The Order of Everything

1The Order of EverythingIf A is better than B and B is better than C, then A must be better than C, right?

2This year in College Football, LSU beat Alabama and Alabama beat LSU, so Alabama must be better than Alabama. Huh? The rules of mathematics apply to certain closed well-defined systems. Real life, with its reluctance to follow rules, no matter how well-defined, is messier. STOP THINKING LIKE A MATHEMATICIAN Every morning at 5:30 AM I hear this sound.Beginnings

4Dear Lord, why? Its not like I have to milk the cows. My first class is a 8:35 (or 8:38 or 8:39), and I dont live 150 miles from work. So why this compulsion? Because these guys wont quitWHY?

Every night all of these basketball games take place, at both the pro and college level, and these games absolutely, positively must be logged, analyzed and assessed. Why must they? Its called Obsessive Compulsive Behavior, my friends, and it MUST BE FED.

So, who is this dave?6

Who is dave?Cartoon imagesWho is Dave?

8

Bernard Eugene Vinson, 1929 1992The greatest guy of all time

Where it started

11AccumulationSpelling BeePete Palmer zero-sumIterative pairwise-comparison methodFour methods12Objects acquire points as a result of repetition of trials; the highest number of scores is recorded.Ex: In my college bowling class, we were allowed to bowl as many games as we were willing to pay for (at that time I think it was 30 cents/game in the UTK bowling center.) Your score was the total of your ten best games.Simple Accumulation of PointsFor going on 8 years, I have been tagging the value of currently active actors. In my mind, this generates a Career Achievement score. For each actor, and for each of their films, I would assign two numbers. The first is an assessment of the value of the film (0-10); the second is an assessment of that actors prominence in that film. These scores are multiplied; the actors total score is the best ten of these.My Most Precious List is AccumulativeDespite having spent 6 years on this, I am working alphabetically, and I have only completed through the letter TBecause the film business is one of the most sexist, and films frequently feature 60 year-old-leading men and their 32-year-old girlfriends, its hard for women to sustain a career as leads like men can.Two problems1 De Niro, Robert 920 2 Nicholson, Jack 891 3 Hoffman, Dustin 890 4 Pacino, Al 890 5 Eastwood, Clint 870 Actor Career Achievement6 Deneuve, Catherine 864 7 Hackman, Gene 842 8 Duvall, Robert 834 9 Ford, Harrison 834 10 Christie, Julie 833 Actor Career Achievement11 Depp, Johnny 832 12 Leung Chiu-Wei, Tony 832 13 Depardieu, Gerard 831 14 Keitel, Harvey 826 15 O'Toole, Peter 824 Actor Career Achievement16 Travolta, John 820 17 Connery, Sean 813 18 DiCaprio, Leonardo 813 19 Penn, Sean 813 20 Clooney, George 812 Actor Career Achievement21 Day-Lewis, Daniel 812 22 Martin, Steve 810 23 Cage, Nicolas 806 24 Dreyfuss, Richard 805 25 Bridges, Jeff 802 Actor Career Achievement1 Deneuve, Catherine 864 2 Christie, Julie 833 3 Keaton, Diane 789 4 Li, Gong 788 5 Spacek, Sissy 788 The Women6 Streep, Meryl 786 7 Moore, Julianne 780 8 Huppert, Isabelle 764 9 Kidman, Nicole 764 10 Linney, Laura 761 The WomenThe idea is simple. Keep winning and you drift upwards. Defeat someone above you and get a bigger jump. Lose to someone worse and take a big jump down (unless the team you lost to was so close that they moved past you.)Spelling Bee Variation26 Milwaukee 27 Utah 28 Washington 29 Charlotte 30 Toronto Current NBA (through last nights games)21 Phoenix 22 New Jersey 23 New York 24 Detroit 25 Atlanta Current NBA (through last nights games)16 Cleveland 17 Portland 18 Sacramento 19 New Orleans 20 Golden State Current NBA (through last nights games)11 LA Clippers 12 Minnesota 13 Philadelphia 14 LA Lakers 15 Indiana Current NBA (through last nights games)6 San Antonio 7 Memphis 8 Oklahoma City 9 Boston 10 Denver Current NBA (through last nights games)1 Miami 2 Orlando 3 Chicago 4 Dallas 5 Houston Current NBA (through last nights games)The objective is to track these metric for long enough that you get a good sense of what seems to produce the results that you find interesting, not the right results. (And for those of you who follow Mens NCAA Basketball, you will see what I mean with the next list.)I want to stress that there is no objective truth in these methods(Revealing the depths of my sickness)591 St. Francis Ill 592 Toccoa Falls 593 Trinity Baptist 594 Avila College 595 Doane 596 Northwest 597 Nebraska-Kearney NCAA Mens Basketball, Current Ratings through last nights games26 George Mason 27 Georgetown 28 Ohio State 29 Illinois State 30 Davidson NCAA Mens Basketball, Current Ratings through last nights games21 Duke 22 Creighton 23 Missouri 24 Evansville 25 Baylor NCAA Mens Basketball, Current Ratings through last nights games16 UNLV 17 St. Mary's 18 Gonzaga 19 San Diego State 20 Wyoming NCAA Mens Basketball, Current Ratings through last nights games11 Iowa 12 Indiana 13 Murray State 14 Washington 15 Arizona NCAA Mens Basketball, Current Ratings through last nights games6 Oral Roberts 7 Michigan State 8 Michigan 9 Idaho 10 New Mexico State NCAA Mens Basketball, Current Ratings through last nights games1 Colorado State 2 New Mexico 3 Kansas 4 Syracuse 5 Wichita State NCAA Mens Basketball, Current Ratings through last nights gamesI am not so interested in whether the informal methods are right as I am whether they are learning.Whats this? The horizontal represents the passage of time, the vertical is misses per day for the current NBA season. Next is the same graph with a trendline Added. So the systems number of misses per day is dropping.This can be seen even more clearly on the next graph. On each day, where the number of misses over the previous week is recalculated each day.And finally, the same graph with a trendline.So, at the start of the season, this system was missing on about 25 gamesper week, but now its only missing on about 18. So its learning, which Makes it interesting enough for me to continue tracking it.Question: Is 35% success rate better than a 30% success rate?

A: Not necesarily

Pete Palmer Zero-Sum method (not the official title, but its how I learned it

42The batting average for the entire National League is typically about .270. As a percentage it indicates that a batter gets a base hit 27% of the time that he registers an official at bat. Now say Doug hits .350 (7 for 20), Jerry hits .300 (60 for 200). Many argue that we should focus not on the average, but on the difference between expected hits and actual hits.Example: Batting averagesNow, Doug has 20 at bats. The average player hits .270, so that if Doug had average performance, we would expect him to have 20 * .27 = 5.4 hits. But he actually has 7 hits, so he is 1.6 hits better than the average player. Jerry has 100 at bats. The average player with 100 at bats should have 100 * .270 = 27 hits. But Jerry has 30 hits, so he is 3 hits above average. Lower BA, but lifts his team above average by a slight margin.Heres another way to look at this. Doug is currently 7 for 20. In order for him to reach Jerrys level of achievement, 30 for 100, he must get 23 hits in his next 80 bats. But 23 for 80 produces a batting average of 23/80 = .2875. So in order for Doug to reach Jerry, he must maintain a pace that is above average. This means Jerrys performance to date is better.Best film directors of the last decade.12) Paul GreengrassHighlights: Bloody Sunday, United 93, The Bourne Ultimatum

Now we will apply this method in a couple of settings.

11) David FincherHighlights: Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Social Network

10) Tim BurtonHighlights: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Alice in Wonderland

9) Pedro AlmodovarHighlights: Talk to Her, Bad Education, Volver

8) Richard LinkaterHighlights: School of Rock, Before Sunset, A Scanner Darkly

7) Steven SpielbergHighlights: Catch Me If You Can, War of the Worlds, Munich

6) Michael MooreHighlights: Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 911, Capitalism: A Love Story

5) Guy Maddin (You got acquainted with his work at the start of the lecture.)Highlights: Cowards Bend the Knee, Brand Upon the Brain, My Winnipeg

4) Werner HerzogHighlights: Grizzly Man, Encounters at the End of the World, Into the Abyss

3) Clint EastwoodHighlights: Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima

2) Alex GibneyHighlights: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Dark Side, Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer

1) Martin ScorseseHighlights: No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, The Departed, Shutter Island

57Notice, again, no women.25 Bob Dylan 24 Low 23 Four Tet 22 Destroyer 21 Animal Collective Greatest Musical Artists of the last Decade20 The National 19 The White Stripes 18 Dizzee Rascal 17 Nick Cave 16 Iron and Wine 15 The Arcade Fire 14 Spoon 13 Elbow 12 TV On the Radio 11 Super Furry Animals 10 Bruce Springsteen 9 Wilco 8 Sufjan Stevens 7 Bonnie "Prince" Billy 6 The Hold Steady 5 Kanye West4 LCD Soundsystem 3 The Roots 2 Tom Waits 1 Drive-By Truckers Pairwise comparison iterative ranking

I regret to inform the management of the theater that the stage play scheduled for this portion of the lecture has been unavoidably cancelled.

Lets go to the spreadsheet.The Primary Method641 Del Shannon - Runaway 2 Lawrence Welk - Calcutta 3 Ricky Nelson - Travelin' Man 4 Adele - Rolling In The Deep 5 Elvis Presley - SurrenderSongs656 Elvis Presley - Are You Lonesome Tonight 7 Wiz Khalifa - Black And Yellow 8 Ray Charles - Hit The Road Jack 9 Marcels - Blue Moon 10 Bobby Lewis - Tossin' And Turnin'Songs1 Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877) 2 John F. Kennedy (1961-1963) 3 Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) 4 Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865) 5 Harry S Truman (1945-1953)Presidents676 Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) 7 Gerald Ford (1974-1977) 8 Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) 9 Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) 10 Barack Obama (2009-present)Presidents39 James Buchanan (1857-1861) 40 Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929) 41 Bill Clinton (1993-2001) 42 George W. Bush (2001-2009)43 Warren G. Harding (1921-1923)Presidents (Bottom 5)1 glass 2 defibrillator 3 oil well 4 toothbrush 5 alphabet 6 steel, stainless 7 printing press, movable type 8 microscope, electron 9 lock and key 10 motor, electricInventions701 Macbeth 2 Hamlet 3 The Tempest 4 King Lear 5 Julius Caeser 6 Romeo and Juliet 7 A Midsummer Night's Dream 8 Antony and Cleopatra 9 The Taming of the Shrew 10 Measure for MeasureShakespeare71lust 100 wrath 64.70599 gluttony 55.3253 sloth 46.04973 pride 42.87668 greed 20.08312 envy 0Seven Deadly Sins72How it will workThe Order of Everything73Doug Loves MoviesOpportunities in the real world

74You can follow them on my blog Gaughin.edublogs.org

Its been slow since October, but will pick up again.If you are interested in the ongoing ranking projectsAgainst type, I am going to step out on a limb and rank one last thing that will undermine my legendary low self-esteem.

Final Item76During the fall semester, I was surprised to win an award from my favorite student organization. I mentioned this award earlier in the lecture. Having mentioned that, I am now ready to declare unequivocallyRanking of Gnosis Spirit Warrior Award Winners1) dave vinsonRanking of Gnosis Spirit Warrior Award Winners1) dave vinson

(for now)Ranking of Gnosis Spirit Warrior Award Winners