Allerton's Point

Tebowmania = $$$

2012-01-10T08:50:00.005-05:00

Amid all the talk of "coincidences" relating Tim Tebow to the Bible verse that he has worn as eyeblack, John 3:16 (he threw for 316 yards vs the Steelers, 31.6 yards/completion was the highest in NFL playoff history, Ben Roethlisberger threw the game's lone interception on 3rd and 16), the one number that stands out is the game's TV rating for the final quarter-hour: 31.6.

It was the most watched NFL Wild Card game in almost a quarter-century, drawing 41.9 million viewers. By way of contrast, the record for a NFL Divisional Game is 43.5 million (Jets/Pats last year) and 111 million people watched last year's thrilling Super Bowl game between the Packers and Steelers.

Given that Tebow's 80-yard TD pass in OT on Sunday was the most Twittered, non-Japanese, event in history and Tebowmania is back in full effect, how many people are going to watch this Saturday night's tussle between the Denver Tebows and the Patriots? 50 million? 60 million?

All I know is that CBS executives did not foresee this happening when they ended up re-entering the NFL market in 1998 (after a 4-year hiatus) with the supposedly inferior AFC after losing the NFC to Fox in 1994. But come Saturday night, they sure will be happy they did.

Mitt Romney's View on Corporations

2011-08-12T12:49:00.008-05:00

Liberals and Democrats are having a field day with Mitt Romnhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifey's off-the-cuff remarks yesterday (responding to hecklers at the Iowa State Fair) that included this line: "Corporations are people, my friend."

Here's the entire exchange, as per the Washington Post:

ROMNEY: We have to make sure that the promises we make — and Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare — are promises we can keep. And there are various ways of doing that. One is, we could raise taxes on people.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Corporations!

ROMNEY: Corporations are people, my friend. We can raise taxes on —

AUDIENCE MEMBER: No, they’re not!

ROMNEY: Of course they are. Everything corporations earn also goes to people.

AUDIENCE: [laughs]

ROMNEY: Where do you think it goes?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: It goes into their pockets!

ROMNEY: Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People’s pockets! Human beings, my friend. So number one, you can raise taxes. That’s not the approach that I would take.

At a top level, Romney is right: corporations have been long treated by courts as independent "people", able to enter into contracts, commit torts, and -- perhaps, most important -- shield their investors from personal liability.

That's consistent with the Citizens United court's finding that corporations are entities that are subject to First Amendment protections: to paraphrase Romney's words, "Corps are people, too."(*)

(* - Robert Clark's seminal treatise, Corporate Law, declares that "One of the law's most economically significant contributions to business life, and one often ignored by lawyers because it generally generates less litigation than many other contributions, has been the creation of the fictional but legallly recognized entities or "persons" that are treated as having some of the attributes of normal persons." Sec. 1.2.3)

But read Romney's words again. He's actually not arguing that corporations are people, the way Dean Clark and the Citizens United court does.

Rather, he's arguing that corporations are made up of people. Every dollar that a corporation earns in profit is eventually paid to a real person, who owes taxes on that profit. And accordingly, Romney argues, corporation taxes should be reduced.

(We will put aside the political wisdom of Romney -- who's being painted as Mr. Corporation in the GOP primary, at least by Tim Pawlenty -- defending lower corporate tax rates.)

But under Romney's vision, corporations are little more than unincorporated associations: partnerships, if you will, who just happen to have stock tickers.

But if corporations are just the collection of people whom comprise them (i.e., stockholders), why should we grant them status as "legal persons"?

And why should the corporate shield on liability (the shield that kept Mr. Romney, and the rest of Bain Capital from suffering ill-effects from the bankruptcy of Ampad) be recognized?

To quote a different Supreme Court (albeit minority) opinion: "Taxes are what we pay for civilized society"

The "Secret" Site of NFL Talks is... Allerton Point

2011-06-24T11:22:00.003-05:00

AP would be remiss not to mention that the latest round of the "secret" NFL/NFLPA talks have been taking place in Hull, MA, at the Nantasket Beach Resort, which itselhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giff is a quick jog down Nantasket Ave. to Point Allerton.

New 1st Circut Decision on Confidentiality Provisions

2011-06-24T10:17:00.004-05:00

(Cross-posted at the Mass High Tech site)

The Young Tech Company's Introduction to the NLRA and Confidentiality

By Terry Klein and Matthew T. Henshon

“The National Labor Relations Act? I thought that was for Big Labor. What’s that got to do with my growing tech company?”

Potentially, a lot.

The First Circuit Court of Appeals has helpfully reminded employers in the private sector that the NLRA has a broader reach than they might think. Historically, the NLRA was enacted to protect the rights of employees and employers to engage in collective bargaining. It codifies the rights of employees to organize, establishes the National Labor Relations Board, governs union elections, and forbids certain unfair labor practices by employers and union organizations. Examples of such practices include employer interference in employees’ efforts to organize, an employer’s refusal to bargain with employee representatives (and vice versa), and conduct by unions that amounts to coercing employees to organize or employers to enter into collective bargaining agreements.

But the language of the NLRA is very broad, invoking a different era when many – if not most – employers faced the prospect of a unionized workforce. And that broad language could still apply to a “New Economy” company.

Earlier this week, the court issued a decision that could affect all employers that include confidentiality provisions in employment agreements, whether they are union shops or not. The court found that one such employer had engaged in an unfair labor practice when it terminated an employee for violating one such confidentiality provision. It did so in spite of the fact that the employer’s workforce was not unionized, and in spite of the fact that the employer was terminated for discussing the terms of his employment with one of the employer’s clients, as opposed to one of his coworkers. Employers that include confidentiality provisions in their employment agreements would be well served to review those provisions to ensure that they comply with the NLRA.

NLRB v. Northeastern Land Services Ltd. presented the First Circuit with the question of whether including a confidentiality provision in an employment agreement constituted an unfair labor practice. While a 2009 First Circuit opinion in the same case concentrated on NLRB procedure (and was vacated by the U.S. Supreme Court), the latest decision returns the focus to the substantive interplay between the NLRA and employee confidentiality agreements.

NLS is a temporary employment agency that supplies workers to companies in the natural gas and telecommunications industry. The employee who filed the unfair labor practices charge with the NLRB signed a temporary employment contract stating that he “understands that the terms of this employment, including compensation, are confidential to Employee and the NLS Group. Disclosure of these terms to other parties may constitute grounds for dismissal.” In connection with a dispute with NLS over reimbursable expenses, the employee notified the temp agency’s client that he would be offline until the dispute was resolved. NLS terminated him. He responded by filing a charge with the NLRB. It was undisputed that NLS had not terminated him for discussing the terms of his employment with fellow employees in connection with a union organizing effort, but instead for disclosing terms to a client. The First Circuit is silent as to whether other NLS employees were union members or were seeking to organize collectively.

The court nonetheless concluded that the provision at issue violated Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA and that by terminating an employee for violating the provision, the employer had engaged in an unfair labor practice. Stating the broader rule, the Court held that a confidentiality provision is unlawful if (1) employees would reasonably construe it to forbid organizing activity, (2) it was promulgated in response to union activity, or (3) the provision has been used to restrict the exercise of organizing rights. Firing an employee for taking issue with the terms of his employment, the court stated, “went to a prime area of concern” under the NLRA.

The First Circuit’s restatement of its 2009 decision should prompt employers to review employment agreements that include confidentiality provisions. While temporary employment agencies will certainly want to subject their agreements to close examination, other employers for which confidentiality provisions are important should also take note.

The court does not, of course, hold all confidentiality provisions to be automatically void. Narrow provisions that prohibit disclosure of “company business and documents”, for example, are most likely lawful. But, as the court decision makes clear, the mere inclusion of a confidentiality provision can violate the NLRA. And terminating an employee for acting contrary to the provision will constitute still another violation. In NLS’s case, the NLRB forced the company to rehire the employee and pay him damages related to his termination.

Technology companies are not fertile grounds for the type of union organizing that the NLRA is intended to protect, to be sure. But in the context of an employment dispute – say, attempting to enforce a non-compete provision against a former employee – an enterprising employee would be sure to use a broad confidentiality provision and a potential NLRA claim as leverage. Whether located in the First Circuit or not, businesses would be wise to make sure their confidentiality provisions are narrowly tailored to fit specific business needs.

Why No Talk of Suspension?

2011-05-09T08:56:00.006-05:00

After turning the ball over in the third quarter of Saturday night's game, a perhaps frustrated Dwayne Wade of the Heat proceeded to (i) grab Rajon Rondo and (ii) swing his legs under him, while throwing Rondo to the ground. It's Rondo's dislocated elbow that has gotten all the attention (with the video -- rated at least PG-13 -- here.)

Rondo got hurt on the play. Although he came back into the game, it's unclear whether he will be able to play tonight, in an important Game Four, and his one-armed effectiveness is definitely at issue.

Was Wade intended to hurt Rondo? It's clear that he intended to foul the Boston point guard, mostly like to prevent the kind of break-away that occurred later (after Rondo returned) off of a comatose Chris Bosh. (Although as Jeff Van Gundy notes on the telecast "the ball was already out of bounds.")

Moreover, it was not Wade's first foul, nor first overtly-aggressive play of the day, or the series.

In addition, the Heat themselves, doth protest too much after the game. Here's Wade: "We play this game as competitors..You never want to see anyone get hurt, no matter what it is, what kind of injury it is. Kudos for him for coming back." (emphasis added)

Wade yesterday: “It’s a physical game, the game of basketball is a physical game. I’m not a dirty player, it’s physical. Everyone falls to the ground, everyone gets hurt, people get up.”

Here's teammate LeBron James: "You definitehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifly don’t want to see anyone have freak injuries. The competitors that we all are, us against Boston, you definitely don’t want to see nothing like that happen. Injuries aside, you hope the best for him. You hope that it’s not as bad as it looked. You hope it’s not something that affects him long term."

Finally, Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra: “I’m not answering questions about that. I’m done with that. Moving on....It looked like a normal contact foul...[Rondo] just landed on it wrong. Those things happen. There was a lot of contact. Some of the plays were a lot more physical than that, where guys didn’t get hurt. Those are tough plays."

No flagrant foul was called on the play by the officials at the game. However, the NBA rule book permits the League Office to post-facto assess fouls as "Flagrant-1" or "Flagrant-2" fouls after the fact, making its assessment on factors including:

1. The severity of the contact;

2. Whether or not the player was making a legitimate basketball play (e.g., whether a player is making a legitimate effort to block a shot; note, however, that a foul committed during a block attempt can still be considered flagrant if other criteria are present such as recklessness and hard contact to the head);

3. Whether, on a foul committed with a player's arm or hand, the fouling player wound up and/or followed through after making contact;

4. The potential for injury resulting from contact (e.g., a blow to the head and a foul committed while a player is in a vulnerable position);

5. The severity of any injury suffered by the offended player; and

6. The outcome of the contact (e.g., whether it led to an altercation).

In the NHL, the players on the ice would tell an observer whether the foul (or hit, in hockey) was seen as a clean but unfortunate injury, or something more sinishttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifter. In baseball, we'd know the next time Wade came to the plate.

With no fighting, no beanballs, and no true enforcers in a post-Pacers NBA, the retribution -- if required by the Code of the Game -- will be more subtle. Celtics Coach Doc Rivers, perhaps already anticipating a tough-guy response from some of his players (mostly likely Kevin Garnett), tried to defuse the tension: "I don’t know if it was a hard foul...Let’s put it like this: He didn’t intend to hurt Rondo. I don’t honestly believe that 99 percent of cases in our league that the player ever intends to hurt anybody but he did. It just happens."

Notwithstanding Doc, watch what happens when Wade goes to hole tonight.

This series is about to get a lot more physical.

The Earth is Flat, Fairfield Edition

2011-04-05T12:01:00.042-05:00

Princeton's head basketball coach, Sydney Johnson, has left to take a similar position at Fairfield University.

And a Tiger Nation wonders why.

Time for an adult conversation.

Here's one reality: Sydney did a great job with a difficult hand. He turned a 6-23 team into one that won the Ivy title and took a Final Four team (Kentucky) to the last two seconds. He did it with class and made everyone associated with the team feel good about how he did it.

He also did it faster than the much-more-publicized Tommy Amaker did at Harvard (they both started four years ago) despite Harvard's stronger commitment -- both financially and with admissions, um, "flexibility".

So Tiger Nation can fairly be disappointed.

Here's the second reality: Sydney's chosen profession is coaching.

Princeton's basketball coach is normally paid (at somewhere in the low-to-mid $200s as widely reported) -- if he does his job correctly, and performs in accordance with historic norms -- below "market." And the market is moving upscale.

An aside: Yes, Pete Carril stayed at the school for 29 years despite winning multiple titles. But Coach Carril grew up in the 1930s in Bethlehem (PA), at a time when you were happy to have a job(*).

(*-Shades of players, decades later who, in Carril-speak, were "happy to have a uniform.")

But back to the current day. If you have the ability to find eight high-schoolers, convince them to come to your school, and turn them into a winning basketball team, you can make a lot of money.

A lotta lot.

Rick Pitino made $8M last year. 30 of the 68 coaches who took their teams to the NCAA this March earn $1M or more.

(Actually, make that 31: VCU's Shaka Smart just signed for 8 years at $1.2M/year.)

And the velocity at the top is increasing. Back to Carril: in the 1980s, the then-Kentucky coach (Joe B. Hall) probably made $750K, or 4x or 5x as much as the Princeton basketball coach.

In 2007 (the year Sydney started at Princeton), Kentucky hired Billy Gillispie for $2.3M per year. 10x.

Current Kentucky Coach John Calipari makes close to $5M per year. 25x.

And even beyond the dollars that the schools pay, the current "cult of personality"(*) that surrounds big-time college coaches provides plenty of other opportunities, from summer camp lectures to corporate retreats.

(*-A small point on this: the raised "NCAA custom court"(**) for the Final Four has resulted in even more (marginal) focus on the coaches. They are elevated above the rest of their bench, their coaching staff, even the official scorer. And since almost no single athlete plays all 40 minutes, they have literally the longest-running role on "center stage.")

(**-Not to get off on a tangent, but one does wonder: what does the "custom court" have to do with the NCAA's academic mission? And how much does it cost? Oh, and by the way, the NCAA owns at least 13 of them (8 opening round sites (mens) + 4 (womens regionals only) + the one in Dayton.)

See: John Thompson III, who left Princeton in 2004, is paid $1.8M/year and is featured in a national television commercial alongside Magic Johnson.

Meanwhile, and most relevantly for this discussion, it's clear that the dollars at the top of the pay scale are trickling down. The "mid-majors" -- George Mason, VCU, Butler, Richmond (with FoAP Chris Mooney) -- are willing to invest in their quality coaches(*), and give them long-term security (6 years for GMU's Larranaga, 8 years for Smart, 10 years for each of the other two).

(*-Whether this money is being found inside the athletic budget, or via outside (ie., special-purpose fundraising), and if the latter, how the schools' development offices feel about it, is an interesting question.)

It's not Rick Pitino money, but it's still a good living, and with more job security (i.e., a longer-term contract) than at some of the "BCS Schools."(*) That's what has changed in the past decade. As noted earlier with regard to Jeff Capel, the patience at the BCS schools is shorter.

(*-And unlike the Ivies, the Mid Majors offer the simplicity of offering athletic scholarships rather than hoping on the Princeton, say, Admissions Office for (i) an admit; and (ii) a financial aid package.)

We don't think of Fairfield as having a great recent basketball tradition, but frankly, who thought about Butler's tradition before last year? Or VCU's before last week?

Fairfield, by all accounts, was willing to invest in Sydney (query whether or not Fairfield can afford its investment, given its basketball revenue, but that's a problem for another day).

Indeed, by inking Johnson, Fairfield has raised its basketball visibility. Oh, and by the way, they are still in a major media market, and one that will be undoubtedly thinking -- and reporting -- more about the Stags (and probably the rest of the MAAC(*) as well.)

(*-Indeed, with its core Jesuit institutions -- and local, traditional rivalries -- the MAAC is starting to look more-and-more like the old Big East did when it was started in the late 1970s.)

And while at Princeton, Johnson was "just another" representative of the school, he's likely to be The Face of Fairfield(*) - the school, not just the basketball team.

(*-Johnson's photo is currently on the front-page of Fairfield's website, above the "fold". One doubts that the new Princeton coach -- whomever he is -- will get the same attention.)

(Quick quiz: Name the most prominent Fairfield alum.)

(Answer: Probably, Buddy Cianci.)

And he's likely to have a direct line into the President's office. Rev. Jeffrey von Arx, S.J. is a 1969 Princeton alum.

As the NCAA basketball world is now "flat" (in Seth Davis' words -- sort of), it's a reasonable -- if not expected -- move. (Davis' point is that, in a one-and-done era, the gap between BCS-elite teams fielding frosh and sophs and a mid-major built around veterans has shrunk. On four different occasions in the last six Final Fours, Mid Majors have appeared (GMU (2006), Butler (2010 & 2011) and VCU (2011).))

Realistically, the foreseeable NCAA ceiling on the Ivy League is probably the Sweet Sixteen, which Cornell reached last year, not the Final Four or even the Round of Eight. In the 31 years since Penn went to the Bird-Magic Final Four, only 7 Ivy teams have won a single game in the tournament. Only the aforementioned Cornell team won in the Round of 32.(*)

(*-The 1983 Princeton team won two games, but the first game was a "Preliminary"/Play-in, hence they did not reach the Sixteen.)

In the last ten years, the MAAC has won four NCAA first round games(*), although it has not sent a team to the Sixteen in its history (begun in 1983-4). (By the way, Sydney's inheriting a team that was 25-8 and has 4 starters returning.)

(*-Niagra also won a play-in game in 2007, but was blitzed by #1-Kansas in the First Round.)

And while Princeton may seem like a great place to live and raise a family, there are any number of residents -- many of whom work on Wall Street -- who seem to find Fairfield County perfectly acceptable.

Is Princeton-to-Fairfield a move that we expect?

No, but in this world-is-flat time in college basketball, we shouldn't really be surprised.

#NCAAChamp "Tweets" (on Facebook)

2011-04-04T21:18:00.001-05:00

10:05 #NCAAChamp. Matt Howard and Mack do 15 small things each game to help BU win...

9:47 #NCAAChamp This game to be played in the 40s?!?!?

9:42 #NCAAchamp. Offensive rebounds killing Butler late first half

9:35 #NCAAchamp. Butler doubling the high ball-screen, not help-and-recover. New look for Butler ( andUConn?)

9:15 #NCAAChamp. We'll know early. If Butler's defensive physicality can handle UConn's speed, then the Bulldogs have a good chance. And that means -- unlike most underdogs -- Butler wants the refs to "let them play"

Thoughts on Championship Monday

2011-04-04T19:31:00.004-05:00

A few "mind droppings" on the eve of the NCAA Championship:

* Over/under. If you had surveyed the thousands in Indy a year ago, and told them one of these two teams (Duke or Butler) would be back in the Final a year later, how many would have guessed the Bulldogs?

And what if I told you that Gordon Hayward -- Butler's best player and a Top-10 NBA pick -- was going to leave early? What would you say then?

* Hayward. Speaking of Hayward, what thoughts are going through his mind tonight -- as the 36-41 Jazz -- winding down a lost season -- prepare to play a meaningless game against the Lakers tomorrow?

Surely he's rooting for his former teammates, and might even be in Reliant Stadium tonight. But he's averaging 4.5 points per game (only 15.5 minutes per night) for a non-playoff bound team. How much would he pay to be back on the floor for "one shining moment"?

And by how many would the Bulldogs -- underdogs by 3.5 as of game time -- be favored if Hayward could suit up?

* The shadow of Jeff Capel. Shaka Smart's decision to stay at VCU is the latest in a series of decisions for mid-major coaches to remain at their (comfortable, and grateful) mid-major schools. In the last 12 months, we've seen Brad Stevens (Butler) and FoAP Chris Mooney (Richmond) chose to stay home, rather than make the jump to "high-major."

Perhaps the easiest way to explain this is by pointing to Jeff Capel. In 2006, Capel was the "hottest mid-major" coach. Coming out of Duke, he jumped to Oklahoma and proceeded -- in his third year -- to take a Blake Griffin-led Sooners team to the Elite Eight. Two years later -- despite a 96-69 record -- it's over. Thanks for the memories.

Yes, the high major life is "The Life."

But you had best win. And win now.

Updated: Most Memorable NCAA Semifinal Games, Part II

2011-03-30T15:44:00.007-05:00

Back in 2007, in connection The New Republic, I put together the "Most Memorable NCAA Semifinal Games" since 1979. With four more Final Fours since that list, and with two highly-anticipated semifinals approaching on Saturday, it's time to update the list.)

Just as a reminder, this list is only for semifinal games, not Championship games. So no Jimmy V looking for someone to hug, no Keith Smart from the corner, no Mateen Cleaves dancing (although that looks like the start of another list...)

The list also begins in 1979, the year of the Bird-Magic final. That year’s Final Four was memorable for other reasons, as it featured not one, but two Cinderellas (Bird’s Indiana State, although a #1 seed, was from a mid-major conference; and #9 Penn), as well as another team (DePaul) that looked as though it was on the verge of becoming the dominant force in college basketball in the early 1980s. With Mark Aguirre (who was the NBA’s #1 overall pick in 1981) and Terry Cummings (#2 overall in 1982), the Blue Demons were derailed by UCLA in 1980 (UCLA eventually played in the National Championship that year), and then stunned by St. Joseph’s in 1981 in an early round game – albeit underappreciated today – that surely ranks among the greatest upsets in NCAA history.

This year's Final Four also features two mid-majors, Butler (back for the second straight year -- and making the most of it with a memorable semi-final a year ago) and Virginia Commonwealth.

Without further ado, Numbers 5 through 1:

5. (#1) Michigan 81 / (#1) Kentucky 78 (OT) (1993)

A year removed from the heartbreak of the ‘Laettner game’, Kentucky’s Rick Pitino brought a hungry and talented team to New Orleans, with players such as Jamal Mashburn, Travis Ford, and Jared Prickett, and an average margin of victory of 31 in its four NCAA tournament games. But Michigan’s Fab Five – Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson –were not only one of the best recruiting classes ever, but a still-influential fashion statement: they invented – or at least widely popularized – the baggy-short-look for colleges.

Facing a double digit deficit with 14 minutes left, the Wildcats started pounding the ball to Mashburn, and eventually tied the game with 1:26 left in regulation. But when ‘Mash’ fouled out, Pitino had to mix-and-match lineups in the extra period; finally with four second left in the OT, and Michigan clinging to a 3-point lead, Webber made two straight deflections on in-bound plays, including a ‘heads-up’ second one from the baseline where he tipped the ball back towards mid-court, forcing a desperation heave by Kentucky’s Tony Delk that fell short.

But like Freddie Brown in 1982, Webber’s reputation as a crafty end-of-game player would last just 48 hours.

Interesting sidenote: the 1993 Final Four featured three #1s (Michigan, Kentucky, and UNC) and one #2 (Kansas) – the best ‘chalk’ ever.

4. 1984 (both games)

(#1) Georgetown 53 / (#1) Kentucky 40

At halftime, the budding Georgetown dynasty was at risk. The Hoyas had suffered through two scoring droughts of more than 5:00 minutes in the first half, trailed at one point 27-15, and more importantly, had their franchise center, Patrick Ewing, saddled with three personal fouls.

But coming out for the second half, it was Kentucky who went cold. The Cats went scoreless for the first 10 minutes of the second half, scored 2 points, then went another 7 minutes without another score. The whole crowd – including Georgetown fans – cheered when the Cats ended the worst drought in Final Four history.

Interesting sidenote: this game was only the second-biggest disaster that Kentucky’s Sam Bowie (was involved with during 1984, although he was only an innocent bystander in the June meltdown in Portland.

(#2) Houston 49 / (#7) Virginia 47 (OT)

Before there was a “Ewing Theory”, there was a “Sampson Theory.” In 1984, Virginia looked to be undergoing a rebuilding year, having lost 3-time college player-of-the-year Ralph Sampson to graduation the year before; but after going to just one Final Four with Sampson (in 1981), Othell Wilson took an undermanned and undersized team to the brink of the title game.

Houston’s Guy Lewis – the 80s coaching version of Dick Cheney – had seemingly learned nothing from his experience in 1983 (see below). The entire game was played at UVA’s slow, patient pace, despite Houston’s superior athleticism. In the last minute of regulation, the Cougars turned the ball over three times without a call of timeout, and barely escaped the NC State-esque ending. Georgetown would overpower Houston two nights later, however.

3. NEW (#1) Kansas 84 / (#1) North Carolina 66 (2008)

The only time all four #1-seeds advanced to the Final Four, although Kansas had to hold off the ultimate Cinderella (#10-Davidson) in the Elite Eight game to get there. The Kansas/UNC game itself was played at a high level, with Kansas sprinting out to a 40-12 lead, withstanding a furious UNC rally that closed the gap to a mere 4 points (54-50 with 11 minutes left in the game), and finally pulling away to the final margin.

What makes this game so memorable, however, is the announcer. Billy Packer had called every Final Four in the Magic-Bird era (actually, every FF since 1975), and was the defining voice of the Final Four. But at the same time, he seemed to court controversy, especially with regard to rising Mid-Majors like St. Joes (in 2004) and George Mason (in 2006).

The final straw came for Packer in the middle of the Kansas first half run. With the score 38-12, Packer declared the game "over" as the broadcast cut to commercial break. Although UNC eventually lost, the game was in fact, a long way from over.

But Packer's career was. Three months after the game, Packer was replaced by Clark Kellogg.

2. (#2) Duke 79 / (#1) UNLV 77 (1991)

[No video available]

A year removed from a 103-73 pasting in the Championship Game from the same Runnin’ Rebels (like Florida this year, the core of the UNLV team returned as defending champs), Duke ended a 45-game winning streak and ended talk of ‘greatest team of all time.’

UNLV had rolled through the regular season and the early rounds of the NCAA Tournament with an average victory margin of 29, and had rarely been involved in a tight game. And when point guard Greg Anthony fouled out late in the second half, the Rebels were suddenly rudderless in the closest game they had played in close to two years. Bobby Hurley, the slightest man on the court – and who, along with Christian Laettner, helped put the “detest” in “Duke” for many – belied his reputation (to that point) as a poor shooter by burying a huge 3-ball with a little over two minutes remaining to bring Duke within 2. Brian Davis then gave Duke the lead, with a conventional three-point play, and the UNLV reign ended in a haze of missed foul-shots (Larry Johnson went 1-3 from the line), and a botched last-second ‘play.’

Two nights later, the Blue Devils escaped the can’t-win-the-big-one tag by beating Kansas for the National Championship. A year later they repeated, a feat that the Gators are seeking to match in Atlanta.

1. (#1) Houston 94 / (#1) Louisville 81 (1983)

Phi Sla(m)ma Ja(m)ma vs. the Doctors of Dunk. Thought to be the ‘real’ championship game (especially since the other semifinal featured two low seeds (#6 NC State vs. #4 Georgia).

And the game delivered. Referee Hank Nichols calls the game “The Blitzkrieg.” At one point, there were 11 dunks in 14 minutes. A note that was passed down press row during the game: “Welcome to the 21st Century.”

An end-to-end game in a real college gym (not a dome) that featured (H)Akeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, Michael Young, Larry Micheaux, and Alvin Franklin for Houston and Milt Wagner, Rodney McCrae, Scooter McCrae, Billy Thompson (one of the first ‘super frosh’), and Lancaster Gordon for Louisville.

When Houston’s sixth man, Benny (called “The Outlaw”, but who would have fit in on the Jackson’s Victory tour) Anders, was asked, in the post-game interview room, about “one of the dunks” he had to ask, “which one?”

Of course, earlier in the season Anders had said, “I like the dunk. It’s a high percentage shot.”

This is a must-Tivo on ESPN Classic, if you have the opportunity.

Interesting sidenote #1: Houston starter Micheaux fouled out with 13:28 left because Guy Lewis didn’t know he had four fouls; two nights later in the final against NC State, Lewis made the same mistake when Drexler picked up his fourth foul with 2:38 left in the first half!

Interesting sidenote #2: In her story after the NC State victory in the final, then-Boston Globe reporter Lesley Visser asked rhetorically about Lewis’ decision to slow the pace midway in the second half:

Why, they asked, did Houston coach Guy Lewis, a man who had coached for 27 years, signal for a stall when the team led by seven points with 10 minutes left? Or, as one coach said in a bar after the game, "Ninety-thousand dollars of recruiting on the floor and he has them play like Princeton.

Interesting Sidenote #3: The toughest of all of the Cougars, Larry (“Mr. Mean”) Micheaux is now a high school teacher in Stafford, Texas. You never know.

I couldn’t include every great game, or memorable moment in this list. A few that ‘just missed’: Duke 81 / Indiana 78 (1992), Coach K vs. Bob Knight (“The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master.”); or Duke 70 / Florida 65 (1994), giving Grant Hill the chance to win three titles; or Kentucky 86 / Stanford 85 (OT) (1998). And of course, without semifinal wins like NC State over Georgia in 1983, or Villanova over Memphis State in 1985, the memories of those respective Finals would have a different flavor.

But here’s hoping that this weekend’s games add a few more memories to this list.

Updated: Most Memorable NCAA Semifinal Games Since 1979

2011-03-29T09:09:00.004-05:00

The Big East's Downward Trajectory

2011-03-22T09:00:00.004-05:00

Big-East haters, including Charles Barkley, have been having a field day over the past two days. After receiving a record 11 bids (albeit to an expanded 68-team field), the Big East has gone quietly, with just 2 of its teams (#3-seed UConn and #11-seed Marquette) surviving the first weekend to make it to the Sweet Sixteen.

And while the 11 bids may have been deserved -- perhaps most convincingly because of the general mediocrity in the rest of what became the #1-seeds(*) in the NIT field -- the BE performance has been bad. And it's part of a pattern.

(*-The NIT #1 seeds, which presumably were the "last four out" of the NCAA field -- as the NCAA now owns the NIT -- were: Alabama (21-11, #45 on KenPom, Boston College (20-12, #69), Colorado (21-13, #56), and Virginia Tech (21-11, #32.))

A year ago, the Big East sent 8 teams, which led all conferences. While West Virginia did make it all the way to the Final Four, the rest of the league did not do particularly well: only 2 teams made it to the Sweet Sixteen (WVU and Syracuse, who was beaten by eventual national runner-up Butler.)

In 2009, however, it was a better story: just 7 Big East teams (nonetheless tied with the ACC and Big Ten for most by a single conference), with 5 advancing to the Sweet Sixteen; both UConn and Villanova went to the Final Four, and but-for a tremendous defensive performance by Michigan State (throttling Louisville), the Big East may have matched its record(*) of sending 3 of the 4 teams to the Final Four.

(*-Culminating in one of greatest Finals ever, Villanova over Georgetown. St. John's also went; the other team: a Dana Kirk-coached Memphis State (nee Memphis.))

The lesson? The Big East may have become "too" good. The competition among the various programs to reach the elite level -- to be an at-large Tourney selection -- has meant that many of the programs have upgraded their coaching and commitment (most notably, St Johns this year, which went 21-12 after playing .500 over the past two years.)

With eleven legitimate Tournament teams, almost every game in the Conference was played at a high level. And the wear-and-tear may have produced entertaining league games (and a memorable Big East Tournament) but a wash-out on the game's biggest stage.

Reuters: Why no Robots in Japan's Nuke Facility?

2011-03-17T10:51:00.002-05:00

[Cross-posted at ST-AIRC Blog)

Reuters is running a story wondering why Japan -- where robots are used much more extensively then in the US -- no robots are available to help solve the nuclear emergency at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant.

Japan a Robot Power Everywhere Except at Nuclear Plant
By Jon Herskovitz

TOKYO, March 17 (Reuters) - Japan may build robots to play the violin, run marathons and preside over weddings, but it has not deployed any of the machines to help repair its crippled reactors.

While robots are commonplace in the nuclear power industry, with EU engineers building one that can climb walls through radioactive fields, the electric power company running Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi plant has not deployed any for the nuclear emergency.

Instead, its skeleton team has been given the unenviable and perhaps deadly task of cooling reactors and spent nuclear fuel on their own, only taking breaks to avoid over-exposure...

Christmas in March

2011-03-17T09:18:00.009-05:00

There's plenty to be depressed about around the world.

Japan. Bahrain. Libya. The Deficit. The Economy.

And here in New England, the winter has been one of the snowiest and longest in recent memory.

Yet, with the dawn of the "real" opening day(*) of the NCAA Tournament -- and on St. Patrick's Day, no less -- it's truly Christmas in March, at least for those of us who love basketball.

(*-The NCAA's "First Four" notwithstanding. In reality, most people (and more importantly, most bracket pools) have ignored the four games played over the past two nights.)

The tournament has changed over the years. When I was in grade school, there was no "Selection Show", no ubiquitous printable brackets. On the Thursday of the first week, Sports Illustrated would arrive with a stapled-in insert (often sponsored by Camel Cigarettes) with my first look at the bracket as a whole. (The Springfield Union-News would publish the matchups in agate type, with the Second Round indicated only as "Saturday, 2pm: Game #7 Winner vs. Game #8 Winner")

But I would race home breathlessly after school, flip on a nascent ESPN (cable had arrived the year before, and ESPN was one of the 13 channels that were included) and watch Reggie Lewis lead a Jim Calhoun-coached Northeastern squad against LIU. Like Opening Day of a baseball season, there's no substitute for watching real-live sports in the afternoon -- and in a game that matters.

Over the years, I was lucky enough to be a small part of three First Round weeks: in 1989, 1990, and 1991. The memories of those weeks -- and in particular the "what-might-have-been" at the end of each of those games, decided by a total of 7 points -- will be with me as long as I live.

But what is most interesting is not that the memories of the Tournament would stick with me -- a role player on a mid- or perhaps low-major team. Even Kenny Anderson, a high school phenom, #2 overall pick in the NBA draft, and who played 858 games(*) in the Association -- thinks back fondly on his days in his only NCAA Tourney. And it's nice to see a player like Wisconsin's Jordan Taylor -- a player whose NBA prospects are not at all certain -- be able to reflect on the tourney even as it happens: "This is one of the best times of the year. Probably better than Christmas for a lot of us."

(*-If you don't think 858 games in the NBA is a lot, check out the all-time list. If you are even a casual sports fan, you will recognize the vast majority of the names above Kenny (for sure once you get above 1,000 or so), and you can probably bring an image of each player on that list.)

Of course, what really makes today is our discovery of Cinderella: the unheralded small school that can take down a Major. It happens every year -- almost -- but even still some are more amazing then others. In 1996, Princeton took out the defending NCAA champs in a nail-biter; Sean Gregory (also a former Tiger player) wrote a terrific retrospective in Time Magazine about the inside story-behind-the-story.

So enjoy today. And tomorrow.

By Sunday evening, the clock will probably have struck midnight for all of the Cinderellas, and we'll be (most likely) back to the BCS heavyweights for the Sweet 16. You know, the ones you've projected in your pool.

But for now, hope springs eternal. And unlike baseball, you only have to wait 40 minutes -- not 162 games -- to see it rewarded.

NASA's R2 Robot Unveiled

2011-03-17T09:13:00.002-05:00

[Cross-posted on ST-AIRC blog]

NASA's R2 Robot was unveiled yesterday on board the International Space Station. The robot will assist astronauts inside the ISS, although it will still be in testing mode through the summer (testing begins in May).

For more see this article.
At the NASA site.

A Sampling of IBM Watson News over the Weekend

2011-02-22T11:19:00.002-05:00

[Cross-posted on ST-AIRC Blog]

IBM has inked a deal with Nuance to apply Watson's Jeopardy-winning Deep Question Answering technology to health care.

IBM’s Watson Jeopardy Stunt Unleashes a Third Great Cycle in Computing

NY Times' Stanley Fish -- not very impressed with Watson

Stephen Baker, author of “Final Jeopardy: Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything” on the impact of IBM's Watson

TED-cast by Stephen Baker

More Follow-up From Watson

2011-02-18T11:05:00.002-05:00

A sampling of four new articles following upon on Watson's victory in Jeopardy!

Professor Oren Etzioni, the director of the UW Turing Center, on the match:

It didn't surprise me that Watson won. In fairness there are some small things in the game that give it an advantage, like the time that it has to process -- it sees the clue instantly, it gets transmitted via text, and then it's told when it can buzz in. So it has a number of these small advantages and particularly last night it was often winning on time.

Watson as the beginning of a new kind of search engine?

Etzioni says he expects natural-language software to make a big dent in search applications over the next five years, although at the moment systems such as Watson aren't ready for 'prime time': he notes that Microsoft bought a natural-language processing company called Powerset in 2008 for US$100 million, "but you don't see Microsoft using it in any visible way". Kautz agrees that systems as broad and powerful as Watson could be available for general use "surprisingly soon. Let's say three to four years."

Ken Jennings on his Watson experience:

I expected Watson's bag of cognitive tricks to be fairly shallow, but I felt an uneasy sense of familiarity as its programmers briefed us before the big match: The computer's techniques for unraveling Jeopardy! clues sounded just like mine. That machine zeroes in on key words in a clue, then combs its memory (in Watson's case, a 15-terabyte data bank of human knowledge) for clusters of associations with those words.

Gary Kasparov on playing chess alongside - rather than against - a computer:

Having a computer partner also meant never having to worry about making a tactical blunder. The computer could project the consequences of each move we considered, pointing out possible outcomes and countermoves we might otherwise have missed. With that taken care of for us, we could concentrate on strategic planning instead of spending so much time on calculations.

Coca-Cola's Secret Formula: its Brand

2011-02-17T15:20:00.007-05:00

When an entrepreneur starts a new company, one of the first things he(*) worries about is how to protect his new idea. And usually the choices are two: file a patent, or keep it under lock-and-key as a trade secret.

(*-or she, but we'll keep the masculine only here)

The trade-off for patents is clear: in exchange for a 17-year monopoly, the inventor has to disclose his methodology (or other invention) to the world, so that others can build off his patent. Indeed, the entire patent regime is is like a giant Jenga puzzle, with almost each patent "built" in effect upon previously-issued patents.

Trade secrets are the opposite: the inventor makes a decision that protection of the idea would be better served by keeping it private. Although there are some legal protections for stolen trade secrets (for instance, claims for misappropriation or theft, or unfair competition law), but even if an inventor insists on a non-dislosure agreement, if the secret is valuable enough, he may not be able to recover full damages from a breaching party.(*)

(*-The breaching party, even if insured, may not have assets large enough to make the inventor whole, for instance.)

For years the gold standard in trade secrets was the formula for Coca-cola. Urban legend has claimed that the only copy was held in the vault at the SunTrust bank in Atlanta, and that only two Coke executives (at any one time) had access to the document.

But in 1979, a columnist for The Atlanta Journal and Constitution ran an article that identified a ledger book with a formula for "Merchandise 7x"; over the weekend, the popular NPR radio show "This American Life" re-awakened interest in the 1979 story -- and the formula that goes with it. It is currently a viral sensation on the web -- this year's Susan Boyle.

The reality is that the formula -- or something very much like it -- has been "out" in the public domain for years. Type in "coca-cola formula" into a search engine and you'll find a number of recipes that will probably come very close to the taste.

But after a century of making the soda, Coca-cola now relies on a different intellecual property tool to protect itself: its trademarked brand. And trademarks don't expire (if subject to continuous use).

A lot of drinks may taste like Coke.

But only one can call itself (legally) the "Real Thing."

Machines 2, Humans 0

2011-02-17T11:43:00.007-05:00

Building on its defeat (through Deep Blue) of chess master Gary Kasparov in 1997, IBM's AI team was a big winner last night with Watson storming from behind to win for the third night in a row, and dominating lead total of $77,147 for the week, more than the two humans combined. Ken Jennings finished second with a three-day total of $24,000 and Brad Rutter was third with $21,600.

Watson seemed to be off-its-game early, trailing for much of the first half of the game. But perhaps it was a machine version of "Rope-a-Dope": when "Double Jeopardy" began, Watson answered 18 of the 29 questions, ensuring its win.

Jennings finished the evening with a message as part of his "Final Jeopardy"
written answer:

"I for one welcome our new computer overlords."

Some analysis of how Watson "heard" the answers.

What Watson's victory means: Link

And an interview with IBM engineer: Link

Man-vs-Machine (3)

2011-02-16T11:13:00.001-05:00

In Day Two of Man-vs-Machine Jeopardy!, IBM’s Watson dominated much of the show, answering 13 of the first 15 questions correctly and leading with $ $35,734 to $10,400 for all-time money leader Brad Rutter and just $4,800 for Ken Jennings.

In fact, but for its answer on Final Jeopardy (when it answered “Toronto” even though the category was U.S. Cities, and the clue was “Its largest airport was named for a World War II hero; its second largest, for a World War II battle.” With its answer, Watson showed the slightest bit of, um, fallibility.), Alex Trebek may have had to “stop the fight”… as it is, Jennings and Rutter will have a final chance tonight.

As they say, check local listings…

IBM’s Watson team offered this analysis of the Final Jeopardy mistake from last night. Meanwhile, IBM’s General Counsel, Robert C. Weber, offered this view of why Watson matters to the legal profession:

And here’s a PBS Newshour piece on the development of Watson, which also covers some of the history of AI:

Man-vs-Machine (2)

2011-02-15T11:45:00.004-05:00

From an upcoming film on Uncontacted Tribes in the Amazon:

Also brings to mind a recent best-seller, "The Lost City of Z" by David Grann, about one of the last "romantic" explorers in the early part of the last century: Percy Fawcett. Fawcett, having explored much of the Amazon, left in 1925 on a search for El Dorado -- the Lost City of Gold. He, his son, and a friend disappeared into the Amazon jungle, and were never heard from again.

The book chronicles a latter-day effort to retrace Fawcett's footsteps, which brings the author all-too-close to repeating Fawcett's experiences. The result is a compelling read.

Man-vs-Machine

2011-02-15T11:32:00.004-05:00

IBM’s Watson was tied for the lead after the first day of “Computer-vs-Human” challenge on this week’s Jeopardy, including long-time champ Ken Jennings (who has won 74 in a row).

One of the questions Watson answered correctly:

Clue: "Iron fitting on the hoof of a horse or a card-dealing box in a casino."
Watson: "What is shoe?"

But in other areas, Watson struggled:

Clue: "From the Latin for end, this is where trains can also originate."
Watson: "What is finis." Confidence level: 97%.
Trebek: "No. Ken?"
"What is terminus," Jennings answered correctly.

It will be interesting to see what the cultural impact of a Watson victory will be, especially in comparison to IBM's Deep Blue vs. Kasparov in 1997.

Watson is not connected to the Internet, and although Alex Trebek (and others) repeat that fact, it appeared that Watson did best when the answers were those that would be found by a search engine:

The questions that it did best at are ones that if you entered into Google or Bing, you can get the same answers. For instance, if you input one of the questions asked in the Jeopardy! tournament into Google, "Bang, bang, his silver hammer came down upon her head" one of the first results is "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" which Watson correctly answered. You get the same results with Bing. It's as if Watson is using the same sort of search algorithms, except not culled from the Internet, but a manually compiled, ginormous database of song lyrics, history, literature and other concrete, indisputable bits of information.

Computer-vs-human Jeopardy continues tonight (2/15/2011) and Wednesday (2/16/2011).

Bollywood's Vision of a Robotic Future

2011-02-04T11:22:00.001-05:00

[Cross-posted on ABA ST-AIRC Blog]

Last fall, Bollywood (India's version of Hollywood; by some measures (for instance, number of films produced per year, it is larger)) released its most expensive film ever: "Robot" (or "Endhiran"). Great special effects, and -- it appears -- a "Terminator"-type story-line. Here's the official site.

Here's the official trailer:

And here's a compilation of the "best" scenes involving robots, spliced together (overdubbing is believed to be Russian):

Why Does Japan Emphasize Robotic Advances?

2011-02-04T09:25:00.002-05:00

[Cross-posted on ABA ST-AIRC Blog]

From the BBC, interesting article about why Japan has taken such an active role in promoting "humanized" robots -- necessity being the mother of invention. And why some of the elderly in Japan prefer the human touch:

No, Robot: Japan's Elderly Fail to Welcome Their Robot Overlords

By Michael Fitzpatrick BBC News, Tokyo

"In Japan robots are friendly helpers not Terminators. So when they join the workforce, as they do often in factories, they are sometimes welcomed on their first day with Shinto religious ceremonies.

But whether the sick and elderly will be as welcoming to robot-like tech in their homes is a question that now vexes a Japanese care industry that is struggling with a massive manpower shortage. Automated help in the home and hospitals, believe some, could be the answer. A rapidly aging first world is also paying close attention to Japan's dalliance with automated care. It wants to know whether it can construct the nursing-care and medical-care needed in a future with fewer younger people to take care of the elderly.

Japan could show us how.

"The country sees it as an imperative to build carer robots and systems that can monitor health in the home. Because without them the nation's health care system won't cope," says carer Yasuko Amahisa.

Not Exactly the Turing Test

2011-01-31T11:28:00.001-05:00

[Cross-posted on ABA ST-AIRC Blog]

RoboCup participants are trying to build a robot with a specific purpose: to defeat the 2050 World Cup (human) champions. Here are the latest advances towards that end: Hat tip to BotJunkie:

Data Privacy Day

2011-01-28T11:18:00.002-05:00

{Cross-posted from ABA ST-AIRC Website]

Related to the American Bar Association's Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Committee's (AIRC) work is Data Privacy, and today (Jan. 28, 2011) is Data Privacy Day.

For more see this link.

For some thoughts from ABA ST-AIRC co-chair Ryan Calo on Data Privacy, see this link.

MIT's Sherry Turkle on the Impact of Technology on Society

2011-01-24T12:09:00.001-05:00

From the January 14, 2011 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Programmed for Love
By Jeffrey R. Young

In a skeptical turn, the MIT ethnographer Sherry Turkle warns of the dangers of social technology "...She has spent some 15 years since that day studying this emerging breed of "sociable robots"—including toys like Furbies and new robotic pets for the elderly—and what she considers their seductive and potentially dangerous powers.

She argues that robotics' growing trend toward creating machines that act as if they were alive could lead people to place machines in roles she thinks only humans should occupy.

Her prediction: Companies will soon sell robots designed to baby-sit children, replace workers in nursing homes, and serve as companions for people with disabilities. All of which to Turkle is demeaning, "transgressive," and "damaging to our collective sense of humanity..."

Warehouse Robots Featured in WSJ

2010-12-20T12:06:00.001-05:00

[Cross-posted with ABA ST-AIRC Blog]

Today's WSJ has a featured article on the tradeoffs for warehouses that are primarily staffed by humans, and those primarily staffed by robots. They compare and contrast a Crate & Barrel (robotic) shipment center with one run by Amazon (humans).

Wired Mag: Special Report on AI

2010-12-18T12:11:00.001-05:00

[Cross-posted from ABA's ST-AIRC Blog]

The January issue of Wired Magazine features a special report on the use of Artificial Intelligence in various fields, from Wall Street to fraud prevention. The bottom line? "Artificial Intelligence is here. But it's nothing like we expected."

Predator Drones Featured in Wikileaks

2010-11-29T12:13:00.002-05:00

[Cross-posted from ABA's ST-AIRC Blog]

Among other tidbits in the Wikileak documents: many countries are asking for the US to sell them Predator drones.

WikiLeaks Reveals Everybody’s Christmas List: The World Wants Drones

By Adam Rawnsley

Only a select few close American allies have the export-restricted Predator B (a.k.a. MQ-9 Reaper) armed drones, but that hasn’t stopped countries from the United Arab Emirates to Turkey from pestering & pleading with America to sell them the shiniest new toy, the WikiLeaks document show...

DoD Studying Flying Snakes

2010-11-28T11:17:00.002-05:00

[Cross-posted on ABA's ST-AIRC blog]

Not directly related to robots (yet), but still interesting: the Defense Department is sponsoring studies on flying snakes.

More here.

Don't Give Them a Chance...

2010-05-25T10:37:00.005-05:00

When the Celtics failed to close out the Magic last night (losing in OT, 96-92, after having been outplayed by Orlando for much of the game), few NBA observers seemed to be worried.

After all, having seen the pistol-whipping that the Cs administered in Games 1-3, who would think that this Magic team could climb out of the heretofore insurmountable 0-3 hole?

Of the 279 teams across all sports that have gone up 3-0, all but 4 have gone on to win; and three of the comebacks have occurred in the NHL (1942 Toronto; 1975 Islanders; 2010 Flyers.)*

(*-Yes, we all know the other 0-3 winner.)

88 NBA teams have gone up 3-0, and each one of them has gone on to win the respective series. But of those 88, just 14 have been situations where the 'better' team (i.e., the team that held home court advantage in the series) went down 0-3.

So the odds aren't in favor of the Magic. But if you were going to script a comeback -- a young, athletic team (which by the way, had a very successful regular season) that seemed lost for 3 games finding its sea legs when a sloppy, disinterested veteran team already seemed to be looking to get ready for the NBA Finals -- it would look something like this.

If the Magic protect home court in Game 5, the pressure will turn to the Celtics on Friday night.

Thoughts on Deepwater Horizon

2010-05-21T19:30:00.003-05:00

Earlier this week, AP wrote a column on the implications of BP's Deepwater Horizon spill on the chances for climate change legislation for Mass High Tech.

Here's the text (without hyperlinks):

DEEPWATER HORIZON: COMPLICATING NEW ENGLAND'S CHANCES FOR A CLIMATE CHANGE BILL

Even as this column is being written, BP’s Deepwater Horizon continues to spill oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Over the past week, estimates of the rate of spillage have increased by more than ten-fold, to close to 70,000 barrels a day.

In the month since the blowout event took place, if the revised estimates are accurate, more oil has leaked than in the previous largest accident: the infamous Exxon Valdez incident in Alaska.

One might think that the BP spill, which has highlighted the risks and external costs imposed by hydro-carbons, would inspire America to revisit its national energy policy. And to be fair, Congress has been wrestling with climate change since at least as early as 1997 with Kyoto. The current proposal is the “Waxman-Markey bill” – climate-change legislation that has already been passed by the House – and now is being considered by the Senate, under legislation written by U.S. Sen. John Kerry.

The “Markey” in Waxman-Markey refers to U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, also of Massachusetts, whose Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming wrote a significant portion of the bill. Last week, members of the Progressive Business Leaders Network (PBLN) had the opportunity to visit at length with Markey during the group’s annual conference in Washington last week. (Held in the sparkling new Capitol Visitor’s Center, the conference brought more than 75 New England business leaders together with Members of Congress, congressional staff and Obama Administration officials for a full day of policy and politics.)

Back to the BP spill: With the economic and ecological future of the Gulf of Mexico in jeopardy, why wouldn’t the accident help gather political momentum on behalf of a climate change bill that seeks – in part – to reduce the nation’s reliance on oil? After all, the hydrocarbon-based economy is a classic “externality” problem: because the costs of petroleum cannot be accurately measured (or priced), oil appears to be inexpensive vis-à-vis other forms of energy. Further, existing oil reserves are being depleted, which forces exploration out further offshore, with the risks that are now clear.

The key to understanding this fragile deal is in President Obama’s announcement in March that he was “open” to expanded East Coast offshore drilling. The statement surprised many and was met with resistance from some in the environmental coalition. Yet in retrospect, it seems clear that the president’s endorsement of expanded drilling was intended to give political cover to pick up votes in favor of the climate change bill. Politics does make strange bedfellows, and perhaps none more so than a nice, blue-state congressman like Ed Markey getting himself mixed up with the “Drill, baby, drill” crowd. But as Markey himself remarked, the BP spill has stiffened environmental resistance to offshore drilling, even as the politics of climate change seems to require some short-term expansion of the activity.

Markey, who (not co-incidentally) wrote or co-authored three separate pieces of legislation in the 1990s that de-regulated cable and reformed the wireless spectrum, sees energy as a much bigger opportunity than tech was 15 years ago. “The energy sector is four times bigger than tech,” he told the PBLN audience. And the region is poised to receive a disproportionate share of clean-energy grants; Markey stated that in the 2009 Stimulus, 20 percent of all NIH grants were awarded to New England institutions. Like the teaching hospitals that attract health grants, the region has inherent advantages: “the very factors that drive energy costs higher in New England makes the return on energy investments here much better.” Citing examples like A123 and EnerNOC, Markey highlighted local energy innovation: “That’s who we are in New England.”

Markey remains optimistic – perhaps unrealistically so, as he admitted to the PBLN group – despite the difficulties in getting the requisite votes in the Senate. But he is coldly realistic about the challenges that the U.S. faces in migrating to a clean-energy economy.

He closed his presentation with the story of a recent visit to southern China, where he passed a factory where dozens of brand-new wind-turbine blades lay stacked under tarps, pointed in Markey’s words “like daggers aimed at America. I was reminded of Adlai Stevenson’s presentation to the UN in 1962 where he showed the world the photographic proof of Soviet missiles pointed at the U.S. China is ruthlessly targeting the U.S. clean energy field.”

China has identified clean energy as a future growth sector; in wind turbines, for instance, China has jumped from negligible production a decade ago to three of the world’s top 10 manufacturers, and China is now the world’s largest wind market. For energy-consuming New England, properly pricing hydrocarbon energy is both in the region’s and in the U.S. national interest. It would be more than ironic if the BP spill meant the delay in development of a clean-tech industry for a world that is more precarious – and energy-hungry – than ever.

'Cause that's what we're waiting for'

2010-05-12T21:00:00.004-05:00

Modest Mouse - Little Motel

Modest Mouse | MySpace Music Videos

All Mass. Politics is...Global?

2010-05-05T15:40:00.004-05:00

Two items of note in Massachusetts politics:

* Although the opinion polling is all over the map, Britain appears to be headed for an election tomorrow where no party controls a majority of seats in Parliament. In such a case, Labour's Gordon Brown may sneak in to another term as PM, a result that few would have predicted at the start of the campaign.

In a rally on the eve of the election, Conservative leader David Cameron neatly summarized the "trilemma" of a three-party field:

Don't stay at home and let the old guard in. Don't vote for the Liberal Democrats and let Gordon Brown in.

Meanwhile, Brown himself had to tamp down controversy today after two Labour ministers had urged tactical voting against the Conservatives yesterday.

All of which should have a familiar ring to Massachusetts voters: in any three party race, the calculus for victory becomes infinitely more difficult. GOP Charlie Baker has suffered through a slow spring -- including a brutal send-up by Globe columnist Brian McGrory -- and he recently replaced his campaign manager as he tried to determine where to focus his fire: on incumbent Dem Deval Patrick, or Independent (and former Dem) Tim Cahill.

Patrick (and to a lesser extent, Cahill) has had a good campaign so far -- aggressively promoting his own record (including the swift resolution of the Boston drinking water issue this past week) and pushing back against Baker. Baker and Cahill now appear to be fully engaged with each other, which also suits the Governor's purposes.

And finally, the race itself is reflecting larger political trends: the latest round of anti-Cahill ads have been sponsored by the Republican Governor's Association, which itself has emerged as a counter-weight to the scandal-plagued Republican National Committee. The current head of the RGA? Former RNC chief (and Miss. Governor) Haley Barbour.

* Meanwhile, despite a desultory -- and well-documented -- performance in the Senate race this winter, Martha Coakley appears poised to be re-elected to a second term as Massachusetts Attorney General. No opponent filed the necessary signatures to get on the November ballot, which means Coakley will be unopposed (save for a long-shot sticker campaign.)

Just a few months ago, in the aftermath of Scott Brown's victory, many considered Coakley to be "vulnerable."

But one is perhaps reminded of the words of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, speaking to then-State Senator Barack Obama after the latter's embarrassing 31-point loss to Congressman Bobby Rush, a short time after Rush had been defeated by Daley in a mayoral race:

[w]hen the results were in Daley phoned [Obama] -- not to console him but to explain why Obama had screwed up.

"I said, 'Why did you run against him?'" Daley [said].

Obama replied that Rush's loss to Daley had suggested that Rush was vulnerable.

Daley went on, "No, an election doesn't show you're weak. The other person just got more votes. So there is not weakness in your opponent. Maybe it taught you a good lesson."

One that perhaps ambitious Massachusetts pols learned faster than a future POTUS.

...And at #25

2010-04-22T21:08:00.007-05:00

(Note: AP is not a big NFL draft-nik, but tonight's event attracted attention, because of the range of opinions around Florida QB Tim Tebow.)

The Denver Broncos picked Tim Tebow in the first round -- at #25 -- well ahead of where almost every observer expected him to be.

On ESPN, Tom Jackson (a former Bronco himself) was literally speechless -- staring blankly into the camera in the moments after the pick was announced. Even ten minutes later (when he had presumably found his voice), Jackson was saying "it's a question whether he will ever play at all."

Mel Kiper Jr. blasted the pick on a talent basis, saying in effect, that even though he may be a great kid, the skill level is not high enough, and his (flawed) throwing motion will mean an unsuccessful NFL career.

Whether Tebow can be a Pro Bowl quarterback in the NFL is an open question. But it's pretty safe bet that Tebow will never be in an Associated Press story that contains the words: "Member of the Denver Broncos arrested early Sunday morning..."

Here's what Denver gets: a good all-around athlete (who, by the way, dominated the best football conference in the country in college), who is now playing with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove to every scout, GM, and fan who doubted him. There are worse combinations.

And there is this Inconvenient Truth: drafting a QB in the first round is clearly a crap-shoot. And if you don't believe that, here are the names of a few of the QBs selected in just the top three picks in the first round in the last dozen years:

Tim Couch
JaMarcus Russell
Ryan Leaf
Akili Smith
Joey Harrington

Ummm....oh, and the jury is still out on Vince Young, who was also a "top 3".

Could Tebow be a bust a #24?

Undoubtedly.

But will he be a worse choice than Leaf (#3 overall) or Russell (#1 overall) or the others in the List of Shame?

No.

The "best and the brightest" in the NFL came up with those choices. Generally, the experts (like Kiper) looooooooooved those picks when they were made. And all of them were busts that handicapped their respective franchises for years, if not close to a decade.

Which brings us to our point for all the so-called experts (which, ironically, involves another professional sports franchise):

If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.

Will You Still Need Me, Will You Still Feed Me...When I'm 68?

2010-04-22T13:46:00.005-05:00

The NCAA expanded its Men's Basketball field to...68 teams today.

The surprising news comes after a winter when it seemed almost sure that the expansion would be all the way to 96, allowing the top eight seeds in each region a Bye in the first round, adding a full round for seeds 9-24, and meaning wall-to-wall college basketball for six straight nights.

As part of the new deal, CBS will share coverage with Turner, meaning that every single game will be available somewhere on the dial. Or, perhaps more appropriate, at some triple-digit number on your cable box.

As Deadspin's Dashiell Bennett points out, it seems that -- shockingly -- the NCAA listened to the criticism that was levelled in the month of March: the tournament worked as-is, the expansion would water down the regular season, and so forth. Three more at-large bids will (almost surely) be awarded, but the tournament will have the same look-and-feel, albeit with four "play-in" games on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

But Bennett is wrong in one respect when he writes the following:

The field will expand to 68 teams, which means (presumably) that all four 16-seeds will now be determined by play-in game, making the possibility of a 16-over-1 upset even more improbable than it already is...

The expansion of the play-in games means that the worst eight automatic qualifiers will play the 16A/16B games for the right to play the #1-seeds. But assuming that the Tournament Committee seeds teams correctly(*), that means that the #16A teams will be advancing; in years past those teams were also known as "#15 seeds."

(*)-The seeding this year was especially problematic, as was widely observed, especially regard to eventual champion Duke's path to the Final Four, and games such as Temple (5)/Cornell (12).

For example, here are the "weakest" four teams in the 2009(**) bracket, together with actual (post-season) KenPom rating:

Chattanoga (16), 226
Alabama State (16B), 209
Radford (16), 188
Binghampton (15), 165 (***)

Average Rating: 197, or slightly below the median of 344 Division I teams

Here are the next four weakest:

Morehead State (16A - play-in winner) 150
Morgan State (15) 148
Robert Morris (15), 118
East Tenn St (16), 111

Average Rating: 132, or close to top one-third of all D-I teams

(**) - Using the 2009 to avoid the seeding problems in this year's tournament.
(***) - Of course, the Committee still mis-seeded Morehead State. (For the record, the other 2009 15-seed was Cal St Northridge (99 KenPom), who played tough against #2 Memphis, before falling 81-70.)

Thus, the #1-seeds will be playing a team that is -- on average -- sixty places higher on the rankings than they would in the traditional 64-team field.

Slicing the data another way (and perhaps accounting for mis-seeds), here are the averages for the five #16- and four #15-seeds:

#16-seeds: 177
#15-seeds: 132

Closer, but still a material improvement, assuming that the better teams wins the play-in game(s).

Some will counter that the short rest will make the #16's road even tougher. (The play-in game winners will have to play the #1 seeds two days after the opening round games, while the #1 seeds have a week to prepare.) But conference tournaments are rife with low-seeded teams who play on consecutive nights and beat higher-ranked opponents who have had a bye. For instance, in the Big East just this year, #8 Georgetown beat #1 Syracuse; #5 Marquette beat #4 Villanova, #7 ND beat #2 Pitt, and #11 Cincy beat #6 Louisville; in each of those games, the lower ranked team played back-to-back against a rested opponent.

The bottom line: the #1 seeds will be playing materially better teams.

And that makes the chances of a #16 beating a #1 much higher, no matter how you slice it.

Book Ends

2010-04-07T09:56:00.007-05:00

The national championship won by Duke on Monday had a feel of wistfulness. Once upon a time, Duke was the up-and-coming college basketball program, looking to break through with its first national title. The break-through happened in 1991, when Duke upended a powerful UNLV team in the semis, and beat traditional power Kansas in the Finals.

This time it was a young Butler team that came out of nowhere to reach Monday night's game. In just seven years Bulldog coach Brad Stevens went from representing Eli Lilly to trading (coaching) punches with a Hall-of-Famer.

But in the end, Coach K won his (and the school's) fourth title, although the current Blue Devils -- with no clear-cut NBA prospects -- are a far cry from the first national title team, which featured three NBA first-round draft choices (Bobby Hurley (#7 overall); Christian Laettner (#3); and Grant Hill (also #3 overall.))

In another way, Monday's game harkened back to that 1991-1992 team. After winning in 1991, the Blue Devils returned all the key pieces, and seemed poised to advance to a third consecutive Final Four. But in the regional final, Duke played Kentucky in what many consider the finest college basketball game ever.

The overtime game ended with a baseball pass from Grant Hill to Christian Laettner, and Laettner's turn-around jumper from 15 feet. By double-teaming Laettner, rather than putting a man on the ball, Kentucky coach Rick Pitino became a cautionary tale for coaches: don't leave the in-bounds passer un-bothered.

Almost twenty years later, Coach K almost became his own cautionary tale. By having center Brian Zoubek intentionally miss the second foul shot with a two-point lead with 3.6 seconds remaining, Coach K risked the unthinkable: Butler's Gordon Hayward would have won the title if his half-court heave had been a quarter-of-an-inch lower on the backboard.

This morning, Coach K went on the radio and defended his decision, saying that Duke's foul situation meant that overtime was "not an alternative."

Apparently Duke's Lance Thomas and Zoubek were much more valuable in Coach K's mind than they appeared on the floor: while they both had 4 fouls, no other Blue Devil had more than 3. Butler, in contrast, had both of its centers with four fouls, with C Matt Howard being hampered by foul trouble all night.

A better test: see how many college coaches instruct their players to miss foul shots intentionally next year.

The guess here: about as many as will allow a passer to be un-guarded.

Sweet Nothings

2010-03-25T08:19:00.010-05:00

It's taken 31 years, but an Ivy League team plays tonight in the NCAA's Sweet 16 round for the first time since a Chuck-Daly-recruited (yes, that Chuck Daly) UPenn class crashed (albeit briefly) the Magic-Bird Final Four party in 1979.

A few thoughts:

* Domes: Tough shooting background? Cornell and Kentucky will play tonight at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, one of the few "true" domes used regularly in the college game (UNC's Dean-Dome, while a large facility, is not a true "dome" with a pressurized roof.)

We'll probably hear the CBS announcers claim more than once that the Dome hurts outside shooters, because of the lack of a 'shooting background' and/or different wind currents in the building. And such a difficult shooting environment is thought to hurt Cornell, with its three-point specialists, much more than slashing Kentucky.

Unfortunately (or for Cornell, fortunately), the facts don't seem to support this theory. The NCAA Final Fours have regularly been held in domes, beginning in 1982 with the historic UNC-Georgetown final. Between 1982 and 2000(*), seven national title games were held in non-dome stadiums, and eleven inside domes.

(*-With increased interest in attending the Final Four games, the NCAA has moved all Final Fours to domes, or in the case of Dallas in 2013, ginormous stadiums that might as well be domes.)

The difference in shooting percentage between the two environments?

00.2% (47.1% in non-dome; 46.9% in domes)

Cornell may have a tough time shooting the ball tonight, but that will have to do with the Kentucky pressure, not the shooting environment.

* Expanding the pool. The NCAA seems likely to expand the pool to 96 teams starting next year, which will mean the demise of the NCAA-owned National Invitational Tournament (NIT) after 72 years. (Presumably the women's tournament will also have to expand to 96; although after watching the UConn women hang 50+ point losses on the #16 and #8 seeds in the last week, one wonders why a #24 seed would fair any better.)

Yes, there is parity in college basketball. Unlike the NBA, where the best, healthiest, teams generally prevail over an 82-game regular season and best-of-seven playoff format, college basketball is famously quirky. Indeed, the NBA's size and strength requires a materially different set of skills than college basketball. Some of these skills do translate -- Davidson's Stephen Curry easily stepped back to the NBA three-point line -- while others, like last year's college-player-of-the-year Tyler Hansbrough has (unsurprisingly) had difficultly getting his power game to earn him minutes in the pros. (Although in Hansbrough's defense, when he has played, he's been reasonably effective, scoring at 17 ppg for every 36 minutes played.)

While having first-round NBA draft picks on your college team undoubtedly helps, it is far from a sure thing. And the charm of the NCAA tournament remains the mid-majors showing the "big boys" how to play. Northern Iowa will have no players in the Green Room in New York in June, but you won't get Kansas to tell you that.

So on to expansion: would more Tournament games be good for college basketball? Perhaps, if the result would more more Mid-Major/BCS matchups like Northern Iowa vs. Kansas. (Or, Ohio-Georgetown or Purdue-Siena.)

So if the expansion of the pool means more mid-major teams getting a chance in the Big Dance, AP is all for it. But it also requires a future Tournament Committee to give us Mid-Major/BCS matchups.

Instead, this year's Committee gave us swing games that pitted BCS vs. BCS and Mid-Major vs. Mid-Major. Here are the #8/#9 games: Texas vs. Wake Forest (BCS vs. BCS); UNLV vs. Northern Iowa (MM vs. MM); Louisville vs. Cal (BCS vs. BCS); and Gonzaga (MM) vs. Florida State (BCS conference, but basketball is a distant third at FSU to football and spring football in fan interest.) The Committee could have easily juggled the regions to give us three or four compelling games in that group, instead of one (UNLV vs. NIU was an exciting game, and one that Bill Self might have thought about before waiting 36 minutes to press NIU for 94 feet.)

Expansion could mean rewarding all the Mid-major teams that win their regular season title, but get bumped out of their conference tournaments, like Memphis. But the reality will be more marginal BCS teams getting in; and with expansion, what we'll probably get is more of the same: #8 in the Big Ten vs. #10 in the Big East (by the way, that match-up this year would have been Michigan vs. Seton Hall, in the midst of a basketball meltdown. That's a game that barely has any interest (outside of Ann Arbor and West Orange) in December, before we know that both teams are mediocre.)

Finally, we have been using the term "BCS" in this section even though in college basketball, there is no a "Bowl Championship Series"; it's a proxy for big-time, big-budget, big-TV conferences and their schools. But it raises the question of a Division I college football playoff.

College Presidents and Athletic Directors have resisted instituting a D-I football playoff for various reasons, including upsetting the current bowl structure, and (most unconvincingly) not disrupting academic schedules. And yet bowl season occurs at the tail-end of first semester for an overwhelming majority of colleges and universities. March Madness, in contrast, spills well over the single week of Spring Break, and the 96-team expansion means that the NCAA Tournament will cover another weekend, and effect an additional 500 student-athletes (32 teams x 15 players per team).

In a world where athletic budgets are being stretch both by the economy and non-revenue sports, it makes all the sense in the world why the Tournament is expanding.

But why is college football different? And why is that decision (not to institute a plus-one playoff system) driven by academics rather than dollars?

* Dis-R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Speaking of mid-major teams, Cornell's Big Red has represented the Ivy League well in this tournament, knocking off A-10 champ Temple, and humiliating the Big 10 by hanging 87 points and emptying the bench on defensive-minded Wisconsin.

But the untold story about Cornell is just that -- the untold story. Despite returning six seniors from a two-time defending champ team, Cornell was an also-ran in the national media to the Harvard basketball story. Sports Illustrated and ESPN Magazine both ran full-length features on the Crimson. Former Harvard hooper Arne Duncan also made a splash in his new gig as Secretary of Education. Cornell was lucky to get front-page mention in the Daily Sun despite playing then-No. 1 Kansas to the final minute in Phog Allen.

Do Ivy League teams generally expect national media coverage?

Of course not. But if you think the Big Red didn't notice, check out the score the first time that Harvard played Cornell this year.

Hurt

2010-03-16T13:03:00.001-05:00

More Thoughts on Olympic Hockey

2010-02-23T10:56:00.003-05:00

Although AP is not a "hockey guy", there are a few more loose-ends going into the medal round of the Olympics:

1. The loss to the US likely brings to an end the international career of Martin Brodeur. Earlier this year, the 38-year-old passed Patrick Roy as the all-time leader in both games played and wins-by-a-goalie. But his shaky work in goal on Sunday meant that Team Canada Coach Mike Babcock has "gone in a different direction" and tapped 31-year-old Roberto Luongo (who backed up Brodeur four years ago in Torino), as well as juggling his lines.

2. Thanks to its loss on Sunday, Team Canada slipped to the #6-seed in the medal round. Assuming they get by Germany, that means a match-up with Russia looming. All year, the NHL has tried to hype Crosby-vs.-Ovechkin. Later this week, we'll all get to see it.

3. But we won't (most likely) get to see it in HD. High-def has helped all televised sports, but none more than hockey. But the Canada/US game was relegated to MSNBC, and this week it seems clear that Women's Figure Skating will be the highlighted prime time event on NBC.

4. Also, filed under "That's Incredible": the games are being played at a venue called "Canada Hockey Place," which is also where the NHL's Vancouver Canucks play their regular season games (then it's known as GM Place.)

The Olympics ice surface is 200 x 100. (You can get a sense of it when watching clips from the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" game.)

The NHL ice surface is 200 x 85 feet. The GM Place ice remains at that size for the Olympics.

So the Olympic hockey competition will be held on a non-Olympic sized rink.

And a separate Olympic-sized rink (Trout Lake) will be used for figure skating.

Go figure.

Shades of... 1992

2010-02-21T21:39:00.005-05:00

In the legend of the Dream Team (1992 edition), the game that everyone wishes they had seen was a scrimmage that then-coach Chuck Daly organized between players from the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference. Daly was apparently concerned that too much competition in practice could have an adverse effect on the Dreamers -- but finally, in the lead up to Barcelona, he succumbed and allowed the best in the world to settle things at full speed. It was, it is reported, a game for the ages.

We may have seen another tonight. Thirty years after the Miracle on Ice, the game of the Olympics has changed -- never again will a sports power like the United States send a bunch of amateurs to take on professionals, from the Soviet Union or anywhere else. But the challenge of international competition remains the same.

And tonight, with the pressure on the home team, the US-Canada hockey game was (perhaps) a throw-back to the East/West scrimmage in 1992. For 60 minutes, with end-to-end action, the game was played at the intensity level of a Stanley Cup final -- but with the talent one would see in an All-Star Game. Favored Canada outshot the US 45-22, but US goalie Ryan Miller answered the barrage -- especially in the last few minutes -- and bought his team a bye into the quarterfinals of the medal round. Team Canada will now face tough questions and brutal headlines as it heads in the second week of the competition.

Whether the US can survive to the medal stand (which has happened only once since 1980 (a silver in 2002)), it was the type of game that the NHL can be proud of -- and one that justifies the suspension of the NHL season for two weeks to allow the Olympics to proceed.

Do we believe in miracles?

Perhaps not, anymore.

But we do believe in international sport played at the highest level.

And on national TV, rather than in a closed practice.

Ho-Hum

2010-02-10T22:03:00.003-05:00

Quick Thought: do you have to go back to 1995 (or even 1982?) to find a Duke-UNC game with less meaning?

And less hype?

ESPN effectively launched its first "spin-off", ESPN2 with the Duke-UNC game back in the mid-1990s by broadcasting the game exclusively on "the Deuce."

Today, it's barely part of "Rivalry Week."

I'm Going to Witchita...

2010-02-02T09:18:00.005-05:00

This morning in the Globe, perpetual optimist Dan Shaughnessy bemoans the lack of local players in the Beanpot -- the Boston-only college hockey tournament on the first and second Mondays in February. The absence of a local connection, he says, made the building "flatter than Howie Long’s head."

In fact, the Gahh-den was flat during the opening game: a 6-0 shellacking of Harvard by Boston College. It was a game marked by chippy play (especially as the score got out of hand in the late stages), and the absence of legitimate scoring chances for the Crimson.

But even as the BC and Harvard students were preparing to depart for, um, time in their respective libraries (and Shaughnessy likely writing his column), the Northeastern fans showed up amped up. With the Huskies not having won a Beanpot since 1988 -- seven years before the final game in the old Garden -- the Northeastern fans came early and stayed late, trying to will their team on with both traditional hockey jeers ("Hey Goalie -- you [stink]") and more modern updates (chanting in unison the bass line to the Stripes' "Seven Nation Army.")

While the BU crowd also stood for almost all of the game, there was a sense of ennui. After all, when you have played in the Beanpot final in all but 2 of the last 27 years, how excited can you be for a opening-round game? And as BU never trailed, even a 2-man advantage for NU half-way through the third period didn't raise the Terriers' collective blood-pressure.

But there's an alternative explanation for why the Beanpot started flat: not one of the teams has had a great start to the 2009-10 season. In fact, of the four teams, only one has a winning record (BC is now 13-8-2. BU is now 10-11-3; Northeastern is 11-12-1 after last night; Harvard is 5-12-3, although they had been 3-1-1 in their previous five games.)

While Northeastern fans went home disappointed, BU-BC next week will bring the excitement.

With or without the White Stripes.

On Second Thought...

2010-01-31T21:14:00.003-05:00

Only one team made a statement in Ithaca Saturday night.

Cornell 86
Harvard 50

Cornell may break into the Top 25 (in the ESPN/USA Today poll -- they are well out of the T-25 in AP) next week.

And in the NBA, the Celts have a made a statement of a different type this week, losing @ORL, @ATL, and to LAL at home.

With KG in the line-up.

(And with Paul Pierce (interestingly) turning down a shot to win at Crunch Time to throw a floating pass to Ray Allen.)

Heady Days for Harvard Hoops

2010-01-30T14:50:00.003-05:00

Tonight's Ivy League clash in Ithaca, NY may not be the most important college basketball game of the year -- but it may be the most publicized game that won't be on TV.

Harvard (14-3, 3-0) basketball -- thanks to a good loss at UConn followed by an impressive win over Boston College -- has enjoyed a boomlet of publicity in the past few weeks, beginning with a Time Magazine article on Jeremy Lin in late December. Cornell (17-3, 3-0) has been solid all year, and nearly shocked then-Number-One Kansas at Allen Field House a few weeks ago. Tonight, Cornell hosts Harvard in a game that -- with no conference tournament in the Ivies -- will put one team in the driver's seat for the League title.

Just this week, Sports Illustrated, the Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg all previewed the Crimson-Big Red tilt. KenPom has Cornell winning by 4. With the pressure on Cornell to 'hold serve' at home, the game may be even tighter.

But Lin and the current Harvard players are not the only Crimson in the news this week. Former Crimson player and current US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan enjoyed a generally positive profile in the New Yorker. Two take-aways: Duncan, thanks to a decade of playing hoops with Obama, may be the closest Cabinet member to the POTUS. And his educational agenda is far more centrist than most Obama supporters would have imagined.

The Dog that Didn't Bark, and other SOTU Thoughts

2010-01-28T09:45:00.007-05:00

President Obama's first State of the Union (SOTU) was delivered last night. A few loose ends and random thoughts:

* A Return to Clinton-ism. Bill Clinton was famous for revising the text of his speeches at the last minute, even on the ride over from the White House to the Capitol. This President, who seemingly won't say "Thank You" without a teleprompter, has (heretofore) been more punctual.

But the embargoed text was not delivered to the cable networks 30 minutes before his speech (as promised, according to CNN's Wolf Blitzer.) And unlike previous years, where Members of Congress followed the speech in booklet form, no one was reading; instead they were listening -- with varying degrees of intensity.

And the length of the speech itself -- close to 75 minutes -- indicates that re-drafting was going on to the the last minute. (As Blaise Pascal once remarked, "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.)

The lack of a prepared text (for Members, not the POTUS, obviously) meant that the Members were not 'prepared' for when the TV cameras would be focusing on them. Nor the Republicans, in particular, seem to know how or when to react to the various portions of the speech. (For example, the GOP side of the chamber, after the initial ovations during the introductions, seemingly did not stand and cheer for a single proposal or statement by the President until he called for "safe, clean nuclear power plants", which occurred almost half-way through the speech.)

* Joe Wilson II. The South Carolina Congressman who heckled the President during September's health care speech was nowhere to be seen. But stepping into the role, or perhaps auditioning for a larger role later, was Supreme Sam Alito, who responded to Obama's criticism of a recent Court decision but mouthing "That's Not True".

BTW, Obama vs. Alito debating the merits of Citizens United would be "Must See TV."

* The Dog that Didn't Bark. Since at least the Reagan era, it has been a tradition to recognize various Americans (and on occasion foreign dignitaries) in the First Lady's box overlooking the House chamber.) In 2002, newly-installed Afghan leader Hamid Karzai appeared. In 2004, Michigan grad Tom Brady served as a "visual prop" for President Bush's call to outlaw steroids.

Last night, President Obama recognized no one except for the First Lady and Jill Biden. (The cameras did focus on the Ambassador from Haiti when POTUS was discussing the earthquake.)

Although there appeared to be a number of "special guests" in the audience -- including at least according to CNN's Wolf Blitzer, members of the response team from the Fort Hood shooting -- this SOTU was not focused on personal symbolism.

* The (Almost) Missing Bark. At the end of the preoration, it is customary to report that "The state of the Union is strong..." or similar words

(A few randomly-selected examples: Bush 43 (2008) ("The state of our union will remain strong"); (2002) ("Yet the state of our Union has never been stronger"); Clinton (2000) ("The state of our Union is the strongest it has ever been"). Interestingly, the only non-use of the "union is strong" formulation that AP could find was in Bush 41's 1992 address, at the start of his failed re-election year.)

Obama incorporated the word "Union" issue three different times in his SOTU opening (including once in a bit of wordplay: "when the Union was turned back at Bull Run"), before concluding: "I have never been more hopeful about America's future than I am tonight. Despite our hardships, our union is strong."

* Enough with Virginia Governors. Virginia sits just south of the Washington, the locale of 90% of the nation's political reporters. Virginia's electorate, with its combination of rural conservatives in the south and west, and yuppie urbanites in the north, supposedly mimics the country's as a whole. And perhaps most important, Virginia's Constitution forbids its Governors from standing for immediate re-election.

So, every four years, when a new Governor is elected in the Old Dominion State, the pundit class declares him (or her, presumably) a "new rising star" and revs up the "could-this-Governor-be-the-next-President" bandwagon.

(Since 1982, here is the list of Virginia Governors: Chuck Robb, Gerald Baliles, Douglas Wilder, George Allen, Jim Gilmore, Mark Warner, and Tim Kaine. Of these, only Baliles (and Kaine, who left office after Obama's election) refrained from either explicitly running, or attempting to run, for President. All six ended, um, poorly.)

Here's another theory: since the VA Governor's seat is always an 'open' one (i.e., no incumbent to defeat), that means that running a successful gubernatorial campaign in VA is actually a very poor predictor of how political talent will fare in a more traditional setting: with incumbents and re-election campaigns.

Anyways, the latest "new rising star" Bob McDonnell was given the opportunity to respond to the SOTU last night. Although he bested last year's speaker, LA Governor Bobby Jindal, that was not a high bar: Jindal's performance was compared (unfavorably) to that of Kenneth the Page on 30 Rock.

But when even FNC's Charles Krauthammer described your oratorical performance as "workman-like", that may be a sign that your star is rising a bit slower than you might like.

Raiding Morgantown, continued

2010-01-27T09:57:00.004-05:00

A little follow-up: notwithstanding John Beilein's 41-46 record since arriving in Ann Arbor, his contract was recently extended through the 2015-16 season.

(Actually, the extension seems to be a somewhat curious decision -- at least as to timing -- as a team was preseason #15, and that seems reasonably likely to lose star G Manny Harris (he was suspended(*) over the weekend although reinstated for the Michigan State game) is mired with a bubble-icious 10-10 (3-5) record.

(* - AP doesn't have the bandwidth to research the "percentage-of-preseason-All-American-candidates-who-are-suspended-by-their-coach-but-who-nonetheless-finish-out-their-eligibility." But let's just say that the odds aren't great. You know, if betting were legal.)

Back to Beilein's extension: Whatever.

After all, Notre Dame famously gave Charlie Weis an extension early in his tenure, and look how that turned out. (Of course, Weis was 5-2 and #9 in the country at the time he got his new deal.)

The best-case long-term scenario, at least for Michigan fans, is that Beilein's extension empowered him to challenge Harris, and subsequently suspend him. (Potentially) good for team discipline long-term. Not such a good sign as to how the season has gone so far, which perhaps explains the underachieving record.)

But Beilein is not the only ex-Morgantown resident who is now coaching in Ann Arbor. Wolverine football coach Rich Rodriguez has now finished his second season at Michigan, with a combined record of 8-16, and perhaps more alarmingly, won just three conference games in 16 starts.

Are fans -- or for that matter journalists, commentators, or Jay Bilas -- happy with Rich Rod?

Well, he's probably not talking to the AD about a contract extension.

Elite Pretenders

2010-01-26T21:21:00.005-05:00

For the second night in a row in college basketball, a BCS-conference title contender tried to elevate itself. And for the second night in a row, the established order turned away a challenge.

Last night in upstate New York, Georgetown sprinted to a 14-0 start before letting the Syracuse Orange back into the game -- in a big way -- in being outscored by 31 the rest of the way. The Orange, behind G Andy Rautins and F Wesley Johnson, showed that they are well-deserving of their current Top-5 ranking.

A year after the Big East dreamed of sending four teams to the Final Four, it was supposed to be a down year; instead, the conference has six teams in the current AP Top-25 (five in the current KenPom Top-25, but eight (half the league) in the Top-40). The Beast is back.

And Feb. 27th -- Villanova (18-1, 7-0) at Syracuse (20-1, 7-1) -- looms large.

In the Big Ten, meanwhile, Michigan hoped to start on the road back to national prominence when it hosted #5 Michigan State. Armed with a student body seemingly hopped up on Beilein-ball, the Wolverines appeared came back in the second half to take the lead with less than a minute to go.

With 38 seconds remaining, Michigan's DeShawn Sims missed a corner jumper badly. The Spartans' Kalin Lucas drained a 15-foot jumper to take a one-point lead. Sims had a chance to redeem himself with 1.5 left, but a tough layup slipped off the front rim.

And Maize-and-Blue fans wonder if raiding Morgantown was worth it.

It was the Best of Times...

2010-01-26T09:54:00.002-05:00

Democrats (and the chattering class) have been, to quote the President, in a "tizzy" since last Tuesday, when Martha Coakley's faltering campaign was put out of its misery by Scott Brown. But while the White House re-calibrates in advance of tomorrow's State of the Union, it is not clear that the Scott Brown victory is uniformly good news for the GOP.

According to a poll conducted shortly after the special election(*), seventy percent of Brown voters were voting "for" Brown, rather than "against" Coakley (25%); in contrast, Coakley's voters were 57% for her/40% against Brown. In the aftermath of the election, Brown voters overwhelmingly (75%) want Brown to get some Republican ideas into Democratic legislation, rather than merely work to stop the Democratic agenda (19%), although when talking about health care reform in particular Brown voters were more willing to have Brown work to 'stop' the Dems (48-50).

(*-There were no exit polls conducted for the Special Election)

Brown famously ran without party identity, and instead linked himself directly to JFK in his first TV ad. Although he campaigned as the "41st vote", he did not have the word "Republican" on his ads (including the JFK ad) or signs. In short, he branded himself as a "Scott Brown Republican," with the implication that he would be independent and moderate.

So Brown's victory should be a road map for other Republicans in this election year?

Well, maybe.

While Brown campaigned (and frankly, legislated) as a moderate, the GOP seems to still be in the throes of a ritual purification: only the most conservative candidates will be acceptable in GOP primaries and caucuses.

To wit:

* Arlen Specter, facing a conservative challenge from Pat Toomey, left the GOP last year to give the Dems their short-lived 60th vote in the Senate.

* In upstate New York's 23rd Congressional District, conservative disaffection with moderate Republican nominee, Dede Scozzafava, resulted in Scozzafava's withdrawal from the race shortly before the November special election, and a win for Democrat Bill Owens in a seat that had been Republican-controlled for close to a century.

* Finally, in Florida, Governor Charlie Crist's lead in the polls over conservative Marco Rubio has evaporated, with Rubio now up by 3 points.

If the true Scott Brown lesson is for Republicans to move to the center, it's not clear that the national GOP wants to hear it.

Head East, Young Man...

2010-01-25T15:08:00.002-05:00

With the NBA season approaching the half-way mark, Celtic fans have been squirming as a team that once rashly promised to win 72 games has now been treading water for several weeks (5-8 since Christmas Day, when they stood an impressive 23-5).

This Friday in Atlanta has become a surprising test -- the Celtics need a win to avoid a four-game sweep at the hands of the Hawks. Although the Cs can point to absence of C Kevin Garnett as a big reason why the defense has been shaky recently, in reality, the Celts' swoon started even before Garnett went down.

Another team that has been slumping lately has been the Lakers. The defending champs looked great early, reaching a high-water record of 28-6 before slipping and losing 5 of their last 10.

But while the Celtics can point to Garnett's legs, the Lakers have a more troubling problem: going on the road. (In fairness, Ron Artest and Andrew Bynum are both "day-to-day". But then again, aren't we all, Mr. Costello?)

The Lakers have played the fewest road games in the NBA, save only the SA Spurs. (Actually, both the Spurs and Lakers have played 17 'true' road games, as the Lakers played the Clippers (as a visitor) once this season so far.) And in addition to playing few road games, the LAL have won very few as well -- just 10-8 so far.

The Lakers are at the White House this afternoon, being feted by POTUS for their championship last spring. But with five more road games on their current East Coast trip -- and coming off a statement loss in Cleveland on Thursday night, Sunday's game in the new Boston Garden will take on significance for both teams: the Lakers to prove that they can beat elite teams on the road.

The Celtics just have to show that they are still worthy -- or healthy enough -- for the 'elite' label.

Stealing Third

2010-01-21T12:34:00.006-05:00

In (what proved to be) pivotal Game Four of the 2009 World Series, Johnny Damon pulled the rare feat of stealing two bases on a single play. In the top of the ninth with the score tied and two out, Damon fell behind 1-2, before working Brad Lidge for six more pitches and singling to left field.

Running on the first pitch to Mark Teixeira, Damon stole second, and barely pausing proceeded to take third as with the Phillies' shift, the bag was uncovered. Several Phils could have covered the bag, and Damon probably wouldn't have gone unless he was absolutely certain he could make it. Lidge proceeded to meltdown (hitting Teixeira with a pitch, and giving up an RBI double to A-Rod), and the Series was gone.

The mistake was actually made by Lidge, as it was the pitcher's responsibility to cover third with the shift on. But Phillies SS Jimmy Rollins said:

"I'm the captain of the infield," Rollins said. "It's my job. … I didn't signal to Brad to make sure he gets to third on a throw. All you've got to do is take two steps in that direction and you stop it right there. But I didn't do my part in making sure he knew the defense we were in."

Why focus on a play that happened four months ago? The same sort of mental mistake just occurred in Massachusetts. As the NYT reported today, as of December 16th, Martha Coakley was leading Scott Brown by 13 percentage points(*); but inside the numbers (or "cross-tabs"), when the respondents were limited to just those "likely" to vote, Coakley's lead shrunk to just 3 points. Scary numbers for Dems, and encouraging ones for the GOP.

(*)-The Times cites a GOP poll, but presumably other public polls (and Dem polls) would have -- or should have -- shown the same results.

As the Times shows, the GOP and Tea Partiers, used the holiday season -- when Coakley went off the trail for at least six days -- to build up momentum quietly behind Brown. By the time the public at large -- and the media -- caught up to the campaign, the "Brown-out" had broken out. Momentum and likeability -- combined with a public race that really lasted just two weeks (shortly after New Years through last Tuesday) -- spelled doom for Coakley.

No one has played the role of J-Roll in the Democratic party. Instead, we saw the incredible scene of dueling quotes on Tuesday -- before the voting booths had even closed.

Holiday Traditions

2010-01-01T13:26:00.003-05:00

Holiday traditions take years to develop. Turkey, pumpkin pie, and the Detroit Lions have meant "Thanksgiving Day" for millions of Americans.

Christmas Day has long been the NBA's showcase, although never totally obscuring presents, tinsel, and Santa Claus. This past Christmas, the NBA upped the ante by offering almost a full day of games, including Heat/Knicks, Celtics/Magic, Clippers/Suns, and Nuggets/Blazers. And the highlight of the day was the defending champion Lakers hosting King James and the Cavs.

The NHL has taken ownership of New Years Day with its Winter Classic, played this afternoon at the historic park at the Fens. The third Classic is a regular league game played on an unusual surface - the irregular ice of an outside rink. And it seems that the NHL has found a marketing jackpot and put it's product into the national consciousness.

But another sport used to own New Years: College Football. The old Bowl system meant wall-to-wall games, and with a "mythical" national championship at stake, oftentimes three or even four games were "must-see" TV. Starting with the first BCS Championship Game in January 1999, college football has devalued its (erstwhile) signature day, and most (if not all) of the top-5 teams do not play at all on January 1st. (The most competitive game - on paper - is the Sugar Bowl featuring #5 Florida and #4 Cincy. The most compelling (non-championship game is the Fiesta Bowl with #6 Boise State vs. #3 TCU).

There are plenty of problems with the current BCS system - including 3 undefeated teams this year, including one for sure (the BSU/TCU winner) who will be unbeaten at the end of the year. But giving up "ownership" of a National holiday is another issue that the NHL - for one -isn't complaining about.

Legal Opinions...Brought To You By Google

2009-11-19T12:36:00.007-05:00

The Web (in general) and Google (in particular) spent the better part of this decade wreaking havoc on the newspaper, which previously had mono- or duo-polies in their local (respective) markets. The next decade may be spent doing the same to a highly-profitable niche: legal publishing.

Legal research is dominated by two companies: WestLaw and Lexis-Nexis.

Judicial opinions are public documents. But by publishing a vast swath of judicial opinions (and assigning them "official" book and page numbers, West established a defacto monopoly over the way cases are referred to, as codified in the standard reference. West also summarized cases by subject matter, in a system called "Headnotes."

(As an example, Smith v. Jones(*), 5 F.3d 123 means that the opinion in the case of Smith v. Jones can be found beginning on the 123rd page of the 5 volume of the "F.3d" series of case reporters. But "F.3d" is a series of books published by West, and in order to find the case, you need to either refer to the physical book or sign on to WestLaw. Contrast with a Bible cite, like John 3:16, which refers you to the 16th verse in the 3rd chapter of the book of John, but which is independent of any particular Bible publisher.)

(*)-Fictional case.

Lexis-Nexis developed its own system of citation (independent of West's bound books), and the two companies have essentially shared a duopoly over computerized legal research since the 1970s.

So Monday's rather understated announcement on Google's blog that Google will make legal cases available (without charge) on its Google Scholar site has potential long-lasting implications. West and Lexis will need to find ways to compete, and it is unlikely that their margins will remain unaffected for very long.

URL citations have been creeping into legal briefs and opinions over the past few years; Google is betting that that trend will continue.

And with AdWords alongside them?

The Value of the Gold Glove

2009-11-16T15:20:00.007-05:00

The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract is clearly the touchstone (minus of course, about 241 references to The Karate Kid) for Bill Simmons' Book of Basketball (the BOB)(*). But Simmons also clearly looks to another James book -- Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame -- as a way to try and re-define what it means (in the respective sports) to be a HOFer.

(*) About which more later.

One tool for both analysis is the contemporary voting on awards: MVPs, All-Pro teams, Gold Gloves. James' view on contemporary evaluation of players is summed up as follows:

I advocate that we pay close attention, in evaluating Hall of Fame candidates, to the player's performance in award voting while active -- MVP voting, Gold Glove voting, in-season and post-season All-Star teams. If a player hits .267 with 63 RBI, but wins the MVP award, what does that mean at the time? It means that there was a widespread perception, at the time, that the player's collateral skills (defense, baserunning and leadership) were of exceptional value. Similarly, if a player drives in 162 runs and is hardly mentioned in the MVP voting, what does that mean? It means that there is a widespread perception, at the time, that the player's skills were not good.

The baseball Gold Gloves were awarded last week, and two surprises occurred in the American League: for the fourth time in the last six year, Yankees SS Derek Jeter was awarded a GG, and in the outfield, Torii Hunter and Ichiro each won their ninth consecutive GG, together first-timer Adam Jones (BAL).

Hunter, Ichiro, and Jones are not necessarily bad picks individually by themselves(*), but as highlighted by AP fav Joe Posnanski, the three necessarily cause the omission of Franklin Gutierrez; as explained by JoePos, Gutierrez saved perhaps 31 runs over an "average" centerfield in 2009, although alternative statistics show more in the range of 10-11 runs saved. In any event, there seems to be growing consensus that Guiterrez should won a GG.

Jeter has become a favorite whipping boy for GG critics; his win this year (after two years 'off') restarted the debate around his 'value', although JoePos argues that whether or not he was deserving this year, he had a better defensive year than in the 2004-2006 period, when he won 3 straight. (Or more to the point, over his career, Jeter gets to about 91% of the balls that the average AL shortstop gets to, which means that Yankees pitchers give up an extra hit (a ball not handled) every other game.)

But the larger question is what do we learn from GG awards?

JoePos posits that "We all know that the Gold Glove has become something to reward good offensive players who seem to be pretty decent in the field too." And perhaps that's good enough.(*)

(*)- Of course, such a definition makes the Silver Slugger award -- meant to reward the best offensive player at each position -- superfluous. Such analysis also does not explain the multiple awards to Omar Vizquel (only one GG season with OPS+ above 100) and Eric Chavez (won two GG with OPS+ in the 104-108 range.)

But in a world where the statistical analysis of baseball has broken through, and OPS+ and VORP are cited by mainstream publications, what does it say about the democratic process (as exemplified by Gold Glove voting, which is currently done by managers and coaches (not voting for their own players)?

Or perhaps, like Joe Morgan, the managers and coaches in voting for the Gold Gloves are trying to maintain the power of the "insider."

After all, how good a fielder can Franklin Gutierrez be if he's never won a Gold Glove?

Understanding the Risks

2009-11-13T09:41:00.002-05:00

Arizona Cardinals WR Sean Morey admitted that he played last week despite still suffering the aftereffects of a concussion. While such news would normally fall under the category of "dog-bites-man" in the NFL, there is one surprising fact.

Last month Morey was named Co-Chair of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) Concussion and Traumatic Brain Injury Committee. His Co-Chair is a doctor, the Medical Director of the NFLPA.

"The Burden of Command"

2009-11-12T16:20:00.002-05:00

MSNBC interview with NY News reporter James Gordon Meek.

Owning Two Wars -- and the Presidency

2009-11-12T11:38:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago in the WSJ, Peggy Noonan wrote of the moment in which a President 'owns' his Presidency. (The context was, in typical Noonan fashion, passive/aggressive partisanship: At what point does the public make Obama responsible for the economy? Her answer: right about now.)

In the last two weeks, it appears that Obama has taken ownership of the role of Commander-in-Chief. In the early morning of Thursday, October 29th, the President paid a late night visit to Dover Air Force Base as the bodies of 18 American servicemen who had died in Afghanistan were returned home.

A week ago, on Thursday, November 5th, thirteen people were killed (and almost 30 wounded) by alleged gunman Nidal M. Hasan. Although Obama's immediate response was criticized by some, his speech on Tuesday at the Fort Hood memorial service was well-received.

And finally, yesterday, he laid a wreath at Arlington for the first time as President, and then stopped by Section 60 of the Cemetery; the visit was recounted in a moving piece by a journalist who was there "off duty."

Against the backdrop of a pending decision on strategy in Afghanistan, Obama seems to have grown into the role of C-in-C this past fortnight.

And his actions over the past few weeks bring into sharper relief the outrageousness of the "dithering" statement by former VP Dick Cheney.

All Your Information Are Belong To Us

2009-11-12T11:11:00.004-05:00

Interesting story in today's Globe about Google decision to allow its users to quickly (and easily) see what information the company's servers are storing. Putting this information together in one place (and on one screen) is (at least for Globe author Hiawatha Bray) somewhat disconcerting.

From the looks of the comments, most readers are in contrast "underwhelmed."

AP has written about privacy and security on the net before, so the set of information that Google has accumulated (through voluntary decisions by users) is in fact, somewhat limited.

But the article serves as a good reminder of the scope of electronic surveillance, and its impact on individual privacy. And for that matter, individual and identity security.

There's an App for That?!?!

2009-11-12T09:19:00.004-05:00

The growing proliferation of robots (corresponding to the ubiquity of technology and/or drop(s) in prices) continues.

The latest example: as mentioned earlier, a lab at MIT has developed a application for the iPhone that allows a user to connect to a relatively cheap ($5,000 or so) quad-rotor helicopter available from Ascending Technologies GmbH.

What is key to the application is that the robot is finding 'its own way.' As demonstrated in the video, the user simply identifies an end point, and the mini-UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) plots its path to the target. (Presumably avoiding obstacles, like the vertical column seen in the video, in the process.)

The UAV is equipped with a camera, making the military applications obvious: seeing around corners, looking at the top of roofs for snipers, examining possible IEDs. But the availability of the components (and lost cost thereof) will mean that 'bad guys' will also have the technology. In addition, one could imagine civilian users who might also use the device for less-than-admirable ends.

In her talk on Tuesday, Dr. Cummings alluded to the Federal Aviation Administration's concern about these micro UAVs. Indeed, the FAA has started to issue regulations and related certificates for such UAVs: Honeywell received one of the first certificates in 2005 to test an untethered UAV on the Laguna Indian Reservation (about 45 miles from Albuquerque); interestingly, the FAA, in issuing such a certificate, evaluates the airworthiness of the entire system, not just the drone. Among the FAA's current requirements, there must be a ground observer or an accompanying “chase” aircraft must maintain visual contact with the drone, to insure that there is no interference with other aircraft. In February 2007, the FAA published medical certification requirements for pilots who are 'operating' UAVs.

This field will clearly continue to grow, and the FAAs ability to safely manage US airspace will be an ongoing challenge. Introduction of such mini UAVs in a battlefield situation (over Afghanistan or Pakistan, for example) will require coordination between various service.

(As an aside, radio-controlled (RC) model aircraft are subject to other rules, and are not supposed to be flown more than 400 feet off the ground.)

Bird on the Refs

2009-11-11T17:50:00.003-05:00

Larry Legend weighed in this week on the problems of NBA refs:

I know our league has got the best officials in the world. I think overall they do a tremendous job. There are different ways that different officials officiate, but we should be very honored we do have the best.

Does that mean the NBA officials are the best basketball officials in the world?

Or, considering that Bird was talking about the problems that baseball umps had in the 2009 post-season, is he claiming that NBA refs are the best sports officials in the world?

Hmmmm..

Wired for War Comes to Cambridge

2009-11-11T17:23:00.004-05:00

PW Singer, author of Wired for War, spoke yesterday at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).

Picking up on his book, Singer spoke to a full lecture hall that seemed evenly split between undergrad, grad, and faculty. He emphasized the fact that development of military robotics -- whether designed for defensive or offensive capabilities -- was outstripping (by far) legal, ethical, and scientific analysis of the impact that such new devices have on human's capacity to make war. Instead, he spoke of scientists and robotic developers who believed that such "non-scientific" concerns were not their concern, or that the developers would be able to maintain control over the robots (rather than policy-makers.)

Singer also spoke of the speed of this change, and the impact it has been having on both young soldiers (who can fly a drone over Pakistan from North Dakota, for instance, without even having a pilot's license) to senior policy-makers (whose understanding of the rate of deployment of such weapons is, at times, woefully behind the curve.)

There was some discussion of a recent New Yorker article about the Predator and Reaper (a more-heavily armed Predator) programs. The article expressed special concern about the drones operated by the CIA, which author Jane Mayer maintains, does not have the same experience or procedural limits on indiscriminate targetting as does the military. Indeed, the UN (through its Committee on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions) recently demanded that the US make showing that such CIA-operated drones are within the bounds of international law.

Singer was joined on stage by MIT Professor Missy Cummings, a former Navy fighter pilot. Her work is in the field of unmanned flight, and she discussed a few of her ongoing projects(*).

(*) - More to come on this.

Finally, it is clear that in the post-9/11 era, funding for robotics and related projects will be dominated by the Defense Department. From the Navy (like Japan) studying baseball-playing robots to self-driven cars, it clear that military uses (and plain old military research) will drive this field. And as Singer noted, such research funding comes with costs.

A recording of the Forum is expected to posted online shortly at the MIT Technology and Culture site.

Things That Make You Go Hmmm... (NBA Edition)

2009-11-10T09:04:00.005-05:00

* Disgraced former NBA ref Tim Donaghy has written in book while in prison for the last year. After Triumph Books (an imprint of Random House) apparently bought the rights to the book last year, it is alleged that pressure from the NBA made them re-think, and ultimately decided not to go forward with the project. Deadspin has excerpts (also, in fairness, the source for the NBA-is-killing-the-book rumor) from the book, some of which are explosive (i.e., that refs regularly bet on games, or on events within the game that they had control over, like who would be the first to call a technical foul.)

The excerpts on fellow NBA referees are more damaging than any allegation of betting on NBA games. Here's what he has to say about Dick Bavetta:

Studying under Dick Bavetta for 13 years was like pursuing a graduate degree in advanced game manipulation. He knew how to marshal the tempo and tone of a game better than any referee in the league, by far. He also knew how to take subtle — and not so subtle — cues from the NBA front office and extend a playoff series or, worse yet, change the complexion of that series.

The 2002 Western Conference Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Sacramento Kings presents a stunning example of game and series manipulation at its ugliest. As the teams prepared for Game 6 at the Staples Center, Sacramento had a 3–2 lead in the series. The referees assigned to work Game 6 were Dick Bavetta, Bob Delaney, and Ted Bernhardt. As soon as the referees for the game were chosen, the rest of us knew immediately that there would be a Game 7. A prolonged series was good for the league, good for the networks, and good for the game. Oh, and one more thing: it was great for the big-market, star-studded Los Angeles Lakers.

In the pregame meeting prior to Game 6, the league office sent down word that certain calls — calls that would have benefitted the Lakers — were being missed by the referees. This was the type of not-so-subtle information that I and other referees were left to interpret. After receiving the dispatch, Bavetta openly talked about the fact that the league wanted a Game 7.

"If we give the benefit of the calls to the team that's down in the series, nobody's going to complain. The series will be even at three apiece, and then the better team can win Game 7," Bavetta stated.

As history shows, Sacramento lost Game 6 in a wild come-from-behind thriller that saw the Lakers repeatedly sent to the foul line by the referees. For other NBA referees watching the game on television, it was a shameful performance by Bavetta's crew, one of the most poorly officiated games of all time.

* While anyone who's ever watched an NBA game closely will tell you that particular refs can influence the flow of a game. Refs certainly have a role in other sports, as well, although their effect is rarely so pronounced -- or so discussed. Even when a baseball umpire misses a call (or two), it is seen as just that: a missed call. Not part of an orchestrated plan emanating from the Commissioner's office. (Indeed, the missed calls in this year's ALCS resulted in umpiring changes for the World Series. Missed calls in the NBA are treated with the transparency and openness of a failed Five Year Plan in the old Soviet Union.)

* Donaghy has creditability problems, no doubt. But Bill Simmons is a favorite of the league; his new book (The Book of Basketball) on the history of the NBA(*) is number one on the New York Times best-seller list, and his calls are taken by NBA Commissioner David Stern (see BOB, page 137, footnote 89)(**)

(*) - More to come on the BOB.

(**) - Referencing that Stern believes that the advent of cable TV had a bigger impact on 'saving' the NBA than the arrival of Bird and Magic; both events occurred around 1980] "How do I know this? I called the commish and asked him. We talked for 35 minutes."

* Simmons himself has written extensively on the problem with NBA referees, including during the playoffs last spring:

We still don't know why certain referees get assigned to certain games, why Bennett Salvatore always seems to be involved when a home team needs a win to change the momentum of a series, why Joey Crawford keeps getting assigned to Spurs games, why Danny Crawford keeps getting assigned to Mavericks games, why Bill Kennedy would get assigned to a big Celtics game only six weeks after an argument cost Doc Rivers money. We are told that referees don't matter, but that's the thing: They do...

One other thing to chart: Does the NBA "control" the outcomes of certain games by assigning referees with certain call patterns? For instance, the 2008-09 Celtics were the most physical team in the league. Let's say they were leading a series 3-2 and the NBA wanted a Game 7. Would it assign some of its most whistle-happy refs to that game? Or let's say the NBA needed Utah to pull out a must-win game at home. If it had one or two refs with a history of being intimidated by tough crowds, would it feed them to the wolves in Utah? So let's see this stuff on paper. We have hundreds of stat-obsessed lunatics tracking Derek Jeter's defensive range or unearthing new ways to rip off VORP; we couldn't find a few of them to pick apart officials and assignments?

* And in the BOB (page 131), here's Simmons on the 1977-78 season:

The bad luck extended beyond Walton going down: the league barely missed out on a Sixers-Nuggets Finals in '78 ("Thompson versus the Doctor!") and a thoroughly entertaining Spurs-Suns Finals in '79 ("Davis and Westphal take on the Iceman!") If Stern had been running the league in '78 or '79, you might have seen that decade's equivalent of Dick Bavetta or Bennett Salvatore reffing a few of those pivotal Spurs-Bullets, Sixers-Bullets, and Nuggest-Sonics games. And you know it's true.(FN 79)

(FN 79)- Four perfect candidates: Seattle at Denver, '78 (Game 5, series tied at 2); Philly at Washington, '78 (Game 6, Bullets leading 3-2); Seattle at Phoenix, '79 (Game 6, Phoenix leading 3-2); Washington at San Antonio, '79 (Game 6, Spurs leading 3-2). The less sexy team won all 4 of those games. Um, this never happens anymore. Not sure if you've noticed.

* Bavetta himself told the Orland Sentinel that he may retire at the end of the year.

* Unexpected retirements are an NBA tradition in the Stern era.

Pedro Redux

2009-11-04T17:19:00.003-05:00

After a losing -- albeit commendable -- performance in Game 2 of the World Series, Charlie Manuel gives Pedro Martinez the ball again tonight in Game 6.

And not unlike Grady Little back in 2003, Manuel stayed with Pedro past the 100-pitch mark, and it almost cost the Phils: after giving up just two hits (both of which were home runs), Charlie sent Pedro out for the 7th, and he gave up two straight hits before being relieved (the first runner, Jerry Hairston, Jr., eventually scored.)

The Phils' bullpen has been shaky all season. Pedro is almost sure to need help from the pen. 37-year old Andy Pettitte is pitching on short rest.

Must see TV indeed.

Another Look at Chicagoland's Past

2009-11-04T16:57:00.007-05:00

Some more Chicagoland history: the above photo shows a temporary ski slope once built at Soldier Field (built in the mid-1950s, just before Old Man Daley took office.)

Hard to believe that these weren't more popular.

Hard to also believe that, given they were still being built in the late fifties, these couldn't be a complete "Mad Men" episode.

Here's one that gives AP vertigo just looking at it, from Vancouver:

Hat tip, Deputy Dog.

Boss

2009-11-03T10:03:00.004-05:00

On the day that Boston goes to the polls to determine whether Tom Menino should be given a fifth term, it is fitting to remember Mike Royko's classic portrait of Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, "Boss."

Royko is a throwback to an earlier era of journalism: more urban (rather than urbane), a true child of the city, and one who is both attracted and repulsed by the exercise of power.

He also paints the portrait of a Chicago rife with racial tensions: "[c]ontaining the Negro was unspoken city policy. Even expressways were planned as natural man-made barriers, the unofficial borders. The Dan Ryan, for instance, was shifted several blocks during the planning stage to make one of the ghetto walls."(p. 137)

(This Chicago is different from, but the inheritor of, the one that met Barack Obama twenty years later, as portrayed in his book, Dreams from My Father. But Old Man Daley's Chicago is the one that First Lady Michelle Robinson Obama was born into, and grew up in.)

Other vestiges of the old Chicago live on. Son Richard Michael, the current mayor (since 1989; he will break his father's record for longevity if he serves out the current term), has a cameo in "Boss", but his influence on current politics is felt. Current Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is a former CEO of the Chicago Public Schools; the younger Daley created the job of CEO after convincing the Illinois State Legislature to place the school system under his control. (Interestingly, the independence of the school board is played to political advantage in Royko's view, by the elder Daley.)

In "Dreams", Obama paints Chicago as his "native" land; the place where he learned who he was. But there is a history of that land, and Royko's portrayal of the elder Daley provides some insight as to the Chicago that met the young Obama.

A Breakout Season for Dementia

2009-11-03T09:46:00.004-05:00

The 'epidemic' of head injuries among athletes may be turning a corner, as in the last ten days, the issue has broken through in the public consciousness:

* Malcolm Gladwell used his high profile column in the New Yorker to analogize the NFL to dog fighting (and somewhere, Michael Vick laughs. Or cries.) Gladwell also narrated a slideshow that provides graphic evidence of the effect that the sport has on brains.

* Last week, Congressman John Conyers held hearings on the effects of concussions and the NFL's response to them. Among the people testifying: NFL Commission Roger Goddell, and SLI representatives including Dr. Robert Cantu, Dr. Ann McKee, and Chris Nowinski.

* On Deadspin, a prominent sports blog, Michael Oriard, a former Notre Dame and Chiefs offensive lineman wrote about his own concussion history -- and perhaps a warning of its future:

One of Roger Goodell's worst nightmares has to be the possibility that football will come to be regarded as boxing is today: a potential and very violent path to celebrity and wealth that only the most economically desperate would consider and that the vast majority of Americans find unpalatable.

We need much more research — on large number of former players, over a long period of time — to know just how dangerous football is to the human brain. Knowing the answer might be a blow not only to the NFL but to all lovers of football. But continuing to not know might be considerably more painful for those who play the game.

(Disclosure: Sports Legacy Institute (SLI) is a client of Henshon Parker, LLP)

WWGD?

2009-10-29T12:18:00.003-05:00

The Phillies send Pedro Martinez to the mound tonight at Yankee Stadium after taking a 1-0 World Series lead last night. Phillies Manager Charlie Manuel was roundly criticized after pulling Martinez in Game 2 of the NLCS despite a 1-0 lead and just 87 pitches (through seven innings).

At the time, the Phillies bullpen seemed shaky: Brad Lidge had lost the "closer" job late in the season, and ended the year with an 0-8 record and a 7.21 ERA. (A year ago he had been 48-for-48 in regular season and post-season saves.)

The Phillies' pen has been better in recent games, and perhaps Manuel will feel confident in that performance. But in another cold night in the Bronx, the ghost of Grady Little will undoubtedly be lingering over Pedro and his manager as the dreaded 100-pitch limit approaches.

Midnight Madness on M Street

2009-10-21T15:31:00.003-05:00

Georgetown opened its 2009-10 college basketball season with a "Midnight Madness" tribute to the King of Pop.

Drudge Speechless

2009-10-09T04:42:00.003-05:00

At approximately 5:50AM ET, the New York Times has been reporting for 15 minutes that Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in a "stunning surprise."

The Drudge Report, which is traditionally right-leaning, remains headlined with "Dems Plot Second Stimulus," together with a photo of Nancy Pelosi; there is no mention of the Peace Prize on the site.

Even Drudge is speechless.

And, as they say, what a difference a week makes in politics.

Or perhaps its just the change in Scandinavian cities.

Scoring

2009-10-07T15:34:00.003-05:00

The summer doldrums that dragged down the Health Care bill -- and President Obama's poll numbers -- can be linked almost directly to the CBO's preliminary analysis that 'scored' the "Affordable Health Choices Act" as adding approximately $1.0T to the deficit over the 2010-19 period.

The CBO is of course the Congressional Budget Office, which is the non-partisan Congressional agency that provides analysis of the budgetary impact (i.e., adding to or reducing the deficit) for all Congressional bills. That analysis begins and ends all questions and debate.

So the report this afternoon that the CBO has scored the current proposal (the Senate bill) and found that it will reduce the deficit by $81B over the 2010-19 period is good news for the Administration, and its allies in Congress.

If the numbers hold up, then Health Care is: Done and Done.

Whip Counts

2009-10-02T21:39:00.004-05:00

AP hopes that the White House has a better sense of the whip count in the Senate (and House, for that matter) on health care than they did (clearly) with the International Olympic Committee in Copenhagen.

The NFL Edges Closer to Dementia

2009-09-30T09:06:00.004-05:00

Today's NY Times reported on a long-awaited NFL-commissioned study on the prevelance of dementia (and other forms of illness, such as kidney and prostate problems, heart attacks, and ulcers). Randomly calling former players who were in the League for at least three seasons, the study's preliminary findings indicate that dementia and other memory-related illnesses were running close to 5 times expected rates.

HPLLP client(*) Sports Legacy Institute has been long at the forefront of the connection between multiple concussions and memory-related illnesses, including Alzheimer's. The NFL has been 'slow-walking' a response pending the results of the study reported today.

Now with data in hand, the pace of addressing the concussion problem -- both for professional athletes and (perhaps more importantly) for youth and college sports -- may increase.

(*) - HPLLP advised SLI in its partnership with the Boston University School of Medicine.

The Case of the Missing Emails

2009-09-29T11:46:00.008-05:00

The Case of the Missing Emails has been roiling Boston's City Hall for the past few weeks. To recap, one of Mayor Menino's top aides, Michael Kineavy, has been routinely deleting his incoming and outgoing emails so that they would not be backed-up or otherwise retained on the City's servers. This is, as the papers carefully put it, an "apparent" violation of state law; the Mayor characterized it as an "'honest mistake'" that was blown out of proportion thanks to election "'silly season.'"

The law in question has some pretty clear penalties: up to a five hundred dollar fine, a year in prison, or both. While the fine may not get anyone's attention, a year in prison certainly should, as Samuel Johnson once quipped, focus one's mind.

The recovered emails were released in slow-motion over the weekend, and the sampling that were printed in the Globe yesterday showed the political process at its worse: the Mayor "blowing up" (former supporters); his "very long memory" and so forth.

Another public figure with an aversion to email comes to mind. This financier was also subject to laws requiring email retention, although he contemplated violating them (and apparently had to be convinced not to do so). In the end, he decided to print the emails out on hard paper -- to eliminate the possibility of an automated search -- and then converted the paper copies to microfiche when the volume of paper overwhelmed storage areas.

The name of the financier who spent so much time and effort to 'erase' his firm's email tracks? Bernie Madoff.

...And we're back

2009-09-29T11:44:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the summer hiatus...perhaps like old friend Manny Ramirez, taking some time off in August is good for the fall.

File under: Allerton Being Allerton?

A Different Kind of "Wardrobe Malfunction"

2009-07-21T09:50:00.006-05:00

Any list of most influential books of the 20th century must include George Orwell's 1984. And the world that is described -- with oversight of private lives, double-speak, and torture -- is one that seems, given the modern world, to be coming closer and closer.

So it not surprising that Amazon, which is trying to convert readers from paper-and-binding physical books to its new Kindle e-book reader, would want to offer the classic work. In keeping with the Brave New World of Web 2.0, Amazon allows alleged copyright holders to essentially self-publish, by uploading works to its Kindle site, to then be purchased by Kindle owners.(*)

(*-The economics of Kindle publishing are interesting, and worth further exploration: apparently Amazon claims 70% of revenue from newspaper sales, and a right to further distribution. Nonetheless newspapers are lining up to be part of this "new revenue stream" despite getting the short end of the proverbial stick. Well, if there's one thing that the last 10 years have proven, it's that newspapers can adapt to a post-local-monopolistic world. Oh wait.)

But self-publishing(**) carries its own risks, including the possibility that a judgment-proof entity can upload content for distribution that it does not actually own. That's exactly what apparently happened when MobileReference, which is owned by an entity called SoundTells, uploaded its version of 1984 and Orwell's "Animal Farm"; unfortunately for Amazon, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, not MobileReference, owns the American rights to both Orwellian works.

(**-Amazon also allows its Kindle owners to effectively "self-publish" but sending themselves via email a text that is then converted to a Kindle-friendly-format. Undoubtedly some of these conversion are of text for which the Kindle user in question does not have proper rights. Amazon's exposure there, however, is not certain.)

What happened next re-defined the oft misused concept of irony: Amazon removed the illicit copies of 1984 from its Kindle storefront, which made sense because Amazon was at risk for copyright infringement damages. But Amazon didn't stop there. It also took the unprecedented step of deleting copies of the books from individual Kindles. Poof! (***)

(***- Amazon did have the common sense to refund its customer's purchases. It should also be noted that even under the terms of its license agreement with its Kindle customers, Amazon did not have the right to delete material because it granted to its customers the right to a "permanent copy of the applicable digital content.")

There is no clear analogy in the 'old-fashioned' world to what Amazon did. If a book seller went to your house to reclaim a illicit copy of a physical book, you would have an action for (among other things) trespass. Even recalls in the case of faulty products depend on customer's voluntarily returning the goods in question to the manufacturer (or retailer) for a new product or refund.(****)

(****-"Voluntary" recalls refer to the voluntary action by the good manufacturer, not the end-user.)

Even given the apparent violation of the terms of its own (self-serving) license agreement(*****), Amazon will probably not face extensive litigation risk; it probably sold very few copies of the illicit texts through MobileReference, and Houghton Mifflin may not pursue the matter.

(*****-In fairness, most 'shrink-wrap' license agreements are self-serving; courts generally have allowed them to be enforced despite the fact that few, if any, users actually read them. Instead, a click-through "I Agree" page is usually binding.)

But the incident does create a business problem for Amazon: one of the the good features about the Kindle is that you keep a record of your reading on Amazon's computers (in case you delete -- either accidentally or otherwise (i.e., for memory space reasons)). But the ability of a corporation to delete your personal reading material -- for copyright or other reasons -- brings to mind its own version of "Big Brother."

It also reminds one of the infamous Justin Timberlake/Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" incident in 2004 at the Super Bowl. At the time, TiVo's flacks rushed out with the statement that the incident was the "most watched" event in the history of the recording device; but in a case of shooting-oneself-in-the-foot, that very metric raised the question of how TiVo's management knew that fact. And what else did they know about the viewing habits of their customers?

A few days later, a more-chagrined TiVo had to reassure its customers that the individual information of viewing habits were not being monitored; but the spectre of such monitoring -- and what it means for privacy -- still lingers in the air five years later.

Amazon can't make such an 'aggregation' claim; its records indicate clearly who bought what reading material, and what material is actively on the particular Kindle device.

It's simply, Jeff Bezos (and Jonathan Zittrain) might say, a question of "trust."

Synethesia Part II

2009-06-24T16:04:00.003-05:00

Coincidentally, a new video appeared on the motiongrapher site today, from Terri Timely (a directing duo made up of Ian Kibbey and Corey Creasey), depicting the effects of synethesia on two brothers.

Separated at Birth?

2009-06-24T09:58:00.004-05:00

MLB Umpire Joe West and ND Football Coach Charlie Weis

If You Are In NYC Tomorrow...

2009-06-24T08:44:00.009-05:00

Stop by the Conde Nast Building at 4 Times Square from 6pm to 8pm on Thursday, June 25th. Friend of AP Erik Rosen has put together an exhibit of art inspired by synethesia, or the visualization of sound as color. He developed the idea while recovering from a stem cell transplant.

The above depicts "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones. He also has pieces inspired by Bruce Springsteen, the Beatles, and Bob Dylan.

The exhibit will be open through July 20th.

"Thunder Road"

Wired for War

2009-06-15T21:06:00.004-05:00

"Wired for War", by P.W. Singer, is a far broader book that the title indicates (although the subtitle -- The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century does give some indication.) Rather than limit his inquiry into the the current state of the robotics world, Singer covers the entire gamut of how wars will be fought in the next century.

But he does spend some (first) exploring the current state of the world. He identifies two current robots: PackBot, built by iRobot; and Talon and its "pissed-off big brother" SWORDS (Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection System) built by Foster-Miller.

Singer considers himself a child of pop culture, and references to film, books, and even video games are littered throughout the text. Some of the references are direct, as when he wonders whether Star War's C-3PO will be the future shape of robots; others are more obscure. But Singer is at his best when he can merge the influence of science fiction -- from Asimov to the original Star Trek; from James Cameron (director of Terminator) to J.K. Rowling (the 'invisability cloak' described in Harry Potter is inspiring scientists today -- to show how culture influences scientists and their expectations of and for robotics.

Singer also wonders and writes about the role that robots will play in the warrior culture. Separation of the warrior from his opponent has long been a theme of technologic advance (after all, even Japanese samurai eventually acknowledged that their swords were no match for a peasant with a gun). But Singer notes that the very fact of "going to war" -- heading off to a distant place where the laws of normal society are suspended -- no longer applies when a Predator drone can be flown over Afghanistan by an operator who can finish his mission and be home in time for dinner.

The book also raises the topic related to robotics: artificial intelligence. As systems become more and more sophisticated, human oversight becomes an temporal impediment to resolving a conflict successfully. In other words, if machines are waiting for human approval of a pre-emptive attack, the opportunity will be lost, and the machine (and perhaps one or more humans) will suffer as the result. But the alternative: humans ceding control to machines without "human fail-safe" is a topic that, as Singer records, is not one very many scientists working in the field wish to discuss.

Singer does a admirable job of identifying issues that the new technology will raise. While he doesn't try to predict outcomes, he also points to a future that will continue to challenge us. The book is well-worth reading for those who are looking to quickly grasp a state of the robotics/AI world, as it applies to war-making. And in a post-9/11 environment, defense budgets and political resistance to casualties means that more, not less, resources will be available for placing machines "in harm's way."

Kwik Kwiz

2009-05-31T21:09:00.003-05:00

Which former Red Sox hurler reminds you of Larry Bird: Keith Foulke or Curt Schilling?

A story in this week's Globe (surprisingly highlighted by Dan Shaughnessy today):

Knowing he was too injured to pitch, oft-maligned Keith Foulke (now trying to make a comeback) retired in February 2007 one day before he would have collected $5 million from the Indians just for showing up at work. Here's what Foulke said to the Globe's Stan Grossfeld when asked about Curt ($8 million for not pitching in 2008) Schilling: "He's got to wake up and look himself in the mirror every day."

Here's how Larry Bird's retirement went down:

When Bird finished the 1991-92 season, the prognosis was grim; his body had finally worn out. His contract contained a two-year option for $4.5 million a year, which would automatically take effect on August 15 if he didn't notify the club of his retirement. On August 12, Bird went to see [Celtics CEO Dave] Gavitt and announced he was going to retire. Gavitt, aware of the August 15 deadline and of all the years of dedicated service Larry had given the Celtics, asked him whether he wanted a few more days to think it over. "I know what day this is," Bird replied. "If I'm not going to play and know I can't play, I'm not going to take the money. I'm not going to take one cent I don't earn."

When Amazing Happens from 15 Feet

2009-05-29T08:13:00.011-05:00

The NBA's playoff ad campaign is brilliant: a pianist plays stark thirds, an empty basketball court and arena slowly (thanks to a reverse-CGI) filled to life with Kobe to Shaq...Bird's steal...Magic's Junior Sky-hook.

There's one other "Amazing" highlight that brings the NBA's past to its future: Dr. J's swoop. For NBA fans of a certain age, it defined all that basketball could be -- power, mid-air acrobatics, and grace. That moment was seared -- thanks to countless replays -- on the mind of millions.

But who saw it live? Only the 18,000 or so in Philadelphia's Spectrum who were in attendance for Game Four of the 1980 Finals. For everyone else, the 1980 Finals were consigned to late night television -- speaking of amazing -- on 'tape delay.'

The NBA of the late 1970s was a much different league than the one declared "Fannnn-tastic" just a few years later. It was a league that had gone through the 1970s built on terrific teams (the post-Russell Celtics, Knicks, and Lakers in the first half of the decade, the immortal Blazers in 1977), but after the ABA merger, it was a with little defense, little charisma, and little fan support (the 1979-80 Lakers drew 582,882, good for 3rd in the League; the Lakers this season drew 778,877, a 33% increase in numbers, good for 8th in the League.)

But presented with two well-known (thanks to the 1979 NCAA Final) and marketable stars -- Magic and Bird -- the NBA turned to a star-based system. The teams became identified by single players, and thanks to the leadership of the two most prominent; renewed interest in college basketball created interest in the pro game, culminating with the 1984 draft (3 of the top 5 players were eventual Hall of Famers, highlighted by His Airness, and the other was Sam Perkins, who played in 1286 games(*)) and interest and attendance spiked, from 450,331 (10,983 per game) in 1979-80 to 641,616 (15,649 per game) ten years later.

(*-While NBA games played is not the only measure of a player to be sure, it's more games than every player drafted at #4 from 1985 to 1994 (Rasheed Wallace was the #4 in 1995, and he's still active. Inserting footnotes in the text -- Hat tip to Joe Pos.)

But as teams -- and marketing campaigns -- were built around stars, the league had to make some tricky choices. Fans came out to the stadium to see Michael, Dominique, and Isiah, and it wasn't doing anyone any good to see them on the bench with foul trouble.

More important -- and more ominous for the integrity of refereeing -- stars became subject to kid glove treatment. In 1979-80, the top five in free throws attempted were Moses Malone (#1), World B. Free, Dan Issel, John Drew, and Reggie Theus. Malone and Issel were legitimate stars (both are in the Hall of Fame), but the other three were good, but not great players who played in a total of 5 All-Star Games.

Contrast with 1989-90, where the top five in FTA is dominated by Hall of Famers (Karl Malone, David Robinson, the Chuckster, Jordan and Patrick Ewing.)(**) FTA per game were also up slightly during the period, from 56 per game in 1979-80 to 57 per game in 1989-90, although defenses were becoming more physical in the era of the Detroit Bad Boys.

(**- Analysis of one year's top 5 FTA may not make the argument airtight, but here's top 5/FTA in 1978-79: Free, Malone (HOF), George McGinnis, Cedric Maxwell, and Drew; here's 1988-89: Karl Malone, Barkley, Jordan, Moses Malone, and Hakeem, all HoFers)

Here's another set of data: in 1977, Dr. J led the NBA in playoff FTA with 7.05 per game (134 in 19 games; in 1978, Dennis Johnson led with 7.22 FTA per playoff game (159/22 games); in 1979, it was Elvin Hayes with 6.84 FTA per playoff game (130/19 games).

In 1987, Bird led the league with 8.39 FTA per playoff game (193 FTA in 23 games); in 1988, it was Adrian Dantley with 7.73 FTA per playoff game (178/23 games); in 1989, it was Jordan with 13.47 FTA per playoff game (229/17 games).

In 2007, LBJ led with 9.8 FTA per playoff game (196/20 games); in 2008, it was Kobe with 9.23 (194/21 games); and currently LBJ leads with 14.5 FTA (188/13 games).

Weighted averages among the leaders: 1977-79 = 7.05 FTA per playoff game; 1987-89 = 9.52 FTA per playoff game; and in 2007-09 = 10.70 FTA per playoff game.

But by focusing on stars, and protecting them around the basket, the NBA turned into a multiple-rule league: one set of rules for regular season; and one for the playoffs had long been established. But by allowing stars to roam free -- and rewarding them with trips to the line, the NBA went down the road of creating "stars" and rewarding them. The trend has continued to the present day with the ultimate peak (nadir?) being reached in the 2006 Finals, when Deee-wayne Wade put the refs in his Fave Five with 97 FTA in the 6 game Finals.

So while getting refs younger or more in shape or less subject to home crowds may help alleviate some of the criticism that the calls are getting throughout the Internets, its also true that the double-standard has yet to be addressed, and is argubly getting worse.

So it wasn't just that LBJ got bailed out at the end of regulation in Game Four in Orlando; it's that he knew he would.

MSM Discovers AI

2009-05-24T08:02:00.003-05:00

Another sign that concepts around artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are breaking through to the mainstream media (MSM): an article by John Markoff in the NYT's Week in Review.

While Markoff does not break much new ground -- he summarizes the rise of the concepts of "Singularity" and the ethical issues that AI may raise -- TWIR is a marker on the way to reaching opinion-leaders. In the old world of newspapers and magazines, a cover story on AI/Robotics in Time or Newsweek would not be far behind.

But in the brave new world of the MSM, there's no longer a clear formula for moving from techie journals, to creeping into the Science section of the NYT, to 'breaking out' into popular culture. And the fact that it's Memorial Day weekend -- and that much of Manhattan is out in the Hamptons (or wishing they were there like last year) -- may mean that AI is not quite ready for its coming-out party.

Which One Is It, Sir?

2009-05-22T04:47:00.003-05:00

Dick Cheney yesterday, on President Obama's decision not to release additional photos from Abu Ghraib:

When President Obama makes wise decisions, as I believe he has done in some respects on Afghanistan, and in reversing his plan to release incendiary photos, he deserves our support.

Dick Cheney, also yesterday, on whether 'enhanced interrogation' helps recruit for al Queda:

Another term out there that slipped into the discussion is the notion that American interrogation practices were a “recruitment tool” for the enemy. On this theory, by the tough questioning of killers, we have supposedly fallen short of our own values...As a practical matter, too, terrorists may lack much, but they have never lacked for grievances against the United States. Our belief in freedom of speech and religion … our belief in equal rights for women … our support for Israel … our cultural and political influence in the world – these are the true sources of resentment, all mixed in with the lies and conspiracy theories of the radical clerics. These recruitment tools were in vigorous use throughout the 1990s, and they were sufficient to motivate the 19 recruits who boarded those planes on September 11th, 2001.

So the photos from Abu Ghraib would be incendiary, but the techniques themselves (which are featured in the photos) add no additional fuel to the fire?

It reminds one of another question:

KAFFEE: Then why the two orders? Colonel? Why did you--
JESSEP: Sometimes men take matters into their own hands.
KAFFEE: No sir. You made it clear just a moment ago that your men never take matters into their own hands. Your men follow orders or people die. So Santiago shouldn't have been in any dangor at all, should he have, Colonel?
JESSEP: You little bastard.
ROSS: Your Honor, I have to ask for a recess to--
KAFFEE: I'd like an answer to the question, Judge.
RANDOLPH: The Court'll wait for answer.
KAFFEE: If Kendrick told his men that Santiago wasn't to be touched, then why did he have to be transferred?

Your honor, Your Honor.

2009-05-21T10:35:00.005-05:00

Allerton's Point usually defers to Decisionism for close readings and analysis of US District Court memos on Motions to Dismiss(*).

But when the ruling involves the son of a former Presidential candidate, suing an ACC school for the right play on the university's golf team, an exception must be made.

Andrew Giuliani sued Duke University and its current golf coach after Guiliani was dismissed from the golf team last spring (2008). (Giuliani had been 'recruited' to play golf by the prior coach, who died unexpectedly; Giuliani was not offered an athletic scholarship, so in essence he was 'recruited' to walk-on and tryout for the team.)

Giuliani asked the court to in essence, reinstate him to the team based on a contract theory. U.S. Magistrate Judge Wallace W. Dixon's opinion is a readable and entertaining loop through some of the 'signature holes' of North Carolina contract law in the educational setting. Bottom line: Giuliani's attempt to cobble together a contract through a combination of University policy manuals, bulletins, and assorted other documents ends up, to quote Judge Dixon, "in the drink."

Unsurprisingly, Judge Dixon finds a way to work in a Caddyshack quote into the memorandum; in dismissing Giuliani's promissory estoppel claim (which is somewhat surprisingly, not argued in his brief), Dixon quotes Carl Spackler (Bill Murray): "He's on his final hole. He's about 455 yards away, he's gonna hit about a 2 iron I think. "

At least Dixon didn't quote this section of Caddyshack dialogue:

Danny Noonan: I planned to go to law school after I graduated, but it looks like my folks won't have enough money to put me through college.
Judge Smails: Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too.

(*)- And related matters, all as described in a Memorandum Opinion, Recommendation, and Order, 1:08CV502, USDC (Middle District of North Carolina)

"Because it insults my intelligence"

2009-05-19T14:28:00.003-05:00

Here are the corresponding numbers for New Hampshire, as reported by the AP:

Belknap - $6.6M total / $ 109 per person

Carroll - $63.1M / $1,334pp (!)

Chesire - $1M / $13pp

Coos - $2.6M total / $81pp

Grafton - $36.7M / $429pp

Hillsborough - $56M / $139pp

Merrimack - $21.1M / $143 pp

Rockingham - $48.4M /$163 pp

Strafford - $6.2M / $51pp

Sullivan - $2.7M / $61pp

"Only don't tell me that you're innocent."

2009-05-19T12:15:00.009-05:00

The Associated Press has mapped stimulus dollars to each county in the United States. Here's how the county-by-county breakdown went in Massachusetts:

Barnstable - $17.4M total / $78 per person

Berkshire - $20.7M /$160 pp

Bristol - $100.3M / $184 pp

Dukes(*) - $4.1M / $268 pp

Essex - $50.5M / $68 pp

Franklin - $26.3M / $366 pp

Hampden - $8.9M / $19 pp

Hampshire - $20.3M / $132 pp

Middlesex - $100.1M / $68 pp

Nantucket - $7.7M / $733 pp

Norfolk - $24.8M / $38 pp

Suffolk - $108.6M / $151 pp

Worcester - $78.8M / $101 pp

(*) Dukes County is comprised of Martha's Vineyard.

Sports = Entertainment

2009-05-08T10:00:00.004-05:00

From the dawn of history, professional sports was always co-existed with the "entertainment world."

Babe Ruth was either traded so that Harry Frazee could -- or could not -- finance "No, No Nanette." The Celtics usually have a long West Coast road trip in mid-February, so that travelling shows (currently "Disney on Ice") can use the Garden.

But it has only been in the past few decades that sports has morphed into entertainment. Red Auerbach, who was a link to the original NBA of the 1940s, refused to allow danceteams or other "modern" entertainment at the Garden. In 2004, he said: "They're just waiting for me to die so they can get cheerleaders."

(The Celtic Dancers are in their third year, beginning the first season after Red's passing.)

But the point of this post is not to complain about the post-modern "Fan Experience."

Rather, when Big-Time Sports began competing directly for the American consumer's entertainment dollar, a Rubicon was crossed.

Sports heroes have become treated like celebrities, been paid like celebrities, and begun living their lives like celebrities. Salaries followed.

But there's a difference between sports and pure entertainment: we don't care what entertainers have to do to stay at the top.

If Madonna needs a little help to stave off the next generation of teeny-boppers, no one cares. Sure, it's fuel for the tabloids and gossip pages, but no one cares. Her music either sells or it doesn't; in fact, we don't even care what 'post-production' needs to be done on the album to improve her voice.

And it's not just music -- body doubles abound in Hollywood: Julia Roberts got help from a body double in Pretty Woman. Halle Berry has received "double" help from Barbara Alexandre. And of course stunt men -- while being replaced by CGI in recent years -- have been around since the days of Eisenstein.

There's no pretext in show biz -- the entertainment is entertaining. If it's not, we won't watch, and don't care. And if the Big Star needs a little help -- from a surgeon, or a strength coach, or a teleprompter, or even a little pick-me-up in the morning, we don't see it, and we don't care.

But sports is -- or was -- different.

The competitive aspect of sports is what made it compelling. Could one athlete outtrain, outwork, or outlast their opponent?

We measure athletic achievements, both to separate them from one another, but also to show the separation from mere mortals.

The compelling images from our childhood are of superhuman achievement: Dr. J dunking from the foul line. Kirk Gibson limping to the plate, then fist-pumping around the bases. Michael Jordan ripping the heart out of the City of Cleveland.

What does it mean for our children's memories?

Jerry Seinfeld once famously summarized modern sports as follows: "You are standing and cheering and yelling for your clothes to beat the clothes from another city. Fans will be so in love with a player, but if he goes to another team, they boo him. This is the same human being in a different shirt! They hate him now! Boo! Different shirt!! Boo!"

When will we reach the point that we now root for our chemists to whip up better concoctions than the other team's chemists?

And will we pay $100 a ticket to see it?

Must-Wins

2009-05-06T15:34:00.007-05:00

Big night in playoff sports tonight:

* For the second series in a row, the Celtics have dropped the first game at home, leaving themselves in a "must-win" situation tonight. Ironically, the Cs might have been able to stick the Magic with their worst-ever-Game-One-loss-that-didn't-involve-Nick-Anderson had they been able to close the deal after storming back from 28 down. Instead, Gang Green needs a win and then more perimeter jump shooting in the Magic Kingdom (from the Os) rather than pounding the ball down to Dwight Howard or Rashard Lewis.

* Speaking of Lewis, his confidence has to be helped by the fact that for much of the game, he was being guarded by Brian Scalabrine. While Scal is not a stopper in the best of times, he has only recently returned to the lineup (Game 3 of the Chicago series) after suffering a series of concussions in February. Scal's post-concussion syndrome 'disappeared' the night that Leon Powe's knee was shredded, and he wears a headband as "cushioning"; it's perhaps the NBA's equivalent of giving Dumbo-the-Elephant a feather to hold to enable his to "fly." And repeated head injuries are very dangerous for the future health of the victim.

* Let's just not mention "Derrick Rose" anywhere around Scal. Please.

* In the Adams Division final, the Bruins need to show that they can match the Canes' intensity. After getting blown out in the opener, the Whale came back and showed up in Game Two; the Bruins now need to respond with an uptick themselves. And hope that Goalie Cam Ward is through standing-on-his-head.

* Finally, the Pittsburg Penguins also face a 'must-win' tonight, back home in the Igloo and down 0-2 to the Washington Ovechkins. While Sid Crosby has backed up his end of the Rivalry, he's not received a lot of help from NHL regular-season leading scorer Evgeni Malkin or (even) the 413's Bill Guerin. The Pens looked slow and old in the last 20 minutes on Monday night; they need to turn it around tonight.

* One more NHL thought: wouldn't you love to be a the guy who got to tell Commissioner Gary Bettman, "Oh, by the way, our franchise in Phoenix just filed for bankruptcy"?

Prime Minister's Question (PMQ) Time

2009-05-06T15:00:00.004-05:00

John McCain campaigned (at least for a while) on the idea of coming before Congress to answer questions a la the British Prime Minister. But if after watching the above video, one imagines that a President McCain might have -- after cool reflection -- decided that an East Room presser was a better idea after all.

Bill Clinton was publicly encouraged to hold a PMQ by members of his own party, but demurred; PMQ was not an option for other Presidents (like 40 and 43, linked in this entry with the immortal words "What the President meant to say...")

Game Seven Notes

2009-05-01T09:48:00.004-05:00

Most of the coverage of the Bulls-Celtics series is understandably focused on the drama of seven overtime periods in six games, and the fact that the teams are so competitive and evenly matched. However, a few points stand out despite all of the hard play:

Vinnie Del Negro.

* Despite criticism throughout the year, Del Negro has represented for the "413." And he's still looks like the same kid that Jimmy Valvano recruited with a-for-the-time high-tech innovation: an audio tape of a future "ACC Title game" where Vinnie wins the title for NC State.
* Say what you will, but the Bulls have a plan: run the ball down the Celtics' throat. When Derrick Rose squares his shoulders and runs north-and-south, no one can stop him defensively.
* Kirk-Hinrich-on-Paul-Pierce has been surprisingly effective, and not overused; Hinrich's quick hands allow him to both Pierce when he brings the ball down, and he also is athletic.
*While running out of TOs hurt him in Games One and Two, his teams have also been in position to win five of the six games so far. The Cs have escaped near-death experiences twice: down five (without the ball) with 2:30 left in Game Two and down 11 with 9:27 left in Game Five. They won't get out of a hole like that in Game Seven.

Celtics Guards off the Bench

* There's nothing more painful than watching a player who has lost the confidence to shoot, and it's now happened to both Stephon Marbury and Tony Allen. It's not "unselfish". It's not "working within the team." It's hoping the ball doesn't find you at the end of the shot clock. And it will. As John Cheney once said: "There's a reason why a guy's open."
* As to why Tony Allen was on the floor at the end of regulation (when the Cs had their best -- and really only -- chance to win last night), here's what Doc Rivers said:

"With an 8-point lead, if you're a good defensive team, all you have to do is play defense," Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. "You don't have to score again. You literally don't have to score again. But we didn't do that."

But that's why there's the 'offense-and-defense' substitution package, Coach.

Celtic Bites

* There's not much left in the tank for Ray Allen and Paul Pierce. Allen had a career playoff high last night, keeping the Celts alive in the second OT with two huge jumpers. And Pierce was immense in crunch time during Game Five. How long can this go on?
* You got Rondo'd. It's hard to believe, but a year ago, Rondo was still seen as the weak link on the Cs. Two years ago he averaged 6 ppg, 3 apg, and 3 rpg, and last year's 10.6/5.2/4.2 was seen as a big improvement. This year, and especially this post-season, has been a cosmic leap.

If You Liked...

2009-04-28T09:20:00.001-05:00

If you liked this ad...

You'll love this one:

Hunting for Craic

2009-04-22T17:01:00.003-05:00

For another look at the underbelly of the Celtic Tiger, you could do worse then pick up a copy of Bill Barich's new book, "A Pint of Plain."

Barich, who is an accomplished travel writer and a well-read lover of literature, moves to Dublin and proceeds to circle the country over the space of about a year, searching for the perfect, authentic Irish public house (or pub.) Long enamored of the 'traditional' Irish of memory, Barich quickly discovers that much -- of not all -- of what we Americans consider to be 'Irish' is really "fairytale Ireland."

The John Ford/John Wayne film, "The Quiet Man" animates Barich's search, and perhaps most disappointingly when he travels to Cong, County Galway, and discovers that the 'real' QM pub is actually "a whitewashed, thatched replica of Sean Thornton's White O'Mornin'", where he is treated -- for five quid -- to views of "authentic reproductions" of the costumes from the movie, and other props. All in all, a rather inauthentic experience.

But Barich also discovers that the "authentic" Irish pub experience is itself become commoditized, thanks to Guinness (now a Diageo brand) and the Irish Pub Company, which itself has built over 400 "authentic" pubs world-wide, including conversions from other types of bars to an Irish pub (Interesting fact: "if a British pub switches to an Irish theme, say, and refits its interior with tin signs, etched Jameson mirrors, and so on, its profits frequently triple."(p.48)

Thus the book is really a study of modernization and globalization upon a traditional culture that is perhaps the world's most romanticized. In the end, there are only a handful of 'true' Irish pubs that survive to the present day, and most of those are run by senior publicans who seem unlikely to pass the bar to a child; notwithstanding the inevitable ("& Sons") in the name of a IPC-designed pub.

The end of the Irish pub is the end of a way of life. The farmers and related trades that supported the pub are going away, outnumbered by the information workers of the Celtic Tiger that Barich saw throughout the Isle. Even as the country reels from the Great Unwind, those traditional jobs will not likely return.

But one can still yearn for a pint -- and a bit of craic -- after a long day on the links in a pub such as Tubridy's.

Which of course, in a global economy, has its own website.

Which is, one supposes, Barich's point.

"You Can Hear the Angels Sing"

2009-04-22T12:14:00.008-05:00

Heard again recently on the streets of Boston: an Irish brogue.

And why is that 'news'?

For much of the past 150 years, America was the 'Great Escape' for those in Ireland. They came to escape oppressive laws(*), primogeniture, and a marginal agricultural economy. They came in large numbers in the 1840s (during the Great (Potato) Famine, when almost a quarter of the Irish population departed), and again at the end of the 19th century. And with almost one-in-ten Americans claiming ancestry, Irish-ness has gone from political pariah to political punchline. (Even the current President of the United States spells his last name "O'Bama" on March 17th.)

In more recent years, many young Irish would come over for a few years in their early 20s (usually on temporary visas), make some money, and return home to raise their family.

But in recent years, the pace of this latter emigration, temporary as it was, had slowed. The growth of the "Celtic Tiger" began in the 1990s, suffered a brief set back around the turn of the century, and then took off with a vengeance in the new millennium. And the rise of the Celtic Tiger meant that 'good jobs at good wages' for young Irish could be found in Dublin and Galway, and not just Boston and New York.

But while the growth may have been initiated thanks to low tax rates and an educated workforce attracting global businesses, it also deregulated banking and financial services. The growth also quickly spread to real estate and housing development. (An interesting parallel can be drawn to another country that de-regulated quickly: Iceland. Michael Lewis' take on the 'kreppa' is here; Ian Parker's (New Yorker) is here.)

And the overheated Celtic economy boiled over. As Paul Krugman described earlier this week, Ireland faces a technical depression: a contraction of the real economy of more than 10% this year. And as the Irish banks crumbled, the government stepped in -- think: Celtic TARP. But the world markets are not as forgiving to little Ireland as they have been to the U.S. (so far.) According to Krugman, unless the government gets its deficit under control by slashing spending and/or raising taxes, lenders won't buy Irish bonds. And thus, the crisis (at least on the Emerald Isle) will get much worse before it gets better.

Which brings us back to the happenstance of hearing the brogue on the streets of Boston. With the Irish economy heading downhill, young Irish again will be likely showing up here in Boston, in New York, and Chicago, looking for work and a better chance.

It's Back to the Future. Celtic Style.

(*) - For example, in the eighteenth century, thanks to British-based laws: "A Catholic couldn't sit in the Parliament, or be a solicitor, a gamekeeper, or a constable. They weren't allowed to attend university, either in Ireland or abroad, nor could they keep a school. Instead they relied on "hedge schools," where itinerant teachers lectured students in the open air. Priests said Mass in secret, too, at rocks and sites known only to the faithful. A Catholic orphan had to be raised as a Protestant, while no Catholic could own property or receive it as a gift." Barich, A Pint of Plain, p. 153-54 (2009).

End of an Era - A.P. Edition

2009-04-22T12:00:00.003-05:00

Allerton's Point sends a shout-out to long-time NBA vet Dikembe Mutombo, whose career apparently came to an end last night following a knee injury.

His finger-wagging after a block shot remains a cultural milestone for those 'of a certain age.'

The Original Bird

2009-04-13T16:55:00.004-05:00

He flamed across the American League for the briefest of moments: 19-9, 2.34 ERA in 1976. Consensus Rookie-of-the-year, 2nd place (to Jim Palmer) in Cy Young voting. The future was bright.

But he would win just 10 more games (against 10 losses) in the next four years, and by 1981, at age 27, he was out of baseball. Arm trouble, and perhaps a bit too quirky for MLB.

RIP, Mark Fidrych.

Changing the Landscape for FDA Approvals

2009-04-08T10:15:00.004-05:00

New column (co-written with Terry Klein of HPLLP and Decisionism) on the Mass High Tech page today. Text below:

The U.S. Supreme Court revisited the balance between federal and state authority over drug regulation last month. The result may have long-lasting impacts for drug researchers and manufacturers. By affirming a multi-million dollar verdict in a product liability case -- rejecting a drug maker’s argument that a federally approved label bars state law claims -- the court effectively required drug manufacturers to closely monitor side effects even after U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval. This decision deviates a bit from recent case law and deserves an explanation. There may also be implications for device manufacturers.

The case of Wyeth v. Levine involved administering Wyeth’s anti-nausea drug Phenergan by the “IV-push” method. Susan Levine, a professional musician, suffered from migraines and received a needle-with-plunger injection of Demerol (for the headache) and Phenergan (for nausea). Because the latter drug accidentally entered one of Levine’s arteries – rather than a vein, as advised by the label – gangrene set in that resulted in the loss of Levine’s arm, and her livelihood.

Levine sued on state law grounds, and a jury found that because the risk of gangrene and amputation could be almost always avoided by the “IV-drip” (a drip bag using saline solution) rather than the “IV-push” method (as was used). Wyeth was negligent and that IV-push-administered Phenergan was a defective product. Wyeth had been aware of the gangrene risk since at least 1967.

Wyeth’s defense relied on FDA approval, and therefore federal “preemption” of state law. The FDA approved Phenergan in the 1950s, subject to labeling that included a general gangrene warning. But over the years, even as Wyeth became aware that the IV-drip method all-but-eliminated the catastrophic risks, the company did not sufficiently update its label. After all, it argued, the label described the risk, and the FDA had approved the language.

The Supreme Court held that Wyeth had a duty to update its labeling to reflect the knowledge that it acquired over the years. (Interestingly, Congress authorized the FDA only in 2007 to compel label revisions in the face of new [adverse] information.) FDA requirements, according to the court, are a “floor” and not a “ceiling” for state regulation.

The Wyeth result –- allowing a tort case to proceed even though there was FDA approval –- initially appears to contradict the Court’s decision a year ago in Riegel vs. Medtronic. There, the Court reviewed a different statutory section, which empowered the FDA to review medical devices prior to introduction and explicitly pre-empted state regulation. As a result, the court in the 2008 Medtronic case barred state tort claims arising from damage caused by FDA-approved medical devices. (Further complicating matters, in a 1996 device case involving Medtronic and a still different section of the statute, the court found that state tort claims were not preempted.)

Because the applicable federal pre-emption provision for drugs is narrower, the Wyeth decision came out the opposite way (i.e., against the manufacturer). This means that even after FDA approval, drug makers have a duty to monitor their products and update their labels.

Finally, there is an unanswered question for device manufacturers: Having obtained FDA approval, what obligations do they have when a defect comes to light after approval? Justice Ginsburg, the sole dissenter in the 2008 Medtronic case, raised that question in her first footnote in that case. The question for the future is whether the court will find the statutory device preemption language (whether-or-not subject to a product recall) or a pattern of post-FDA-approval harm to be more compelling. And for observers who assumed that there is a reliable pro-business majority on the Roberts court, the Wyeth decision suggests a less certain result than the industry might prefer.

Ripped From the Headlines?

2009-04-08T09:19:00.007-05:00

It's become a classic TV crime drama teaser: "The new CSI(*): Ripped from the Headlines"

But with today's news that the "Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies" in the WSJ, it's now the headlines that appear to be 'ripped' from drama.

The drama in question is a (sort of) new book, called "Daemon" by Daniel Suarez. It's self-billed as a techo-thriller, and it lives up to the hype.

The book is clearly from the Clancy- / Grisham-type genre, so anything beyond a high-level description will be giving away too much of the plot. However, the main idea of the book: a distributed 'daemon' (or a computer program -- or series of programs -- that run in the 'background' where they are oblivious to the user) that has malicious intent. And because this daemon was programmed by a genius computer-game developer, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) component makes it particularly dangerous.

The author comes from an IT background, and it shows with the technological accuracy of the book. The thin lines and close connection between hackers, game-players, and IT security personnel all play a role; the result is a world of 'reality' that exists -- but is oblivious to those over the age of 40 whose memories of computer games were formed by "Pong" and "Space Invaders." (It is informative that computer games now out-earn Hollywood, although like Hollywood, games are driven by blockbusters that support the equivalent of "straight to video" bombs.)

One of Suarez' themes is the degree to which law enforcement -- from local police to the FBI to even the NSA -- is outmanned, outwitted, and outgunned by rampant distribution of technology. It does take much imagination to think of the possible ramifications for national security, and economic security.

There are some problems with the book: the body count is exceedingly high, and Mr. Suarez' descriptions of bloody endings reads (at times) like the script for "Friday the 13th Part XIX." But the stuff he knows -- the IT and its vulnerabilities -- are far more chilling than the worst sort of horror movie.

The reliance on technology in the modern world -- the vulnerabilities of that reliance to attack -- makes this a must-read for anyone interested in the future of technology. Security is only as strong as its weakest link, and as the WSJ story today shows, malicious agents are always searching for vulnerabilities.

Finally, the book itself has an interesting back story. Suarez had to essentially self-publish it in 2006 under an alias ("Leinad Zeraus"!) It apparently kicked around Silicon Valley and caught the eye of a number of high-profile individuals, including Rick Klau of Feedburner, which was shortly thereafter acquired by Google. As a result, as highlighted by a Wired Magazine article last year, the print-on-demand manuscript became an underground success.

And Penguin/Dutton eventually caught on. The book was re-released this January.

(*) - or "Cold Case" or "Law & Order" or "CSI: Miami" or...

NCAA Final

2009-04-08T09:14:00.002-05:00

Following up on the last post, the final score in the NCAA championship game was of course, UNC 89 Michigan State 72 in a game that was not even as close as the score indicated.

Obviously a sample size of one is meaningless, although the Pomeroy ratings did not distinguish themselves with the 14-game sample discussed here either.

Another Test for Pomeroy

2009-04-06T15:23:00.005-05:00

KenPom predicts a win by UNC tonight, 80-77, with a 63% likelihood.

The line, in contrast, is UNC (-7.5), and the money line is UNC (-370), or that you must wager 370 to win 100 with UNC.(*)

In short, KenPom sees the game as closer than the general public; it also interesting that KenPom has the game played on a "Neutral" court, when most observers give the Ford Field crowd as a home game for MSU.

* - Sportsbook.com, strictly for entertainment purposes.

GIGO?

2009-04-06T11:08:00.008-05:00

Ken Pomeroy has done a terrific job documenting and analyzing data relating to college basketball, much like Bill James for baseball a generation ago. His blog (and writing at Basketball Prospectus) has introduced new stats such as "Effective Height" and "Defensive Fingerprint." Stats such as these have given observers a set of tools to use to evaluate College Basketball teams.

That being said, the core stat -- the Pomeroy Rating -- has been less than stellar during this NCAA tournament. Although there were few major upsets in the first two rounds of the tournament (meaning that the "power conference" teams mainly survived to the Sweet Sixteen Round), Pomeroy's ratings have had middling results.

With that in mind, let's take a tour back through each of the four regions, comparing Pomeroy's ratings against other ranking systems: the NCAA Men's Committee itself (NCAA), the final AP poll (AP), and RPI (Ratings Percentage Index, as calculated here. (RPI))

Only Sweet Sixteen and later games are used, to try and emphasize the differences between the systems. (After all, every system will get the 1-16 and 2-15 games correctly; by the time you reach the round of 16, the choices are hard, as anyone who's ever done a bracket will tell you.) Note that while KenPom systems remains 'dynamic', adding information from each successive game and updating results, the NCAA, AP, and RPI ratings used here were 'fixed' at the end of the regular season.

EAST

Sweet Sixteen actual teams: Pitt vs. Xavier; Villanova vs. Duke

Predicted results:

NCAA: (1) Pitt over (4) Xav (correct); (2) Duke over (3) Nova (incorrect). (1-1)

AP: (4) Pitt over (20) Xav (correct); (6) Duke over (14) Nova (incorrect) (1-1)

RPI: (2) Pitt over (17) Xav (correct); (1) Duke over (13) Nova (incorrect) (1-1)

KenPom: (5) Pitt over (20) Xav (correct); (11) Duke over (14) Nova (incorrect) (1-1)

Finals: Pitt vs. Villanova

NCAA: (1) Pitt over (3) Nova (incorrect). (1-2, cumulative)

AP: (4) Pitt over (14) Nova (incorrect) (1-2)

RPI: (2) Pitt over (13) Nova (incorrect) (1-2)

KenPom: (5) Pitt over (14) Nova (incorrect) (1-2)

SOUTH

Sweet Sixteen actual teams: UNC vs. Gonzaga; Syracuse vs. Oklahoma

NCAA: (1) UNC over (4) Gonzaga (correct); (2) OU over (3) Cuse (correct) (3-2, cumulative)

AP: (2) UNC over (10) Gonzaga (corret); (7) OU over (13) Cuse (correct) (3-2)

RPI: (3) UNC over (26) Zaga (correct); (5) OU over (12) Cuse (correct); (3-2)

KenPom: (3) UNC over (8) Zaga (correct); (13) OU over (15) Cuse (correct); (3-2)

Finals: UNC vs. OU

NCAA: (1) UNC over (2) OU over (4-2, cumulative)

AP: (2) UNC over (7) OU (correct) (4-2)

RPI: (3) UNC over (5) OU over (correct); (4-2)

KenPom: (3) UNC over (13) (correct); (4-2)

MIDWEST

Sweet Sixteen actual teams: Louisville vs. Arizona; Kansas vs, Michigan State.

NCAA: (1) Lou over (12) Ariz (correct); (2) MSU over (3) KU (correct) (6-2, cumulative)

AP: (1) Lou over (NR) Ariz (correct); (8) MSU over (14) KU (correct) (6-2)

RPI: (4) Lou over (62) Ariz (correct); (6) MSU over (11) KU (correct) (6-2)

KenPom: (4) Lou over (40) Ariz (correct); (7) MSU over (10) KU (correct) (6-2)

Finals: Lou vs. MSU

NCAA: (1) Lou over (2) MSU (incorrect) (6-3, cumulative)

AP: (1) Lou over (8) MSU (incorrect) (6-3)

RPI: (4) Lou over (6) MSU (incorrect)(6-3)

KenPom: (4) Lou over (7) MSU (incorrect) (6-3)

WEST

Sweet Sixteen Actual teams: UConn vs. Purdue; Missouri vs. Memphis

NCAA: (1) UConn over (5) Purdue (correct); (2) Mem over (3) Mizzou (incorrect) (7-4)

AP: (5) UConn over (17) Purdue (correct); (3) Mem over (9) Mizzou (incorrect) (7-4)

RPI: (8) UConn over (20) Purdue (correct); (7) Mem over (10) Mizzou (incorrect) (7-4)

KenPom: (2) Uconn over (17) Purdue (correct); (1) Mem over (6) Mizzou (incorrect) (7-4)

Finals: UConn vs. Mizzou

NCAA: (1) UConn over (3) Mizzou (correct) (8-4, cumulative)

AP: (5) UConn over (9) Mizzou (correct) (8-4)

RPI: (8) UConn over (10) Mizzou (correct) (8-4)

KenPom: (2) Uconn over (6) Mizzou (correct) (8-4)

FINAL FOUR:

UNC vs. Villanova; MSU vs. UConn.

NCAA: (1) UConn over (2) MSU (incorrect); (1) UNC over (3) Nova (correct) (9-5, cumulative)

AP: (5) UConn vs. (8) MSU (incorrect); (2) UNC over (11) Nova (correct); (9-5)

RPI: (6) MSU over (8) UConn (correct); (3) UNC over (13) Nova (correct) (10-4)

KenPom: (2) UConn over (7) MSU (incorrect); (3) UNC over (14) Nova (correct)(9-5)

CHAMPIONSHIP GAME:

UNC vs. MSU

NCAA: (1) UNC over (2) MSU

AP: (2) UNC over (8) MSU

RPI: (3) UNC over (6) MSU

KenPom: (3) UNC over (7) MSU

As all four systems have the same prediction for tonight's game, there can be no change in the final standings, which leaves the much maligned RPI as the 'most accurate', at least for this year.

RPI: 11-4 or 10-5

NCAA: 10-5 or 9-6

AP: 10-5 or 9-6

KenPom: 10-5 or 9-6