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OMG! It’s football season! Our lives have meaning!

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Who cares about those amateur college scrubs? THE league of record in America is the National Football League, and Da Blog and Morgan Wick’s football site is ready with complete team coverage there as well!

Start with the NFL Lineal Title; as I said last week, it’s analogous to the college football lineal titles, but because of the NFL’s schedule structure there’s rarely more than one at a time, and never more than two. I need to explain something that I forgot to make clear last week: Split titles in the college football lineal title arise from teams going undefeated, or winning the BCS Title Game (which is why LSU gets a new lineal title this year despite not going undefeated). Obviously, it’s exceedingly rare for an NFL team to go undefeated, so what happens instead is that split titles are created when the title holder doesn’t make the playoffs. Obviously, that’s rather rare as well, and the Patriots nabbed the lineal title on their march to an almost-perfect season, so the Giants start the season with the title this year and will defend it against Washington tonight on NBC.

Speaking of which, starting Week 3 or 4, I’ll start my weekly SNF Flex Schedule Watch, which was perhaps the prime contributor of traffic to Da Blog last year, before it was taken over by webcomics. I correctly predicted the Week 12, 14, 15, and 17 games that were moved to primetime as part of NBC’s flexible scheduling, only missing Weeks 11, 13, and 16. I had thought I did the Flex Schedule Watch on Tuesdays last year, but it was actually a Wednesday feature last year so it’s a Wednesday feature this year.

There is a third concept that I used last year: the “SuperPower Rankings”, my experiment in creating a set of “super-power rankings” from the power rankings produced by the eight leading sports sites (ESPN, CBS, Fox, NBC, SI, Yahoo, USA Today, and Sporting News – Yahoo produced two rankings). It proved to be way too much work, so I’m not doing it this year, but I leave the concept open for someone else to pick up the gauntlet.

College Football Schedule: Week 2

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I haven’t updated the Web site with the new lineal titles yet; it’ll be updated by Thursday, probably Wednesday, but I need to write my NFL post first. No titles changed hands anyway, and now it’s Georgia and LSU most likely to lose their titles, though all of them are likely to retain for next week, when the titles are more likely to change hands, specifically when Georgia faces the other USC, and the first USC – off this week – faces Ohio State. All times Eastern.

Lineal Titles (all games on Saturday)
SE Missouri State @ *Missouri 7 PM PPV
Central Michigan @ *Georgia 3:30 SEC HD
Troy @ *LSU 8 PM ESPN360
This Week’s HD Games
South Carolina @ Vanderbilt 8:30 TH ESPN
Navy @ Ball State 7 PM FR ESPN
Georgia Tech @ Boston College Noon Raycom
Miami (OH) @ Michigan Noon ESPN2
Ohio @ Ohio State Noon ESPN
Connecticut @ Temple Noon ESPNU
Florida International @ Iowa Noon BTN
Marshall @ Wisconsin Noon BTN
Eastern Illinois @ Illinois Noon BTN
Southern Miss @ Auburn 12:30 R’com/Yahoo
BYU @ Washington 3 PM FSN
San Diego State @ Notre Dame 3:30 NBC
Richmond @ Virginia 3:45 ESPNU
West Virginia @ East Carolina 4:30 ESPN
Louisiana Tech @ Kansas 7 PM FSN
South Florida @ Central Florida 7 PM ESPN2
Murray State @ Indiana 7 PM BTN
Minnesota @ Bowling Green 7:30 ESPNU
Miami (FL) @ Florida 8 PM ESPN
Texas @ UTEP 10:15 ESPN2
Other Games
Eastern Michigan @ Michigan State Noon BTN
Northern Colorado @ Purdue Noon BTN
San Jose State @ Nebraska 12:30 PPV
New Hampshire @ Army 1 PM ESPN Classic
Furman @ Virginia Tech 1:30 CBSCS XXL
Oregon State @ Penn State 3:30 ABC/ESPN2
Mississippi @ Wake Forest 3:30 ABC/ESPN2
Cincinnati @ Oklahoma 3:30 ABC
Air Force @ Wyoming 3:30 CBS CS
Utah State @ Oregon 3:30 CSD.TV
The Citadel @ Clemson 3:30 ESPN360
Tennessee Tech @ Louisville 3:30 ESPN360
Eastern Washington @ Colorado 3:30
Sacramento State @ Colorado State 3:30
Akron @ Syracuse 3:30
UAB @ Florida Atlantic 4:00
Texas A&M @ New Mexico 5 PM VS.
Idaho State @ Idaho 5 PM ESPN360
Buffalo @ Pittsburgh 6 PM ESPN+
Western Kentucky @ Eastern Kentucky 6 PM CSD.TV
Western Carolina @ Florida State 6 PM ESPN360
William and Mary @ NC State 6 PM
Norfolk State @ Kentucky 6 PM ESPN360
California @ Washington State 6:30 FSN/FCS
Northwestern @ Duke 7 PM CBSCS XXL
Northern Illinois @ Western Michigan 7 PM CSD.TV
Tulane @ Alabama 7 PM ESPN360
Kent State @ Iowa State 7 PM
Arkansas @ Louisiana-Monroe 7 PM ESPN360
Maryland @ Middle Tenn. St. 7 PM ESPN360
Tulsa @ North Texas 7 PM
Texas Southern @ Arkansas State 7 PM CSD.TV
Northwestern State @ Baylor 7 PM
SE Louisiana @ Mississippi State 7 PM
Stephen F. Austin @ TCU 7 PM
Houston @ Oklahoma State 7 PM
Montana State @ Kansas State 7 PM FCS
Rice @ Memphis 8 PM CBS CS
UNLV @ Utah 8 PM mtn.
Texas St.-San Marcos @ SMU 8 PM CBSCS XXL
Texas Tech @ Nevada 9 PM CSD.TV
Toledo @ Arizona 7 PT
Stanford @ Arizona State 7 PT FCS
Weber State @ Hawaii 9 PT ESPN360

Forget about what I was going to do today. (And forget I mentioned I was going to do something.)

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It’s 2:15 as I write this and I decided to try a new place for Wi-Fi and it turns out to use Comcast to supply its connection. And Freehostia and Comcast STILL aren’t getting along. So here’s today’s strip to tide you over until I find someplace else to put it on the site.

In honor of Labor Day, this will probably be my only post of the day, but expect a deluge tomorrow.

This always happens. I start writing a post for a position, and I start coming towards the other position as I write it.

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I recently had a lively e-mail conversation with support at Project Wonderful regarding what I should do to advertise on the web site. Well, not in so many words; I spoke of a hypothetical web site with a number of different sub-sites that were all approved, but with a main page that wasn’t. Their response was to simply take the ad box from one page and put that on the main page, and I wrote them back saying this didn’t solve the problem of which page to take an ad box from. Their response to that was:

You can do the following in this case. You can put different ad boxes on each page if you wish. That way advertisers in different industries can bid on pages that apply to them.

However, I wouldn’t advise doing this due to the following reasons

1) advertisers have to start selecting specific pages which may be a problem for them

2) By dividing your ad boxes into specific pages means that potential advertisers are
now dividing their possible exposure against all the other advertisers. Their piece of the pie will become dramatically smaller.

Theoretically, you want as many advertisers bidding for ad boxes across your whole site, not specific pages.

They make this point elsewhere, and I certainly see it. But they only pay lip service to the idea that “advertisers in different industries can bid on pages that apply to them”.

I’ve been approved for ads on Sandsday, a video game webcomic. Yesterday I applied for ads here, a sports site with an emphasis on American football. Specificly, nerdy esoterica relating to American football. Those are two very different constituencies, and an ad that appeals to one may not appeal to the other. Check that: almost certainly will have little appeal to anyone reading the other except me.

(Okay, I know that doesn’t sound like it’s that incompatible, but I imagine a future where I also have a site pertaining to politics, and another pertaining to history. I already have the 100 Greatest Movies Project and the Street Sign Gallery, where the only reason I’m not applying for those sites is because they don’t fit the design of the rest of the site.)

Isn’t Project Wonderful supposed to contain tools to make it easy to bid across several ad boxes at once? Instead of appealing to a+b and only getting some of a and some of b (or alternately, all of a and none of b), shouldn’t there be some people appealing to a and getting all of a, and appealing to b and getting all of b? So they can take advantage of the full value of a+b, and not just a some of the time and b the rest of the time? Doesn’t this negate some of the advantage PW has over, say, Google Adsense, and even give it potentially a disadvantage, because Adsense’s context-sensitive ads can present only the most relevant ads while PW’s preferred model requires you to appeal to however broad an audience is served by the whole site, even if it’s ridiculously broad?

Food for thought. Leave your responses in the comments.

Still tweaking my ad model

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I’m strongly considering changing the dimensions of the Premier ad box, increasing its size and thus its value. Even though some non-webcomic-related ads are starting to show up, Standard is now occasionally topping 20 cents while Premier remains mired at one or two. I’ve changed the description of Standard to let people know that Premier is better, and will reassess on Monday.

Ads should be coming to the Web site by Monday as well.

College Football Schedule: Week 1

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A new feature on Da Blog this year will be the weekly posting of the Division I-A college football schedule for the week, with information on how to catch games on TV from here. Starting Week 5, the list will be sorted by C Rating of the higher-rated team for all teams in positive B Points. Before then, of course, there will be no ratings to go off of, but I’ll still spotlight the lineal title holders (Princeton-Yale always goes first) and any games available in HD. Starting next week, it should go up on Tuesdays, at least that’s what I’m feeling right now. All times Eastern.

Lineal Titles (all games on Saturday)
Illinois v. *Missouri 8:30 ESPN
Georgia Southern @ *Georgia 12:30 ESPN360
*USC @ Virginia 3:30 ABC/ESPN2
Appalachian State @ *LSU 5 PM ESPN
Thursday (today)
UTEP @ Buffalo 7 PM CSD.TV
Northeastern @ Ball State 7 PM CSD.TV
Eastern Illinois @ Central Michigan 7 PM CSD.TV
Indiana State @ Eastern Michigan 7 PM CSD.TV
Vanderbilt @ Miami (OH) 7:30 ESPNU
Troy @ Middle Tenn. St. 7:30 ESPN+
Eastern Kentucky @ Cincinnati 7:30 CBSCS XXL
Hofstra @ Connecticut 7:30 ESPN+
Jacksonville State @ Georgia Tech 7:30 ESPN360
Charleston Southern @ Miami (FL) 7:30 ESPN360
NC State @ South Carolina 8 PM ESPN
Wake Forest @ Baylor 8 PM FSN
South Dakota State @ Iowa State 8 PM FCS
Oregon State @ Stanford 9 PM ESPN2
Friday
Temple @ Army 7 PM ESPN Classic
SMU @ Rice 8 PM ESPN
Saturday’s HD Games
Virginia Tech v. East Carolina Noon ESPN
Bowling Green @ Pittsburgh Noon ESPNU
Syracuse @ Northwestern Noon ESPN2
Youngstown State @ Ohio State Noon BTN
Coastal Carolina @ Penn State Noon BTN
Maine @ Iowa Noon BTN
Hawaii @ Florida 12:30 R’Com/Yahoo
Utah @ Michigan 3:30 ABC/ESPN2
Oklahoma State v. Washington State 3:30 FSN
Towson @ Navy 3:30 CBS CS
Delaware @ Maryland 3:45 ESPNU
Mississippi State @ Louisiana Tech 6:45 ESPN2
Northern Illinois @ Minnesota 7 PM BTN
Boston College v. Kent State 7:30 ESPNU
Alabama v. Clemson 8 PM ABC
Michigan State @ California 8 PM ABC
Washington @ Oregon 7 PT FSN
Other Saturday Games
Western Kentucky @ Indiana Noon BTN
Akron @ Wisconsin Noon BTN
Ohio @ Wyoming 2 PM mtn.
Southern Utah @ Air Force 2 PM
Villanova @ West Virginia 3:30 ESPN+
Tulsa @ UAB 4 PM
Illinois State @ Marshall 4:30
TCU @ New Mexico 6 PM VS.
McNeese State @ North Carolina 6 PM
South Carolina State @ Central Florida 6 PM
Northern Iowa @ BYU 6 PM mtn.
Louisiana-Monroe @ Auburn 7 PM ESPN360
Florida International @ Kansas 7 PM
Memphis @ Mississippi 7 PM
Western Michigan @ Nebraska 7 PM PPV
Louisiana-Lafayette @ Southern Miss 7 PM CBSCS XXL
Florida Atlantic @ Texas 7 PM PPV
Arkansas State @ Texas A&M 7 PM
James Madison @ Duke 7 PM ACC Select
Western Illinois @ Arkansas 7 PM
Southern @ Houston 7 PM
Chattanooga @ Oklahoma 7 PM PPV
Eastern Washington @ Texas Tech 7 PM
North Texas @ Kansas State 7 PM
Tennessee-Martin @ South Florida 7:30 ESPN+
Idaho State @ Boise State 8 PM ESPN360
UC Davis @ San Jose State 8 PM CSD.TV
Grambling @ Nevada 9 PM CSD.TV
Cal Poly @ San Diego State 9:30
Idaho @ Arizona 7 PT
Utah State @ UNLV 7 PT
Northern Arizona @ Arizona State 7 PT FCS
Sunday
Kentucky @ Louisville 3:30 ESPN
Colorado State v. Colorado 7:30 FSN
Labor Day
Fresno State @ Rutgers 4 PM ESPN
Tennessee @ UCLA 8 PM ESPN

Can you feel the excitement?

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Can you feel the excitement? College football season is about to start! Football season – pro and college – is always momentous here on Da Blog. Before my recent webcomics-driven popularity (well, sort of), quite a few people were attracted to Da Blog by my Sunday Night Football predictions. Soon, Da Blog will be taken over by football, especially on Mondays, as my various football-related projects kick into gear. As such, my football hub is all set up for the new season.

The College Football Lineal Title – won by any team that defeated the last champion – will soon take over Da Blog. I made some changes: the Princeton Title is now the Princeton-Yale Title (and I could call it the Walter Camp Memorial Title), reflecting their shared dominance over the early days of college football, and while the 2004 Auburn and Utah titles were unified in last year’s Sugar Bowl, we got a new split title as none of last year’s title holders made the BCS Title Game. Also, every title now has a field listing each team’s next title defense. Missouri and USC are the only two teams with any real shot at losing their titles in Week 1, as Georgia and LSU play 1-AA (oops, “Championship Subdivision”) teams, but the 2004 Auburn-Utah and 2008 BCS titles are most likely to be unified – unless Missouri loses to Illinois and USC loses to Ohio State. (And I said that about the Princeton and Auburn titles last year, because of the same conference.) There’s an NFL analog as well, but it’s never had more than one dissenting title at a time, and there’s no split title this year.

Then there’s my College Football Rankings, my personal, non-proprietary computer rankings that aim to strip out all the bias and distrust and bring some clarity to the world of college football. The ranking formula is unchanged since last year, despite my being tempted to change the C Rating calculation from being based on conference ratings to being based on B Ratings of opponents (a change you’ll probably see next year). The conference layout of college football is also unchanged from last year, as is the fact that you won’t see any rankings until after Week 4, so the only thing different from this description is that OT games are considered to have a margin of victory of 0; the only difference between the winner and loser is being recorded as a winner and loser. That is also equivalent to a score ratio (described at the link) of 0, which gets averaged in A Rating as .5, and OT games give B Points similar to a I-AA game: only the home field modifier regardless of outcome. As exciting as college football OT is, it’s a joke and has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual play of the game. It’s more of a skills competition, akin to penalty kicks in soccer. If drives occurred the way they do in actual play, as opposed to starting within field goal range, I might give it more weight.

Next week I’ll talk about the NFL Lineal Title and talk more about the SuperPower ranking concept and why I’m not doing it this year. And tomorrow I’ve got another new college football feature.

I’d use a one-word title for this post, but it might get me kicked off of Blogger and/or force me to bump my PW rating up to NSFW.

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One problem (possibly) gets solved, and another crops up. So soon after finding out I could be getting a real battery for my laptop, my USB drive stops working. Because my last USB drive got lost, and both were my only means of backing up the contents of my old hard drive, and the one before the last one stopped working when the USB connector started sliding in and out and I was never able to get my files off it, if I can’t recover the information on there I have effectively lost everything I had worked on that’s not on the Internet or my desktop dating back at least to April of last year.

Sandsday will still go up as normal, since I work on those strips on my desktop, but there were some updates for the web site that were saved on the USB drive but not uploaded to the site that will now have to wait. I should be able to re-upload my street sign images from my trip to Whidbey Island earlier this month, but I will also have to re-write the applicable section of the street sign gallery, which will be a pain. Especially since my dad could be taking me on a road trip as soon as this weekend, which will be a street sign bonanza.

More distressingly, if I can’t recover what’s on the USB drive (or find my old one) I will have to abandon the 100 Greatest Movies Project and take the preview site offline. I worked on writing up a major chunk of the movies for the Project last summer (at least a third), and I also collaborated with a second on a few, and now all I have is what’s on the web site (i.e. nothing, really), the sample(s) I sent to the second, and the ones written by the second only when we weren’t together. Among the writeups lost are fairly lengthy ones by me that I can’t really palm off to anyone else because they contain analysis of the list itself.

Damn it.

Odds and ends

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To the extent Blogger really has much of a feature request, it appears to be inaccessible other than people going to the help group and reading threads pointing to it (has the “wish list” been replaced by Blogger in Draft?), and it doesn’t really support requests that require some description or explanation that aren’t among the defaults. So: When Blogger introduced the ability to autosave posts, it ditched the “recover post” feature, where posts in progress were automatically saved to a cookie on your computer, and if your browser crashed you could open a Blogger window and click “recover post” and your post would, mostly, return. I can see that it would be unnecessary when posts were being autosaved as drafts on a regular basis anyway, but that only works when you’re online for the duration.

I would like to see it made easier to work on posts offline, perhaps by bringing back a variant of the recover post feature. That would be useful for people who are working on posts that don’t require a lot of checking of web sites, so they can be worked on on a laptop that’s not connected to Wi-Fi, or people on Internet connections that aren’t always on. Working on posts in an external text editor isn’t really practical, especially with some of the wonkiness of the current main post editor. In Notepad, you essentially have to hand-program the HTML and paste in Edit HTML mode, and even then who knows what the post editor will do. I haven’t tested working on posts in Word, but considering Word 2007 defaults to inserting spacing as though you’re writing a double-spaced essay, I’m not optimistic.

My dad called me earlier today and wondered if, if he wanted to advertise on Da Blog, if he had to go through Blogspot, apparently mixing up Blogspot and Project Wonderful. They have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. Speaking of which, don’t expect much in the way of non-Sandsday web site updates until a ways into the week, because my conversation with PW on my ad strategy seems to have stalled. Also, I see I appear to be getting some non-webcomic ads, which is nice.