Posts by George Darroch
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“Duelo de HAKA! Nueva Ze…"Este video ya no esta disponsible debido a un reclamo do derechos de autor realizado por Rugby World Cup Limited.
Rights of the author… Tell that to Te Rauparaha. Or, for that matter, Ngaati Toa.
ETA: Oh dear. Have I started a copyright thread?
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Concerning the the model upthread: I've had a little correspondence with Tony from Double Digit Numerics - their model counts both Argentina and Scotland at the pool stage, hence the sum. They've added in that much.
I'd still like to know what the odds are of Tonga or Manu Samoa winning are. I could of course look at the TAB, but a bookmaker's job is to work out the odds and then offer something different...
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Con los comentarios de ESPN en espanol...
Let's see how long this one lasts.
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I’m sure you’re right, George, but, sadly, this video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Rugby World Cup Ltd.
Mutter.For the love of… the game, they’re not doing themselves any favours, are they?
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You know how tightly the All Blacks have prepared for the RWC when you see a haka as clean and intense as this one. Sent shivers down me watching it last night.
And because it's there, the second try of the night.
Tonga were outplayed, and really didn't have much in it, something which has a lot to do with the nature of rugby as it's played at the highest level. Ordinarily I'd be happy with a win, but it was disappointing, really. If you wanted to show the world what rugby was about - asymmetry in teams meaning that upsets are rare and the stronger team almost always wins, this was a pretty good example.
Still, more than enough to be happy about at the moment. I might pick up my camera and take a few photos of all the Tongan flags I see fluttering outside my window.
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SNAFU all round. Whether you blame the outsize crowds, the underprepared management, or the weak transport system on which this rested, it certainly was a mess, and entirely newsworthy (especially after a rather boring game. I turned it off and went to sleep 20 minutes before the end). The people I won't blame are the operational staff, who I hear did an excellent job under the conditions.
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Okay, that article is rubbish.
0.472 + 0.213 + 0.133 + 0.077 + 0.061 + 0.027 + 0.009 + 0.008 + 0.008 = 1.00800
I don’t care too much how they came to their assumptions. You simply can’t give Tonga and Samoa non-zero values. In a knockout competition that’s an untenable assumption, and giving zero values to the remaining eleven teams is also questionable.
But the fact that they sum to more than one shows that their model is broken.
I'm not a stats/probability geek. But literally the first thing they teach you is that the sum of all sample points must equal one.
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Since I live in Mangere, I will be supporting my local team. Tonga. I invite you all to come down to the Fan Zone (tm) and join me. Actually, the Mangere centre is a pretty good space to be in to be watching any of the island games. Alcohol free, which I was initially skeptical of, but the level of enthusiasm here is well beyond what alcohol could deliver...
According to that article….
1) No team is likely to win… they all have a probability of less than half.
2) the All Blacks probability of winning, despite being lower than 50%, is still higher than double any other team.
I would suggest that #2 makes more sense than #1, seeing as, it’s impossible for no team to win the cup.
I haven't read the article. I will in a moment, but just wanted to make a simple point about probabilities. A team must win the cup; the sum of probabilities is 1. If all teams were equal, their probability would be .05. Obviously, the All Blacks are ranked higher than others, but were they to have a better than even chance >.5, all other teams would share the other .5. They're not that outsize.
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You dig?
Ah! Yes, my comment flew right over the top of yours. I dig that, entirely.
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it is indisputably true that if every 65 y.o went out and shot themselves, that would be a very good thing for the state of the government books.
It would also be a good thing (on that sole measure) to kill disabled people. Your point is?
It was clear to me that George made a genuine error of expression, which did nothing to undermine the validity of his overall sentiment.
Badly phrased, yes. But clear as the day what I meant.
I could be a thoroughly obnoxious sober alcoholic and euthanise what I laughingly call my social life by lecturing everyone with a drink in their hands about the social cost (and drain on the public purse) caused by alcohol abuse.
Which is why public health advertising is rarely haranguing or accusatory. It doesn’t work. Look at the recent ALAC ads – they’re about a person who has a problem, not someone who is one.
pointless seething resentment at the addicted person inconveniencing other people. (Maybe because we’re increasingly focussed on this individualist ‘every person for themselves’ sort of vibe at the moment in NZ? Not sure.) So then the argument becomes about the moral failings of the smokers, being all visible and addicted, how dare they ruin everything, and people get… distracted.
You’re imposing a lot of moral judgement there, but I’m not sure who it’s aimed at. I’ve explained at length how it isn’t about any of that, but how it is about reducing the number of spheres in which a person can smoke, to reduce the possibility of transmission of the disease to others, and to reduce the severity of the disease burden on themselves (and because tobacco is an addictive disease, reduce nicotine, helping them stop). These control measures are relatively restrained – and they’re not designed to punish people, or based on judgements of those people. In fact, you’d have to assert that addiction was not the key component of continued smoking to make such a judgement.