things are "missing" from the latest iPhone. People are criticizing that they did not add any "innovative" features such as a better camera, video conferencing, iChat capabilities, etc.
Well if you pay close attention, you'll realize that Apple also released something called the App Store, which most certainly will be able to fill in the gaps for all of these issues. In my opinion, Apple is being smart. After their relationship with AT&T has seemingly gone through some rough patches in the last six months (with AT&T "leaking" certain information, and trying to control the decision making for the iPhone), I'm sure Apple has decided to show them that they're the one calling the shots anyway.

First lets focus on one of the most important things of the new iPhone: the price cut.The price cut prevents Apple from getting a percentage of the revenue from the data and voice plans controlled by AT&T. Well, by introducing the App Store, Apple sneakily finds a way to get around this. The way the App Store works, people develop different applications for the phone, and designate a price to it (ranging from free to whatever they would like to charge), and sell it through Apple. Developers get 70% of revenue while Apple gets 30%. Wouldn't it be nice if someone developed something like...an application for the iPhone that ran like iChat and sold it through the App Store? By leaving it open to third party applications, Apple will certainly be receiving a share of the revenue from applications that will be using AT&T's data plan anyway. My point is that Apple would much rather allow other people to "develop" an application similar to iChat so that they could get some sort of compensation, rather than developing an integrated version for the iPhone and getting absolutely 0 compensation for it.

In terms of video conferencing, I think that Apple is just being somewhat logical. If you could video conference through your iPhone, that would mean you would need a camera in the front so you could see the other person. That would mean you would probably need a camera in the back as well for taking pictures so you could actually look at the picture you are taking. That would mean...you would have two cameras in one phone. That's a lot of cameras in one phone and it sounds very cramped. Today, video conferencing doesn't seem to be really taking off, especially when really the only people you would be able to video conference with would be other iPhone users and people with iChat. Until they develop iChat for windows, and other phones would have video conferencing capabilities, I don't think that will be something that will be showing up in the iPhone anytime soon. Plus think about it. How often would you really use it? Yeah, I like to video chat every once in a while, but it's through my computer. Phones are meant to reach you when you're unreachable through anything else. If you're online, sure you could video chat. But if you're out having dinner, driving, walking down a busy street, or even out in some crowded place, do you really want to focus on your phone during a phone call? You would most certainly be more prone to running into people or getting into a car crash if that were to happen. I think until they really really really get it right, video conferencing will be hard to put into a phone.

What it comes down to, is that Apple is really trying to focus on the affordability and availability in the 70 countries they are planning on releasing it. Regarding other applications that people expected and were disappointed when they weren't presented, just wait because that's what updates are for. Like I said, you can't expect them to release everything at once because that would just make expectations to go that much higher than before, and soon they would run out of innovation. They're playing hard to get, and you just have to be a little patient. Come Christmas time and January, they may be and probably will be releasing a 32GB iPhone. And between now and then, people shouldn't be disappointed with the types of applications that they will be releasing.

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Release of iPhone3G

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With the release of the new iPhone, a lot of people seemed to be more disappointed than impressed. Why? Well, many expected Jobs to launch several new features that would have been revolutionary in the mobile phone industry. Along with 3G and the GPS features that were released, many expected Jobs to announce video conferencing capabilities, better camera, picture messaging, MMS, and a 32GB model. At the end of the day, Jobs released the expectations: 3G, GPS, lower price ($199 for 8GB...compared to the original price of $599 of the first model). What people were upset about was really the fact that this may have been one of the few times Jobs failed to go above and beyond people's expectations. But to tell you the truth, at the end of the day, he released one of the most innovating pieces of technology on the latest network capabilities. He can't just blow his load right away. The main points of the release of this new phone are the affordable price, 3G capabilities, and the fact that the iPhone will be released in 70 countries by the end of the year, compared to the current 6 that support it now.

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Sunday, June 8, 2008

Human Tetris

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Have you ever played tetris? Don't you just love that game? Well, people in the eastern side of the world seem to really know what entertainment is. When you put one of the most basic and entertaining games created for video game consoles and add people to it, clearly you will produce one of the most hilarious game-shows ever.

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Mindless Entertainment

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Well I've been at my job this summer for about a week now, and I've learned that I definitely enjoy wasting my time and mindlessly entertaining myself for as long as I can. I've decided to write a bit more often on here as an exercise to keep my sanity throughout the week. At times I like researching and reading about new and exciting things, but I definitely also enjoy practicing some free-thought (where I don't necessarily have any direction in the piece other than for my own entertainment). So, to keep it short and sweet, because this one doesn't really have interesting content like some of my other entries have, I would like to introduce to you something that friends of mine (associated more closely to Doctor Dozer) recently brought to my attention. His name is Gorgeous George, and he is an absolute...beauty for lack of a better word. Actually, I'm very impressed by him, as he seems to be too incredibly stupid to realize that people don't like him. As explained to me, he is a celebrity of sorts, tied to the infomercial world, and all people do is call in to his show and make fun of him. Please enjoy.

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Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Two Things

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First, commentary about the Democrats' decision to seat all the Florida and Michigan delegates and award them all half-votes at the convention. (Here at bibttp, we're always cutting-edge and relevant. [Actually, blogsquatch and Doctor Dozer actually are cutting-edge and relevant. So I guess I'm just being sarcastic about me.]) I think this decision cuts to the core of the problem of the Democratic Party. It shows: a) an inability to follow rules and b) an unwillingness to enforce them. Draw that out as you will.

Second, I came across a brilliant post at Bugs and Cranks, which is a great baseball blog. This one actually is relevant, because it comments on all 30 Major League teams' seasons based on Mitch Hedberg quotes. Baseball and the Blogfather! Doesn't get much better than that.

href="http://www.bugsandcranks.com/the-clubhouse/first-13-grades-brought-to-you-by-mitch-altogether/"

Please enjoy. Someday, I'm going to learn how to make "brilliant post" the link directly to the article, and not have to copy the whole hyperlink. Someday. Also someday, I'm going to learn how to make the friggin' hyperlink work anywhere on this page. Does one of my tech nerd friends want to hasten that day?

UPDATE:
blogsquatch has been kind enough to fix the link. SoBDD doesn't realize that all he has to do is highlight the words he would like to hyperlink, click on the symbol that looks like an earth with a chain in the area above the section where he writes out his posts, and then places in the hyperlink in the area provided.

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