From an example of congressional bipartisanship (SOPA) to an example of ideological bipartisanship.

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Our school’s library gets a lot of magazines, and occasionally I take a peek at them. Over the past few months, the National Review – the United States’ conservative magazine of record – has published stories with, essentially, the following messages:

  • “Hey, you know, maybe those Occupy Wall Street guys have a point, maybe these big banks might just have a little too much power?”
  • “Hey, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s harder to move from relative rags to relative riches in America these days.” (This was the cover story of the same issue as the above.)
  • “Hey, maybe we should get all this Wall Street money out of the Republican party?” (Another cover story; I didn’t read this one, but this was the gist I got from the table of contents.)

I don’t know if this says more about the National Review, the state of the country, or the state of the Republican Party, but I do know I will have much more to say about this sort of thing next week, and especially in March…

Da Blog is back, baby!

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Well, I can’t say this was the happiest 36 hours Da Blog has ever had.

First, I found out I’d deleted the plugin I’d used when first setting up Da Blog to hide it from public view, and couldn’t find it again. Then I downloaded a plugin that just coughed up a 503 error whenever I went to a WordPress-powered page – even my admin section, meaning I wound up having to disable all my plugins in my database administration just to undo the damage. Then, after finding a working plugin, I upgraded to the latest version of WordPress, only to discover too late that the plugin I was counting on to pick up the slack for the old one didn’t actually work that way.

So now we’re back on the road, and the Sports and Webcomics subsites are running on the last developmental version of the old plugin until I can find a longer-term solution. There are a few quirks, most notably that the main pages of both sites are currently serving up all my posts instead of just the ones in those categories, but it should still be functional. If you see any other problems, give me a holler in the comments.

However, now I have a new problem: the power went out at our house this morning and might not be back until partway through the weekend. As such, I’m going to queue up a quick post to go out tomorrow to continue the streak and won’t be able to do any more work on Da Blog or the site until Monday at the latest (and I really hope it can be sooner). I know I promised a full-fledged preview of the conference championship games, but the MXSes will have to suffice: Ravens 21½-28½ Patriots, Giants 19¾-22¼ 49ers.

More to come on Monday, including – hopefully – the much-delayed launch of the forum.

Programming Note

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(From MS Paint Adventures: Homestuck. Click for full-sized blackout.)

I had heard of SOPA before today’s protests thereof, but I generally don’t like jumping to conclusions and following whatever people tell me I should think. Nonetheless, in light of current events, next week will see a special four-part series on the future of content. Some of this will likely be things that would have made my book on the Internet had I ever written it, and not all of it will be related to SOPA; there will also be things specific to this site’s main two topics, sports and webcomics.

Also, MorganWick.com will go down today sometime between 9 AM and noon PT, but not because of SOPA. I’m finally upgrading to WordPress 3.x series; seems someone finally got around to taking over the plugin that powers the Sports and Webcomics subsites.

Also, as I write this, it is 1:35 AM on the West Coast, and many webcomics have not updated yet, and I still feel confident saying that no other webcomic will protest SOPA as well as Homestuck, even if no one will get it later. (Although now that I’ve seen xkcd, I like its alt text too.)

2011 College Football Rankings – After Bowls

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After all is said and done, I must, begrudgingly, accept Alabama as my national champion.

Perhaps if LSU had kept it closer, they might have an argument for a split title. Perhaps if Oklahoma State didn’t need overtime to beat an overrated Stanford team, they might have an argument for a split title. But Alabama did what they need to, and now they’re the national champions.

Frankly, this is one of those years where the best solution might be no national champion. None of the teams involved are all that attractive. One good thing about a potential playoff system is that at least any potential champion has spent time building an aura of “champion-ness” by winning the games we consider to have the most value. Perhaps Alabama, or Oklahoma State, or even LSU would seem more legitimate by beating some number of teams along the way.

How the C Ratings are tabulated: First, A Ratings are tabulated by multiplying the total score ratio, which is expressed by (points-opponents’ points)/points, by the winning percentage. Score ratio minimizes the effect of running up the score. Next, B Points for each game are tabulated by (margin of victory)/(opponent’s A rating)+/-1 for wins, and -(margin of loss)/(1-opponent’s A Rating)+/-1 for losses. The “+/-” is + for road games and – for home ones. The total number of B Points is multiplied by the A Rating to get the B Rating. Finally, the C Rating is tabulated by taking one-tenth the difference between the team’s B Rating and the average of his opponents’ B Ratings and taking the result off the B Rating. The three ratings go A, B, C across. Click here to see the complete ratings.

1 Alabama SEC ’06 Boise St.
12-1 LW: A Rat: .796 B Rating: 67.874 C Rating: 59.634 AP: 1 BCS: 1
Say what you will about the BCS system, it is true what the Tide fans are saying: they won the one that counted.
2 LSU SEC SEC Champ.
13-1 LW: A Rat: .720 B Rating: 64.064 C Rating: 56.912 AP: 2 BCS: 2
On the plus side, Les Miles proved this year that his first national championship wasn’t just the result of inheriting Nick Saban’s players.
3 Oklahoma State B12 Fiesta Bowl
12-1 LW: A Rat: .651 B Rating: 55.805 C Rating: 47.798 AP: 3 BCS: 3
Sorry, but national championship teams don’t need overtime to beat teams that didn’t win their conference. Can I seriously expect you to have beaten Alabama?
4 Boise State MWC Maaco Bowl
12-1 LW: A Rat: .717 B Rating: 47.456 C Rating: 38.482 AP: 8 Coaches: 6
Kellen Moore ended his college career with a bang, blowing out an Arizona State team that looked like the third-best team in the Pac-10 at one point this season.
5 Wisconsin B10 Big 10 Champ.
11-3 LW: A Rat: .594 B Rating: 36.909 C Rating: 29.645 AP: 10

 Coaches: 11
The Badgers kept it close enough against the Ducks that they don’t move below them.
6 Houston USA TicketCity
13-1 LW: A Rat: .695 B Rating: 38.024 C Rating: 29.006 AP: 18 Coaches: 14
Houston proved their season wasn’t a fluke in demolishing a good Penn State team.
7 Oregon P12 Rose Bowl
12-2 LW: A Rat: .611 B Rating: 34.317 C Rating: 28.226 AP: 4 Coaches: 4
The win over Wisconsin wasn’t impressive and the Pac-12 didn’t do that great in the bowls, but it took Stanford losing to a top-3 team for people to realize, “Wait, Oregon won this conference and Stanford didn’t for a reason.”
8 Oklahoma B12 Insight Bowl
10-3 LW: A Rat: .534 B Rating: 31.655 C Rating: 26.064 AP: 16 Coaches: 15
Big win over Iowa didn’t do much to impress the voters in the final standings.
9 Michigan B10 Sugar Bowl
11-2 LW: A Rat: .586 B Rating: 22.677 C Rating: 18.480 AP: 12 Coaches: 9
Yes, it was Virginia Tech. Yes, it took overtime. But Michigan did their darndest to prove how deserving of a BCS bowl they really were.
10 Stanford P12 Fiesta Bowl
11-2 LW: A Rat: .617 B Rating: 23.190 C Rating: 17.428 AP: 7 Coaches: 7
Luck and the Cardinal gave all they could, but Oklahoma State, in the end, was the better team, even if marginally so.
11 Southern Miss USA Hawaii Bowl
12-2 LW: A Rat: .586 B Rating: 21.956 C Rating: 14.893 AP: 20 Coaches: 19
The win over Nevada did move them up a couple of spots in the polls, even though it was by only a touchdown.
12 South Carolina SEC Capital One
11-2 LW: A Rat: .576 B Rating: 15.962 C Rating: 12.501 AP: 9 Coaches: 8
Big win over a good Huskers team isn’t enough to put the Cocks in the top ten, but Spurrier has definitely built an elite program.
13 Arkansas SEC Cotton Bowl
11-2 LW: #14 A Rat: .557 B Rating: 16.227 C Rating: 11.767 AP: 5 Coaches: 5
Arkansas didn’t quite blow K-State out of the water, and South Carolina is still ahead of them, but they do move up across the board even if they were overrated already.
14 TCU MWC MWC Champ.
11-2 LW: #12 A Rat: .606 B Rating: 17.332 C Rating: 11.036 AP: 14 Coaches: 13
Sorry, but I’m not going to give TCU the benefit of the doubt when they needed a fourth-quarter comeback to beat Louisiana Tech.
15 USC P12 ’09 Boise St.
10-2 LW: #15 A Rat: .559 B Rating: 11.199 C Rating: 6.697 AP: 6 SBNBlog: 12
As I expected, with almost everyone back and the team off probation people are talking up USC as a preseason national championship favorite… so why am I hearing about so many transfers leaving?
16 Florida State ACC Chmps Sprts
9-4 LW: #20 A Rat: .483 B Rating: 9.244 C Rating: 5.335 AP: 23 Coaches: 23
It was a low-scoring, tight game, but it was over a very good team, ranked ahead of them in the rankings, so a big move for the Seminoles.
17 Toledo MAC Military Bowl
9-4 LW: #19 A Rat: .422 B Rating: 8.725 C Rating: 5.136 — —
Bit too close for comfort against a 7-6 team to justify ranking them for half the year, but at least they won, which teams below them can’t say.
18 Georgia SEC
10-4 LW: #16 A Rat: .462 B Rating: 7.658 C Rating: 4.876 AP: 19 Coaches: 20
Georgia fought valiantly for three overtimes before falling to a very good Spartans team.
19 Notre Dame  
8-5 LW: #17 A Rat: .361 B Rating: 6.954 C Rating: 4.242 — —
The Golden Domers should have mixed feelings about their season. On one hand, they’re 8-5. On the other, their losses were like their Champs Sports bowl: they fought hard to the end.
20 Texas A&M B12 Meineke C. C.
6-6 LW: #23 A Rat: .336 B Rating: 6.519 C Rating: 2.957 — —
A&M not only showed Northwestern how good they’ve really been, they did so in a big way, albeit close to home. But still no one is noticing.
21 Virginia Tech ACC
11-3 LW: #18 A Rat: .502 B Rating: 5.976 C Rating: 2.893 AP: 21 Coaches: 17
Virginia Tech fought hard to prove they belonged in a BCS bowl, but the only reason it went to overtime was that people had doubts about their opponent too.
22 West Virginia* BST Prncton/Yale
10-3 LW: A Rat: .470 B Rating: 4.565 C Rating: 1.812 AP: 17 Coaches: 18
What an embarrassment for the ACC. What a statement by the Mountaineers.
23 Northern Illinois MAC GoDaddy.com
11-3 LW: #27 A Rat: .473 B Rating: 4.414 C Rating: -.614 — —
One of the Huskies’ strongest seasons during their recent run even earned them quite a few poll votes.
24 Missouri* B12 Independence
8-5 LW: A Rat: .380 B Rating: .432 C Rating: -1.991 — —
The Tigers say goodbye to the Big 12 on a high note with a big win over North Carolina.
25 Rutgers
(9-4, .428, -.361, -2.804)		 BST Pinstripe


2010 TCU Title: Baylor (10-3), .447, -1.730, -4.030

Off Top 25: #26 Michigan State (was ), #27 Nebraska (was #21), #34 Penn State (was #25), #37 Clemson (was #23)

Watch List: #26 Michigan State

Other Positive B Ratings: Ohio, #30 Temple* (*=Newly Positive)

No Longer Positive: #27 Nebraska, Louisiana Tech, Utah State, #37 Clemson, #40 Arkansas State

Best game of year: LSU @ Alabama / BCS Championship Game: Alabama v. LSU (tie)

Redcloak, you magnificent bastard, I read your book!

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(From The Order of the Stick. Click for full-sized crushing.)

Warning: This post will contain spoilers for the Order of the Stick prequel Start of Darkness. As such, we’re hiding it behind a jump break. This means the comic image will overflow past the post itself on the main blog page; I can only hope that the miscellaneous stuff at the bottom will keep it from screwing up the page layout too much (although I admit I forgot how huge the comic image can be compared to the text).

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A Miniature Preview of the Divisional Games

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All games are listed with their respective median expected scores.

Saints 25½-21½ 49ers
Fox, Saturday 4:30pm ET, announcers: Kenny Albert, Daryl Johnston, Tony Siragusa
Most people still haven’t seen enough of the Niners to trust them enough, but the Saints are playing better than they have been all season. Then again, they’ve always been a different team at home than on the road; only time will tell if the Niners have the defense to stop Drew Brees and Co.

Broncos 18½-32 Patriots
CBS, Saturday 8pm ET, announcers: Jim Nantz, Phil Simms
If I was a betting man, I’d put good money on the Broncos, and maybe put a little on the under as well. Forget about Tebow for a second. The Pats’ defense… isn’t that great, while the Broncos have been winning with their defense. Even if you don’t think the Broncos are going to win, that MXS doesn’t make much sense to me, especially if you think what we saw last week from Tebow is a sign he’s becoming an actual quarterback.

Texans 14¼-21¾ Ravens
CBS, Sunday 1pm ET, announcers: Greg Gumbel, Dan Dierdorf
That’s one of the lower MXS scores I’ve seen all season (though not the lowest of the playoffs – Denver had an MXS of 13 for their game with the Steelers). I know the Ravens have a vaunted defense, but the Texans offense isn’t chopped liver, even with T.J. Yates as their quarterback. Despite how well the Texans played all year, this game has the feel of the Texans being the sacrificial lamb to allow the Ravens to move on in a game no one will watch, but if I was a betting man, I’d split the Texans with the over, with more money on the over.

Giants 22¾-30¼ Packers
Fox, Sunday 4:30pm ET, announcers: Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, Pam Oliver, Chris Myers
The Giants are on such a winning streak, looked so dominant against the Falcons, and looked so good against the Packers that people have forgotten that they needed to beat the Cowboys the last week of the regular season to make the playoffs at 9-7 and are talking about them maybe possibly giving the Packers a hard time if not upsetting them. Actually, people have kind of forgotten that the Packers almost went undefeated. Really, people tend to forget everything about the regular season once the playoffs start.

We could have avoided all this if the secret players weren’t so secretive.

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(From MS Paint Adventures: Homestuck. Click for full-sized discussion of dream reconnaissance.)

Just like that, we’re back to not knowing who’s really behind the assassination attempts – although it wouldn’t surprise me if Lalonde somehow had something to do with all of them. Nonetheless, you can ignore everything I said in my previous post, except the title and last line.

I could probably go into a detailed examination of Lalonde’s psyche and relationship with Jane, but instead I’ll just note that one could draw some parallels between Jane/Lalonde and Karkat/Sollux. The latter member of each pair warned the former member not to open their own file that they coded themselves, but the former member decided to run it anyway. If one were to take that precedent in mind, everyone involved is going to deeply regret Jane’s decision to run the file (although who knows if it’s an inevitable part of a scratched session).

Meanwhile, we now have an explanation, weird and incomplete as it may be, for why Lalonde and Strider know so much about the game. One may surmise that one reason for Strider’s weird state of awakeness may have something to do with this session eventually being joined by these kids’ own pre-Scratch counterparts; Jade already counts as the session’s pre-woken member, and this entire universe owes its existence to events within that session in the Medium.

Lalonde’s “wriggling day” reference remains unexplained, however, and her Sollux-like ~ATH coding skills could be seen as adding more fuel to that fire.

Getting serious about Da Blog and Da Streak

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How serious am I about continuing the post-every-day streak? I’m adopting a buffer for posts.

There’s another new segment on the sidebar that will show how many days in advance I have posts in the pipe. For the moment, I have posts through next week: a post to include the MXS for the divisional games Friday, then the College Football Rankings, another sports graphics roundup, a quick observation, and at some point, an OOTS post, plus a full-fledged preview of the conference championship games. I intend to have posts going by the end of this month that will last me all of next month, and there will be a post to introduce that project on the 23rd, continuing the streak another day. And, on top of that, I hope to finally launch the forum by then, admittedly a lofty goal, but potentially bumping one of next week’s posts to the week after that.

Because I’m using the countdown script, the sidebar will include weekends and will be set for the day after the last post I have in the buffer so the day count will be accurate. For the most part, ignore the actual time except in terms of how much time I might have in the day to actually continue the streak.

I have a feeling Jane is going to regret agreeing to believe everything Ro-Lal says for 24 hours. Then again, by opening the file technically she’s already broken it.

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(From MS Paint Adventures: Homestuck. Click for full-sized tree-loveseat.)

After seeing the logo on Jane’s hacked file, I think we’ve pretty much established who’s behind the assassination attempts. In fact, if it weren’t for the fact that we’ve already seen Jane and Jake’s dreamselves (as well as UU’s assurances), I’d be back to thinking that this universe is a red herring and none of these players will actually play the game – that the notion of the game is solely a ruse for Crockercorp to rub out Jane. Certainly I’m having a hard time seeing what other sources there are for the game.

Looking back at this pesterlog, we now see that Crockercorp never wanted Jane to play the game at all, but may have felt that it was inevitable. Instead, they brought the game within their own banner and made sure that the players’ every attempt to play it only resulted in their deaths. Presumably, Crockercorp knows of the game’s true nature, and how it will ruin all their plans if played. Or rather, the plans of some higher power, which the use of ~ATH in this attempt only seems to confirm… at this point, the theory – treated as almost a fact by someone at TV Tropes – that the “new boss” of the Dark Kingdom is in fact Crocker (which Lalonde seems to subscribe to) only adds fuel to the fire. The enemy is going all-out to ensure the players don’t discover and defeat it using whatever means it can.

Also, is it just me, or is Jane kind of an idiot?

What the New York City Marathon’s new TV deal says about the sports TV wars

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You probably don’t care all that much about the New York City Marathon, but its recent deal with ESPN says a lot as we approach the one-year anniversary of the start of the Wars.

Previously, the New York City Marathon had aired on Universal Sports, a network most people probably haven’t heard of, and WNBC-TV in New York, with NBC airing edited highlights later. It’s quite understandable that the Marathon would want a network that could give it a truly national audience (especially with Universal Sports losing a lot of households at the start of the year as it transitioned away from airing on NBC stations’ digital feeds), but that didn’t necessarily mean leaving NBC, now that NBC has the NBC Sports Network in the fold.

I don’t know if NBCSN had other plans for that day, but it still shows that NBC has a long way to go to prove that it’s a viable platform for smaller events on par with even ESPN2.

Sport-Specific Networks
6 5.5 4.5 2.5 0 1.5