Archive for December, 2020

Brady vs the Expectations game revisited

Posted: December 27, 2020 by datechguy in nfl, Sports

With one exception I’ve had little use for the new Woke NFL this season. As you may or may not know I’ve never been a huge football fan, but I’ve been a fan of three players in my lifetime. The 1st of Steve Grogan who I thought was the toughest player to ever play QB and the 2nd was his favorite receiver Stanley Morgan.

The 3rd is Tom Brady, who single handedly turned around the Boston Sports scene. His success forced the other franchises to get serious about winning. During his time in Boston 12 championships came here, six of them won by him but every major franchise won at least one title (Ironically just as Brady won as many titles as all the major franchise combined his three losses in title game also equals all the other Boston franchise during that time).

While I’ve tuned out the woke NFL I’ve kept tabs on Brady. He’s hated by many in the media/ Left as a Trump friend, although not vocal on it, but it’s no coincidence that Tampa Bay’s is the one franchises whose ratings have been consistently up.

So let’s revisit my expectations for Tampa this season. In their pre-Brady era Tampa Bay:

  • Had a winning record 30% of the time (13 seasons)
  • Won 11 or more games 7% of the time (3 seasons 1999,2002,2005)
  • Won their division 12% of the time (1970,1981, 1999,2002,2005,2007)
  • Made the playoffs 23% of the time (10 seasons)
  • Won at least 1 playoff game 9% of the time (1979,1997,1999,2002)
  • Won the Superbowl 2% (100% of the times they went 2002)

Meanwhile Tom Brady Patriots during his career has

  • Had a winning record 100% of the time
  • The Patriots won at least 12 games 70% of the time
  • The Patriots won their division & made the playoffs 90% of the time
  • The Patriots won at LEAST one playoff game 70% of the time
  • The Patriots went to the Superbowl 50% of the time
  • The Patriots WON the superbowl 30% of the time (67% of the times they went)

and Brady after Age 40 not counting this season has:

  • Had a winning record 100% of the time
  • Won at least 12 games 67% of the time (at least 11 100%)
  • Won his division 100% of the time
  • Made the playoffs 100% of the time
  • Won at least 1 playoff game 67% of the time
  • Gone to the Superbowl 67% of the time
  • Won the Superbowl 33% of the time

During those three years Tampa Bay has

  • Had a losing record 100% of the time
  • Missed the playoffs 100% of the time

We now however have Tom Brady both at age 43 and without Bill Belichick in a division with a Saints team run by the man who he has been fighting for the all time lead in TD’s.

So How is Tom Brady doing at age 43 at the end of a long season.. Well Brady went into yesterday’s game with a chance to send the Bucks to their first post season since 2007. Here’s what he did:

And that’s just in the 1st half.

Bottom line the worst Tampa Bay can do is a 10-6 record and a date with Seattle in the 1st round of the playoffs. Their best case scenario is an 11-5 record and a trip to face the former Redskins.

I set my expectations for Tampa based on three season suggesting they should:

  1. Tampa Bay Should expect to have a winning record 100% of the time
  2. Tampa Bay Should expect to win at least 10 games 67% of the time
  3. Tampa Bay Should expect to make the playoffs 67% of the time
  4. Tampa Bay Should expect to win at least one playoff game 67% of the time
  5. They should expect to win their division at least 33% of the time
  6. They should make the NFC Championship game at least once

As of this moment Brady is 1/3 of the way toward #1 and half way home to 2 & 3. He has two more seasons to manage #5 and we’ll see show he does in the playoffs this season to judge 4 & 6.

But as of right now we must conclude the Brady experiment in Tampa Bay is a success

Closing Thought #1: Brady has had at least one senior moment this season (vs Chicago) and frankly the coaching in Tampa Bay has been abysmal. Does anyone doubt for one moment that if Belichick was coaching this team they would be at worst with 11 wins and be in the hunt for the division title and at best with 12 wins and the Saints chasing them?

Closing Thought #2 It’s worth noting that even if the Playoff Schedule was not expanded then the Bucks would have clinched a berth this year and a trip to Washington.

Closing Though #3 With the Woke NFL ratings crashing and burning the league should thank it’s lucky stars for Brady. Their playoff ratings will likely depend on how far he goes. I hope he goes all the way, not only because I like him but it will make all the right people miserable.

Seeing is not believing

Posted: December 27, 2020 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Merry Christmas to all, on this, the third day of Twelvetide. The head of the Church of England put out her annual Christmas message, speaking of hope and recounting tales of heroic nurse Florence Nightingale as inspiration in the battle against the Wuhan virus. But it was her second message that counted as the true harbinger of the coming era.

But Queen Elizabeth did not actually give a second message. British Channel Four created a deepfake Queen, talking about the importance of family (as the camera focuses on photos of Harry and Megan – famously splitting from the Royal Family to reside in North America – and Prince Andrew – who has scandalized the Royals by his friendship to the pedophilic vampire Jeffrey Epstein).

Deepfakes are synthetic digital videos or photographs in which one person in the image is substituted for another and, with the help of artificial intelligence, so creates an incredibly lifelike, but fake, representation.

Channel Four’s deepfake Queen’s real message focused on trust, and suggested the audience should not always trust what it sees on our screens – and then proceeded to show a supposed TikTok video of the Queen dancing to club music on the top of her desk.

The ridiculousness of what the video depicted served to highlight Channel Four’s message about the unreliability of media these days, where the ability to create lifelike images has never been greater. Seeing is no longer believing.

After November’s election, “South Park’s” Trey Parker and Matt Stone created a deepfake President Trump in a gauche Christmas sweater bemoaning fake elections for their web series “Sassy Justice.” Again, like the Queen’s, this deepfake’s utter absurdity made its phoniness transparent. But as this technology grows in popularity and in usage, that of course will not always be the case. In fact, the reader can be sure that nefarious figures will use the tech for nefarious means.

Case in point: the Chinese Communist regime recently promoted a fake image of an Australian soldier holding a bloody knife at an Afghan baby‘s throat through Twitter, and using a network of fake Twitter accounts to spread and promote the image. Tensions between China and Australia have deteriorated in the wake of the Wuhan pandemic, Australia forbidding Chinese tech giant Huawei from installing 5G wireless technology, and Australian criticism of China’s violations of its 1997 Hong Kong accord with the United Kingdom. The fake image was tweeted out by Chinese senior foreign ministry spokesman Lijian Zhao.

With the credibility of government officials crumbling to ever greater ruins with each passing day, deepfakes give the mindful observer just one more reason to disbelieve everything he hears and sees. It may not be the message of hope the Queen wishes to impart, but then, who’s to say the Queen’s first Christmas message was any truer than the second? Can’t trust anything these days.

[Note: updated to include title and correct a typo on 12/27/2020.]

Don’t hate on 2020

Posted: December 26, 2020 by ng36b in economy, News/opinion
Tags: , , ,

In about two days, its going to be “remember the past year” week. We’ll hear stories about the good and the bad of the past and predictions for 2021. I’m betting that most of the news will be about how much 2020 sucked. It’ll cue lots of 2020 memes. And while its funny to read, honestly, you should just turn it off.

Because in reality, if you’re going to let the media tell you how to view every year, you’re a fool.

In 2020, I had planned on going to Disney World with my family. Our plans were shattered by COVID-19. Instead, I built alternate plans and found ways to extend our tickets and reservations until we could find a better date.

In 2020, I had hoped to transfer to a new job. COVID-19 shattered that, and at one point I was working in “partial isolation,” which meant I could only go to work, and then I had to stay isolated at my house under Navy orders. I could have fretted, but instead I focused on improving my property with a better playground set and making the most of my time with my kids.

In 2020, school was supposed to be awesome, but COVID-19 wrecked it all. Instead of panic, we worked through online school, and even found ways to enhance our schooling. It’s not the best, but its certainly better than many places.

2020 is going to become a punchline for many people about how terrible life can be. I won’t deny that circumstances in 2020 put many people in a bad place. But I argue that too much of that is our own thinking. I can’t control my state and local government response, but I can control my response. When toilet paper became scarce, a fellow church member bailed my family out, and I realized we had a stronger church community in trying times. When one of my coworkers needed sweet potatoes because that’s all her autistic kid will eat, I happened to find some at Aldi, bought 5 pounds worth and gave them to her. When our neighbors were feeling stressed, I told them to send their kids to my house so they could play on our playplace and give them some much needed space. Every time I chose to take action to improve my situation or one of my neighbors/friends/coworkers, I found that I had far more freedom than the media would give me credit.

There will be a temptation to blame everything bad on 2020. Don’t do it. It’s OK to admit it was challenging, but you must OWN your response to events. When bad things happen, you choose how to respond to those events. When you refuse to be passive, it gives you strength, and it puts you in the right mindset to take advantage of opportunities. I refused to sit in the backseat for 2020, and you should too.

I wish you a happy, if somewhat belated, Christmas, a great New Year, and a future of continuing to make your own choices on how to react to the things around you!

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Merry Christmas

Posted: December 25, 2020 by datechguy in Uncategorized

That’s all

well and this…

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