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With college football underway, there are plenty o’ pundits weighing in on who is the best.

It’s a perennial conversation because of the way that the NCAA has avoided finding a champion for college football. Instead, we have many winners. Everyone gets a bowl game!

But I digress.

My topic today is how I disagree with those who say that the previous year’s champion should remain the top-ranked team the next year until they lose.

I have a couple of problems with that.

1. The teams are not the same from year to year. The coach might be, and many of the players are, but it is not the same team. It’s college, so you should expect around 25% turnover each year.

2. That statement of “you’re the best until you lose” applies only to king of the hill and boxing. Unless you have to defend your title against challengers, you can’t claim to still be the best. Or have others claim it for you.

Last year’s champion should not be assumed to be the best this year. If you’re putting together a ranking, evaluate each team based on this year’s accomplishments and statistics.

Or for those who want to have a reason for pre-season rankings: you could propose a king-of-the-hill format. No more predictable scheduling – team #1 plays team #2 and whoever wins gets to be team #1 the next week. The loser is out of the running.

Let’s assume 128 teams total, so 64 matchups each week.
1 vs 2, 3 vs 4, 5 vs 6, 7 vs 8, etc.
1v2 winner becomes #1, loser becomes #65
3v4 winner becomes #2, loser becomes #66
5v6 winner becomes #3, loser becomes #67
7v8 winner becomes #4, loser becomes #68
.
.
.
63v64 winner becomes #32, loser becomes #96
.
.
.
127v128 winner becomes #64, loser becomes #128

So the formula is
For n teams, your new ranking is
if you win: r = rp/2
if you lose: r = rp/2 + n/2
where r is your new ranking and rp is your previous ranking

That way, if you win all your games you can stay #1.
If you lose a game, it will take you log2(r)+1 games to get back to #1.

This method would not be good for relative rankings late in the season, or at the end of the season. But if you want a method for defending the title, you can’t be concerned with the losers.

We took a week to circle Lake Erie. We never visited Lake Erie itself, just a few interesting points.

Day 1

Drive to Niagara Falls. One hour in the USA and 4 hours in Canada. The border crossing was uneventful. The CBP asked us a few questions, mostly relating to the fact that we were not coming back into the US via the same point we were leaving it. Really, the only issue was that my wife was wearing her sunglasses and the guard asked her to remove her sunglasses so he could see that she looked like the picture in her passport.

We got to Niagara Falls, checked into our hotel, then walked to the falls. We stayed on the Canadian side, but I saved a bit of money by booking a hotel that does not have a view of the falls. In fact, here is the view from our balcony:
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Since Apple introduced a new iPhone, the other – now less-desireable – iPhones dropped in price. And since our phones have been about two numbers behind, it was time to upgrade.

So we upgraded. Now my phone is only one number behind the current phone. I hope to be able to make it to three less than the new phone eventually.

In the process of buying the phone, however, the guy (not sure if he’s a cashier, customer service representative, salesman, or what) recommended we buy the protection plan. A warranty for the phone – in case anything happens to it, it would get replaced. These newer phones are thinner than our older phones, so I figured they might be more easily bent or broken. Plus the screen is larger, which means more area to be damaged. So a warranty/insurance policy made sense.

I asked the guy how much it cost, and he said $10 a month per phone. I agreed, and we continued with the transaction and getting our phones switched.

We got our phones, and everything was fine.

About a week later, I got a message from the phone company telling me I should activate my protection plan.

Activate? Shouldn’t insurance just be there? There shouldn’t be anything to activate…

So I went to the website and found the descriptions of the protection plans.

It turns out the $10/month plan is insurance plus tech support.

The insurance-only plan was $6 or $7 per month.

And the deductible was half the price of the phone. My thought behind the insurance was to avoid paying anything to get a replacement phone.

Can you imagine if car or house insurance worked that way? Your $20,000 car is totaled and you have to pay $10,000? Or your house burns down but the insurance will pay only half the value?

But this story turns out well – I was able to cancel the protection plans online. No having to talk to anyone!

I know, I know – we are treading on thin ice by not having replacement phone insurance. But we’ve lived this long without insurance, and we kept our old phones (they were going to give us about $30 for the phone) so if the new phones are damaged we can just swap SIM cards and keep going.

Learn from My Mistakes
1. Ask what other plans there are.

I did not, so I didn’t know that I had signed up for the middle plan, which had me paying for things I didn’t want.

2. Ask what the deductible is.

If it’s a significant fraction of the price of the phone, just use the money you would have spent on the insurance each month and instead buy municipal bonds. Or something. Pay yourself that money and invest it and you’ll come out ahead in the long run.

A decent phone case is worth the money, so buy that and consider that your insurance.

This is the next installment in my series of The Five Hows

Dominion is an interesting card game my sister and brother-in-law taught us. It has a variety of money cards and victory-point cards and action cards. The learning curve is a little steep, and it took a couple of hands to catch on, so I thought it would be a good candidate for an explanation here.

1. How do I win the game?

You win by having the most points at the end of the game.

2. How do I get points?

You get points by buying the point cards with the money cards.

3. How do I get money cards?

You get money cards by buying them with money cards.

4. That doesn’t make sense. Won’t I end up with the same amount of money I started with if I use my money to buy money?

That’s not a How question.

4. Ok, how do I get more money if I have to spend my money to get money?

That’s better. And this is a key part of understanding the game. Whenever you play a card (either spending money or effecting an action), you don’t lose those cards. You discard them after use, but your discard pile gets shuffled and you keep those cards to play later (when your draw pile is depleted).

In other words, with each round your hand of cards grows. You play cards until your draw pile is gone, but then you shuffle your discard pile and it becomes your draw pile again. “Spending money” isn’t really the right term for the money cards, since the money stays with you. It doesn’t go to a bank or another player. But “spending money” or “buying money” is what everyone ends up saying since it’s close enough.

5. How does the game end?

There are piles of cards to be drawn from during the game. The game ends when a certain pile of victory points is gone (i.e. enough people bought them that there are no more left). Or when any two piles of action cards are gone. When that happens, each person counts the number of victory points in his hand and the highest number wins.

And that was The Five Hows for the game. It didn’t delve into the mechanics of playing, like how many cards you start with and when you shuffle and stuff like that, but that you can get from the game’s instructions. This was the big-picture view.

This game is fun, and it went pretty fast because we trusted each other. There’s a lot that can happen each turn, so if you don’t trust your opponent and try to verify that everything he’s doing is legal, it could take a while. So don’t play this game with cheaters.

I’m trying to remember the last time I went into a store and bought something without being asked if I have or would like their rewards card / loyalty card / credit card / promotional deal.

For once, I would like to walk into a store, buy something, and walk out. The only thing I want the cashier to say is a greeting and then my total. After I pay, a simple valediction is sufficient. I don’t want to have to answer any questions.

I know it’s not the cashier’s fault – she’s doing her job. It’s the management’s fault for making her do that. So, dear corporate store management, please stop making your cashiers ask questions of the customer.

I thought I’d swing by the big box hardware store on the way home from work to grab a couple items. Three things. I could find two of them. I normally avoid asking the workers for directions, but since I had told my wife I’d be home at a certain time for dinner, I didn’t want to leisurely wander around the store looking for the last item.

So I ask a store employee.

Of all the dozens of employees, whom do I happen to ask?

The one guy whose job is to sign up people for the store credit card.

He walks me to the location of the item, all the while explaining the benefits of the card. There are a few varieties of the item I want, so I start perusing. The guy keeps extolling the virtues of the card. He does not go away.

“No problem, take your time. I’ll wait here while you choose.”

I find what I’m looking for. The guy says they’ll give me free money if I sign up today. I don’t care about the money as much as I care about getting out of there.

“I’ll have you signed up in two or three minutes. It’ll be fast, and you’ll save money. How can you pass up free money?”

I agree, since I have been assured I will save money and I can cancel whenever. I don’t think I want to agree, but I do.

He walks over to his desk, and he enters my information into the computer. That takes about 2 minutes. He clicks the Submit button and the computer complains about something. He has to fix a field – make my middle name into just a middle initial. He goes to do that and the computer erases everything and tells him he has to log in again.

He is apologetic and doesn’t know what happened, but he must enter my information again. So we do that.

I didn’t see it before it happened, but as soon as it happened I realized what the problem was. The credit card application is browser-based. He barely missed the middle name and clicked outside the text field. When he pressed the Backspace key, the browser took that to mean Go Back a Page, which ended his secure session and made us lose everything.

I keep that information to myself. At this point, I do not want to distract the man and/or start another conversation thread. I just make sure he clicks in the appropriate areas and a text box has the focus whenever his finger goes near the backspace key.

We get the form successfully submitted and he tries to print. Not only does it not print, but the session was lost again. He can’t print my confirmation because he does not have my number. And we can’t enter it again because it was successful.

He has to call the central processing office. He gets someone there, discusses the situation, and gets a confirmation number. Then he logs back into the system and prints my page. We had spent about 15 minutes on a 2-minute process.

And now, in order to ensure I have a great customer experience, he walks me up to the front of the store and helps me check out. He makes sure the cashier gives me my discount, and makes sure I have his number in case I ever have any questions or problems.

I went into the store planning to buy 3 items. I left with 3 items plus a new credit card and a scowl in my mind.

I was shopping for a book that would be a good introduction to calligraphy for my 6th-grade son. I was shopping in a brick-and-mortar store, not one of them fancy virtual stores, because I wanted to look into the books and flip through the pages. Plus, I like bookstores and if I don’t keep shopping at them they might go out of business. So I make it a point to buy from them.

I made my way back to the Arts & Crafts section and found the shelf with calligraphy books. I looked at all five of them that had to do with learning calligraphy, and here are my reviews:

	Calligraphy: A Complete Guide by Julien Chazal This bills itself as a complete guide, which is more than what I was looking for. It did have introductory stuff, but it also had you carving stones and making your own pens and stuff.
	Calligraphy Bible: A Complete Guide to More Than 100 Essential Projects and Techniques by Maryanne Grebenstein I didn’t actually read any of the words in this book. I started by flipping through a number of the pages, and all I could notice was how pixelated all the photos were. It was very distracting. It might be acceptable if this were a 6th grader making his own webpage on Geocities, but not a book for which I’d be paying money.
	Modern Calligraphy: Everything You Need to Know to Get Started in Script Calligraphy by Molly Suber Thorpe This was half calligraphy and half how to make wedding invitations. Not the best option for a young boy.
	The Calligrapher’s Bible: 100 Complete Alphabets and How to Draw Them by David Harris Too many styles and not enough explanation. If you’re starting something, you don’t want to be thrown one hundred new things. It would be overwhelming. But once you’ve gotten started with an introductory book, this would probably be a good next book.
	Complete Calligraphy Skills by Vivien Lunniss This book did not have many styles (only 20, compared to the 40 or 100 in the other books), but it had a lot of how-to plus interesting explanations of the backgrounds of the writing styles. I thought it was a good balance for a starting book. Not too much to overwhelm, but enough to start and make progress.

As you may be able to tell, Complete Calligraphy Skills was my favorite book for the situation. I give it 4 stars. If it wants 5 stars, it needs to have a spiral binding so that it stays open by itself.

We are gradually approaching the self-driving car. Progress is being made incrementally, by introducing certain features that will pave the way for more autonomy and less driver input.

Some of these features are:
– collision mitigation : if the vehicle detects a crash is likely, it will take action (tighten seat belts, close windows, etc.) The newer versions will even apply brakes. The future version would need to steer also.
– virtual bumper : while backing up, the vehicle will warn the driver of close objects. Newer versions will apply the brakes, preventing damage.
– Lane keep / blind spot assist : if the vehicle detects an object (usually another vehicle) in the blind spot, it will warn the driver. Fancier versions will counteract the steering wheel so that the driver can’t move into the occupied lane.
– Adaptive Cruise Control : the vehicle maintains a set distance between itself and the vehicle in front of it. Fancier versions prevent driver acceleration into the forward vehicle by overriding the gas pedal input.

As these feature mature and become more integrated with each other, and as vehicle-to-vehicle communications become established so that vehicles can react based on what the other vehicles are trying to do, the role of the driver will be reduced and maybe eventually eliminted.

There is the one major concern with all this – if cars are preventing collisions by themselves, overriding the driver, how will we have demolition derbies?

I sense the future of the demolition derby is shaky at best.

I mean, really, how are you going to be entertained by a field of driverless cars?