- How to Kill Innovation: Keep Asking Questions - Make's a good point, but at the end does arrive at the balance: "Of course it's almost always valuable to think comprehensively about a new idea. But maintain a healthy balance between analysis and action."
- KLM moves to the cloud with Google Apps - The trend continues and isn't going to slow.
- Mobile workers prefer smartphones over notebooks, iPhones over Blackberry - It is interesting that folks would prefer a smartphone to a notebook.
- Hey IT workers; Enough with the excuses - "Once you do not accept excuses from yourself, you’ll see that it is very easy not to accept excuses from others."
Friday, February 26, 2010
links for 2010-02-26: Killing innovation; KLM and Google Apps; Smartphones vs Notebooks
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.
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.
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.
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?
"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?
Thursday, February 25, 2010
links for 2010-02-25: Amazon SimpleDB; SOA and the Cloud; Dual Licensing
- Amazon SimpleDB introduces consistency options - For those that want traditional consistency/concurrency control in the database.
- When Your SOA Using Cloud is Too Distributed and Complex - But we are increasingly moving to more distributed systems. The key is to not use synchronous calls where not required and use messaging as much as possible to decouple systems.
- Data vs Dual Licensing: Which Will Make More Money? - Good discussion of the challenges of dual licensing.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Blog entries from the past
I had posted quite a few entries on my blog at Sun, some of them actually interesting! As I don't have access to that blog any more, in an effort to preserve the entries and provide some continuity and a single place to go for them, I've started importing some of them to this blog.
They should appear to be posted on the date they originally were so won't show up as new entries at the top of the blog, so for those that may be interested, here is a sampling of those I've imported:
They should appear to be posted on the date they originally were so won't show up as new entries at the top of the blog, so for those that may be interested, here is a sampling of those I've imported:
- Web Apps vs Native Apps: Will we ever fully switch?
- iPhone Voice Memo App Broken
- Amazon Public Data Sets
- Snow Leopard is here! My initial review
- HTML5 in Action; Plugin-free video and browser geolocation
- Apple Stifling Innovation
- Thoughts on Google Chrome OS - Not a Microsoft Killer ... Yet
- FoxTrot and Sudoku
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
links for 2010-02-23: Stuck with Oracle or IBM?; Amazon most trusted; Apple in the enterprise
- Are you stuck with Oracle's and IBM's middleware control? - I should probably do a whole piece analyzing this, but short of that, this is a good read. The role of open-source in combating the duopoly is an interesting and on-point observation.
- Amazon is the Most Trusted and Recommended Brand in the U.S. - Interesting that two parcel delivery companies are in the top-10 too (FedEx and UPS).
- Apple's Mac fleet gaining traction in enterprise - They were certainly popular at Sun.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Boeing's Future of Flight
I'm a bit embarrassed to say I'd never been until yesterday, but I finally visited Boeing's facility at Paine Field and went on the Future of Flight tour they have there. And I have to say, it is impressive.
Boeing has been building a number of planes at the facility for years, starting with the original 747 in the late 1960's. They presently build the 747-8, 767, 777, and 787 there. Given that all of these planes are large, a large building is required to house the assembly lines for them.
The building was built originally for the 747 manufacturing and subsequently expanded and has some staggering numbers associated with it as it is the worlds largest building in the world by volume:
I did take pictures outside as it was a absolutely gorgeous day (it doesn't rain all winter in Seattle) and Paine Field is a fantastic location with views of the Cascades (including Mt. Baker and Mt. Rainier) and Olympics from the same spot. I also managed to show several new planes on the flight line including some 787's and a new 777 for FedEx, and 2 of Boeing's Dream Lifters, which are used to fly in many of the already built components for the 787 so that the plane isn't so much built as it is assembled and can be done in only 3 days. The Dream Lifters are the largest cargo planes in the world.
All in all, it was a great tour and I'm glad I went. If you are interest in planes and flight and happen to be in the Seattle area, I highly recommend taking the tour.
Boeing has been building a number of planes at the facility for years, starting with the original 747 in the late 1960's. They presently build the 747-8, 767, 777, and 787 there. Given that all of these planes are large, a large building is required to house the assembly lines for them.
The building was built originally for the 747 manufacturing and subsequently expanded and has some staggering numbers associated with it as it is the worlds largest building in the world by volume:
- 472 million cubic feet.
- 4.3 million square feet, enough room for 75(!) football fields and you could fit Disneyland inside and have 12 acres to spare.
- There are 6 Tully's coffee shops inside, including the highest volume Tully's in the world.
- There are 2.33 miles of pedestrian tunnels below the factory. The "short" direction they have tunnels running 1/6 of a mile.
- Boeing has 1,300 bicycles in the factory to help employees get around.
- There are 1 million light bulbs in the factory.
I did take pictures outside as it was a absolutely gorgeous day (it doesn't rain all winter in Seattle) and Paine Field is a fantastic location with views of the Cascades (including Mt. Baker and Mt. Rainier) and Olympics from the same spot. I also managed to show several new planes on the flight line including some 787's and a new 777 for FedEx, and 2 of Boeing's Dream Lifters, which are used to fly in many of the already built components for the 787 so that the plane isn't so much built as it is assembled and can be done in only 3 days. The Dream Lifters are the largest cargo planes in the world.
All in all, it was a great tour and I'm glad I went. If you are interest in planes and flight and happen to be in the Seattle area, I highly recommend taking the tour.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Oracle and Sun's Open Source Projects
When I wrote my Analysis of Oracle's Strategy for Sun's Middleware, I made mention of Oracle's somewhat vague statements about the future of several open-source communities and projects. GlassFish is a special case and I covered it as such, but a couple key projects that did not have clear plans articulated were OpenESB and OpenSSO.
For OpenESB at least, and perhaps this is an indication of what will happen with OpenSSO, we do have more clarity from an e-mail sent on the users alias a couple days ago. Thanks to Frank for sending it, and he highlights a few key things about OpenESB and GlassFish ESB:
It is also very important to note that by continuing to require the SCA to contribute, Oracle maintains copyright to all the code and thus the right to use anything developed and contributed in Oracle commercial product under a non-open-source license. I don't think folks should be scared away by this alone, but it is something to remember and not be surprised by should features or code from OpenESB show up in Fusion Middleware.
This is good news for several of the companies that have formed around the development of components and implementation using OpenESB like Logicoy, ForgeRock, Pymma, Imola, Adjoovo, and more, as it means they don't have to create their own fork(s) and can continue to collaborate together in the community.
It is now up to the community to step up and contribute and see how this plays out for real, but the opportunity for them to do so is great news. Will this same model be applied to OpenSSO? We'll have to wait and see.
For OpenESB at least, and perhaps this is an indication of what will happen with OpenSSO, we do have more clarity from an e-mail sent on the users alias a couple days ago. Thanks to Frank for sending it, and he highlights a few key things about OpenESB and GlassFish ESB:
- Oracle does not intend to let the project disappear and will keep it on java.net/Kenai.
- Oracle has scaled down the investments in OpenESB from what they were at Sun.
- There is a hope the community will step up to fill the void left by the reduced investment.
- Existing GlassFish ESB customers will be supported and can buy more licenses, but there is no intent to sell licenses to new customers.
- Accept/reject committers
- Veto the roadmap
- Veto changes to the OpenESB website
- Accept / reject changes to this governance document
It is also very important to note that by continuing to require the SCA to contribute, Oracle maintains copyright to all the code and thus the right to use anything developed and contributed in Oracle commercial product under a non-open-source license. I don't think folks should be scared away by this alone, but it is something to remember and not be surprised by should features or code from OpenESB show up in Fusion Middleware.
This is good news for several of the companies that have formed around the development of components and implementation using OpenESB like Logicoy, ForgeRock, Pymma, Imola, Adjoovo, and more, as it means they don't have to create their own fork(s) and can continue to collaborate together in the community.
It is now up to the community to step up and contribute and see how this plays out for real, but the opportunity for them to do so is great news. Will this same model be applied to OpenSSO? We'll have to wait and see.
links for 2010-02-18: Oracle's Cloud; Windows vs Mac; JBoss AS 6 M2
- Oracle's Sudden Jump Into the Cloud - The multi-tenancy is a good cloud feature, and Oracle not competing with partners in the hosting arena (like Microsoft) is a key difference.
- A Windows update nightmare makes me glad, once again, that I use a Mac - The author makes some good observations and takes heat for it!
- JBoss AS 6.0 Milestone 2 released - It is good to see more Java EE 6 specs added.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
links for 2010-02-17: NY Times and iPad; Facebook Harvested
- Turf War at the New York Times: Who Will Control the iPad? -"Old" media companies need to become more progressive and quit clinging to old models.
- Facebook gets Harvested - Anyone that thought their info on Facebook was in any way private was deluding themselves, and this proves it.
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