Playoffs: Playing the odds

So my team is out of the playoffs.  Sigh.

This unfortunate turn of events has given me more time to think of other things though, and one of those things was the "fairness" of the playoff system.  In the NHL, sixteen teams compete in four rounds of playoffs, with each round being a best of seven elimination.  All things being equal, every team would have a one in sixteen chance of winning the Stanley Cup... but of course, things are never equal.

But what would happen if one of the teams was, say, twice as good as every other team in the league?[1]  What would their chances be of winning the cup?

Would you believe that they're more likely not to win the cup?

There.  That made me feel better.  (Okay, not really.  Sigh.)

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[1] It's tricky to define what "twice as good" might mean.  For simplicity, I'll define "twice as good" as being twice as likely to win a single game.

Looking at this year's regular season, the top-ranked team earned 117 points, while the bottom-ranked team earned 62.  If all those games were played against each other, then the top team earned 65% of the points, which is 1.88 times the points earned by the bottom team.  If you only compare teams that made the playoffs, then you're looking at 117 to 93 points, which is only 1.25 times as many.

Mike and Me

A couple of days ago, two students were ejected from a political rally because they had posted a facebook picture of themselves with another candidate.  This is the first election that they can vote in, and they were diligently listening to all sides of the story.  Somehow, the campaign office and/or the police decided that they were too dangerous to be in the same room with the candidate.  Check out the video that somebody nearby recorded (courtesy of CBC.)  Pretty dangerous.

For fun, I thought I might upload an image of myself with Ignatieff, but, unfortunately I've never met the man.  After a little programming, and some image stitching , I had my new facebook profile:



Me and Mike and Awish Aslam.  (Almost!)


If you want your own image, you can stitch one up with "Mike and Me", available from http://sites.google.com/site/mikeignatieffandme/.  The program captures your face from your webcam, and stitches it into the student's face.  Hit the space bar, and your face will switch to the other student.  Pose with a friend, and you'll both be included.

Pose with a friend.

Interested? Read more coverage of the story from the London Free Press, CBC, Vancouver Sun, and the Globe and Mail.

Vanity...

Oh, they're good.  They're very good.

I mean the folks at Google, of course.

I just googled myself.  I'll admit it, I'm no different than anyone else.  But to my surprise, the top four results were actually references to me, and not some decade old obituary from some unfortunate who happens to share my name.  Wow.  Four out of four.  Astonishing.

Then I typed the same search into a "private" browser window, and discovered that to the rest of the world, I only get two of the top ten positions.  Of course, I'm sure that a query from France wouldn't even place me on the first page.

I'll assume that they aren't doing this on purpose.  But if they were, wouldn't it be brilliant?

The "myth" of global warming...

So I'm out on a beautiful winter's morning, shoveling off a light dusting of snow from my driveway, when I hear my neighbours chatting about global warming...

how today's weather completely disproves it...

how it's just not true...

and how much they wish it were true, since warming would be a "good thing".

Sigh.

Thoughts on "Picasso at the Lapin Agile"

Mister Martin, if you please,

I'd like to set things straight.

We really have enjoyed your play

And all agree it's great!

But in amongst the funny bits

Scattered here and there

Are little bits that don't make sense

It really isn't fair!

Like why a roof should disappear,

Could you explain that please?

And how can scratching up a hand

Make girls weak in the knees?

No way can Pablo scratch a sketch

In just five seconds flat

Then sell it off for fifty francs

I'll have none of that.

Eighteen percent of twenty four

Works out to four and a third

With nine and five sixths in two other lots

It's really quite absurd!

A third of a bottle makes no sense

In legend or in myth

If fractional bottles must be used,

At least please make them "fifths"

I'm not going into parentheses here,

But if I did they’d match

Each end must have an open

As any editor should catch

Don't get me wrong here, Stevie-boy

I've loved your play, you see

With a hundred million in the bank,

You must know more than me!

The more I think about it, though

These things start making sense

Of course I could be losing grip

These last few weeks were tense

The joke that opens up act two

(Don't say "godzuntheit", please, )

It's starting to make sense to me

It's really quite a tease….

The man could not afford to send

A pie that was too large

Lower case was needed

To cut down on the charge

Of course he couldn't post it

At the ending of the tale

Cause if the baker sent it

It would have been (wait for it…) e-mail.

In closing, let me set it straight

I have enjoyed this show

Most of all because of all

These friend's I've come to know

Thanks for putting up with me

Missed cues, forgotten lines

But next to me, you must admit,

The rest of you look fine.

Though I've said all I need to say

I'll add one little touch

My favourite line of all the play,

Thank you, Thank you very much

Reflections on Sunsets (December 13, 2009)

I touch your hand for the last time
and feel such a sadness in my heart.
I miss you. I hurt.
I don't want to let you go.

They say it's okay to cry.

And I do. But at the same time, my heart
remembers the joy its always found in your presence.
The stories, the jokes, the laughter.
Shared fears and triumphs, tears and song.
My heart knows love, and knows it is loved....
boundless and timeless, unquestioning and complete
You've shown me a glimpse of the divine.

So I hope it's okay to smile, too.

Thank you for sharing yourself with me,
for teaching me of friendship and faith,
of laughter and sharing,
compassion and trust
in myself and in others.

As I leave you I know that you'll always be with me,
in the wind that wipes my tears,
the sunshine that brightens my way,
the gentle rain that washes me clean,
but most of all in the golden sunsets
that you loved so very much,
reminding me every day of your love.

Critical Miss

[Author's note: A reader asked me to explain this post. I'm amazed to find out that I have readers! But more to the point: this post is about the table top role playing game "Dungeons and Dragons", not about a computer game. If you don't know what D&D or RPG's are, then this one might be confusing. My apologies;)]

So Sarah Darkmagic posted an article called Swing and A Miss, where she's asking DM's and players to comment on "failure stories".

I've always DM'ed with a "house rule" for critical misses. Whenever a player rolls a 1, I ask them to roll a second D20 to see how bad the miss was. Then I arbitrarily choose a reasonable outcome, based entirely on the game context. No random deck for me! The outcomes are worse on low rolls, and sometimes even help the party if the second roll is high.

Most of the time the player will trip, stumble, or lose their balance, and find themselves granting combat advantage, or prone, or maybe just losing any remaining actions in the current turn. Weapons are dropped, axes get lodged into door frames or into opponent's shields, and the player will need to spend an action (perhaps with a skill test) to get it back. Ranged combat is dangerous - usually it ends up with the player rolling again to see if they hit the dwarven defender holding the line... Good thing defenders have armour.

Environmental effects are always fun. Players can slide down a slope, drop into water, or get tangled up in chains or ropes. Fire is also fun - there's nothing like setting fire to the temple you were trying to defend, and then having your group forever remembered for it. Spilling acids on the floor to create a new hazard, setting off traps, stapling the rogue's cloak to the door, or cutting the rope that holds the chandelier. These effects don't usually harm the players directly, but they often add tension and or humour to the combat.

If the second roll is exceptionally high, I have more fun with it. You missed the target, but somehow managed to thwack the invisible gnome that was sneaking up on you. The troll dodged your attack, but tripped backwards over into the well. Your sword is now lodged into the dragon's hide, so if he moves you can hold on and treat it as a grapple.

Rolling a second "1" is a double critical miss, and that's an entirely different story. The table goes quiet and grim faced players slowly turn to find out what has befallen their unfortunate friend. Recently a wizard blasted his familiar (an invisible, telepathic, and extremely moody Drake) who skulked off for several sessions before finally forgiving him. Another player rolled a double critical, and managed to lodge his magic axe into a stone column, and was only able to pry it out after the combat, breaking it in the process. My players felt I was exceptionally harsh on that one, but they didn't know that the party was one room away from an enchanted forge, which allowed the dwarf to repair his weapon.

In the last session we saw a spectacular run of bad luck as the party tried to clear out a cavern full of orcs. A fighter tried to use a chain to sweep some orcs into an underground stream. Critical miss, and he found his arm caught up in the chain. One action would have freed him, but he decided to press on and attack instead. Another critical miss and the chain was wrapped around one of his buddies, who was unimpressed. The orc then scored a critical hit on the buddy, knocking him into the fast flowing river, and after many failed attempts to free themselves, the fighter got dragged into the river as well. As the party rushed to aid the pair, one of the remaining orcs scored a knockout blow against the fighter, leaving him as a dead weight in the water, dragging his buddy downstream. Other party members grabbed on, but nobody could slow the progress (how many times can a party roll without scoring a "5" or better???) and slowly the human chain was dragged into the river.

The last free moving character was the familiar-less wizard. He finished off most of the orcs, and was facing the last surviving orc who was at this point down to one hit point (our group calls these "born again minions"). The orc wisely chose to drop his spear and fall on his knees in surrender, allowing the wizard to grab onto the last player in the chain. Although he failed the roll to pull the group out, he did provide enough ballast to stop them.

The party heaved a sigh of relief, thanking their lucky stars. Then the wizard heard the orc walk up behind him, and very gently push him in.

Classic.

(Did I mention that sound of a thundering waterfall that the party had heard from up ahead?)