Online Bookmarks

October 5, 2005 Daniel

I’ve been waiting for Google to implement a decent online bookmarks system (better than what they offer now) for several months. Four of my previous posts have talked about it to some degree — if you don’t believe me just type “google bookmarks” into my search box.

The Quick View box in Google Sidebar just doesn’t cut it, and the personalized homepage kind of provides the functionality, but now that I use Sidebar I don’t use the personalized homepage anymore …

So I heard about del.icio.us a while ago, probably from Lewis, but I never registered for it. I was probably using Yahoo’s Bookmarks by then, in conjunction with the Yahoo Toolbar (which is still the best online bookmark implementation I’ve seen). The thing is, I switched from Yahoo Email to Google’s Gmail, and I’m about 90% certain that the Yahoo Toolbar slowed down Firefox a little bit. So after my last format I didn’t install the Yahoo Toolbar.

Fortunately Yahoo offers bookmarks.yahoo.com, which is where you need to go to rename or rearrange these bookmarks. It’s also the only way to access them if you don’t have the toolbar installed. Well, a few days ago the site broke. You type it in, you get the login screen, you submit your password, and … you end up back at the login screen. Every time. 100%. Browser independent. And I can find nothing on the Internet about this happening to anyone else. Also, I can find no way to contact a person at Yahoo about this problem. So they can F off.

So I registered for del.icio.us. It’s good, not great. I want a menu, not a website. But I don’t want to keep track of them on my computer for when I format my hard drive. Networked bookmarks just make too much sense!

Google Sidebar Wishlist

October 5, 2005 Daniel

A few tweaks I’d like to see in Google Sidebar:

1. A compose link for Gmail. Displaying the Inbox theoretically makes it so I don’t need to have a browser window/tab open to Gmail. Yet if I want to write a message, I need to bring up Gmail in a tab, and click the compose link.
2. A chime when I get new messages. Every other email program in the history of Earth does this. Give us a checkbox so we can turn it off.
3. Lock width. Full screen windows have the scroll bars on their right edge. With the Google Sidebar docked on the right side of the screen (where I have it), I occasionally click on the edge of Sidebar accidentally. Give me a way to lock it — like the Windows task bar.

MLB Playoff Odds III

October 1, 2005 Daniel

The New York Yankees are the 2005 American League East Champions.

Today the Yankees beat the Red Sox 8 to 4, and the White Sox beat the Indians 4-3. One of the requirements for the “nightmare scenario” double one game playoff was the Indians taking exactly two out three against the White Sox this weekend. That game finished before the game at Fenway, so Joe Buck let us know that the winner of the Yankees-Red Sox game would wrap up a playoff spot, the Yankees spot being as division champs.

Here’s the updated chart:

NYY	BOS	CHI	CLE		NYY	BOS	CHI	CLE
96-66	94-68	99-63	93-69	BOS wins WC	1	1	1	0
96-66	94-68	98-64	94-68	1GP CLE@BOS	1	0.5	1	0.5
95-67	95-67	99-63	93-69	BOS wins WC	1	1	1	0
95-67	95-67	98-64	94-68	BOS wins WC	1	1	1	0
				Out of 4:	4	3.5	4	0.5
				Out of 100:	100.0	87.5	100.0	12.5

The Red Sox have an 87.5% of making the playoffs. The Indians have the remaining 12.5%. The Indians have a 25% of forcing the one game playoff with the Red Sox, and then a 50% chance of winning that game. The Red Sox are guaranteed to play beyond Sunday, because their worst-case scenario is the one game playoff against the Indians.

After today, the Red Sox still control their own destiny — if they win Sunday against the Yankees they earn the Wild Card, or if they drop the final game to the Yankees they still only need to win the one game playoff against the Indians. The Indians, on the other hand, need the Red Sox to lose, need to beat the White Sox, and then need to beat the Red Sox in Boston.

Fox Baseball Sucks

October 1, 2005 Daniel

Fox has the Yankees-Red Sox game today. Jeanne Zelasko has a different haircut, just like every year. You just know that there are a couple Fox executives somewhere deciding what her hair should look like.

But really almost everything about Fox’s baseball coverage sucks. Kevin Kennedy is scary. Tim McCarver is freaking old. Joe Buck is okay. I like the graphics. But the music is a little over-the-top. And if I see that talking baseball explaining a slider to me one more time I’m going to yack.

MLB Playoff Odds II

October 1, 2005 Daniel

So I re-ran the odds after tonight’s games. In case you didn’t hear, the Red Sox beat the Yankees (crap), and the White Sox beat the Indians (ehh … good I guess, because although I was hoping the Indians would beat out the Red Sox for the Wild Card, I suddenly need to worry about the Yankees beating out the Indians …). Here’s the update:

NYY	BOS	CHI	CLE		NYY	BOS	CHI	CLE
96-66	94-68	99-63	93-69	NYY wins ALE; BOS wins WC	1	1	1	0
96-66	94-68	98-64	94-68	NYY wins ALE; 1GP CLE@BOS	1	0.5	1	0.5
96-66	94-68	97-65	95-67	NYY wins ALE; CLE wins WC	1	0	1	1
95-67	95-67	99-63	93-69	NYY wins ALE; BOS wins WC	1	1	1	0
95-67	95-67	98-64	94-68	NYY wins ALE; BOS wins WC	1	1	1	0
95-67	95-67	97-65	95-67	1GP BOS@NYY; 1GP NYY@CLE/CLE@BOS	0.75	0.75	1	0.5
94-68	96-66	99-63	93-69	BOS wins ALE; NYY wins WC	1	1	1	0
94-68	96-66	98-64	94-68	BOS wins ALE; 1GP NYY@CLE	0.5	1	1	0.5
94-68	96-66	97-65	95-67	BOS wins ALE; CLE wins WC	0	1	1	1
				Out of 9:	7.25	7.25	9	3.5
				Out of 100:	80.56	80.56	100.0	38.89

We’re now down to nine possible outcomes. The Yankee sweeps and Indian sweeps are gone.

Obviously the most surprising change is that the even though the Yankees lost, their odds of making the playoffs are essentially unchanged — increased by less than one percentage point. What it translates to is that the Yankees had one throw-away game. And they’ve used it. No more.

The next surprising thing is not that the Indians’ odds have dropped, but the fact that they’ve dropped so much. Their odds went down by more than 23 percentage points. It’s one game — why are their odds hurt so much? The answer is that before tonight’s games, the Indians were competing with one team for the Wild Card: Boston. Now the Indians are competing with both the Yankees and the Red Sox. Had the Yankees won tonight, they would have had greater than a 97% percent chance of getting in, and the Red Sox and Indians would have been nearly tied around 50% each. (In fact, the Indians would have had exactly 50%, and the Red Sox would have had 50% plus the leftover 2½% or so that the Yankees had not yet sewed up.)

Because the Indians had been competing only with the Red Sox, they would have benefitted most from a Yankees sweep of the Red Sox.

Incredibly, all three teams still control their own destiny. If the Yankees or Red Sox win the next two games, they would win the AL East. If the Indians win the next two against the White Sox, the worst they can be left with is the “nightmare scenario,” and a one game playoff against the loser of the Yankees-Red Sox one game playoff.

If the White Sox sweep the Indians, then both the Yankees and Red Sox are guaranteed spots in the playoffs. Should this happen, the Yankees have a slight advantage over the Red Sox, for the same reason that they White Sox have already clinched the AL Central: Should two teams tie for their division, but both are guaranteed playoff spots, the head-to-head record is used as a tiebreaker, rather than a one-game playoff. The Yankees currently have a 9-8 lead against the Red Sox. If they split the next two, the Yankees would have 10-9 edge, and the division crown.

MLB Playoff Odds

September 30, 2005 Daniel

The Yankees have an 80% chance of making the playoffs. The Indians have a 62.5% chance. And the Red Sox have a 58% chance.

There are sixteen possible outcomes after this weekend’s six games — three between the Yankees and the Red Sox and three between the White Sox and the Indians. You could say there are two possibilities in each of six games, which would be 2*2*2*2*2*2, or 64. But really, we only care about the outcome of each series. There are four possible outcomes of each series, meaning that we take 4*4, or 16. There are sixteen possible outcomes of this weekend. We could go further and talk about possible one game playoffs. Personally, I’m interested in which teams will make the playoffs. Further, I’m interested in what the odds are that each team will make the playoffs.

So what to do? Figure it out in Excel, then use Excel to create a table!

Below I show the sixteen possibilities for what the New York Yankees (NYY)’s, Boston Red Sox (BOS)’s, Chicago White Sox (CHI)’s, and Cleveland Indians (CLE)’s, respective records could be after this weekend. (Apologies for the ugliness.) To the right of those columns, I show what the playoff picture will be Monday morning. The final four columns show the odds, per each Monday morning playoff picture, that each team will make the playoffs. Note that in each scenario, the White Sox have 1 out of 1 odds of making the playoffs, because they have already secured the AL Central title.

About ⅔ of the way down, you’ll see the “nightmare scenario,” where MLB would have the first ever two-tiered one game playoff. Here, I have determined that the Yankees, for example, have a 50% chance of winning the first game. They also have a 50% chance of losing that game, meaning they would play the second game against the Indians, where they again have a 50% chance of winning. 50% * 50% = 25%. The 50% from the first game plus the 25% from the second game equals 75%. (Blah blah blah, etc etc etc.)

The last two rows show first, the odds out of 16 that each team will make the playoffs. The White Sox will make the playoffs 16 out of 16 times, because they have already locked up the AL Central. The final row shows each team’s odds out of 100. Enjoy.

NYY	BOS	CHI	CLE		NYY	BOS	CHI	CLE
97-65	93-69	99-63	93-69	NYY wins ALE; 1GP CLE@BOS	1	0.5	1	0.5
97-65	93-69	98-64	94-68	NYY wins ALE; CLE wins WC	1	0	1	1
97-65	93-69	97-65	95-67	NYY wins ALE; CLE wins WC	1	0	1	1
97-65	93-69	96-66	96-66	NYY wins ALE; CLE wins WC	1	0	1	1
96-66	94-68	99-63	93-69	NYY wins ALE; BOS wins WC	1	1	1	0
96-66	94-68	98-64	94-68	NYY wins ALE; 1GP CLE@BOS	1	0.5	1	0.5
96-66	94-68	97-65	95-67	NYY wins ALE; CLE wins WC	1	0	1	1
96-66	94-68	96-66	96-66	NYY wins ALE; CLE wins WC	1	0	1	1
95-67	95-67	99-63	93-69	NYY wins ALE; BOS wins WC	1	1	1	0
95-67	95-67	98-64	94-68	NYY wins ALE; BOS wins WC	1	1	1	0
95-67	95-67	97-65	95-67	1GP BOS@NYY; 1GP NYY@CLE/CLE@BOS	0.75	0.75	1	0.5
95-67	95-67	96-66	96-66	1GP BOS@NYY; CLE wins WC	0.5	0.5	1	1
94-68	96-66	99-63	93-69	BOS wins ALE; NYY wins WC	1	1	1	0
94-68	96-66	98-64	94-68	BOS wins ALE; 1GP NYY@CLE	0.5	1	1	0.5
94-68	96-66	97-65	95-67	BOS wins ALE; CLE wins WC	0	1	1	1
94-68	96-66	96-66	96-66	BOS wins ALE; CLE wins WC	0	1	1	1
				Out of 16:	12.75	9.25	16	10
				Out of 100:	79.68	57.81	100.0	62.50

Pennant Race TV

September 29, 2005 Daniel

Here are the crucial games so you can plan your weekend. I almost didn’t include NL games. I don’t know when it happened, but I just don’t care about the NL anymore.

I’ve read on ESPN.com that more games than indicated here may get airtime. If I find anything definite I’ll update this post. I might add the spreads, too.

Oh, and this is courtesy ESPN.com.

TEAMS	TIME (ET)	NAT TV	PITCHERS

Thursday, September 29, 2005
Chicago Sox at Detroit	1:05 PM	ESPN	Garcia vs Grilli
NY Yankees at Baltimore	7:05 PM		Small vs Bedard
Toronto at Boston	7:05 PM		Downs vs Clement
Tampa Bay at Cleveland	7:05 PM		Fossum vs Sabathia
Chicago Cubs at Houston	8:05 PM		Rusch vs Rodriguez


Friday, September 30, 2005
NY Yankees at Boston	7:05 PM	ESPN	Wang vs Wells
Chicago Sox at Cleveland	7:05 PM		Buehrle vs Millwood
Philadelphia at Washington	7:05 PM		Brito vs Hernandez
Chicago Cubs at Houston	8:05 PM		Zambrano vs Pettitte


Saturday, October 1, 2005
NY Yankees at Boston	1:15 PM	FOX	Johnson vs Wakefield
Chicago Sox at Cleveland	1:15 PM	FOX	Garland vs Westbrook
Chicago Cubs at Houston	4:05 PM	FOX	Williams vs Clemens
Philadelphia at Washington	4:05 PM	FOX	Myers vs Patterson


Sunday, October 2, 2005
Chicago Sox at Cleveland	1:05 PM		McCarthy vs Elarton
Philadelphia at Washington	1:05 PM		Lieber vs Carrasco
NY Yankees at Boston	2:05 PM		Mussina vs Schilling
Chicago Cubs at Houston	2:05 PM		Maddux vs Oswalt

Republicans

September 28, 2005 Daniel

Since George W. Bush was sworn into office as the President of the United States, Republicans have had nearly five years with control of the Executive Branch, the House of Representatives, and the Senate. So what are they doing with that mandate, that political capital, that overwhelming support from voters?

They’re appointing unqualified friends to critical, life-or-death-matter positions.

They’re dabbling in insider trading and pulling the curtain back on blind trusts.

They’re making their own interpretion of political fundraising laws.

Someone must have come up with this one by now: Got vote?

Comment: Spam?

September 28, 2005 Daniel

The other day a questionable comment was posted on my site. WordPress gives you a ton of options for how to handle comments. If I checked the right boxes and unchecked the wrong ones, then I have it set up so that when a user makes his or her first-ever comment, I must approve that comment and, in effect, approve that user. From that point on, the user may post comments freely without my approval. However, I still have the power — via the WordPress Dashboard — to delete any comment (or post).

The comment in question included a username, but the username was a the URL to a website’s homepage. The URL the user entered as his URL was a specific page on that website. And the entire content of the comment was text copied and pasted from that specific page.

If I assume that the mysterious poster had no malevolent intentions, then I have to call him out for not understanding 1) the forms he had to fill out to use my site, and 2) how to give the source website its due credit. Personally, when I reference a website’s article, I paste the article name into the body of my post, then use the URL of the article as the link of the text. That way it seems to me that I am making it very clear where I got something.

The fact is that I don’t think the user was clueless. I suspect that this a case of comment spam. But I don’t know for sure.

Ultimately, the fact that the user did not include a real nickname/username, did not include a URL, and did not include an email address, he did not provide me with any way to contact him or verify the sincerity of his post. In light of this, I have determined that it is my policy to delete comments left by seemingly anonymous posters.

Gmail, Sidebar, Notifier

September 27, 2005 Daniel

The Gmail Notifier has two functions: the obvious function, which is to tell you when you have a new message in your Gmail Inbox; and to set Gmail as your default email application.

Google Desktop’s Sidebar also tells you when you have a new message in your Gmail Inbox. It does not, however, allow you to set Gmail as your default email application. Since Sidebar provides one half of Notifier’s functionality … why not the other half, too?