NFL 2009-2010 Summary Rank of "Toughness" by Division and Conference

Before the Super Bowl, I decided to run some numbers on the NFC/AFC rankings from the 2009 season. If anyone has any questions about how I got the numbers, feel free to ask.

Points are 'rank' of each team per conference/divison:

Offense
NFC (270 pts)
AFC (258 pts)

Defense
AFC (270 pts)
NFC (258 pts)

Summary about conferences: offenses in the NFC seem to edge the AFc, and vice versa with defense. 

Note: One of my columns of data was Points scored per game, and points allowed per game. There are 8 defenses that are considered 'outliers', and 13 offenses considered 'outliers' in the NFL in 2009. I did not remove outliers from my rankings below.

Division rankings notable divisions: according to the same ranking system applied, the NFL divisions rank like this (in order of best to worst):

offense

NFCE (89 pts)
AFCS (89 pts)
NFCN (72 pts)
NFCS (68 pts)
AFCE (62 pts)
AFCN (56 pts)
AFCW (51 pts)
NFCW (41 pts)

defense

AFCN (89 pts)
NFCE (88 pts)
AFCE (79 pts)
NFCN (75 pts)
AFCW (53 pts)
NFCS (52 pts)
AFCS (49 pts)
NFCW (43 pts)

notes: According to the ranks, the NFC East totals 177 pts, the toughest division this year. The NFC West totals 84 pts, making it the worst division this year. Bolded divisions are IND and NO divisions.

Overall rank in "toughness":

1. NFC East
2. NFC North
3. AFC North
4. AFC South
5. AFC East
6. NFC South
7. AFC West
8. NFC West

Posted via email from bryanized

On embryonic and adult stem cells. An analogy.

Let us take a long journey down an analogous path:

Consider embryonic stem cells to be baby human, and adult stem cells are an adult human.
And let's say the human body (where the stem cell transplant will take place) is analogous to dictatorship-run society.

I choose a dictatorship because has its own strict set of current ideals and cultures, under the control of "the man", and may allow immigration but expectedly, they must perform under the rules and regulations provided to them.

A) As a baby transplanted, he will assimilate into the country very easily, and likely develop similar cultures to his surroundings, such as whatever rap music, weed, and Kennedy Fried Chicken is available. He will go to whatever school is available to him. If there isn't one, he likely will not. Basically, he will grow up like you and I grew up - if you were born in America. For example, if it was Venezuela, he will likely idolize Hugo Chavez and listen to him talk on the TV every Friday night.

As he grows up, he may change his ideals to match those of his ancestors. He may start to learn about his family. His past, his history, the history before him. He may start to dislike everything about himself and his surroundings. He may become a little irate. He may become a cancer to his current society. He may become cancer.

B)As an adult transplanted to this dictator-ship (and for argument's sake, the adult is from India), he will not easily accept change in his life. He will likely bring over his current and past set of ideals. His past memories. If it were Venezuela, he will likely be less willing to listen to Hugo Chavez on TV, or if it were America, less interested in watching American Idol, or if it were France, may want to work more than 35 hours per week.

And in each instance, the adult will be viewed upon as 'different' in society. He may be rejected by the society of a dictatorship. He may be rejected.

Posted via email from bryanized

On the opposite of the English prefix "meta-"

Analogies and metaphors are two of my favorite things in writing and conversation. There are times when I lose myself trying to think up funny and witty statements that contradict themselves and make me think twice. I figure that I'll have an entire collection of things to bring up at lunchtime to crack a joke with the daily crew, but I digress.

As an unprofessional writer, I learned a new word today: catachresis. It is what you write when you combine an analogy with a metaphor; as if, your goal is to deliberately misuse a word in order to create a metaphor with a little wit. When overused, a catachresis can become a replacement for the regular word used to describe a scenario, as seen in slang or with nicknames.

Examples:

    - My illness is so chronic that my doctor's mediations did jack and shit.
    - Last night, it was a bloated moon.
    - Shirley eats so much junk that I've started calling her Surly.

So, here I am, thinking of synonyms, antonyms, similes, metaphors, etc.; and I started with the figure of speech words themselves for wordplay. Metaphor can be changed around as a catechresis, but I couldn't think of a funny change to the prefix 'meta-' to worth my while.

'Meta-', it turns out, is defined as 'all encompassing', 'ambient', 'higher level', so as to have some underlying meaning. The word metaphor could be played off with 'ur-'aphor, as in the 'aboriginal', 'original' (coincidentally), 'first level' ... '-aphor'.

Now, we're talking geek speak.

What is the opposite of meta?

When you describe an idea as 'meta-something', as in metadata or metaphysical, you're saying that it is a part of that stem-word.

If we want to say that something isn't a part of the stem-word, do we say "protophysical"? "Urdata"? "Non-metaphysical"? Sounds too weird.

In slang, being 'meta' is 'being cool', like you're 'with the in crowd'. We could go by that... and say it's uncool to be physical. But that wouldn't be right.

I'm stumped, that's all.

</thoughts>

Posted via email from bryanized