Re: Playoff Predictions 2006 - 2007

OK, now that we've all (well, all except for Spurs fans) had a summer
to allow the disappointment to dissipate, let's look back at the
results of the prediction contest. Now, I could come up with a
fiendishly clever scoring system, and implement it in your choice of
Matlab, R, or SAS (or any of a dozen programming languages), but it's
obvious from even a casual inspection that the winner is... Brian
Matthews, who correctly foresaw a San Antonio - Cleveland finals. Well
done, Brian. Now, in the past, Larry Coon would have tossed a twenty
in the direction of a charity of your choice in your honor; alas, in
these dire and fallen times you'll have to make do with a virtual pat
on the back, and the privilege of declaring yourself more foresightful
than the entirety of usenet for the next year.

For the rest of us, the predictions ranged from poor to pathetic.
Dallas being upset in the first round had much to do with that, and
Detroit coming up short didn't help either. None of the "experts"
earning their keep by prognosticating at various news media hinted at
the first, and few the second, so other than as a fan of the Pistons I
don't feel too bad, but still... one of the reasons I continue to post
contest predictions, long after the masses have migrated elsewhere, is
that I want to establish a long-term baseline of forecasts, and doing
it publicly helps keep things honest. The trend at present (with
admittedly only a few years data) is that the more basketball I've
watched, the worse my accuracy gets. Which possibly says something
about something. Or maybe not.

Btw, on the general subject of guessing the future, I've got a modest
collection of old Nostradamus books. To wit, books published in the
late 70's describing events to occur in the 80's, or released in the
late 80's, guaranteeing to unveil the events destined to occur in the
subsequent decade. They're such a hoot. E.g. according to Hewitt and
Lorie's _Nostradamus: The End of the Millennium_ Lady Diana will
become queen of England in 1991, on May 8, 1993 San Diego disappears
beneath the sea in a massive earthquake, (and all the California
refugees flee to Nevada, not Oregon or Washington), and we celebrate
the year 2000 with a manned landing on Mars. Thought you'd like to
know.
--
Working email address: <my first name> at <my surname> dot com.

In article <nf37f3h2l6apeegav0dlja4h958b4740mq@4ax.com>,
Kenneth DeMonn <inv@lid.invalid> wrote:

> For the rest of us, the predictions ranged from poor to pathetic.
> Dallas being upset in the first round had much to do with that, and
> Detroit coming up short didn't help either. None of the "experts"
> earning their keep by prognosticating at various news media hinted at
> the first, and few the second, so other than as a fan of the Pistons I
> don't feel too bad, but still... one of the reasons I continue to post
> contest predictions, long after the masses have migrated elsewhere, is
> that I want to establish a long-term baseline of forecasts, and doing
> it publicly helps keep things honest. The trend at present (with
> admittedly only a few years data) is that the more basketball I've
> watched, the worse my accuracy gets. Which possibly says something
> about something. Or maybe not.


I don't think anyone predicted Dallas would beat San Antonio in the WCF,
and that San Antonio would then beat the Bulls in the Finals.

Well, NO ONE EXCEPT ME!


> Btw, on the general subject of guessing the future, I've got a modest
> collection of old Nostradamus books. To wit, books published in the
> late 70's describing events to occur in the 80's, or released in the
> late 80's, guaranteeing to unveil the events destined to occur in the
> subsequent decade. They're such a hoot. E.g. according to Hewitt and
> Lorie's _Nostradamus: The End of the Millennium_ Lady Diana will
> become queen of England in 1991, on May 8, 1993 San Diego disappears
> beneath the sea in a massive earthquake, (and all the California
> refugees flee to Nevada, not Oregon or Washington), and we celebrate
> the year 2000 with a manned landing on Mars. Thought you'd like to
> know.


I sometimes pull out the VCR and watch on a scratch VHS tape a TV
special narrated by Charleton Heston made at the time of Gulf War I,
positing that Saddam Hussein was Nostradamus' third antichrist -- aka
"The Man In the Blue Turban". It turned out Hussein was just a damned
dirty ape instead.

On Fri, 21 Sep 2007 04:58:04 -0500, Granville Waiters' Ghost <x@x.x>
wrote:

>In article <nf37f3h2l6apeegav0dlja4h958b4740mq@4ax.com>,
> Kenneth DeMonn <inv@lid.invalid> wrote:

>> Btw, on the general subject of guessing the future, I've got a modest
>> collection of old Nostradamus books. To wit, books published in the
>> late 70's describing events to occur in the 80's, or released in the
>> late 80's, guaranteeing to unveil the events destined to occur in the
>> subsequent decade. They're such a hoot. E.g. according to Hewitt and
>> Lorie's _Nostradamus: The End of the Millennium_ Lady Diana will
>> become queen of England in 1991, on May 8, 1993 San Diego disappears
>> beneath the sea in a massive earthquake, (and all the California
>> refugees flee to Nevada, not Oregon or Washington), and we celebrate
>> the year 2000 with a manned landing on Mars. Thought you'd like to
>> know.

>I sometimes pull out the VCR and watch on a scratch VHS tape a TV
>special narrated by Charleton Heston made at the time of Gulf War I,
>positing that Saddam Hussein was Nostradamus' third antichrist -- aka
>"The Man In the Blue Turban". It turned out Hussein was just a damned
>dirty ape instead.

I too have a tape of a show, made a few years earlier, that says that
the Ayatollah Khomeini is Nostradamus's antichrist. Osama bin Laden
had his turn during the Gulf War hiatus. Others have claimed, during
the respective gentlemen's time in the spotlight, that it was Yasser
Arafat, or Moammar Gadhafi. And if we check, I suspect Gammel Nasser
probably got a mention as well.

Nonetheless, I can still only sit back and marvel at Nostradamus. I
mean, he predicted strife in the Middle East.
--
Working email address: <my first name> at <my surname> dot com.

In article <dc48f39lvfa56m25v6c6odo01d3oe5ei30@4ax.com>,
Kenneth DeMonn <inv@lid.invalid> wrote:

> >I sometimes pull out the VCR and watch on a scratch VHS tape a TV
> >special narrated by Charleton Heston made at the time of Gulf War I,
> >positing that Saddam Hussein was Nostradamus' third antichrist -- aka
> >"The Man In the Blue Turban". It turned out Hussein was just a damned
> >dirty ape instead.
>
> I too have a tape of a show, made a few years earlier, that says that
> the Ayatollah Khomeini is Nostradamus's antichrist. Osama bin Laden
> had his turn during the Gulf War hiatus. Others have claimed, during
> the respective gentlemen's time in the spotlight, that it was Yasser
> Arafat, or Moammar Gadhafi. And if we check, I suspect Gammel Nasser
> probably got a mention as well.


You know how Julius Caesar was said to weep at what a failure he was
when he thought of all that Alexander the Great had accomplished at the
same age? I sometimes do that when I acknowledge that I have not yet
been personally accused of being The Man in the Blue Turban.


> Nonetheless, I can still only sit back and marvel at Nostradamus. I
> mean, he predicted strife in the Middle East.


Not to mention that he did so only a few hundred years after the
Crusades. Who could have known?

Continuing a tradition that was old when Usenet was young...


*East*

BOS 4 ATL 0
DET 4 PHI 2
ORL 4 TOR 2
CLE 2 WAS 4

BOS 4 WAS 2
DET 4 ORL 3

BOS 4 DET 2


*West*

LAL 4 DEN 2
NOH 2 DAL 4
SAN 2 PHO 4
UTA 4 HOU 1

LAL 4 UTA 3
DAL 2 PHO 4

LAL 4 PHO 2


*Finals*

BOS 4 LAL 2


Note that predicting a championship for the Celtics gives me no
satisfaction whatsoever, and I would dearly love for the Pistons to
prove me wrong. And, I really haven't a clue about the West this
year... just tossing out numbers, basically.

Kenneth DeMonn <inv@lid.invalid> writes:

> Continuing a tradition that was old when Usenet was young...

A bit late, but...

> *East*

BOS 4 ATL 0
DET 4 PHI 3
ORL 4 TOR 2
CLE 4 WAS 3

BOS 4 CLE 1
DET 3 ORL 4

BOS 4 ORL 2

> *West*

LAL 4 DEN 1
NOH 4 DAL 3
SAN 4 PHO 3
UTA 4 HOU 2

LAL 3 UTA 4
NOH 3 SAN 4

SAN 3 UTA 4

> *Finals*

BOS 3 UTA 4

--
Henrik Grindal Bakken <hgb@ifi.uio.no>
PGP ID: 8D436E52
Fingerprint: 131D 9590 F0CF 47EF 7963 02AF 9236 D25A 8D43 6E52