Ain’t No Prophet

I’ve migrated my old blog over to my new hosting provider. I might pick up this writing thing again. We’ll have to see.

Okay. I feel better. Cast come off time now please.

Actually, it’s next Wednesday. One more week of stumbling around, then X weeks of physio to get my strength back in the leg.

The leg wants out right now, though. Like, right now. It hasn’t -felt- broken in a long while, and boy would I ever like to walk again.

So that’s it. No more Hackers hockey for me. No more winter football, either. No more walkin’ around like a normal person, either.

Fuck.

Worst QB to play in a Superbowl? Probably. As my friend put it last night when asked why the NFC isn’t as good as the AFC, “it’s because they let the pitchers bat.”

I’m reading about the All Star game I missed last night while donning my blues for the Hack, and I spot this link.

I love watching Americans, especially Americans with clear home ties and no real appreciation for the game, talk hockey. Generally speaking, unless you’re from Minnesota, Michigan, or the Northeast, you don’t know a whole lot about hockey.

I first realized this guy doesn’t have a clue when he posited that there ‘wasn’t enough talent’ for a 32-team NHL. I’ll counter by saying there’s not enough talent for a 32 team NFL. Sorry Detroit, Oakland, Houston, San Francisco. You played like Division II teams this year and in years past. -Flush-

What? That’s stupid reasoning, because someone has to lose? Well, maybe you’re right. And the current struggles of teams such as Chicago shouldn’t be taken as an indication that there’s not enough talent in the league to go around. In fact, with the AHL, and the stogged minor leagues, not to mention the talent coming from overseas from Sweden and Finland and the Russian Superleague, this guy’s first complaint seems to not hold water. At the very least, he doesn’t back it up very well.

Then he decides to talk about what cities are going to get franchises, should the NHL expand. His top two contenders? Kansas City, and Las Vegas.

Kansas has the money to spend on a team, but they don’t have the hockeytown mentality. It takes a lot to get a successful hockey franchise going, there are forty-two games to buy tickets for. If you can’t get your people out to baseball games (1,372,000 tickets sold over the course of the baseball season as compared to a league average of 2,450,000 in 2006, with similar numbers dating back to the move from Royals Stadium in 97*) maybe you shouldn’t be asking for another franchise for your city to ignore.

And Las Vegas. The transient population, that is to say the tourists, might keep a franchise afloat there. Then again, maybe they’d treat it like a roller derby and a good home crowd following would likely never develop. While a hockey team is a great tourist attraction, it’s bad for the league to let a city dangle it as such. They’re out in the =desert=, playing a game on =ice=. They couldn’t keep the ice frozen in Dallas, what the hell chance do they have in Las Vegas?

He then refers to QC and Winnipeg, the two ex-Canadian franchise towns, as “hockey ghost towns”. Pre-cap, they certainly weren’t able to keep up with the New Yorks and New Jerseys and even Torontos. With the cap, it is now possible to support a franchise on the strength of 65,000 seats. A population base such as Winnipeg or Quebec City (roughly 600,000, over 1m with outlying population) can certainly swing that.

The reason I’m going off about this guy’s article is not so much that it’s a poorly sourced pile of crap, but that it’s likely exactly the way in which Gary Bettman thinks. Where’s the big money market, and how do I get a franchise there? Big money markets without a solid home crowd make for bad hockey. Know who else has a team in every big money market? Arena Football. Look at how well that’s worked out for them.

So I had a bit of a scrap with my landlord a few months ago about replacing my front door. The frame’s all warped and air comes right through it. She responded by offering to let me out of my lease, and then by putting weather stripping on the outside of the door, so that the air flow was less, but the door wouldn’t close properly. In particular, the deadbolt lock wouldn’t line up right. When I assured her the problem still existed, she offered to pay some of my heating. Now we’re cranking it to keep warm.

After having her handyman realign the deadbolt for us, things were sort of OK for a while. There were cold days where the bolt would line up, there were warmer days where you couldn’t lock the bolt. A cheapskate solution that pretty well sucked.

Well, yesterday after work the key was just spinning in the lock. My neighbor let me use her phone to call in my landlord and one locksmith later, I have a shiny new high-security deadbolt that was lined up properly with regards to the weather stripping and closes 100% of the time.

I also have a huge ass draft by the lock on my front door.

Now, taking into account the difference between her getting a new door, and her paying my heat, and buying the weather stripping, and now paying for a locksmith to come and replace the lock… how much did she really save by dicking me around in the first place? Not at all, I’d think.

I suppose this mentality works on those who keep quiet and let this sort of thing happen to them, who roll over when they get a raw deal. Maybe she makes her money that way. All I know is she’s not making any money off of me.

So I’ve started reading XKCD, which is a highbrow comic that 9 out of 10 geeks will find at least one chuckle out of.

I’ve also been reading the author’s blog, wherein he links to various things that have held his interest. In any case, I may have blown this morning reading an article on the biggest possible number representable. Which linked to an article about big numbers, accurate numbers, Turing machines and human history.

None of this would be quite as interesting as I’m currently finding it if Kaitlin and I hadn’t been discussing how children might best learn decimals and fractions last night. It turns out that the old standard is the number line, one of the primary tools that elementary teachers use to teach relative values to young students. In the article by Scott Aaronson that was linked from XKCD, the number line is cited as a possible reason that we can’t fathom extremely large numbers, or fast-growing sequences. We don’t intuitively know how to get them onto our number line.

Anyway, here’s the article. Waste your afternoon like I did my morning, if you’re interested.

From posting, that is.

Since I last posted:

• Christmas came and went. The gifts Kaitlin and I received are at this point about halfway put away.
• I got into Ragnarok Online again, on a private server. So what. Want to fight about it? I’ve sunk many hours into it, and corrupted one friend and one relative so far. You’re next, dear reader.
• The Hack started their postseason run inauspiciously. We had a double forfeit against Freshly Pressed (who have supplemented their lineup with some Dalplex ringers) and lost a close one to Chemistry (who have similarly supplemented their lineup with folks we didn’t play before). The Chemistry game was I think a valiant effort on our part and there is no shame in losing a game 3-2 when you just don’t get the few bounces you need to get the win. We killed three or four penalties, and one 5 on 3. This team has heart, and I’m glad to be a part of it.
• I got renewed at work. Another year in the salt mines over at Dal Oceanography. First step, revamp the hardware and software delivering our realtime data. And do it alone, since Xiaobo and Marcia, my fellow techies, have both moved on.
• The Patriots are done. Good run all season, bad execution in the nine minutes it mattered most. While Tom Brady may have nerves of steel, Reche Caldwell and Jabar Gaffney do not. Nice play by Gaffney in the endzone there, though. Look for him to stay on as a slot receiver and Jackson come into his own next year as a number 2 or maybe even number 1. Troy Brown is likely to retire, and I’d say you’ll see our fellow Computer Scientist end up as a member of the coaching staff somehow. He’s already drinking for free in any establishment in Boston, can’t see him wanting to leave now.

This is the first official attempt to resurrect this site I guess. Hopefully I’ll find a bit more to say on here in the future.

Hey all, you may not know it, but I play defense for the Faculty of Computer Science Hackers, and I have for a couple of years now. I thought I’d bring you up to speed on our season thus far.

After losing John Kelley at the blueline in the offseason (have fun in San Diego, John! Go Chargers, or something) it was left up to Woot and I to pick up slack. I think we acquitted ourselves nicely in a 4-2 win over Freshly Pressed, who I think is a team made up of those dudes who clean the sheets in the residences. Looking to confirm that one.

Edit: The scoring opened quickly, as Woot has reminded me, with Rob taking a rebound from the point and burying it 30 seconds into the first. This is why you don’t write a recap without a scoresheet handy.

We Hackers got the party going early as Yannick Larose buried one less than five minutes into the first period. So shocked was I at our early offensive success that I attempted to lineup in the zone for the faceoff.

Near the end of the first frame, (of which there are only two in the Dal league) I remarked to Brad Sinclair that he should ‘score a goal already’. The second-season left winger quickly obliged, taking a feed from Yannick and chipping it high over traffic, fooling an already hapless Pressed keeper.

It was about the start of the second half that the sticks came out for Freshly Pressed. The hooking, holding, and hacking started, and the parade to the penalty box was on. Looking to keep it somewhat fair, they snagged one of us as well, Justin White I believe, for interference. The plucky laundrymen started a rally at this point, coming back and making it 3-2 with about three minutes to play.

As my defensive partner carried the puck around the back of the net, he was being pursued by one of their wingers, with another one pinching down the side he intended to come out. As an instinct (I’ve been playing too much football lately) I laid a pretty swell block on his pursuer. Whoops. In this game, that’s called interference. And I get to watch the rest of this game from the penalty box. As luck would have it, my miscue would take away a man advantage, not give one to the opposition at a crucial time.

With me playing the bad teammate (really sorry about that penalty, guys) it was left up to Yannick again to cap the scoring. As he took the puck in the neutral zone with only one man to beat, Yannick got around him with a deft single deke. The defender, seeing the clear path to the goaltender, tossed his stick in front of Yannick. Now if you’ll consult the rulebook, that’s an automatic… PENALTY SHOT!

The goalkeeper for the Pressed was overmatched all game, and Yannick put the icing on top with a quick wrister glove side. 4-2, with five seconds remaining. What a way to end it.

We played well all game, with our two lines firing and our defense getting sticks and skates and hands on nearly every puck presented to us. One area we’re going to have to improve on is clearing defenders from the slot, and taking bad penalties(I’ll get right on that one), but beyond that, it was a tight game. With the win, the Hackers improve to 2-0, and have a share of the division lead.

So Congressman Foley is reading over the latest congressional report and Bill Frist asks him if he wants a bookmark.

“No thanks,” says Foley. “I’d rather bend over the pages.”

Zang!