Be careful how you quote.
Jet Fuel
Not the best story, but a pretty fun lightsaber battle.
The audio on the previously published version is damaged. While the video on this version is not as clean, the sound is good.
Whether or not you’ve been waiting all month for these, here they are.
| Match | Group | |||||
| 54% | Germany | 2 | 1 | Canada | 46% | A |
| 45% | Nigeria | 0 | 1 | France | 55% | A |
| 54% | Japan | 2 | 1 | New Zealand | 46% | B |
| 47% | Mexico | 1 | 1 | England | 53% | B |
| 53% | USA | 2 | 0 | N Korea | 47% | C |
| 44% | Colombia | 0 | 1 | Sweden | 56% | C |
| 52% | Brazil | 1 | 0 | Australia | 48% | D |
| 59% | Norway | 1 | 0 | Eq Guinea | 41% | D |
| 60% | Germany | 1 | 0 | Nigeria | 40% | A |
| 48% | Canada | 0 | 4 | France | 52% | A |
| 54% | Japan | 4 | 0 | Mexico | 46% | B |
| 45% | New Zealand | 1 | 2 | England | 55% | B |
| 59% | USA | 3 | 0 | Colombia | 41% | C |
| 46% | N Korea | 0 | 1 | Sweden | 54% | C |
| 51% | Brazil | 3 | 0 | Norway | 49% | D |
| 58% | Australia | 3 | 2 | Eq Guinea | 42% | D |
| 47% | France | 2 | 4 | Germany | 53% | A |
| 55% | Canada | 0 | 1 | Nigeria | 45% | A |
| 49% | England | 2 | 0 | Japan | 51% | B |
| 48% | New Zealand | 2 | 2 | Mexico | 52% | B |
| 49% | Sweden | 2 | 1 | USA | 51% | C |
| 54% | N Korea | 0 | 0 | Colombia | 46% | C |
| 36% | Eq Guinea | 0 | 3 | Brazil | 64% | D |
| 48% | Australia | 2 | 1 | Norway | 52% | D |
| 56% | Germany | 0 | 1 | Japan | 44% | 1A v 2B |
| 54% | Sweden | 3 | 1 | Australia | 46% | 1C v 2D |
| 51% | England | 1.3 | 1.4 | France | 49% | 1B v 2A |
| 51% | Brazil | 2.3 | 2.5 | USA | 49% | 1D v 2C |
| 47% | Japan | Sweden | 53% | Semi | ||
| 48% | France | USA | 52% | Semi | ||
| 3rd place | ||||||
| Championship | ||||||
Based on these probabilities, with 28 matches played I would have expected 54.47% accuracy on the predictions. The model has actually had 69.64% accuracy. My conclusion: Well, the FIFA rankings (on which these probabilities are based) seem to represent the teams fairly well. I manipulated the FIFA rankings a bit. I increased Germany’s points by about 10% (host advantage); decreased Japan, Australia, and New Zealand’s points by about 2% (geographic separation); increased the European teams’ points by about 2% (geographic proximity); and decreased North Korea’s points by about 4% (political and geographic isolation). We can expect some exciting semifinals and although as of now Sweden statistically should come away with the Cup, expect the USA to win it all.
© 2011 John Schneider. All rights reserved.
Assuming one knows nothing whatsoever about college basketball and fills out a bracket by picking teams at random, the expected performance follows the guess line on the chart above. Only 10% of such guesses would fall above the 90% confidence line at any stage (represented as a point on the graph). While I did better than guessing going into the Sweet Sixteen, I only matched (at best) guessing expectations for the Elite Eight and beyond. And I know a little bit about college basketball.
© 2011 by John Nelson Schneider. All rights reserved.
Notice the mirrored symmetry between the new trilogy and the original trilogy.
Times are a running total using the Limited Edition DVD set where each film starts with “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” and ends with the wipe to credits.
© 2011 John Nelson Schneider. All rights reserved.