One last post about footy tipping, and it’s for the 1897 VFL season. The average percentage of correct guesses is 76%, better than average and better than this system’s average for 2007 or 2008.
Rounds 2 to 14 and the finals of the 1897 season on the X axis, correct guesses from 0/4 to 4/4 on the Y axis.
Full tally:
Rd 2: xxxx 4/4
Rd 3: -xxx 3/4
Rd 4: x--- 1/4
Rd 5: -xxx 3/4
Rd 6: -xxx 3/4
Rd 7: /-xx 2/3
Rd 8: --xx 2/4
Rd 9: -xxx 3/4
Rd 10: xxxx 4/4
Rd 11: xxxx 4/4
Rd 12: xxxx 4/4
Rd 13: xx-x 3/4
Rd 14: xx-x 3/4
Finals: --xxxx 4/6
Following on from my previous post about footy tipping based on ladder position. This time, it’s for 2007, and the strategy is not as successful. The average percentage of correct guesses is 62%, still better than average.
Rounds 2 to 22, the finals, and the Grand Final of the 2007 season on the X axis, correct guesses from 0/8 to 8/8 on the Y axis.
Round 1 omitted because I don’t feel like coming up with another table based on NAB Cup results and winning margins. The inclusion of the Grand Final result can make up for that.
Full tally:
Rd 2: xx--xx-- 4/8
Rd 3: xx----xx 4/8
Rd 4: x-----xx 3/8
Rd 5: -xxxx--- 4/8
Rd 6: x---xxxx 5/8
Rd 7: --xx---x 3/8
Rd 8: xx-xx-x- 5/8
Rd 9: --xxxx-- 4/8
Rd 10: x/x---xx 4/7
Rd 11: ---xxxx- 4/8
Rd 12: xx-x--x- 4/8
Rd 13: xxxxxxx- 7/8
Rd 14: x--x--xx 4/8
Rd 15: --xxxxxx 6/8
Rd 16: xx-x-xxx 6/8
Rd 17: xx-xxxx- 6/8
Rd 18: /xx--x-x 4/7
Rd 19: -xx-x--x 4/8
Rd 20: x/xxx--x 5/7
Rd 21: xxxx--x- 5/8
Rd 22: -xxxxx-x 6/8
Finals: xxxx-xxx 7/8
Grand: x 1/1
The upcoming AFL grand final got me thinking about football and footy tipping. I was curious, so I decided to work out what the results would be if you always went for whichever team was higher on the ladder:
Rounds 1 to 22 and the finals of the 2008 season on the X axis, correct guesses from 0/8 to 8/8 on the Y axis.
The average percentage of correct guesses turns out to be 72%. Not overwhelming, but significantly better than average (the 50% you would expect from randomly picking).
Full tally:
Rd 1: -x-x-x-x 4/8 (based on pre-season)
Rd 2: -x-xxx-- 4/8 (based on ladder from here onwards)
Rd 3: xxx-xxxx 7/8
Rd 4: xxxxx--x 6/8
Rd 5: xx-xx/-x 5/7
Rd 6: xx-xx/xx 6/7
Rd 7: xxxxxx-x 7/8
Rd 8: -xxxxxxx 7/8
Rd 9: -xxx--xx 6/8
Rd 10: xx--xxxx 6/8
Rd 11: xxxxxx-x 7/8
Rd 12: --xxxxx- 6/8
Rd 13: xx-x-xx- 5/8
Rd 14: x-xx-xx- 5/8
Rd 15: x-xxxxx- 6/8
Rd 16: -x-xxxx- 6/8
Rd 17: x----x-x 3/8
Rd 18: xxxxxxxx 8/8
Rd 19: xx-xxx-- 5/8
Rd 20: x-x-xxx- 5/8
Rd 21: x-xx-xx- 5/8
Rd 22: -x-xx-xx 5/8
Finals: x-xxxxxx 7/8
This has been my favourite portrait on Wikipedia for a while. I found out about the guy depicted, John Mandeville, through reading about the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary and the history of cotton. According to Mandeville,
There grew there [India] a wonderful tree which bore tiny lambs on the endes of its branches. These branches were so pliable that they bent down to allow the lambs to feed when they are hungrie.
That paragraph itself is pretty great. I thought the accompanying illustration of the little lambs sprouting from the plant was good, but then I clicked through to Mandeville’s article:
Ridiculous or ridiculously cool? You decide.
“Pitaschio is a freeware which makes it convenient to use Microsoft Windows.”
Imperfect English aside (the programmer is Japanese), that’s a nice description of Pitaschio. It can do a bunch of things to improve XP; I’m using it because it lets me have mouse/keyboard (including the middle mouse button) shortcuts to:
- Make any window always on top
- Roll up/down any window
- Minimize any window to the system tray/notification area
It comes with some strange default settings, so you’ll want to clear most of those out, but (if you choose to set up in such a way) it’s totally uninvasive and just adds some features that Windows should have always had (especially always on top for any window.)
Also! It has mouse and keyboard cleaning tools which disable the respective devices while you’re cleaning them. It’s also got a statistics thing that seems to be keeping statistics on how far your mouse has travelled and percentages on keys and buttons you’ve pressed (apparently I wheel up instead of down 2/3rds of the time). And a Manage Windows thing that lists all currently open windows and lets you modify their position, size, etc. And there’s an extended file rename which lets you go to the previous and next files in Explorer with the arrow keys
Of course, these neat features are merely appetizers for the main course: when you mouse over the Pitaschio icon in the notification area, it tells you the moon’s current age (phase)! Amazing.
