Reality-BasedTM Political Numbers from Nicholas Beaudrot
Electoral Math
Reality-BasedTM Political Numbers from Nicholas Beaudrot
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They're not kidding. It looks like every chef on the planet uses the Wustohof Santoku Knife. Somehow this gadget is useable for almost any form of cutting you'll do on a daily basis. I guess at that price, if it removes the need for every buying another knife again, it's worth it.
Memo to Bobby Cox: Trey Hodges is a better reliever than Roberto Hernandez. Jung Bong is probably better than Ray King. Also, Bong and Hodges are both perfectly capable of pitching for more than one inning. That is all. Sincerely, Nick.
We are drowning in information, but starving for knowledge. Tell me about it.
I just got my SABR membership today, and suddenly I understand the feeling of drowning in information. Simply reading through the chapter on . I had four main interests: minority players in the post-Jackie Robinson era; projecting the impact of the transition from A to AA baseball; determining which regions of the world are underscouted and which are overscouted; and how baseball should package it's product to become the biggest of the three major sports again. Suddenly, though, the connections each of these makes to the rest of the game makes doing any meaningful research look impossible. Take the race question. The first generation of post-Robinson black players certainly had heroes growing up. Who were they? Did they try to imitate their childhood idols' playing style? Were little leagues (or whatever youth baseball organizations were around at the time) available to them growing up? Did their playing style conflict with that of their managers? What were there experiences like the minor leagues, likely playing in smaller (read: whiter) towns while threatening the major league careers of white minor leaguers? SABR's reminder is that there are every question will leak into the entire sport of baseball; it's the job of the researcher to carve out a usefully sized question and filter through 100 years of baseball information to reach a conclusion.
So here I am, drowning and starving all at once. This was the first great piece of advice in SABR's guide "how to get published" guide for amateur and semi-pro baseball authors. The second is like unto it: Be yourself. That can be harder to do than it sounds. The act of simply trying to jot down a few vaguely coherent paragraphs two or three times a week has given me a healthy respect for those who write regularly for a living. The ability to transfer one's normal conversational is probably a combination of learned skill and innate ability. Like drawing a walk. I guess I'll see if I have what it takes or not.
At work, my feature was cut today. This being Microsoft, I can't comment on what I would have been working on, or what I'll be working on instead, or ... well ... anything I may or may not be doing. But, absent any specifics, it's a frustrating feeling to be cut. This is after the same feature was cut from the last milestone, so despite all the assurances that being cut is in no way a reflection on my abilities or lack thereof, I feel like that's just everyone being polite. Blech.
So nine months into my professional career, I still don't have the sensation of being a contributor in any way, other than what feels like a small number of bug fixes. And it's unclear what I'll have to show for it until we move on to the next version of the runtime. Compound this with general confusion as to how long I want to be in programming, and it makes for an extra large helping of apathy these days. At least the gray season is over.
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updated by Nicholas Beaudrot on 11:36 13 February 2005
