The SoapBoxers

I like math, particularly algebra and probability.  This article is the first of what may become a semi-regular segment that takes a deeper look into topics of a mathematical nature.

Russian Roulette

One of the most dangerous games in the world is Russian Roulette.  The player inserts one bullet into a revolver with six chambers.  The player then spins the cylinder and pulls the trigger.

What is the chance that you can spin six times, pull the trigger each time, and hit an empty chamber every time?

The basic math of the situation is that the odds of hitting an empty chamber on any particular spin is 5/6 (5 empty chambers, 1 chamber with a bullet), or .833.

Just as the odds of having a coin come up heads X consecutive times is .5^X, this situation is .833^X.  In our case, this is .833^6, or .335.  You have a 1 in 3 chance of walking away from this game alive.

But I still wouldn’t recommend trying.

Fuel Consumption

Let’s look at these two scenarios:

A: Upgrade a car that gets 10 mpg for a car that gets 20 mpg
B: Upgrade a car that gets 20 mpg for a car that gets 30 mpg

At first glance, it appears that either scenario will result in the same amount of fuel savings, right?  After all, you’re saving 10 mpg in either case.

This isn’t the case, though.  Let’s assume 10,000 miles are driven in a year,  Scenario A results in fuel consumption dropping from 1000 gallons to 500 gallons – a savings of 500 gallons per year.  Scenario B results in consumption dropping from 500 gallons per year to 333 gallons – a savings of a mere 167 gallons.  Huh?  What’s the trick?

The problem is that we’re trying to use the wrong tool.  We want to determine the change in fuel consumption – but the mpg is not the rate of fuel consumption.  It is the mathematical reciprocal of the rate of consumption.

Let’s take a fresh look at the two scenarios, using the actual fuel consumption rates.  We’re using the exact same cars, but simply stating the facts in a different manner.

Scenario A: Upgrade a car that consumes 0.1 gallons/mile for one that consumes 0.05 gallons/mile

Scenario B: Upgrade a car that consumes 0.05 gallons/mile for one that consumes .033 gallons/mile.

The difference becomes clear – scenario A reduces fuel consumption by .05 gallons per mile and scenario B reduces fuel consumption by .0167 gallons/mile.

It almost makes you wonder why the government didn’t use fuel consumption rate in the Cash For Clunkers guidelines instead of mileage.

Why do we, as a whole, use the wrong tool to gauge fuel consumption?  Probably because we prefer to use whole numbers rather than fractions.

Pizza Pi

We’ll finish up with an easy problem.

The last time my friends came over, I ordered an 8 inch pizza.  My friends could only eat half as much pizza as they wanted before the pizza was gone.  This time, I was more prepared and ordered a 16 inch pizza – but there is lots of pizza left over.  What did I do wrong?

A lot of folks in the crowd are going to immediately know the answer to this one.  The area of a circle is Pi times the square of the radius (the radius being half the diameter – or 4 inches for the 8 inch pizza and 8 inches for the 16 inch).  This means that the 16 inch pizza is four times as large as the 8 inch pizza, not merely twice as large.  The 16 inch pizza has ~200 square inches [Pi X (8^2)] whereas the 8 inch pizza has ~ 50 square inches [Pi X (4^2)].

“The pay isn’t much, but I know how you feel about widows and orphans.”

“How much, Jack?”

“Only ten, I’m afraid.”

The man at the other end of the phone hesitated for a moment and then decided to take the job.  Ten grand wasn’t much, but he had a soft spot for damsels in distress.

“OK, I’ll do it for ten.  Make sure to pay FICA for me.”

The caller laughed.  “You know the drill, Rex.  You’re an independent contractor.”

Jack Stone arranged to call back in a few days with more information.

Rex Mortimer grabbed a Cuban cigar from the box on the corner of his desk and shoved it into the corner of his mouth.  He pulled a box of wooden matches from the top desk drawer, extracted one, and struck it sharply against the side of the desk.  The match immediately illuminated, and Rex lit his cigarette and enjoyed one final smoke.  After he finished his cigarette, he’d pull the bottle of single malt scotch from the bottom drawer and enjoy a final dose of that wonderful elixir as well.  Rex Mortimer loved fine cigars and quality booze, but he always swore them off when working on a job.  The stakes warranted complete sobriety.

To the outside world, Rex Mortimer was a marketing executive named Alexander Milne.  He operated his front business under the name of Sanders Consulting.  Indeed, Sanders Consulting was small, but had a long history in the industry, and their reputation had continued unblemished after Alexander had bought the company from the old owner.  This was largely because Alexander outsourced the work to people far more qualified than himself.  He had little difficulty outsourcing the jobs, since he paid more than the clients paid him – and paid with cash.

While the business was not profitable from a pure economic sense, it served a very valuable purpose – accounting for Alexander’s frequent business trips and reasonably high level of income.

When Alexander took a road trip, it was his alter ego who performed the work.  Rex Mortimer’s business was death, and business was very good.  Rex was a contract killer.  He wasn’t an elite guy like Jaguar or Condor, but he managed to make a very decent living from his profession.  Most of the money was diverted to safe haven in the Cayman Islands.  The rest was passed along to the flunkies who performed the outsourcing for Sanders Consulting.  The recipients never complained about receiving cash, and the process did a nice job of trading dirty cash from the contract killers for clean cash paid by clients for the excellent work of Sanders Consulting.

How do you like the story so far?

This other half of this particular story will NOT be available on the blog! It will only be available as part of an eBook that I am giving away to my most valued regular readers. Don’t worry, it does not cost any money, nor do you have to give up any personal information.

If you are a regular reader through the web site, look up at the blue bar at the top of the screen. You should see the text “Free eBook” toward the right edge of the bar. If you don’t see this, then you’re just a wee bit shy of being a “regular reader”.

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Clicking on either of these links will get you to the correct page to download the eBook. The 50 page eBook contains thirteen stories. Twelve of the stories have been featured on The Soap Boxers. The first story in the eBook – The Professional – is only available to members in this PDF.

I hope you enjoy the eBook!

If you aren’t a regular visitor, you can get the eBook by simply subscribing to the RSS feed – or simply look around the site and read a few stories. Before long, we’ll think of you as a regular visitor.

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On January 6^th, the Baseball Hall of Fame announced that the Baseball Writers of America (BBWA) had selected Andre Dawson as their sole choice for 2010 induction into the hallowed halls of Cooperstown.

I was a Cubs fan when Dawson won the MVP in 1987 – his 49 homers nabbing the award despite a last place finish by Chicago.  Dawson is one of just three players in major league history with at least 400 homers and 300 steals (Barry Bonds and Willie Mays being the others).

Dawson was a victim of collusion by MLB owners when he became a free agent after the 1986 season (read all about it here – the owners were found guilty) and ended up signing a contract for “just” $500,000 for the 1987 season.  (Yep, that’s still a lot of money, but far below the market value).

Bert Blyleven, in his thirteenth year on the ballot, got tantalizingly close to election, garnering 400 votes – falling just 5 votes shorts of the 75% required for election.  Players tend to pick up a bit of momentum in the last couple of years on the ballot (they are on the ballot for 15 years), so it is an almost certainty that Blyleven will make it in 2011.  (Read my case for Blyleven).

In his first year on the ballot, Roberto Alomar fell just 8 votes short of induction.  Alomar likely would have had the necessary votes if not for an ugly incident on September 27, 1996.  During a heated argument, Alomar spit in the face of umpire John Hirschbeck.  Alomar’s version of events was that the umpire had used an ethnic slur, and some viewers contended that Hirschbeck called the player a “faggot” as he walked away.

Should this incident have kept Alomar out of the Hall?  I’m going to say no.  Why not?  Because John Hirschbeck long ago forgave Alomar, and Alomar has become a fund raiser for the fight against adrenoleukodystrophy, a rare disease which afflicted two of Hirschbeck’s sons.  If Hirschbeck forgave Alomar of his sins, should we not due the same?

Other notable players on the ballot:

In his first year on the ballot, former Reds shortstop Barry Larkin picked up 51.6% of the vote. Larkin will – and should – eventually be elected.  He was a player I loved to hate.

Jack Morris – the winningest pitcher of the 1980s and a three time World Series champion – had the fourth highest vote total, with 52.3%.  However, in his 11^th year on the ballot, he might not be able to push above 75% before he falls off the ballot.

All time saves leader Lee Smith continues his long journey.  Smith picked up 478 career saves to go along with a 3.03 ERA.  There was the thought that Bruce Sutter’s election in 2006 might open the door a crack for Smith, but this hasn’t been the case.

Edgar Martinez got 36.2% of the vote in his first year on the ballot.  Martinez was primarily a DH during his career, playing in the field in only 561 of his 2055 career games.  I’m on record as hating the designated hitter.  Having said that, if we are to allow DHs into the Hall of Fame, Martinez should be welcomed in with open arms.

As for the five voters who returned blank ballots – seriously, none of the players on the ballot deserved your vote?  Did you even watch baseball in the 1980s?

Our continuing, albeit erratically paced, series of interviews with other bloggers sends reporter Scoop Chevelle to the wilds of Philadelphia in search of Kelly Whalen of The Centsible Life.

Scoop: Hello, folks. I’ve just flown to Pennsylvania and boy am I tired. Being chased by an angry mob can really wear you out. Apparently the Liberty Bell is only for decoration and is NOT to be actually rung. What’s the point of having a bell, then? Well, I digress. Today, I come to you from the Steel City, home of the reigning Super Bowl champion Steelers.

Guy on the street: Dude, Pittsburgh is the Steel City. You’re in Philadelphia.

Scoop: Oh. Is Philadelphia a suburb of Pittsburgh, then?

Guy on the street: Are you crazy? Philly’s bigger than Pittsburgh – and Pittsburgh’s clear on the other side of the
state!

Scoop: OK, then. Today, we come to you from Philadelphia, which is famous for not being the home of the Super Bowl champion Steelers.

Guy on the street: (grumbling in disgust): Yeah.  That’s what we’re famous for. Not the constitutional convention, cheese steaks, or Rocky. We’re known for not being home to the Steelers. Knucklehead.

Scoop: (completely oblivious): Today, we come to you from the living room of Ms. Kelly Whalen. Good morning, Kelly.

Kelly: Welcome.

Scoop: In the last several months, you have been nearly impossible to ignore in the media. You have been featured on the Today show alongside Jean Chatzky, as well as appearances in local media outlets. You’ve also picked up gigs writing for Consumerism Commentary and Moolanomy, in addition to your work on The Centsible Life. It seems like everything you’ve touched during the last year has turned to gold.What’s the secret to your success?

Kelly: Coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.

Scoop: How did you come up with the name for The Centsible Life? Did you consider the Dollarsible Life, since that name would have 100 times the value?

Kelly: I wanted something that was a play on words. Of course I didn’t think that it might be difficult to spell. Dollarsible isn’t a word, Scoop.

Scoop: With 4 kids and the responsibility of running a household, when do you have the time to write articles for three different web sites? Are you one of those zombie types of people who only need a couple hours of sleep every night? Do you write articles while you’re in the checkout line at the grocery store?

Kelly: I find pockets of time when the kids are playing nicely, or after they go to bed, or occasionally I leave Mr. Centsible in charge and head to Starbucks.

Scoop: Of all the articles you have written, are there a few special ones that stand out?

Kelly: I have 3 favorite articles. This article talks about the balance between being a mom and doing what you love. I wrote a guest post for Bargaineering about daycare from a stay at home mom’s perspective. And my most heavily visited article is Kids and Allowance, where I tackle how not to go broke when you have kids.

Scoop: What lies ahead for you in 2010? Do you have any advice for bloggers who are just getting started?

Kelly: I’m currently celebrating my one year blogiversary at The Centsible Life; with a ton of giveaways. I expect 2010 will be a big year, and have plans to create an exclusive newsletter, and start writing an e-book. For bloggers who are just getting started I recommend following people you admire, basically stalking them. In hindsight I wish I had thought more about my goals with my blog versus jumping in with both feet.

Scoop: They call Pennsylvania the Keystone State, but really, I see as much Budweiser and Miller in stores as Keystone. Also it seems a bit silly to nickname your state after a beer. Hey, I like a beer in a can that tastes like beer in a bottle, but I wouldn’t name my state after it. So what’s up with the moniker?

Kelly: I don’t know. I prefer wine anyway.

Scoop: Is there anything else you would like to say to the readers of The Soap Boxers?

Kelly: Thanks for having me!

Scoop: Thank you for your time, Kelly.

Kelly is a long time friend of The Soap Boxers. Be sure to check out her blog at www.thecentsiblelife.com

If you visited The Soap Boxers just to see the interview with Baker, feel free to look around a bit. Browse the archives, subscribe to the RSS feed, or simply come back again tomorrow. We offer a full money back guarantee. If you read us for a week and don’t like the content, we will refund 100% of the purchase price. RSS subscribers gain access to my two fiction eBooks – look for the “free ebook of short stories” link in the RSS footer (just to the left of the copyright information).

I really hate winter.  Let me count the ways.

1. I hate cold weather.
2. I miss the sun.
3. Driving on ice sucks.
4. I hate shoveling show.
5. The winter sports pale in comparison to the grand sport of summer – baseball.

Thus, each winter, I typically bump into a bit of a case of the winter blahs.  During the last few years, I have found myself better equipped to fight it off.  How?  A couple of ways.

Mitigate the misery

Shoveling snow is a winter task that I hate.  I keep putting off the purchase of a snow blower for a few reasons.  First, I keep telling myself that the last few winters have been atypical, and that it really doesn’t snow in Iowa much.  Second, it seems that many times ice is the main culprit, and snow blowers don’t handle ice very well.  Third, they’re a bit pricey (although possibly cheaper than the chiropractor bills some years).

So, each year, I spend too much time outside in cold weather shoveling snow.  To make the experience a bit better, I grab my wireless headphones, fire up the downstairs DVR, and listen to one or two TV shows while I shovel (depending on the length of the show and the amount of snow).  Left to my own devices, I rarely watch non-sports TV, so this does give me a chance to catch up on the couple of shows that I care enough about to record.  In the last few weeks, I have greatly reduced my backlog of NCIS and The Office.  I grew up listening to baseball on AM radio for much of my entertainment, so I can get significant entertainment value out of a TV program even when the video portion is absent.

If you enjoy reading, winter can also be a good time to catch up.  The weather sucks for outdoor activities, so why not stay indoors a bit more.  If you’re looking for recommendations of some good authors, I have a list.

Set Intermediate Milestones

Years ago, I would sigh deeply when the first snowflakes hit the ground and start counting down the days until spring.  This made for a very long winter.  In the last few years, I have started to look forward to winter milestones.  This helps reduce the wait a bit by breaking it into manageable chunks.

A major milestone for me is the date that spring training begins.  This is mid-February each year – a full month (or more) before spring begins in the midwest.  However, when the first pitchers and catchers report to Florida and Arizona, I know that there will significant baseball news every day until November (my threshold for “significant baseball news” is probably a bit lower than most people’s.)

In 2010, there is another wonderful milestone – the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.  I absolutely love the Olympics.  At some point during the Olympics, I will know person details about athletes from dozens of countries from sports that I pay little attention to outside of the Olympics.  Then, of course, there is luge.  I fully intend to DVR ever possible bit of luge coverage in order to satisfy my desire for the sports for the next four years.

In closing, I would like to point out the fact that there is a big difference between a mere case of the winter blahs and the more serious condition of depression.  If you feel that you are experiencing depression, I urge you to seek proper medical attention, just as you would for any other ailment.

Back on April 15, when the Dow was at 7920.18, I launched a stock market contest between a team of three personal finance bloggers (team Goliath) and a team of folks who, while they were intelligent, did not immerse themselves into finance at quite the same level (team David).

So, who won? Team David, of course. Don’t you people read the bible?

Every participant was at least somewhat bullish, with the lowest guess being 8232. Peter Rabbit of Team David (who would later join the staff of The Soap Boxers) was the closest, but even his guess of 9500 was more than 900 points below the actual December 31 close of 10428.05.

Everyone on Team David had a guess of at least 8492.48, while the highest guess from Team Goliath was 8400 (Team Goliath had a very tight spread in their guesses). Thus, Team David slays Team Goliath … and it wasn’t even close.

For your reading pleasure, I present the original article below, in its entirety.

The rules:
Each player predicts the closing value of the Dow Jones industrial average at the close of day on December 31, 2009. Points are awarded on a 12-10-8-6-4-2-0 basis for being closest to the actual closing value. The score of all players on each team are added together, and the best team score wins.

I will update the contest every month, focusing on the actual rate of Dow rise or fall compared to the guesses. For example, if a player guesses a 850 point increase and the Dow increased 100 points in the first month, they would be on target. This relies on a false assumption that the market will move similarly in each month.

Note: this contest is for entertainment purposes only and is not to be construed as investment advice.

The predictions:

Team Goliath

Team Goliath consists of three people who write blogs related to personal finance.

Trevor of Financial Nut
Why do I choose 8,400? Though I do not necessarily agree with Keynesian economic theory, I do feel that some of this spending is going to create some jobs and allow for money to be injected back into the economy. By this time I would imagine that many of the Obama Administration’s plans to deal with all of these “toxic assets” and to create employment in an increasingly dying economy will be in place. Right now the plans are only being discussed and just barely being implemented.

In addition, recessions in the past haven’t lasted much longer than what we’ve had. This one is, however, very unique and may be longer.

But at the end of the day, who really knows?! 🙂

Lazy Man of Lazy Man and Money
Although some suggest that much of the recent drop is psychological, I think that much can be explained by the large amounts of credit that were extended over the last 10-15 years. More money in the system allows earnings to rise – which results in a lower P/E ratio – making it easier for buyers to justify higher prices.

We’ll see what happens in a bad economy where the earnings drop not just due to the lack of buyers, but the lack of easy credit.

I do, however, think much of the damage is priced in now. Although I am not a currency expert, I think it will be important to watch the impact of the stimulus package on the dollar in the next 8+ months.

Heidi of Bankergirl brings a bit of sugar and spice to a group filled with snails and puppy dog tails.
Based on historical data, we have yet to hit the low for this economic cycle. I think that sometime in the second quarter (or possibly early Q3) of 2009, the dow is going to hit its low. It will recover throughout late Q3 and into Q4, but it will land around the low-to-mid 8000 mark.

Hope I’m wrong – my job is much more secure once we are back up to around 10,000.

Team David

Team David consists of three people who have ordinary jobs and do not write about personal finance.

Peter Rabbit is an IT Auditor.
The last few reports on housing and the purchase of durable goods were very encouraging. These are lagging indicators when we enter a recession as well as when we come out of one. This signals to me that the worst may be behind us. By no means are we in a period of growth but we may have stabilized. Basically, I am betting that we have about 4 more days of 500 point gains sprinkled in the next few months. But otherwise you will see a lot of +100 and -100 point days that just pass time and wash each other out.

Phil Ossifer is a computer systems analyst and has recently launched the (not finance) blog Chunga Goes Wild
Stocks WON’T perform like they did over the last 80 years. Unique circumstances of that period are unrepeatable, e.g., post-Industrial Revolutionary growth, outcome from wars, political/demographic changes, etc.

Monetary policy will float us for a while, but also leads us toward a serious, long-term decline. We now have more debt than any nation; we have a negative savings rate – and yet we look to more spending for the answer. Over-consuming and under-producing is not sustainable!

Finally, analysis based on a few known factors like bad mortagages, trade deficits, and economic cycles are short-sighted. We are now in a complex, unpredictable, global system (think: Chaos theory). Cheers!

Black Hole is where logic goes to die. Fittingly, he works in human resources.
In the past month, the Dow has been on the incline, and I think it will be up and down (in small variances) throughout the year, but I think towards the end of the year it will climb a little more steadily. Banks will become more stable than they are now, and the economy is receiving such a boost monetarily that it will definitely turn around and quicker than other “recessions”.

Free agent
The Soap Boxers will not be a member of a team, but I will be awarded points on the basis of my finish. Thus, a good showing by TCO can serve as a spoiler for one of the teams. Think of me as the guy in the middle of a game of “keep away”.
I personally believe that much of the recent drop in the market is due to psychological factors. A lot of really good stocks are getting beaten up. When the Dow was hovering around 6500, P/E ratios were at five year lows. This is a time to snap up some solid blue chip stocks at good prices. I think that there will be some slight corrections in the near future, but that we have hit bottom and that the market will turn the corner once spring is in full bloom. The positive energy of spring will improve the mindset of potential investors.

Submit your own guess in the comments sections. Invite your friends to compete against you. I will also track the guesses of commenters in the monthly update. Only guesses made before April 30 will be included in the monthly updates (sorry, had to make the cutoff somewhere).

This is my first live article in about a week. The newest member of the Observer family was welcomed into the world last Tuesday. It was a bit earlier than planned, but we’re happy he decided to join us. We’ll be even happier once he figures out the difference between day and night.

With a new baby in the house, I have understandably been a bit behind on sports news. That’s a bit of a shame, since it has been a pretty newsworthy week.

There are reports that Matt Holliday is closed to signing a deal with the St. Louis Cardinals. I’d love to see this happen. If the Rockies can’t have Holliday (and it appears that they can’t) then the Cardinals would probably be my second favorite landing spot, since they are currently my second favorite baseball team.  One of the rumors sets the terms of the contract at $112 million over 7 years – an average of $16 million per year.  This would be comparable to the deal that Jason Bay signed with the Mets (worth up to $80 million over 5 years if his option vests).  A key point is the length of the contract – a 7 year deal would be a nice coup for agent Scott Boras.  Holliday and Bay are often regarded as being comparably productive offensively, with Holliday deemed the better defender.

Texas Tech coach Mike Leach, who led the Red Raiders to the brink of an undefeated seasons in 2008, was summarily dismissed by the team.  The school says that Leach mistreated a player by forcing him to stay in a dark shed near the practice field when the player had suffered a concussion in a previous practice.  The school then fired Leach for refusing to apologize to the player.  I’ll admit that I haven’t been getting all of the sports news lately, but this seems to be just a fraction of the story.  I find it difficult to believe that a school would fire a winning coach over an incident with one player.  On the other hand, there is a renewed focus on concussions recently, as well as a few firings of coaches who were deemed to be abusive.

Iowa State hung on in the Insight Bowl to pick up a 14-13 victory over their northern neighbors, the Minnesota Golden Gophers.  The Cyclones finished the season with 7 wins, up from just two wins in 2008.  At the end of 2008, I was cautiously optimistic for this year, as I felt that the team had been more competitive than in 2007.  However, I did not expected new head coach Paul Rhoads to take the team to a bowl game quite yet.  The team was just a couple of bad breaks away from having 8 or 9 wins.  The best win of the year?  The 9-7 victory over Nebraska – courtesy of 8 turnovers by the eventual Big XII North champion Cornhuskers.

And in the “what were they thinking” segment, Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton of the NBA’s Washington Wizards reportedly pulled guns on each other in a dispute over debts arising from card games.  It seems that we have a couple of issues here.  First, if you need to use a gun to settle a gambling debt, your elevator probably doesn’t go all the way to the top.  Second, if you’re incurring large enough gambling debts that would cause a teammate to pull a gun on you, you just might have a gambling problem.  Seriously, guys, you’re living the dream of millions of kids – making some serious coin for playing basketball.  Don’t mess it up with something stupid.

During most of the more than 130 years that major league baseball has been played, the measurement of defensive excellence was done using one simple stat: errors. To this day, many who vote for gold glove winners make errors the major consideration (or, in some situation, they make the absurd choice to factor in the player’s offensive contributions).

Errors are a funny thing. First of all, an error is the judgment of the home team’s official scorer. All official scorers are not created equal – some are more kind to fielders than others. If you happen to play for a scorer who doesn’t call many errors, you’ll rack up fewer errors. The field itself can also contribute to the number of errors. Some fields produce a more consistent movement from the ball, while others are more prone to odd hops. A team can also choose to allow the grass to grow higher – with the result being that the ball is moving more slowly, thus giving the fielder more time to react (this does have the related effect of allowing batters to more easily beat out an infield hit).

So, what, then, should we use? Putouts and assists? These are just as bad. First of all, strikeouts can affects these numbers. A team whose pitchers rack up a lot of strikeouts will result in relatively few chances for fielders to make a play on the ball. Additionally, the quality of the other players also has an effect. Put a great defensive shortstop alongside a second baseman and third baseman who have limited range, and the shortstop is going to rack up some very impressive assist numbers, as he’ll suck up everything between second and third. On the other hand, put great defensive players and second base, shortstop, and third base, and it is likely that all of them will have strong statistics, but none of them will produce eye popping numbers. Why? Because regardless of how good this trio is, there are a finite number of balls that will be hit into this area – and they are competing with each other for the chances.

There are advanced defensive metrics to measure the quality of the defense, but these aren’t something the casual fan is going to be able to measure easily. I would suggest a rather simple system for scoring at home. The system is based on the fact that the defensive player’s goal should not merely be to reduce the number of errors they make, but to minimize the number of base runners the teams allows.

• Error on a routine play: -1 points
• Error on what would have been a great play: 0 points
• Didn’t get to a ball he should have gotten to: -1 points
• Great defensive play: +1 points

What does this system do? First, it rewards a player for making an effort on a player that would typically go for a hit. Even if the player fails to make a play on the ball, he isn’t penalized. Indeed, why should he be penalized? If a player makes a great defensive play to get to a ball, and then pulls the first baseman off the bag with his throw, why treat him worse (by charging him with an error) than a player who never got to the ball in the first place?

The second thing the system does is penalize players who have deficient range. If I don’t get to a ball that 90% of players in the league would get to, this is just as bad as if I get to the ball and make an error – in either case, the runner reaches.

Use this system for a while and see what it tells you about player on your team. Maybe that error-prone defensive player is actually saving your team a ton of runs because he’s getting to balls that nobody else would lay a glove on (and occasionally making errors on those balls). Maybe that gold glove second baseball rarely makes an error because he has the range of a mannequin.

One internet battle I expect to be fought in 2010 is the battle over net (network) neutrality.  This is not a new battle, and has been on the radar for a few years now.  I am hoping that 2010 is the year when the government finally draws a line in the sand.

What is net neutrality?  It is the concept that all network traffic be treated the same.  The tiny email you send to your mother has the exact same priority as your neighbor’s multi-gigabyte Youtube downloads.  Internet service providers could relieve network congestion by throttling (intentionally slowing) heavy use such as downloads – but this would violate a principle of net neutrality.

It’s easy to see why users are largely in favor of net neutrality – nobody wants their internet experience degraded.  Users would much prefer to see internet service providers (ISPs) make their networks more robust.

On the flip side of the debate are the ISPs, who would like to be allowed to throttle or force big internet companies to pay them for the privilege of allowing access to their site.  The ISPs claim that certain companies are getting a free ride.  Specifically former SBC CEO (and current GM CEO) Ed Whitacre claimed that Google was getting a free ride.  The idea has become a key point for the ISPs.

Is there any merit to this?  No.  Google pays enormous costs for its infrastructure, as well as paying for the bandwidth that allows people to access and download data from them.  Do they pay for the bandwidth required for my ISP to send the data along to me?  Of course not.  That’s what I’m paying for when I pay my ISP bill.  If the ISPs want Google and other web companies to pay for their costs, when why should I have to pay anything?  This is a blatant attempt to double dip.  Further, it’s blatantly dishonest; an obvious attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of some people who might not fully understand the workings of the internet.

My general rule of thumb is that if you have to lie to make your point, your point probably isn’t valid.

So, then, if I’m not in favor of putting the ISPs on GoogleFare (like welfare, but taking money from Google instead) am I am least amenable to throttling?  No.  My data, regardless of size, is no more of less important than anyone else’s data.  No data should be subject to any artificial constraint, other than the published bandwidth limit.  (Interestingly, I’m not actually a very heavy user – but that doesn’t prevent me from feeling the pain of those who are).

If you want to place limits on usage, go ahead – but I believe you should be forced to disclose these limitations in a very obvious way in advertising and on contracts.  Will this make it appear as if you are providing service that is inferior to that of your competitors, allowing them to eat your lunch?  Yes … but it’s only fair, since you actually ARE providing inferior service.

First, I’ll note that these goals are all professional, rather than personal.  As in the past, I will go forward somewhat anonymously.  I’m not completely anonymous, though – my picture is actually me, and if we interact offline, you’ll recognize me.

I resolve to put forth a serious effort into my novel, Casting Stones.  I got off to a roaring start in November, writing more than 7000 words.  December has been much different, with fewer than 500 words.  Furthermore, I have become dissatisfied with what I have so far, and will likely end up rewriting all of it.  This is not entirely a bad thing.  What I have written so far is light on descriptions and really just rushes to move the plot forward.  This has always been a problem with my longer writing.

I resolve to submit a series of short stories to the Iowa Short Fiction Award contest.  This requires a 150 page double spaced manuscript.  If I keep writing stories at my current rate, reaching this length should be no problem at all, and I should actually be able to do some editing and removed some of the inferior stories.

I resolve to someone finish the “long” story for the 4th quarter of 2009.  This has died on the vine a bit, and with a baby due in the coming weeks, it is unlikely that it will be finished soon.  Still, I’m hoping to having this finished by early February.  Alternately, I may choose to write several bonus short stories for volume 3 of The Fiction of Kosmo.

I resolve to have minimal turnover in staff in 2010.  2009 was a pretty crazy year.  I’m sure some of your heads were spinning at times, due to the rapid addition of writers.  I’m happy with the staff we have right now – in both the caliber of the writers and the breadth of the content.  I wouldn’t mind having a bit more content that appeals to women, so if anything is added in 2010, that would be the area I seek to address.  We also have a couple of writers currently on sabbatical, and I’m hoping they return in earlyb 2010.

I don’t thank my writers enough for the work they do.  Their only pay is future profit sharing – which either means they expect us to turn a profit at some point, or that they simply enjoy writing.  I suspect that they enjoy writing, and hope that maybe they earn a few dollars at some point.

I resolve to steer The Soap Boxers out of the red and into the black.  I really haven’t focused much on finances in 2009, instead choosing to focus on the content of the site.  I’ll still focus heavily on the content in 2010, but with the current staffing level, I should have more time to work on actively driving traffic to the site.

I resolve to get on Twitter more often.  Currently, most of my Tweets are just automatically generated announcements of new posts.  In 2010, I’ll try to be more active on Twitter, and allow follower to gain greater insights into my life.  This doesn’t mean I will be tweeing 24/7, because I have a pretty small tweeting windows (a couple of hours every night).

I resolve to publish at least 325 articles in 2010.  That’s 6.5 a week, allowing us to go without an article once per fortnight.  We published 370+ articles in 2009, so I think we can definitely achieve this.

thank you for reading and have a great 2010.