Well, I am an English major who learned programming and started a technology shop I have been running for the last 10 years.

During that time, I have had programmers working for me with CS degrees, but also with degrees in law, economics, theater, criminal justice, business, political science, and other pursuits.

We build websites and CRM systems using open source content management systems. To be honest, the people who have worked out best over the years came to programming from another background. The people that have really thrived have tended to be lawyers, they are able to apply logic on the fly.

No, you pay Comcast for internet access at UP TO X speed. It's all in your contract, they promise nothing.

While it's not a solution most people want to consider, pumping sulfuric acid into the atmosphere would counter act the green house effect. But it's sort of the "old lady who swallowed the fly" issue since we then would need to figure out what to do about all the acid rain.

But that would mean the people stealing phones where doing things that were illegal, and that would be BREAKING THE LAW!

Look at it this way. The HR person will have two stacks of resumes. One for people with a degree and one for people without. Odds are the only time they'll delve into the non-degree pile is if they find no one in main stack to fill the position. This isn't to say you MUST have a degree to get a job. I lack one and have been employed for a long time. But I'm realizing that as my age gets up there, it will be desirable to get one for my next job.

what they'll do is take the design, and implement a very cheap poorly implemented knock off. No real threat in my opinion...

Do people really not read these things. No subletting is a common clause.

http://www.sfrb.org/index.aspx?page=1040

Well, it says 5 years ago, they would not be a team you would expect. I still say it's the Cubs, and yeah, this is just a guess. But I really can't think who else would have a reason to do it.

When I go down the list, here's the teams that have a front office with a strong, expressed interest in Big Data.

- Athletics
- Red Sox
- Cubs
- Padres (Jed Hoyer legacy)

Here are the clubs that are known to have been investing in advanced metrics previously, in some cases at a limited scale.

- Nationals
- Dodgers
- Rays
- Phillies
- Yankees
- Mets

Out of the teams listed above, the Cubs stand out as the one with the strongest support for big data from the front office, and the biggest gap in terms of what they have now. There was an article about Theo recently that talked about the fact they had someone on payroll who would print emails and web pages out for scouts to read, since they were not reading them online. Five years ago, they are one of the last teams I would expect to use metrics in a meaningful way.

I discount the other teams based on the following factors:

- If it was the Yankees, the price tag would be more like $13 million. They don't spend cheap period.

- If it was the Nationals, Davey Johnson would not be in the front office. He has been vocal about not using advanced stats in game-time decisions.

- If it was the Phillies, the system would be less about game time decisions and more about scouting. Their issues with their scouting system are well-known.

- The Rays are all about efficiency and doing the most with what they have. They don't like to acquire free agents, they are about building from within. They are not going to have a lot of historical data about their players for a system like this to chew on. It would not make sense for them to invest in one.

- I could almost see it being the Dodgers, but the Dodgers have a lot on their hands with new television contracts. I doubt they have the bandwidth for an organizational overhaul on top of that. They are focused on marketing, and this plays a role in how they make decisions.

- The Mets continue to struggle financially, and I am not sure they are entirely solvent. I am sure a capital expenditure like this would be something people would have already heard about through the media. It's possible it's something that would need to be approved by a bankruptcy judge.

The teams I simply discount are as follows. I don't see where big data fits into what they are doing. A $500,000 investment in winning requires some kind of organizational commitment to transforming the club overall, which just doesn't jive with the way these teams spend money. They either have systems that already work, or the markets they operate in allow them to make money without winning. I don't see where the impetus for a big, organizational change comes from with these ones.

- Orioles
- Indians
- Twins
- Mariners
- Angels
- Rangers
- Astros
- Marlins
- Pittsburgh
- Braves

That leaves about 11 teams to think about. If there was a wildcard, I would say it's the Twins, simply because Selig owns them and is aware of what Big Data can do.

Yeah, and the Red Sox has Tessie. I don't think they are in the market for a replacement.

My best guess is it's the Cubs.

They are looking for minority investors in the club right now, and the cost of ballpark improvements is a smoke screen for taking on the cost of big data. Theo has not been the same without Tessie, and it's not cheap to recreate the analysis that system is capable of performing.

I really wonder what the value of such a system is compared to updating / refining Nate Silver's PECOTA odds to play out hypothetical teams and transactions over a 5 year period. There is so much data available about players at this point, it's almost possible to predict regressions on a macro level.

> isn't something that usually gets tested.

I bet it does now, and competent developers *do* test corner cases.

It is the reference. Time is relative, we use these atomic clocks to set standards for comparison.

Ah yes... I remember those. I had to buy an external Mac drive for the company I was with at the time and couldn't for the life of me think of a reason the "Mac" version cost more money. So I got the "PC" version and when it arrived, it was preformatted for Macintosh. Fun times.

This can only be a good thing as every game I install these days also installs the redistribution files for .net.

Yea, it's a neat project, and I am somewhat tempted to back the project. I just wouldn't call the end result a laptop in the general sense.