Beverly Cleary (2) vs. A. J. Foyt; Chvátil advances

From yesterday, Jonathan succinctly summarizes the case for Fawkes.

Chvátil makes the rules, Fawkes breaks the rules. Making is harder, but breaking is the rock to its scissors.

+1 for the rosham reference.

Raghu makes the case based on audience interest. I’ll have to share his whole story here:

A few years ago, my [Raghu’s] younger son made a diorama of the houses of parliament with space below for Guy Fawkes’ gunpowder for an elementary school assignment in which they had to say something about a holiday. I took a photo of this. This is of interest, of course, to no one but me. However: I thought about this today and wanted to find the photo; I couldn’t remember when it was taken. I typed the word “cardboard” into Google Photos and, like magic, it came up (along with about 10 other photos I’ve taken of cardboard in its many manifestations). Squabbling about AI comes up a lot on this blog, hence this comment. I was stunned, even though I know how this works. The cleverness of machine learning algorithms and the sheer volume of training data is really amazing.

+1 for referring to recent blog discussions.

And Anonymous gives a strong argument against Chvátil:

If I asked a bunch of people who created code names, half of them would say: “Is it on Netflix?” and the other half would say no. There would be one guy who would say “Vladimir something” and a tiny percentage of people who would no. All in all, Guy Fawkes would be interesting while Vladimir is so overrated.

But . . . how can Vladimir be overrated if almost nobody has heard of him? You can’t have it both ways, Anon!

The deciding comment, though, comes from bbis:

Rules are made to be broken and rulers to be blown up. One suggestion would be to go with ‘da bomb’. While that might be a blast, it would probably end too quickly. Also, if you want to be a guy outstanding in your field and invited to give important seminars, you shouldn’t be tunneling under London. Chvatil may be able to discuss how to get a good balance between rigidity and flexibility in rules to get good outcomes.

I’d like to hear about that balance! Also, yeah, tunneling under London, not cool for a seminar.

Today’s matchup

The Sage of Klickitat Street vs. an Indy racing legend. Beverly Cleary was one of the longest-lived famous people ever; A. J. Foyt could drive really really fast. Neither of these things is particularly relevant for a seminar, but both of them would probably have some good stories to share.

Again, here are the announcement and the rules.

5 thoughts on “Beverly Cleary (2) vs. A. J. Foyt; Chvátil advances

  1. Foyt was known as Indy car driver, but he won 7 NASCAR races as well, as well as LeMans. That’s the sort of diversity you’re looking for in a speaker, right?

    Also, since he’s still alive, he might live longer than Beverly Cleary; in other words, her status as a long-lived famous person only probabilistically exceeds Foyt’s chances in a right-censored distribution sense, so her xomparison there needs to be discounted. And he’s one tough dude when it comes to longevity: https://www.sportscasting.com/a-j-foyt-horrific-crash/

    • I was leaning Foyt for the racing stories. Racing seems like a thing of the past. There are so many cars around these days and I don’t wanna get run over by someone hotrodding! Listening to racing stories as some sort of nostalgia trip seems about right.

      Then I learned Beverly Cleary authored the Mouse and the Motorcycle — a definitive autosports book! A. J. Foyt may be a real racer, but as a consumer I’m more interested in racing as a fantasy. Beverly Cleary has a better track record here.

      • Even if you count a motorcycle racing as autosport (which it should be etymylogically, but isn’t) 1-0 is not a better track record; she might have just gotten lucky.

        • It’s not 1-0, it’s 3-0; Cleary wrote three books about the motorcycle-riding Ralph S. Mouse.
          Though it’s been a long time since I read them, I am certain that any book in the trilogy is much more entertaining than any car race. I would also bet that stories about the writing of the books would be more entertaining than stories about car races.

  2. Ramona & Beezus all the way!! I read the books to both our girls when they were little and they were so much fun to read. Anyone who can provide this level of entertainment will wow the seminar audience. I can see the next book title with clarity, “Ramona Gives a Speech.”

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