What Are the Odds?

Bill,

Although they outplayed Seattle for 58 minutes, the Green Bay Packers lost the NFC championship yesterday. In the post mortem analysis (and it really must feel like an autopsy to the Packers and their fans),  four decision points stand out to this observer.

Twice within the 1^st quarter, the Packers chose to accept a field goal attempt for the Seattle 1 yard line.  The success rate for conversion attempts under this circumstance is 53%.

Trailing 16-0 late in the 3^rd quarter, the Seahawks executed a fake field goal from the 19 yard line for a touchdown. Statistics on such opportunities are harder to come by since they are much rarer, but best estimates are a success rate, also, of around 50%

With just a few minutes left in the game, the Packers failed to cover an onside kick that everyone in the football watching world knew was coming. In the NFL overall, onside kicks enjoy a 26% success rate.

Thus, the Packer failed to seize 2 opportunities with a 50% success rate, and failed to defend against 2 other opportunities that the Seahawks chose to seize, with an average success rate of 35%. The potential reward for success from any of these 4 decision points needs no further elaboration.

If Mike McCarthy were a hedge fund manager, my guess is he would be looking a new job this morning.

My beloved Patriots may lose the Super Bowl in 2 weeks, but I doubt it will be due to this kind miscalculation of risk and reward on Bill Belichik’s part.

Eli

Times v Times

Eli,

In my inbox from the New York Times

"Breaking News: President Obama Will Seek to Reduce Taxes for Middle Class"

And immediately following that email was this from the Washington Times (a right leaning newspaper):

"BREAKING NEWS-Obama's State of the Union speech to include $320B tax hike proposal"

Of course, both headlines are true and dishonest.

I clipped this from the NY Times a month or so ago. Notice how the Republicans blocked a bill to restrict NSA data collection, but the Senate voted to defeat a bill on the Keystone XL pipeline. Funny thing is, they were they same type of vote on a motion to allow the bill to proceed. And in the first, the Republicans (mostly) blocked the bill and on the second the Democrats (mostly) blocked the bill.

I look at these examples and see mostly dishonesty and it's another example why I'm highly skeptical of not only the headlines, but the body of any story I read in the popular press including the NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal etc. 

Bill

The Extremists are Winning

Eli,

Initially, I thought your piece on outliers would end up discussing Uber. I was a little disappointed when you veered away from that subject and instead focused on extremists and the attacks  in France. 

I agree with you, the 80/20 rule applies to many aspects of our life and at least statistically, extremism is more like 2 standard deviations from the mean or a 90/10 rule. 

I have little interest in engaging in the discussion whether we should call this radical Islamic extremism, or whether we should call this a war on terror and unfortunately that discussion seems to suck up a lot of oxygen. 

The response to these attacks is disheartening to me. What little momentum there was to restrict the NSA’s (and other law enforcement agencies, like the DEA) ability to gather our phone call’s meta data and other personal information without a warrant is probably stopped. Whatever desire there was to stop the President’s ability to almost unilaterally decide to use drones to kill presumed combatants abroad, even if those presumed combatants are US citizens, is probably quashed as well. 

I’m not sure what the terrorists want. Maybe they are angry with their life and we are the convenient scapegoat, and as you imply they will be with us, in one form or another, always.  Maybe they want to destroy our way of life. Protecting our civil liberties is one of the key tenets of our way of life and to the extent we are willingly abandoning those liberties, they are achieving their goal. 

Two more thinks. Remind me to give you plenty of room on the road, and Go Pats. Now that the Broncos are out of the running, and Elway has decided to fire the coaching staff and entire roster to make a comeback as coach and sole player on the team, I have shifted my support to the Pats. 

Bill

Outliers

Bill

 One of the least mentioned pleasures of teaching is that you have a captive audience. When I’m on rounds with my trainees I get tell to tell stories, and they get to listen. I try to make them instructive of course, but only they could tell you whether I'm successful or not..

One of my favorites is to recount my cab driving career during graduate school in Chicago. I drove on my off days and on weekend nights. In those days you paid a flat rate to “lease” a cab for a 24 hour period (an effective union busting tactic); once you earned your nut the rest was yours to keep. It was exactly the kind of free market incentive you have written about so elegantly in these pages, and I responded to it, usually working long into my shift .  When the cab was empty I trolled for fares aggressively;  I was, to put it mildly, a speed demon in a 3000 lb mass of metal painted yellow, zooming around the city in a manner more befitting a bumper car ride than neighborhood streets. Inevitably, I had accidents, lots of them, and collected traffic tickets  the way some collect baseball cards. I learned that traffic court was almost always a free pass since the ticket would be dismissed if the ticketing police officer didn’t appear. Given that most Chicago cops have better things to do than testify against 22 year old cab drivers for traffic tickets, that outcome could be counted on, and my misdeeds were seldom punished.  The cab company didn’t care much either, since I never had an accident with a fare in the cab, it just meant a short trip to the company body shop,

I did learn, however, from a brief, stern, lecture from my supervisor that a small number of cabbies, (15%), were responsible for the vast majority of accidents, (75%). I was one of those folks. In that regard, I was no different than any other group of outliers that drives events,  like patients repeatedly readmitted to the hospital (the reason why I tell my cab driving story in the 1^st place) or violent New York City cops repeatedly accused of police misconduct, or the religious extremists committing atrocities in Hebron, or Baga, or Peshawar, or Paris. This is the advantage of the extremist; he needs the support of few others; his actions by their nature are guaranteed to produce a disproportionate effect.  

In that regard, there isn't much value in trying to understand the mindset of the terrorist; the power of the few to impact the many will not be diluted.  The best, imperfect answer, in your humble correspondent's opinion  is old fashioned police work; surveillance ( I am sorry to say), infiltration, preemption, and finally defiance. The Islamist extremists of our era are hardly alone.  Human nature isn’t going to change any time soon.

Eli

I'm back

Bill,

2015 promises to be an interesting year, full of the  the usual inspiration and mischief our species is capable of.

Happy Holidays to you and yours,

Eli

Ideology Triumphs over Science in New York

Eli,

The New York Times    |    BREAKING NEWS ALERT   
BREAKING NEWS    Wednesday, December 17, 2014 12:48 PM EST
Cuomo to Ban Fracking in New York State, Citing Health Risks

Alternative headline: "Cuomo to Poor: Let them burn wood."

Bill

Stand with Hillary

Eli,
I'm told this is a real campaign video, but I'm pretty sure it's a parody.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfU3hI8ML30#t=117


Bill