jebgavin

It’s been a very long time since I could do this, and back then it was just basic DOS and Unix commands, some VB and C++, and a little html. I’d like to actually get comfortable in Unix environments, and starting with LISP, figure out Java, and maybe RoR, and really get C down pat.

Sabremetrics is a system of statistical analysis used by baseball statisticians to calculate the effectiveness of players, line ups, and effectively the outcome of games and the season. Granted, it is not an exact study, as these are expectations based on prior statistics, but they can be eerily accurate. Baseball was the first sport to employ sabremetrics, as it is the most statistically minded sport there is. Plays are usually very short, and behavior can be easily converted to statistics. However, I think that given a wide enough source of data, and coupled dynamic systems, most likely non-linear differentials, the same type of statistical analysis can be applied to a more fluid game, particularly basketball, especially when the focus of the analysis is limited to the outcome. This is the nerdy way of saying, if I know how a team performs over the season, and which games they win and lose, perhaps it is possible to calculate the key factors that led to their wins and losses against particular teams, and determine patterns of success and failure. The results could be very simple, and frankly stupid, like the reason the number one team in the country beat the third tier Canadian junior college was because they scored three times as many points, or it could be absurdly complex, like George Mason beating Kansas because of any number of factors all working together like the ratio of turnovers coupled with the number of players shooting better than 43% from inside the line (not actually what my analysis shows, I’m just making that up as a possible example.)

I have surfed, uh, well, that’s a tough number to pin down. I have gone out with a surfboard three times, all of them in the Outer Banks, NC. I have actually stood up on the board while on a wave, uh, once, perhaps. So that’s three times over two years, and really just one day at a time, and I’m completely addicted. I love the sea, and would spend every waking second surfing, sailing, fishing and swimming. I am never more at peace than I am standing at shore break, watching the horizon. So I want to surf. For real, actually get on the board for more than a split second and really ride a wave. And I never want that feeling to end.