The Largest University in the World

I thought the following video was interesting.  It talks about a guy who posts videos on Youtube featuring him teaching classes in a wide variety of subjects.  He brings up some good points about ways in which his video lectures can be better for some people than a traditional live lecture.


Sal Khan at Gel 2010 (founder, the Khan Academy) from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

I found the link on Marginal Revolution, a blog I read.

Lowest Seeds to Ever Make the NBA Finals

Here is a list of the lowest seeds to ever make the NBA Finals:

• 2010 Boston Celtics 4E
• 2006 Dallas Mavericks 4W (Lost 4-2 to Miami)
• 1999 New York Knicks 8E (Lost 4-1 to San Antonio)
• 1995 Houston Rockets 6W (Won 4-0 over Orlando)
• 1981 Houston Rockets 6W (Lost 4-2 to Boston)
• 1978 Seattle Supersonics 4W (Lost 4-3 to Washington)
• 1969 Boston Celtics 4E (Won 4-3 over the LA Lakers)

Here are some notes on those teams.

• 2010: The Celtics started the season 23-5 and finished the season 27-27.  They were also the 2008 NBA champions.  As I blogged earlier, it appears that they rested their old and injured players in the regular season in order to maximize their potential in the playoffs.  Here is a recent article which confirms my point.
• 2006: Due to a screwy rule, Dallas was given the 4th seed despite having a 60-22 record (which was the 2nd best in the west and 3rd best overall).  They should have won too if it wasn't for some shady officiating.
• 1999: This season was played after a lockout shortened the season to 50 games.  It was the kind of year for an 8-seed to slide its way into the finals.
• 1995: The Rockets were the defending champions.
• 1981: On the surface this seems random.  The Rockets went 40-42.  They beat the defending champion Lakers 2-1, then the Spurs 4-3, then in the conference finals beat the 40-42 Kansas City Kings.  Within two years they traded Moses Malone to Philadelphia and then finished the 1982-83 season with the worst record in the league.
• 1978: Portland was by far the best team until Bill Walton was injured late in the season.  Seattle returned to the finals in 1979 and won it.
• 1969: Not only was Boston the defending champion, including this year, they had won 11 of the past 13 finals.

My point is that in the NBA playoff system, it is somewhat unlikely for a poor team to win.  In keeping with my original point, the regular season doesn't matter when a good team knows that it can reserve its energy for the playoffs.

By contrast, here are the lowest-seeded Stanley Cup finalists of the past 10 years.

• 2010 Philadelphia Flyers 7E
• 2009 Pittsburgh Penguins 4E (Won 4-3 over Detroit)
• 2007 Ottawa Senators 4E (Lost 4-1 to Anaheim)
• 2006 Edmonton Oilers 8W (Lost 4-3 to Carolina)
• 2004 Calgary Flames 6W (Lost 4-3 to Tampa Bay)
• 2003 Anaheim Mighty Ducks 7W (Lost 4-3 to New Jersey)
• 2000 New Jersey Devils  4E (Won 4-2 over Dallas)

Polyglots

A polyglot is a person who speaks several languages.  Here are some examples from Youtube:















This is cool to me that these people can speak so many different languages.  I have taken a few language classes, but due to many factors--not limited to but including lack of natural ability, a busy schedule, and overall laziness--I have only really been able to learn Portuguese, which I learned as a missionary in Brazil, and Spanish, which is widely spoken in the United States and which is close to Portuguese.

I think language learning is fun and has many benefits. One recent example of this happened when I started using the site Twitter.  On Twitter, one may search for current topics and read what people from around the world are saying about them.  I noticed that many Spanish and Portuguese speakers comment on some of the same topics and I am interested.  It feels cool to be able to understand what they are saying.  It also reminds me that the United States is just one piece of the world and that the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking populations of the world are significant.  Further, on the list of topics which are trending around the world, from time to time a topic appears in either Portuguese or Spanish.

More Cheating

In his speech at graduation, the valedictorian at Columbia University plagiarized material from comedian Patton Oswalt.  Here is a report about it.  From said report, here is a quote by Patton Oswalt:

"Brian Corman apologized to me. Flat-out admitted his thievery, his stupidity. Owned it all. Good man. Still makes me wonder what he might have done to become valedictorian -- I mean, if he's willing to steal material for something as inconsequential as a speech, how rubbery did his boundaries become when his GPA and future career were on the line? Oh well."

American Idol Upsets

Last night on American Idol saw another upset winner.  Alas, American Idol, while exciting and intriguing, ultimately has a flawed system for deciding its winner.  The trade off for this is that the show generates much more excitement.  It would be much more boring if the clear front runner was awarded the win by the judges, for example.  Fortunately for the runner up, it is debatable.

Here is a review of past American Idol upsets.

• Season 2: Ruben Studdard over Clay Aiken.
  From Wikipedia:
  "In an interview prior to season five, a statement by executive producer Nigel Lythgoe suggested that Aiken had led the fan voting from the wildcard week onward until the finale...Out of a total of 24 million votes, Studdard finished 134,000 votes ahead of Clay Aiken and there was discussion in the communication industry about the phone system being overloaded, and that more than 150,000 votes were dropped, making the voting suspect."
  Truth be told, I rooted for Ruben that season.
• Season 5: Taylor Hicks over Chris Daughtry
  Chris Daughtry appeared to be the heavy favorite to take home the title, yet he somehow lost in the final four.  He went on to have a ton of hits.  Taylor Hicks?  Not so much.
• Season 6: Jordin Sparks over Sanjaya Malakar.
  Jordin may have won the season, but I think I can speak for America in saying that Sanjaya won our hearts.  Sanjaya set that place on fire.
  
• Season 7: David Cook over David Archuleta
  David Archuleta was the front runner for most of the season, but truth be told, David Cook was better in the last half of the season.  We haven't really heard anything that great from either of them since.
• Season 8: Kris Allen over Adam Lambert
  Adam Lambert was by far the most talented one that season.  However, the votes came in and he was defeated in the final two.  In hindsight, his sexuality didn't win him favor with the American Idol fan base.
• Season 9: Lee DeWyze over Crystal Bowersox
  Just another example of the contestant who clearly was more talented not winning.  After so many upsets over the years, however, this doesn't phase me.
  

Quesclamation Mark‽

Some time ago I learned about the a nonstandard piece of punctuation called the interrobang (or alternately interabang or quesclamation mark).  There are times in writing when one wants to simultaneously exclaim and question.  In comic books and the like this situation leads to the use of a question mark and an exclamation point together--i.e. "?!".  This however is poor form in formal writing.  Therefore the interrobang was invented.  It is a question mark and an exclamation mark combined.

Worst Remix Ever

The first song is a nice song by David Bisbal.





I heard the second song on Mexican radio the other day. It is probably the worst remix of any song that I have ever heard. It is hypnotically terrible.





Update: This is now our wedding song.

What Does It Mean‽

This is a good song, but I have a question: What does it mean?

Boston 94, Orlando 71

The Boston Celtics won tonight to go ahead 3-0 in their playoff series.  The Celtics struggled the second half of the regular season, only winning about 50% of their games.  Orlando, on the other hand, had the second-best regular season record in the NBA.  Cleveland, the team Boston beat in the last round, had the best regular season record in the NBA.

The NBA tournament system works as follows.  The 30 teams each play a total of 82 games across the country over a period of 6 months.  The top 8 western teams and the top 8 eastern teams then enter a single-elimination tournament--that is, they go to the playoffs.  The teams are paired off and play a best-of-seven series.  The teams who had better regular-season records are awarded with weaker opponents and home-court advantage--that is, if a seven game series lasts a full seven games, four of the seven will be played on the home court of the better team. The winners advance.  The champion of the playoffs is declared that year's champion.

If a team's only major goal is to win the championship, then it appears that the optimal strategy may not be to try as hard as possible to win regular-season games.  The NBA season can be hard on a player if they have to play a lot in each of their team's games.  A good strategy would be to limit the amount of time that player would play, even if their team might perform better with them playing longer.  Additionally, a younger player may be given more playing time than their performance merits in order to give them more experience.  If all that matters is the playoffs, a good team would be well-served to focus on making their team as strong as possible and just try to win the playoffs.  The regular season seems to mostly serve to produce a profit.

A more satisfying system is the system most worldwide professional soccer leagues use.  A soccer league typically has a fixed number of games in which the teams play each other.  The team who does the best wins.  There isn't the high-stakes excitement of a playoff, but on the other hand (1) it is much more likely that the best team wins and (2) each game actually matters.

Cheating

1. I thought the following article about the story of Adam Wheeler was interesting.  In summary, Adam Wheeler lied and cheated his way to a scholarship at Harvard, and was only caught years later when he sent in a plagiarized essay on his Rhodes Scholar application.  One of my reactions was to wonder how many people like him are out there, only they haven't been caught yet.
2. I recently bought the book Freakonomics from the DI for $3.  One of the chapters deals with cheating.  One point at the end of the chapter was particularly striking.  It dealt with an innovative bagel selling business.  Bagels were delivered daily to various offices for sale to the employees.  A box was left and those in the office were expected to pay on the honor system.  The man who started this business was able to get payment rates around 90%.  It was clear, however, that all businesses were not the same as far as how honestly they paid for the bagels.  The most striking example to me was that of an office with three floors--an executive floor and two lower floors with sales, service, and administrative employees.  The floor that cheated the most was the executive floor, even though executives presumably can more easily spare the cost of a bagel.  The bagel business owner posited that this stemmed from an increased sense of entitlement.  The author of the book, however, suggested that they were executives because they cheated their way there.
3. I recently watched the latest season of Survivor.  The theme of the season was Heroes vs. Villians; past contestants were invited back based on either demonstrating outstanding heroic or outstanding villainous character. My favorite contestant--and clearly if not everyone's favorite, certainly the most entertaining contestant--was Russell, and he was a villain.  It's not really possible to "cheat" on Survivor, but if it were, Russell would have done it.  Through a Machiavellian strategy of lies and intimidation, he was able to avoid being voted out, making the final tribal council.  At this tribal council, the jury, composed of losing contestants, voted between him and two other people to see who would win the game.  Russell's strategy so angered his fellow contestants that he received no votes.  It appears "cheating" came back to bite him.  (Incidentally, America voted him the player of the season, thereby awarding him $100,000.)
4. In the Book of Mormon, it talks about "secret combinations".  Secret combinations are essentially corrupt secret organizations, like a gangs, mobs, etc.  In light of these thoughts about cheating, I see that one of the main characteristics of a secret combination is that its members are trying to cheat--break the rules of honest society in order to gain power and money.  Applying this to smaller scale situations, any time a person is cheating, they are forming their own secret combination.
5. I am currently working as a teaching assistant for an introductory statistics class.  The professor for this class seems a little more diligent about cheating compared with other professors I have worked for.  It is amazing how many people are cheating.  Students consistently try to pull schemes like having a smart friend take their exam in their stead, changing their answers on an exam and then asking for a regrade, etc.  What a sad situation.
6. May we take the high road and avoid cheating in all its forms.

A Blog?

I recently made a wedding website for my upcoming wedding.  I thought that it might be fun to keep up a blog.  Let's see if I can fill this thing up with interesting things to say.