“Nancy” Bill Awaiting Approval by the President

The president is expected to approve a bill today mandating that every rock in the United States larger than 1 cubic inch be painted teal. The so called “Nancy” bill is the brainchild of Nancy Fredrick, a Wisconsin resident who herself was the victim of poor lawn aesthetics. “This bill has given my life meaning for the past two years. Maybe because of our work here, people will no longer have to suffer through long rides through boring gray countryside.”

A provision in the bill has allotted a significant amount of federal funding to the project. Senator Don Williamson, the senior senator from Georgia and chairmen of the senate appropriations committee, is one of the most vocal proponents of the bill. “With an estimated 100,000,000 qualifying rocks in the U.S. and an average cost of government grade teal paint at $20 per rock, this bill represents a significant expenditure. However, we believe that the long term benefits of our plan are well worth the costs. Not only will the money spent on paint come right back into the economy, but the aesthetic improvement to the landscape will have inestimable value to our country.”

An earlier draft of the bill failed to make it through the House just 4 months ago. It called for every rock to be painted green, a stipulation that gained almost unanimous support among the Democrats, but failed to win over even the most liberal Republicans who were united in the support of the color blue. However, just three weeks ago, another draft was created which instead proposed the color teal, equal parts green and blue. This revision of the “Nancy” bill achieved strong bi-partisan support. “I’m proud that people from both sides of the table could come together to make this country stronger” says Senator Williamson.

Though the government has allocated funding to reimburse its citizens 100% of the cost of paint, private property owners are still responsible for getting each rock painted and ensuring that the color remains fresh and bright. Another provision in the bill calls for stiff penalties if property owners fail to color rocks on their property. It recommends a penalty of between 5 and 35 years in prison, depending on number of rocks, the size of the rocks, and the number of people who would see those rocks per day on average. Senator Williamson is sympathetic but unwavering on this point. “We realize that these penalties seem harsh at first, but prospect of not having every rock painted teal is far more loathsome then the prospect of a few troublemakers cooling their heels in our adequate federal prison system.”

A new arm of the executive branch will be created in order to enforce these rock regulations called the Rock Coloration Enforcement Agency (RCEA). It will be given “broad sweeping powers to enforce the national policy on rock coloration and conformity”. Though the initial cost of paint should only be approximately $2 billion, the RCEA will have an annual budget of roughly $3.8 billion, nearly double the one time expenditure of the rock paint. The agency will be authorized to monitor any property which contains rocks using any and all forms of surveillance at its disposal. Joe Hathman, the defacto director of the RCEA, attempts to put citizens’ minds at ease: “Yes, we will know everything about your properties, lives, and your comings and goings. However, rest assured that if you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear from us. Moreover there are only two mechanisms by which third parties can get access to that information. First is through a security breach, but those won’t happen more than once year. Second is through a private sale of your information, and I can personally guarantee that those will only happen for absolute top dollar. Your information is safe in our hands.” This has proven to be the most controversial provision of the final draft and initially provoked the outrage of a few dozen congressmen and senators. However, the detractors of this provision have recently fallen silent and have mostly chosen to abstain rather than have their “no” vote recorded.

Consistency is important in many disciplines, but for this article, I’m writing exclusively about baseball pitchers.

ERA (Earned Run Average) is one of the most common metrics of a pitcher’s individual performance. It is defined as the number of earned runs per 9 innings. In others, a pitcher who gives up 1 run an inning will have an ERA of 9. By way of reference, an ERA below 4 is good, and an ERA below 3 is excellent. An ERA above 5 is bad. An ERA of 9 is beyond bad - it would be among the worst in baseball history.

A guy, let’s call him Neil

Our hypothetic dude ‘Neil’ is a major league relief pitcher. He consistently gives up exactly one earned run every complete inning he pitches. This gives him an ERA of 9.00. By one of the most common metrics we have, Neil is awful, possibly the worst pitcher in the history of baseball. However, such a pitcher would be one of the most respected and feared assets in baseball. Anytime his team reaches a state where their lead (in runs) exceeds the the number of innings remaining to be played, Neil can earn them an automatic win. As a side note, Neil would never actually earn a win for himself if used this way.

Mitigating Factors

There are a few minor problems with this hypothetical. First, it doesn’t account for unearned runs. Though, these are comparatively rare on even a mediocre defensive team, so I feel justified in ignoring them. Secondly, it doesn’t account for inherited runs - this is why I specified “complete innings”. Thirdly, he likely will have at least one decent looking statistic: saves. The majority of his appearances would almost certainly be save situations, and if used properly, he would never blow a save.

Making a Statistic to Capture Consistency

Admittedly, such a statistic might exist without me knowing. However, if one doesn’t exist, I propose it should. A naive approach would be to use the standard deviation of ERA/Game. The main issue is that it’s a hassle to calculate in that it requires individual game data.

There are some internet memes that are so old and passé, it is difficult to remember just how distasteful they were even in their heyday. 

One particular meme that bothered me a great deal is “first post”.  Usually found on popular blogs with an excess of early commenting (e.g. Slashdot), a person would declare “first post!” if he believed his comment to be the first against a particular article. In my experience, only the foulest dregs and attention-starved undesirables would stoop to a “first post”. There were several instances of first posting that annoyed me more than the others.

1. Incorrectly asserting first post. This happened quite often, especially on sites that implement caching and thereby delay the appearance of comments (again, Slashdot is the quintessential example).
2. First post comments that contained nothing else. These annoyed everybody, and in moderated blogs, were usually moderated down into oblivion.
3. First post comments that were masquerading as real comments using some inane groupthink platitudes, which very well might have been templatized:
   

   This is good. I like [Insert Article Title]. Down with Microsoft. By the way, first post!

So here I am, giving as good as I got. In a world with well over 10 million blogs, what overwhelming temerity is required to declare first post? I am such a hypocrite.