Portland Timbers Chances to Make the Playoffs

http://www.sportsclubstats.com/USA/Timbers.html

Using Club Stats
Timbers have last Tied FC Dallas 2-2, playoff odds down 4.1 to 26%20 points 4-8-4

48 or 49 points seems to be the magical number.
Wins instead of ties seem to be an important result important

29 points

8 wins
5 losses
5 draws.

One good thing is we play all the teams above us, so either we rise up the table or go down in epic flames.

For now I am not doing a game by game where we pick up points as predicting this side is like predicting the flight of a lop sided super ball.

But we do play San Jose 3 times.

#rctid

Statistics are Like Bikinis Warming Doubters Leaning on (Multicollinearity) -

I do not like putting people in groups. However it happens.

Take this statement. People who consume Fruits such as blueberries and or Nuts tend to have live longer. Sounds reasonable, however one can never usually prove it people who consume these foods tend to do other healthy things such as exorcise and wearing seat belts.

Remember along time back when the cigarette companies used to say you can not prove cigarettes are hazardous to ones health. In a sense it was true because smokers tended to not exorcise and have a poor diet.

Then there are the Global warming Naysayers.

Monday brought climate news that can only be described as, well, frightening. An apparently-unstoppable melting process of the huge West Antarctica ice sheet has begun, which will almost certainly lead to long-feared rises in sea levels. The total rise over the next few centuries could be ten feet or more—far beyond the point that would be catastrophic for millions living in coastal areas.
Nathan Pippenger -Democracy Journal

In this case some on the right see it as attack on our economic system, much like the abolishment of slavery was many years ago. This despite the havoc weather change is causing right now In this case they are using  Multicollinearity to cloud the issue just to perpetuate the use of fossil fuels.

Even the Democracy journal tends to skim over another issue and that is Methane. We as a society consume, slaughter and consume animals at a rate that is unheard of.

 

It is the second biggest contributor to global warming. Methane occurs naturally and is the primary component of natural gas. It constitutes 1.8ppm, or 0.00018% of the atmosphere.

 

 

Which takes me back to point number one. People who consume lots og meat tend to eat less blueberries and nuts.

 

Sometimes a bikini is just a bikini.

 



Collinearity is a linear association between two explanatory variables. Two variables are perfectly collinear if there is an exact linear relationship between the two. For example, and are perfectly collinear if there exist parameters and such that, for all observations i, we have

Multicollinearity refers to a situation in which two or more explanatory variables in a multiple regression model are highly linearly related. We have perfect multicollinearity if, for example as in the equation above, the correlation between two independent variables is equal to 1 or -1. In practice, we rarely face perfect multicollinearity in a data set. More commonly, the issue of multicollinearity arises when there is an approximate linear relationship among two or more independent variables.
Mathematically, a set of variables is perfectly multicollinear if there exist one or more exact linear relationships among some of the variables. For example, we may have

Statistics are like bikinis and the Trail Blazers -Part3

Just expect the unexpected.
And sit and be amazed.

When Harden excels
and Howard
and The Rockets
are playing quite well.

On paper, statiscally the
Rockets beat the Blazers.

A team playing together
won tonight against another
team playing together.

Some times it comes down
to the unbelivable,

Wow.

Statistics are like bikinis snd the Trail Blazers -Part2

I believe when the playoffs started the Blazers were a 1 in 40 odds of winning it all.  David Hollinger
had them at about the same odds with a 3.4 percent chance to make the conference finals.

My gut would have gone with that a week ago.

Then again, everything about this team goes against my gut.

 So here is my back of the envelope calculation.

I assume about an 85 percent chance of advancing against the Beard and Friends
I assume the following series a tossup. (Expect the unexpected, I will assign a  45 percent chance of winning each)

So that has us at around an 18 percent chance of going to the conference finals.

So statistcs being like a bikini. Those numbers make sense, however this team defies logic.

I have the odds of Lebron James spraining an ankle at .05. One odd event make statistics more like the Bikini islands. Exotic (I think) and way out there.
.

Statistics are like bikinis snd the Trail Blazers

Okay there is the regression back to the mean. Most people have the Rockets pulling an LA Clipper and besting the Blazers handily tomorrow. In a non statistical sense you can sense they and their fan base will be desperate. This is much like the Phoenix Suns a few weeks  ago. Remember that debacle of epic proportion. Then again statistically, all things being equal, in a mostly even series take the home team.

I also heard another analogy that is more reflective when trying to search for my own non relevant blog. Statistics are like miniskirts. I am sure it masked betting on the spread more emotional.

So in this case, like a miniskirt, there is some emotion involved. The Trailblazers are more like a beautiful woman wearing a sun dress on s nudist beach. Sorry that is s misplaced metaphor.

Expect the unexpected with this years Blazers.

And still be uncomfortable up two games to zero going home.

As an aside, Batum should have a big game tomorrow.

Throw the statistics out the window.

If It Smells good It Is Good

In the most recent episode of Cosmos, The host Neil deGrasse Tyson explains the neural network in our brains which determine our sense of smell and memory, and later, he travels deep beneath the surface of the Earth to discover the most mysterious particle we know."

Our sense of smell invokes many emotions tied back to events in our life. Neil could of easily referred back to B.F. Skinner's theory on stimulus and response or the simple associative principle of Mathematics. One proven the other a theory in psychology.

In retrospect I now understand why a Beagle savors ever minute of every single walk and memories associated with it. Not sure how they wrap their minds around it.

Then there is Adam Duritz line from a classic two step ballad.

And the price of a memory is the memory of the sorrow it brings.

Some how our sense of smell is more forgiving.

Hormone called Ghrelin.

So apparently there is a link to what you perceive you eat to how the body processes it.
This was a tremendous story on Morning edition this morning.
Ghrelin is a hormone secreted in the gut. People in the medical profession call it the hunger hormone. When ghrelin levels in the stomach rise, that signals the brain that it's time to seek out food.
"It also slows metabolism," Crum says, "just in case you might not find that food."

I am going to take this one step farther and link it to  the consumption of diet drinks and possibly refute the findings.  People think they are consuming zero calories. And somehow they have no weight gain. So this so called called placebo effect is quite the obvious opposite.

Or maybe the negative publicity of diet soda's have the intended one off placebo effect.

Diet soda's sales have plummeted recently.

There used to be a common perception (mis-perception) that when you consume Thai/Chinese food you would be hungry an hour later. I do not know it always filled me up fine. Probably the perception that people were eating healthy would leave them hungry an hour later.

So in this case Statistics are more like an early season one-piece.