It’s the NBA Playoffs, the perfect time to peruse sports columns, blogs, and general comments from fans and haters. I had forgotten how much of the game – specifically, the hype and rumor mill that the media drives to keep the chatter alive – is about statistic overanalysis and unfounded conclusions. Well, that, and the third-grade trash talk.
At some point in modern sporting history, though, someone came up with the ingenious idea of trying to quantify sports with stats. Now, I think it started as a good idea; in basketball, other than the points scored, people first started caring about rebounds, assists, steals, and other metrics that correlate with a team’s success on the court.
It makes for a pointed study in using stats to say whatever the hell you’d want.
Hey, it’s been a while since I wrote. That time – a good amount of it between jobs – has been spent starting and finishing a few gaming single player adventures. It’s good to see that some games are still worth playing, for entertainment and I guess for enrichment.
Here’s a quick recount.
The next web revolution – Web 3.0 – is going to be centered around real-time data and search, so say the tech media mavens. Leading the charge is of course Twitter (now available in your search in both Google and Microsoft form), but everybody else is jumping into the fray too, saying how awesome it is to report locations, in real-time, and otherwise leave a conspicuous digital trail ripe for exploit.
When CNN and Fox News are holding regular news segments that consist of nothing more than reading prescreened online posts, you know traditional media is desperately trying to speed up the news cycle too.
I say it’s going in the wrong direction.
Literacy used to be a big deal. That is, not illiteracy; I’m talking about the number of people who could not read or write in the general populous. Nowadays, this problem has largely been eradicated from 1st and 2nd world countries, though admittedly it’s still an issue in the 3rd world.
It’s not just about reading a newspaper or writing a report, but more on the quality of said literature. So much of “knowledge work” present in current jobs require some degree of writing, that schools have continued to emphasize the skill, testing it with the likes of essay questions in entrance exams (i.e., SAT’s and GRE’s). And they barely started teaching us how to type properly 15 years ago, though I’d imagine general computer skills and speed typing ought to be a part of the core curriculum by now.
Can we get some love for programming too?
It’s been an Apple-tastic year of hardware for me, as I added a good amount of Job-sean computing power:
- Starting work at LOLapps, I asked for a behemoth of a laptop, the 17″ Macbook Pro. It turns out web development work is well-suited for the mac.
- I wanted a home media server; the Mac Mini made sense given its sexy form factor and reasonable price.
- The iPhone 3GS was a natural upgrade from the OG iPhone.
- And I just got another Macbook Pro for personal use.
Am I just another inductee into the Apple cult?
It was, Cal Day, Berkeley, the semester before I would officially start my college tenure. Upon a stroll down infamous Telegraph Avenue was when I saw him: my first interesting – well, “interesting” is probably too strong of a word, more like “atypical” – bum.
As with many things Berkeley, bumming has really been risen to a supposed art form. The dude was tranquil, uncaring of his potential clientele save for his simple, honest sign: “Need money for weed”.
It’s the NBA Playoffs, the perfect time to peruse sports columns, blogs, and general comments from fans and haters. I had forgotten how much of the game – specifically, the hype and rumor mill that the media drives to keep the chatter alive – is about statistic overanalysis and unfounded conclusions. Well, that, and the third-grade trash talk.