Some Blog Site

A couple weeks ago, Tuesday Morning Quarterback (TMQ, AKA Gregg Easterbrook) announced a new football prediction algorithm – the Davis Postulate.

The Davis Postulate states that existing trends will likely continue, so a team that won last week will win again this week. And vice-versa.

I have added it to the list of NFL prediction methods over on Some Fun Site.

I have both the Davis Postulate (which checks only the previous week and so includes the bye) and the Davis Postulate, Extended (which checks who has the longer current streak and skips byes).

Enjoy!

(p.s. More Yards Wins is still the leader, both in 2009 and 2010.)

I took a survey last night. I was slightly annoyed with things, which is usually when I decide to take the online surveys that are offered to me. I think that most online surveys are skewed negatively, because people don’t care to vent if their visit to the website went fine.

While I was surveying, I became even more annoyed at the lack of respect the survey had for the English language. Most of the time that I am annoyed with someone’s writing, it’s the grammar or spelling that gets me. But this time it was the choice of words.

They are subtly changing the meanings of words. It may be a post-modern thing, or it may just be a convenience thing, or it may plain-ol’ ignorance.

Whatever the reason, I don’t like it.

Exhibit A: Never

And a little closer view . . .

It says “I have NEVER smoked cigarettes (less than 100 in my life)”

And they even emphasized “never” by capitalizing it!

If you mean never, that would be “equal to zero in my life”.

I understand the categories that they wanted, but why use the word “never”? And why, oh why, did they EMPHASIZE IT? Use some other term instead, such as “I do not smoke cigarettes (less than 100 in my life)” or “I rarely or never smoke cigarettes”. There are so many possibilities.

Exhibit B: 100%

This one may be more of a math problem than an English problem.

It says “100% – Almost always”

If you mean 100%, that would be “always always”.

I understand the categories that they wanted, but why use “100%”? Use some other term instead, such as “95% or more – almost always” or “100% – always”.

At least they didn’t EMPHASIZE IT.

Don’t dilute the meaning of words by misusing them. That will still get you perjury charges in court, I would hope.

“Have you ever seen this man before?”
“No, I have never seen that man before.”
“But we know that you met with him 99 times for insider trading tips.”
“Yes, but that was less than 100 times, so it counts as never.”
“Are you 100% sure about that?”
“Yes, I am 100% sure . . . almost.”
“Well, which is it: 100% or almost?”
“What!? There’s a difference?”

On the back of the The Railway Children book that I read was a list of books. I always like seeing lists of books, especially classics. This book had a good list because the book (and therefore the list) was several decades old.

The series is titled Children’s Illustrated Classics Series and is intended For Younger Readers. This series was published by J.M. Dent in London.

So if you’re searching for what a well-read child should read, here’s a start:

Sometimes the daily grind of raising children becomes wearisome. Most of the time it’s not a problem, but sometimes I just get tired.

How many times can they tell the same story?
How many times can they interrupt a phone call?
How many times can they show me their newest paper-and-string-and-tape creations?

(In case one of my children is reading this some years from now: no, it wasn’t you – it was your brother.)

We all have our weaknesses. In case your weakness is along the lines of “how to motivate yourself to care about everything your child says”, here is how I stay motivated :

Captain Sullenberger has been asked how he was able to make a landing (or would that be “watering”) in such a precarious situation. His answer was something along the lines of

For years I had been making small deposits in the bank of experience. When the time came that I needed to make a large withdrawal, the balance was large enough.

What is my job as a parent? Raising my children, of course. Teaching them now and preparing them for the future.

Hmm…that sounds like a school’s motto.

If I neglect my parenting role now, I am squandering the experience instead of depositing it in the bank. In the future, what if my then-teenage son needs to talk?

If he grew up thinking “dad never listens”, where will he go to be heard?

If he grew up thinking “dad doesn’t want to answer my questions”, whom will he ask when he has an important question?

I’m not saying our kids feel neglected – that’s not why I’m writing this. I just saw that quote from Captain Sullenberger and thought it paralleled parenting rather well. It should be applicable to just about anything, not just piloting.

Oh, and you should listen to “Cat’s in the Cradle” (the real version) a few times a year.

My other question is this: Why wasn’t the emergency landing also a deposit in the bank of experience? How does the experience know whether it is a deposit or withdrawal?

I would liken it more to the stock market. He put enough in so that, when the crash came, he wasn’t wiped out completely.

On second thought, that doesn’t continue well either, because after the crash he had even more experience than before the crash. Maybe we need to avoid the monetary analogies.

A new study shows that people don’t trust new studies.

Earlier studies had shown that people do trust new studies.

The new study, which was released last week, shows that new studies often contradict older studies. That creates confusion and causes people not to care about any studies at all.

Further research is planned to clarify the different results.

Hey, I wonder if I could get a grant for this…

My goal is to read at least one book during the summer vacation. I made it through three. Well, more like two and a half. And if blogs were books…

Anyway, here are the three books:

The Wedding

My wife recommended I read “The Wedding” by Nicolas Sparks.

Once I started reading it, I became worried. The book is about a couple who had been married for 29 years and the relationship had grown lifeless. Not actively bad, but not really good either. Did she recommend that I read it because she thought we were that way? Did she think I was like Wilson and just went about my business, leaving romance and relationship by the wayside?

I thought maybe I should work on communicating with her and maybe I should ask her if that’s what she thought. But, on second thought, I decided that she probably just enjoyed a nice story and figured I would enjoy it too. So I read it. And enjoyed it.

I didn’t find out until after I finished the book that it was the sequel to “The Notebook”. From what I’ve heard, people found “The Notebook” to be a little too depressing, so Nicolas Sparks had to write this one and make it uplifting. Yes, “The Wedding” starts out describing the problems with their marriage, but it ends well.

It was a good book. Go ahead and read it, unless you’re boycotting Nicolas Sparks books.

No, I have not read (nor watched) “The Notebook”.

The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag

I also read “The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag” by Allen Bradley.

That one is the sequel to “The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie”, which I preferred over this one (henceforth known as TWTSTHB).

They were both good, but TWTSTHB was a little darker and the themes were a little heavier. Flavia solves the murder-mystery, but the storyline took a sad turn and never recovered. Yes, all the main characters are fine and healthy and all – it’s the storyline, the subject matter, that never recovered. I was reading this book to be entertained, and it is written well, but it uses subjects that I do not find as entertaining as other people perhaps do.

The Railway Children

After the vacations were all done, my wife got a book on tape CD from the library. It happened to be “The Railway Children” by E. Nesbit.

I ended up hearing about half the story – hear a few chapters, miss a couple, hear a couple, miss one, etc. By the time we had to return the audio book to the library, I was interested in the book. So my thoughtful wife checked out the actual book from the library just for me to read.

I liked the book. It is geared more toward children, but I just read it to myself and enjoyed it nonetheless. I don’t know that I would have finished it in time if I had to read it aloud to the kids though.

For a while now I have been interested in how the Social Security Administration’s list of popular baby names would look if they consolidated the names that sound the same.

• Some people like a name but there are already alternates, so they must choose a side (Catherine vs. Katherine).
• Some people try to give their children unique names by altering the spelling of a name (She’s the only Haylee in her class! Yes, but there’s a Haleigh and a Hailey).
• And some people just don’t know how to spell the name (not going there).

Let me be the first to introduce, for the very first time, the 2009 SFS Baby Name List. (It’s the SFS Baby Name List instead of the SSA Baby Name List because it’s over on Some Fun Site).

I know it’s currently 2010. But the government, being on its own timetable, released the numbers for 2009 just a few months ago. So that list is for the births in 2009.

Well, mostly 2009. The government, being how it is, decided that the SSA would tally things from February to February, rather than use January like everyone else does.

Some Stats

• Girl names have more spelling variations than boy names (320/1000 vs. 211/1000 alternates)
• The boys have the name with the highest number of alternate spellings (Jayden with 10 vs. Carly with 9)
• Popular boy names end in ‘n’ (the first 8 variants); popular girl names end in ‘y’ (the first 2 variants).
• ‘Skylar’ is more likely a girl’s name; ‘Skyler’ is more likely a boy’s name. (‘a’ vs. ‘e’, in case you didn’t catch it)

2009 Improved Baby Name List

Enjoy!