Slashdot Mirror
Olympic Medal Prediction Model
bettiwettiwoo writes "Slate reports that PricewaterhouseCooper claims to have devised a model predicting the final medal tally for nations competing in the Olympic Games. GDP is of particular importance in bringing home the bacon, closely followed by population size and and past performance. Other factors can also affect the outcome: hosting the games usually gives a medal boost. With the possible exception of China, the titan nations of the games (US, Russia, China and Germany) are predicted to see a successive drop in their total medal tally in the future (and compared to the Sydney Games, the future starts now). So if you were wondering why the Iraqi soccer team seems on its way to the quarter finals, why Greece takes gold in synchronized diving, or why Michael Phelps has to eat Ian Thorpe's bubbles, don't worry: it's only evolution, baby, and it's all perfectly predictable!"
The Olympics are about skill, and how many medals a country gets would depend on how skilled the athletes are.
Skill != Evolution
What's with all the links to half-naked men? Dammit, Slashdot has gone all metrosexual these days.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
..it still doesn't tell us who to bet on in the Womens beach volleyball. Damn now I'm going to have to watch every match to find out
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
It's all a cunning plan by Australia to breed the perfect swimmer. It's working well too. Nobody seems to have noticed the size 27 feet. We're going to try to get away with hands the size of hub caps at the next olympics.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
Nothing like sharks, blue-ringed octopus, crocodiles and jellyfish to give aussies incentives to swim faster :-)