Keyboard Krugmans and Klitschkos

I was a bit amused when I read the following Tweet from Lennox Lewis, a former world heavyweight boxing champion:

Someone made a comment about “Keyboard Klitschkos”; it is sure easy to puff out the old chest and talk trash to someone you will never meet in the ring.

In terms of boxing: I had to box for PE at the Naval Academy. I made a B (86); they didn’t inflate grades. Basically, an “A” was someone who was at the level to box in intramurals, from which the boxing team was drawn. Going head to head with someone who could compete at that level was both a painful and humiliating experience.

Never mind a competitive amateur or a professional!

This internet principle holds in other arenas. On the internet, an average person can provide “corrections” to a Nobel Laureate economist. Paul Krugman talked about “pulling rank” (e. g. two economists are arguing over a policy, and the more lauded economist argues “hey, I am more successful than you are therefore….”). Paul Krugman thinks that is not a good thing to do. But he goes on to say:

Do I do this myself? Probably on occasion, when I don’t catch myself. But I try not to. I would say that commenters who begin with “I can’t believe that a Nobel prize winner doesn’t understand that …” might want to think a bit harder; mostly, though not always, I have actually thought whatever you’re saying through, and the obvious fallacy you think you’ve found, isn’t.

In other words, if YOU think that he missed something basic in economics, it is highly likely that you are wrong.

And of course, there are the untrained who think that their “common sense” observations (e. g. the heuristics that makes sense TO THEM) constitute something useful to the discussion of a complicated topic. It doesn’t:

In the nicest possible way and with great respect, could I make two suggestions to would-be commenters, based on past experience when this topic has come up-

Please pause before offering your own common sense view. There are topics in science, of which this is one, where common sense is not a good guide. If it were, professional biologists would not have been arguing about it for five decades. There is a large back literature in which the likelihood is strong that whatever commonsense view you put forward has already been proposed and exhaustively discussed. As an analogy, common sense is notoriously misleading when we try to understand quantum mechanics. If you could do physics by common sense, we wouldn’t need physicists. To a lesser extent, something like the same thing applies here.

I admit that the folks I just talked about are in the elite ranks of sports, economics and science.
I am NOT in the elite of anything, though I am competent in mathematics; I do get a few references in mathematical literature:

And even I get tired of dealing with cranks. I can handle it when people know that they don’t know what they are talking about. But, in many cases, people really don’t realize that there IS a body of knowledge out there and that “this makes sense to me” is NOT evidence of anything!

If an expert in a field is doing something in their field that seems counterintuitive to you, just remember that the chances that you are right and that the expert is wrong is very, very small.

I hasten to point out that having a blog or being a writer about a topic does not qualify as being an expert.

Meowhammed Ali

(title was shamelessly stolen from a comment made by Redscout3 at youtube)

Note: my back is a bit more sore than normal. I have to stretch it really well; perhaps do some yoga and a light jog.

Cicada Walk

I slept in a bit and didn’t start walking until 8:30 am. I walked the lunch course plus two 3 mile Cornstalk out-and-backs. There was some traffic but not that much. The cicadas (perennial ones) were singing their hearts out.

Speaking of athletics: here is a biochemistry professor’s discussion of latic acid and endurance.

Olympics

Boxing

Note: I am watching Olympic boxing on television; I am shocked that the referees got a call right.
Well, the judges just made a questionable call…again in a Satoshi Shimizu fight. This time I thought that is opponent Mohamed Ouadahi (from Algeria) won…but the score was 17-15 and his opponent got a 2 point penalty. But then again, this was an opinion and not gross incompetence.

I just watched a good fight between BETERBIEV from Russia and Usyk of the Ukraine. Usyk won though I had Beterbiev winning on my card. Interestingly, Usyk nailed Beterbiev with a body shot that resulted in an 8 count (like a knockdown) but then….got a warning from the referee? The action in the ring was pretty good though.

The Perlata (Argentina) vs. Pulev (Bulgaria) match was good; somehow Pulev got the decision though Perlata nailed him with repeated bodyshots in the last round. I had Perlata winning…go figure.

Now we had ANOTHER crappy decision….

Another note: The boxing association overturned a verdict against American Errol Spence; his Indian opponent held him repeatedly and wasn’t called for it. Spence advances to the next round and has an excellent chance at a medal.

Who is winning this fight?

From here

Magomed Abdulhamidov was knocked down SIX times by Satoshi Shimizu in the last round alone, but was never given a single count. He was only told to get up. After the fight, he had to be helped to the dressing area. Yet he was “given” the victory.

Fortunately the Japanese team filed a protest and the protest was correctly upheld; Shimizu should have been given a knock-out win after the third knock down.

Frankly, I think that the referee should have stopped the fight after the second knock-down, but what the heck.
See the above link for more photos.

There are more videos and stories here.

In other action, Joseph Diaz fought well against World Champion Lazaro Alvarez but lost a decision that I thought was too wide; the judges gave Alvarez a 4 point win in round 2 that I just didn’t see. I can see Alvarez getting the decision, but this was a grueling, competitive fight.

There were a couple of other questionable decisions:

Iran’s Ali Mazaheri cried foul when the heavyweight was disqualified after being warned three times for persistent holding against Cuban Jose Larduet Gomez despite leading by two points going into the second round.

I really didn’t see much that warranted Mazaheri getting DQ’ed.

Then: superheavyweight Joshua Anthony was given a decision against Cuban Erislandy Savon that I didn’t quite understand. Anthony was head by 2 points going into the final round which Savon won by one point; on my card Savon won the last 2 rounds by 3-4 punches each.

Also in the super heavyweights, Zhang Zhilei of China knocked out Johan Linde of Australia with a huge right hook to the head. Zhilei can hit.

Olympic Boxing and Arrow’s Theorem

Workout notes: walked to the gym; ran 2 miles on the treadmill (21 minutes), then ran 2 more on the track: 16:18 (8:24, 7:53) Ok, the second mile was 1 second slower than last week, though the overall time was 10 seconds faster. (this equates to about a 26:08 5K, but I did this run solo). I then walked .5 miles and ran 2.5 more (10:30 pace)

Then I went outside to walk 3 more miles to get to 10 total.

Olympic Boxing and scoring

I am enjoying the Olympic boxing matches.

However, these are scored differently from the professional matches that I currently watch and used to watch.

In a recent light heavyweight boxing match, US boxer Marcus Browne had a lead going into the final round, but was overcome in the last round to lose 13-11 to Australian Damien Hooper.

The Olympic matches are NOT scored on a round by round basis. Basically, when the five judges think that a scoring blow has been landed, they click a button for the boxer. Then at the end of the round, the “3 similar” scores are tabulated and averaged and that is the score at the end of the round. If no 3 scores are “similar”, then the high and low scores are discarded and the middle 3 are averaged and rounded.

In other words, individual punches are what are scored.

On the other hand, the professional matches are currently scored on a “10 point must” system; that is, the winner of a round gets 10 points and the loser gets 9 or fewer (ties are allowed). Typically, 3 judges score the fight round by round in this manner and typically, if there is a knockdown (or standing 8 count), the judges will score the round 10-8. Or, if one boxer is unusually dominant in a round (say, has the other boxer in serious trouble), then the round might be scored 10-8.

So which system is “more fair”?

We’ll lets see. Suppose we have a professional system and the blue boxer barely wins the first two rounds, only to see the red boxer dominate in round 3..but fail to score a knock down. Then under professional rules, the blue boxer wins 29-28; the extra dominance of the red boxer in the third round could not overcome the first two rounds.

On the other hand, in the Olympic system, the blue boxer won the first 2 rounds by, say, 3-2 each and therefore had a 6-4 lead going into round 3. But then the red boxer dominates and wins the last round 4-1; that gives the red boxer a well deserved 8-7 win.

On the other hand: Suppose red and blue are tied going into the final round. Then during the round, the blue boxer lands 4 decent but unspectacular jabs. The red boxer lands, say, 2 jabs but then lands a crushing hook which drops the blue boxer but doesn’t knock him out.
Under Olympic rules, the blue boxer wins the last round 4-3 and wins the fight. But under professional rules, the red boxer wins the round 10-8, which means a 29-27 victory (assuming it was 19-19 going into the 3′rd round). The professional outcome is clearly more fair in this case.

So which system is better, or is there a perfect system?

The answer is….neither is better than there is no perfect system!
The statement about there being no “perfect system” is not a “common sense” observation but a consequence of what is known as Arrow’s Theorem in mathematics. Arrow’s Theorem says, informally, that in situations are aren’t a simple “head to head” one time contest (say, runner A runs against runner B and we see who wins) there is no perfect way to obtain a “fairest” ranking from a ballot that allows for 3 or more choices.

How does this apply to boxing? Well, in boxing you are really trying to add up results on a ballot that includes rounds of varying degree of dominance or punches of a varying degree of effect; hence here, the ballots really consist of ordered pairs (c, d) where c is the color and “d” is the degree of dominance of either the round, or the punch.

Fast, Furious, Ridiculous

Workout note
yoga, then 6 hot and sticky miles; 31:42 for the first 3 measured miles, 10:00 for the last one, 1:03 total. I didn’t feel the effects of the blood donation; not directly anyway.

Boxing: some of the current scandals (judging) has attracted the attention of the United States Senate:

Giving voice to the outrage over Timothy Bradley’s controversial split decision over Manny Pacquiao, two senators introduced legislation Monday that would create a special boxing commission to oversee all matches in the United States and restore integrity to the sport.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who boxed while at the U.S. Naval Academy, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., a former middleweight boxer, are pushing the measure establishing the U.S. Boxing Commission, an entity that would carry out federal boxing law, work with the industry and local commissions and license boxers, promoters, managers and sanctioning organizations.

Speaking on the Senate floor, McCain evoked the words of former sportswriter Jimmy Cannon, who called boxing the “red light district of sports.” He said the recent dispute stemming from the welterweight bout between Bradley and Pacquiao “is the latest example of the legitimate distrust boxing fans have for the integrity of the sport.”

There are other problems besides bad judging. There is the problem of getting a license to box; what happens if someone is not only caught cheating, but caught cheating in a way that can seriously damage his opponent?

The hand wrappings confiscated from former world welterweight champion Antonio Margarito minutes before his scheduled title defense against Shane Mosley in January contained calcium and sulfur, two of the primary elements of plaster of Paris, a state Department of Justice laboratory reported in documents obtained by The Times today.

Hardened gauze pads that were inserted inside the wrappings around Margarito’s knuckle area were seized Jan. 24 after Mosley’s trainer Nazim Richardson objected to their use.

Margarito proceeded to lose his title in a ninth-round technical knockout by Pomona’s Mosley, and the California State Athletic Commission subsequently revoked the licenses of the Tijuana fighter and his trainer, Javier Capetillo, and the pair will likely not be allowed to fight in the U.S. until next year.

A Department of Justice senior criminalist who inspected the wrappings under stereomicroscope and X-ray flourescence spectrometer reported calcium and sulfur were discovered, noting the elements make plaster of Paris with the addition of oxygen. The report was dated March 19. “The commission’s decision appears to be supported by that report,” said Karen Chappelle, the state supervising deputy attorney general for licensing who urged the California commission to revoke the fighter and trainer’s licenses. “The only things that are allowed in hand wraps are gauze and tape and those items aren’t gauze and tape.”

Chappelle said Margarito and Capetillo have yet to appeal their revocations, although Margarito promoter Bob Arum has said he’d like the boxer to return to the ring in Mexico later this year.

Arum had no immediate response to the findings, saying, “I’d have to see [the report].”

Margarito was subsequently given a license to box…in Texas.

We also have the case where boxing safety rules differ from state to state….and what about the case in which a boxer gets knocked out in one state and then gets a license to box again…in another state…before he would be again eligible to box again in his home state?

There are serious problems.

If the government intervening in a sport seems strange, remember…Teddy Roosevelt forced college football to reform itself.

Social
I grew up among people who thought this way:

Pity these types aren’t limited to medicine that was around 2000 years ago.

Politics
Fast and Furious Yep, President Obama somehow managed to start this in 2006 in an effort to bolster a policy that he has yet to introduce or talk about introducing.

Political Ad

Ok, what are the facts? Yes, he did raise fees. That is clear. Revenue must come from somewhere. But about the millionaire stuff: (note: this Fact Check.org article is about a different ad, but deals with the claims made in this particular ad)

The ad’s claim that Romney “cut taxes for millionaires” isn’t as black-and-white as billed. Romney opposed a plan to impose a capital gains tax retroactively, insisting on delaying the hike eight months. That’s different than pushing for a tax cut. [...]

The ad claims that as governor, Romney “cut taxes for millionaires like himself.” Like many political claims, there’s a grain of something here, but it’s not as black-and-white as the ad suggests. More accurately, Romney delayed for one year a proposed retroactive tax hike that disproportionately hit the wealthy. We’ll explain.

In 2002, before Romney became governor, the Legislature enacted a package of tax increases to deal with a deficit crisis. The package included a capital gains tax that was slated to go into effect in May 2002. But that tax was challenged in court and the state’s Supreme Judicial Court ultimately struck down the tax, ruling that it was unconstitutional for the tax to go into effect halfway through the year. That left the state Legislature with two possible remedies: have the tax kick in on Jan. 1, 2003 — and refund eight months’ worth of capital gains tax revenue — or make it retroactive to Jan. 1., 2002, adding another four months’ worth of tax revenue. The Democratic Legislature decided to make it retroactive to the start of 2002.

The Boston Globe reported that as a result, 48,000 taxpayers got a tax bill seeking the additional four months’ capital gains taxes, retroactively. The amount owed was an average of $4,200 each. About $78 million was owed by just 278 wealthy people who would have to pay an average of $281,000 each, the Globe reported. So that’s where the ad’s claim about tax cuts for millionaires comes from.

Romney argued it was unfair for people who made decisions, like selling their home, based on the tax law in place at the time to be forced to retroactively buck up. Romney argued that “the state made a mistake, and in all fairness, we have to make sure that people are not taxed retroactively.” He proposed that anyone who paid the tax in 2002 get a rebate.

The Boston Globe’s editorial page said it was simply the right thing to do. The nonpartisan Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation also urged the state Legislature to refund the 2002 money.

The Legislature was inundated with angry letters from folks who got notices of their retroactive tax bills. And in December 2005, Senate President Robert Travaglini and House Speaker Sal DiMasi, both Democrats, said folks could ignore those tax bills.

According to the Boston Herald, “Travaglini and DiMasi said they weren’t caving to public outrage over the issue — just trying to right a wrong.”

“It’s based on fairness,” Travaglini said.

Romney promptly signed legislation to refund any increased tax paid in 2002 and have the tax hike begin in 2003, and he vowed to donate anything he received back to charity. And, we should note, the tax was still in effect from 2003 forward.

What about this one:

Now the Washington Post slammed this ad. About the call center claim:

This concerns Romney’s veto of a bill that would have prohibited Massachusetts from contracting with companies that outsourced the state’s work to other countries. Lawmakers were especially concerned about a $160,000-a-month contract with Citigroup to operate a system of electronic food-stamp cards that included a customer phone service center in India.

Both the liberal editorial page of the Boston Globe and conservative editorial page of the Boston Herald urged Romney to veto the amendment, saying it would cost the state money. Romney agreed, saying the measure did not protect state jobs — the call center might have moved from India to another state — but “had the potential of costing our citizens a lot more money.” The Democratic-dominated Massachusetts legislature did not override his veto, even though it overturned 117 others, suggesting that there was little real support for the measure.

Ok, busted. As far as the “shipped jobs overseas”, the WP Fact checker notes that only one of the times this happened when Mr. Romney was leading Bain. But it did happen…and even better, Mr. Romney defends these practices IN HIS OWN BOOK (No Apology).

I’ll write more about that later; I am 75 percent done with the book. The label “Corporate Raider” is probably technically incorrect; “corporate engineering without regards to the workers and employees” would be more accurate. They aren’t the same thing though.

Athletes: Professional and otherwise

Nothing yet on the workout front; lifting and swimming is what I have planned later in the day.

This is the Steamboat 15K finisher’s medal: basically it is a metal “frame” into which you can put your computer chip (the chip that is used to time your race). I’ve never seen that before.

It does seem silly to have a finisher’s medal for such a short distance, but somehow…given the heat, the hills and the fact that people usually run this race HARD…well, I like it.

My season wrap up I was happy with my two walking half marathons and with most of my 5K runs (all of them, really) and happy that I made progress on the bench press and pull ups. I am happy that my knees feel great and that my shoulder feels great; my only “aches and pains” comes from my piriformis…at times.

I was unhappy with my walking marathon (hot day) and my 15K “run” (hot day).
The former: I pushed too hard for my conditioning and the conditions. The latter: I pushed too hard for my conditioning and the conditions.

My times in 2005 and 2009 fooled me. I figured “gee, in 2005 and 2009 I had done a 100 miler and a good marathon in the months prior to the race, hence I was tired going in.” That was true. What I forgot is that I was IN SHAPE to finish a 100 and a good marathon going into the 15K; that certainly wasn’t the case this time! Duh. I should have aimed lower.

My issues: though I work out a good deal, I have not done enough “specific” training to get near my physical potential in any activity. But this scheme has kept me out of the doctor’s office and has allowed me to “participate” in these events.

My plans for the second half of 2012
More of the same, though I’ll up my long walk back to 17 miles for the summer, bumping it up to 20 by September.
I’ll gradually increase my long run to 14 miles (it is now 10 miles) and do two other 6 milers.
Lifting and swimming: keep it the same.

Performance goals: 5:30 for the marathon walk, 24:00 for the 5K run, 2:00 for the half marathon run (if it is a cool day), 210 pounds for the bench press.

We’ll see.

Commentary
I envy professional athletes but I don’t envy the stuff that they have to go through.

The Trials and Tribulations of A Professional Athlete

First of all, I am NOT talking about myself (obviously). I am not even talking about “serious amateurs” (those who aren’t, say, Olympic trials caliber but still are, say, nationally competitive at the masters level….though a friend of mine suffered a temporary setback.

I am talking about someone who earns their living at their sport; someone who has competed for a world title and who still seeks one and has a bona fide shot at one.

Though I’ve been a fan of sports most of my life and have had a few conversations with professional athletes on the internet, recently I started to follow a heavyweight boxer: “Fast” Eddie Chambers. His record: 36-3; all losses were to people who hold or have held a genuine world title. He has gotten knocked out once; this came at the fists of Wladimir Klitchko and that was with 5 seconds to go in the fight.

This is a promotional poster.

This is a more human side; he is drinking a protein shake after a workout.

After losing to Klitshko, he had one fight (won) and then he had to back out of two other fights due to injuries that he got in training. So, he recovered, got a big fight with Tomasz Adamek a former Light Heavyweight and Cruiserweight champion, and a holder of a 45-2 record with one loss coming to Vitali Klitchko.

This was a huge fight for both men; Eddie agreed to fight it at the Prudential Center in New Jersey, which is Adamek’s “home arena”.

Eddie’s training went well; he came in lighter than ever. But a few weeks prior to the fight, a dear friend of his and mentor died unexpectedly.

Then during the fight, after an excellent first round…he tore a muscle in his left arm, making him fight the rest of the right with only one arm to use for offense.

Yes, we all get setbacks. BUT, where as my setbacks (say a knee surgery here, a rotator cuff problem there) really only hurt my “hobby”; we are talking about Eddie’s full time livelihood. Future fights (pay days) and opportunities to be champion were on the line here….and for a professional athlete the clock is always ticking. There are no age group professional fighting divisions.

The fight: well, Eddie fought on bravely and, IN MY OPINION, (ok, that is highly non-objective) and IN THE OPINION of the NBC announcer, did enough to win the fight. I called it 116-112 (8 rounds to 4); the NBC guy called it 115-113 (7 rounds to 5).

Tomasz won on the official scorecards (the only ones that count): 116-112, 116-112, and 119-111 (?).

What happened: Adamek threw far more punches, but most of these landed on Eddie’s gloves. Eddie connected with more punches and landed more solid shots when he did, and I went by “who hit who more” instead of “who threw more”. At the end, Adamek had a nose bleed.

Nevertheless, while Eddie had to take his shot, he had to put up with:
1. Being the visitor in a partisan atmosphere. He had to really dominate a round to get credit for it.
2. Go though the death of his friend and mentor and
3. Adjust to fighting with one arm…it just sucks to be all prepared and have an untimely injury.

I know that I’ve often envied professional athletes…all the glory, fame, and adoration. But I often don’t think about THIS side of it; the professionals have all (if not more) of the problems that we amateurs have, but their stakes are far higher.

My university isn’t going to fire me over a bad race.

Some video:

Prior to Eddie’s shot at Wladimir

It didn’t end well (from my point of view)

Highlights from Wladimir’s point of view:

A fight fan’s reaction to the Thomasz Adamek fight

My All Time Heavyweight Boxing Tournament

Argue with me all you like.   But here are my top seeds:  Muhammad Ali, Joe Lewis, Rocky Marciano, Larry Holmes.  My second seeds:  Jack Johnson, Mike Tyson, Joe Frazier, Lennox Lewis.  From that you can deduce the rest of the seeds.

Note: one of my first round match-ups DID take place in real life, and one could have (and did at the amateur level:  the Olympics).

 

 

So, who wins in the first round?  Who advances to the final 4?

All in good fun…

 

Assorted Topics: prime numbers, smart security, and Wladimir’s upcoming boxing (mis)match

I started my vacation last night by watching a thrilling basketball game between the Celtics and the Hawks. The Hawks trailed but didn’t go away; they even took a lead with 3 minutes to go and still held it with under one minute to go. But Paul Pierce made a huge defensive play (block) and the Hawks missed one of two free throws; Pierce made both of his. So the Celtics won 83-80 to take the series 4-2 and to take on the number 8 seed 76′ers who eliminated an injury depleted Bulls team.

Boxing
Wladimir Klitichko is trying to convince his fans that his upcoming bout against Tony Thompson will be competitive.

This is what happened last time:

And now Thompson is over 40 and Wladimir has gotten even better. Sorry; I’ll be surprised if this goes past the middle rounds.

I respect Thompson for trying; it takes guts to get in the ring with that beast!

Cats

Mathematics and Profiling

Terrance Tao is on the verge of another huge mathematical breakthrough:

One of the oldest unsolved problems in mathematics is also among the easiest to grasp. The weak Goldbach conjecture says that you can break up any odd number into the sum of, at most, three prime numbers (num­bers that cannot be evenly divided by any other num­ber except themselves or 1). For example:

35 = 19 + 13 + 3
or
77 = 53 + 13 + 11

Mathematician Terence Tao of the University of California, Los Angeles, has now inched toward a proof. He has shown that one can write odd numbers as sums of, at most, five primes—and he is hopeful about getting that down to three. Besides the sheer thrill of cracking a nut that has eluded some of the best minds in mathematics for nearly three centuries, Tao says, reaching that coveted goal might lead mathematicians to ideas useful in real life—for example, for encrypting sensitive data.

The weak Goldbach conjecture was proposed by 18th-century mathematician Christian Goldbach. It is the sibling of a statement concerning even numbers, named the strong Goldbach conjecture but actually made by his colleague, mathematician Leonhard Euler. The strong version says that every even number larger than 2 is the sum of two primes. As its name implies, the weak version would follow if the strong were true: to write an odd number as a sum of three primes, it would be sufficient to subtract 3 from it and apply the strong version to the resulting even number.

Note: Tao is a Fields Medalist and perhaps one of the smartest human beings on this planet.

Profiling
Here is what is wrong with it:

1. There are so few terrorists that profiling will almost never produce a true positive; you effectively gain no information from doing it.
2. Actual terrorists often don’t fit the profile.
3. The actual terrorists can “counter” the profiling tactic (e. g., deliberately picking those who don’t fit the profile)
4. This tactic builds resentment.

Bruce Schneier concludes:

The proper reaction to screening horror stories isn’t to subject only “those people” to it; it’s to subject no one to it. (Can anyone even explain what hypothetical terrorist plot could successfully evade normal security, but would be discovered during secondary screening?) Invasive TSA screening is nothing more than security theater. It doesn’t make us safer, and it’s not worth the cost. Even more strongly, security isn’t our society’s only value. Do we really want the full power of government to act out our stereotypes and prejudices? Have we Americans ever done something like this and not been ashamed later? This is what we have a Constitution for: to help us live up to our values and not down to our fears.

AMEN.

By the way, kudos to Sam Harris for publishing an expert who completely disagrees with him.