Almost

Loudsight, still enjoying his winnings from the Green All Over One-Third of a Million contest a few weeks ago, rings some alarm bells about a couple of bills currently making their way through Congress in the USA. I must admit I wasn’t aware of either until I saw the Wikipedia protest on Wednesday, which seems to have had the desired effect of raising awareness and increasing opposition to it. The two bills are SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), a bill originating in the House and its sister bill from the Senate, PIPA (Protect IP Act).

Loudsight says

I notice you sometimes use copyrighted material on your website i.e. pictures and quotes from other publications and blogs. I believe the proposal to combat piracy listed in one of these bills SOPA and PIPA (can't remember which) would allow the copyright holders to send a notification to your service provider i.e. blogger.com and blogger would take down your WHOLE site. You also become responsible for policing comments to ensure links to sites hosting copyrighted material aren't posted. I think it would be cool if your blog took part in the campaign to raise awareness of this issue. This maybe an American law, but affects all of us. So if you have any American friends please let them know that they need to vigorously oppose these crazy draconian bills.

http://www.ted.com/talks/defend_our_freedom_to_share_or_why_sopa_is_a_bad_idea.html?awesm=on.ted.com_ACxO&utm_campaign=defend_our_freedom_to_share_or_why_sopa_is_a_bad_idea&utm_medium=on.ted.com-twitter&utm_source=t.co&utm_content=ted.com-talkpage

http://azizonomics.com/2012/01/18/the-internet-today/

American friends? I have an American wife, but I'm a little short of friends - of any nationality. It's something I'm working on though - with my therapist.

Along with many bloggers, I do sometimes post pictures, quotations or excerpts from other sources on the web, without really worrying too much about my actions. This blog is not a commercial venture and my intentions are never malicious, (ok, the occasional piss-take excepted), and I usually link the extract to their source. Since most such excerpts are from fellow bloggers, and only lead to an increase in traffic to those sites, albeit miniscule, I have yet to receive a single complaint. Usually the source is pleased to have been referenced.

The bills in their original form would seem to have little chance of progressing to become law, with several of the remedies mentioned by Loudsight going too far – shutting down a website without due process is obviously too draconian. Some of the original sponsors of SOPA have also dropped their support in the last few days, but even if these bills pass in some modified form, I doubt that it will have much effect on little old me. The best reason to oppose these bills is perhaps that they are endorsed by Rupert Murdoch.

Rob The Builder wrote:

I spent a while reading Eddie's piece. Heavy going but nice to see some real detail and thought on a blog. But doesn't his example show one of the limitations of calculations. However good the maths, I didn't see the formula include whether De Jong and Barry were holding down in midfield, or whether Mancini was 'going fo it' with Johnson, Balotelli, Silva and Aguero.

Eddie will be writing another piece shortly, showing how to rate the contribution of each individual player to a team, and how to adjust the goal expectancy of a team once a line-up is definite. It will include notes on how to follow all players on Twitter and get a feel for their mood, how well rested they are, how much beer did they have on their last night out, plus an analysis of biorhythms and everything else you need to know. Or maybe not. While football is an eleven player team game, and thus the contribution of individual players more diluted than in a sport such as basketball, the loss of a ‘world-class’ player from a team is something that should be factored into the equation if practical. I’m just not sure how practical this is, and I tend to feel that the market often overreacts to any such absences. Replacements at the top level of football are usually not too shabby. If you are lucky enough to hear 30 minutes before kick-off that Wayne Rooney is surprisingly out of the team, then use that information, but most of us are too remote for it to be of much use. By the time we hear about it, the news is already factored into the price. The sensible thing to me seems to be to use the numbers to identify value, and then verify that there is no team news that would render this irrelevant before placing your bet. What 'team news' you deem relevant is subjective of course. It would be a quiet exchange if we all agreed.

Mark Davies mentioned the topic of bettors trying to buy money in his blog yesterday, and indeed it’s strange that the Daily Telegraph seems to suggest that we should have more sympathy for someone risking 100 to win 2 and losing 2 times in 100 than for someone risking 50 to win 50 and losing 50 times in 100.

“In-running punters on Betfair left to count the cost as two 'certainties' fail to deliver at Newbury: In-running betting has been in the spotlight lately and the risks associated with this form of punting were never better illustrated than in the first two races at Newbury on Wednesday.”

I’m not quite sure why the “risks associated with this form of punting” are any different from any other risks. If you back at 1.02, it’s because you feel that the probability of the event occurring is greater than 98%. If that price is correct, then yes, one time in fifty you will lose, and when that 2% chance happens, it’s hard to feel sorry for someone who should be well aware of the risk:reward he is taking. At least the article put a quote around the word ‘certainties’, although it might have been better to say ‘almost certainties’. Despite what you might read on the Betfair forum, there are few certainties when it comes to sports. I’ve even been on the wrong side of a score adjustment in the NBA half-time market – made long after the half was over! ‘Winning’ field goals in American Football are waved off because the coach called a time-out. Buzzer beaters disallowed because the shot-clock was down to zero before the ball left the player’s hand. Caveat emptor. A few years ago I read that 1.01 shots are overturned about 70% of the time on Betfair. I don’t know for sure of course, but that number seems about right, and given the number of markets in a day, that is a lot of ‘upsets’, although one man’s upset is another man’s delight.