well done sri lanka!

we, sri lankans, are proud of our achievements as participants, hosts, and fans, of icc cricket world cup 2011.

wish all the best for our team in today's final against india in mumbai!

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my twitter - http://twitter.com/sittingnut
this blog's twitter - http://twitter.com/llibertarian

cricket world cup predictions before tournament meaningless +bookie odds

i don't get ppl (esp the so called experts) who make predictions about who will win the icc cricket world cup.

i am not referring to ppl who wish and hope their favorite team will win, but ppl who make 'serious' predictions. anyone who knows cricket knows that luck plays a big part in the game, as much as capabilities of players and teams.

in fact one can define cricket as a game where result depends on how each team cope with turns of the wheel of fortune through a match.

some teams (like australia is recent past, but not at present) were good at coping with anything dealt, so in last two world cups it was safe to predict to a certain extent.

once the tournament starts to progress, we can judge each team's current coping abilities, then predictions will make more sense.

so i am not going to predict while wishing the best for sri lankan team.

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btw for what its worth (and given that these ppl bet actual cash, that 'worth' in not negligible) here is a screenshot (from oddschecker.com taken just before this post) for odds offered by various bookmakers for winner.

click to enlarge
sri lanka is second favorite with 1 in 4.5 to 1 in 5.6 chance of winning.

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my twitter - http://twitter.com/sittingnut
this blog's twitter - http://twitter.com/llibertarian

"world cup" - google fail

almighty goog's search algorithm sucks.

do a search for 'world cup' from google.lk (to which all searchers from sri lanka are automatically directed) and confirm.

even though 2011 icc cricket world cup is upon us and sri lankans do not care much for soccer, of the first 10 web results, 8 are for fifa world cup, 1 (at no 10) is for rugby. only the 6th is for icc world cup (tournament schedule from official site hosted by yahoo).

as you can see from the screenshot (click to enlarge ) news results are better.
image results shitty.


google.co.in is only marginally better. instead of 6th, official cricket world cup site is at no 1 (one cannot but suspect that results produced by algorithm were overridden to insert this at no 1; google has done this in past notably to counteract google bombs) and wikipedia's entry for 2011 icc world cup also puts in an appearance lower down, but rest is for fifa.

other search engines (yahoo, bing, etc.) are no better.

if this is the case for "world cup" imagine the quality of results for other searches by south asians.

if google does not wise up, there is a business opportunity here for some one else. remember that google was a latecomer to search, others like infoseek (now unrecognizable as go.com), altavista etc., which once dominated, failed bc they couldn't produce the results ppl were searching for. google is already falling behind in east asia.

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my twitter - http://twitter.com/sittingnut
this blog's twitter - http://twitter.com/llibertarian

nice guys finish first?

"nice guys finish last, i should know."

says bit character betty finn in 1989 cult classic "heathers".

i don't know, and not just because i am not a nice guy.

it seems fifa has sort of invalided the popular 'wisdom'; spain, which came first in the recent world cup, also got the 'nice guys' award (known as fair play ward) for getting least amount of red and yellow cards of teams that got through to 2nd stage.

hmmmmm...

makes one wonder whether it is still true that "real life suck losers dry" or whether we "have to learn to fly", "to fuck with the eagles"? were my flying lessons a total waste?

;-)

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my twitter - http://twitter.com/sittingnut
this blog's twitter - http://twitter.com/llibertarian