Wednesday, 3. October 2007, 20:12:37
statistics, health, life, conundrums
according to statistics from the
World Health Organization (WHO), the number of "
overweight" individuals has reached 1.6 billion, worldwide, as compared to the 800 million the WHO classifies as "dangerously malnurished"...
has humanity reached a tipping point, or is it just the planet we so lopsidedly inhabit that is tipping?
Wednesday, 11. July 2007, 04:38:19
mathematics, sports, statistics, pet peeves
not that i care, not that anyone cares, and definitely not that anyone cares whether i care or not, the current major league baseball rule which awards home-field advantage to the winner of the all-star game has never made sense to me (but then again, most of baseball's arcana is a mystery to me, not being a "numbers" person...
all that really means is that i'm a medievalist by training, not a statistician; in fact, in a glowing example of american education in action, i tested better for math at the age of 11 then i did at 16, a fall so precipitous that i wouldn't have gotten into a "decent" university, had not the earlier math test scores counted...
anyway, to return to the nub of my gist, now that the american and national leagues play each other in inter-league play twice a year, why isn't the question as to who possesses home-field advantage settled by overall total of inter-league wins -- if the american league beats more national league teams tham the national league teams beat american league teams, then shouldn't home-field advantage go to the league which had a better record against the other league...
wait a minute -- this is why i hate talking baseball -- it twists one around in knots (gregorian, if not gordian) and obscures simple facts such as shouldn't the team with the most victories in a season be awarded home-field advantage? purists say that the 2 leagues play under different rules, to which i counter that when national league teams play in american league parks, they do so under american league rules, while when an american league team takes the field in a national league park, they play under national league rules, so why not use overall inter-league play as the deciding factor? it would make such riviting games as colorado versus tampa bay actually mean something, other than a chance to see a star play, which before inter-league play, you could only do if your team got into the world series and faced that particular star's team, which even i can figure, is an unlikely event...
why the hell am i writing about baseball? i think it is part of my living will that if i do, the plug is to be pulled, and i am to be garroted with same...
