Sorry, but this is going to be an extremely aimless post.

 

Since I resumed posting on Tuesday the 10th, Disaffected Musings has received its first views ever from the countries of Malta and Mauritius. For reasons unknown I have long had a fascination with the former, a tiny island European country in the Mediterranean that is 50 miles south of Italy and 175 miles east of the African country of Tunisia.

My wonderful wife’s parents have actually been to Malta (and to Tunisia) during a cruise in the Mediterranean. Who knows when traveling will be “normal” again and who knows if we have the stamina to make the trip, but part of me would love to visit Malta.

Mauritius is an island nation in the Indian Ocean more than 1,000 miles off the southeast coast of Africa. I can’t remember where I was or when this happened (Luxembourg in 2014?), but I once met a former foreign minister of the country. It is the only African country where Hinduism is the largest religion, but is really only loosely a part of Africa given its distance from the continent.

From Wikipedia, maps showing the location of Malta (top) and Mauritius (bottom):

 

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Despite my being a father of Moneyball, I have no interest in baseball, anymore. I do, however, still have some interest in the NFL and, as such, interest in pro football statistics. Below is a table of my ranking of the passing effectiveness of NFL quarterbacks through Week 9 with enough passes to qualify (14+ per team game). The recent Thursday night game between the Colts and the Titans is not included. “TOTSC” means total score.

 

	TOTSC	RANK
Patrick Mahomes KC	2.72	1
Aaron Rodgers GB	2.16	2
Deshaun Watson HOU	1.90	3
Derek Carr LV	1.76	4
Josh Allen BUF	1.49	5
Dak Prescott DAL	1.45	6
Ryan Tannehill TEN	1.40	7
Matt Ryan ATL	1.18	8
Drew Brees NO	1.09	9
Justin Herbert LAC	0.93	10
Russell Wilson SEA	0.79	11
Teddy Bridgewater CAR	0.73	12
Nick Mullens SF	0.53	13
Jared Goff LAR	0.17	14
Joe Burrow CIN	-0.04	15
Ben Roethlisberger PIT	-0.12	16
Matthew Stafford DET	-0.12	17
Kyler Murray ARI	-0.13	18
Lamar Jackson BAL	-0.14	19
Philip Rivers IND	-0.20	20
Gardner Minshew JAX	-0.32	21
Tom Brady TB	-0.49	22
Kirk Cousins MIN	-0.91	23
Jimmy Garoppolo SF	-0.96	24
Ryan Fitzpatrick MIA	-0.99	25
Dwayne Haskins WSH	-1.13	26
Cam Newton NE	-1.55	27
Baker Mayfield CLE	-1.78	28
Nick Foles CHI	-1.90	29
Drew Lock DEN	-2.14	30
Daniel Jones NYG	-2.37	31
Carson Wentz PHI	-3.32	32
Sam Darnold NYJ	-3.37	33

 

TOTSC has a correlation coefficient of about .9 with the “official” NFL passer rating system. My system (and theirs) does not pretend to measure leadership, the ability to audible to a better play, running capability or anything else except passing productivity. These metrics are not adjusted for strength of schedule, although they could be. The quality of talent surrounding the quarterback and his system fit are not measured, either.

What is TOTSC? Well, I’ll just tell you that despite the farce that is fantasy football, the two individual stats that matter the most for a quarterback are Yards Per Attempt and Interceptions. (Once again, fantasy football is well-named because it bears little or no resemblance to the real thing.) TOTSC is simply the sum of a measure of a QB’s performance in those two areas compared to the league mean and dispersion.

If you’re a New York football fan this chart might make you ill, but again, neither team has a collection of great talent and Saquan Barkley’s injury has really hurt the Giants. If you’re an Eagles fan you are similarly upset, no doubt.

You may have noticed that only 14 of the 33 players have a TOTSC greater than zero. Here is a truth that may be hard for most of you to understand: in pro sports, there are more players below average than above average. If you’re thinking that’s not possible, whether you know it or not you are assuming that the talent level in pro sports leagues is normally distributed. I can assure you it is not.

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More statistics, this time about this blog. The average number of comments per post doubled from 2018 to 2019 and has basically doubled again in 2020. I am very happy with the increased participation.

The average number of likes per post tripled from 2018 to 2019, but has “only” increased by 40 percent from 2019 to 2020. If you can, please make an effort to formally “Like” posts using the Like button. Thanks. Once again, time for the commercial: Please feel free to tell your friends about the blog and to pass along the URL (https://disaffectedmusings.com), please feel free to click on any (or all) of the related posts at the bottom of each post, please feel free to “Like” any post and to submit thoughtful comments and please feel free to click on any ad in which you have genuine interest.

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On this day a year ago, Ferrari introduced a new model, the Roma. From Luxury Launches a picture of the car:

 

 

OK, so the exterior bears a resemblance to the Jaguar F-Type coupe, so what? Where the car sits in the Ferrari hierarchy is unclear to me as it is priced as sort of an “entry-level” Ferrari (is that phrase an oxymoron?), but that niche is/was supposed to be held by the Portofino.

The Roma is powered by a twin-turbo 3.9 liter V-8 producing 612 HP/561 LB-FT of torque and is coupled to a dual-clutch, automated manual 8-speed transmission. When I see a car like the Roma or the Portofino or the Daytona or the 330 GTC, etc. it is very difficult to get my head around the fact that Ferrari produced the FF, which I think is exceedingly ugly.

Where can I buy lottery tickets around here… 🙂

 

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#FerrariRoma

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