I was looking for a WBB version of BracketMatrix and couldn't find any, so I fired up Codex and made one myself. (It’ll update every few hours until Selection Sunday, but not much will change now.) I'll plan to host it properly next season, but for now it’s here: whitakk.github.io/wbb-bracket-...

the funniest scenario for leaving ichiro off the ballot is just someone from cleveland who’s still mad about the quote and has been waiting for revenge. if that’s the case, respect

Late to this but apparently that "black spatulas will kill you" paper that went viral had a math error overstating the effect by 10x statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/12/13/h...

The teen pager scare, what Cookie Monster's cookies are really made of, why LEGO advertises pre-made sets now, and more things I learned this year: kaleidoscopemind.substack.com/p/52-things-...

52 things I learned in 2024

1 | Mice don't particularly like cheese. They're known for eating it because they could easily find it aging uncovered in cellars, but exterminators say their favorite food is actually peanut butter.

kaleidoscopemind.substack.com

19 of the last 20 men's soccer final four teams have come from Power 6 conferences - what happened in 2024 to get this chaos?

In the 2022-23 Ivy League Xaivian Lee and Danny Wolf (both listed in this week's BR NBA mock draft) averaged 20.7 minutes and 7.4 points *combined*

one of the few decent pieces I’ve seen about emotional labor that’s actually targeted at men (the ones who tend to need it): archive.ph/SbMCo

Rutgers isn’t as good as Seton Hall but this win was more impressive since it didn’t require bananas three-point shooting. Thought Princeton would fall to third in the league without St Rose, but so far they’ve looked just fine. bsky.app/profile/adam...

Adam Zielonka@adamzielonka.bsky.social · 2y ago

For the Trentonian, I talked with Carla Berube & Fadima Tall about how Princeton is doing in the aftermath of Madison St. Rose's ACL tear. "We want to give her another ring for another Ivy League championship," Tall said. "... Maddie’s always right there with us." www.trentonian.com/2024/11/24/p...

No surprise but a major bummer. Offense was great in a win at Seton Hall without her, but built on an unsustainable 12-19 3P%, and they’ll face a brutal schedule through the end of this year. bsky.app/profile/jenn...

Jenn Hatfield@jennhatfield.bsky.social · 2y ago

Princeton announces that guard Madison St. Rose is out for the season after tearing her ACL at Quinnipiac. She was expected to be an Ivy League Player of the Year candidate & started the season strong, averaging 17.0 points & 7.3 rebounds. @thenext.bsky.social goprincetontigers.com/news/2024/11...

I wrote about Baseball's Copacabana Shot, the breakout star of the postseason pebblehunting.substack.com/p/baseballs-...

Baseball's Copa Shot

The underrated breakout star of the postseason.

pebblehunting.substack.com

Famous books about world-changing organizations reveal some common patterns of innovation - and Skunk Works shows how those can be broken: kaleidoscopemind.substack.com/p/rules-and-...

Rules (and exceptions) of innovation

The "Silicon Valley canon" includes lots of stories of small groups that created big things. One of these is not like the others.

kaleidoscopemind.substack.com

Scoring in men's college basketball is the best it's been in 30 years. Why? My theories ($): -Continued erasure of charge calls -Coaches being younger and more analytically-friendly -Crashing the boards is BACK open.substack.com/pub/statsbyw...

Scoring is the best it's been in men's college basketball in 30 years. Why?

Questions with questionably easy answers

open.substack.com

this somewhat changed my view of the "true" state of the economy in 2024: jzmazlish.substack.com/p/yes-inflat...

Yes, inflation made the median voter poorer

I began writing this post the morning of Wednesday November 6th 2024 — the morning after the US election, where Donald Trump won a reasonably close yet nonetheless resounding victory over Kamala Harri...

jzmazlish.substack.com

Drop the Monty Hall Problem into any group of people and they’ll collapse into infighting and talking past each other. What makes this particular puzzle so hard to explain? open.substack.com/pub/kaleidos...

Why the Monty Hall problem is confounding

When I was in eighth grade, I became obsessed with a card game called Killer Bunnies, spending an embarrassing amount of time on a fan forum about its mechanics and strategy.

open.substack.com

How geometry can help you care for babies, the mysterious health benefits of ice cream, and other things I learned last year: kaleidoscopemind.substack.com/p/52-things-...

52 things I learned in 2023

How geometry explains caring for babies, the mysterious health benefits of ice cream, and 50 other things I learned this year.

kaleidoscopemind.substack.com