Blizzard of 2010

The snow started falling around noon on 12/26 and by 8 AM on 12/27 they estimated that there were about 18 inches (46 cm) on the ground. The intense snowfall (at times it was dumping 1 inch/hour) was accompanied by high winds which were creating large snowdrifts and whiteout conditions.  The snow accumulation around my house was higher than 0.5 m at a lot of areas including the driveway.

The snowfall stopped around noon on on the 27th but the wind is still strong. Good thing my neighbors have snow-blowers which helped a lot when I went out to clear my driveway.

Currently the temperature is 17 degrees F (about –8 C) and with the wind it feels like it is –2 F (-19 C.) It is cold!

At least we expect a bit of decent weather for the next few days so quite a bit of the snow should melt.

Christmas 2010: Reading, MA

 

Merry Christmas!

Mass Effect 3

 

Mass Effect 3 was officially announced today and it seems that Commander Shepard will be back sometime around 'Holiday 2011'. I am not a huge fan of the ME series (the story line moves forward a bit slowly) but the trailer looks awesome!

Raytheon Company: ELCAN’s DigitalHunter™ Riflescope Hits the Mark

Raytheon Company: ELCAN’s DigitalHunter™ Riflescope Hits the Mark

That is amazing! And you can almost see little videos of bullets hitting targets showing up in youtube in a few years.

Next up self-guided bullets!

FIFA World Ranking Top 20: November 2010

Rank (previous)	Team	Points	Comment
1 (1)	Spain	1920
2 (2)	Netherlands	1718
3 (3)	Brazil	1493
4 (4)	Germany	1489
5 (5)	Argentina	1353
6 (6)	England	1250
7 (7)	Uruguay	1174
8 (8)	Portugal	1102
9 (9)	Croatia	1098
10 (11)	Egypt	1047
11 (12)	Greece	1043
12 (13)	Norway	1004
13 (10)	Russia	1003
14 (16)	Italy	995
15 (15)	Slovenia	958
16 (14)	Chile	929
17 (17)	Ghana	903
18 (20)	Slovakia	866
19 (19)	Cote d’Ivoire	857
20 (21)	Australia	853

No games played by any of the teams in the top 20. Just point adjustments. Australia replaced France which dropped out of the top 20 (rightly so.)

The latest full table can be found at the FIFA World Ranking website.

Soccer Ball Image: Reading, MA 2010

The image was shot on May 21st during soccer practice.

LaTeX on Windows Vista SP2: Usage

To test the implementation I used an old report written in LaTeX about 14 years ago while at the UW.

> cd /d "E:\XX\XXX_XX\Athena\gk_texed\gk_Report#1"

> latex Root.tex

So far so good. The file Root.dvi (dvi = device independent) was created successfully and it contains the 7 page report. The .dvi file must be converted to a .ps (postscript) file using the command dvips.

> dvips Root.dvi

Now there should be a file called Root.ps in the appropriate directory. The postscript file can be opened with GSView.

Nice!!

GSView can convert the file in PDF which would solve portability issues. The reality is that postscript is a somewhat esoteric format used by… select few!! To convert:

• Click File and select Convert…
• Select the device pdfwrite and click OK.
• Enter a filename (e.g. test.pdf) in the Output Filename window and click ‘Save.’

• Done!

LaTeX on Windows Vista SP2: Installation

Three things are needed to run Latex on a Windows box: MiKTeX, Ghostscript, and GSView. The last makes life easy. There are also editors you can buy that integrate these packages and offer a complete editor environment but for me a basic text editor works the best; There is one on every system.

MiKTeX 2.9

Download MiKTeX (pronounced mick-tech) which is the freeware Latex implementation for PCs with Windows OS. The latest version is 2.9 (Beta as of this writing) which was released on 9/26/10.

I downloaded the "Basic MiKTeX 2.9" Installer (137 MB) from mirror.ctan.org (there was no other option.) The installation was pain-free:

• Launch installer and accept license agreement.
• Elected to install MiKTeX for anyone who uses the computer.
• Accepted the default install directory: C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.9\
• Set preferred paper to ‘Letter’ and ‘ask’ installing missing packages.
• Review installation settings and click ‘Start'.’

The installation took about 7 minutes. (It could have been a bit less but I was distracted as Pittsburgh was beating up on Cincinnati!)

Done with step 1.

Ghostscript 9.00 and GSView 4.9

Ghostscript is an interpreter for the PostScript language. As mentioned in the Ghostscript website:

Ghostscript has several main uses:

1. Display a PostScript file (avoid killing trees).
2. Display a PostScript file to decide if you really need to print it (reduce the number of trees killed).
3. Print a PostScript file to a non-PostScript printer (kill more trees).

The latest version is 9.0 released on 09/17/10.

GSView is a graphical interface for Ghostscript for Windows-based systems.

Start by downloading Ghostscript 9.00 for 32-bit Windows. The link is located at http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/GPL/gpl900.htm under Microsoft Windows. The self extracting package is a bit less than 15 MB. After the download completes:

• Run the executable.
• Click ‘Setup’.
• Accept the defaults and click ‘Install’. About 10 seconds later the installation is complete.

Now go to GSView 4.9 download page and select to download the 32bit Windows installer. The size of the GSView installer is 1.5 MB. After the download completes:

• Run the executable.
• Click ‘Setup’.
• Click ‘Next’ a few times to accept the defaults.
• Click ‘Finish’ and the installation will complete in seconds.

FIFA World Ranking Top 20: October-November 2010

Rank (previous)	Team	Points	Comment
1 (1)	Spain	1881	Wins over Scotland and Lithuania. (EURO ‘12 Quals.)
2 (2)	Netherlands	1683	Wins over Sweden and Moldova. (EURO ‘12 Quals.)
3 (4)	Brazil	1493	Wins over Ukraine and Iran. (Friendlies.)
4 (3)	Germany	1481	Delivered misery to Kazakhstan and Turkey. (EURO ‘12)
5 (5)	Argentina	1320
6 (6)	England	1205	Draw against Montenegro at home!! (EURO ‘12 Quals.)
7 (7)	Uruguay	1167	Beat up on China and Indonesia. (Friendlies.)
8 (8)	Portugal	1123	Woke up against Iceland and Denmark. (EURO ‘12)
9 (11)	Croatia	1086	Win over Israel away. (EURO ‘12)
10 (25)	Russia	1061	Wins over Ireland and FYROM. (EURO ‘12)
11 (9)	Egypt	1034	Win over Nigeria. (Continental Qual.)
12 (12)	Greece	1026	Two home wins against Israel and Latvia. (EURO ‘12)
13 (14)	Norway	989	Win over Cyprus. (EURO ‘12)
14 (10)	Chile	931
15 (19)	Slovenia	926	Moved up after beating the powerhouses of Estonia and Faroe Islands. (EURO ‘12)
16 (13)	Italy	901	A scoreless tie in N. Ireland. (EURO ‘12)
17 (17)	Ghana	891
18 (27)	France	888	Wins over Luxemburg and Romania. Overrated as usual.
19 (23)	Cote d’Ivoire	871	Win over Burundi. They get points for that!
20 (16)	Slovakia	926	Tie with Ireland and win over Armenia. (EURO ‘12)

Two good wins against Latvia and Israel for Greece, both at home. Currently Greece is at the top of group F with 8 points. Croatia is second with 7 points and one game less played. Greece have had the pretty much the same ranking since last April.

Italy was also awarded a 3-0 victory on paper for the abandoned UEFA EURO 2012 qualifier against Serbia held in Genoa in October. The game was delayed for 30 minutes due to trouble with Serbs and then it was abandoned 6 minutes after kick-off. It seems that whole thing had to do with the signing of the Serb goalkeeper with another team.

The latest full table can be found at the FIFA World Ranking website.

Windows Live Writer 2011

New version of the free blog editor Live Writer by Microsoft. My upgrade from the previous version was smooth and so far I have not encountered any issues. The interface is similar to the one from the recent Office versions. That is, it uses the ribbon interface which is a good thing.

There are 3 tabs available: Home, Insert, and Blog Account. All the basic editing functions are part of the Home tab including Insert Hyperlink, Picture, and Video. Other inserts such as breaks, tables, maps (offered by Bing of course!), emoticons , etc. can be found by selecting the Insert tab. The Blog Account tab should be self-explanatory!

In addition to the cleaner interface there are a couple of things that I liked:

• The readily available HTML styles.
• The post date to the blog can be set to a future date. (I will know how well it works soon!) UPDATE: It worked great!

Live Writer 2011 is available for Windows Vista SP2 and Windows 7. Vista also requires a platform update so it can support certain Windows 7 technologies and API’s.

The Six Emotions To Setting Goals

Keith Abraham is a motivational and inspirational speaker and book author (best selling according to his vitae) that offered the following in an educational video available at my workplace:

1. If you’re lost, decide.

2. If you’re frustrated, pursue the opposites of what you don’t want.

3. If you’re confused, design a plan.

4. If you’re unclear, follow your heart.

5. If you’re unsatisfied, ask what matters.

6. If you’re uncertain, stay focused.

To me the most interesting of the six pieces of advice was number 2! It is an interesting approach. Close second is number 5. The ancient Greeks stated ‘know thyself'.’ That is not always easy.

Numbers 3 and 6 are taught in engineering!! Number 4 is not taught to guys!

FIFA World Ranking Top 20: September 2010

Rank (previous)	Team	Points	Comment
1 (1)	Spain	1824	Beat up on Liechtenstein. (EURO ‘12 Quals.)
2 (2)	Netherlands	1663	Wins over Finland and San Marino. (EURO ‘12 Quals.)
3 (4)	Germany	1490	Wins over Azerbaijan and Belgique! (EURO ‘12 Quals.)
4 (3)	Brazil	1480	Won over USA in friendly.
5 (5)	Argentina	1351	Won a couple of friendlies.
6 (7)	England	1191	Wins over Switzerland and Bulgaria. (EURO ‘12 Quals.)
7 (6)	Uruguay	1182	Win over Angola. (Friendly.)
8 (8)	Portugal	1049	A loss to Norge & a tie (barely) over Cyprus. (EURO ‘12)
9 (9)	Egypt	1034
10 (10)	Chile	1004
11 (14)	Croatia	998	Win over Latvia and tie with Greece. (EURO ‘12)
12 (12)	Greece	973	Ties with Georgia and Croatia. (EURO ‘12)
13 (11)	Italy	965	Wins over Faroe Islands and Estonia. (EURO ‘12)
14 (22)	Norway	958	Wins over Portugal and Iceland. (EURO ‘12)
15 (13)	Serbia	945	A tie against Slovenia & a win over Faroe Islands.
16 (27)	Slovakia	919	Wins over Russia and FYROM. (EURO ‘12)
17 (15)	Paraguay	904
18 (18)	USA	899
19 (19)	Slovenia	897	Tied Serbia and lost to N. Ireland. (EURO ‘12)
20 (23)	Ghana	889

A lot of action in September. All European national teams are playing in the qualification round for EURO 2012. Interesting Results:

• Portugal tied Cyprus 4 - 4 at home; Then lost to Norway! Cyprus gained 20 spots. Norway gained 8! Portugal stayed put…
• Russia lost to Slovakia at home. Then dropped out of the top 20 and Slovakia gained 11 spots!
• France lost to Belarus at home. France is now ranked 27.

Greece had a disappointing tie against Georgia at home but also tied Croatia in Zagreb which earned them a point against a difficult opponent. Since then a few players have quit the Greek national team. It will be interesting to see who lines up against Latvia in a couple of weeks.

The latest full table can be found at the FIFA World Ranking website.

C++ Reference: Google C++ Style Guide

Located at:

http://google-styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/cppguide.xml

Very interesting reference on C++ style (conventions) used by the Google developers. Each topic includes dos and don’ts, pros and cons, rationale, and other comments.

It is detailed enough to include the guideline:

Each line of text in your code should be at most 80 characters long.

In my development environment the line limit is usually set to 72 characters! I picked that up about 15 years ago from some hard core developers and got used to it. Sometimes I go over that but for some reason I have never exceeded 78 characters.

Jeep Poster: Through the White Mountains

My Cherokee during a drive through the White Mountains in New Hampshire. The 60 mile road trip essentially started at Conway where we followed Route 16 to North Conway and Glen. From Glen we took Route 302 to Bartlett and through the White Mountains all the way to Bethlehem where we got back on I-93.

A great drive that should be fun in the winter too (with the 4x4!)

Abstract

It all started with the image of a bubble on string!

New England Revolution 3 – Seattle Sounders 1

 

The first professional soccer game for Christina. A nostalgic one too since it involved the Sounders. Unfortunately for the Seattle team they did not play well. The Sounders went up 1 – 0 after the break but they immediately went back on defense and started the delaying tactics and they paid dearly for it.

The Revolution played well and had a number of decent chances. Keller managed to stop their efforts in the first half but he could not keep a clean sheet. Not really his fault except maybe the third goal.

As a game it was entertaining for us (this time the cotton candy was pink!) including a firework display 10 minutes after the game!

 

Newsweek: America the Ignorant

Newsweek on-line has a slide show with unusual ideas that Americans believe. It is titled 'Silly Things We Believe About Witches, Obama and More.'

Forget the birthers, the creationists, and other religious and political fanatics, and similar fringe groups. Their ideas are not exactly motivated by hard facts.

Also, I am not surprised about the lack of education on religion, government, geography, and other subjects. That is a well documented issue. I also remember that while in college I was told by… enlightened students that Greece is in Southeast Asia (Asia, Europe… same deal), Greeks are black (Southern Europe, Mediterranean, North Africa, Africa!), and Greeks speak Latin (the expression ‘sounds Greek to me’ never really registered!), and other trivia of similar ‘quality'.’

However, the following really blows my mind:

In 1999 (eleven years ago!) 20% of Americans still believed that the sun revolved around the earth.

How is it possible to believe in something that was shown to be false almost 500 years ago? They have never heard of Copernicus and the heliocentric cosmology? Where do these people live? According to the poll they are all around me!

I guess I have lived a rather sheltered intellectual life because I have never met people with such extreme ideas. I should be thankful for that!

FIFA World Ranking Top 20: August 2010

Rank (previous)	Team	Points	Comment
1 (1)	Spain	1883
2 (2)	Netherlands	1659
3 (3)	Brazil	1524
4 (4)	Germany	1464
5 (5)	Argentina	1288
6 (6)	Uruguay	1152
7 (7)	England	1125
8 (8)	Portugal	1062
9 (9)	Egypt	1053
10 (10)	Chile	988
11 (11)	Italy	982
12 (12)	Greece	975
13 (13)	Serbia	969
14 (15)	Croatia	968
15 (16)	Paraguay	961
16 (17)	Russia	956
17 (18)	Switzerland	940
18 (13)	USA	931	Lost to Brazil in a friendly.
19 (19)	Slovenia	917
20 (20)	Australia	911

No changes on the board except USA that lost a friendly to Brazil, lost 38 points and dropped five places! Teams ranked 8-20 are so close in points that losing a few of them could result in significant ranking drop.

Competition at the national level in Europe heats up next month with qualifying games for EURO 2012. Greece will play at home against Georgia on Sep. 3 and then an away game against Croatia on Sep. 7.

The latest full table can be found at the FIFA World Ranking website.

FIFA World Ranking Top 20: July 2010

Rank (previous)	Team	Points	Comment
1 (2)	Spain	1883	Back on top for the World Champions
2 (4)	Netherlands	1659	#2 in the world again
3(1)	Brazil	1536	Expected better
4 (6)	Germany	1464	Great effort but run into Spain
5 (7)	Argentina	1289	Great talent; Entertaining coach; Not good enough.
6 (16)	Uruguay	1152	A great run with Diego Forlan leading the way.
7 (8)	England	1125	High ranking for a team that sucked and whined.
8 (3)	Portugal	1062	Pretty fair.
9 (12)	Egypt	1053	Highest ranking ever (for staying home to watch TV)
10 (18)	Chile	988	Good run. Lost to Brazilin the round of 16.
11 (5)	Italy	982	Two ties (New Zealand??) and 1 loss…
12 (13)	Greece	975	One win against a good team maintained the rank.
13 (14)	USA	969	They deserved a higher ranking
13 (15)	Serbia	969	A win over Germany will get you a lot of points!
15 (10)	Croatia	968	Lost ground (for staying home to watch TV)
16 (31)	Paraguay	961	Meteoric rise after losing to Spain in the quarterfinals
17(11)	Russia	956	Stayed home; Watched TV.
18 (24)	Switzerland	940	Win (over Spain) and tie: +6 spots.
19 (25)	Slovenia	917	A decent run and the highest ranking ever
20 (20)	Australia	911	A win and a tie. Not bad for a team from Oceania!

I was actually surprised that Greece maintained its position but it came against a former top 20 team.

Spain is rightly the number 1.

Holland deserves to be number 2.

Uruguay could have been higher.

England should have been lower.

Why did Egypt go up?

Why did Russia go down?

France dropped 12 spots and out of the top 20. The way the played they were easily the worst team of the 2010 World Cup.

The latest full table can be found at the FIFA World Ranking website.

The best & worst of the 2010 World Cup - Goal.com

Good one!

The best & worst of the 2010 World Cup - Goal.com

World Cup 2010 Final: Netherlands 0 - Spain 1

Spain is #1! They beat Holland in extra time with a marvelous goal by Iniesta (116th minute.) It was a tough game with both teams missing several chances to score. Credit goes to both goalkeepers (Stekelenburg and Casillas) for playing so well. Stekelenburg could do nothing to stop the goal by Iniesta.

The Spaniards have been ranked #1 for months and after a great campaign (7 games with one fluke loss to Switzerland) they proved they deserve to be called 'best in the world.' Well done!

New England Revolution 2 – Los Angeles Galaxy 0

Our second game with Jason exactly one year after the first one! Complete with blue cotton candy (which he does not like but I guess he remembered from last year.) May be we should make it a ritual: Go to a soccer game around July 11, eat junk food, and drink sugary liquids!

It was fun but the atmosphere was not as exciting as that of Sounders game. BTW, note the half empty stadium (by design) in the third picture. (Forget the empty second tier; That does not even count for the MLS!) You cannot see that on TV since the cameras are placed in front of the empty half. This is not Seattle…

 

The game itself was not bad for NE which was rather unexpected! After all they were playing against one of the better MLS teams after they have suffered four straight losses. Revolution scored two goals in the second half and could have scored more if they were a better team. But I should not complain; My expectations were pretty low so we were pretty happy that we cheered twice for the home team.

The first goal was scored by Marko Perovic in the 66th minute; A free kick from just outside the box that drilled into the right corner of the net. The second goal was scored by Sainey Nyassi in the 74th minute off a rebound. Landon Donovan did not play for LA but the rest of the starters were present.

To commemorate the event:

World Cup 2010 Finals: Greece 0 – Argentina 2

Finito! A loss to Argentina by the score of two-nil ended the 2010 World Cup campaign for Greece. The goal-scorers were Martin Demichelis (77’) and Martin Palermo (89’). Argentina was obviously the better team and had a number of scoring chances with 12 shots on goal. And they lined up with much of their bench!! However Greece tried hard, was a bit unlucky (since Rehhagel had to use all three substitutions for injured players), and had a couple of decent chances.

The formation was defensive (5-4-1) with Samaras being the only striker. I assume the strategy for Greece was to play good defense with counter-attacks in order to get out of the game with a tie and then hope that Nigeria would take care of South Korea. Should Greece have lined up with a more offensive formation? Do or die? Possibly. Nevertheless it was not a bad strategy and it almost worked. Nigeria had a lot of chances but could not convert. Greece held Argentina in check for most of the game but in the end could not withstand the barrage of attacks. Tzorvas, the Greek goalkeeper, played very well today. None of the two goals were his fault.

Though in the end it was three games and out for Greece, there is a certain satisfaction with the way the team played. Granted, in the first game against South Korea the team was awful. That was the game that cost Greece the qualification to the round of 16. It is unfortunate because they played really well against Nigeria and held their own against powerhouse Argentina. The team gave Greeks a sense of pride.

I think the most important aspect of this World Cup, other than the first goals and first win, was that there a number of good young players that can step up  and with proper coaching deliver good performances. We will need that in two years!!

Congratulation to Greece for their effort.

For posterity, the starting eleven players of today’s game:

Top row, left-to-right: Vyntra, Papastathopoulos, Moras, Tziolis, Kyrgiakos, Tzorvas.

Bottom row, left-to-right: Papadopoulos, Katsouranis, Torosidis, Karagounis, Samaras.

World Cup 2010 Finals: France Disarray

I take the characterization ‘disarray’ I used to describe past Greece performances back. It does not apply to Greece. It definitely applies to France.

Nicolas Anelka has a shouting match with his coach, he gets expelled from the team, the players refuse to train in protest, the team director resigns in disgust, and the team captain talked to reporters about a ‘traitor that hurts France’ and needs to be eliminated!

I am wondering what he has in mind about the ‘elimination’ part…

Not only the France had to cheat their way to the World Cup finals, they are so bad they cannot keep it together for 15 days. The ‘hand of Gaul’ brought bad karma. You cannot make that stuff up!!

So far they are the worst team participating in the World Cup!

ESPN.com: Striker Anelka dismissed by French

ESPN.com: France director resigns amid disarray

Goal.com: France Training Session Halted Following Altercation; Squad Backing Anelka

World Cup 2010 Finals: Greece 2 – Nigeria 1

FINALLY! GOAL(S)! AND A WIN!!

After four tries and four bad performances in two World Cups Greece scored twice and won over Nigeria in a game that was possibly decided on a bad decision of a Nigerian player. Sani Kaita kicked Torosidis and saw a straight red card; That was a big moment in the game. From that point on Greece became an aggressive, attacking team and it took another brilliant performance by Vincent Enyeama, the Nigerian keeper, to keep the game close and the Nigerians in the game. You could argue that playing 11 vs 10 is an automatic win but that is not true (e.g. see France 0 – Uruguay 0.)

Greece had 10 shots on goal (versus 3 for Nigeria) the most by any team in this World Cup. Greece also had the ball 60% of the time and 11 corners (versus 3 for Nigeria). I can only assume that the ejection of the Nigerian player boosted the confidence of the Greek players. Greece was in a desperate position, they smelled blood, and they responded. They pushed forward relentlessly and they scored two goals and thus the first victory for Greece in a World Cup.

The ESPN GameCast showed that the average position of the Greeks was in the Nigerian half.

Kudos to Coach Rehhagel for:

• Fielding the youngest ever Greece line-up at the World Cup (average age: 28 years, 46 days).
• Replacing Seitaridis, Samaras, and Charisteas with Papastathopoulos, Kyrgiakos, and Salpingidis in the starting line-up.
• Taking advantage of the situation immediately and substituting a defender (Papastathopoulos) for a forward (Samaras) and changing the formation to a more attacking one (4-3-3.)

The goals:

The first ever goal scored by Greece in a World Cup was by Salpingidis in the 44th minute. Salpingidis shot from the edge of the box, the ball deflected of a Nigerian player and flew in the upper left corner of the goalpost.

   

The second goal was scored by Torosidis in the 71st minute. Alexandros Tziolis took a low shot from way outside the box(he is not very shy about taking long shots), Enyeama tried to scoop the ball up, lost it, and Torosidis was there to take control of the ball and score.

This game has been a welcome change!

CONGRATULATION GREECE!

Reports:

ESPN.com: Greece rallies to win after Nigeria's Kaita is sent off

IN.gr: Ιστορική νίκη-ανατροπή της Εθνικής με 2-1 επί της Νιγηρίας

GOAL.com: World Cup 2010: Greece 2-1 Nigeria: Greece Make History With Win Over 10-Man Nigeria

World Cup 2010: The Aerodynamics Of Jabulani II

It was reported yesterday that Adidas, through the mouth of PR spokesman Thomas Schaikvan, seemed to have conceded that Jabulani behaves differently at the high altitude of some venues. Apparently he said that "… playing at altitude is not the same as playing at sea level. That is just plain science."

Fine, you can't do much about the altitude factor. The problem is that at 3000 meters (e.g. in Johannesburg) the density of air is about 0.9 kgr/m^3.

As in the previous post, assume that the standard size 5 smooth ball (about 0.23 m in diameter) would fly in air at an altitude of 3000 meters (constant r = 0.9 kgr/m^3 and air temperature at 25C) at 90 km/hr (25 m/sec) then the Re would equal:

Re = 0.9 * 25 *0.23 /1002e-6 = 5.2e+3

That is quite a bit of difference versus Re at sea level and the ridges would cause a different behavior. You add the possible effects from some weight variation (recommended air pressure is 11.6-14.5 psi) and the ball trajectory would be quite a bit different from one game to the next!

Thomas Schaikvan also mentioned that Adidas made the ball available to all teams 4 months in advance of the start of the World Cup but most teams did not take advantage of it and did not train with it. Among other things he mentioned: ''We presented the technology and underlined the requirement to get used to it because it is a different ball and a different technology.''

I guess my question is:

When did it become a requirement to adjust the game to a soccer ball? What is next? Adjust the game to Adidas-made rubber goalposts?

Related articles:

TribalFootbal.com: Adidas claim altitude not ball design responsible for keeper errors

The Sydney Morning Herald: Adidas says it warned teams about the Jabulani

World Cup 2010 Finals: South Korea 2 – Greece 0

An awful game for Greece and a well deserved win for S. Korea. A goal by Lee Jung Soo in the 7th minute to open the score and a second by Park Ji Sung in the 52nd minute to seal the deal.

Greece was worse than I could imagine. It seemed like the players did not know what to do with ball. The players just kept the ball and tried to outmaneuver the much quicker Koreans. No passing, no organization, no real effort to move the ball forward. At times the ball was moved from outside the S. Korean box back to mid-field and close to Greek box!! Today’s effort (or lack thereof) brought to mind the memories from the 1994 World Cup.

The second Korean goal was a perfect example of having a mental block during the game: Loukas Vyntra was in possession of the ball and took an eternity to decide what to do with it. In the meantime, Park Ji Sung quickly pounced on the ball stole it from Vyntra and quickly run into the penalty area and shot past Alexandros Tzorvas into the Greek goal.

The strikers were not only totally disconnected from mid-field but they also squandered the few opportunities created (except an amazing save on a blazing shot by Gekas in the 82nd minute.) Even the set pieces that were supposed to be a strength for Greece was rendered a meaningless endeavor.  Greece executed 11 corners and not one of them was even close to Jung Sung Ryong’s goal. No one took any chance; And when you take chances good things happen. It looked like the team was unprepared for such an important game.

After the game Coach Rehhagel said: “We really have to get our act together. We’ve got to improve a couple of things and be brave and courageous.” Improve ‘a couple of things’ is a serious understatement. We need a defense, a strong mid-field, aggressive strikers, team mentality, faster execution, established plays, etc.

Theoretically that was the easiest game for Greece so barring two miracles Greece will fulfill expectations and go three-and-out. Congratulations to South Korea.

For posterity, the starting eleven players of today’s game:

Top row, left-to-right: Charisteas, Vyntra, Papadopoulos, Katsouranis, Tzorvas, Tziolis.

Bottom row, left-to-right: Gekas, Karagounis, Torosidis, Seitaridis, Samaras.

World Cup 2010 Friendly: Greece 0 – Paraguay 2

So that was it! The last preparation game for Greece just 10 days before the first real game against South Korea and it was a disappointing one. Much like the game against North Korea the defense was in a bad shape. The word ‘disarray’ comes to mind.

Coach Rehhagel said after the game that he drew useful conclusions from today’s game and he now knows how to play against South Korea. He also said that: ‘Our target is to be in good shape so that we win over South Korea. We have to be ready and play a strong game starting from the first minute.’

It is not obvious to me how Otto Rehhagel is going to put together a cohesive unit that plays strong, solid, disciplined defense in a short amount of time. We certainly have very good players but they seemed lost on the pitch trying to react instead of dictating the tempo, stumping all efforts, and grinding down their opponents. The players spend a lot of time defending close to the goal and a couple of times they cleared the ball on the goal line. That kind of effort is not going to win games.

Offensively there were a few bright spots, but Greece is not the kind of a team that can get in a shootout with any other team. We still rely on set pieces and counterattacks. We are going to score 1-2 goals but we need to be ahead. Cannot play catch up.

All in all it does seem that we should be happy by just participating in the 2010 World Cup. It certainly looks increasingly likely that we are going to play 3 games and then we go home.

Reports:

FIFA.com: Paraguay see off Greeks in friendly

IN.gr: Ήττα της Εθνικής από την Παραγουάη, αλλά με… κέρδη εν όψει Μουντιάλ

GOAL.com: Greece 0-2 Paraguay: La Albirroja Cruise To Easy Win In Switzerland

FIFA World Cup 2010: Greece 23-man Squad

Coach Otto Rehhagel announced the final 23-man squad for the World Cup finals. They are:

Goalkeepers:

Kostas Chalkias (PAOK Thessaloniki), Michalis Sifakis (Aris Thessaloniki), Alexandros Tzorvas (Panathinaikos Athens)

Defenders:

Sotiris Kyrgiakos (Liverpool), Stelios Malezas (PAOK Thessaloniki), Vangelis Moras (Bologna), Avraam Papadopoulos (Olympiakos Piraeus), Sokratis Papastathopoulos (Genoa), Giourkas Seitaridis (Panathinaikos Athens), Nikos Spiropoulos (Panathinaikos Athens), Vassilis Torosidis (Olympiakos Piraeus), Loukas Vyntra (Panathinaikos Athens)

Midfielders:

Giorgos Karagounis (Panathinaikos Athens), Kostas Katsouranis (Panathinaikos Athens), Sotiris Ninis (Panathinaikos Athens), Christos Patsatzoglou (Omonia), Sakis Prittas (Aris Thessaloniki), Alexandros Tziolis (Siena)

Forwards:

Angelos Charisteas (Nurnberg), Fanis Gekas (Eintracht Frankfurt), Pantelis Kapetanos (Steaua Bucharest), Dimitris Salpingidis (Panathinaikos Athens), Georgios Samaras (Celtic)

In the meantime:

• Nigeria 1 – Colombia 1: Nigeria managed to score in the 70th minute after they injected some youth to the team.
• Belarus 1 – South Korea 0: A game against a team that “plays like Greece!” They must be getting tired!

FIFA World Ranking Top 20: June 2010

Rank (previous)	Team	Points	Comment
1 (1)	Brazil	1611
2 (2)	Spain	1565
3 (3)	Portugal	1249
4 (4)	Netherlands	1231
5 (5)	Italy	1184
6 (6)	Germany	1082
7 (7)	Argentina	1076
8 (8)	England	1068
9 (10)	France	1044
10 (9)	Croatia	1041
11 (11)	Russia	1015
12 (13)	Egypt	967
13 (12)	Greece	964
14 (14)	USA	957
15 (16)	Serbia	947
16 (18)	Uruguay	899
17 (17)	Mexico	895
18 (15)	Chile	888
19 (19)	Cameroon	887
20 (20)	Australia	886

Point adjustments for most teams with Nigeria dropping out of the top-20 (ranked number 21.)
Next update of the FIFA ranking table is after the World Cup on July 14.
The next friendly game for Greece is against Paraguay on June 2 (tomorrow.)
The latest full table can be found at the FIFA World Ranking website.

World Cup 2010 Friendly: Greece 2 – North Korea 2

The second World Cup friendly for Greece and this time around the result is a bit better. At least offensively. However, a draw with North Korea is not exactly a major achievement.

Both goals for Greece were scored from set pieces. Being able to achieve that is very important, especially against South Korea since they have some trouble defending set pieces.

Defensively there still a lot of work to do. If we do not exhibit the kind of tenacious defending, tactical discipline, and strength that we showed in 2004 then we will play 3 games and then go home. So far we have not shown much on the defensive side of the ball. In today’s game we could not contain the North Korean forwards.

In other games:

• Nigeria 0 – Saudi Arabia 0: Not a very good performance from Nigeria under the guidance of their brand new coach.
• Argentina 5 – Canada 0: ‘Nough said!

Next (and final) World Cup warm-up game for Greece is on June 2 against Paraguay (which lost 2-1 to the Republic of Ireland today.)

Reports:

GOAL.com: Greece 2-2 North Korea: Rapid-Fire Greeks Held

FIFA.com: Draws all around for finalists

IN.gr: Φιλική ισοπαλία της εθνικής ομάδας με τη Βόρεια Κορέα

MATLAB & C++: Car Talk 1016 Puzzler

Car Talk is a weekly call-in radio show about cars and car repairs on National Public Radio. The hosts, Tom and Ray Magliozzi, are extremely funny and very knowledgeable about the subject. I tend to listen to the show by downloading the podcasts of ‘classic’ episodes (which means ‘old’, ‘previously aired’!)

Among other things the two brothers discuss is the weekly puzzler. That is, every week they hold a contest with a puzzle (brain-teaser) with the winners announced during the following episode (a week later.)

The puzzler on April 19th (I am a few episodes behind) is called Stevie and his Moto and in brief, it asked listeners to find (the) two temperatures in Fahrenheit and Celsius that have the digits ‘exactly reversed.’

For example, [one of the big signs that display the time and temperature] might have read 31 degrees Fahrenheit, and when it showed the centigrade reading it said "13."

Though the contest is now about a month old I decided to spend a few minutes to code a solution in MATLAB and then for kicks re-coded the solution in C++.

MATLAB

The algorithm is straight forward:

1. Define array of values for temperature in degrees Fahrenheit – no decimals.
2. Calculate equivalent temperature in degrees Celsius – rounded towards the nearest integer.
3. Compare 1st digit of degrees F with 2nd digit of degrees C AND 2nd digit of degrees F with 1st digit of degrees C.
4. If-and-only-if BOTH are equal then we have a match.

For this algorithm to work the range of Fahrenheit values needs to be restricted to the ones that would result in positive Celsius values that also have two digits (which was set as a requirement when the puzzler was explained.) If the range is not restricted then there would be a match for 40F and 4C. And since I like to play around with ideas I added on more test to make sure that the algorithm is more correct: count the digits of the integer.

For integers a quick solution is to count the number of digits for both degrees F and C and compare. For positive non-zero numbers we can use:

>> floor( log10( number) ) + 1;

This works because for positive non-zero numbers the base-10 logarithm provides the exponent of the base that would result in the number. That is:

x = 10^y then y = log10(x)

E.g.

1000 = 10^3 then log10(1000) = 3

Therefore, if the exponent is known the number of digits if the number can be calculated.

The snapshots of the code and output are shown below:

C++

The idea is exactly the same. The only difference is that I had to code my own rounding function which is straight forward (even for me!)

 

The rounding function might not very elegant but works!

The output is shown below.

Half Life 2: Lost Coast

I bought Half Life 2: Episode Pack back in 2007 but did not play the game much. Recently, I found it again and decided to give it one more try. This time around I played and finished Episode One (after 12 hours) and Episode Two (after 11 hours) and then I played a small level available as a separate free download called Lost Coast.

It seems that Valve had that level as part of the regular game but decided not to include it. The level is quick (took 33 minutes with a lot of looking around!), easy to complete, and a lot of fun. However, the most amazing aspect of the Lost Coast is the level of detailed graphics. The textures, shadows, and colors are so realistic that it looks like a real world! And it was released 5 years ago!

Just beautiful!

BTW, I think that the original Half Life was a more interesting game than Half Life 2. The pace was faster, and the scenario made more sense. Either that or I am tired of fighting zombies and alien robots!

World Cup 2010: Team Bus Slogans

Hyundai sponsored a competition to come up with creative and inspirational slogans that will adorn the bus of each team participating in the World Cup in South Africa. A few days ago the winning slogans were selected. I guess ‘creative’ is a word that can be used to describe them. ‘Inspirational’ might be a bit of a stretch.

I am not sure who came with these slogans but most of them read like bad inspirational posters. The use words like dream (mentioned in 4 slogans), victory (6 slogans), hope, glory and combinations thereof. They make the ultimate football competition sound like a church sermon.

In my opinion:

Top 5 Good Slogans:

1. New Zealand: Kickin’ it Kiwi style.

Comment: A fun slogan from a laid back country.

2. Brazil: Lotado! O Brasil inteiro está aqui dentro! (Translation: The whole of Brazil is in here!)

Comment: Perfectly true.

3. Netherlands: Let niet op de grote 5, maar pas op voor de oranje 11. (Translation: Don't fear the big five, fear the Orange eleven)

Comment: Finally: Bravado! A winning attitude.

4. Cameroon: Les lions indomptables sont de retour. (Translation:The Indomitable Lions are back)

Comment: More attitude!

5. Greece: Η Ελλάδα είναι παντού! (Translation: Greece is everywhere!)

Comment: Naturally! (Have you checked the newspapers lately?)

Top 3 Lame Slogans:

1. England: Playing with Pride and Glory.

Comment: As inspirational as the movie ‘Pride and Glory.’

2. USA: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Victory!

Comment: In case of trouble use a line from the Declaration of Independence!

3. Spain: Ilusión es mi camino, Victoria mi destino. (Translation: Hope is my road, victory my destiny)

Comment: Hope + destiny; Next they will hire Miley Cyrus for inspirational pep talks.

4. France: Tous ensemble vers un nouveau rêve bleu. (Translation: All together for a new dream in blue)

Comment: Keep dreaming!

5. Australia: Dare to Dream, Advance Australia.

Comment: More dreaming! 

For the full list of bus slogans see article ‘Winning team bus slogans announced’ posted at the FIFA website.

World Cup 2010: Probability & Odds for Greece

Assuming that each of the 8 groups is an independent microcosm (I think a valid assumption) then the relative probabilities (based on FIFA ranking points per team) that each of the teams will go through the group stage are:

Group A P(France) = 0.321  P(Mexico) = 0.288 P(Uruguay) = 0.278 P(South Africa) = 0.113	Group B P(Argentina) = 0.305 P(Greece) = 0.272 P(Nigeria) = 0.249 P(South Korea) = 0.174
Group C P(England) = 0.289 P(United States) = 0.257 P(Slovenia) = 0.232 P(Algeria) = 0.222	Group D P(Germany) = 0.296 P(Serbia) = 0.253 P(Australia) = 0.236 P(Ghana) = 0.215
Group E P(Netherlands) = 0.344 P(Cameroon) = 0.250 P(Denmark) = 0.216 P(Japan) = 0.190	Group F P(Italy) = 0.375 P(Paraguay) = 0.260 P(Slovakia) = 0.235 P(New Zealand) = 0.130
Group G P(Brazil) = 0.403 P(Portugal) = 0.312 P(Ivory Coast) = 0.212 P(North Korea) = 0.073	Group H P(Spain) = 0.382 P(Chile) = 0.232 P(Switzerland) = 0.209 P(Honduras) = 0.178

The odds that Greece will go through the group stage are:

0.272 / (1 - 0.272) = 0.374 or about 3:8

The odds against are 8:3.

In general, Group B is difficult but it seems that the most competitive groups are C and D. And although Group G is the group of death, the probability that Brazil and Portugal will advance to the round of 16 is very high.

FIFA World Ranking Top 20: May 2010

Rank (previous)	Team	Points	Comment
1 (2)	Brazil	1611	Group G
2 (1)	Spain	1565	Group H
3 (4)	Portugal	1249	Group G
4 (3)	Netherlands	1221	Group E
5 (5)	Italy	1184	Group F
6 (6)	Germany	1107	Group D
7 (9)	Argentina	1084	Group B
8 (7)	England	1068	Group C
9 (10)	Croatia	1052	N/A
10 (8)	France	1044	Group A
11 (12)	Russia	1003	N/A
12 (11)	Greece	968	Group B
13 (14)	Egypt	967	N/A
14 (16)	USA	950	Group C
15 (13)	Chile	948	Group H
16 (15)	Serbia	944	Group D
17 (17)	Mexico	936	Group A
18 (18)	Uruguay	902	Group A
19 (20)	Cameroon	887	Group E
20 (21)	Nigeria	883	Group B
20 (19)	Australia	883	Group D

Point adjustments for all teams, resulting in Brazil returning to the top spot. Last time Brazil was ranked #1 was November 2009. Spain dropped to #2 while Portugal is now #3 (unjustified.) Argentine also moved up a couple of spots (justified.)

Based on the current ranking, just one month before the start of the World Cup, Groups A, B, and D each have 3 teams in the top 20. Groups C, E, G, and H each have 2 teams in the top 20. Group F is the only group that has only one top 20 team (Italy…)

The next game for Greece is a World Cup friendly against Korea DPR at home on May 25.

The latest full table can be found at the FIFA World Ranking website.

Best Places to Live 2010: Reading, MA

According to an article about the Best Places to Live 2010 that appeared in Boston Magazine Reading is the ‘more-affordable option’ to the Gold Standard Winchester!! According to the published blurb, Reading has ‘similarly strong schools’ and it is less expensive. (GK edit: A lot less expensive!)

Actually, Reading is a nice town that is close to ‘civilization’ (i.e. Boston), on major arteries (I-93 and I-95), has good schools that have been awarded the Blue Ribbon award (highest government honor for American schools – not sure about the real meaning of that one yet), has very good services, and is well kept (it better be with all the taxes that go to the town!)