I'm officially a Mercer grad student

Well, I'm officially registered for my first graduate level course. It's a special topics EE course on robotics at Mercer. I didn't do so well in the robotics course I took at Georgia Tech, but at that point it was an extra class and I had major senioritis. This one ought to be easier and my motivation level should be higher than it was in spring 2007 – having to repay the $2500 tuition/fees if I don't make an A or B sounds like a good motivator.

 

I've been putting off this whole grad school thing for awhile despite people telling me for years that I should. This year, the Air Force upped the tuition assistance from 75% of tuition (and 0% of the additional fees) to now paying 100% of tuition and fees. That and the likelihood of getting to play in one more junior bridge event put me over the edge to fight through the paperwork and get registered. The world university bridge championships, open to people in college between people 18 and 28 years old is in Reims, France in July 2012. This is the competition that I went to in Poland in 2008. Reims is half way between Metz and Paris, an area I once knew well, and it has been too long since I spent some quality time in France.

 

The course is just 3 hours per week on Wednesdays and finishes early enough that I still would just barely be able to play bridge Wednesday nights in Macon. That's a game I rarely attend anyway so more likely is that I'll go to a bar after class most days. At the very least, taking courses at Mercer might open up more good places I can meet people – work, bars, tennis courts, and bridge tournaments have not exactly been the greatest of places to meet women. But maybe not – I will still be in engineering classes and only 3 people have registered for this course so far. And if I do wind up finishing with this master's degree in Engineering Management (at the rate of 1 course per semester it might take a few years), it might qualify me for other management positions if and when I decide to change careers.

Shopping and Ordering Online

A month or so ago, I was at a hotel with a friend and we wanted to order a pizza at about midnight. We had noticed a pizza place across the street – not even across the street but just across the parking lot – but ordering from them would require going outside, and it was a cold and rainy night. Neither of us wanted to go outside. Furthermore, neither of us wanted to call to place an order. Online ordering is so much easier and this restaurant didn't have a nice easy website to let you place an order. Therefore we took our business to Papa John's, which was a few miles away, and paid the delivery fee. It's not that we cared about the quality from one place over the other – they're pretty much equivalent.

 

 Yes, I choose where I spend my money based on the website. If a company has no website, they will get none of my business. If a company has online ordering while a competitor does not, the one with online ordering (or online bill pay) will almost always get my business. I have yet to find a doctor that lets you schedule appointments online, but if there is one, I will transfer there because calling is such a nuisance. I'd prefer the flexibility of using an app on my phone, hardly even functions as a phone anymore.

 

What reminded me of this was the post on the Dilbert blog today about the hassles of online shopping. On one hand, I wholeheartedly agree with him – the promo codes and various discounts and popup ads and websites that weren't designed by someone as smart as me, and various browser features that try to remember your information but don't do it well are getting to take too much time and be too complicated even for me. On the other hand, I generally have time and patience to deal with computer stuff and all the hoopla does make things cheaper if you know what you're doing (and I do).

 

online > in store > telephone

Asbury Computer Rankings heading into Championship weekend

For the season, my computer is 76.9% at picking the winner (in games involving a top 25 team) while the official spread is at 80.1%. However, my computer beats the spread 53.2% of the time. Over the years, my computer has consistently beat the spread - 51.1% in 2009 and 52.9% in 2010 - so if you want to bet on games, my picks look like a good bet.

My computer is predicting a close SEC championship game, LSU over UGA 28-24. Oregon over UCLA by 15,Wisconsin over Michigan State 31-24, and Virginia Tech over Clemson 33-20.

Rankings headed into Rivalry games

Somehow I don't feel like writing much but these rankings are messed up, at least compared to popular opinion. After 4 teams ranked in the top 7 lost, the SEC has the top 3 spots in the BCS but in my computer, those teams are #1, 4, and 13.

 

So, who's going to win the Thanksgiving week games. Even though I'll be playing bridge at the NABC, I should still be able to see GT vs. UGA, a noon start, which means it'll be 9am in Seattle.

Georgia 31, @Georgia Tech 25

@LSU 31, Arkansas 22

@Nebraska 28, Iowa 27

@South Carolina 31, Clemson 27

Florids State 26, @Florida 23

@North Carolina 33, Duke 20

@Michigan 31, Ohio State 17

Alabama 31, @Auburn 19

@Stanford 34, Notre Dame 27

@Oregon 41, Oregon State 20

@Wake Forest 27, Vanderbilt 25

Virginia Tech 24, @Virginia 21

OkSt and LSU Undisputed #1 and 2

Oklahoma State still tops the Asbury computer ranking. With Boise State and Stanford departing from the ranks of the unbeaten, my computer took a slight divergence from the BCS. Other notable games in week 11 were VT getting off to a slow start but coming up with several big 3rd down passes to beat GT 37-26, Clemson needing a late 4th quarter comeback to beat Wake Forest, and Nebraska topping Penn State during the aftermath of the Penn State scandal.

Michigan, a team that has been overrated by my computer all season, went up 3 spots to #8 despite being only #18 in the BCS. Penn State is similarly overrated, coming in at #14. Texas and Florida State, 23 and 25 in the BCS, meanwhile don't even make my top 30.

Apparently some people have gotten the impression that my computer predicts scores that are too close, but really I only put games that are most interesting on here. However, to show that my computer does indeed expect some blowouts, here goes.

@Alabama 42, Georgia Southern 7
LSU 38, @Mississippi 10
@Oregon 38, USC 27
Kansas State 30, @Texas 28
@Georgia 35, Kentucky 14
@Michigan 28, Nebraska 23
Georgia Tech 35, @Duke 21
@Wake Forest 35, Maryland 17
@Florida State 30, Virginia 19
@Virginia Tech 31, North Carolina 20

Week 11 rankings

In baseball, I love pitching duels – those 2-1 and 3-1 ball games where offense is hard to come by – so it only makes sense that I would like low-scoring football games. I enjoyed watching the Alabama-LSU game last Saturday despite having no real interest in who wins. Knowing that every little score mattered and that field position would be important makes it more interesting than say, the Oklahoma State-Kansas State or South Carolina-Arkansas games going on at the same time. So, while my teams of interest were off, LSU and Oklahoma State squeaked by, Arkansas won in a more convincing fashion, and there wasn’t really anything else noteworthy in college football in week 10.

Here’s how my computer has the teams ranked through ten weeks. Not surprisingly, Oklahoma State is #1 again. I only see a couple of screwy things, most notably South Carolina (7-2) is 4 spots ahead of Arkansas (8-1) despite Arkansas beating them by 16 last weekend.

 

This Thursday I’ll be at the Georgia Tech-Virginia Tech game. The winner is almost assured of playing in Charlotte for the ACC championship against Clemson. The official spread is GT by 1, which surprised me. My computer has them at a virtual tie, Virginia Tech by .05.

For the season, my computer has picked the winner correctly 78.3% of the time (in top 25, ACC, and SEC games) and beaten the spread 50.4% of the time. Last year, my computer beat the spread 52.9% of the time. Here are some predictions for this week.

Virginia Tech 26+, @Georgia Tech 26

@Notre Dame 28, Maryland 16

@Florida State 28, Miami 23

@Georgia 33, Auburn 23

@Clemson 37, Wake Forest 23

@Kansas State 35, Texas A&M 31

@Boise State 36, TCU 26

@Stanford 34, Oregon 30

Boise State solidly at #2 in the Asbury Computer

With 4 weeks left in the regular season, there are few things that people can agree on but one is that Alabama and LSU are the two best teams so far. They play each other Saturday night and may well still be ranked 1 and 2 in the polls after that. Computers don't seem to give them as much credit. And it's not just my computer program - it's the computers used in the BCS calculations, too. All but one of those computers puts Oklahoma State at #1.

Georgia and Georgia Tech are now pretty much tied with their 6-2 marks. Georgia Tech beat Clemson 31-17 and played far better than they did in the previous 2 losses to Virginia and Miami. I'm told Georgia looked like the far superior team in the 24-20 win over Florida. At the bridge tournament Saturday, I tried to bet a Clemson fan that they would beat Tech by at least 2 touchdowns but he smartly didn't take me up on that bet.

Boise State's opponents currently have a 31-25, which is awfully good considering Georgia is the only decent team they have played, but hopefully that will drop their strength of schedule down to where it actually should be around 90th to 100th toughest out of 119.

This week there really aren't many interesting games on tap with all 3 ranked ACC teams being off and Georgia pretty much being off. Actually, there are 3 games with top 15 teams playing each other, all at night. Here's what my computer predicts.

@Alabama 24, LSU 23
@Oklahoma State 42, Kansas State 24
@Arkansas 27, South Carolina 26
Notre Dame 32, @Wake Forest 24