/sekimura

Making TypePad Infinite Scroll Page

It looks like pagination is a new marquee tag. Now all hip websites like Twitter, Facebook got a fancy infinite scrolling. Scroll down more, you'll get more tweets, status updates or contents. Just for browsing stuff, scrolling with space key (or petting your shiny trackpad) is good enough for those lazy people.

Currently TypePad provides only paginations on monthly archive pages like http://sekimura.typepad.com/blog/2011/02/index.html. But you can make your own infinite scroll page by following these steps:

* Step 1: Create a new "Page" *

Go to "Compose" page and select "New Page" from Compose pull down menu.

* Step 2: Put base html and save it as "all-archives.html"*

Click "HTML" tab and put html code input area.

Here is html code I used. Replace "blogId" with your own. To find your blogId, go to the dashboard for your blog and look at the URL. You will find something like:

http://www.typepad.com/site/blogs/6a00d8341d3fee53ef010535c8916d970c/dashboard

In this case, 6a00d8341d3fee53ef010535c8916d970c is your blogId.

And then save this page as "all-archives.html" or something relevant to publish it.

* Step 3: Enjoy infinite scrolling *

Go to the page you just created and scrolling down. It will automatically loading more entries when you about to get the bottom of page. Mine is here. http://sekimura.typepad.com/blog/all-archives.html.

TypePad JSON API provides such a powerful way to render your contents. Go to the page and find more fun! http://www.typepad.com/services/apidocs

Sumo match-fix scandal and Freakonomics

In this weekend, I've got asked about sumo match-fix scandal and realized that the news spreads the world over and people outside Japan are also interested in. I said to my friend "they have been doing that and media keep on hiding the fact. So, it's no surprise to me". After checking some blogs, I found out that a controversial book, Freakonomics by Levitt, mentioned sumo wrestlers are match rigging. I haven't read the book yet but there's a pdf file of his paper about corruption in sumo wrestling. Some quotes here:

The key institutional feature of sumo wrestling that makes it ripe for corruption is the existence of a sharp nonlinearity in the payoff function for competitors. A sumo tournament (basho) involves 66 wrestlers (rikishi) participating in 15 bouts each. A wrestler who achieves a winning record (eight wins or more, known as kachi-koshi) is guaranteed to rise up the ofŽ cial ranking (banzuke); a wrestler with a losing record (make-koshi) falls in the rankings. A wrestler’s rank is a source of prestige, the basis for salary determination, and also influences the perks that he enjoys

"Figure 1" on the paper demonstrates the importance of an eighth win to a wrestler.

The critical eighth win—which results in a substantial promotion in rank rather than a demotion garners a wrestler approximately 11 spots in the ranking, or roughly four times the value of the typical victory. Consequently, a wrestler entering the final match of a tournament with a 7-7 record has far more to gain from a victory than an opponent with a record of, say, 8-6 has to lose.

He found out the peak on 8-7 records. See below.

Figure 2 provides clear visual evidence in support of the model’s prediction. Approximately 26.0 percent of all wrestlers finish with exactly eight wins, compared to only 12.2 percent with seven wins.

There're some more interesting analysis such as a give-and-take case "What Happens When Wrestlers Meet Again in the Future" so download the pdf file to read a whole paper.

You might be disappointed with the fact but don't get wrong. Sumo is "professional" wrestling and you won't be noticed how they cheat. Just enjoy watching two naked fat guys hugging each other. ;p