This should be the last post about football prediction schemes for a while. Or even longer if the lockout continues.
I have, until now, just tested the NFL forecasting formula against the regular season – seeing how well each predicts that week’s game results.
But the regular season is just to see who makes the playoffs, then who will win the division, win the conference, and then win the Super Bowl. Today’s update is to see if those methods could predict – using the results of the regular season – who will be playoff champions.
I tested the equations against the top four teams (i.e. who played for the conference championship) as well as the Super Bowl winner. I have no reason for going that route, other than it was around the time of the college basketball tournament, so the term “Final Four” was popular.
To spare you the details, let me just say that it was worthless. The prediction methods didn’t really get you any closer to knowing who would make it to the end of the playoffs.
The good news is that I don’t have to plan a trip to Vegas any time soon.
You can view the details over at the football predictions page.
The end result is that your best bet is to pick the teams that have a first round bye. Then you have a 54.2% chance of picking who get to the conference championship.
But the LORD is with me like a dread champion;Therefore my persecutors will stumble and not prevail They will be utterly ashamed, because they have failed,With an everlasting disgrace that will not be forgotten.
Jeremiah 20:11
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There was a new font released at Font Grill over the weekend.
It’s called Font13 and it mixes up the letters according to the age-old encryption technique of Rotate-13. It might not be the most practical font, but you never know when someone might have need of it.
For those unfamiliar with rot-13, you could look it up on the internet.
But since you’re already here: remember those old plastic label makers? with the circle of 26 letters that you’d spin around and then press the thing to make the letter you wanted? Pretend the circle thingy was wrong – like someone spun the disc halfway around and the letter is showed was not the letter it made. That’s rot13 – press ‘A’ and get ‘N’, press ‘B’ and get ‘O’, press ‘C’ and get ‘P’, etc.
The font’s a little late for April Fool’s Day, but there’s always next year. Hint: install it on someone else’s computer and set it to the default font for their web browser. Or as the font for Windows’ active window text or menu text or anything else in Display Properties – Appearance – Advanced.
Go view the font page.
for I do not wish to seem as if I would terrify you by my letters.
2 Corinthians 10:9
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In case you’re interested in my child’s schoolwork:
100 Days
There was a big celebration of making it through 100 days of school. Here is one of the items from that time:
I like that he wants 100 books and 100 carrots. How many kids would say that?
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Posted in Family | 3 Comments »
We were on our way somewhere the other week (how’s that for vague?) and we were behind a Mini Cooper.
We don’t watch TV news. Nor do we have satellite or cable or anything else fancy. So I don’t know much about Anderson Cooper. I couldn’t even pick him out of a lineup. It was nice of him to have his car personalized so I could tell when he drove by.
But from those who were of high reputation (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)–well, those who were of reputation contributed nothing to me.
Galatians 2:6
Posted in Ponder | 2 Comments »
Let me set the background by saying that the last time the kids had a week off school, a couple of them got the flu. My wife had activities planned throughout that week that she had to cancel, since most of the activities involved seeing other families. So instead of a fun week of doing stuff, my wife had the joy of staying at home with sick kids.
That was months ago. Today is the first day of the next school break. Of course we were wondering if anything would happen to prevent this week’s lot of planned activities.
Sure enough, Beta woke up Sunday morning looking like this:
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Posted in Family | 5 Comments »
This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
