3 hits and a paper

1. Guilty: Wow -- Belichick and the Patriots have been fined pretty severely, along with having draft picks removed. That's pretty remarkable. The thing that gets me is, what did he think it would gain him? One or two plays of 50-60 where they'd know what was coming? I think there are also too many variables that a defense can throw at a quarterback (# of rushers/defenders, blitz/cover, up the left/right/middle) that could be changed up. In addition, defenses have two defenses against signal stealing: decoy signals (decreasing signal/noise ratio) and the wristband (an encoded key). There would have to be a great deal of legwork for this to work, IMO.

I honestly don't believe that this would have helped the Patriots, but just like everything the Patriots have done over the past five years -- hey, it's New England. They must know something that I don't.

2. Cyclical?: The last time that signals played a big role in the NFL was the '03 Superbowl, where Jon Gruden coached the Bucs against the team that he formerly coached, the Oakland Raiders. Apparently, the Raiders failed to change their signals from the year before (those signals installed by Gruden!!!OMG!!) and the game ended with 5 Oakland turnovers and 4 interceptions off Rich Gannon. [Let's also not forget the extenuating circumstance of the Raiders' starting center deciding that SB week was a good week to visit Tijuana rather than practice.] That was also the last time the NFC won a Superbowl in recent years and only the 2nd time in the last 10 SBs. The time before that was the Rams' 1-yard victory over the Titans in 2000.

The NFC/AFC thing is supposed to be cyclical. Uh, well, it's going to take quite a bit of 'reverting to the mean' for the cycle to go all the way back, i.e. 8 NFC wins in the next 10 Superbowls. Maybe this Belichick thing is the start -- who knows? I think the balance of power has shifted and "the market" has failed. (OMG! The pseudo-libertarian speaks heresy!)

3. Mental/physical: My wife has accused me of being a "Peyton Manning lover". While I may not luuurve Manning, I do admire him for seemingly mastering the mental aspect of the game of football, more so than any QB of our era (post-Elway). Here's the question I have for the football fans in the audience: has he mastered the physical aspect as well? Let's lay aside the dancing feet and the occasional quacking throw. I have an answer -- I'd like to hear yours first.

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Interesting paper of the week: Soloshonok, Hisanori Ueki, Manabu Yasumoto, Shekar Mekala, Jennifer S. Hirschi, and Daniel A Singleton, JACS, ASAP.

If I haven't read the conclusion wrong (and maybe I have), they're arguing that vacuum drying could have an effect on enantiomeric excess. [A 'kinetic resolution' effect on sublimation of mixtures of solid enantiomers.] Hmmm. Man, nothing beats a good Mosher's though, huh? Don't forget to run it to completion! ;)