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Author: Bryant

Man of straw

October 9, 2003
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Since I think this piece may make the rounds, some deflating is in order.

John Lott purports to have proven that the media is biased in favor of black quarterbacks. He claims that his research means that Rush Limbaugh was right. However, his research (whether or not it’s sound) is completely irrelevant when judging what Limbaugh had to say about Donovan McNabb. Limbaugh made a very specific claim about one quarterback in particular. Straw man fallacy.

Above and beyond that, his research is kind of shaky. Problem one: he only considered newspaper data. Justification? “[T]his is measurable and it is not clear why newspapers would be so different from the rest of the media.” That’s assuming the conclusion. Good research tests assumptions like that.

Problem two: the data on which he bases his report is flawed.

“We also collected data by week for each of the first four weeks of the season on a host of other factors that help explain the rate at which a player is praised: the quarterback’s rating for each game; whether his team won; the points scored for and against the team; ESPN’s weekly rank for the quarterback’s team and the opponent; and whether it was a Monday night game. In addition, I accounted for average differences in media coverage both in the quarterback’s city and the opponent’s city as well as differences across weeks of the season.”

Points scored against a team generally aren’t seen as the quarterback’s fault. A better metric would be the points scored off a QB turnover. Why is it important that it’s a Monday night game? Why are all these elements weighted equally? Are they weighted equally? Lott’s not saying.

Not atypical of the man.

Declare and depose

October 8, 2003
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It’s document time in the ongoing White Wolf v. Sony saga. First off, here’s Mike Tinney’s deposition as described here. At no extra charge, we’ll include Andrew Zaffron’s declaration. It covers more or less the same ground as did Mike Tinney, with a little additional commentary. Paragraph 8 is amusing.

Moving on to new material, we have declarations from Len Wiseman and Kevin Grevioux, two of the three guys who wrote the screenplay. (And of course Wiseman directed it.) Both note explicitly that “I had never heard of any of the Plaintiffs’ works before early in 2003, after the movie Underworld had been shot.”

I should grab Danny McBride’s declaration — he’s the other screenwriter — and I will at some point, but I don’t expect it to much differ. Thanks to Chris S. for hosting these PDFs.

While you slept

October 8, 2003
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Couple of things you may have missed in the excitement of the recall:

Condoleezza Rice is now in charge of Iraq. The State Department couldn’t get it done, and the Pentagon couldn’t get it done, so it’s the White House’s turn. Somewhat surprisingly, nobody told Rumsfeld.

Judge Brinkema decided that since Zacarias Moussaoui can’t introduce the evidence that might exonerate him, prosecutors can’t introduce evidence that might convict him. The government considered putting Moussaoui before a military tribunal, but perhaps realized that it might look as though military tribunals and the enemy combatant label were just terms of convenience. It kind of bothers me that the government is blowing the case against an admitted Al Qaeda operative — get the damned evidence out there and let’s see what’s what already.

Oh, and Arnold won. Cross your fingers that he lets Warren Buffet run the California economy. I don’t think that’ll happen, but honestly? It might just barely be worth the rest of it if someone as financially savvy as Buffet is getting California out of its budget problems.

More on fighting

October 7, 2003
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Just a little more on the Hudson story before I hit the bars for tonight’s game:

ESPN picked up the story. No additional info, though.

However, a guy named Andrew just called into the Ted Nation show on WEEI, and claimed to have been present. He said that a Red Sox fan picked the fight with Hudson, and that Hudson was a complete gentleman up till that happened — signing autographs, and so on. “Zito tried to calm Hudson down.” He said someone (wasn’t clear, but I guess the club bouncers) kicked the Red Sox fan out and got Hudson off into another room to calm him down.

So there you go.

Monday Mashup #12: I Am Legend

October 6, 2003
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Today’s Monday Mashup concept was contributed by Eric McErlain, who runs the excellent Off Wing Opinion. He suggested Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend some time ago, but I put off using it for a while because I thought it was a little close to Body Snatchers. But time has passed and here we are.

If you haven’t read I Am Legend, allow me to strongly recommend it. It’s the story of the last man on earth, beseiged by a horde of vampires. He defends himself, despite the fact that he has nothing to live for. In the end, he realizes that to the new society of vampires, he’s the legendary monster. My brief summary doesn’t do it justice, but it’s a start.

Mash!

Continue ReadingMonday Mashup #12: I Am Legend

Fight night Boston

October 6, 2003
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Boston Dirt Dogs has an email exclusive (will scroll off the front page after a day or so) on the Tim Hudson nightclub brawl. I’d be pretty pissed at Hudson if I were an Oakland fan.

Edit: David Pinto notes that the story is anonymously sourced. He’s got a point, but Boston Sports Media mentions that Steve Burton of WBZ’s Sports Final also reported the story Sunday night. The San Francisco Chronicle article ran on Monday and was not sourced by Steve Burton.

I believe they call this a developing rumor. Er, developing story. Yeah.

Killer R's

October 6, 2003
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Charles Kuffner is still the man for Texas redistricting news. At the moment, the Republicans can’t agree on a map. The Legislature has adjourned until Wednesday for Yom Kippur. They’ve missed the deadline for redistricting in time to get all the necessary changes made before the 2004 primaries, which means that if they want to redistrict now they have to reduce the importance of Texas in the presidential primary process.

Now, I suspect that the impending pressure of the end of the third special session (next Monday) may result in a deal before then. It’ll be very embarassing if Texas has to call a fourth special session to get this done, and it’ll probably squelch any possibility of the redistricting occuring before the 2004 elevtions, so I can easily see a few Republicans putting aside their redistricting differences.

But man. What a foulup on the part of Texas Republicans. Maybe redistricting was a bad idea to start with, huh?

WISH 67: Tell me

October 6, 2003
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WISH 67 is all about the story:

How do you tell stories in your games? Are there character stories, overarching stories, and/or other kinds of stories? Could you tell a coherent story from games you’ve GMed or played in? Does it matter to you? Why or why not?

I don’t ever strive to tell stories, but it’s nice when it happens. I’m really more interested in exploring the story space than I am in setting out to tell a story. I like it when things happen to my characters and I like it when my characters do things, but I find plotting for a story to be restrictive.

My characters sometimes have goals, but I regard those as plot hooks for the GM rather than indications of where the story must end. I expect goals to change in play. My goals in real life certainly do.

The Dear Brother letters are a solid example of this. Reese actually didn’t have a goal; he had a desire. He wanted to show America the true road. I didn’t know how it was going to play out, and in the end it’s been a little darker than I envisioned. People have told me that it works as a story, and I think it does, but that’s more because I’m making an effort to write the letters as stories — I’m subscribing to the conventions of fiction rather than gaming.

It means that sometimes I talk about things Reese didn’t see, and I take a few liberties here and there, and I leave out great swathes of things that make the campaign interesting. In the end, the differences between Rob’s campaign and my Dear Brother letters illuminate the differences between playing in a campaign — even a story-oriented campaign — and telling a story.