Photos / Bridge and Bay panoramas

The weather has been getting nicer, so I've been jumping at any chance to ride my bike. Last Thursday morning, I rode across the Golden Gate Bridge and up into the Marin Headlands as the sun was coming up, and I stopped to take some photos as it was peeking above the horizon.

When I was going through the results, I realized that the individual pictures didn't really do justice to the moment, so I poked around the Internet looking for something better than Photoshop's stitching utility. Autostitch to the rescue! It's simple, straightforward, and it instantaneously produces panoramas without discernible seams even with just a few pictures.




(I was so intrigued by the above results that I decided to try it with cellphone pictures). Last Saturday, we had a picnic at Kirby Cove, a little valley on the Marin side of the bridge. It was foggy and cold for the first hour or so, but then it started to burn off and I took some photos with my little cell phone camera. Once again, Autostich worked magic on it. Here's to technology!

March Madness / My bracket, with explanations

UPDATE 1: A couple of changed picks; UPDATE 2: Some eerie resemblances my bracket and those of SI writers; UPDATE 4: Surveying the carnage: Thoughts after the first two rounds

Here's the bracket that I made on the Monday after the seedings were announced.





UPDATE: Since Monday, I've been spending a lot of time reading up on the teams I don't know/care about -- in SI.com and its Tourney Blog, statistical analyst Ken Pomeroy's blog, the NYT Bracket blog, and the ever-unfriendly ESPN.com which must hide a lot of its useful stuff behind its subscription service, Insider. In any case, the more you read about the first round match-ups, the more confusing it all gets. I've seen many of the teams play at some point during the season, but I'm totally in the dark on pretty much any team from the Pac 10 (even though I live in California, I just really can't even force myself to care about it) and almost all of the mid-majors.

One bracket change came out of this -- I can't believe I'm saying this, but Duke seems less likely to get upset by VCU. Duke has been criticized a lot for being soft, sloppy, and generally uninspired, and they're coming off a stinging loss in the ACC Tournament. How could they not be hungry? They've got a bunch of talented players, and it just seems really unlikely that they won't be able to pull off a win against a VCU team that has only played one team in the tournament (Old Dominion).

While I've only changed one outcome, my reading did produce many doubts in my bracket, which I detail below. (It also caused me to create three more versions of my bracket to account for the different scenarios that the pundits highlighted -- What if Oregon can't play defense? What if Oden explodes on the scene and dominates everyone? What if North Carolina is as good as they appear to be in 3-minute stretches?)




UPDATE 2: Incidentally, SI writer Grant Wahl's bracket is almost exactly the same as mine. (Actually, same with Seth Davis). Same Final Four; same final game; same outcome. The only big differences are that he has Texas beating UNC (UPDATE 3: Now, so do I), and Creighton beating Memphis, whereas I have both UNC and Memphis getting knocked out in the next round. (I also have more first-round upsets than him ... Oral Roberts over Washington State, etc).

UPDATE 4 (in the week following the first two rounds): After two straight years in which my bracket burst into flames during the first weekend, I was just happy to emerge with 15 out of 16 teams still alive. Mostly, I got burned by my late changes -- Texas beating UNC and Duke beating VCU -- and by the fashionable upsets that I stubbornly decided to stick with -- Georgia Tech over UNLV, Creighton over Nevada, and Oral Roberts over Washington State, each of which found their own agonizing way of driving a spear through my heart. Crxp.

As usual, there were a couple of teams that I was totally, totally wrong about: (1) UNLV. Obviously, these guys can play. I discounted them because (a) who did they beat? and (b) the coach's son seemed to play an inordinately important role. Both seemed like big-time red flags. I ignored the fact that they were experienced, and that they were clearly pissed off by their #7 seed. Who would have thought that the team that rose to the occasion would be composed of hard-nosed guys led by journeyman coach Lon Kruger (UNLV), and not composed of McDonald's All-Americans and led by the sainted Coach K? Seemed unlikely before it happened, but oh how sweet it is in retrospect. (2) Texas. During the two Kansas games, they were dangerously weak at guard. Both games would likely have been blow-outs if Durant hadn't totally gone off in the first 15 minutes of each. Abrams is a terrible ball-handler who needs multiple screens to get his shot going, and Augustin is completely dominant one moment and out-of-control the next. USC forced these guys to play a bigger role by taking away Durant's dribble; good call, Tim Floyd. (Didn't really think I'd be saying those words anytime after 2002). On the other bench, Rick Barnes made no discernible adjustments. Again, not that surprising, in retrospect.

The next round looks mostly boring to me, though I guess half the games could be exciting -- UNC-USC, if USC is able to hang on while UNC goes on its periodic runs, A&M-Memphis should display some good offensive firepower (unlike Pitt-UCLA, which almost certainly will be a grind-it-out snore-fest), and KU-SIU which could be exciting if KU has a hard time running its offense against the defense-minded Salukis. Let's hope that it's not exciting in this way.

Online adventures / my Flickr hecklr

Earlier this week, I noticed that there had been a lot of activity on my Flickr photos. Someone named "furgurl" had commented roughly 50 times, and the comments themselves were pretty unusual. Most were lengthy, not the standard "OMG!" or "nice shot!" or whatever. They were also all lower-case, filled with misspellings and weird punctuation, and in almost every instance, pretty cruel. Cruel comments! On Flickr photos! Weird, huh?

The examples above are the only halfway clever comments, and they were the only ones I kept. (Apologies to Nathaniel, Adlai, and my mom's sausage fondue).

The rest focussed on just a few themes: the absence of make-up ("try wearing eye-liner!" was a common refrain when women were in the picture), out-of-date clothing ("was this picture taken in the 70's?" or "who wears THAT?"), beards ("that one is clearly a member of the Taliban"), receding hairlines ("take some of the hair from your face and put it on your head!" appeared in a few places), hair in general (people with curly hair were criticized for curling their hair too much; I was often advised to wash my hair) and the overall perception that no one in any of the pictures had ever been on a date. Lots of them were unintentionally funny in that (a) no rational person would have ever noticed whatever "furgurl" was pointing out, (b) the criticism often betrayed, let's say, a misplaced fixation on superficial stuff, and (c) each included all the makings for a sarcastic comment except the sarcastic tone, which actually kind of made it even more funny.

I didn't really want to delete "furgurl's" comments. On the other hand, I didn't want the heckling to go unanswered. But the problem was that "furgurl" had no Flickr profile, no public photos, and didn't respond to the Flickrmail that I sent. I could handle anonymous public cruelty, really, but only if the playing field was level. She never responded to my message, so I took them down.

Here's where it gets weird, though. When I Googled "furgurl," many of the results involved the same person, one Anne Bartee. (Behold, she has a website). When I clicked around the site, I found this, a letter she wrote to a hypnotherapist/advice columnist in the Tolucan Times. In it, she describes herself as an "international pop artist," and asks some provocative questions:

I've been on TV and radio all over the world, and also in "Billboard" magazine. Can you tell me if there is a link between "bad culture" and public misperception of what is truly good? Rap and hip hop and simplistic drum and bass beats have dominated music for far too long, encouraging the public to embrace yet lower standards. But surely the public cannot believe that this is good music. I wonder; is this an example of the saying, "You can sell them garbage if you paint it gold?"

The tone, not to mention the reasoning, sounds familiar. Here's a tip for all you hip-hop stars: Wash your hair! Try some eyeliner! And wear some fashionable clothes once in a while, for crying out loud! Anne, if you ever read and comment on this, I'm expecting your A-game. Don't pull any punches.

ESPN.com / March (information) madness

To the editors of ESPN.com,

I visit your site every day, multiple times a day. Today, I decided that I've had enough. You need to stop. Whatever you're doing, just STOP.

Years ago, ESPN.com was a useful collection of online sports information. It was relatively easy to navigate, scan and read. Today, it is a dark, sprawling information apocalypse -- the Blade Runner cityscape of websites. Remember that early scene in Blade Runner, where Deckard is reading the newspaper while the ad blimp circles overhead, repeating the words: "A new life awaits you in the Off-World colonies"? That's how I feel when I'm reading ESPN.com. The barrage of ads, news, tickers, scrolling content widgets, opinion, commentary, analysis, whatever it is that Scoop Jackson writes, and teasers for upcoming events on your cable network is an absolute mess, the kind of mess that makes CNBC seem Tufte-esque in comparison.

Where did you go wrong? Years ago, you plastered that huge banner ad across the top. This was annoying, but plenty of sites (used to) do this and I learned to ignore it. Then there was ESPN Motion -- or, as a friend refers to it "ESPN Suck-tion." It's a video player that periodically demands that you stop reading to deal with a video ad or SportsCenter clip it has just begun broadcasting. Over time, you added more and more flashes and distractions -- another banner ad above the content, two levels of tab navigation, multiple areas of periodically refreshing content, and links in the masthead (!). Finally, you modified your pop-up ads so that they defy pop-up blocking software (most of it, anyway).

I have to ask: DO YOU REALIZE THAT THEY ONLY OTHER WEBSITES THAT DO THIS ARE SELLING EITHER PIRATED SOFTWARE OR PORN? Did you guys raid Astalavista to hire your current online product manager? Actually, maybe it was MySpace or CollegeHumor. To be fair to CollegeHumor, though, it could teach ESPN some things about layout and navigation.

Now, for anyone out there who wants to take the first step toward making ESPN readable again, I suggest the following:

1. Download and install Firefox.


2. Install the Adblock add-on


3. Restart Firefox, and subscribe to the first item in the Adblock list of filters


4. Navigate to ESPN.com, observe that all ads have been removed. As the SportsCenter anchors would say, "Victo-ree!"

To the editors of ESPN.com, I simply request that you (a) kill the pop-up ads, (b) tear the homepage apart (and re-assemble it with the idea that it should facilitate access to content, rather than prevent it), (c) take a look at what the NYT has been up to in terms of integrating textual and multimedia content, and (d) don't try to cram every conceivable product onto every page. Simple, right?

Pre-post-season thoughts / Containing Kevin Durant

In a previous post, I suggested that the Kansas defense must "contain" Kevin Durant, thereby implying that Kevin Durant could, in fact, be contained. I said: "he’s going to get 10-15 points no matter what you do," and anything in excess of that was a matter of the opposing team's defense shutting him down. Against Kansas on Saturday, he rattled off 12 points in a row between the 17:41 and the 14:14 marks in the first half, and had 20 points just five minutes later. (Thanks to ESPN's play-by-play for this). And it wasn't like the Texas offense was getting him a lot of open looks: He was burying every shot, no matter who was guarding him and no matter where he was on the court. 22 feet away, Julian Wright's hand in his face: Rattled in. Pulling up from 27 feet at the tail end of a fast break: Swish. Texas didn't even need to run an offense, they just needed to get him the ball and then worry about getting back and playing defense. In the first half, this worked.

In the second half, different story. Two things changed (at least): Brandon Rush was on Durant, rather than Julian Wright. It was hard to say whether Durant just cooled off, or whether Rush cooled him off, but the fact was that he missed 4 of 5 shots before going down with a twisted ankle. Second thing: Another player immediately double-teamed Durant on the perimeter whenever he got the ball, and Texas failed to exploit this for easy low-post baskets. (Nice call by Coach Self. Not sure why he didn't go to this earlier, but I'm just glad that it worked). At the same time, I can't believe Texas couldn't exploit this. I mean, teams must be doing this all the time. Why weren't they able to find Damian James for easy baskets underneath, or Augustin on cuts to the basket? (I share Bill Simmons's assessment of Texas coach Rick Barnes, by the way: "How can you not run more plays for Kevin Durant? Post him up and he has 27 different ways to score. Curl him off picks and he makes 15-footers like they're layups.")

Speaking of bad coaching, I was mystified that Texas didn't start fouling sooner. Kansas wasn't even in the bonus until the 2:20 mark, and Texas didn't start fouling until the 1:18 mark when they were down by 8. RussRob missed the front-end of a one-and-one, and Texas cut the lead to 6. Then, on consecutive possessions, Mario makes one of two; RussRob makes one of two; Julian makes one of two. HEART ATTACK TIME. Instead of a 6-point lead, it's a 3-point lead, and Texas has a chance to tie. This is a huge, huge issue going into the post-season, both for the Hawks chances and my own physical and mental health.

Incidentally, with this in mind, I deeply enjoyed a recent piece by Gene Weingarten about FT shooting: "If I took a year off and practiced all day, every day, I could then defeat the NBA's best free-throw shooter in head-to-head competition" (via kottke).

Big Saturday / KU-UT thoughts and predictions

Watching the Longhorns repeatedly (and ultimately successfully) drive a stake into the heart of Acie Law IV last night, I got to thinking about Saturday's showdown between the Longhorns and the Hawks. (I also penciled in A&M for the Final Four. Is there any team in the nation -- other than UCLA, I guess -- that has such a perfect blend of March-ready qualities -- go-to guy, great defense, grit, gumption? Totally g'ed up). Anyway, here's the big stuff that KU has to address:

Contain Kevin Durant. I know, I know. Obvious. Duh. Everyone tries to do this. But I think Kansas has a chance to succeed. Yes, he's going to get 10-15 points no matter what you do. He'll be everywhere -- around the basket, out on the perimeter, getting put-backs, rolling off picks and taking jumpers. The challenge for the Hawks is to make sure he doesn't get 30-35, to limit the number of open looks he gets on the perimeter, and to make sure that he doesn't get anywhere near a rhythm like he had against Texas Tech (37 points, 23 rebounds). Durant thrives when teams don't have someone who can get in his face when he's away from the basket. At 6'9", he's going to shoot over the kind of guy who will take away the drive, but he's also fast and agile enough to go around most guys his size. All of that said, I think he's going to have problems with KU's long, fast, and highly disruptive defenders -- Julian Wright and Brandon Rush. I think it's totally possible for them to contain him, as long as they stay out of foul trouble.

Disrupt the supply chain. DJ Augustin kept them in the game last night when Durant went into a funk. In many games this year, I've seen him slice through defenses, get to the basket, and generally create the kind of chaos that leads to easy put-backs for Durant. Mario Chalmers, Russell Robinson, and Sherron Collins have to keep him from driving, and complicate his distribution of the ball.

Run them ragged, and don't get beat by AJ Abrams. Or anyone like him. Last year, the relatively quiet Abrams exploded for four three-pointers during a first half run, singlehandedly demoralizing the Hawks. The good news is that, this year, the Longhorn weaponry is far from secret. Abrams, Augustin and Durant play pretty much all game, every game. This is an opportunity for the relatively deep Hawks to be relentless in their defense -- Maybe even press a little? C'mon, Coach. Gimmick defenses have stunned KU twice recently (A&M, OU). Why not break one out once in a while?

Making free throws. The mere thought that this game will come down to free throws makes my stomach hurt. The last five minutes of the Oklahoma game was excruciating in that it almost turned into A&M, Part II. Unfortunately, it's no secret that Kansas can't shoot free throws. They're going to get fouled late in the game; with any luck, Chalmers and Robinson will control the ball and hit their freebies.

Lastly, Collins and Arthur must contribute, and Rush has to get his shots. It's pretty amazing that the Hawks could get by OU without contributions from any of these guys, but there's no way that a win versus Texas is possible without them.