The Required Amount at the Prescribed Rate (Handcrafted From the Finest Corinthian Leather)
Let's Get Naked (Statistically Speaking)
1) texting while driving causes crashes and laws banning texting while driving may also cause crashes because people can't stop texting while driving, but if there's a law against it, then people will hide their phones down by their crotch and take their eyes off the road;
2) people who buy carbon-monoxide monitors and little felt pads for the bottom of their furniture almost never miss credit card payments;
3) the top 100 grossing films only makes sense when it's adjusted for inflation . . . Hollywood likes to tell the story that each new blockbuster movie is so good it has blown away all the older films, but they like to list the gross (nominal) ticket receipts, not the real, adjusted receipts: here is the real list . . . The Exorcist makes the top ten and Jurassic World makes the top 25 so this list isn't any more cultivated than the gross profit list (though it's less homogenous);
4) our data sets are getting more and more predictive . . . people who buy birdseed are far less likely to default on their loans, but if we can identify drug smugglers 80 times out of 100, is it okay to harass those other twenty people over and over? so statistics generally leads to ethical dilemmas . . .
5) the most dangerous job stress seems to be jobs that have "low control" over their work situations . . . which makes me happy, because teaching and coaching feels highly stressful at times, but I always have control over what's happening . . . but this is only true if we trust the regression analysis, which is the most powerful statistical tool in existence, but very difficult to do well;
6) because you can screw up regression analysis in a number of ways: you can use regression to analyze a nonlinear relationship, you can screw up correlation and causation-- buying birdseed does not cause you to have good credit, those two things are simply correlated-- you can complete reverse the causality, you can omit variables, you can have variables that are so highly correlated that you can't extricate them from each other, you can extrapolate beyond the data, and you can have problems with too many variables;
7) Wheeler concludes with a quick overview of some real-world problems that are going to need clear statistical analysis: the future of NFL football, the rise in autism, the difficulty in assessing good teachers and schools, the best tools for fighting global poverty, and personal data privacy . . . if you're looking for a fairly in depth take on statistics, with more formulas and math than a Freakonomics or Malcolm Gladwell book, this is the one for you.
Let's Bask in Dave's Awesomeness
For those of you that visit here solely because you relish Dave's awkwardness, failures, pedantry, and bombast, you might want to stop reading today's post right now . . . because today's post is a tale of success, timing, and perfection; last Thursday, I was running my son's travel team practice at the high school turf field, and there was a lot going on: my other son had practice on the far side of the field, and some high school kids were playing a game of touch football in the middle of the field -- which would have been fine, except that every time they punted the ball it came flying end-over-end into our scrimmage by the goal, and after the third time this happened, I had one of my players bring me the ball -- and then --in the typically grouchy and hyperbolic fashion that I adopt after several hours of coaching-- I yelled to them: "You need to stop punting, because you're not good at it, and you're going to kill one of my players!" and then I held the ball out with both hands, tilted slightly downward and to the left, and launched a picturesque high-arcing fifty yard punt, on a perfect spiral, into the arms of the farthest kid (and I know it was a fifty yard, punt because I was at the goal line and he was at the fifty) and though I was probably a bit over-the-top and obnoxious in my tone with them, because of the beauty of my punt, they apologized profusely (and later on, I gave them a quick lesson on how to punt a spiral).
Immobile Dave Is Useless
What Are the Odds?
I've spend an inordinate amount of my life on grassy fields-- playing soccer, coaching soccer, playing golf, hiking, walking the dog, etcetera-- but I've never spotted a four-leaf clover.
More Past Dave Nostalgia
Like Spider Like Son
Although I am a competent basketball player now, this wasn't the case in college-- in fact, the only basketball skill I possessed back then was the ability to do "the spider"-- a silly drill in which you bounce the ball between your legs with two dribbles in front and then two dribbles behind your back-- and if you can get it going fast it looks pretty neat (and serves absolutely no strategic purpose, though that didn't stop me from doing it at half-court during our intramural games, after which I would chuck up a forty foot hook shot) and now I'm coaching 4th-5th grade basketball and I gave my players some "homework" ball handling drills -- including the spider-- and my own two children are obsessed with it and can actually do it pretty well, though it's probably the last thing they need to master (they'd be better served if they could make a lay-up or dribble with their heads up) but they've obviously got quite a bit of their dad in them (the other morning my wife said: "they can't be all you! they've got to have some of me in them!")
Remembering Louie
You Can't Forget What You Don't Remember
Brain Melt
I Am More Than My Big Firm Round Ones
God forbid I show them off in public.
Hello? My face is up here!
Just because I'm well endowed doesn't give you the license to gawk and ogle.
Or does it?
I'll admit I find the attention flattering, but it's also awkward and weird. I want to cry out:
I'm more than a pair of fabulous fleshy protrusions!
I'm an accomplished Scrabble player, an avid reader of non-fiction and a fan of the surrealist paintings of Max Ernst!
There's a brain in here!
I'm more than a pair of stunning calves.
And while it might not be exactly analogous to the comments a voluptuous woman endures when she walks past an urban construction site, it's in the same ballpark. So, ladies, I get it. I know what it feels like to be a hot, sexy nubile babe at a sausage hang. I can empathize.
I'll admit there are some situations where unsolicited calf-commentary makes a certain sense. At sporting functions, for instance. Last week at Wednesday night pick-up basketball, a dude remarked that I have the "calves of a powerlifter." Total non sequitur. We were not on the subject of calf-raises or calf-injuries or calf-tattoos. He just had to say it. While it was slightly off-topic, it was not completely out-of-the-blue. When you match-up on defense in pick-up basketball, you first engage in a frank discussion about the physical attributes of the opposing team. You then coordinate your team's height, weight, speed, and strength. You're allowed to be candid. So perhaps my calves were just part of the scouting report. My son Alex informs me that some of the soccer players I've coached are intimidated by my giant calves. I sort of get this. The muscle tone in my calves is epic, and I'm sure it's due to coaching and playing soccer. So it's kind of germane. And I can understand when my acupuncturist comments on them. She's working on them. Sticking needles into them to try to get the giant knots out.
But I also get calf compliments at work. This is partly my fault for parading around in shorts in a professional environment, but I like to exercise when I'm on the clock (it's like I'm being paid to work out . . . you're tax dollars at work). So I'm not claiming harassment here; I recognize that I'm flaunting my naked calves in the workplace and that there may be consequences. And I know I'm a lucky guy: Johnny Drama would be green with envy. There's no question that women young and old find my calves irresistible. So when they get a peek at them, they're compelled to say something. I get this. I feel the same way when I see a shapely woman, especially if she's showing some cleavage. It's a hard topic not to discuss. I refrain, of course, because it's 2019, but the impulse is there.
I would also like to assure everyone that I do not have calf implants. I would never be so shallow.
My calves are real. And they're spectacular.
You wouldn't believe how much I can bench. But you tell first . . .
We Are Bested by a Ninja Grandmom
High Concept Check-Out
How Would You Like If I Came Into Your Office And Heckled You?
Soccer IQ
If you coach soccer, play soccer, or a interested in soccer tactics (but you don't want to lose your mind looking at inscrutable charts and diagrams in a book like this) then I highly recommend Dan Blank's Soccer IQ . . . it's chock full of pithy coaching tidbits (including lots of stuff that you probably already intuitively know but did not know how to explain to players) and simple diagrams and concepts and tactical philosophy boiled down to practical application-- I'm sure I'll read both volumes several times and I've already recognized that our team often plays "the impossible pass" and tried to explain how to remedy this.