Author: VD

Why I don’t watch NCAA football

It’s just a joke. A complete farce. I’m glad I quit paying attention to it years ago. The idea that Alabama, which has already lost to LSU, should play LSU again for the nonexistent “national title” is simply ridiculous in every way.

What they’re playing for is the SEC title, not the national one, the recent SEC championship game notwithstanding. How many teams outside the SEC have both teams even played? Six! LSU played Oregon, Northwestern State (?), and West Virginia. Alabama played Kent State, Penn State, and North Texas. A real murderer’s row of competitors there. While the SEC is the premier conference in college football, the more salient point here is that neither team has played a single Big 12 team; LSU hasn’t played the Big 10, Alabama hasn’t played the Pac-12.

Who cares if LSU beats Alabama again? We already know they can and probably will. And it’s worse if Alabama upsets LSU, since people will always wonder if Oklahoma State could have beaten them as well. I used to follow college football, but began to lose interest in college football once the focus shifted away from the inter-conference rivalries and towards a mythical “national” championship. I haven’t paid any attention to it in years, and latest debacle confirms my opinion that the NCAA is corrupt and stupid, the BCS is a ridiculous farce, and I’d rather much rather review advanced NFL statistics at Football Outsiders than devote any time to NCAA football.

If I ran the BCS, I would have instituted a simple rule preventing any such travesties. No intra-conference rematches if there is a potential opponent with a similar or better record, regardless of the BCS rating. When one is attempting to determine a national title, there should always be a heavy bias towards matching up teams from difference conferences. Of course, an NFL-style playoff system where the top teams from the six major conferences, plus two wild cards, make the playoffs makes far too much sense for the NCAA to ever adopt it.

No skepticism in science

An illuminating admission in the contemplation of a potential explanation for all that missing “dark matter”:

You probably want to put on your skeptical goggles and set them to maximum for this one. An Italian mathematician has come up with some complex formulae that can, with remarkable similarity, mimic the rotation curves of spiral galaxies without the need for dark matter.

Currently, these galactic rotation curves represent key evidence for the existence of dark matter – since the outer stars of spinning galaxies often move around a galactic disk so fast that they should fly off into intergalactic space – unless there is an additional ‘invisible’ mass present in the galaxy to gravitationally hold them in their orbits….

Conceptually the idea makes little sense. Positioning gravitationally significant mass outside of the orbit of stars might draw them out into wider orbits, but it’s difficult to see why this would add to their orbital velocity. Drawing an object into a wider orbit should result in it taking longer to orbit the galaxy since it will have more circumference to cover. What we generally see in spiral galaxies is that the outer stars orbit the galaxy within much the same time period as more inward stars.

But although the proposed mechanism seems a little implausible, what is remarkable about Carati’s claim is that the math apparently deliver galactic rotation curves that closely fit the observed values of at least four known galaxies. Indeed, the math delivers an extraordinarily close fit.

For me the most interesting thing isn’t the idea itself, about which I have no opinion, it is the way the Slashdot submitter described it: “As usual, these are extraordinary claims that divert from the consensus, so keep a healthy skepticism.”

This permits us to infer something that we have previously observed on many occasions: scientists and science fetishists do not maintain a healthy skepticism about claims that concur with the consensus. And the fascinating thing is that it is quite easy to factually demonstrate that scientists place more and blinder faith in the various scientific consensuses than religious people do in the tenets of their various faiths. Once more, we are given evidence that the false claims of atheists who subscribe to the cult of science are based on psychological projection.

Speaking of which, I found this Slashdot comment to be amusing: “The creationists trail real science and keep changing their story, but never, ever, ever admit error. What they believe is always the absolute truth and always has been and if you remember having hours long arguments with them over something which they now believe to be the case but didn’t then, your memory is faulty!”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it! As for dark matter, at this point, logic dictates that it most likely will turn out to be a spectacular example of the classic theoretical epicycles to which scientists have been increasingly given ever since medieval astronomers noticed that the observed planetary orbits didn’t correspond well with their Ptolamaic theories.

UPDATE: Fascinating to see that physicists now appear to be making the same mistake as economists: “Not sure about the summary, but the paper is extremely simple. I’ll summarize it: It is commonly assumed that galaxies are evenly distributed. This would mean that if you picked any galaxy at random, you could pick other galaxies whose gravitational pull totally balanced out the effect of the first one. So, overall, no distant galaxy would ever affect anything. What is observed is that galaxies are NOT evenly distributed. There is, indeed, left-over gravitational pull.”

And that, my dear and Dread Ilk, is precisely why anyone schooled in picking apart the flaws of one discipline is actually very well suited to pick apart the flaws of another discipline, even when he knows virtually nothing about that other discipline. Human error tends to follow readily identifiable patterns.

A lesson in unintended consequences

Charles Stross explains how insisting on DRM caused publishers to leap from the frying pan right into the fire:

DRM on ebooks gives Amazon a great tool for locking ebook customers into the Kindle platform. If you buy a book that you can only read on the Kindle, you’re naturally going to be reluctant to move to other ebook platforms that can’t read those locked Kindle ebooks — and even more reluctant to buy ebooks from rival stores that use incompatible DRM. Amazon acquired an early lead in the ebook field (by selling below cost in the early days, and subsidizing the Kindle hardware price to consumers), and customers are locked into the platform by their existing purchases. Which is pretty much how they gained their 80% market share.

An 80% share of a tiny market slice worth maybe 1% of the publishing sector was of no concern to the big six, back in 2008. But today, with it rising towards 40%, it’s another matter entirely.

As ebook sales mushroom, the Big Six’s insistence on DRM has proven to be a hideous mistake. Rather than reducing piracy[*], it has locked customers in Amazon’s walled garden, which in turn increases Amazon’s leverage over publishers. And unlike pirated copies (which don’t automatically represent lost sales) Amazon is a direct revenue threat because Amazon are have no qualms about squeezing their suppliers — or trying to poach authors for their “direct” publishing channel by offering initially favourable terms. (Which will doubtless get a lot less favourable once the monopoly is secured …)

If the big six began selling ebooks without DRM, readers would at least be able to buy from other retailers and read their ebooks on whatever platform they wanted, thus eroding Amazon’s monopoly position. But it’s not clear that the folks in the boardrooms are agile enough to recognize the tar pit they’ve fallen into …

I avoid walled gardens like the plague. I use Kobo and Aldiko as my eReaders and will not even look at any ebook that is not in EPUB format. And while my publishers publish in Amazon’s KZW format, I always urge them to be sure that an EPUB version is also available.

WND column

Choosing Collapse

Another flavor of the month has passed its sell-by date. To no one’s surprise, except perhaps those Republicans in desperate search of a get-out-of-racism-free card, the Magic Negro, Part II: Republican edition has “suspended” his campaign, thus marking the latest collapse of a nominal frontrunner. If we are to take the polls seriously, this leaves Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney as the two leading candidates for the Republican nomination, which is arguably the least attractive leadership pair on offer since the Polish people were divided between Hitler and Stalin.

An upset in Iowa?

Ron Paul is coming on strong:

A brand-new Iowa Poll, just published by the Des Moines Register, reports the often-dismissed 76-year-old Paul has surged past one-time front-runner Mitt Romney and moved into second place, with his sights set on the current front-runner Newt Gingrich.

According to the new poll results, Gingrich leads the pack at 25% of likely caucus-goers with less than a month until they’re held. Paul is second with 18% and Romney now trails with 16%.

It would certainly be interesting to see how far the media is willing to go in pretending Ron Paul doesn’t exist if he were to win Iowa. It would certainly be hard to maintain the unelectable theme. I imagine the big story would be the “unexpected” strength of Mitt Romney’s third-place showing.

VPFL Week 12

58 Moundsview Meerkats (8-4-0)
55 MS Swamp Spartans (6-6-0)

79 RR Redbeards (5-6-1)
76 Greenfield Grizzlies (7-5-0)

81 Bane Sidhe (6-6-0)
63 GroverBeach Quixotes (4-8-0)

84 Bailout Banksters (7-4-1)
30 Cranberry Rhyneauxs (4-8-0)

67 Macau Marauders (5-6-1)
56 Green Reverends (6-5-1)

The SF classics and the human condition

Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that I am a fervent believer in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. And let us further suppose that I am utterly convinced that the tenets of the Pastafarian Church not only represent the present pinnacle of human progress, but are guaranteed to remain valid and morally definitive for so long as our species shall fail to evolve. And finally, let us also suppose that many of the classics of the science fiction and fantasy genre are deemed to infringe in a variety of ways upon the tenets of Pastafarianism. Am I then justified in claiming that these works are not classics, indeed, cannot be considered classics because they violate the Pastafarian sensibilities that every right-thinking human being knows are true? Am I perhaps even justified in claiming that no one should be permitted to read, much less enjoy, works that offend fundamental human decency as defined by the true interpretations of the various blots and sigils left to humanity by the Flying Spaghetti Monster as he passes overhead in all his noodly goodness?

Even if we cannot justify these things, surely I, as a fine, upstanding human, Pastafarian, and scholar, cannot be expected to slog my way through any literary work that is insufficiently respectful of the societal mores that, if not necessarily dominant today, are assured to one day be accepted by all of humanity in the fullness of time!

Read the rest at The Black Gate

Mailvox: an easy choice

Jamsco asked me to consider presenting an argument for supporting Tebow and the Broncos versus an argument for supporting the Vikings. I rejected that because there is absolutely no chance I would ever support any team against the Vikings. I find The Miracle of Tebow to be even more entertaining than the Tarvaris Jackson Experiment, and I wish the young man well in general, but against the Vikings?

Never. The only circumstance in which I might consider supporting another team against the Vikings is if one of my children was playing against them. And even then, I’d probably hope for an excellent individual performance in defeat.

However, I can say that seeing the Vikings lose to Tebow and the Broncos on Sunday would be less painful than most historical Vikings defeats. I rank Vikings defeats on the following 10-point pain scale:

10- Dallas Hail-Mary game. Pearson absolutely committed offensive pass interference.
9 – Oakland. Super Bowl XI.
8 – Atlanta. 38 in 98. This was dreadful, but unlike the other two games, I didn’t actually cry. One of the guys at the bar in Florida did, however.
7 – New Orleans. NFC Championship aka The Greased Pig Game. This probably would have been an 8 if I was younger and was still capable of feeling normal human emotion. Also, New York 41-0. People tend to forget the Vikes were actually favored. Total disaster from the get-go.
6 – New England. The 28-27 game. How do you lose when you’re winning 27-0? Pittsburgh. Super Bowl IX. I didn’t expect the Vikings to win, but I still hoped. Washington. The Darren Nelson drop in the 1987 NFC championship. We would have crushed Denver too.
5 – Any loss to the Packers when the Vikings are favored. And pretty much any loss to the Lions. Not that the Lions are a rival, it’s just that it’s so unexpected.
4 – Arizona. 18-17 in 2003 to knock the Vikings out of the playoffs. Or any playoff loss in a year when the Vikes clearly aren’t good enough to compete.
3 – Any loss to the Packers when the Packers are the better team. Losing then isn’t surprising, it’s just annoying. As are the Packer fans. Or losing after leading by 10 or more in the third quarter. Or any loss in the second half of the season after starting 6-2 or better.
2 – A regular season loss.
1 – A preseason loss.

I would say that a loss to the Broncos would probably be about a 1.5, not because I’m cheering for Tebow, but because the season is shot anyhow and I’d just as soon see Frazier go. I see no reason to have any confidence in him. The Vikings run defense isn’t as epic as it was a few years ago, but it is still a top-10 run defense giving up only 99.6 YPG, which should slow down the top-ranked Denver running attack. The Vikings should win, even without Adrian Peterson, since their weak and wounded pass defense, (missing both starting corners and ranked 29th), should be capable of rising to the challenge posed by Tebow’s arm, and because the Denver defense simply isn’t as good as many casual observers imagine.

By the way, I always support the NFC North team in the playoffs. Bears, then Packers. I hate the NFC West. I don’t hate the NFC East, but I hate the way the media spends half their coverage on the NFC East and the other half on the rest of the league. And the NFC South still strikes me as a nonentity, the Saints one Super Bowl notwithstanding.

Anyhow, I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s game. You can always judge a player better when you see him play against a team you know well. I do wish Winfield wasn’t on IR; it would be fascinating to see if Denver could run his way or not… I’m betting not, but we won’t be able to find out.

Exit the Harassinator

You know, it really doesn’t bother me in the slightest to say “I told you so“.

Herman Cain, the insurgent populist whose candidacy has been ensnared by allegations of sexual impropriety, said Saturday that he is leaving the race for the Republican presidential nomination, saying that the allegations have cast a “cloud of doubt over me and this campaign.”

“As of today, with a lot of prayer and soul searching, I am suspending my presidential campaign,” he said at an event in Atlanta. “I am suspending my presidential campaign because of the continued distraction, the continued hurt . . . on me, on my family, not because we are not fighters, not because I am not a fighter.”

Herman Cain’s campaign was always a joke. He was never a serious candidate in the eyes of anyone with more than half a brain who bothered paying attention to what came out of his mouth after swirling around in his head.

I shall now commence to gargle with the sweet, saline goodness of Fred Backer’s tears

Homeschool or die

I’m about as cynical about the basic concept of public schooling as it is possible to be. And yet, the American “education” system still regularly manages to surprise me to the downside:

A 7-year-old boy is being investigated by his South Boston elementary school for possible sexual harassment after kicking another boy in the crotch. The first grader’s mother, Tasha Lynch, says she was shocked by the school’s decision.

“He’s 7 years old. He doesn’t know anything about sexual harassment,” she said.

Lynch’s son, Mark Curran, said the boy that he kicked had been bullying him on the school bus ride home from Tynan Elementary last week.

“He just all of a sudden came up to him, choked him. He wanted to take his gloves, and my son said, ‘I couldn’t breathe, so I kicked him in the testicles,’” said his mother.

Lynch described a phone call she received from the school explaining that the case will be treated like sexual harassment, due to what it considers inappropriate touching.

“‘Your son kicked a little boy in the testicles. We call that sexual harassment,’” Lynch said the school told her.

Apparently the schools wish parents to teach their children to die when they are being choked. Or something. In any event, it does suggest an alternative strategy for kids who are being bullied. The moment that a bully lays so much as a finger on you, charge him with sexual harassment. That should keep him and his parents busy for the next few weeks… and if he dares to say anything about it later, it’s a simple trip down to the counselor’s office to lay a second charge.

Of course, if you’re a parent, what on Earth are you thinking to leave your children in what has clearly become a complete madhouse? I know, I know, your school is different. The teachers are excellent. Your kids are more than fine. And you know absolutely everything that goes on inside their school building for 36 hours every week, right?

Parents of kids in public school are almost uniformly idiots, at least in this one regard. They always claim to know everything about their children’s schools, and yet I’ve never met a single one who could even tell me the ratio of teachers to administrative staff or the average number of children in a classroom. Most of them can’t even tell me what classes their kid has, let alone his daily schedule. Yeah, you totally know what’s going on there.