lol

I’m still in election mode. This seems like a good system: it lets you know that your vote is actually being counted correctly.

I think for shits and giggles I might redo the homepage of nickroge.rs to be like an old school Asteroids game. You can move the ship and shoot the rocks to select what you want in the menu. If you wait long enough an enemy ship will attack you. I think Raphael.js will get me most of the way there.

Currently playing around with MongoDB. Seems pretty neat so far, might be interesting to see if I have a legitimate use for this someday.

shitthatsirisays:

Oh Racist Siri

With this year’s BCS National Championship turning out to be a rematch, I think we are in need of a college football tournament more than ever. If Alabama wins this year against LSU, that means that the national championship will go to a team that didn’t even win their division, let alone their conference.

Here’s my idea. One of the biggest reasons people don’t want to switch to a tournament is that people don’t want to give up the bowls. Most people don’t, because of the amount of pageantry and history behind some of these bowls, like the Rose Bowl and the Cotton Bowl. That’s why I came up with a hybrid system, combining bowl games and a playoff.

In order for this to work, we have to normalize the season. Everyone plays 12 games in the regular season. Everyone starts and ends in the same week. Keeping final exams in mind (these are student-athletes after all), it might be best to start the season one week earlier than normal.

This will leave us with 12 weeks of the regular season, followed by a conference championship game, if applicable. After that, the fun begins.

The final BCS standings will be calculated after the conference championship games. From there, the top 16 teams will be taken to form the field. In the Opening Round, the 16th seed will play at the 1st seed, the 15th at the 2nd, and so on. From here, the respective bowl committees will select the matchup for their bowl from the remaining teams (See example below). The four BCS bowls are the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, and Sugar Bowl. The order in which the BCS bowls make their selection will be selected by lot in the first year and will rotate in successive years. Losers of Opening Round games will be returned to consideration for non-BCS bowls. From there, the tournament continues, and hey presto, we have a fairly chosen national champion!

I worked it out for this year’s rankings. It works out to a national championship between LSU and Oklahoma State. Yes, I really think OSU will beat Bama head to head.

( 1) LSU
( 2) Alabama
( 3) Oklahoma State
( 4) Stanford
( 5) Oregon
( 6) Arkansas
( 7) Boise State
( 8) Kansas State
( 9) South Carolina
(10) Wisconsin
(11) Virginia Tech
(12) Baylor
(13) Michigan
(14) Oklahoma
(15) Clemson
(16) Georgia

*******************
   OPENING ROUND
 December 2, 2011
*******************

Games will be interchangable between ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2 depending
on location. All times Eastern. Losers of games in the opening 
round will be returned to consideration for non-BCS bowls.

* (16) Georgia @ ( 1) LSU [12:00 PM]
* (15) Clemson @ ( 2) Alabama [3:30 PM]
* (14) Oklahoma @ ( 3) Oklahoma State [3:30 PM]
* (13) Michigan @ ( 4) Stanford [8:00 PM]
* (12) Baylor @ ( 5) Oregon [3:30 PM]
* (11) Virginia Tech @ ( 6) Arkansas [12:00 PM]
* (10) Wisconsin @ ( 7) Boise State [8:00 PM]
* ( 9) South Carolina @ ( 8) Kansas State [12:00 PM]

Remaining Matchups:
* (13) Michigan @ ( 1) LSU
* (12) Baylor @ ( 2) Alabama
* (10) Wisconsin @ ( 3) Oklahoma State
* ( 9) South Carolina @ ( 6) Arkansas

From here, the respective bowl committees will select 
the matchup from the remaining teams. 
All bowl games will be on ESPN.

*******************
    ORANGE BOWL
  January 4, 2012
      8:30 ET
*******************

* (12) Baylor vs. ( 2) Alabama

*******************
    FIESTA BOWL
  January 2, 2012
      8:30 ET
*******************

* (10) Wisconsin vs. ( 3) Oklahoma State

*******************
     ROSE BOWL
  January 2, 2012
      5:00 ET
*******************

* (13) Michigan vs. ( 1) LSU

*******************
     SUGAR BOWL
  January 3, 2012
      8:30 ET
*******************

* ( 9) South Carolina vs. ( 6) Arkansas

Remaining Matchups:
* ( 6) Arkansas vs. ( 1) LSU
* ( 2) Alabama vs. ( 3) Oklahoma State

**********************
 NATIONAL SEMIFINAL A
    January 8, 2010
	 Georgia Dome
	    3:30 ET
**********************

* ( 2) Alabama vs. ( 3) Oklahoma State

**********************
 NATIONAL SEMIFINAL B
    January 8, 2010
	  Super Dome
     	8:30 ET
**********************

* ( 6) Arkansas vs. ( 1) LSU

**********************
 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
    January 15, 2010
	  Super Dome
     	8:30 ET
**********************

* ( 3) Oklahoma State vs. ( 1) LSU

Jackpot!

This is probably what I would say on this question because I sure as hell don’t know the real answer.

An old computer I had was inside a crappy case that wasn’t shielded against static electricity very well. Sometimes, especially in the winter, I would get a small shock when I turned it on. That small zap was enough to short out the CMOS, so I would have to go into the BIOS and set all of the settings again. It was really annoying.

So annoying, that now whenever I turn on any computer, I instinctively touch a hard surface somewhere before I hit the button, so I can ground myself. There’s no reason I should have to do it on really any computer except for that one with the el cheapo case, but I can’t help it, and each time I think “Damn it. I did it again.”