Vegas is great…again!
This time I’m staying at Mandalay Bay. Great place. I’d only visited here a couple of times before, never stayed. On one occasion, I saw my former girlfriend, Sandhal Bergman when she starred in the play Chicago. On another, I produced a show for Red Development starring J. J. Walker at House of Blues. The rooms are decent, there’s lots to do, it’s kept up well and there are good quality crowds.
And there are some fantastic rock bands playing nightly all over the casino.
It’s a very large, and fairly active casino. Another feature is a fun choice of pools, and if you come for a visit, you have to check out the shark reef! Well done, guys.
It was about 102 degrees today, clear and dry. My best gal pal Gina from California is here with me, sweet lady, and we are enjoying a relaxing three days and nights.
Now the big news….drum roll…what did I tell you about the Chumps?
I mean Chiefs, of course. They have talent, but no leadership and no culture of winning. We already went over this. In other words, you can count on losses to teams better than the Chiefs almost every time out. Sure, they may have an occasional win, like Green Bay last year, but generally uh, no.
I’ll give the Chumps, I mean Chiefs, credit.
They played well on offense for the first half and had me nervous. I had Atlanta even with the money line, and my really big bet was this game. I did the same thing against KC last year with the under and won.
Boy Matt “THE FRANCHISE” Cassel had the best first half of his Chiefs career (and his last season here will be this one). Good job, Matt. We have weapons – I don’t need to name them – you saw it. But the Falcons are superior and have a much better quarterback in Matt Ryan.
This was practically the same game MU played and lost last night to Georgia.
Both games ended in blow outs, but were well played and close for a half or more. Again, MU has no history of winning big games, so their legacy of losing the big ones continues.
I did miscall a couple other games.
There were a few upsets, but hey, it was upset Sunday. Almost every game was an upset except for KC losing, New England winning, Houston winning over Miami, and the Jets looking very good in their win.
The rest of the games were too close to call or upsets.
The most impressive upset was WASHINGTON with RG 3.
WOW! Is he great or what?
He thumped the Saints. All the rookie quarterbacks looked good or outstanding, even in some of their losses. It’s the new passing league NFL and rookies get great fast.
Next year the Chiefs will start a rookie quarterback but it may be too late for some outstanding players like Derrick Johnson, Jamaal Charles and D-Bowe. The rookie will take at least two years to be post season sharp. So bye-bye to many of the good vets on this team.
After viewing the NFL’s first week, don’t plan on getting rich betting these games!
Identify one or two games and jump on those games ONLY.
College is easier the first four weeks or so, as are mismatches. But I think you’ve seen enough of how I do things to figure out that, hey, this guy is very good.
Year after year.
Cheers!
What is scary is how good Peyton Manning looked tonight. If he can stay healthy, Denver will run away with the AFC west!
agreed, I am going to puke
Me too. 🙁
PAYTON MANNING, THE DUKE OF DENVER.
All bow in his greatness as he smokes the Chefs like that fine, medical grade cheeba they sell there.
He definitely still has the tools. The only question now is how well he is going to hold uo over the course of a long season. The older you get, the slower you heal, even from bumps and bruises. That is what causes many athletes to retire even when they still have skills.
attentionALL SPORTS BETTORS…
NATE SILVER….WHO’S probably one of the great statisticians in the nation..
for political polling data…has a new book out giving tips on sports betting
and other topics.
Saw tis guy speak 2 years ago and he’s amazingly accurate with
numbers and odds…might be a very investment….this guy is target
on with his numbers/odds and he’s now writing about other topics
like forecasting and betting…
September 9, 2012, 3:39 pm45 Comments
Why Weather Forecasters Are Role Models
By NATE SILVER
An excerpt from my forthcoming book, “The Signal and the Noise,” was published this week in The New York Times Magazine. You can find an online version of the excerpt here.
The book takes a comprehensive look at prediction across 13 fields, ranging from sports betting to earthquake forecasting. Since 2009, I have been traveling the country to meet with experts and practitioners in each of these fields in an effort to uncover common bonds. The book asks an ambitious question: What makes predictions succeed or fail?
It was enlightening to speak with men and women at the forefront of science and technology. But I found that despite their best efforts, their predictions have often gone poorly:
[If] prediction is the truest way to put our information to the test, we have not scored well. In November 2007, economists in the Survey of Professional Forecasters — examining some 45,000 economic-data series — foresaw less than a 1-in-500 chance of an economic meltdown as severe as the one that would begin one month later. Attempts to predict earthquakes have continued to envisage disasters that never happened and failed to prepare us for those, like the 2011 disaster in Japan, that did.
The discipline of meteorology is an exception. Weather forecasts are much better than they were 10 or 20 years ago.
A quarter-century ago, for instance, the average error in a hurricane forecast, made three days in advance of landfall, was about 350 miles. That meant that if you had a hurricane sitting in the Gulf of Mexico, it might just as easily hit Houston or Tallahassee, Fla. — essentially the entire Gulf Coast was in play, making evacuation and planning all but impossible.
Today, although there are storms like Hurricane Isaac that are tricky for forecasters, the average miss is much less: only about 100 miles.
The article explores how weather forecasters have managed to achieve this, and what we might learn from them.
It is not a simple story, exactly. The book, like this blog, is detail-oriented. In fact, one of the arguments that it advances is that we are sometimes too willing to take elegantly written narratives as substitutes for a more uncertain truth.
But there is a healthy balance between computer modeling and human judgment in weather forecasting that is lacking in many other disciplines. Usually, we either take the output from poorly designed models too credulously (as in the case of the models that asserted mortgage-backed securities were incredibly safe investments), or we value our own subjective judgment much too highly (as in the case of baseball in the pre-’Moneyball’ era.)
Weather forecasters, however, have an unusually good sense of the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches:
But there are literally countless other areas in which weather models fail in more subtle ways and rely on human correction. Perhaps the computer tends to be too conservative on forecasting nighttime rainfalls in Seattle when there’s a low-pressure system in Puget Sound. Perhaps it doesn’t know that the fog in Acadia National Park in Maine will clear up by sunrise if the wind is blowing in one direction but can linger until midmorning if it’s coming from another. These are the sorts of distinctions that forecasters glean over time as they learn to work around potential flaws in the computer’s forecasting model, in the way that a skilled pool player can adjust to the dead spots on the table at his local bar.
I hope that you will consider reading the article and the book.
.
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methodology, models, projection update, weather, “The Signal and the Noise”, computers
Dude- Can she bury her boob any deeper into your arm? or, Dude- Can you bury your arm any deeper into her boob? Either way, well done, mister.
Try the Chicken Fried Steak at ‘Terribles’, just off the strip.
After one week Craigs pics are at:
teasers:
1-1 (won one 2 team nfl teaser, lost one two team nfl teaser)
point spread bets:
0-1
money line bets:
1-0 (bet 150 to win 100, for falcons to win)
think you missed last week…BAMA OVER MICHIGAN…kinda won that one too.
It is unreal how an idiot can have such weak picks and STILL he is bragging? WTF?
glazster,
YOU SUCK!! Your picks suck, everything about you sucks! You would please do the planet a favor and die already?
LOL, Not that is comment will be published…
it is more personal note to assboy glater
34 ‘C’ cup- er, I mean 65 toss power trap – hutt hutt! Alright, huddle up & let’s talk some football fellers…
At 40-17, could have easily become 61-17 except the Falcons took the 4th quarter off on both offense & defense; KC’s final drive was the thing superfluous stats are made of.
~
Observations/this n’ that:
Tale of two halves: that game today looked like Superbowl 1 and/or the January 2011 playoff game vs BALT… the script fell apart in the second half, in lock-step with KC.
* ‘He is who we thought he was’ – Hunt, Pioli, Cassel… put out an APB immediately for a real NFL Owner, GM & QB because Dorothy (Scott) you’re not in New England any more, your ‘right 53’ is not the Patriots Brady Bunch, the Wizard (Belichick) isn’t your Head Coach and Hunt (million$ under the cap) while cheesy is not Kraft.
* I expect Baldwin’s face to be on a milk carton by tomorrow… and Hali’s on a ‘Most Wanted’ poster
* Bowe was in mid-season form, dropping the first pass he saw… Moeaki looked not too bad… Berry made one play all day, spent the rest of it chasing phantoms.
* Defense? Yes please. Expectations? Null. Special teams? ‘Olympic’ in their affect.
* Charles gained just 41 yards on 15 carries – the 46 yarder he managed highlighted not his greatness so much as his loss some quickness & speed; a year + ago he is ‘not’ caught from behind by a safety. While it isn’t monumental, it is obvious to me #25 is ‘just off’ compared yesteryear, and it will not get better only more pronounced as the wear & tear the 2012 season takes its toll on him/his legs.
* Hi, do you know me? Most people in DALL do, but KC fans may have forgotten me (before today) – that’s why I carry the AMX card – don’t leave for DALL without it… watch the Cowboys #39 Brandon Carr this season on his way to the Pro Bowl!
That is all…
That Brandon Carr slip up will kill us all year.
More booze gargoyle.
🙁
Kerouac, you destroy me friend. What a great writer you are…I mean it…Hearne…please contact this person for God’s sake..he is better than any S.I. guy I read…amazing, just amazing…I agree with EVERYTHING you write. Wish I had your skills…but I do have your knowledge of the game..that’s why I love what you do..we both see the ‘evil’ in this or I mean, these franchises….headed nowhere…
Our fans are getting jacked, they hate on people like me or you who tell them what they just don’t want to hear…”please stop it Craig, you are ruining my Sundays…let me enjoy them…at least til they get here”….
I will say one thing Kerouac, the Chiefs may be decent by mid season with an improved D..some guys back..not banged up…but playoffs? Don’t see that..no…
Denver is the class of the West…as we said before this started…Manning is still Manning as you saw last night..Matt is well..still Matt….Cassel…not Ryan.
“All the rookie quarterbacks looked good or outstanding, even in some of their losses.”
You obviously missed this — Cleveland’s Brandon Weeden got caught under the US flag that was unfurled as part of the pre-game festivities. He should have stayed there.
The number of points scored by Cleveland’s defense (six) exceeded Weeden’s quarterback rating (5.1); no rookie quarterback since 1960 had a lower rating on opening day (minimum 15 passes).
Surely the Bard must speak of the Chiefs -– This day’s black fate on more days doth depend:
This but begins the woe others must end.”
– William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, 3.1
Yes I did miss his total day til last night, not good, Miami boy was weak too, but they have talent…I think..I couldn’t see every game closely at the sports room, was focused on KC/Atlanta…but did see RG3 and others do well…
You missed less than the “Experts”. But then so did the chicken at the casino in Atlantic City.
Was eeehh on Riggle, but it was his first go. Liked the general idea, KC Klass all the way baby!
Normally if you are 10X better than the losing QB’s index it is a good thing. Alas not so much for Sick Vick with his 51.
Not knocking the officials, they are doing a hell of a job considering how over their head they are now. But the NFL can’t afford to hire full-time officials and give them benefits rather than do this 1% dance?
Peter King goes blind and says they did great. He and most of the experts missed that one-minute uckfup yesterday.
Officiating will cost someone a game and the books big money if they keep the scabs.
It is all about image and pomp, Never mind the product is often unwatchable, protect the brand.
http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/features/2012/nfl_2012/week_1/nfl_2012_embracing_the_power_of_spite_.html
Romeo, Romeo, must it be our black fate to again take our lumps?
To be known once more not as Champs but as Chumps?
Yes, it’s only Week 1, but already we’re down in the dumps.
Why, even the lowly Bills appear able to kick our rumps.
Thats funny. heh…
I have nothing to add. I just missed Chuck and Dude, wanted to say hi!
This will be a long season for KC fans, MU, Chiefs, KU…oh boy…well we do have K-State…yikes.