links for 2010-04-30: Response to Jobs missive against Flash; Another view on VMforce; Indians most hated team?

• The parallel world of Apple: Where open is not always open - Correctly points out the similarity in Apple's lack of openness particularly around iTunes.
  
• Steve Jobs on Flash: Correcting the Lies - Pokes holes in many of Steve's points, but (if you have a lot of time) read the comments and see holes poked in his hole poking.  It is entertaining, but he goes a bit far I think.
  
• Jobs on Flash: Hypocrisy So Thick You Could Cut it with a Knife - Clearly points out the hypocrisy regarding use of Cocoa, H264 being as if not more proprietary than Flash, and iTunes locking users in more than Flash.  How is Apple "open" one might ask?
  
• Though Miffed, Media Companies See Silver Lining In Apple-Adobe Tiff - Rather than pout about it, media companies are looking for ways to make a buck.  Too bad the record and movie industry has fought technology when they could have embraced it and been innovative.
  
• VMforce - Another Cloud Computing Solution for Java - Asks how they get to claim they are the first enterprise Java Cloud when other vendors have been supporting Java in the Cloud for some time.
  
• Report says Indians most hated team - The natural response would have been that everyone hates the "Evil Empire", but no, it is the Indians and the Yankees are only the 5th most hated.

track links for 2009-04-22: Tyson Gay breaks sprint barriers; Penn and Drake Relays

I'm a big track and field fan so with the start of the outdoor season, I'll start periodic "track links" entries, the first today.

• With sub-45 run, Gay becomes first to break three major sprint barriers - Amazingly, no one else has ever gone sub-10, sub-20, and sub-45.  This could mean a great year for Tyson.
• The Penn Relays - Start today!  Some great early season high school and college action with some "USA vs the World" action thrown in in the relays.
• The Drake Relays - The action isn't only in Philly.  Lagat headlines the invitational mile.
• Comprehensive broadcast schedule - Great resource to see what is on TV and streaming.

links for 2010-04-21: VMware's "database" play; AT&T buoyed by iPhone; 2010 NFL projected records; Adobe giving up on iPhone

• VMware’s SpringSource Redis and Rabbit acquisitions: A Database Play is Emerging - Just don't call it "database" apparently.  But as Paul Martiz said, "... we are adding to the repertoire of underlying middleware and technologies that we think are going to be needed to generate – to develop a new generation of applications." appears to be a strong plan.
  
• AT&T earnings propelled by iPhone activations, connected devices like e-readers, GPS systems - If this causes them to continue to invest more in their network, all good.
  
• 2010 NFL projected records - With the draft tomorrow, will your favorite team improve?  These projected records serve as a good baseline of what to expect next year and an interesting use of data from last years performance.
• Adobe casts Flash lot with Android; Drops iPhone plans - Will this bite Apple in the future?  "The primary goal of Flash has always been to enable cross browser, platform and device development. The cool web game that you build can easily be targeted and deployed to multiple platforms and devices. However, this is the exact opposite of what Apple wants. They want to tie developers down to their platform, and restrict their options to make it difficult for developers to target other platforms."  Note that I've increasingly seen Flash crashing or hogging CPU on a Mac, but that too could be part of the Apple/Adobe battle.
  

Data is a Wonderful Thing

The world we live in is generating increasing amounts of data each and every day.  And this is great as when you have the data, you can analyze and graph it in new and interesting ways.  From sports to weather to financials to politics to demographics to who knows what, being able to analyze data, look at trends, and visualize it through graphs, charts, maps, etc. brings tremendous power and insight.

Some examples of interesting data or analysis thereof I've come across in just the past week or so:

• Who Drives Better, Men or Women? - A good example of how you need to look at data in the right context in order to arrive at the right conclusion.
• What Sports Can Teach Us About Analytics: The MIT Sloan Conference - Sports, in particular baseball, has a vast amount of great data and like me, Stephen can't get enough of it.  But like he observes, the conference being about sports is somewhat incidental and the lessons learned can be applied to traditional business.
• My Basketball Computer Rankings - I have traditionally focused on football, but the past few years I've taken a closer look at who "should" make the 65 team NCAA basketball tournament.  It never ceases to amaze me how accurate a computer just looking at scores can be in predicting or projecting results.
• Statistics for a changing world: Google Public Data Explorer in Labs - A tremendous resource for accessing and looking at vast amounts of data.
• Strange Maps - A bunch of interesting ones.  Did you know that the farthest you can get from a McDonalds in the lower 48 is 145 miles?

Stay tuned, I'll continue to share interesting data and applications of it I come across.

Lysacek vs Plushenko: A look at the numbers and data

In the wake of Evan Lysacek's gold medal upset in the mens figure skating at the Vancouver Olympics, silver medalist and pre-event favorite Evgeni Plushenko came out and said it: He was robbed.  His contention is that mens skating needs quadruple jumps, and that he did one, Lysacek didn't, and thus he should win.

"We need quadruples ... that is the future of figure skating," Plushenko said. "Without the quadruple, [it's] not men's figure skating. Now it's dancing."

The scoring system in figure skating has changed and is no longer the subjective 6 point scoring system where you had the mysterious "Russian judge" giving scores one couldn't understand, but is now a much more objective, particularly on the technical side, system where each element has a base score and the competitor is judged on how well they performed it.  Further, jumps performed late in the program earn a 10% bonus to give credit for performing them when more difficult and to encourage skaters to not front load their routines making them somewhat boring.  Add this all up and you have the technical score.

Now, a quad jump is indeed given a higher base score and so Plushenko's claim does have some merit, but it is only 1 of 13 elements that are scored, so since I love looking at data, I couldn't help diving in to the detailed scoring of their two routines to see how they stacked up.

In the table below, I've listed the programs for both skaters with the base value for their elements, their grade of execution, and running total along with the difference of their running totals through the programs.  I've also put in bold those jumps that occurred in the second half of the programs and received a 10% bonus for the base value.  Note, since both skaters had identical program components scores, analyzing the technical score is all that is needed to compare them.

Lysacek	Base	GoE	Total		Plushenko	Base	GoE	Total		Lysacek Lead
3Lz+3T	10	1.4	11.4		4T+3T	13.8	0.8	14.6		-3.2
3A	8.2	0.6	20.2		3A	8.2	-0.36	22.44		-2.24
3S	4.5	1	25.7		3A+2T	9.5	1	32.94		-7.24
CiSt4	3.9	1.2	30.8		3Lo	5	0.6	38.54		-7.74
FSSp4	3	0.8	34.6		FSSp3	2.6	0.14	41.28		-6.68
3A+2T	10.45	-0.56	44.49		3Lz	6	0.6	47.88		-3.39
3Lo	5.5	1	50.99		CSSp4	3	0.7	51.58		-0.59
3F+2T+2Lo	9.13	-0.4	59.72		CiSt3	3.3	0.8	55.68		4.04
3Lz	6.6	1.4	67.72		3Lz+2T	8.03	0	63.71		4.01
2A	3.85	0.8	72.37		3S	4.95	0.8	69.46		2.91
FCSSp4	3	0.5	75.87		2A	3.85	1	74.31		1.56
SlSt3	3.3	0.9	80.07		SlSt3	3.3	1	78.61		1.46
CCoSp4	3.5	1	84.57		CCoSp4	3.5	0.6	82.71		1.86

From this we can see that Plushenko did take an early lead with his quad/triple combination and extended it with his early triple axel combination and triple loop, but then the lead began to shrink and ultimately became a lead for Lysacek when he threw his triple/double/double combination.  The way the lead varies is really due to the order of the elements as we aren't comparing apples to apples in the rows.  To do that, I've reordered Plushenko's program to match the rows of similar elements of Lysacek's below and the Diff column is the difference for that row/element.  The 10% bonus items still appear in bold.

Lysacek	Base	GoE		Plushenko	Base	GoE		Diff
3Lz+3T	10	1.4		4T+3T	13.8	0.8		-3.2
3A	8.2	0.6		3A	8.2	-0.36		0.96
3S	4.5	1		3S	4.95	0.8		-0.25
CiSt4	3.9	1.2		CiSt3	3.3	0.8		1
FSSp4	3	0.8		FSSp3	2.6	0.14		1.06
3A+2T	10.45	-0.56		3A+2T	9.5	1		-0.61
3Lo	5.5	1		3Lo	5	0.6		0.9
3F+2T+2Lo	9.13	-0.4		3Lz+2T	8.03	0		0.7
3Lz	6.6	1.4		3Lz	6	0.6		1.4
2A	3.85	0.8		2A	3.85	1		-0.2
FCSSp4	3	0.5		CSSp4	3	0.7		-0.2
SlSt3	3.3	0.9		SlSt3	3.3	1		-0.1
CCoSp4	3.5	1		CCoSp4	3.5	0.6		0.4

Now we can more clearly see how they compare.  Looking at just the jumps to start, as expected, Plushenko's quad does give him a big advantage, but Lysacek executed his triple axel better eating into nearly a 3rd of that advantage.  Plushenko got a bit back with his triple axel combination being better executed (even though Lysacek got the 10% bonus here), but the 10% bonus and better execution got Lysacek nearly a point for his triple loop.  They both did a third combination getting the 10% bonus but Lysacek threw in the extra double loop giving him a 0.7 advantage.  But the big difference was Lysacek throwing his triple lutz late in the program got him a 0.6 advantage that he extended to 1.4 with his execution.

In the end, for the jumps, Lysacek had a base value of 58.23 (3.23 from the 10% bonus) and 5.24 for execution for a total of 63.47 to Plushenko's 59.33 base (but only 1.53 from the 10% bonus) and 4.44 for execution for a total of 63.77.  Plushenko's big lead from the quad was nearly completely lost due to poorer execution (0.8 point diff) and not maximizing his 10% bonus (1.7 point diff).  Also, due to doing the quad toe loop, Plushenko wasn't able to fit a triple flip in his program which is more difficult than the triple salchow and triple loop that he did perform.

Lysacek also performed more difficult footwork and spins having a base value of 16.7 with 4.4 for execution to Plushenko's 15.7 and 3.24 for a difference of 2.16.  This results in, from a technical mark standpoint, Plushenko's 3.8 point base point advantage for his quad being lost and Lysacek actually beating him on the technical mark by 1.86.

Now, if Plushenko has simply paid more attention to putting elements where they get more bonus, say moving the triple axel (0.82 bonus) and triple lutz (0.6 bonus), the margin would have been narrowed to 0.44.  That is less than the difference from his poorer execution meaning that ultimately his winning or losing was due to how he arranged his program and his execution, particularly his triple axel where he had -0.36 grade of execution.

So from the data, it does not appear Plushenko was robbed, rather his assertion that the winner needs to try a quad is only one part of the story.

But what do you think?  Do you think Plushenko was robbed?

2010 Vancouver Winter Games - Argh, no CBC!

A week ago or so in anticipation of the start of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, I wrote a blog entry in which I expressed thanks that I (and those in Seattle or other close to Canada cities that get CBC) would be able to not constrained to the delayed and packaged for Joe American coverage that NBC provided as I'd have access to CBC's coverage which would likely be live and with more detail.  Alas, I was wrong!

I based this on the fact that CBC had covered the 2008 Beijing Summer Games splendidly and I found myself watching them live and just recording and perhaps watching later the NBC coverage.  Unfortunately, it appears that CBC did not win the rights for the Vancouver Olympics, instead CTV did.  Am I'm not the only one that made this assumption and am now disappointed.

So, I'll now be searching for ways to watch events live on the internet, or recording NBC's coverage to watch it at my own pace where I can skip all their fluff.  After all, if they are delaying it for me in the first place, what more harm is there going to be if it is delayed a bit more by me!

Note to NBC, this defeats the whole purpose of your advertising as I skip all the ads when I watch it off the DVR.  If you want me to watch the ads, show it live so I have reason to watch it live and endure the ads.

If anyone has any pointers to alternative ways to view the Olympics on the internet, please comment.

The Vancouver Olympics are 10 days away

The Winter Olympics in Vancouver, BC, Canada are only 10 days away!  It has been only 18 months since the Beijing Olympics, but thanks to the switch in the 90's to have the winter games during the "off" even years, we get to experience all that is the Olympics again.

Unfortunately, something that seems to come up every time the Olympics come around is the subject of drugs and doping.  The constant battle of the testers to catch up with the latest drug or masking technique continues with the cheaters usually being half to a full step ahead although someone usually gets caught and the testers can declare victory.  Given this, I was pleased to see that Italy will fine any athlete caught doping $140K!  All 109 athletes going to the games will have to sign a statement agreeing to pay the fine if caught.  From the story:

CONI president Giovanni Petrucci says the committee has added the deterrent "to show how serious Italian sport is in the fight against doping. Whoever doesn't sign won't go to Vancouver."

Other Olympic Committee's would be well served to follow Italy's example as a further deterent against doping.

But enough about the negative aspects of doping, what about the games and sports themselves?  In the United States, we'll get a steady diet of the glamor sports of figure skating, alpine skiing, speed skating, and hockey, but we'll get helpings of bobsled, freestyle skiing, and unfortunately snow boarding (how this became an Olympic sport I'll never know).  Interested in something else?  Good luck finding it on NBC, but that may actually be a good thing (see below).

For those of us living near the Canadian border, we are lucky enough to get CBC and additional coverage that way, but that could mean just adding curling to the list above!

For the US viewer, there will be a number of interesting stories including:

• Can any of Rachel Flatt, Mirai Nagasu (both US), Carolina Kostner (Italy), and Miki Ando (Japan) challenge Mao Asada (Japan) and Kim Yu-Na (Korea) for gold in women's figure skating?
• Can Yevgeny Plushenko (Russia) complete is comeback and win gold or can Jeremy Abbott, Evan Lysacek, Johnny Weir (all US), Patrick Chan (Canada), and Daisuke Takahashi (Japan) unseat him?
• Will Lindsey Vonn continue her domination and be the story of the Olympics on the slopes?
• Will the networks get what they want and have the US and Canada vie for the gold medal in hockey?

There will be many more stories I'm sure, and we can depend on NBC to show us as many of them as they show the sports in action.  Which brings us to the television coverage.

It appears that, as was done for Beijing and prior games, NBC will elect to show us plausibly live coverage of all the key events and perhaps more, instead of giving us live coverage.  Sure, a few events may align with the eastern time zone to be shown live there, and the lower tier events NBC doesn't really care about may be live on secondary channels, but much of the coverage won't be live and worse, the events that are live will only be live in the eastern time zone and those of us on the west coast only a few hours from the events themselves, will have to wait 3 hours for all that coverage whether taped or live.

In this day and age of ESPN.com, Twitter, e-mail, Facebook, etc. it is just silly for NBC to think that folks can really hide from the results and thus the drama they are trying to hype will be lost with folks knowing the results.  That alone may cause some to not tune in, but also with so many having DVRs/Tivo/etc. now, if NBC isn't showing it live in the first place, many (I know I will) will simply record NBC's coverage and watch it at our own speed.  Then we can skip the ads and avoid the "up close and personals" which also defeats the purpose of NBC trying to get everything into prime time so they can sell those ads.  Perhaps those of us doing that are in the minority and NBC is really appealing to the average TV viewer who will tune in.

For a longer and more eloquent rant on the subject, see Bruce Jenkins article.

Thankfully, in addition to having a DVR, I will have access to CBC and I expect while they may not have as many total hours of coverage that NBC claims, they will show more events live and I plan to take advantage of that.

What do you think?  What are you looking forward to from these Olympics?  Leave a comment!

Let the games begin!

University of Washington Invitational Indoor Track Highlights

Being in Seattle, I'm fortunate to get some great indoor track action each winter as UW hosts a number of events at Dempsey Indoor.  Two weeks ago they held the UW Indoor Preview and yesterday was the UW Invitational.

I was there yesterday and being a fan of distance running, was excited to see that Olympians Galen Rupp, Chris Solinsky, and Jen Rhines were all scheduled to run.  Flotrack and Runnerspace were there too and had some good coverage and videos.  But I have my own video of a few races from a different angle (see below).  Flotrack's are better, but hey, I was there and took it so you get it too.

First up was the men's mile with Rupp and Solinsky.  Both of the headliners started out mid-pack but moved up so that they were at the front with a lap to go with Rupp leading.  Coming off the turn with just the straight to go though, Solinsky had taken the lead and would go on to hold off Galen 3:55.75 to 3:56.22.  An outstanding early run for both as they do some under distance racing in preparation for the outdoor season.

In the women's 3000, Jen Rhines and Amy Hastings were the class of the field and went to the front and alternated taking the lead up to 1 lap to go.  With a lap to go, Rhines took off and gapped Hastings, but at the top of the straight, Hastings started to gather her in and with Rhines moving out into lane 2, Hastings had an opening and was able to eke by winning in 8:58.45 to Rhines' 8:58.47.  A great race.

Last, and less than 2 hours after finishing his mile, Rupp came back in the 3000 set to face Scott Bauhs and Aaron Braun.  The three of them separated themselves from the pack mid race and with a lap to go it was the three of them right together.  Braun got a bit of a gap on the back straight, but then Rupp and Bauhs made their move and as they approached the finishing straight Rupp had pulled alongside Braun with Bauhs close behind.  In what may have been his one mistake, Bauhs tried to get in between his competitors but there wasn't room and he had to make a second move outside and came up just short to Rupp's 7:51.48 in 7:51.65 with Braun just 0.03 back at 7:51.68.  Another great race!

From the interview with Galen, it sounds like he'll be in Boston next week to run the 5000 against Lagat and others.  And there will be action back at Dempsey in 2 weeks and I'll try to be there again and post another report.

Here is the video with highlights from all 3 races: