friedcheese.org

Oct 3, 2010
college football poll - week 5

LSU stays #1 after its improbable win over the Vols. Alabama’s demolishing of the Gators is enough for #2, and the Red River Rivalry victory is enough to push the Sooners into #3. A shaky win over the Gophers is enough for my Cats to maintain their #14 status, although they’re down to #3 in the Big Ten after being vaulted by Michigan and Iowa.

1 - LSU (5-0) (13.28515625) (1)
2 - Alabama (5-0) (12.9658203125) (7)
3 - Oklahoma (5-0) (11.828125) (12)
4 - TCU (5-0) (11.1484375) (8)
5 - Boise St. (4-0) (10.90234375) (15)
6 - Arizona (4-0) (10.77001953125) (5)
7 - Kansas St. (4-0) (9.8125) (4)
8 - Oregon (5-0) (9.640625) (NR)
9 - Michigan (5-0) (9.5408935546875) (17)
10 - Florida (4-1) (9.40625) (3)
10 - Auburn (5-0) (9.40625) (2)
12 - Stanford (4-1) (9.296875) (6)
13 - Iowa (4-1) (8.85400390625) (NR)
14 - Northwestern (5-0) (8.650390625) (14)
15 - Michigan St. (5-0) (8.59375) (18)
16 - Nevada (5-0) (8.5302734375) (13)
17 - UCLA (3-2) (8.5) (9)
18 - Virginia Tech (3-2) (8.1171875) (23)
19 - Missouri (4-0) (7.99169921875) (11)
20 - Ohio St. (5-0) (7.96875) (21)
21 - Oklahoma St. (4-0) (7.671875) (19)
22 - Temple (4-1) (7.5361328125) (NR)
23 - Mississippi (3-2) (7.3358154296875) (NR)
24 - Nebraska (4-0) (7.2333984375) (21)
25 - Texas (3-2) (7.125) (16)
dropped out: North Carolina St., Colorado, Southern California, South Carolina

Directed graph.
Sep 26, 2010
college football poll - week 4

UCLA moves into the top 10 after upsetting the previous #1 Longhorns, allowing LSU to slip into the top spot. Meanwhile, my ‘Cats continue their rise in the polls after an ugly win against the Central Michigan Chippewas.

1 - LSU (4-0) (9.3125) (4)
2 - Auburn (4-0) (8.3515625) (2)
3 - Florida (4-0) (8.09375) (7)
4 - Kansas St. (4-0) (7.60546875) (14)
5 - Arizona (4-0) (7.583984375) (9)
6 - Stanford (4-0) (7.48828125) (14)
7 - Alabama (4-0) (7.125) (12)
8 - TCU (4-0) (6.53125) (19)
9 - UCLA (2-2) (6.4765625) (NR)
10 - Southern California (4-0) (6.43359375) (4)
11 - Missouri (4-0) (6.421875) (19)
12 - Oklahoma (4-0) (6.1875) (8)
13 - Nevada (4-0) (5.8798828125) (19)
14 - Northwestern (4-0) (5.7890625) (17)
15 - Boise St. (3-0) (5.703125) (16)
16 - Texas (3-1) (5.578125) (1)
17 - Michigan (4-0) (5) (NR)
18 - Michigan St. (4-0) (4.90625) (3)
19 - Oklahoma St. (3-0) (4.625) (9)
20 - South Carolina (3-1) (4.59375) (9)
21 - Nebraska (4-0) (4.5) (6)
21 - Ohio St. (4-0) (4.5) (19)
23 - Virginia Tech (2-2) (4.40625) (NR)
24 - Colorado (2-1) (4.39453125) (19)
25 - North Carolina St. (4-0) (4.375) (NR)
dropped out: Kentucky, Texas Tech, Wisconsin, East Carolina, Utah

Directed graph.
Sep 20, 2010
college football poll - week 3

OMG my Cats make their friedcheese.org poll debut at #17 after toppling the Rice Owls!

1 - Texas (3-0) (5.21875) (3)
2 - Auburn (3-0) (4.75) (3)
3 - Michigan St. (3-0) (4.6875) (3)
4 - LSU (3-0) (4.5) (11)
4 - Southern California (3-0) (4.5) (1)
6 - Nebraska (3-0) (4.25) (11)
7 - Florida (3-0) (4) (3)
8 - Oklahoma (3-0) (3.9375) (11)
9 - Arizona (3-0) (3.75) (22)
9 - Oklahoma St. (3-0) (3.75) (3)
9 - South Carolina (3-0) (3.75) (1)
12 - Alabama (3-0) (3.5) (11)
13 - Texas Tech (2-1) (3.4375) (3)
14 - Kansas St. (3-0) (3.375) (NR)
14 - Stanford (3-0) (3.375) (NR)
16 - Boise St. (2-0) (3.3125) (NR)
17 - East Carolina (2-1) (3.25) (3)
17 - Northwestern (3-0) (3.25) (NR)
19 - Colorado (2-1) (3) (NR)
19 - Missouri (3-0) (3) (NR)
19 - Nevada (3-0) (3) (NR)
19 - Utah (3-0) (3) (11)
19 - Ohio St. (3-0) (3) (11)
19 - TCU (3-0) (3) (NR)
19 - Kentucky (3-0) (3) (11)
19 - Wisconsin (3-0) (3) (11)
dropped out: Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, BYU, Air Force, California, Michigan, Georgia, Iowa

Directed graph.
Sep 15, 2010
college football poll - week 2

Welcome to the 2010 season!

There’s barely enough data to do this business, but I started after week 2 last year, so what the hell. Here goes:

1 - Southern California (2-0) (2.75) (NR)
1 - South Carolina (2-0) (2.75) (NR)
3 - Michigan St. (2-0) (2.5) (NR)
3 - East Carolina (2-0) (2.5) (NR)
3 - Michigan (2-0) (2.5) (NR)
3 - Texas Tech (2-0) (2.5) (NR)
3 - Oklahoma St. (2-0) (2.5) (NR)
3 - Florida (2-0) (2.5) (NR)
3 - Texas (2-0) (2.5) (NR)
3 - Auburn (2-0) (2.5) (NR)
11 - Oregon (2-0) (2) (NR)
11 - Oklahoma (2-0) (2) (NR)
11 - LSU (2-0) (2) (NR)
11 - Alabama (2-0) (2) (NR)
11 - Utah (2-0) (2) (NR)
11 - Nebraska (2-0) (2) (NR)
11 - Ohio St. (2-0) (2) (NR)
11 - Kentucky (2-0) (2) (NR)
11 - Wisconsin (2-0) (2) (NR)
20 - Air Force (2-0) (1.875) (NR)
21 - BYU (1-1) (1.75) (NR)
22 - Hawaii (1-1) (1.5) (NR)
22 - Washington (1-1) (1.5) (NR)
22 - Arizona (2-0) (1.5) (NR)
22 - California (2-0) (1.5) (NR)
22 - Iowa (2-0) (1.5) (NR)
22 - Georgia (1-1) (1.5) (NR)

Imagine that, the two USC’s sharing the top spot.

Directed graph.
Jun 17, 2010
protected rivalries?

If the Big Ten splits East-West, I don’t see any need for a protected cross-division rivalry game. All the big rivalries would already be in-division. What if we have another split? Then it becomes more necessary. Let’s take my split from the last post. It breaks down pretty well:

Indiana-Illinois
Michigan State-Michigan
Nebraska-Iowa
Penn State-Ohio State
Purdue-Northwestern
Wisconsin-Minnesota
Jun 16, 2010
big ten divisions - the historic way

So I wrote my perl script in such a way that it would be easy to recalculate things with new data, i.e., anything other than my friedcheese.org rankings. Let’s use historical winning percentage, since everyone seems so gung ho about that when they argue for splitting up the Michigan/Ohio State/Penn State triumvirate.

Using figures from http://football.stassen.com/records/, we get:

East
Indiana, Michigan State, Nebraska, Penn State, Purdue, Wisconsin

West
Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State

Both divisions rock an average winning percentage of .584. This is less geographic than before, trading the Big Two for Nebraska and Wisconsin. A pure geographic breakdown gives a winning percentage of .615 in the east and .554 in the west.
Jun 16, 2010
big ten divisions - the friedcheese way

So, the Cornhuskers are in the Big Ten. Time to division up so we can have us a championship game. Personally, I’d love to see the geographic east-west split along the Indiana-Illinois border. Nice and simple, makes sense, preserves pretty much all the big rivalries. I like the fact that I can look at a map and figure out the (pre-last week) Big 12 and SEC divisions. The ACC, not so much.

But Jim Delaney says that the #1 priority for these divisions is competitive balance. So what would that be? Let’s use the friedcheese.org college football poll to find out!

Here’s how it works: Add up each team’s ranking from the last two seasons (the only ones for which data is available). Then, for each possible division split (of which there are (12 choose 6)/2 = 462), calculate the sum of the rankings of each division and compare. The division split with the smallest difference wins! Perl time…

And the winner is (611 total ranking on each side, i.e., 0 difference!):

East
Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue

West
Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin

Amazingly, this is exactly the geographic split with Indiana and Northwestern interchanged. The geographic split would give a total ranking of 720 in the east and 502 in the west. It’s like golf, and yes, Northwestern has been that much better than the Hoosiers these past two seasons.
May 20, 2010
geek code -- then and now pt. 2

Remember this post, which I said I would continue? I never said it would be soon . . . Nearly seven months later, here we go.

VMS: My 19-year-old self had no idea what VMS was. My 28-year-old self probably didn’t either, but at least was content that Unix (or, at least something Unix-like like Linux) was sufficient for his computing needs.
Politics and Social Issues: unchanged
Politics and Economic Issues: unchanged
Cypherpunks: My 19-year-old self had at least some passing interest in privacy issues. My 28-year-old self didn’t give a crap and was content with allowing our Facebook overlords to take over the world.
PGP: My 19-year-old self had never heard of PGP. My 28-year-old self probably hasn’t either, but, again, doesn’t really care that Facebook is probably selling his social security number to Laotian sex slave traders as I type this.
Star Trek: unchanged
Babylon 5: unchanged
X-Files: unchanged
Role Playing: My 19-year-old self was several years removed from his only role-playing experience, a 2-week D&D campaign at summer camp. My 28-year-old self fondly remembered his D20 Star Wars campaign which met weekly from 2003–2006.
Television: My 19-year-old self had never heard of HD. ‘Nuff said.
Books: unchanged
Dilbert: My 19-year-old self was only a few months removed from living with his newspaper-subscribing father and reading the funnies each morning before going to high school. My 28-year-old self hasn’t read a non-xkcd comic in months.
DOOM!: My 19-year-old self was obsessed with Quake 3 and had fond memories of playing old-school FPSs several years earlier. My 28-year-old self finally had accepted the fact that he sucks at FPSs and had made the switch to console JRPGs.
The Geek Code: unchanged
Education: My 19-year-old self was a freshman in college, and my 28-year-old self was a Ph.D. student. Some learndin’ apparently happened in that span.
Housing: My 19-year-old self lived in a dorm with lots of people around. My 28-year-old self was a hermit who only returned to his apartment from his office to watch Lost and poop.
Relationships: My 19-year-old self was delusionally involved in a relatively one-sided long distance relationship. My 28-year-old self hadn’t been on a date in like 5 years.
Sex: My 19-year-old self was a perverted male. My 28-year-old self, fortunately, was still male. While probably still perverted, he had accepted the fact that he wasn’t getting any.

And there we have it!
Apr 30, 2010
ten years of frying cheese

I just realized that I’ve been blogging for over 10 years. I haven’t had this domain that entire time. But still. Damn, yo.
Jan 18, 2010
college basketball poll on hold

Since there’s so much more data to deal with in college basketball than college football, the directed graphs are much larger, and it takes much more time to make the calculations necessary to generate my poll. Last week, I reached the threshold where it became no longer feasible to run the script on my little laptop. Consequently, the poll will be put on indefinite hold until I can find a more efficient algorithm and/or port the script to a faster language.

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