nanothoughts.net » rog

8 groups of 4 teams each. Top 2 move on, and the order is important. So that is 4 teams choose 2 teams or 6 ways to pick the two teams. Then, those 6 pairs of teams can be ordered 2 diff. ways, so 12 possibilities per group. There are 8 groups, so 12^8 possible ways to pick the top 2 teams in order from the 8 groups. Then, these 16 teams play a single elim tourney which is 15 games, so 2^15 possible ways that can go.

This gives 12^8 * 2^15 which is 14089640214528 (14 trillion or 1.4 x 10^13) ways for the tournament to go. Which of these ways do you hope or expect it to go?

(Btw, for comparison purposes, the NCAA basketball tournament with 64 teams has 2^63 or 9223372036854775808 (9 quintillion or 9.22 x 10^18 ) possibilities. )

Now, given the way the knockout stage works, you could have symmetries with respect to which teams play which. We don’t have to worry about those if we define our problem to also take into consideration the days and stadiums in which the teams play.

Good luck to all 32 teams!

Public Library of Science articles in the news

rog — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:44:17 +0000

The PLoS, http://www.plos.org/, In the News sections always has an interesting collection of articles to peruse. Yeah, it’s mostly biology based, but where else can you get Habsburg Inbreeding, Chimp Meat-Sex Barter, and Red Faced Drinkers?

PLoS journal articles currently receiving widespread media attention: Silent Heart Attacks, Spanish Habsburg Dynasty Inbreeding, Semantic Enhancement of PLoS Content, Sound Amplification, Bird Flu, Evolution-Proof Malaria Insecticide, Sub-Groups of Neanderthal Population, Chimpanzees Trade Meat for Sex, Back Pain Evaluation, Pancreatic Cancer Biomarkers, Reducing Amazon Fires, Breakthrough Against Malaria, Drinkers’ Red Faces and Cancer Risk, Romanov DNA, Map of Science, UV Light and TB Spread, and Herpes Virus Reactivation.

Michael Roston does not know the difference between Google Hot Trends and most popular searches overall

rog — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:10:04 +0000

Over on True/Slant, Michael Roston opines:

Read it and weep, Internet-using America. The fifth most common search on Google earlier this morning, via Google Trends, was ’swine flue.’ Not ‘flu’ as in influenza, but ‘flue’

Hmmm. I guess he doesn’t understand the difference between Google Hot Trends and Google’s most popular searches overall. From their FAQ:

Hot Trends reflects what people are searching for on Google today. Rather than showing the most popular searches overall, which would always be generic terms like ‘weather,’ Hot Trends highlights searches that experience sudden surges in popularity, and updates that information hourly.

For the actual comparison of flu to flue, look here: http://www.google.com/trends?q=swine+flu%2C+swine+flue&ctab=0

It’s about 1.00 to 0 with flu in the lead.

What’s in a name?

rog — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 14:15:48 +0000

This article reminded me of the chapter in Freakanomics that talks about naming kids, race and socioeconomic success. And there have been a boatload of older studies about resumes with distinctly black names not getting callbacks for interviews. So, imagine if Obama was only able to submit his resume (which is admittedly thin) and never be seen. He wouldn’t have been able to use his superior marketing, organizational efforts and silver tongue to get elected. Also, we never would’ve known he was a light skinned black and not a dark skinned black. (Btw, I never realized until now that that was Julian Bond interviewing Garret Morris in that skit.) Most voters would’ve only seen his resume and recoiled at his decidedly African and Arabic name. But in reality, nobody did that…

Melamine tableware

rog — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:57:53 +0000

I walked into my neighborhood drugstore yesterday and was greeted by a melamine tableware endcap.

e.g. http://www.alibaba.com/catalog/11037899/Melamine_Tableware.html

People want to put their food on plates made out of melamine?! Apparently it polymerizes too (when combined with formaldehyde, how appropriate). Who knew?

Changes

rog — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 04:39:43 +0000

“And although it seems heaven sent we aint ready, to see a black president, uhh”

-Tupac Shakur

I totally agreed with Tupac when this song came out, and even as recently as a year ago. Maybe even a few months ago. But today I voted for Obama and so did millions others. And he won. Amazing. It’s truly historic, I don’t know what else to say…

Somebody is buying interesting ads on political sites

rog — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:12:20 +0000

So, I was over on the awesome polling and statistics site, fivethirtyeight.com and on their main page, I was greeted by the following ad:

Not your typical fivethirtyeight.com ad, but with the election less than a week away, maybe some will try anything to change the outcome.

Here’s the full webpage screenshot scaled down:

Current fave tracks (of the moment)

rog — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 06:33:23 +0000

Sex on Fire – Kings of Leon , great song

The ’59 Sound – Gaslight Anthem

Love Is Noise – The Verve, William Blake paraphrased over a Tomorrow Never Knows backdrop. so awesome.

Human – The Killers , released today and even an average Killers track is still pretty freaking good

Play Your Part (Pt. 1) – Girl Talk, great mashup, this dude is a genius

Bruises – Chairlift , low-fi Postal Service duet material

Time to Pretend – MGMT, “I’m feeling rough, I’m feeling raw, I’m in the prime of my life.”

Kelsey – Metro Station

Walcott – Vampire Weekend

Make Your Own Kind of Music – Mama Cass

Famous Blue Raincoat – Leonard Cohen

Fidelity – Regina Spektor, saw her open a concert in 2005, didn’t appreciate it at the time…

Pretty in Pink – Purplespace