RSSMonday, January 23, 2012
Super Bowl analysis
So I was looking at the stats for the Giants and the Pats. And here's the thing: the Giants beat the Pats in Foxboro earlier this season. Which actually I think is an advantage for New England because (a) Belichick doesn't tend to lose twice to the same team, and (b) the Pats have figured out how to get penetration on defense since that game.
But looking at the statistics specifically, a few things jump out:
- Despite having an aggressive, attacking defense, the Giants give up a lot of yards. Their defense is almost as bad as the Pats' on the season.
- The Pats give up a ton of yards, but not a ton of points, and they have the best turnover margin in the AFC at +17 (the Giants are only +7). An opportunistic defense is good for quick-scoring teams.
- The Pats have just defeated, in consecutive games, two of the top four teams in the NFL in every defensive category.
We know both the Giants and Pats can score. This is going to be a very high-scoring game. But the question is: which team can stop the other one? Which team can disrupt the other team's offense? Right now, Vegas has the Pats as a three-point favorite, with an over-under of 55½. I think the over-under is right, but the actual margin will be about 7; something like 31-24. Let's see if I'm right!
Posted by Dave at 4:02 PM | Comments (5) | Tags: sports
Apps link!
You'll notice that there are now five links in the upper right.1 The "Apps" link takes you to a page where you can download stuff that I've made.
Currently, anything posted there is gratis - i.e. free as in beer, not free as in speech. What that means is that you can download whatever you like for no charge, but you can't distribute it to other people. Link here instead, so people can come and get it themselves.
If you do feel the need to give me money for being awesome, contact me at this website's name (all one word) at Google's mail and I'll tell you where to send a check.
Posted by Dave at 10:13 AM | Comments (0) | Tags: blog
Sunday, January 22, 2012
N00t!
Republicans make with the votes, hilarity ensues.
Erick Erickson writes:
We’re now confronted with a designated front runner, Mitt Romney, who got less votes in Iowa in 2012 than he got in 2008 and who lost South Carolina. His reason for being somehow remains that he is “electable.”
Yeah, I actually linked RedState. Wanna make somethin' of it?
Posted by Dave at 5:51 AM | Comments (0) | Tags: politics
Friday, January 20, 2012
Regarding the Deen dustup
For those who don't know, Paula Deen has a cooking show on the Food Network in which she demonstrates recipes like this. She was diagnosed with diabetes three years ago - Type II, the kind you typically get from being significantly overweight (which she is).
We're well aware that most of the stuff on the Food Network is porn. And there's nothing wrong with somebody deep-frying a stick of butter in front of a live, cheering audience of consenting adults. And really, we could all see that Deen was obese and so it's not like she was hiding the fact that her food was unhealthy. No, what really chafes me (and many others) is that she didn't come out about her medical condition until she had signed a deal with drug-maker Novo Nordisk to sell their new diabetes "lifestyle drug".
Look, if Paula Deen wanted to keep maintaining the illusion that you could eat like she cooks and still maintain a vibrant, healthy lifestyle, fine. That's the magic of porn - you see the awesome part and not all of the seedy crap that goes on off camera; the surgery scars; the casting couches; the armies of creepy fluffers; the routine HIV and syphilis tests.
Deen could have announced her condition and told people, "hey, I'm fat, I eat unhealthy, but better to live short and happy than long and miserable". Or she could have made it a point that deep-fried Twinkies are a "sometimes food" and shown how to make some tasty but healthy recipes. Or she could have just kept it a secret completely and maintained the illusion of her porn star lifestyle.
But profiting off selling people something that's bad for them and then profiting off the treatment is just... icky. It's like a company that sells asbestos and chemo drugs, or cell phones and car insurance.
Paula, shame on you.
(I wanted to insert a line about Deen's fans being massive, formless bags of adipose tissue supported primarily by their own hardened arteries, but I couldn't find anywhere to put it. That makes me sad.)
Posted by Dave at 11:47 AM | Comments (0) | Tags: life, media
Thursday, January 19, 2012
How Bain made money
- Find a company that isn't terribly profitable. It doesn't have to be in dire straits, but it does have to be undervalued.
- Buy it.
- Raise the company's bottom line in ways that won't immediately affect its ability to function. Laying off workers, shutting factories, reducing R&D budgets, etc. are good ways to do this.
- The company now shows a nice profit and has cash on hand. Its stock price will likely go up. You can now:
1. Have it pay you all of its money in dividends.
2. Have it buy back the stock you own at an inflated price.
3. Have it borrow a bunch of money and then do (1) or (2), - Usually the previous step will net a massive return on the initial investment, somewhere between 200% and 2000%. But now you've sucked the company dry, so if you still own stock, sell it before investors realize it's dead on its feet.
- Watch the company go bankrupt.
- Take the money you made and find another victim.
This is nothing more than a good old-fashioned corporate raid, made famous in the '80s by movies like Wall Street, Other People's Money, and Pretty Woman. In other words, Mitt Romney is just a Mormon version of Gordon Gecko.
Posted by Dave at 10:09 AM | Comments (0) | Tags: economics, politics
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
SOPA/PIPA
The price we pay for freedom is that occasionally, someone will figure out a way to subvert an antiquated information delivery system. That's one of the reasons many creative people (authors, artists, game designers, etc.) have switched to a Kickstarter/donation-based model to finance their activities.
Posted by Dave at 9:58 AM | Comments (2) | Tags: media, tech
Monday, January 16, 2012
What I learned from Apocalypse World
For those not in the know, Apocalypse World by Vincent Baker is the new hotness is role-playing games. Having just bought and read most of the game manual, I can honestly say that this is one of the best resources available for understanding how to run and play in good games.
Some of the really good points the AW book makes:
... Read all of "What I learned from Apocalypse World"
Posted by Dave at 9:20 PM | Comments (2) | Tags: gaming
Home construction!
So we had this problem in the laundry room downstairs. We have a drop tile ceiling, but there is some ductwork which seems like it was added after the house was built, and which extends below the level of the tiles. Rather than trying to make the tiles flush with the ductwork, however, they just left a gap in the ceiling, exposing the floor joists, wiring, and insulation.
I had a plan: build a soffit or bulkhead around the ductwork. The problem: how to build it in a room that already did not have a particularly tall ceiling in such a way that it did not significantly reduce the height of the room. This was complicated by the fact that there was a vent hanging down from the duct-work, and an insulated tube that came out of it and slightly downward to go into the next room over.
I realized the only way I could make it work with a single box was to make the bottom just higher than the register of the vent and just lower than the tube, nine inches from the joists. The only problem was that at that height, it was not possible to run the frame across the bottom of any of the ductwork (the preferred way to build it in these sorts of cases). This is what I did instead:
The frame is as square and level as I can make it as two (and almost three) disjoint pieces.
You can see the tube running over the door. If that tube hadn't been there, it would have been much easier.
... Read all of "Home construction!"
Posted by Dave at 8:53 AM | Comments (0) | Tags: life
Thursday, January 12, 2012
A remarkably different experience
So, saw a link to The Border House's 2011 Awards. The Border House is a site dedicated to inclusivity and diversity in gaming; the article got a link back because they'd given Kotaku an award for basically not being dicks. Which is how I found the post in the first place, yadda yadda.
Anyway, it's a great compilation of the best of 2011 in computer gaming, in the sense that none of the games on the list is likely to piss me off. I've got very little time for videogaming anymore, and I'm too old and grumpy to put up with games full of the usual misogyny, racism, homophobia, etc. that are still so prevalent in the industry.
I digress... There are a few free games on the list. Some of them you can even find using the Google (try to find the browser game they mention called "The Play" - I bet you can't). So I figured I'd grab one to see what it was like. The one I chose was don't take it personally, babe, it just ain't your story, which is about the furthest thing from anything I'd ever experienced before.
It's basically a Japanese-style visual novel (from what I understand - like I said, I'd never actually seen anything like this firsthand) set in a prestigious Canadian high school. It's well-written, well-paced, touching, funny, and punches you in the face a few times for good measure. The whole thing is so layered up with meta-narrative that your head will be spinning by the end.1 I highly recommend it, even if you never thought something like this could interest you.2
Which brings me to another point - perhaps the more important one. There are actually a lot of games like this out there. Well, maybe not exactly like this, but again, I'm led to believe this is a "thing" in Japan. And while the vast majority of visual novel-type games are likely to be crap (a la Sturgeon's Law), I bet there are some really awesome ones out there which I would never have thought to try because they're aimed at a completely different target audience.
More specifically, a large number are aimed at a female audience. And so we as a culture ignore them because "default" is "male" and therefore "games" = "games aimed at men".3 But here's the thing: good games are good games. Good stories are good stories. I was listening to a podcast the other day in which a (male) game designer was talking about how many great books there are in the paranormal romance section which nobody ever hears about because, duh, Twilight. And so books which are really great, well-paced, action-packed romps, and which would otherwise appeal to a wide audience get buried there because they happen to feature a romantic plotline and a female lead.
Anyway, what I'm getting at is that I've learned my lesson. In 2012, I'm going to make it a point to go out of my comfort zone when consuming media.4 Consider this my slightly belated New Year's resolution.
1 It was also evidently written in a single month as part of a NaNoWriMo-type exercise. Which makes it even more impressive, despite its flaws.
2 Also, if you play it, and you were wondering, no I didn't. Also with the other thing, no, didn't do that either. You'll know what I mean.
3 Note that the few visual novels that do make it to America tend to be romance-centered with a male lead, because again, all gamers are straight men, right?
4 This is one of the best things about having a Nook. I'm not yet above bowing to social pressure and even many "mainstream" F/SF novels have covers I'd be ashamed of being seen with in public. With an e-reader, nobody has to know! If something's good, I'll still promote the crap out of it online, of course.
Posted by Dave at 2:58 AM | Comments (0) | Tags: gaming
Monday, January 9, 2012
Evening Shorts
Short the first: the first film since Alien and Terminator with a female action lead who looks like she could actually kick your ass.
Short the second: D&D 5th Edition wants to be everything to everyone. I'll be happy if it's just D&D, thanks. In the meantime, there are lots of other great games to play - and I'll be making an effort to introduce them all to the denizens at the local game store this spring.
Short the third: played Twilight Imperium the other day. The game took two hours to set up and ten to play. It was pretty good and the guys I played with were pretty cool, but that's just too damn long for one game. Even our Battletech marathons in high school were only 4-6 hours.
Short the last: two "college" teams are allegedly playing football tonight. I do not intend to watch it.
Posted by Dave at 7:35 PM | Comments (5) | Tags: gaming, life, media, sports