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Modest Mouse
2010.02.22 22:49 jmmack Modest Mouse
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2023.04.02 07:14 alex9834 The Haters Guide to the 2023 NCAA Basketball Championship
This tournament sure was...something. In the 14 years that I have followed the NCAA Tournament I have never seen it get this crazy before. This was a complete 180 from last year's Tournament, where we only had Blue Bloods in the Final Four, and a blue blood champion. This year, it is not the case. We have CHAOS.
Now, let us take a look at the failures, and boy do I have a few words for some teams here...
Arizona Wildcats - For the third year in a row, we have a 15 over 2 upset in the opening round. And Arizona was offered up as this year's sacrifice. To be fair, this isn't as big of an upset compared to other 15-over-2 upsets. Believe it or not, I actually saw this coming. The moment Princeton was announced as the opponent, I knew Arizona was gonna go down early. The Tigers just outplayed them and held strong throughout the entire game. Just like in 1996, when they upset defending national champion UCLA in the first round, the Tigers' next upset would unsurprisingly come against a Pac-12 team. Man, 15-over-2 upsets are becoming a staple in March Madness now...future 2 seeds better watch out...
Virginia Cavaliers - This was yet another upset most saw coming, but my god...I'm still stunned by this. Virginia was even leading for most of the game, but then they just imploded near the end. That turnover...what the hell was that?
I swear, Virginia must have sold it's soul for a National Title back in 2019...
Iowa State Cyclones - I swear, the Cyclones are like destined to bow out early in the tournament. It's as if its required by law for them to fall early no matter how high expectations are for them. It wasn't even a contest, the Panthers just straight up slaughtered them. Iowa State is one of the next contestants for my next Legacy of Failure script. But only IF they meet certain conditions...
At least the Cyclones lost to an 11 seed, and 11 seeds at least have moderate success in the tournament.
At least they're not these sorry sacks:
Purdue's Boiler Explosion - What the fuck. What. The fuck. WHAT. THE. FUCK. WAS. THAT. Don't get me wrong, I knew you weren't going to make the Final Four this year. I knew you were going to choke. But as a #1 SEED IN THE FIRST ROUND?! When you were favored by TWENTY FOUR TO WIN?!! Do you realize what you have just done?! This is quite possibly the greatest failure in the history of college sports! This was your ALL-IN year, and you fall to a double digit seed for the third year in a row? Absolutely unacceptable. Matt Painter is on a SEARING hot seat now.
One word, Purdue: NUKE. Blow it up. You aren't winning with Painter. You aren't winning with this coaching staff. You aren't winning this core, and you aren't winning with these mentally fragile players who can't handle a shred of adversity.
Tick, tick, Painter and Lusk. It's time for a house cleaning in West Lafayette. Fucking Purdue... YOU BLEW IT!!!
Memphis Tigers - Penny Hardaway is getting Memphis on the right track. They won the AAC Tournament title over Houston, securing their second straight appearance in the Big Dance. But unfortunately, the Cinderella bug hit them, and it came in the form of Florida Atlantic, who won their first tournament game in school history. Memphis is still an interesting team nonetheless, and I'm eager to see how far Hardaway can take this team in the future.
Iowa Hawkeyes - Congratulations! Your team STILL can't make it past the first weekend of the tournament! This time you get rekt by Auburn. Fran McCaffrey continues to show that he cannot survive come March Madness despite his regular season successes. Iowa, if I were you I would find a new coach already. Fran is not the man.
Texas A&M Aggies - The Aggies had a solid regular season. They came close to winning the SEC Tournament title but got decimated by Alabama. Is this football or basketball I'm covering here? I'm confused. Anyway, it really seemed as if the Aggies had it in them to go on a reasonable run as they were a 7 seed, but then they went to Des Moines and got blown the fuck out by a team that hadn't won a tournament game in 22 years. The failure is always bigger in Texas...
USC Trojans - Despite losing the other Mobley brother to the draft last offseason, the Trojans still snuck their way into the Big Dance yet again. Unfortunately, Tom Izzo's Spartans killed any hopes they had of a deep run. The Trojans failed to conquer Sparta, and it's time for me to break out this scene from 300 again...
Providence Friars - After making the Sweet 16 last year, the Friars had another good team this season and were ranked for most of the latter half of the season. But unfortunately, Kentucky remembered last year's upset at the hands of Saint Peter's and decided to kill any hopes the Friars had of a deep run.
Baylor Bears - Once again, Baylor fails to make it past the second round. Despite maintaining most of the 2021 National Championship roster the Bears still cannot find it in themselves to get past the first weekend again. It wasn't even a contest, Creighton flat out controlled the tempo for the entire game. 2021 had better not have been a fluke for your guys...
Fairleigh Dickinson Knights - Congrats, FDU! You became the 2nd #16 seed to beat a #1! Your consolation prize is blowing a late lead to Florida Atlantic in round two. Eh, who cares. You still pulled off the upset. The fact that this only happened 5 years after UMBC's stunning upset over Virginia is the most shocking fact about this too. Now, no #1 seed is safe. We are entering a period in the tournament where even the lowest seeds are now potential contenders. It'll be interesting to see how 2024's tournament goes...
Saint Mary's Gaels - Ah, it's that other WCC team. Congrats on winning another tournament game! Your prize is to get absolutely slaughtered by UConn. Great...
Penn State Nittany Lions - Congrats, Penn State! You won your first tournament game in 22 years! Even though you took the Longhorns to the limit, a big run just wasn't in the cards for you this year. Can we grant another tournament win to Penn State and put them in the Sweet 16 instead of Texas? They deserve it a lot more than Purdue...
Pittsburgh Panthers - Congrats, Pitt! You returned to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 7 years! You even won a tournament game too! Though all good things must come to an end, and you get upended by Xavier.
Indiana Hoosiers - What in the literal fuck was that supposed to be? Weren't you supposed to make a big run this year? This was the best team you've had in almost a decade and you just decided to crumble like that?! Sure, Miami was playing the game of their lives but it still shouldn't have been a 16-point blowout. Well, could be worse I guess. You could be Purdue...
Kentucky Wildcats - Let's start with the good news first: You were not upset in the first round this time. Instead you get eliminated by your old friends from K-State yet again. Which is good because we don't have to deal with more arrogance from the Kentucky fanbase this time. Nobody likes Kentucky anyway, so there was much rejoicing.
Duke Blue Devils - Even with Coach K no longer in the College Basketball world, the Blue Devils still manage to appear in the NCAA Tournament as a reasonably high seed. They managed to end Oral Roberts' foolish ambitions in the first round (I really wanted to make more sex jokes from that...), but then got absolutely BTFOd by Tennessee in the next round. The Evil Empire has been stopped yet again. But they'll be back here again. The Blue Devils never stay down for long...
Marquette Golden Eagles - HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO TEACH YOU THIS LESSON, OLD MAN?! Once again, Shaka Smart cannot make it past the first weekend of the tournament. Tom Izzo's Spartans put him in his place yet again. For fuck's sake, it's been a DECADE since Smart's coaching schemes got exposed by John Beilein in 2013. And he still has not gotten the message. Did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is, Mr. Smart?
Auburn Tigers - Thanks for allowing us to laugh at Iowa again, Auburn. Now enjoy getting slaughtered by Houston in the next round.
Kansas Jayhawks - For the second year in a row, the defending national champion falls in the second round. Kansas appeared as if they would have this game in the bag, as they led by as much as 10 throughout the game. But then the team just imploded. The Razorbacks fought their way back and managed to eke out the win in the final seconds. Cherish that championship, Kansas. It may be the only one you win for a while.
TCU Horned Frogs - It seems like TCU sports are on the rise as of late. Their football team made the College Football Playoff, and their basketball team entered the tournament as a #6 seed! They even won another tournament game! But unfortunately they failed to make us laugh at Gonzaga again, as the Bulldogs narrowly escaped with the win.
Northwestern Wildcats - Welcome back to the tournament again, Northwestern! Even though this is only your second NCAA tournament appearance, you managed to win another tournament game! But a deep run just wasn't in the cards for you this time. Even after giving UCLA all they could handle, it just wasn't enough. I hope the Wildcats are able to make it back here again someday. Chris Collins seems to have something good going at Evanston. Let's see how things go the next few years.
Missouri Tigers - Congrats, Missouri! You won your first tournament game in 13 years! Your reward is to get absolutely blown the fuck out by another set of Tigers...who were seeded 15th. Come on now. Sure, Princeton was playing the game of their lives, but it still shouldn't have been a 15-point blowout. You're one of the contestants for a future Legacy of Failure script, Missouri. Give me something to truly laugh at and it'll be icing on the cake.
Maryland Terrapins - I'm gonna save the Big Bill Hell's rant this time. The Terps seemed to put a decent fight in the first half, but the Crimson Tide decided that was far enough, and put them out of their misery.
Princeton Tigers - Congrats, Princeton! You returned to the Sweet 16 for the first time in 56 years, and are only the fourth 15 seed to reach the Sweet 16! Third one in a row to do so, in fact! But all good things must come to an end, and there was another team looking to end their own demons. Creighton returned to the Elite Eight for the first time since the year Pearl Harbor happened.
Alabama Crimson Tide - The third #1 seed to fall this tournament. The Tide controlled the tempo most of the game, but the Aztecs eventually took the lead and never looked back. Once again, Alabama's dream to be a champion in both football and basketball like Michigan did in 1989 has not come to fruition. Maybe next year?
Tennessee Volunteers - Tennessee manages to return to the Sweet 16. And that's as far as they go. It's time for them to be upset by an inferior team again, and this time it's Florida Atlantic. The only time it appeared as if the Vols controlled the game was in the first half. But then FAU decided they wanted to go further. They took the lead in the second half, even leading by as much as 10 points, but they didn't relinquish it, making their first ever Elite Eight.
Michigan State Spartans - Congratulations! Your team finally made it past the second round! But the Sweet 16 is as far as you go. And they screwed up big time. This was yet another game where MSU's opponent was doing their best to hand the game to them, but they once again couldn't capitalize on their mistakes. K-State was literally handing them the game on a silver platter. They blew multiple leads and were even pushed into overtime. They even let you stay in the game until the final seconds! But then you just had to fuck up and let Markquis Nowell dance on your ashes, even letting him make NCAA history in the process.
Houston Cougars - What the hell was that, Houston? That has got to be arguably the worst performance by a 1 seed in the Sweet 16 in recent memory! This was the best team you've had since the days of Phi Slama Jama, and you go and do THAT?! Jesus Christ, you're pathetic. It wasn't even a contest, Miami barely even had to fucking try! Well, at least you're joining a real conference in the Big 12 next season. Hopefully the opponents from that conference can toughen you up and make you more formidable in next year's tournament.
Xavier Musketeers - Congrats, Xavier! You returned to the Sweet 16 for the first time in six years! Enjoy getting absolutely mauled by the Longhorns.
UCLA Bruins - Now this was a shock to see. This was the absolute inverse of 2006. The Bruins build up a big lead, only for Gonzaga to come back and build a big lead...only for the Bruins to storm right back and go up by 1. Maybe this is a repeat of 2006?
"Strawther for the lead...BULLSEYE!!!!"
And the Bulldogs have finally gotten their proper revenge for 2006, where they lost in the West region after blowing a big lead in the Sweet 16. Adam Morrison laughs, and the rest of the country breaths a sigh of relief as they don't have to see Los Angeles win another championship.
Arkansas Razorbacks - Great job, Arkansas! You managed to knock off the defending national champions! Your prize is to get absolutely steamrolled by UConn in the next round...by 23 points. Great...
Creighton Bluejays - Congrats, Creighton! You returned to the Elite Eight for the first time since WORLD WAR II!! And you're on the verge of becoming the first team from Nebraska to make the Final Four, beating out even the Cornhuskers! Imagine that! But it was not to be. The Bluejays built up a decent lead, and were on the verge of becoming the first #6 seed to make the Final Four since the Fab Five Michigan squad in 1992. But they couldn't hold it, as the Aztecs slowly crawled their way back. The Bluejays didn't really make any big mistakes, they didn't foul all that much, but at the end of the day it wasn't enough. They nearly sent the game into OT, but then...a last second foul call gave the Aztecs new life (Refball? You decide.). They would lose by a point. They were THAT close. But I honestly can't be mad at them. Still a successful season though. Hopefully next year you can get over the hump.
Kansas State Wildcats - I swear to god, K-State has to be the most unlucky team in NCAA Tournament history. This was their NINTH trip to the Elite Eight since their last Final Four berth in 1964 and they fell just short yet again. And like in 2010 and 2018, it was to a Cinderella team. First it was Butler. Then it was Sister Jean's henchmen from Loyola-Chicago. Now, it was FAU. Despite having a strong roster, the Wildcats once again could not end their long Final Four drought. Folks like to talk about Purdue being unlucky, but I think the real bridesmaid here is K-State. Just absolutely brutal. Which is why they're a candidate for my next Legacy of Failure script.
Texas Longhorns - This was very much a Days of our Steelers season for Longhorns basketball. Head coach Chris Beard was axed following an incident where he beat his wife (FUCKING IDIOT), and assistant Rodney Terry had to step in and clean up the mess. Thankfully, it was a good hire. Terry helped guide the Longhorns to their best season in ages, as they returned to the Elite Eight for the first time in 15 years. It appeared as if they were on the verge of returning to the Final Four for the first time in two decades! But then, the team straight up SHAT THE BED. Texas could not get anything going at all near the end of the game, as the Hurricanes came back from 13 points down to make their first Final Four. YOU BLEW IT!!!
Though lets be honest here, the refs were absolute dogshit. Calling blatant offensive fouls as fouls on the player guarding, are you fucking kidding me? Still, the Longhorns did screw up and blow that lead. Blame the refs all you want, but you want to know what would have helped? Not blowing a 13 point lead late in the second half. But at least Rodney Terry has shown that he can coach. Hopefully he can lead this Texas team to new heights in the future.
Gonzaga Bulldogs - pukes uncontrollably Fucking hell, are you kidding me? What the hell were you doing all game long? This was your ALL-IN year. You were the top scoring team in the country. You had the best player in the nation in Drew Timme! And you got absolutely beaten to a pulp by the team that beat you in your first Elite Eight appearance 24 years ago. Sure, UConn was playing the game of their lives, but it still shouldn't have been a near-30 point slaughter. You managed to unleash the Pandora's Box of Locusts known as UConn fans on the College Basketball world. Your Legacy of Failure continues. UConn is still getting the best of you after all these years, eh?
Florida Atlantic Owls - Oh my god, it's going to happen! The Owls are about to make history! They're up by 14! Sure the Aztecs cut that lead down to 1 in the final seconds, not to mention the refs are absolute shit, but the Owls are about to make history and become the first 9 seed to make the National Championship! Let's hear it for FAU!
"They don't have their scorers on the floor...it's Butler, with 2 seconds, he's gotta put it up and...-buzzer sounds- HE WINS IT!!! HE WINS IT WITH THE JUMPER!!! A San Diego State Miracle!"
OH MY MERCIFUL GOD!!! Well, this sucks. But it was still a successful season nonetheless. The third 9 seed to ever make the Final Four, and it happened in your second NCAA tournament appearance! Well, you'll be joining a better conference in the AAC next year. Hopefully you can make another big run like this again someday.
Miami Hurricanes - Congrats, Miami! You made your first Final Four in school history! And then the fun stops. UConn comes in to spoil the day. I would rip on Miami here, but nothing went right for them at all this game. Nothing. Missing 14 layups in the second half? Christ, that's brutal. Even though Jim Larrañaga tried his best to get Miami's stars on the right track, they were no match for the Huskies. Whenever Miami tried to strike back, UConn said 'Nope!' and put the Hurricanes on lockdown for the rest of the game. Nonetheless, this was a good run for Miami this year. You'll be back here eventually.
Whew, that was a crazy tournament. Now we're finally down to only two. And only one of these teams will be walking away with a championship.
Let's bring out contestant number one...
Connecticut Huskies
The Huskies have returned to the National Championship for the fifth time in school history, and for the first time in almost a decade. The last time they were here, the Final Four was held in the other major Texas metropolis of Dallas-Ft. Worth, and the Huskies became the first 7 seed in NCAA Tournament history to win a National Championship. Now, they are here for more.
The face of this revived UConn squad has been Jordan Hawkins, a sophomore from Maryland who has been this team's leading scorer in their past two matchups against Arkansas and Gonzaga, and it has been a long road for him. During the season opener he suffered his second concussion in his playing career and had to sit out the first two games, but he has thankfully made a full recovery and is playing better than ever. Joining him has been African sensation Adama Sanogo, a two-time first-team All-Big East award winner. He and Hawkins have been the bread and butter of this UConn squad, as both have been leading the team in scoring in a majority of games this season. Sanogo has also been this team's rebounding machine, as he has led the team in rebounds in all four of their tournament games so far. Rounding out UConn's Big 3 has been Andre Jackson Jr., who has been the Assists leader for this team in 18 games including the NCAA Tournament.
UConn has been the hottest team in this tournament thus far, as they've won each of their first four games by at least 10 points or more. Iona? 14-point win. #5 St. Mary's? 15 point win. #8 Arkansas, who just took down the defending national champs? 23 point win. #3 seed Gonzaga, who had three-time consensus All-American Drew Timme? Doesn't matter to them, they won by 28. #5 Miami? Even though the Hurricanes tried to put up a fight, they were beaten by 13. This Huskies team is absolutely unstoppable. The last two teams who won their first five tournament games by double digits both went on to win the national title - North Carolina in 2009, and Villanova in 2018. And it looks like history is about to repeat itself. UConn is hungry for it's fifth national title.
This #4 seed is playing like a #1 seed, and they are for sure the favorite to win it all. Just like every other time UConn has a solid team in the tournament, it's National Championship or bust.
Prepare for their wrath.
But not if their opponents have anything to say about it...
San Diego State Aztecs
The Aztecs have made it to the National Championship game. Exactly as everyone predicted at the start of the tournament. What this team reminds me of is the drug addict that has had numerous chances to get his shit together but constantly relapsed every time. And it's only through a reflection and a last second intervention that he starts to get clean.
For a while it felt as if San Diego State would never make it here. Former Michigan head coach Steve Fisher and his longtime assistant Brian Dutcher spent YEARS building this team into a contender. And the Aztecs have put up many elite teams over the years, but could only go as far as the Sweet 16 at best.
2011 seemed to be their year. They fell to UConn. In 2014, they were a 4 seed. They fell to Arizona. And after a series of first and second round eliminations, they finally got over the hump and made it to the promised land, though just BARELY.
This run has been far from easy for the Aztecs. They escaped by 7 points against Charleston in the first round. In the second they destroyed Furman, who just upset Virginia. Then came the Sweet 16, their opponent was the overall #1 seed in Alabama. It looked like another early exit for the Aztecs again. But then, a miracle happened. They rallied from 9 points down in the second half against Alabama to take the lead for good and make their first ever Elite Eight. And in their first Elite Eight, Creighton pushed them to the limit. However, they managed to overcome another deficit and escape by the skin of their teeth in the last second (Refball? You decide.). Same case in their first ever Final Four. They trailed by fourteen against Florida Atlantic, and it felt as if that was it. But then, the Aztecs pulled off another miracle to win by 1. That miracle's name? Lamont Butler. This team is the Energizer Bunny of the tournament. They will not die no matter how much stress you put on them.
SDSU's sudden appearance in the National Championship feels less like a "Glad you made it here!" and more of a "FINALLY!!". Considering all of the elite talent and top-tier coaching they've possessed over the years, it's still surprising that it took them this long to get here. But hey, better late than never.
Fuck you, Spanos!
The face of this San Diego State team has been Matt Bradley, a two-time First-team All-Mountain West selection. Alongside him is Ghanaian sensation Nathan Mensah, who is known for his immense wingspan of 7'4 ft, and has led this team in rebounds in two of their four wins this tournament. Other standouts on this Aztecs team include Jaedon LeDee, Micah Parrish, Darion Trammell, and Lamont Butler, who has led the team in Assists this tournament.
Brian Dutcher has built a winner this tournament, but we all know what his ultimate goal is - a National Championship. Though it wouldn't be his first. His first title came with the 1989 Michigan team led by Glen Rice and Rumeal Robinson, where he was an assistant under Coach Fisher. Now he's looking to win one as a head coach.
The Aztecs seek to become the first team from California to win a national title in basketball since 1995. That year, UCLA won their 11th National Title in school history by knocking off the "40 Minutes of Hell" Arkansas squad, a rather formidable opponent on par with this UConn team. And no team from California has done it since.
Will San Diego State be the team to break that drought, and become the fourth team from the Golden State to win a National Title? Will they become the first non-power five conference team to win a National Title since UNLV did it in 1990?
Will the Aztecs become the first team from San Diego to win a championship in either the pros or college, and break the San Diego sports curse?
And so, here it is. The Big East Empire of Doom, versus the Mountain West's only hope!
Time for battle.
EPIC NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP JINXING
Unfortunately, there will be no miracles this time. I think UConn has this one in the bag. They've been destroying their opponents with ease, like North Carolina and Villanova before them. No matter what you throw at them, they'll just push it aside like a cardboard box. Their 28-point win over a stacked Gonzaga team is proof of this. They always seem to have an answer for whatever their opponents throw at them, and therefore the choice is easy.
UConn will steamroll the Aztecs by at least 10 points and cruise to a 5th National Championship, tying with both Duke and Indiana for the fourth most championships.
Have a nice day.
submitted by alex9834 to UrinatingTree [link] [comments]
Now, let us take a look at the failures, and boy do I have a few words for some teams here...
Arizona Wildcats - For the third year in a row, we have a 15 over 2 upset in the opening round. And Arizona was offered up as this year's sacrifice. To be fair, this isn't as big of an upset compared to other 15-over-2 upsets. Believe it or not, I actually saw this coming. The moment Princeton was announced as the opponent, I knew Arizona was gonna go down early. The Tigers just outplayed them and held strong throughout the entire game. Just like in 1996, when they upset defending national champion UCLA in the first round, the Tigers' next upset would unsurprisingly come against a Pac-12 team. Man, 15-over-2 upsets are becoming a staple in March Madness now...future 2 seeds better watch out...
Virginia Cavaliers - This was yet another upset most saw coming, but my god...I'm still stunned by this. Virginia was even leading for most of the game, but then they just imploded near the end. That turnover...what the hell was that?
I swear, Virginia must have sold it's soul for a National Title back in 2019...
Iowa State Cyclones - I swear, the Cyclones are like destined to bow out early in the tournament. It's as if its required by law for them to fall early no matter how high expectations are for them. It wasn't even a contest, the Panthers just straight up slaughtered them. Iowa State is one of the next contestants for my next Legacy of Failure script. But only IF they meet certain conditions...
At least the Cyclones lost to an 11 seed, and 11 seeds at least have moderate success in the tournament.
At least they're not these sorry sacks:
Purdue's Boiler Explosion - What the fuck. What. The fuck. WHAT. THE. FUCK. WAS. THAT. Don't get me wrong, I knew you weren't going to make the Final Four this year. I knew you were going to choke. But as a #1 SEED IN THE FIRST ROUND?! When you were favored by TWENTY FOUR TO WIN?!! Do you realize what you have just done?! This is quite possibly the greatest failure in the history of college sports! This was your ALL-IN year, and you fall to a double digit seed for the third year in a row? Absolutely unacceptable. Matt Painter is on a SEARING hot seat now.
One word, Purdue: NUKE. Blow it up. You aren't winning with Painter. You aren't winning with this coaching staff. You aren't winning this core, and you aren't winning with these mentally fragile players who can't handle a shred of adversity.
Tick, tick, Painter and Lusk. It's time for a house cleaning in West Lafayette. Fucking Purdue... YOU BLEW IT!!!
Memphis Tigers - Penny Hardaway is getting Memphis on the right track. They won the AAC Tournament title over Houston, securing their second straight appearance in the Big Dance. But unfortunately, the Cinderella bug hit them, and it came in the form of Florida Atlantic, who won their first tournament game in school history. Memphis is still an interesting team nonetheless, and I'm eager to see how far Hardaway can take this team in the future.
Iowa Hawkeyes - Congratulations! Your team STILL can't make it past the first weekend of the tournament! This time you get rekt by Auburn. Fran McCaffrey continues to show that he cannot survive come March Madness despite his regular season successes. Iowa, if I were you I would find a new coach already. Fran is not the man.
Texas A&M Aggies - The Aggies had a solid regular season. They came close to winning the SEC Tournament title but got decimated by Alabama. Is this football or basketball I'm covering here? I'm confused. Anyway, it really seemed as if the Aggies had it in them to go on a reasonable run as they were a 7 seed, but then they went to Des Moines and got blown the fuck out by a team that hadn't won a tournament game in 22 years. The failure is always bigger in Texas...
USC Trojans - Despite losing the other Mobley brother to the draft last offseason, the Trojans still snuck their way into the Big Dance yet again. Unfortunately, Tom Izzo's Spartans killed any hopes they had of a deep run. The Trojans failed to conquer Sparta, and it's time for me to break out this scene from 300 again...
Providence Friars - After making the Sweet 16 last year, the Friars had another good team this season and were ranked for most of the latter half of the season. But unfortunately, Kentucky remembered last year's upset at the hands of Saint Peter's and decided to kill any hopes the Friars had of a deep run.
Baylor Bears - Once again, Baylor fails to make it past the second round. Despite maintaining most of the 2021 National Championship roster the Bears still cannot find it in themselves to get past the first weekend again. It wasn't even a contest, Creighton flat out controlled the tempo for the entire game. 2021 had better not have been a fluke for your guys...
Fairleigh Dickinson Knights - Congrats, FDU! You became the 2nd #16 seed to beat a #1! Your consolation prize is blowing a late lead to Florida Atlantic in round two. Eh, who cares. You still pulled off the upset. The fact that this only happened 5 years after UMBC's stunning upset over Virginia is the most shocking fact about this too. Now, no #1 seed is safe. We are entering a period in the tournament where even the lowest seeds are now potential contenders. It'll be interesting to see how 2024's tournament goes...
Saint Mary's Gaels - Ah, it's that other WCC team. Congrats on winning another tournament game! Your prize is to get absolutely slaughtered by UConn. Great...
Penn State Nittany Lions - Congrats, Penn State! You won your first tournament game in 22 years! Even though you took the Longhorns to the limit, a big run just wasn't in the cards for you this year. Can we grant another tournament win to Penn State and put them in the Sweet 16 instead of Texas? They deserve it a lot more than Purdue...
Pittsburgh Panthers - Congrats, Pitt! You returned to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 7 years! You even won a tournament game too! Though all good things must come to an end, and you get upended by Xavier.
Indiana Hoosiers - What in the literal fuck was that supposed to be? Weren't you supposed to make a big run this year? This was the best team you've had in almost a decade and you just decided to crumble like that?! Sure, Miami was playing the game of their lives but it still shouldn't have been a 16-point blowout. Well, could be worse I guess. You could be Purdue...
Kentucky Wildcats - Let's start with the good news first: You were not upset in the first round this time. Instead you get eliminated by your old friends from K-State yet again. Which is good because we don't have to deal with more arrogance from the Kentucky fanbase this time. Nobody likes Kentucky anyway, so there was much rejoicing.
Duke Blue Devils - Even with Coach K no longer in the College Basketball world, the Blue Devils still manage to appear in the NCAA Tournament as a reasonably high seed. They managed to end Oral Roberts' foolish ambitions in the first round (I really wanted to make more sex jokes from that...), but then got absolutely BTFOd by Tennessee in the next round. The Evil Empire has been stopped yet again. But they'll be back here again. The Blue Devils never stay down for long...
Marquette Golden Eagles - HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO TEACH YOU THIS LESSON, OLD MAN?! Once again, Shaka Smart cannot make it past the first weekend of the tournament. Tom Izzo's Spartans put him in his place yet again. For fuck's sake, it's been a DECADE since Smart's coaching schemes got exposed by John Beilein in 2013. And he still has not gotten the message. Did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is, Mr. Smart?
Auburn Tigers - Thanks for allowing us to laugh at Iowa again, Auburn. Now enjoy getting slaughtered by Houston in the next round.
Kansas Jayhawks - For the second year in a row, the defending national champion falls in the second round. Kansas appeared as if they would have this game in the bag, as they led by as much as 10 throughout the game. But then the team just imploded. The Razorbacks fought their way back and managed to eke out the win in the final seconds. Cherish that championship, Kansas. It may be the only one you win for a while.
TCU Horned Frogs - It seems like TCU sports are on the rise as of late. Their football team made the College Football Playoff, and their basketball team entered the tournament as a #6 seed! They even won another tournament game! But unfortunately they failed to make us laugh at Gonzaga again, as the Bulldogs narrowly escaped with the win.
Northwestern Wildcats - Welcome back to the tournament again, Northwestern! Even though this is only your second NCAA tournament appearance, you managed to win another tournament game! But a deep run just wasn't in the cards for you this time. Even after giving UCLA all they could handle, it just wasn't enough. I hope the Wildcats are able to make it back here again someday. Chris Collins seems to have something good going at Evanston. Let's see how things go the next few years.
Missouri Tigers - Congrats, Missouri! You won your first tournament game in 13 years! Your reward is to get absolutely blown the fuck out by another set of Tigers...who were seeded 15th. Come on now. Sure, Princeton was playing the game of their lives, but it still shouldn't have been a 15-point blowout. You're one of the contestants for a future Legacy of Failure script, Missouri. Give me something to truly laugh at and it'll be icing on the cake.
Maryland Terrapins - I'm gonna save the Big Bill Hell's rant this time. The Terps seemed to put a decent fight in the first half, but the Crimson Tide decided that was far enough, and put them out of their misery.
Princeton Tigers - Congrats, Princeton! You returned to the Sweet 16 for the first time in 56 years, and are only the fourth 15 seed to reach the Sweet 16! Third one in a row to do so, in fact! But all good things must come to an end, and there was another team looking to end their own demons. Creighton returned to the Elite Eight for the first time since the year Pearl Harbor happened.
Alabama Crimson Tide - The third #1 seed to fall this tournament. The Tide controlled the tempo most of the game, but the Aztecs eventually took the lead and never looked back. Once again, Alabama's dream to be a champion in both football and basketball like Michigan did in 1989 has not come to fruition. Maybe next year?
Tennessee Volunteers - Tennessee manages to return to the Sweet 16. And that's as far as they go. It's time for them to be upset by an inferior team again, and this time it's Florida Atlantic. The only time it appeared as if the Vols controlled the game was in the first half. But then FAU decided they wanted to go further. They took the lead in the second half, even leading by as much as 10 points, but they didn't relinquish it, making their first ever Elite Eight.
Michigan State Spartans - Congratulations! Your team finally made it past the second round! But the Sweet 16 is as far as you go. And they screwed up big time. This was yet another game where MSU's opponent was doing their best to hand the game to them, but they once again couldn't capitalize on their mistakes. K-State was literally handing them the game on a silver platter. They blew multiple leads and were even pushed into overtime. They even let you stay in the game until the final seconds! But then you just had to fuck up and let Markquis Nowell dance on your ashes, even letting him make NCAA history in the process.
Houston Cougars - What the hell was that, Houston? That has got to be arguably the worst performance by a 1 seed in the Sweet 16 in recent memory! This was the best team you've had since the days of Phi Slama Jama, and you go and do THAT?! Jesus Christ, you're pathetic. It wasn't even a contest, Miami barely even had to fucking try! Well, at least you're joining a real conference in the Big 12 next season. Hopefully the opponents from that conference can toughen you up and make you more formidable in next year's tournament.
Xavier Musketeers - Congrats, Xavier! You returned to the Sweet 16 for the first time in six years! Enjoy getting absolutely mauled by the Longhorns.
UCLA Bruins - Now this was a shock to see. This was the absolute inverse of 2006. The Bruins build up a big lead, only for Gonzaga to come back and build a big lead...only for the Bruins to storm right back and go up by 1. Maybe this is a repeat of 2006?
"Strawther for the lead...BULLSEYE!!!!"
And the Bulldogs have finally gotten their proper revenge for 2006, where they lost in the West region after blowing a big lead in the Sweet 16. Adam Morrison laughs, and the rest of the country breaths a sigh of relief as they don't have to see Los Angeles win another championship.
Arkansas Razorbacks - Great job, Arkansas! You managed to knock off the defending national champions! Your prize is to get absolutely steamrolled by UConn in the next round...by 23 points. Great...
Creighton Bluejays - Congrats, Creighton! You returned to the Elite Eight for the first time since WORLD WAR II!! And you're on the verge of becoming the first team from Nebraska to make the Final Four, beating out even the Cornhuskers! Imagine that! But it was not to be. The Bluejays built up a decent lead, and were on the verge of becoming the first #6 seed to make the Final Four since the Fab Five Michigan squad in 1992. But they couldn't hold it, as the Aztecs slowly crawled their way back. The Bluejays didn't really make any big mistakes, they didn't foul all that much, but at the end of the day it wasn't enough. They nearly sent the game into OT, but then...a last second foul call gave the Aztecs new life (Refball? You decide.). They would lose by a point. They were THAT close. But I honestly can't be mad at them. Still a successful season though. Hopefully next year you can get over the hump.
Kansas State Wildcats - I swear to god, K-State has to be the most unlucky team in NCAA Tournament history. This was their NINTH trip to the Elite Eight since their last Final Four berth in 1964 and they fell just short yet again. And like in 2010 and 2018, it was to a Cinderella team. First it was Butler. Then it was Sister Jean's henchmen from Loyola-Chicago. Now, it was FAU. Despite having a strong roster, the Wildcats once again could not end their long Final Four drought. Folks like to talk about Purdue being unlucky, but I think the real bridesmaid here is K-State. Just absolutely brutal. Which is why they're a candidate for my next Legacy of Failure script.
Texas Longhorns - This was very much a Days of our Steelers season for Longhorns basketball. Head coach Chris Beard was axed following an incident where he beat his wife (FUCKING IDIOT), and assistant Rodney Terry had to step in and clean up the mess. Thankfully, it was a good hire. Terry helped guide the Longhorns to their best season in ages, as they returned to the Elite Eight for the first time in 15 years. It appeared as if they were on the verge of returning to the Final Four for the first time in two decades! But then, the team straight up SHAT THE BED. Texas could not get anything going at all near the end of the game, as the Hurricanes came back from 13 points down to make their first Final Four. YOU BLEW IT!!!
Though lets be honest here, the refs were absolute dogshit. Calling blatant offensive fouls as fouls on the player guarding, are you fucking kidding me? Still, the Longhorns did screw up and blow that lead. Blame the refs all you want, but you want to know what would have helped? Not blowing a 13 point lead late in the second half. But at least Rodney Terry has shown that he can coach. Hopefully he can lead this Texas team to new heights in the future.
Gonzaga Bulldogs - pukes uncontrollably Fucking hell, are you kidding me? What the hell were you doing all game long? This was your ALL-IN year. You were the top scoring team in the country. You had the best player in the nation in Drew Timme! And you got absolutely beaten to a pulp by the team that beat you in your first Elite Eight appearance 24 years ago. Sure, UConn was playing the game of their lives, but it still shouldn't have been a near-30 point slaughter. You managed to unleash the Pandora's Box of Locusts known as UConn fans on the College Basketball world. Your Legacy of Failure continues. UConn is still getting the best of you after all these years, eh?
Florida Atlantic Owls - Oh my god, it's going to happen! The Owls are about to make history! They're up by 14! Sure the Aztecs cut that lead down to 1 in the final seconds, not to mention the refs are absolute shit, but the Owls are about to make history and become the first 9 seed to make the National Championship! Let's hear it for FAU!
"They don't have their scorers on the floor...it's Butler, with 2 seconds, he's gotta put it up and...-buzzer sounds- HE WINS IT!!! HE WINS IT WITH THE JUMPER!!! A San Diego State Miracle!"
OH MY MERCIFUL GOD!!! Well, this sucks. But it was still a successful season nonetheless. The third 9 seed to ever make the Final Four, and it happened in your second NCAA tournament appearance! Well, you'll be joining a better conference in the AAC next year. Hopefully you can make another big run like this again someday.
Miami Hurricanes - Congrats, Miami! You made your first Final Four in school history! And then the fun stops. UConn comes in to spoil the day. I would rip on Miami here, but nothing went right for them at all this game. Nothing. Missing 14 layups in the second half? Christ, that's brutal. Even though Jim Larrañaga tried his best to get Miami's stars on the right track, they were no match for the Huskies. Whenever Miami tried to strike back, UConn said 'Nope!' and put the Hurricanes on lockdown for the rest of the game. Nonetheless, this was a good run for Miami this year. You'll be back here eventually.
Let's bring out contestant number one...
Connecticut Huskies
The Huskies have returned to the National Championship for the fifth time in school history, and for the first time in almost a decade. The last time they were here, the Final Four was held in the other major Texas metropolis of Dallas-Ft. Worth, and the Huskies became the first 7 seed in NCAA Tournament history to win a National Championship. Now, they are here for more.
The face of this revived UConn squad has been Jordan Hawkins, a sophomore from Maryland who has been this team's leading scorer in their past two matchups against Arkansas and Gonzaga, and it has been a long road for him. During the season opener he suffered his second concussion in his playing career and had to sit out the first two games, but he has thankfully made a full recovery and is playing better than ever. Joining him has been African sensation Adama Sanogo, a two-time first-team All-Big East award winner. He and Hawkins have been the bread and butter of this UConn squad, as both have been leading the team in scoring in a majority of games this season. Sanogo has also been this team's rebounding machine, as he has led the team in rebounds in all four of their tournament games so far. Rounding out UConn's Big 3 has been Andre Jackson Jr., who has been the Assists leader for this team in 18 games including the NCAA Tournament.
UConn has been the hottest team in this tournament thus far, as they've won each of their first four games by at least 10 points or more. Iona? 14-point win. #5 St. Mary's? 15 point win. #8 Arkansas, who just took down the defending national champs? 23 point win. #3 seed Gonzaga, who had three-time consensus All-American Drew Timme? Doesn't matter to them, they won by 28. #5 Miami? Even though the Hurricanes tried to put up a fight, they were beaten by 13. This Huskies team is absolutely unstoppable. The last two teams who won their first five tournament games by double digits both went on to win the national title - North Carolina in 2009, and Villanova in 2018. And it looks like history is about to repeat itself. UConn is hungry for it's fifth national title.
This #4 seed is playing like a #1 seed, and they are for sure the favorite to win it all. Just like every other time UConn has a solid team in the tournament, it's National Championship or bust.
Prepare for their wrath.
But not if their opponents have anything to say about it...
San Diego State Aztecs
The Aztecs have made it to the National Championship game. Exactly as everyone predicted at the start of the tournament. What this team reminds me of is the drug addict that has had numerous chances to get his shit together but constantly relapsed every time. And it's only through a reflection and a last second intervention that he starts to get clean.
For a while it felt as if San Diego State would never make it here. Former Michigan head coach Steve Fisher and his longtime assistant Brian Dutcher spent YEARS building this team into a contender. And the Aztecs have put up many elite teams over the years, but could only go as far as the Sweet 16 at best.
2011 seemed to be their year. They fell to UConn. In 2014, they were a 4 seed. They fell to Arizona. And after a series of first and second round eliminations, they finally got over the hump and made it to the promised land, though just BARELY.
This run has been far from easy for the Aztecs. They escaped by 7 points against Charleston in the first round. In the second they destroyed Furman, who just upset Virginia. Then came the Sweet 16, their opponent was the overall #1 seed in Alabama. It looked like another early exit for the Aztecs again. But then, a miracle happened. They rallied from 9 points down in the second half against Alabama to take the lead for good and make their first ever Elite Eight. And in their first Elite Eight, Creighton pushed them to the limit. However, they managed to overcome another deficit and escape by the skin of their teeth in the last second (Refball? You decide.). Same case in their first ever Final Four. They trailed by fourteen against Florida Atlantic, and it felt as if that was it. But then, the Aztecs pulled off another miracle to win by 1. That miracle's name? Lamont Butler. This team is the Energizer Bunny of the tournament. They will not die no matter how much stress you put on them.
SDSU's sudden appearance in the National Championship feels less like a "Glad you made it here!" and more of a "FINALLY!!". Considering all of the elite talent and top-tier coaching they've possessed over the years, it's still surprising that it took them this long to get here. But hey, better late than never.
Fuck you, Spanos!
The face of this San Diego State team has been Matt Bradley, a two-time First-team All-Mountain West selection. Alongside him is Ghanaian sensation Nathan Mensah, who is known for his immense wingspan of 7'4 ft, and has led this team in rebounds in two of their four wins this tournament. Other standouts on this Aztecs team include Jaedon LeDee, Micah Parrish, Darion Trammell, and Lamont Butler, who has led the team in Assists this tournament.
Brian Dutcher has built a winner this tournament, but we all know what his ultimate goal is - a National Championship. Though it wouldn't be his first. His first title came with the 1989 Michigan team led by Glen Rice and Rumeal Robinson, where he was an assistant under Coach Fisher. Now he's looking to win one as a head coach.
The Aztecs seek to become the first team from California to win a national title in basketball since 1995. That year, UCLA won their 11th National Title in school history by knocking off the "40 Minutes of Hell" Arkansas squad, a rather formidable opponent on par with this UConn team. And no team from California has done it since.
Will San Diego State be the team to break that drought, and become the fourth team from the Golden State to win a National Title? Will they become the first non-power five conference team to win a National Title since UNLV did it in 1990?
Will the Aztecs become the first team from San Diego to win a championship in either the pros or college, and break the San Diego sports curse?
And so, here it is. The Big East Empire of Doom, versus the Mountain West's only hope!
Time for battle.
EPIC NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP JINXING
Unfortunately, there will be no miracles this time. I think UConn has this one in the bag. They've been destroying their opponents with ease, like North Carolina and Villanova before them. No matter what you throw at them, they'll just push it aside like a cardboard box. Their 28-point win over a stacked Gonzaga team is proof of this. They always seem to have an answer for whatever their opponents throw at them, and therefore the choice is easy.
UConn will steamroll the Aztecs by at least 10 points and cruise to a 5th National Championship, tying with both Duke and Indiana for the fourth most championships.
Have a nice day.
2023.04.02 00:18 NonbinaryGal more dates
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2023.04.01 23:25 bluecjj NBA/ABA "dynasty" Rankings, Part 3 (Dynastenders)
Full Series:
A “dynastender”, coined by Bill Simmons, is a team who won a championship, but failed to qualify as a Dynasty proper (which requires three or more titles in six or fewer seasons). While the Bridesmaid list had 15 entries (as it takes more to stand out without a title to your name), this Dynastender list is lengthier (23 teams), as winning a championship will give you enough points to get to 10 most of the tme.
It’s often said in contexts like this that nobody remembers second place, and you’d rather be at the bottom of this list than at the top of the previous one. However, thinking about it I’m not sure I agree. That’s true in one respect, but Bridesmaids do have the advantage of standing out for their lack of hardware; having the marks of a potential dynasty with zero championships is a compelling storyline, but if you do win a championship you might run the risk of getting blurred together with numerous other teams with similar storylines.
There are two slight changes I made to the rules when it comes to displaying players and coaches: [1] if a coach won a championship, they get included (Pat Riley wouldn’t be included on the Heat otherwise); [2] for a player to make the list for 20 Win Shares, only seasons where they’re top 5 on the team in WS count (my memory of the Bridesmaid list is vague, and I might have missed 20-WS players before, but this rule change makes it easier for me to not miss anyone).
Two more notes by way of citation:
Key Players: Bob Petit, Cliff Hagan, Clyde Lovellette, Ed Macauley
Dynastender Rankings: 9th-16th in Seasons (5), 19th in Points (12.39), 23rd in adjusted Championships (0.52), 8th in adjusted Finals appearances (2.07), 23rd in win% (.597), 20th in playoff win% (.528), 23rd in adjusted Net Rating (+1.3), 23rd in Top 5 aNR (+1.3)
Avg z-score: -1.08
Just like with the Bridesmaid list, we start with a team from the early days of the NBA; accomplishments like making two Finals and winning one are likely to be more impressive today than back when there were a handful of teams in the league. The title the Hawks did win also comes in at #3 on Bill Simmons’ footnote title list, due to a Bill Russell injury which weakened the Celtics. On the other hand, that was the only Finals loss that one of the greatest teams of all time suffered, and the Hawks took them to seven in ‘57 and ‘60. So maybe winning a single title is a “fairer” result than thinking only about Russell’s injury would lead one to believe.
Key Players: Gus Williams, Jack Sikma, Dennis Johnson, Lonnie Shelton, Marvin Webster
Dynastender Rankings: 21st-23rd in Seasons (3), 20th in Points (11.77), 16th in adjusted Championships (0.86), 15th in adjusted Finals appearances (1.71), 20th in win% (.630), 12th-13th in playoff win% (.593), 21st in adjusted Net Rating (+2.7), 22nd in Top 5 aNR (+1.6)
Avg z-score: -0.82
These guys might be the most forgettable post-merger team in this entire series, at least from where I’m sitting. Mike the NBA Guy agrees with me, as he made a YouTube video with basically the same name. It probably doesn’t help that they didn’t have many memorable players, and that they played in the 70s; too late for the nostalgic Wilt/Russell era, but too early for the Bird/Magic era.
In ‘78, Seattle lost a seven-game Finals series to the Bullets, the worst NBA champion of all time (by both win percentage and net rating). The next season, they won an extremely nail-biting conference finals against the Suns, and struck back by beating Washington in five to get the title. 56 wins and a conference final loss in 1980 was enough to qualify for this list, but they weren’t able to sustain success for long enough to be remembered.
Key Players: Dwyane Wade, Udonis Haslem, Shaquille O’Neal, Eddie Jones, Damon Jones, Lamar Odom
Dynastender Rankings: 21st-23rd in Seasons (3), 23rd in Points (10), 8th-13th in adjusted Championships (1), 19th-21st in adjusted Finals appearances (1), 22nd in win% (.622), 5th in playoff win% (.647), 17th in adjusted Net Rating (+3.3), 21st in Top 5 aNR (+2.0)
Avg z-score: -0.76
Shaq’s last real hurrah was in Miami, where his stint alongside Dwyane Wade was so short that despite winning a (footnote) championship, his years alone actually wouldn’t have been enough for his team to be an official Dynastender. The 2004 series between Miami and New Orleans is otherwise rather forgettable, but the Heat qualified for that season- and for the list overall- because they were able to eke that series out in seven.
Relatively speaking, the only real bright spot keeping the Heat ahead of the Sonics is their playoff record; in fact, this is the first of five teams we’ll cover in this series who have a higher win percentage in the playoffs than in the regular season. Two sweeps to start off 2005 help, as well as two close series losses in ‘04 and ‘05, followed by a solid championship run where nobody took Miami to seven.
Key Players: Zelmo Beaty, Willie Wise, Jimmy Jones, Ron Boone, Mark Calvin
Dynastender Rankings: 9th-16th in Seasons (5), 18th in Points (13.17), 19th-20th in adjusted Championships (0.61), 13th in adjusted Finals appearances (1.79), 19th in win% (.633), 10th in playoff win% (.595), 18th in adjusted Net Rating (+3.15), 18th in Top 5 aNR (+3.15)
Avg z-score: -0.64
If this team doesn’t look familiar, it’s because I decided to include the ABA for this series.
The LA Stars managed to make the ABA Finals after a 43-41 season in 1970, the year before they moved to Utah. The team improved after moving, sporting 57, 60, and 55-win seasons, and squeaking out a championship in ‘71 after seven-game series in both of the final rounds, including the mighty Pacers. Utah would be the 1-seed in the Western division the next three seasons, but lose in the playoffs: twice to the Pacers, and once to a team coming up on this list.
Key Players: Bobby Wanzer, Arnie Risen, Bob Davies, Arnie Johnson, Jack Coleman
Dynastender Rankings: 5th-8th in Seasons (6), 17th-18th in Points (13.17), 19th-20th in adjusted Championships (0.61), 22nd in adjusted Finals appearances (0.61), 14th in win% (.658), 23rd in playoff win% (.500), 14th in adjusted Net Rating (+4.0), 14th in Top 5 aNR (+4.3)
Avg z-score: -0.64
This Royals team is best known as the last time the Kings’ franchise has won a title; when you have to go back this far, it’s probably even more humiliating than simply having never won a title at all.
We have to go all the way back to the BAA for the start of this run; where in ‘48-49, the Royals had the best record in the league but lost the Division Finals to Mikan’s Lakers. Then in 1950, the new NBA had a best-of 3 format before the Finals, where the Royals got swept in two games against the Ft. Wayne Pistons. It was in Rochester’s worst regular season of this run (‘51) that they actually won the championship, in what was also their only Finals appearance. They sustained their run with three more moderately good regular seasons, but petered out in the playoffs against the Lakers (twice) and Pistons (once).
Key Players: Artis Gilmore, Dan Issel, Louie Dampier, Goose Ligon, Darel Carrier, Cincy Powell
Dynastender Rankings: 5th-8th in Seasons (6), 16th in Points (13.76), 21st-22nd in adjusted Championships (0.58), 14th in adjusted Finals appearances (1.76), 18th in win% (.643), 17th in playoff win% (.570), 15th in adjusted Net Rating (+3.7), 13th in Top 5 aNR (+4.5)
Avg z-score: -0.51
We’re back in the ABA, and to a team which somehow had six different head coaches in a six-year period of success.
Like happens occasionally in this list, the seasons where Kentucky saw playoff success aren’t the ones you’d necessarily expect. They had the best regular season in ABA history (68-16, +8 net rating), and lost in the first round of the playoffs. However, that season was sandwizhed between two Finals runs where they went 44-40 and 56-28 in the RS. They lost two Game 7s in those Finals, and even outscored the Pacers in ‘73, meaning this Dynastender run was reasonably close to becoming a Dynasty. However, they didn’t get to the 10-pont threshold until their actual championship season, with an impressive 12-3 playoff run including a convincing 5-game defeat of Indiana.
Key Players: Julius Erving, Brian Taylor, Billy Paultz, Larry Kenon
Dynastender Rankings: 21st-23rd in Seasons (3), 22nd in Points (10.14), 7th in adjusted Championships (1.13), 18th in adjusted Finals appearances (1.13), 13th in win% (.667), 4th in playoff win% (.656), 12th in adjusted Net Rating (+4.4), 20th in Top 5 aNR (+2.65)
Avg z-score: -0.49
Rounding out our ABA section is a short-but-sweet run of two titles in three years from Dr. J and the Nets. They also had a very impressive championship run at the start of their Dynastender, going 12-2 in the ‘74 playoffs. They then rounded out ABA history by beating the Nuggets in a six-game Finals in 1976.
Key Players: Hakeem Olajuwon, Kenny Smith, Clyde Drexler, Mario Ellie, Otis Thorpe, Charles Barkley
Dynastender Rankings: 9th-16th in Seasons (5), 12th in Points (17), 3rd in adjusted Championships (1.90), 12th in adjusted Finals appearances (1.90), 16th in win% (.646), 12th-13th in playoff win% (.593), 22nd in adjusted Net Rating (+2.4), 17th in Top 5 aNR (+3.3)
Avg z-score: -0.49
We’ve left the land of historical footnotes, and from this point on these teams will mostly be remembered by hard-core fans.
With Michael Jordan spending his time either playing baseball or losing a memory-holed second-round series to Orlando, the man picked ahead of him in the ‘84 draft took advantage of the power vacuum. He led Houston to two straight titles, including an empathic upset sweep over the aforementioned Magic. Then they tried forming a superteam with Barkley, but John Stockton and the Jazz ended their season, and it turns out their Dynastender.
Hakeem’s Rockets are stuck near ABA-land, with their biggest problem being their weak regular seasons (both in terms of net rating and win percentage, plus missed opportunities for Points). Their second championship, and the Points it gave them, does help, but it can only propel them so far when every other category is lacking.
Key Players: Wilt Chamberlain, Hal Greer, Chet Walker, Billy Cunningham
Dynastender Rankings: 17th-20th in Seasons (4), 21st in Points (10.67), 21st-22nd in adjusted Championships (0.58), 23rd in adjusted Finals appearances (0.58), 2nd in win% (.738), 21st in playoff win% (.526), 8th in adjusted Net Rating (+5.15), 15th in Top 5 aNR (+4.1)
Avg z-score: -0.41
This franchise enjoyed three full seasons of Wilt’s services, and took advantage; with a stupendous 185-58 regular season record (a 62-win pace), and a ‘67 season which ended the Celtics’ eight-peat of championships emphatically.
That season’s East Finals ended 4-1 in Philly’s favor, with the Sixers outscoring the Celtics by a total of 50 points. Both of those metrics (the three-game and 50-point margin) were franchise records for Celtics losses; the three-game margin wasn’t beaten until 1983, and the 50-point drubbing wouldn’t be topped until 2004. Beating the eight-time defending champs this badly is extremely impressive.
Still, the Sixers didn’t count as a Dynastender quite yet until 1969, when the remnants of the team were able to amass 55 wins with Wilt no longer in town.
Key Players: John Havlicek, Dave Cowens, Jo Jo White, Paul Silas, Don Nelson, Don Chaney
Dynastender Rankings: 5th-8th in Seasons (6), 9th in Points (18.52), 5th in adjusted Championships (1.53), 16th in adjusted Finals appearances (1.53), 9th in win% (.687), 14th in playoff win% (.588), 20th in adjusted Net Rating (+3.1), 16th in Top 5 aNR (+4.05)
Avg z-score: -0.28
After the retirement of Bill Russell, the Celtics were nearly able to continue his Dynasty (spoiler alert!). 1970 was a dud, a sub-.500 season worth (approximately) -3 points. ‘71 was another playoff miss, but they finished over .500 (44-38), for -2 points. Boston finally got into the positive category in ‘72, but only for 2 points (56 wins and a conference finals loss), meaning that the Celtics satisfied criteria 4 for ending a dynasty (as ‘69 and ‘72 both had to be worth at least three points).
But while Russell’s Dynasty was over, a couple of the same players who were around for its twilight were able to put together a Dynastender on its coattails. Two championships and six seasons of success are both impressive, but other numbers are underwhelming. They have some distance between themselves and everyone below them, but their weak net rating and lack of a popping stat to make up for it keep them in the teens.
Key Players: LeBron James, Kevin Love, Tristan Thompson, Kyrie Irving
Dynastender Rankings: 17th-20th in Seasons (4), 10th-11th in Points (18), 8th-13th in adjusted Championships (1), 2nd-3rd in adjusted Finals appearances (4), 17th in win% (.643), 1st in playoff win% (.679), 16th in adjusted Net Rating (+3.45), 19th in Top 5 aNR (+2.8)
Avg z-score: -0.27
Of course, few people would think about this Cavs team in isolation; really, it’s a link in the chain of LeBron’s career, which is why I’ll be discussing him as the only player-centric Dynasty on the next list.
However, going through an exercise like this can help underline how special it is to make four Finals in a row. When we include era adjustments, only one other Dynastender that we’ll talk about beats 4 Finals appearances, and the only other one to match it is when LeBron did it with the Heat in the four previous seasons.
The one major asterisk everyone puts on this team is that the East was weak. That might be true, but it’s also overstated. Out of 133 Dynastender seasons, the Cavs’ strengths of schedule (per Basketball Reference) rank, in chronological order: 72th-75th, 97th-99th, 62nd, and 68th-69th. That’s nothing to particularly write home about (although the Cavs’ own weak point differentials meant they weren’t decreasing their own SOS as much as some other teams). Of 78 teams who lost in the conference finals since the 16-team playoff format started, the net rating of the Cavs’ ECF opponents ranked: 38th, 45th, 70th, 60th. Out of 156 second-round losers, Cleveland’s opponents ranked: 91st-92nd, 74th-77th, 55th-60th, and 9th. To be fair, these numbers would be a bit lower if you took SOS into account; but they’re not totally dismal.
In the big picture, it’s relatively rare for people to criticize the Raptors, or the Bucks, or the Big Three Celtics, or the Shaq-Wade Heat, because of a weak conference; even though all of these teams I mentioned have SOSs comparably bad as the Cavs throughout their Dynastender runs. But it was and is brought up over and over again for LeBron’s teams, because his teams were the only ones who were able to consistently benefit from the weak conference. People were complaining about the lack of competition in the East, because when you’re up against LeBron the standard is so much higher to meaningfully count as “competition”.
With all of that said, the Cavs’ weak regular seasons, combined with the fact that LeBron only stayed for four years, anchors them out of the top 10.
Key Players: Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan, Jonas Valanciunas, Pascal Siakam, Kawhi Leonard
Dynastender Rankings: 9th-16th in Seasons (5), 13th in Points (16), 8th-13th in adjusted Championships (1), 19th-21st in adjusted Finals appearances (1), 6th in win% (.693), 19th in playoff win% (.547), 6th in adjusted Net Rating (+5.4), 8th in Top 5 aNR (+5.4)
Avg z-score: -0.24
The Raptors are one of the weirdest entries in this series, as their run almost feels like three different ones.
The first chapter came as three consecutive solid regular seasons (56, 51 and 59 wins) that were all ended by the aforementioned Cavs. Then they traded for Kawhi Leonard and won a championship with him (A footnote title? Or not?), for the second, one-season chapter. Then they managed to unexpectedly have a great season in the COVID-interrupted 2019-20 campaign, including a 60-win pace and a narrow second-round loss, for one final, one-season chapter.
Putting all of the pieces together, this run registers as an impressive one as far as regular-season success goes, finishing 6th among Dynatenders for both regular-season win percentage and adjusted net rating. Playoff success was a different story, which the aforementioned LeBron series (two of which were sweeps) are mostly responsible for (plus the fact that many of their series wins were close, including their last three wins in ‘19).
This run is technically not officially over yet, but the Raptors would have to win the championship this season in order to extend it. Needless to say, that’s not very likely.
Key Players: Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, Dave DeBusschere, Bill Bradley, Dick Barnett, Jerry Lucas, Earl Monroe
Dynastender Rankings: 5th-8th in Seasons (6), 8th in Points (18.6), 6th in adjusted Championships (1.44), 7th in adjusted Finals appearances (2.19), 15th in win% (.650), 11th in playoff win% (.593), 11th in adjusted Net Rating (+4.5), 11th in Top 5 aNR (+5.0)
Avg z-score: -0.20
The Knicks were terrible for most of the sixties, never even reaching a .400 win percentage from ‘60 to ‘66. New York had never won a championship, so when the late Willis Reed’s famous heroics helped them beat the Lakers in 1970, it was truly a new leaf to turn over for the club. That season was followed up by a third-straight 50-win season, and then two more consecutive Finals appearances, including another win in ‘73.
Key Players: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton, Eric Bledsoe
Dynastender Rankings: 17th-20th in Seasons (4), 15th in Points (15), 8th-13th in adjusted Championships (1), 19th-21st in adjusted Finals appearances (1), 7th in win% (.689), 6th in playoff win% (.633), 3rd in adjusted Net Rating (+6.3), 10th in Top 5 aNR (+5.1)
Avg z-score: -0.10
The NBA’s only reigning Dynastender (that we know of) lands just inside the top ten. All of these numbers are only as of the end of last year, although the Bucks’ run is already confirmed as continuing another season (as they’ve gotten to 50 wins).
A pressing question, of course, might be how the Bucks’ ranking might change depending on their playoff results this year. It’s hard to project, because it depends on some specifics (like how their regular- and post-season records will shake out). However, if I change nothing but seasons/points/champs/finals to account for an NBA championship this season, the Bucks go up to #6 on this list (breaking into what’s currently a pretty solid top-6). Adjusting for a conference finals loss (adding one season and three points) would push them up two spots, to #8.
Looking at the profile of Milwaukee’s accomplishments so far, their net rating (3rd when adjusted for strength of schedule) is what sticks out to me the most. In fact, that’s an area where the Bucks will actually take a hit at the end of this season, because they’ve had a relatively underwhelming net rating this time around.
Key Players: Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain, Gail Goodrich, Rudy LaRusso, Happy Hairston, Dick Barnett, Jim McMillian, Archie Clark
Dynastender Rankings: 1st in Seasons (12), 4th in Points (23.19), 17th-18th in adjusted Championships (0.75), 1st in adjusted Finals appearances (5.7), 21st in win% (.626), 18th in playoff win% (.552), 19th in adjusted Net Rating (+3.1), 7th in Top 5 aNR (+5.5)
Avg z-score: -0.04
The Lakers of Jerry West’s time represented a kind of dynasty of second-place finishes. Their nine Finals appearances in the 12-year run is incredible, although it’s adjusted down to 5.7 because of the number of teams in the league when they were accomplished.
These Lakers’ ability to contend for a long period of time is impressive, and if I did these rankings by Points alone, they’d be at #4 among Dynastenders on that strength. Weak regular seasons, though, prevent them from reaching thoe heights in my more complicated system.
Key Players: Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, Rajon Rondo
Dynastender Rankings: 9th-16th in Seasons (5), 10th-11th in Points (18), 8th-13th in adjusted Championships (1), 9th-10th in adjusted Finals appearances (2), 5th in win% (.693), 15th in playoff win% (.581), 4th in adjusted Net Rating (+6.0), 3rd in Top 5 aNR (+6.0)
Avg z-score: -0.03
Known as a major step forward into the “superteam” era, the Big Three Celtics hit the ground running, posting their best season by far (67 wins and a title) in their first season together. As such, they’re the only NBA Dynastender to win a title in the first season of their run. Perhaps, that might be what contributes to this squad’s legacy; most teams have to build for a couple of years but the Big Three Celtics hit the ground running and made an immediate impression.
They had a chance to make a Dynasty out of it, but a Garnett injury hampered their chances in ‘09, and they couldn't pull out a Game 7 against the Lakers in ‘10. Great regular seasons propel the team into the top-10 Dynastenders, although the short length of the run and underwhelming playoff results limit how high they could rise.
Key Players: Chauncey Billups, Ben Wallace, Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Rasheed Wallace, Jon Barry
Dynastender Rankings: 4th in Seasons (7), 3rd in Points (25), 14th in adjusted Championships (0.98), 11th in adjusted Finals appearances (1.98), 12th in win% (.669), 16th in playoff win% (.579), 10th in adjusted Net Rating (+4.8), 6th in Top 5 aNR (+5.7)
Avg z-score: 0.00
What really carries this Pistons team is their Point total, which is buoyed both by their longevity (7 seasons is a fairly good length for a run) and the streak of six straight conference finals appearances for which they are somewhat famous. Six straight three-point seasons (in the Dynasty Point system) has only been equalled by the Jazz (six straight), Russell Celtics (eight straight), and the Showtime Lakers (ten straight), so it’s a very impressive feat that’s worthy of putting the ‘00s Pistons in this kind of tier.
Because of how many deep runs the Pistons made, it’s not that hard to imagine a couple years going differently resulting in a Dynasty; like ‘05 (losing in Game 7 of the Finals), or ‘06/’08 (two six-game losses to the eventual champions).
Somewhat surprisingly, they don’t rank very highly in playoff win percentage, due to the fact that they won some surprisingly close series (like TOR ‘02, ORL ‘03, CLE ‘06) and lost a couple of lopsided ones (BOS ‘02, NJ ‘03).
Key Players: Bill Laimbeer, Dennis Rodman, Joe Dumars, Isiah Thomas, Adrian Dantley
Dynastender Rankings: 9th-16th in Seasons (5), 5th in Points (21.68), 4th in adjusted Championships (1.86), 6th in adjusted Finals appearances (2.74), 11th in win% (.678), 3rd in playoff win% (.678), 9th in adjusted Net Rating (+4.9), 12th in Top 5 aNR (+4.9)
Avg z-score: 0.13
The second straight Pistons team on the list is the closest Dynastender to being on the Dynasty list. The ‘88 Finals ended with two very close games (that weren’t without controversy either), both of which could have won the Pistons the championship. Had they done so, and still won the next two, they would get the requisite three titles (in six or fewer seasons) for the Dynasty label. However, this team fails to resemble Dynasties in both number of championships and in length; every post-merger Dynasty lasted at least nine seasons by mysystem, where Detroit lasted only five. The Pistons got their two titles, got eclipsed by the Bulls, and disappeared.
Playoff success carries this run, as the Bad Boys nearly had as good of a win percentage in the second season as in the first. Unlike their ‘00s successors, they dominated series, winning 9 series by three games or more in this Dynastender run, losing only once by such a margin.
Key Players: Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Terry, Steve Nash, Michael Finley, Erick Dampier, Josh Howard, Jason Kidd, Shawn Bradley, Tyson Chandler, Antawn Jamison
Dynastender Rankings: 2nd in Seasons (11), 2nd in Points (27), 8th-13th in adjusted Championships (1), 9th-10th in adjusted Finals appearances (2), 8th in win% (.687), 22nd in playoff win% (.512), 7th in adjusted Net Rating (+5.4), 2nd in Top 5 aNR (+7.0)
Avg z-score: 0.19
The Mavericks’ relative absence from the later rounds of the playoffs might have made you think that the 2011 team was a one-year wonder. However, that’s not the case. It was a year that topped off what was a very impressive run of success up to that point, at least in the regular season.
Every season in this run, Dallas had a record good enough to earn them points for my system (a 50-win pace). That’s 11 straight seasons, a very impressive feat that’s only been bettered by the Showtime Lakers, the Russell Celtics, and the Duncan Spurs. Dirk and co. were consistently good year in and year out, which is the driving force behind them making the top 5 of the Dynastender list.
Of course, what came between the Mavs and the very top of this list (or even a part of the Dynasty list) is a lack of playoff success. The playoff record (65-62) sticks out like a sore thumb, an atrocious 22nd out of 23 qualifying Dynastenders. The biggest symbol of said disappointment is the infamous series they lost to the 8-seed Warriors in 2007, following a 67-win regular season that featured an MVP from Nowitzki.
A disparity between regular season and playoff success that’s this large is really astounding, and the large sample calls into question the conventional analytic wisdom that the playoffs are basically just a noise-fest. Here are some highlights (or lowlights), as not everyone might know/remember much about Dallas’ playoff journey (I know I didn’t before researching):
Key Players: Pau Gasol, Kobe Bryant, Lamar Odom, Andrew Bynum
Dynastender Rankings: 9th-16th in Seasons (5), 6th-7th in Points (21), 1st-2nd in adjusted Championships (2), 5th in adjusted Finals appearances (3), 4th in win% (.703), 8th in playoff win% (.618), 5th in adjusted Net Rating (+5.8), 4th in Top 5 aNR (+5.8)
Avg z-score: 0.21
Fittingly, the Celtics and Lakers had Dynastenders spanning the exact same five seasons. The Lakers’ version gets the nod both because they won the 2010 matchup, and because the Lakers had more consistent postseason success, winning 62% of their playoff games (and making three Finals) to the Celtics’ 58% (and two).
There might be some quibbles about this run not being connected to the Shaqobe era, but the consensus seems to be in separating the two, and my system concurs (the ‘05-07 run of seasons is enough disappointment to put the kibosh on the initial Dynasty).
Key Players: Julius Erving, Maurice Cheeks, Bobby Jones, Moses Malone, Andrew Toney, Steve Mix, Charles Barkley, George McGinnis, Doug Collins
Dynastender Rankings: 3rd in Seasons (10), 1st in Points (30), 15th in adjusted Championships (0.88), 4th in adjusted Finals appearances (3.46), 10th in win% (.683), 9th in playoff win% (.603), 13th in adjusted Net Rating (+4.3), 5th in Top 5 aNR (+5.8)
Avg z-score: 0.28
Moses Malone’s “Fo Fo” Sixers only won one championship, but they had an extended period of relevance of which it was a part. In ten seasons, they made it to four NBA Finals and seven conference finals, only losing in the first round once. They also won 50 games in all but one season, the 47-win ‘79. In total, their 560 wins in these ten seasons ranked first in the league, with only two other teams (BOS 539, LAL 552) even getting to 500.
This team might slip through the cracks a bit, because apart from their one title, they’re often remembered in the contexts of their losses; they lost to Bill Walton’s Blazers, they lost to Magic’s iconic Game 6 performance, and they lost the 3-1 lead against the ‘81 Celtics. These Sixers had the definite potential for a Dynasty if a couple of these (or other) losses went the other way.
My Point system loves this team’s longevity and consistency, as can be seen from their top rank in that category. They only end up outside of the top spot on this list because there’s two other teams who were particularly excellent over smaller periods of time.
Key Players: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bob Dandridge, Oscar Robertson, Jon McGlocklin, Lucius Allen, Flynn Robinson
Dynastender Rankings: 9th-16th in Seasons (5), 14th in Points (15.66), 17th-18th in adjusted Championships (0.75), 17th in adjusted Finals appearances (1.51), 1st in win% (.741), 7th in playoff win% (.632), 1st in adjusted Net Rating (+7.6), 1st in Top 5 aNR (+7.6)
Avg z-score: 0.31
Of the teams you were anticipating on this list, the ‘70s Bucks might not have been one of them. They were from the “dark ages” of the ‘70s that everybody forgets about. There’s a chance that you knew they had a great ‘71 season, but not much else.
However, these Bucks had a heck of a run. They hit the ground running their first season without Kareem, immediately winning 56 games, losing in the Division Finals. Then followed one of the greatest seasons of all time, where they posted a net-rating record that wouldn’t be broken for 21 years (and their aNR still hasn’t been beaten by a non-Dynasty), and dominated the postseason to boot. ‘72 was the Lakers’ year, but the Bucks were still nothing to sneeze at; 63 wins and a second-straight double-digit net rating (only the ‘15-17 Warriors and ‘96-97 Bulls can boast the same). Not only that, but they actually outscored the Lakers in their playoff series that year! ‘73 saw a disappointing first-round upset loss to Golden State (in which the Bucks also scored more points), but after a third-straight 60-win season (another feat only Dynasties share). Finally, the Bucks narrowly missed what would have been the NBA’s only four-season streak of 60+ wins (they won 59), and an iconic Kareem shot forced a seventh NBA Finals game which they ended up losing.
I was originally as puzzled by the Bucks’ high ranking as you all might have been, but actually going back and breaking down all of their seasons has sold me on them. 304 regular-season wins over a five-year period is incredible, and they were just a few playoff games away from a Dynasty that would’ve potentially been remembered among the best.
Key Players: LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh
Dynastender Rankings: 17th-20th in Seasons (4), 6th-7th in Points (21), 1st-2nd in adjusted Championships (2), 2nd-3rd in adjusted Finals appearances (3.46), 3rd in win% (.718), 2nd in playoff win% (.678), 2nd in adjusted Net Rating (+6.4), 9th in Top 5 aNR (+5.1)
Avg z-score: 0.38
While this team isn’t the closest on this list to being a Dynasty (the Pistons are), in some ways they might be the team that feels like a dynasty the most, or that most had the aura that many dynasties share.
From the moment Miami’s Big 3 was official, everyone knew it was the Heat against the world. LeBron infamously made a tongue-in-cheek allusion to a mega-dynasty, and it was up to everyone else to try to stop it. The fact that this run has an air of disappointment about its final results, despite four Finals and two rings in four tries, is almost the biggest testament there is. Out of 16 playoff series, they only lost twice to two very good teams, but it’s still not quite good enough, precisely because this team was so good that perfection was their standard.
The Heat are a good example of the upside of my final ranking system, and its general favoritism towards short but great runs. Now that I’m looking at the list, it would feel a little wrong for the Heat to be 6th-7th, and not even make the top 5 Dynastenders, as would be the case if I went on Points alone. Yes, they only lasted for four years, but the way they defined the NBA for that stretch goes beyond most other Dynastenders.
We could, perhaps, touch on how much of a footnote 2012 should be, where there could be some arguments back and forth. On the one hand, I don’t really believe in footnotes based on shortened regular-seasons (at least in the NBA’s cases, where we were still left with decent regular seasons that were >half of a normal one), and also history bore out that Derrick Rose getting injured was more of a norm than an exception. On the other hand, the ECF we got was pretty close, which could lead one to wonder whether Chicago with home court could have tipped the balance in the other direction.
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- Introduction
- Bridesmaids
- Dynastenders (this post)
- Dynasties
A “dynastender”, coined by Bill Simmons, is a team who won a championship, but failed to qualify as a Dynasty proper (which requires three or more titles in six or fewer seasons). While the Bridesmaid list had 15 entries (as it takes more to stand out without a title to your name), this Dynastender list is lengthier (23 teams), as winning a championship will give you enough points to get to 10 most of the tme.
It’s often said in contexts like this that nobody remembers second place, and you’d rather be at the bottom of this list than at the top of the previous one. However, thinking about it I’m not sure I agree. That’s true in one respect, but Bridesmaids do have the advantage of standing out for their lack of hardware; having the marks of a potential dynasty with zero championships is a compelling storyline, but if you do win a championship you might run the risk of getting blurred together with numerous other teams with similar storylines.
There are two slight changes I made to the rules when it comes to displaying players and coaches: [1] if a coach won a championship, they get included (Pat Riley wouldn’t be included on the Heat otherwise); [2] for a player to make the list for 20 Win Shares, only seasons where they’re top 5 on the team in WS count (my memory of the Bridesmaid list is vague, and I might have missed 20-WS players before, but this rule change makes it easier for me to not miss anyone).
Two more notes by way of citation:
- I got all of the data for this series from Basketball Reference.
- Credit to Joe Dimino for having his own NFL dynasty system shortly after James’ MLB one. His is part of the family tree of this one, although I don’t think I mentioned it in my original post.
Missed the Cut
I actually have to make some cuts to get under 40,000 characters, so this is what I decided to cut (I'll put this section in the comments). Besides, maybe it'll help build suspense for which teams did and didn't make the main list.23. St. Louis Hawks, 1957-1961
Head Coach: Alex Hannum, Ed Macauley, Paul SeymourKey Players: Bob Petit, Cliff Hagan, Clyde Lovellette, Ed Macauley
Dynastender Rankings: 9th-16th in Seasons (5), 19th in Points (12.39), 23rd in adjusted Championships (0.52), 8th in adjusted Finals appearances (2.07), 23rd in win% (.597), 20th in playoff win% (.528), 23rd in adjusted Net Rating (+1.3), 23rd in Top 5 aNR (+1.3)
Avg z-score: -1.08
Just like with the Bridesmaid list, we start with a team from the early days of the NBA; accomplishments like making two Finals and winning one are likely to be more impressive today than back when there were a handful of teams in the league. The title the Hawks did win also comes in at #3 on Bill Simmons’ footnote title list, due to a Bill Russell injury which weakened the Celtics. On the other hand, that was the only Finals loss that one of the greatest teams of all time suffered, and the Hawks took them to seven in ‘57 and ‘60. So maybe winning a single title is a “fairer” result than thinking only about Russell’s injury would lead one to believe.
22. Seattle SuperSonics, 1978-1980
Head Coach: Lenny WilkensKey Players: Gus Williams, Jack Sikma, Dennis Johnson, Lonnie Shelton, Marvin Webster
Dynastender Rankings: 21st-23rd in Seasons (3), 20th in Points (11.77), 16th in adjusted Championships (0.86), 15th in adjusted Finals appearances (1.71), 20th in win% (.630), 12th-13th in playoff win% (.593), 21st in adjusted Net Rating (+2.7), 22nd in Top 5 aNR (+1.6)
Avg z-score: -0.82
These guys might be the most forgettable post-merger team in this entire series, at least from where I’m sitting. Mike the NBA Guy agrees with me, as he made a YouTube video with basically the same name. It probably doesn’t help that they didn’t have many memorable players, and that they played in the 70s; too late for the nostalgic Wilt/Russell era, but too early for the Bird/Magic era.
In ‘78, Seattle lost a seven-game Finals series to the Bullets, the worst NBA champion of all time (by both win percentage and net rating). The next season, they won an extremely nail-biting conference finals against the Suns, and struck back by beating Washington in five to get the title. 56 wins and a conference final loss in 1980 was enough to qualify for this list, but they weren’t able to sustain success for long enough to be remembered.
21. Miami Heat, 2004-2006
Head Coach: Stan Van Gundy, Pat RileyKey Players: Dwyane Wade, Udonis Haslem, Shaquille O’Neal, Eddie Jones, Damon Jones, Lamar Odom
Dynastender Rankings: 21st-23rd in Seasons (3), 23rd in Points (10), 8th-13th in adjusted Championships (1), 19th-21st in adjusted Finals appearances (1), 22nd in win% (.622), 5th in playoff win% (.647), 17th in adjusted Net Rating (+3.3), 21st in Top 5 aNR (+2.0)
Avg z-score: -0.76
Shaq’s last real hurrah was in Miami, where his stint alongside Dwyane Wade was so short that despite winning a (footnote) championship, his years alone actually wouldn’t have been enough for his team to be an official Dynastender. The 2004 series between Miami and New Orleans is otherwise rather forgettable, but the Heat qualified for that season- and for the list overall- because they were able to eke that series out in seven.
Relatively speaking, the only real bright spot keeping the Heat ahead of the Sonics is their playoff record; in fact, this is the first of five teams we’ll cover in this series who have a higher win percentage in the playoffs than in the regular season. Two sweeps to start off 2005 help, as well as two close series losses in ‘04 and ‘05, followed by a solid championship run where nobody took Miami to seven.
20. Los Angeles/Utah Stars, 1970-1974
Head Coach: Bill Sharman, LaDell Andersen, Joe MullaneyKey Players: Zelmo Beaty, Willie Wise, Jimmy Jones, Ron Boone, Mark Calvin
Dynastender Rankings: 9th-16th in Seasons (5), 18th in Points (13.17), 19th-20th in adjusted Championships (0.61), 13th in adjusted Finals appearances (1.79), 19th in win% (.633), 10th in playoff win% (.595), 18th in adjusted Net Rating (+3.15), 18th in Top 5 aNR (+3.15)
Avg z-score: -0.64
If this team doesn’t look familiar, it’s because I decided to include the ABA for this series.
The LA Stars managed to make the ABA Finals after a 43-41 season in 1970, the year before they moved to Utah. The team improved after moving, sporting 57, 60, and 55-win seasons, and squeaking out a championship in ‘71 after seven-game series in both of the final rounds, including the mighty Pacers. Utah would be the 1-seed in the Western division the next three seasons, but lose in the playoffs: twice to the Pacers, and once to a team coming up on this list.
19. Rochester Royals, 1949-1954
Head Coach: Les HarrisonKey Players: Bobby Wanzer, Arnie Risen, Bob Davies, Arnie Johnson, Jack Coleman
Dynastender Rankings: 5th-8th in Seasons (6), 17th-18th in Points (13.17), 19th-20th in adjusted Championships (0.61), 22nd in adjusted Finals appearances (0.61), 14th in win% (.658), 23rd in playoff win% (.500), 14th in adjusted Net Rating (+4.0), 14th in Top 5 aNR (+4.3)
Avg z-score: -0.64
This Royals team is best known as the last time the Kings’ franchise has won a title; when you have to go back this far, it’s probably even more humiliating than simply having never won a title at all.
We have to go all the way back to the BAA for the start of this run; where in ‘48-49, the Royals had the best record in the league but lost the Division Finals to Mikan’s Lakers. Then in 1950, the new NBA had a best-of 3 format before the Finals, where the Royals got swept in two games against the Ft. Wayne Pistons. It was in Rochester’s worst regular season of this run (‘51) that they actually won the championship, in what was also their only Finals appearance. They sustained their run with three more moderately good regular seasons, but petered out in the playoffs against the Lakers (twice) and Pistons (once).
18. Kentucky Colonels, 1970-1975
Head Coach: Gene Rhodes, Joe Mullaney, Babe McCarthy, Hubie BrownKey Players: Artis Gilmore, Dan Issel, Louie Dampier, Goose Ligon, Darel Carrier, Cincy Powell
Dynastender Rankings: 5th-8th in Seasons (6), 16th in Points (13.76), 21st-22nd in adjusted Championships (0.58), 14th in adjusted Finals appearances (1.76), 18th in win% (.643), 17th in playoff win% (.570), 15th in adjusted Net Rating (+3.7), 13th in Top 5 aNR (+4.5)
Avg z-score: -0.51
We’re back in the ABA, and to a team which somehow had six different head coaches in a six-year period of success.
Like happens occasionally in this list, the seasons where Kentucky saw playoff success aren’t the ones you’d necessarily expect. They had the best regular season in ABA history (68-16, +8 net rating), and lost in the first round of the playoffs. However, that season was sandwizhed between two Finals runs where they went 44-40 and 56-28 in the RS. They lost two Game 7s in those Finals, and even outscored the Pacers in ‘73, meaning this Dynastender run was reasonably close to becoming a Dynasty. However, they didn’t get to the 10-pont threshold until their actual championship season, with an impressive 12-3 playoff run including a convincing 5-game defeat of Indiana.
17. New York Nets, 1974-1976
Head Coach: Kevin LougheryKey Players: Julius Erving, Brian Taylor, Billy Paultz, Larry Kenon
Dynastender Rankings: 21st-23rd in Seasons (3), 22nd in Points (10.14), 7th in adjusted Championships (1.13), 18th in adjusted Finals appearances (1.13), 13th in win% (.667), 4th in playoff win% (.656), 12th in adjusted Net Rating (+4.4), 20th in Top 5 aNR (+2.65)
Avg z-score: -0.49
Rounding out our ABA section is a short-but-sweet run of two titles in three years from Dr. J and the Nets. They also had a very impressive championship run at the start of their Dynastender, going 12-2 in the ‘74 playoffs. They then rounded out ABA history by beating the Nuggets in a six-game Finals in 1976.
16. Houston Rockets, 1993-1997
Head Coach: Rudy TomjanovichKey Players: Hakeem Olajuwon, Kenny Smith, Clyde Drexler, Mario Ellie, Otis Thorpe, Charles Barkley
Dynastender Rankings: 9th-16th in Seasons (5), 12th in Points (17), 3rd in adjusted Championships (1.90), 12th in adjusted Finals appearances (1.90), 16th in win% (.646), 12th-13th in playoff win% (.593), 22nd in adjusted Net Rating (+2.4), 17th in Top 5 aNR (+3.3)
Avg z-score: -0.49
We’ve left the land of historical footnotes, and from this point on these teams will mostly be remembered by hard-core fans.
With Michael Jordan spending his time either playing baseball or losing a memory-holed second-round series to Orlando, the man picked ahead of him in the ‘84 draft took advantage of the power vacuum. He led Houston to two straight titles, including an empathic upset sweep over the aforementioned Magic. Then they tried forming a superteam with Barkley, but John Stockton and the Jazz ended their season, and it turns out their Dynastender.
Hakeem’s Rockets are stuck near ABA-land, with their biggest problem being their weak regular seasons (both in terms of net rating and win percentage, plus missed opportunities for Points). Their second championship, and the Points it gave them, does help, but it can only propel them so far when every other category is lacking.
15. Philadelphia 76ers, 1966-1969
Head Coach: Dolph Schayes, Alex Hannum, Jack RamsayKey Players: Wilt Chamberlain, Hal Greer, Chet Walker, Billy Cunningham
Dynastender Rankings: 17th-20th in Seasons (4), 21st in Points (10.67), 21st-22nd in adjusted Championships (0.58), 23rd in adjusted Finals appearances (0.58), 2nd in win% (.738), 21st in playoff win% (.526), 8th in adjusted Net Rating (+5.15), 15th in Top 5 aNR (+4.1)
Avg z-score: -0.41
This franchise enjoyed three full seasons of Wilt’s services, and took advantage; with a stupendous 185-58 regular season record (a 62-win pace), and a ‘67 season which ended the Celtics’ eight-peat of championships emphatically.
That season’s East Finals ended 4-1 in Philly’s favor, with the Sixers outscoring the Celtics by a total of 50 points. Both of those metrics (the three-game and 50-point margin) were franchise records for Celtics losses; the three-game margin wasn’t beaten until 1983, and the 50-point drubbing wouldn’t be topped until 2004. Beating the eight-time defending champs this badly is extremely impressive.
Still, the Sixers didn’t count as a Dynastender quite yet until 1969, when the remnants of the team were able to amass 55 wins with Wilt no longer in town.
14. Boston Celtics, 1972-1977
Head Coach: Tom HeinsohnKey Players: John Havlicek, Dave Cowens, Jo Jo White, Paul Silas, Don Nelson, Don Chaney
Dynastender Rankings: 5th-8th in Seasons (6), 9th in Points (18.52), 5th in adjusted Championships (1.53), 16th in adjusted Finals appearances (1.53), 9th in win% (.687), 14th in playoff win% (.588), 20th in adjusted Net Rating (+3.1), 16th in Top 5 aNR (+4.05)
Avg z-score: -0.28
After the retirement of Bill Russell, the Celtics were nearly able to continue his Dynasty (spoiler alert!). 1970 was a dud, a sub-.500 season worth (approximately) -3 points. ‘71 was another playoff miss, but they finished over .500 (44-38), for -2 points. Boston finally got into the positive category in ‘72, but only for 2 points (56 wins and a conference finals loss), meaning that the Celtics satisfied criteria 4 for ending a dynasty (as ‘69 and ‘72 both had to be worth at least three points).
But while Russell’s Dynasty was over, a couple of the same players who were around for its twilight were able to put together a Dynastender on its coattails. Two championships and six seasons of success are both impressive, but other numbers are underwhelming. They have some distance between themselves and everyone below them, but their weak net rating and lack of a popping stat to make up for it keep them in the teens.
13. Cleveland Cavaliers, 2015-2018
Head Coach: David Blatt, Tyronn LueKey Players: LeBron James, Kevin Love, Tristan Thompson, Kyrie Irving
Dynastender Rankings: 17th-20th in Seasons (4), 10th-11th in Points (18), 8th-13th in adjusted Championships (1), 2nd-3rd in adjusted Finals appearances (4), 17th in win% (.643), 1st in playoff win% (.679), 16th in adjusted Net Rating (+3.45), 19th in Top 5 aNR (+2.8)
Avg z-score: -0.27
Of course, few people would think about this Cavs team in isolation; really, it’s a link in the chain of LeBron’s career, which is why I’ll be discussing him as the only player-centric Dynasty on the next list.
However, going through an exercise like this can help underline how special it is to make four Finals in a row. When we include era adjustments, only one other Dynastender that we’ll talk about beats 4 Finals appearances, and the only other one to match it is when LeBron did it with the Heat in the four previous seasons.
The one major asterisk everyone puts on this team is that the East was weak. That might be true, but it’s also overstated. Out of 133 Dynastender seasons, the Cavs’ strengths of schedule (per Basketball Reference) rank, in chronological order: 72th-75th, 97th-99th, 62nd, and 68th-69th. That’s nothing to particularly write home about (although the Cavs’ own weak point differentials meant they weren’t decreasing their own SOS as much as some other teams). Of 78 teams who lost in the conference finals since the 16-team playoff format started, the net rating of the Cavs’ ECF opponents ranked: 38th, 45th, 70th, 60th. Out of 156 second-round losers, Cleveland’s opponents ranked: 91st-92nd, 74th-77th, 55th-60th, and 9th. To be fair, these numbers would be a bit lower if you took SOS into account; but they’re not totally dismal.
In the big picture, it’s relatively rare for people to criticize the Raptors, or the Bucks, or the Big Three Celtics, or the Shaq-Wade Heat, because of a weak conference; even though all of these teams I mentioned have SOSs comparably bad as the Cavs throughout their Dynastender runs. But it was and is brought up over and over again for LeBron’s teams, because his teams were the only ones who were able to consistently benefit from the weak conference. People were complaining about the lack of competition in the East, because when you’re up against LeBron the standard is so much higher to meaningfully count as “competition”.
With all of that said, the Cavs’ weak regular seasons, combined with the fact that LeBron only stayed for four years, anchors them out of the top 10.
12. Toronto Raptors, 2016-2020
Head Coach: Dwane Casey, Nick NurseKey Players: Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan, Jonas Valanciunas, Pascal Siakam, Kawhi Leonard
Dynastender Rankings: 9th-16th in Seasons (5), 13th in Points (16), 8th-13th in adjusted Championships (1), 19th-21st in adjusted Finals appearances (1), 6th in win% (.693), 19th in playoff win% (.547), 6th in adjusted Net Rating (+5.4), 8th in Top 5 aNR (+5.4)
Avg z-score: -0.24
The Raptors are one of the weirdest entries in this series, as their run almost feels like three different ones.
The first chapter came as three consecutive solid regular seasons (56, 51 and 59 wins) that were all ended by the aforementioned Cavs. Then they traded for Kawhi Leonard and won a championship with him (A footnote title? Or not?), for the second, one-season chapter. Then they managed to unexpectedly have a great season in the COVID-interrupted 2019-20 campaign, including a 60-win pace and a narrow second-round loss, for one final, one-season chapter.
Putting all of the pieces together, this run registers as an impressive one as far as regular-season success goes, finishing 6th among Dynatenders for both regular-season win percentage and adjusted net rating. Playoff success was a different story, which the aforementioned LeBron series (two of which were sweeps) are mostly responsible for (plus the fact that many of their series wins were close, including their last three wins in ‘19).
This run is technically not officially over yet, but the Raptors would have to win the championship this season in order to extend it. Needless to say, that’s not very likely.
11. New York Knicks, 1969-1974
Head Coach: Red HolzmanKey Players: Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, Dave DeBusschere, Bill Bradley, Dick Barnett, Jerry Lucas, Earl Monroe
Dynastender Rankings: 5th-8th in Seasons (6), 8th in Points (18.6), 6th in adjusted Championships (1.44), 7th in adjusted Finals appearances (2.19), 15th in win% (.650), 11th in playoff win% (.593), 11th in adjusted Net Rating (+4.5), 11th in Top 5 aNR (+5.0)
Avg z-score: -0.20
The Knicks were terrible for most of the sixties, never even reaching a .400 win percentage from ‘60 to ‘66. New York had never won a championship, so when the late Willis Reed’s famous heroics helped them beat the Lakers in 1970, it was truly a new leaf to turn over for the club. That season was followed up by a third-straight 50-win season, and then two more consecutive Finals appearances, including another win in ‘73.
10. Milwaukee Bucks, 2019-present
Head Coach: Mike BudenholzerKey Players: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton, Eric Bledsoe
Dynastender Rankings: 17th-20th in Seasons (4), 15th in Points (15), 8th-13th in adjusted Championships (1), 19th-21st in adjusted Finals appearances (1), 7th in win% (.689), 6th in playoff win% (.633), 3rd in adjusted Net Rating (+6.3), 10th in Top 5 aNR (+5.1)
Avg z-score: -0.10
The NBA’s only reigning Dynastender (that we know of) lands just inside the top ten. All of these numbers are only as of the end of last year, although the Bucks’ run is already confirmed as continuing another season (as they’ve gotten to 50 wins).
A pressing question, of course, might be how the Bucks’ ranking might change depending on their playoff results this year. It’s hard to project, because it depends on some specifics (like how their regular- and post-season records will shake out). However, if I change nothing but seasons/points/champs/finals to account for an NBA championship this season, the Bucks go up to #6 on this list (breaking into what’s currently a pretty solid top-6). Adjusting for a conference finals loss (adding one season and three points) would push them up two spots, to #8.
Looking at the profile of Milwaukee’s accomplishments so far, their net rating (3rd when adjusted for strength of schedule) is what sticks out to me the most. In fact, that’s an area where the Bucks will actually take a hit at the end of this season, because they’ve had a relatively underwhelming net rating this time around.
9. Los Angeles Lakers, 1962-1973
Head Coach: Fred Schaus, Butch van Breda Kolff, Joe Mullaney, Bill SharmanKey Players: Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain, Gail Goodrich, Rudy LaRusso, Happy Hairston, Dick Barnett, Jim McMillian, Archie Clark
Dynastender Rankings: 1st in Seasons (12), 4th in Points (23.19), 17th-18th in adjusted Championships (0.75), 1st in adjusted Finals appearances (5.7), 21st in win% (.626), 18th in playoff win% (.552), 19th in adjusted Net Rating (+3.1), 7th in Top 5 aNR (+5.5)
Avg z-score: -0.04
The Lakers of Jerry West’s time represented a kind of dynasty of second-place finishes. Their nine Finals appearances in the 12-year run is incredible, although it’s adjusted down to 5.7 because of the number of teams in the league when they were accomplished.
These Lakers’ ability to contend for a long period of time is impressive, and if I did these rankings by Points alone, they’d be at #4 among Dynastenders on that strength. Weak regular seasons, though, prevent them from reaching thoe heights in my more complicated system.
8. Boston Celtics, 2008-2012
Head Coach: Doc RiversKey Players: Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, Rajon Rondo
Dynastender Rankings: 9th-16th in Seasons (5), 10th-11th in Points (18), 8th-13th in adjusted Championships (1), 9th-10th in adjusted Finals appearances (2), 5th in win% (.693), 15th in playoff win% (.581), 4th in adjusted Net Rating (+6.0), 3rd in Top 5 aNR (+6.0)
Avg z-score: -0.03
Known as a major step forward into the “superteam” era, the Big Three Celtics hit the ground running, posting their best season by far (67 wins and a title) in their first season together. As such, they’re the only NBA Dynastender to win a title in the first season of their run. Perhaps, that might be what contributes to this squad’s legacy; most teams have to build for a couple of years but the Big Three Celtics hit the ground running and made an immediate impression.
They had a chance to make a Dynasty out of it, but a Garnett injury hampered their chances in ‘09, and they couldn't pull out a Game 7 against the Lakers in ‘10. Great regular seasons propel the team into the top-10 Dynastenders, although the short length of the run and underwhelming playoff results limit how high they could rise.
7. Detroit Pistons, 2002-2008
Head Coach: Rick Carlisle, Larry Brown, Flip SaundersKey Players: Chauncey Billups, Ben Wallace, Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Rasheed Wallace, Jon Barry
Dynastender Rankings: 4th in Seasons (7), 3rd in Points (25), 14th in adjusted Championships (0.98), 11th in adjusted Finals appearances (1.98), 12th in win% (.669), 16th in playoff win% (.579), 10th in adjusted Net Rating (+4.8), 6th in Top 5 aNR (+5.7)
Avg z-score: 0.00
What really carries this Pistons team is their Point total, which is buoyed both by their longevity (7 seasons is a fairly good length for a run) and the streak of six straight conference finals appearances for which they are somewhat famous. Six straight three-point seasons (in the Dynasty Point system) has only been equalled by the Jazz (six straight), Russell Celtics (eight straight), and the Showtime Lakers (ten straight), so it’s a very impressive feat that’s worthy of putting the ‘00s Pistons in this kind of tier.
Because of how many deep runs the Pistons made, it’s not that hard to imagine a couple years going differently resulting in a Dynasty; like ‘05 (losing in Game 7 of the Finals), or ‘06/’08 (two six-game losses to the eventual champions).
Somewhat surprisingly, they don’t rank very highly in playoff win percentage, due to the fact that they won some surprisingly close series (like TOR ‘02, ORL ‘03, CLE ‘06) and lost a couple of lopsided ones (BOS ‘02, NJ ‘03).
6. Detroit Pistons, 1987-1991
Head Coach: Chuck DalyKey Players: Bill Laimbeer, Dennis Rodman, Joe Dumars, Isiah Thomas, Adrian Dantley
Dynastender Rankings: 9th-16th in Seasons (5), 5th in Points (21.68), 4th in adjusted Championships (1.86), 6th in adjusted Finals appearances (2.74), 11th in win% (.678), 3rd in playoff win% (.678), 9th in adjusted Net Rating (+4.9), 12th in Top 5 aNR (+4.9)
Avg z-score: 0.13
The second straight Pistons team on the list is the closest Dynastender to being on the Dynasty list. The ‘88 Finals ended with two very close games (that weren’t without controversy either), both of which could have won the Pistons the championship. Had they done so, and still won the next two, they would get the requisite three titles (in six or fewer seasons) for the Dynasty label. However, this team fails to resemble Dynasties in both number of championships and in length; every post-merger Dynasty lasted at least nine seasons by mysystem, where Detroit lasted only five. The Pistons got their two titles, got eclipsed by the Bulls, and disappeared.
Playoff success carries this run, as the Bad Boys nearly had as good of a win percentage in the second season as in the first. Unlike their ‘00s successors, they dominated series, winning 9 series by three games or more in this Dynastender run, losing only once by such a margin.
5. Dallas Mavericks, 2001-2011
Head Coach: Don Nelson, Avery Johnson, Rick CarlisleKey Players: Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Terry, Steve Nash, Michael Finley, Erick Dampier, Josh Howard, Jason Kidd, Shawn Bradley, Tyson Chandler, Antawn Jamison
Dynastender Rankings: 2nd in Seasons (11), 2nd in Points (27), 8th-13th in adjusted Championships (1), 9th-10th in adjusted Finals appearances (2), 8th in win% (.687), 22nd in playoff win% (.512), 7th in adjusted Net Rating (+5.4), 2nd in Top 5 aNR (+7.0)
Avg z-score: 0.19
The Mavericks’ relative absence from the later rounds of the playoffs might have made you think that the 2011 team was a one-year wonder. However, that’s not the case. It was a year that topped off what was a very impressive run of success up to that point, at least in the regular season.
Every season in this run, Dallas had a record good enough to earn them points for my system (a 50-win pace). That’s 11 straight seasons, a very impressive feat that’s only been bettered by the Showtime Lakers, the Russell Celtics, and the Duncan Spurs. Dirk and co. were consistently good year in and year out, which is the driving force behind them making the top 5 of the Dynastender list.
Of course, what came between the Mavs and the very top of this list (or even a part of the Dynasty list) is a lack of playoff success. The playoff record (65-62) sticks out like a sore thumb, an atrocious 22nd out of 23 qualifying Dynastenders. The biggest symbol of said disappointment is the infamous series they lost to the 8-seed Warriors in 2007, following a 67-win regular season that featured an MVP from Nowitzki.
A disparity between regular season and playoff success that’s this large is really astounding, and the large sample calls into question the conventional analytic wisdom that the playoffs are basically just a noise-fest. Here are some highlights (or lowlights), as not everyone might know/remember much about Dallas’ playoff journey (I know I didn’t before researching):
- 2001: The Mavs overcome a big deficit at Utah in a decisive Game 5, but get destroyed by San Antonio in Round 2.
- 2002: A sweep against Minnesota, but a 5-game loss against the memorable ‘02 Kings team (including an OT Game 4 loss)
- 2003: Dirk gets injured during the WCF, and the Mavericks lose to the Spurs (although they benefitted from a Chris Weber injury the round before).
- 2004: Another loss to the Kings, this time in Round 1. Dallas misses two opportunities at the end of one-possession Games 4 and 5 to end the series.
- 2005: A comeback from a 2-0 deficit against McGrady and Yao’s Rockets, followed by an OT Game 6 loss at home to Phoenix to end the season (a Steve Nash three ties it with 6 seconds left, followed by a near-miss from Stackhouse at the buzzer).
- 2006: This run is fairly well-known, so I’ll ignore it.
- 2007: This one’s also pretty well-documented. It’ll also make you cry if you think about it enough.
- 2008: A convincing loss against Chris Paul and the Hornets in the first round.
- 2009: An impressive five-game win against the Spurs, followed by a five-game loss to Carmelo and the Nuggets, with three double-digit road losses and two close home games that the teams split (including a Carmelo game-winner after an uncalled intentional foul)
- 2010: Yet another series against the Spurs (the fifth in ten years); this one a 4-2 win for San Antonio as the 7-seed.
4. Los Angeles Lakers, 2008-2012
Head Coach: Phil Jackson, Mike BrownKey Players: Pau Gasol, Kobe Bryant, Lamar Odom, Andrew Bynum
Dynastender Rankings: 9th-16th in Seasons (5), 6th-7th in Points (21), 1st-2nd in adjusted Championships (2), 5th in adjusted Finals appearances (3), 4th in win% (.703), 8th in playoff win% (.618), 5th in adjusted Net Rating (+5.8), 4th in Top 5 aNR (+5.8)
Avg z-score: 0.21
Fittingly, the Celtics and Lakers had Dynastenders spanning the exact same five seasons. The Lakers’ version gets the nod both because they won the 2010 matchup, and because the Lakers had more consistent postseason success, winning 62% of their playoff games (and making three Finals) to the Celtics’ 58% (and two).
There might be some quibbles about this run not being connected to the Shaqobe era, but the consensus seems to be in separating the two, and my system concurs (the ‘05-07 run of seasons is enough disappointment to put the kibosh on the initial Dynasty).
3. Philadelphia 76ers, 1977-1986
Head Coach: Gene Shue, Billy Cunningham, Matt GuokasKey Players: Julius Erving, Maurice Cheeks, Bobby Jones, Moses Malone, Andrew Toney, Steve Mix, Charles Barkley, George McGinnis, Doug Collins
Dynastender Rankings: 3rd in Seasons (10), 1st in Points (30), 15th in adjusted Championships (0.88), 4th in adjusted Finals appearances (3.46), 10th in win% (.683), 9th in playoff win% (.603), 13th in adjusted Net Rating (+4.3), 5th in Top 5 aNR (+5.8)
Avg z-score: 0.28
Moses Malone’s “Fo Fo” Sixers only won one championship, but they had an extended period of relevance of which it was a part. In ten seasons, they made it to four NBA Finals and seven conference finals, only losing in the first round once. They also won 50 games in all but one season, the 47-win ‘79. In total, their 560 wins in these ten seasons ranked first in the league, with only two other teams (BOS 539, LAL 552) even getting to 500.
This team might slip through the cracks a bit, because apart from their one title, they’re often remembered in the contexts of their losses; they lost to Bill Walton’s Blazers, they lost to Magic’s iconic Game 6 performance, and they lost the 3-1 lead against the ‘81 Celtics. These Sixers had the definite potential for a Dynasty if a couple of these (or other) losses went the other way.
My Point system loves this team’s longevity and consistency, as can be seen from their top rank in that category. They only end up outside of the top spot on this list because there’s two other teams who were particularly excellent over smaller periods of time.
2. Milwaukee Bucks, 1970-1974
Head Coach: Larry CostelloKey Players: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bob Dandridge, Oscar Robertson, Jon McGlocklin, Lucius Allen, Flynn Robinson
Dynastender Rankings: 9th-16th in Seasons (5), 14th in Points (15.66), 17th-18th in adjusted Championships (0.75), 17th in adjusted Finals appearances (1.51), 1st in win% (.741), 7th in playoff win% (.632), 1st in adjusted Net Rating (+7.6), 1st in Top 5 aNR (+7.6)
Avg z-score: 0.31
Of the teams you were anticipating on this list, the ‘70s Bucks might not have been one of them. They were from the “dark ages” of the ‘70s that everybody forgets about. There’s a chance that you knew they had a great ‘71 season, but not much else.
However, these Bucks had a heck of a run. They hit the ground running their first season without Kareem, immediately winning 56 games, losing in the Division Finals. Then followed one of the greatest seasons of all time, where they posted a net-rating record that wouldn’t be broken for 21 years (and their aNR still hasn’t been beaten by a non-Dynasty), and dominated the postseason to boot. ‘72 was the Lakers’ year, but the Bucks were still nothing to sneeze at; 63 wins and a second-straight double-digit net rating (only the ‘15-17 Warriors and ‘96-97 Bulls can boast the same). Not only that, but they actually outscored the Lakers in their playoff series that year! ‘73 saw a disappointing first-round upset loss to Golden State (in which the Bucks also scored more points), but after a third-straight 60-win season (another feat only Dynasties share). Finally, the Bucks narrowly missed what would have been the NBA’s only four-season streak of 60+ wins (they won 59), and an iconic Kareem shot forced a seventh NBA Finals game which they ended up losing.
I was originally as puzzled by the Bucks’ high ranking as you all might have been, but actually going back and breaking down all of their seasons has sold me on them. 304 regular-season wins over a five-year period is incredible, and they were just a few playoff games away from a Dynasty that would’ve potentially been remembered among the best.
1. Miami Heat, 2011-2014
Head Coach: Erik SpoelstraKey Players: LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh
Dynastender Rankings: 17th-20th in Seasons (4), 6th-7th in Points (21), 1st-2nd in adjusted Championships (2), 2nd-3rd in adjusted Finals appearances (3.46), 3rd in win% (.718), 2nd in playoff win% (.678), 2nd in adjusted Net Rating (+6.4), 9th in Top 5 aNR (+5.1)
Avg z-score: 0.38
While this team isn’t the closest on this list to being a Dynasty (the Pistons are), in some ways they might be the team that feels like a dynasty the most, or that most had the aura that many dynasties share.
From the moment Miami’s Big 3 was official, everyone knew it was the Heat against the world. LeBron infamously made a tongue-in-cheek allusion to a mega-dynasty, and it was up to everyone else to try to stop it. The fact that this run has an air of disappointment about its final results, despite four Finals and two rings in four tries, is almost the biggest testament there is. Out of 16 playoff series, they only lost twice to two very good teams, but it’s still not quite good enough, precisely because this team was so good that perfection was their standard.
The Heat are a good example of the upside of my final ranking system, and its general favoritism towards short but great runs. Now that I’m looking at the list, it would feel a little wrong for the Heat to be 6th-7th, and not even make the top 5 Dynastenders, as would be the case if I went on Points alone. Yes, they only lasted for four years, but the way they defined the NBA for that stretch goes beyond most other Dynastenders.
We could, perhaps, touch on how much of a footnote 2012 should be, where there could be some arguments back and forth. On the one hand, I don’t really believe in footnotes based on shortened regular-seasons (at least in the NBA’s cases, where we were still left with decent regular seasons that were >half of a normal one), and also history bore out that Derrick Rose getting injured was more of a norm than an exception. On the other hand, the ECF we got was pretty close, which could lead one to wonder whether Chicago with home court could have tipped the balance in the other direction.
2023.04.01 20:28 G-Unit11111 I guess Trump Tower wasn't available?
 | submitted by G-Unit11111 to WhitePeopleTwitter [link] [comments] |
2023.04.01 20:11 321poehali Don't you just hate when customers tip bait
 | submitted by 321poehali to UberEATS [link] [comments] |
2023.04.01 20:04 MadeUAcctButIEatedIt Day games for UK supporters
Greetings to all royal subjects across the pond! (Enjoy it while you can, Jamaica...) This year marks the first Opening Day of the Carolean era... OK, not a lot of monarchists on the sub, but it's something...
For those of us watching from the Old World, here are all this season's fixtures with the first pitch scheduled before 9pm GMT.
Add one hour for BST and two hours for continental Europe.
All fixtures are subject to change for the requirements of television.
submitted by MadeUAcctButIEatedIt to Torontobluejays [link] [comments]
For those of us watching from the Old World, here are all this season's fixtures with the first pitch scheduled before 9pm GMT.
Add one hour for BST and two hours for continental Europe.
| Date | Time (GMT) | Opposition | Venue | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sat, 1 | Apr | 18:15 | St Louis | A |
| Sun, 2 | Apr | 18:15 | St Louis | A |
| Thu, 6 | Apr | 18:10 | Kansas City | A |
| Sun, 9 | Apr | 20:07 | LA Angels | A |
| Sat, 15 | Apr | 19:07 | Tampa Bay | H |
| Sun, 16 | Apr | 17:37 | Tampa Bay | H |
| Sat, 22 | Apr | 17:05 | NY Yankees | A |
| Sun, 23 | Apr | 17:35 | NY Yankees | A |
| Wed, 26 | Apr | 17:07 | Chi White Sox | H |
| Sat, 29 | Apr | 19:07 | Seattle | H |
| Sun, 30 | Apr | 17:37 | Seattle | H |
| Sun, 7 | May | 17:35 | Pittsburgh | A |
| Wed, 10 | May | 20:05 | Philadelphia | A |
| Sat, 13 | May | 19:07 | Atlanta | H |
| Sun, 14 | May | 17:37 | Atlanta | H |
| Sat, 20 | May | 19:07 | Baltimore | H |
| Sun, 21 | May | 17:37 | Baltimore | H |
| Thu, 25 | May | 17:10 | Tampa Bay | A |
| Sat, 27 | May | 18:10 | Minnesota | A |
| Sun, 28 | May | 18:10 | Minnesota | A |
| Thu, 1 | June | 17:07 | Milwaukee | H |
| Sat, 3 | June | 20:10 | NY Mets | A |
| Sun, 4 | June | 17:40 | NY Mets | A |
| Sat, 10 | June | 19:07 | Minnesota | H |
| Sun, 11 | June | 17:37 | Minnesota | H |
| Thu, 15 | June | 17:05 | Baltimore | A |
| Sat, 17 | June | 20:05 | Texas | A |
| Sun, 18 | June | 18:35 | Texas | A |
| Wed, 21 | June | 16:10 | Miami | A |
| Sat, 24 | June | 20:07 | Oakland | H |
| Sun, 25 | June | 17:37 | Oakland | H |
| Sat, 1 | July | 19:07 | Boston | H |
| Sun, 2 | July | 17:37 | Boston | H |
| Sat, 8 | July | 17:10 | Detroit | A |
| Sun, 9 | July | 17:40 | Detroit | A |
| Sat, 15 | July | 19:07 | Arizona | H |
| Sun, 16 | July | 17:37 | Arizona | H |
| Thu, 20 | July | 17:07 | San Diego | H |
| Sat, 22 | July | 20:10 | Seattle | A |
| Sun, 23 | July | 20:10 | Seattle | A |
| Wed, 26 | July | 20:10 | LA Dodgers | A |
| Sat, 29 | July | 19:07 | LA Angels | H |
| Sun, 30 | July | 16:05 | LA Angels | H |
| Thu, 3 | Aug | 19:07 | Baltimore | H |
| Sat, 5 | Aug | 20:10 | Boston | A |
| Sun, 6 | Aug | 17:35 | Boston | A |
| Thu, 10 | Aug | 17:10 | Cleveland | A |
| Sat, 12 | Aug | 19:07 | Chi Cubs | H |
| Sun, 13 | Aug | 17:37 | Chi Cubs | H |
| Sun, 20 | Aug | 17:40 | Cinncinnati | A |
| Sat, 26 | Aug | 19:07 | Cleveland | H |
| Sun, 27 | Aug | 17:37 | Cleveland | H |
| Wed, 30 | Aug | 19:07 | Washington | H |
| Sun, 3 | Sept | 19:10 | Colorado | A |
| Mon, 4 | Sept | 20:07 | Oakland | A |
| Wed, 6 | Sept | 19:37 | Oakland | A |
| Sat, 9 | Sept | 19:07 | Kansas City | H |
| Sun, 10 | Sept | 17:37 | Kansas City | H |
| Sat, 16 | Sept | 19:07 | Boston | H |
| Sun, 17 | Sept | 17:37 | Boston | H |
| Sat, 23 | Sept | 20:10 | Tampa Bay | A |
| Sun, 24 | Sept | 17:10 | Tampa Bay | A |
| Sat, 30 | Sept | 19:07 | Tampa Bay | H |
| Sun, 1 | Oct | 19:07 | Tampa Bay | H |
2023.04.01 19:55 someguy3 Middlemak Layout, a new writeup and renamed. A layout that uses the middle-finger-upper-row.
This is a new writeup for Middlemak (renamed since my previous post). Named for the emphasis on the middle finger and use of the middle-finger-upper-row locations for frequent letters
Link to Layout heatmap
Link to GitHub download Middlemak-AH.
Middlemak has also been created. The same writeup has been posted there.
The main design criteria was:
1) Use the middle-finger-upper-row position. The middle finger is a very strong finger, and the middle-finger-upper-row is a very good location for a common letter.
2) To reduce pinballing by putting most vowels on the right hand and putting most of the frequent consonants on the left hand.
3) Reduce the number of Near Finger Bigrams (NFBs).
4) Improve hand balance.
5) Keep SFB down of course.
6) A secondary design criteria was low ring-to-pinky-rolls. I find this to be an awkward movement.
7) Maintain Qwerty similarity to make it easier to learn.
These are all discussed in more detail below. (I’ll be talking in the context of Colemak for some of it. I don’t mean this to be a hit piece on Colemak, it’s just the best way to frame the items.)
When you look at the letter frequency, there are 11 common letters before it takes a big drop off. The first eight letters go on the home row under the fingers. The next question is where do the next 3 letters go. Middlemak’s philosophy is to place 2 on the middle-finger-upper-row, and 1 on the index-finger-upper-row. Colemak places 2 on the centre columns, requiring a lateral movement that many find uncomfortable. Workman has 1 middle-finger-upper-row, 1 ring-finger-upper-row, and 1 index-finger-lower-row, a mixed bag.
L pairs well with R for low SFB. Middlemak places the RL column on the middle finger, which puts the common L on the middle-finger-upper-row.
E and O pair very well for low SFB. Placing EO column on the middle finger puts the very common O on the middle-finger-upper-row.
Using the middle finger also unloads the index fingers. The index fingers can get very busy with 6-7 letters compared with the other letters 3, especially when multiple frequent letters are put on them. I’ll give the distance stats in “Excessive amounts of stats” section far below which shows the drastic difference.
(I’ll skip discussing D here, it’s in “Excessive amounts of detail”. I also cover the R position more there.)
I’ll cover Colemak first to outline the issue. Having most of the vowels EOIUY and many frequent consonants of NHLMKJ on the right hand leads to a pinballing problem. I call this the NHLMKJ wall, it’s a wall of consonants that the vowels pinball off of
To reduce pinballing Middlemak does two things:
First Middlemak moves L off the vowel hand and to the consonant hand. This (and moving H) reduces the wall to NMFPJ which is much, much lower frequency for movements to pinball off of. Or if the word starts with NMFPJ, it’s again much lower frequency.
Second it moves H to the pinky. H is a very unique letter because it’s almost always followed by a vowel. Moving H to the pinky means it almost always gives an inside roll. After the vowel, it generally continues to the consonants NMFPJ continuing the inside roll, or it alternates to the other hand. Rarely goes back to H. Generally only after the third letter can it start to pinball back to the vowels or back to H.
Combined, this reduces pinballing and increases alternating. It’s not entirely alternating, Middlemak still has rolls because it has N, H, and MKFJ. For N I find the rolls to be comfortable, likely because N is on the home row.
I’ll cover Colemak first again to highlight the issue. On Colemak there are extremely common NFBs with HE and LE/EL. (There is also NE/EN, but I find the HE and EL/LE to be awkward because L and H are not on the home row.)
Pretty much all E bigrams are fairly high. I think you want to move common consonants away from E to reduce NFBs. For Middlemak, that means moving them away from the EO column.
Middlemak drastically reduces the NFBs by moving the common letters L and H off the adjacent index finger. The replacements of F and Y have dramatically lower NFBs with E and O. I wanted to keep Colemak’s K there since this doesn’t have many bigrams with E and O.
Looking at other layouts: Workman still has high NFB with L and E. Colemak-DH maintains L and H next to E. Many find the new HE roll to be more comfortable but it’s still a ton of NFB, and LE/EL is still there. MTGAP moved practically all letters away from its E and O and instead put punctuation there, a very good solution.
Middlemak does create some NFB with O placement. Namely OF, ON, and OM. However OF and ON are very comfortable, having the middle finger extended up feels pretty comfortable. OM is ok, and it’s the least common of those 3. The OM scissor-gram is a bit more common than I'd like, but it feels ok. This is about the best location for a scissor-gram too, with the long-middle-finger up and the curl-index-finger down being able to handle it fairly well. (Just to mention Colemak’s EL/LE, not exactly a scissor-gram, I find is bad since the shorter index finger has to reach up and the middle finger is so long it’s already curled just to be on the home row.)
Overall, Middlemak moving common consonants away from E drastically lowers the number of NFBs and takes away a ton of awkward movements. Visually, I think you can see this pretty easily in the heatmaps.
(You can extend this concept to fingers further away, to include Colemaks HI, LI, etc. This can be valid, but for here I’ll focus on adjacent fingers.)
Notes: Ratio >1 indicates right hand dominant, <1 indicates left hand dominant. The hand balance ratios are based on each hand's frequency/distance, right hand divided by left hand. E.g. Middlemak: 51.2% right hand frequency divided by 48.8% left hand frequency equals 1.05. Colemak: 53.2% right hand frequency divided by 46.7% left hand frequency equals 1.14. Hand Balance ratio based on Frequency and Distance is a simple multiplication of the two ratios. I did this because having more frequency and more movement on the same hand amplifies the hand dominance. Or if one hand has more frequency and the other hand has more movement, that would mitigate it to some degree. This is by no means the most definitive way to look at it, but it's what I've managed to come up with. The "Corrected comparison number for left hand dominant" is a hard math thing to explain (that I hope I'm right about anyway). E.g. for Workman listing 0.80 gives the wrong impression the hand dominance is equivalent to 1.2 (20%). But it's actually 1.26 (26%), obtained from 1/0.796=1.26.
Middlemak is more balanced on both frequency and distance. When both are considered, it really adds up to being more balanced. Middlemak combined balance ratio is 1.11, compared to Colemak’s 1.32 or Workman’s 1.26.
Ratios can change quite quickly because both the numerator and the denominator (in this case, the left and right hand) can go in opposite directions. Moving L to the other hand does exactly this - changing both the numerator and denominator, and it changes both the frequency and the distance. So that one move really helps to balance out the hands.
(I’ll add the full data in “Excessive amounts of stats” for both frequency and distance, broken down to hands and fingers. The individual finger load is quite interesting too.)
Notes: This is with index finger pressing C location, how I think most people type. Adding in punctuation the numbers would be higher, I expect they would increase by similar absolute amounts.
For Middlemak: You can see it’s not all that much of an increase in SFB from Colemak. Overall the numbers are low considering it keeps many Qwerty aspects.
On the left hand: The middle finger goes up with R and L. This was to allow more consonants on the left hand and use of the middle-finger-upper-row. I think the middle finger being a strong finger and comfortable reach can handle these quite well. The index finger is the same as Colemak.
On the right hand: The right index goes up a little bit, mostly with NY and MY. They aren’t as high as you may think. But the Y SFBs and adding in NK/KN, NF, etc, they do add up a little. It’s not all that much but it is more. I think it’s still easily manageable. NY is actually not all that common, for example it’s actually less common than EU/UE. (The exact Mayzner numbers are: NY/YN is 2,761 / 373. Compared to EU/UE is 878 / 4,158. MY/YM is 1,753 / 668.) The middle finger actually goes down, EO/OE is very low. The ring finger goes up a bit with UI/IU being more common than Colemak’s IY/YI.
If you want overall percentages (index finger pressing C), Middlemak comes in at 2.078%, vs Colemak’s 1.815%, vs Workmans 3.053%, vs Qwerty’s 6.264%.
Colemak really did a good job finding low SFB pairings of SF, DT, NHL, RW, and IY. So changing 3 of those pairings does come at a cost. But it’s really not much and it’s done so that Middlemak can put more frequent letters to better spots, reduce pinballing, and reduce NFB. I think the SFB is in the same realm as Colemak, it’s still pretty low.
Notes: This is with the middle finger pressing C location, “proper” or ortho style. Same data as above.
Middlemak on Ortho actually comes in just a tad lower, but Colemak takes a bigger dip.
This basically moves most of the SFB from the index finger to the middle finger. On Middlemak, ortho takes out CT on the index finger and puts in CR and CL on the middle finger, which is only a tad lower. On Colemak, ortho takes out CT and puts in SC which is much lower.
I think it still works well. The middle finger is a strong finger and can cover most of these well. The one issue is that CL which is a two row jump.
I’ll break down the full Mayzner numbers:
First the index finger pressing CT/TC is 12,998 / 737. This is what ortho removes.
Middlemak Ortho puts in CRC which is 4,214 / 3,423. And puts in CL / LC which is 4,202 / 333. In percentages, CR is 32% of CT, RC is 26% of CT, and CL is 32% of CT. Adding it all up and including all the others (CP, CG, etc), Middlemak Ortho comes in at 87% of CT+TC. Just a tad lower.
Colemak Ortho puts in CS/SC, which is 644 / 4,363. CF/ FC is pretty much nill. In percentages, SC is 34% of CT. Adding it all up and including the others, Colemak Ortho comes in at 36% of CT+TC. A big dip.
If you want overall percentages (middle finger pressing C, Ortho style), Middlemak comes in at 2.16%, vs Colemak’s 1.669%, vs Workman’s 3.147%, vs Qwerty’s 6.575%. This is from Colemak-DH analyzer which says Middlemak ortho increases, as opposed to what I found that Middlemak ortho decreases SFB. I think it comes down to the data set used.
On the left hand: Middlemak’s ring-to-pinky outside roll of SA and WA is actually pretty low. SA is actually the lowest bigram of the common consonants to A. So SA and WA comes out to be a good design. Compared to Colemak, Middlemak’s SA outside roll is far less common than Colemak’s RA. (The exact Mayzner in millions are: Middlemak’s SA is 6,147. Colemak’s RA is 19,333. WA is the same for both at 10,865.)
On the right hand: Middlmak’s ring-to-pinky roll of IH and UH is very low. Vs Colemak: IO is very common and even YO is pretty common. (The exact numbers are Middlemak’s IH is 59, UH is 30. Vs Colemak’s IO 23,542, YO is 4,227.)
This next bit isn’t even a secondary design goal, but it’s worth mentioning: On the right hand, outside rolls from any of the fingers to the pinky H are very low. The common letters that come before H are usually TH, CH, WH, SH, and GH. All of those are on the opposite left hand. Doing the math, 97% of the letters before H are on the left hand. H on the pinky gives an amazing inside roll almost all the time.
Also worth mentioning is I think this also de-emphasizes the pinky a bit. First it limits the ring-to-pinky rolls. Second, the frequency of H is much lower than Colemak’s O. Third, the bigram HH is virtually nill, vs Colemak’s OO which is pretty common. None of these are massive, but I think they add up to de-emphasizing the pinky a bit.
First, this maintains the bottom row (except N) and maintains Q, W, A, and S. Many letters move on the same finger, including T, G, N, Y, J .
Second, this “keeps” the ASRT order. People learning Colemak commonly say that R and S are reversed. Technically it’s not because R was never on the middle finger to begin with. But it seems to be reversed in the brain. I think it’s two things. First ASRT keeps it in the same order, with R between S and T, even if R changes fingers. Second, I wonder how many people alt-fingered R typing in Qwerty, either all the time or for the RT bigram.
(I've also wondered if, for example, patterns like the very common ION simply being easier to type would make this faster to learn. I’m not certain about that though.)
Comparing layouts:
Considering letters swapping on the same finger, this has fewer changes than Colemak. And I think “keeping” the ASRT order will make it even easier to adopt than the numbers suggest.
(I hope people don’t think that I’m overly focused on keeping S in the Qwerty location just because. For this layout, it does work better with ASRT, I address it in more detail in excessive amount of details.)
2) There are a handful of NFB with R: BR, GR, PR, etc. Same with L and BL. This isn’t enough to change the home row to ARST. There is more below but ASRT has lower SFB, lower ring-to-pinky rolls, and is easier to learn. Also note these are much, much lower than the extremely high NFB that Colemak has with HE, LE, etc, (to solve those I paid L and R together).
3) I wanted a less common letter in the G location (Qwerty T location). I really tried to put a less common letter there, but it simply didn’t work.
4) I mention this above but to add more: The OM scissor-gram is a bit more common than I'd like. This is a limitation of keeping Qwerty similarity (the M) and wanting to put O on the upper-row-middle-finger. (MTGAP has a good design on this. It paired its EO with a lot of punctuation on the index finger to reduce NFBs.)
Honestly I’m surprised no one else has stumbled on this arrangement, since many people have taken to trying to fix Colemak’s issues and keep Qwerty similarity.
HE is very easy.
LD feels very good.
OU feels very comfortable.
OF/FO is very common and feels very good.
IO and ION are very nice rolls.
This maintains the nice IEN roll.
IOU is a redirect, but overall feels pretty ok.
YOU has a lateral move, but feels comfortable.
OU+LD together to make OULD feels good.
The very common TH, THE, and THE_ feel very nice not having to move the fingers off the home row.
Colemak:
1) Colemak has an issue with high lateral movement with D and H. You see this especially with H and its NFBs, but D isn’t the best either.
2) Colemak’s right index finger is overworked. It just has too much to do with N, H, and L.
3) Colemak has a pinballing issue due to placing most vowels and many common consonants on the same hand.
4) Colemak has a ton of NFB with EL/LE and HE.
5) Colemak has a hand balance issue. It places a lot of emphasis on the right hand with the vowels and several common consonants. (Hand dominance and pinballing are technically separate items.)
6) Colemak’s awkward ring-to-pinky rolls. Notably IO, YO (especially when typing YOU), and also RA on the right hand.
7) Not exactly a direct issue with Colemak, but Middlemak is easier to learn coming from Qwerty. Many new users want to ‘keep’ the order of ASRT instead of ‘reversing’ S and R.
Middlemak is a pretty low increase in SFBs and it fixes those issues.
Colemak DH:
Colemak-DH solves 1) the lateral movements. But it doesn’t solve 2) the right index finger overwork, 3) the pinballing, 4) the NFBs 5) the hand balance, 6) the awkward ring-to-pinky rolls, and 7) coming from Qwerty it’s pretty much a full change layout, taking out ease of transition. This also means common shortcuts move. They are still accessible, but they move (paste is the same. Undo, cut, and copy move.)
The neutral: On the left hand, the ring-to-pinky outside roll of SH is slightly higher, but in a similar range. Data from Mayzner is SH is 8,889, and original is SA is 6,147. Changing WA to WH is practically identical.
The bad: On both the right and left hand, the all-fingers-to-pinky outside roll is higher. On the left hand, it’s because TH is very common. On the right hand, it takes away the remarkable inside roll of H and adds in a moderate number of all-fingers-to-A bigrams with EA, IA, NA, MA, etc, (OA is actually low). Notably, the ring-to-pinky outside roll is higher with IA and UA coming in at 8,072 and 3,844, vs original IH and UH of 59 and 30.
The complicated: This option decreases the pinky-to-all-fingers rolls inside rolls on both hands. It increases the all-fingers-to-pinky rolls outside rolls. The overall sum of inside rolls plus outside rolls is lower. In short: this option lowers inside rolls, increases outside rolls, with an overall sum that is lower.
Basically stick to the original if you want to lower ring-to-pinky movement, lower outside rolls, and easier to learn. Overall I put this as a decent option if someone wants to maximize alternating without going to a full change layout.
*Source: 62 page / 31k word compilation. Left index used to press Qwerty C location. Includes punctuation.
Middlemak’s distance reduction is good, most alt keyboards are in the same range. It’s a tad worse on distance than some others because putting O off the home row increases distance, with the O being more frequent. (MTGAP puts O off the home row, but has all the punctuation on the diagonals to decrease distance.)
*All distances in metres. Same source as table above.
First, you can see Qwerty’s distances are extremely high. All the alternatives make big reductions.
Notice that the index fingers move way more than the other fingers.
Middlemak balances this out decently and moves more distance to both middle fingers. The left index finger is still a bit high because it has D off the home row (this brings it back to the discussion of where does the 11th letter go). Middlemak’s left index is slightly higher than Colemak’s even though they have the same letters because the row stagger technically puts D on a slight diagonal. A technicality really.
The right index finger is low, a good feature that the index finger next to the vowels doesn’t have to travel much. Compared to Colemak, Middlemak’s movement is 41% lower than Colemaks.
Here you can really see how much work the index fingers do. Middlemak’s sum of the index fingers is nice and low.
You can also look at the percentage of travel with the index finger. Middlemak’s is down at 47% - meaning the index fingers are responsible for 47% of all the distance travelled. On Colemak the index fingers account for 61% the distance travelled, quite a big difference relatively. Workman and Norman are close to Middlemak. MTGAP and Semimak are very low. Dvorak and Qwerty percentages are a bit deceiving though - the higher index finger distances are hidden by the higher total amount of distance.
So even when Middlemak’s left index finger doesn’t have a reduction in distance, the total index finger distance is significantly reduced.
Notes: * indicates vowel hand (Norman and Qwerty are mixed enough that there is no clear vowel hand). The ratio between the hands can change quite quickly, so I think that highlights the differences between the layouts better. Ratio >1 indicates right hand dominant, <1 indicates left hand dominant.
I think the raw distances are better for comparison between layouts, but some people like percentages. I used this mostly to calculate hand balance.
You can see Middlemak spreads out the work. The pinkies are low, ring fingers are reasonable, middle takes on more, and the indexes have most of the distances.
* indicates vowel hand (Norman and Qwerty are mixed enough that there is no vowel hand). Ratio of >1 indicates right hand dominant, <1 indicates left hand dominant.
The ratio between the hands can change quite quickly, so I think that highlights the differences between the layouts better than the percentages. I know it doesn't add up to 100%, the analyzer is doing some rounding or something behind the scenes, I'm not going to round any further.
E is so common that it bumps up any finger it’s on.
Middlemak’s left middle finger takes on a bit more work. The left index is still high because of D. The right index is notably lower taking off common letters. The right middle takes on more of the work with O. And the right pinky is lower too with the H there.
Distances weigh the keys differently, while frequency-off-home-row levels that field. This should be read in conjunction with distance. Neither is better than the other, it’s just a different measurement.
I did this after noticing, on Colemak, that my right index finger moves off the home row a lot. For Colemak the left index finger has more distance, but the right index finger has more frequency-off-home-row. The long distance to B on the left hand skews the distance travelled.
The effect is similar on most of the layouts: FOHR tones down the left hand dominance and bumps up the right hand dominance. With Colemak the frequency of H and L is enough to actually flip them. This is more noticeable with layouts that keep Qwerty’s B (which is just frequent enough to skew things), layouts that change the letter to a less common one shift less.
Also insightful is “Index FOHR as % of All fingers FOHR”. It shows that on Middlemak the index fingers do 48% of all frequency-off-home-row, quite reasonable. Whereas on Colemak the index fingers have 65% of all frequency-off-home-row, very high. Workman is just a tad higher with the index fingers doing 51% of frequency-off-home-row. Dvorak’s and Qwerty’s 53% for index fingers is a bit deceiving though, it appears low but that's because the overall total FOHR is much higher.
This is similar to “Zoom in on the index fingers”, but this shows an even greater difference between Middlemak and Colemak. This shows Middlemak at 48% and Colemak at 65% based on index finger % of total FOHR. Recall Middlemaks was 47% and Colemaks was 61% based on index finger % of total distance. Same thing, when the distances to the diagonals are levelled out, the frequency stands out.
Why not the middle row? First, I think most people find it easier to reach up and down rather than laterally. Second, it works very well with the LD roll.
Why not the bottom row? I want to leave the bottom row the same as Qwerty for easy adoption and to leave the shortcuts of undo=cut-copy-paste the same. I also think C and M (the curl locations) are already near perfect frequencies for those locations. Those are the middle of the pack frequencies, which are perfect for the index fingers - which cover 6 to 7 letters.
I previously said that I’m not a fan of Colemak’s L position, which is the same upper-row-index-finger. But Colemak’s L has a ton of NFBs with the vowels, especially with E but also with all the other vowels. Looking at the whole hand, 62% of Colemak’s L bigrams are on the same hand. I think that’s a big source of discomfort. But with Middlemak’s D, only 22% of bigrams are on the same hand. So Middlemak has far lower same-hand-gymnastics.
If you want to skip this, the main factor is that R and L pair well together. Better than S and L. That means the RL column goes on the middle finger. R being more common goes on the home row, and L goes on the middle-finger-upper-row which is a strong location.
[First note that Colemak had to go with ARST because of F on the middle-finger-upper-row. The SFB of RF/FR is more common than SF/FS.]
The cons is that the R position leads to more NFB with the index finger. Most of these feel ok but RD, GR, BR are not so good. These aren’t super common, but they are there. PR gives the commonly disliked lateral NFB, but I think it’s relatively ok for the frequency - it’s not super common. RS creates an outside roll, but I’d rather have the RS on Middlemak’s middle-to-ring fingers than Colemak’s RA on the ring-to-pinky fingers. Colemak’s RA is much more common than Middlemak’s RS too.
The cons with ARST is that it gives more SFB. It’s not huge, but it is there. It also gives a lot of ring-to-pinky outside rolls with RA. And finally this makes it much harder to learn coming from Qwerty.
(If someone comes from Colemak and wants ARST, they can. It's not a humongous downside to do that. Mostly the more common RA ring-to-pinky roll and slightly more SFB of SD/DS.)
(This layout truly does work better with ASRT. If it didn’t work, I would have changed it. For example, I wanted to keep G on its Qwerty location but it’s better to move it, so I didn’t shy away from changes.)
P and G are pretty much the same frequency, so it doesn’t matter in that sense.
P has a SFB with T, and it has common bigrams of PR, SP, and even PA. Those work better with P on the middle row. There is PL, but the ones above outweigh it.
G has a bigram with NG. With N on the opposite hand, that means G can go on the worse diagonal spot. There is GR, but PR is far more common.
Y goes to the index finger, which actually works pretty well. I broke down the numbers in SFB section.
F goes to the right hand index finger, because putting P or G on the right hand gives too many SFB with M and N. The F location works quite well for both moderate frequency and low SFB. It has a lot of NFB with OF/FO, so placing it next to O makes a comfortable roll.
submitted by someguy3 to KeyboardLayouts [link] [comments]
Link to Layout heatmap
QWLDG JFOU: ASRTP YNEIH ZXCVB KM,./Link to Middlemak GitHub download.
Link to GitHub download Middlemak-AH.
Middlemak has also been created. The same writeup has been posted there.
The main design criteria was:
1) Use the middle-finger-upper-row position. The middle finger is a very strong finger, and the middle-finger-upper-row is a very good location for a common letter.
2) To reduce pinballing by putting most vowels on the right hand and putting most of the frequent consonants on the left hand.
3) Reduce the number of Near Finger Bigrams (NFBs).
4) Improve hand balance.
5) Keep SFB down of course.
6) A secondary design criteria was low ring-to-pinky-rolls. I find this to be an awkward movement.
7) Maintain Qwerty similarity to make it easier to learn.
These are all discussed in more detail below. (I’ll be talking in the context of Colemak for some of it. I don’t mean this to be a hit piece on Colemak, it’s just the best way to frame the items.)
1) Middle-Finger-Upper-Row
The main purpose of this layout is to place 2 common letters on the middle-finger-upper-row. The middle finger is very strong and these are excellent locations that are easy to reach.When you look at the letter frequency, there are 11 common letters before it takes a big drop off. The first eight letters go on the home row under the fingers. The next question is where do the next 3 letters go. Middlemak’s philosophy is to place 2 on the middle-finger-upper-row, and 1 on the index-finger-upper-row. Colemak places 2 on the centre columns, requiring a lateral movement that many find uncomfortable. Workman has 1 middle-finger-upper-row, 1 ring-finger-upper-row, and 1 index-finger-lower-row, a mixed bag.
L pairs well with R for low SFB. Middlemak places the RL column on the middle finger, which puts the common L on the middle-finger-upper-row.
E and O pair very well for low SFB. Placing EO column on the middle finger puts the very common O on the middle-finger-upper-row.
Using the middle finger also unloads the index fingers. The index fingers can get very busy with 6-7 letters compared with the other letters 3, especially when multiple frequent letters are put on them. I’ll give the distance stats in “Excessive amounts of stats” section far below which shows the drastic difference.
(I’ll skip discussing D here, it’s in “Excessive amounts of detail”. I also cover the R position more there.)
2) Pinballing
I wrote about pinballing in length here. The short of it is that there is an incredibly strong interaction between vowels and the consonants, with 75% of all bigrams between vowels and consonants. PInballing can happen when a lot of vowels and consonants arn put on the same hand, the hand movement will pinball back and forth between the vowels and consonants.I’ll cover Colemak first to outline the issue. Having most of the vowels EOIUY and many frequent consonants of NHLMKJ on the right hand leads to a pinballing problem. I call this the NHLMKJ wall, it’s a wall of consonants that the vowels pinball off of
To reduce pinballing Middlemak does two things:
First Middlemak moves L off the vowel hand and to the consonant hand. This (and moving H) reduces the wall to NMFPJ which is much, much lower frequency for movements to pinball off of. Or if the word starts with NMFPJ, it’s again much lower frequency.
Second it moves H to the pinky. H is a very unique letter because it’s almost always followed by a vowel. Moving H to the pinky means it almost always gives an inside roll. After the vowel, it generally continues to the consonants NMFPJ continuing the inside roll, or it alternates to the other hand. Rarely goes back to H. Generally only after the third letter can it start to pinball back to the vowels or back to H.
Combined, this reduces pinballing and increases alternating. It’s not entirely alternating, Middlemak still has rolls because it has N, H, and MKFJ. For N I find the rolls to be comfortable, likely because N is on the home row.
3) Near Finger Bigrams, NFB
NFB are bigrams that are on adjacent fingers. Too many or an uncomfortable arrangement can be an issue. NFB and pinballing are separate issues: NFB is the smaller pattern of adjacent fingers, pinballing is the much larger pattern of pinballing between all vowels and constants.I’ll cover Colemak first again to highlight the issue. On Colemak there are extremely common NFBs with HE and LE/EL. (There is also NE/EN, but I find the HE and EL/LE to be awkward because L and H are not on the home row.)
Pretty much all E bigrams are fairly high. I think you want to move common consonants away from E to reduce NFBs. For Middlemak, that means moving them away from the EO column.
Middlemak drastically reduces the NFBs by moving the common letters L and H off the adjacent index finger. The replacements of F and Y have dramatically lower NFBs with E and O. I wanted to keep Colemak’s K there since this doesn’t have many bigrams with E and O.
Looking at other layouts: Workman still has high NFB with L and E. Colemak-DH maintains L and H next to E. Many find the new HE roll to be more comfortable but it’s still a ton of NFB, and LE/EL is still there. MTGAP moved practically all letters away from its E and O and instead put punctuation there, a very good solution.
Middlemak does create some NFB with O placement. Namely OF, ON, and OM. However OF and ON are very comfortable, having the middle finger extended up feels pretty comfortable. OM is ok, and it’s the least common of those 3. The OM scissor-gram is a bit more common than I'd like, but it feels ok. This is about the best location for a scissor-gram too, with the long-middle-finger up and the curl-index-finger down being able to handle it fairly well. (Just to mention Colemak’s EL/LE, not exactly a scissor-gram, I find is bad since the shorter index finger has to reach up and the middle finger is so long it’s already curled just to be on the home row.)
Overall, Middlemak moving common consonants away from E drastically lowers the number of NFBs and takes away a ton of awkward movements. Visually, I think you can see this pretty easily in the heatmaps.
(You can extend this concept to fingers further away, to include Colemaks HI, LI, etc. This can be valid, but for here I’ll focus on adjacent fingers.)
4) Hand balance
Hand balance is a difficult topic. The two most obvious metrics for hand dominance are 1) the frequency of the letters, and 2) the distance the fingers have to travel (which is different from frequency because you don't travel to the home-row). But any pinballing from having too many vowels and consonants on the same hand doesn’t show up in those numbers. Having said all that, I’m going to look at frequency and distance.| Keyboard | Vowel Hand | Dominant Hand | Hand Balance ratio based on Frequency | Hand Balance ratio based on Distance | Hand Balance ratio based on Frequency and Distance | Corrected comparison number for left hand dominant |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTGAP | Left | Right | 1.00 | 1.43 | 1.43 | |
| Workman | Right | Left | 0.97 | 0.82 | 0.80 | 1.26 |
| Norman | n/a | Right | 0.93 | 1.27 | 1.19 | |
| Colemak | Right | Right | 1.14 | 1.15 | 1.32 | |
| Middlemak | Right | Right | 1.05 | 1.06 | 1.11 | |
| Semimak | Right | Right | 1.15 | 1.30 | 1.49 | |
| Dvorak | Left | Right | 1.23 | 1.86 | 2.30 | |
| QWERTY | n/a | Left | 0.77 | 1.06 | 0.82 | 1.22 |
Middlemak is more balanced on both frequency and distance. When both are considered, it really adds up to being more balanced. Middlemak combined balance ratio is 1.11, compared to Colemak’s 1.32 or Workman’s 1.26.
Ratios can change quite quickly because both the numerator and the denominator (in this case, the left and right hand) can go in opposite directions. Moving L to the other hand does exactly this - changing both the numerator and denominator, and it changes both the frequency and the distance. So that one move really helps to balance out the hands.
(I’ll add the full data in “Excessive amounts of stats” for both frequency and distance, broken down to hands and fingers. The individual finger load is quite interesting too.)
5) SFB
The SFB of this layout is still pretty low, but it does come out a tad higher than Colemak’s. I’ve debated how to show this and decided to go with the full nuclear information. Data is from Mayzner revisited in millions (which only has letter bigrams and doesn’t have punctuation data, that’s what the 0’s are).| Keyboard | Total SFB | Left hand SFB | Right hand SFB | L Pinky | L Ring | L Middle | L Index | R Index | R Middle | R Ring | R Pinky |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QWERTY | 185,270 | 125,920 | 59,350 | 1,105 | 1,661 | 54,502 | 68,651 | 34,166 | 3,970 | 21,214 | 0 |
| Workman | 78,147 | 29,268 | 48,878 | 1,105 | 3,712 | 2,806 | 21,645 | 27,338 | 5,037 | 16,503 | 0 |
| Dvorak | 70,570 | 28,306 | 42,264 | 0 | 31 | 0 | 28,275 | 12,142 | 16,265 | 8,229 | 5,629 |
| Middlemak | 44,698 | 25,806 | 18,892 | 1,105 | 1,661 | 2,716 | 20,323 | 12,415 | 3,134 | 3,343 | 0 |
| Colemak | 39,023 | 23,336 | 15,687 | 1,105 | 1,267 | 639 | 20,323 | 9,831 | 5,037 | 819 | 0 |
| MTGAP | 34,151 | 14,550 | 19,601 | 1,147 | 339 | 3,134 | 9,931 | 4,629 | 8,633 | 5,071 | 1,267 |
For Middlemak: You can see it’s not all that much of an increase in SFB from Colemak. Overall the numbers are low considering it keeps many Qwerty aspects.
On the left hand: The middle finger goes up with R and L. This was to allow more consonants on the left hand and use of the middle-finger-upper-row. I think the middle finger being a strong finger and comfortable reach can handle these quite well. The index finger is the same as Colemak.
On the right hand: The right index goes up a little bit, mostly with NY and MY. They aren’t as high as you may think. But the Y SFBs and adding in NK/KN, NF, etc, they do add up a little. It’s not all that much but it is more. I think it’s still easily manageable. NY is actually not all that common, for example it’s actually less common than EU/UE. (The exact Mayzner numbers are: NY/YN is 2,761 / 373. Compared to EU/UE is 878 / 4,158. MY/YM is 1,753 / 668.) The middle finger actually goes down, EO/OE is very low. The ring finger goes up a bit with UI/IU being more common than Colemak’s IY/YI.
If you want overall percentages (index finger pressing C), Middlemak comes in at 2.078%, vs Colemak’s 1.815%, vs Workmans 3.053%, vs Qwerty’s 6.264%.
Colemak really did a good job finding low SFB pairings of SF, DT, NHL, RW, and IY. So changing 3 of those pairings does come at a cost. But it’s really not much and it’s done so that Middlemak can put more frequent letters to better spots, reduce pinballing, and reduce NFB. I think the SFB is in the same realm as Colemak, it’s still pretty low.
Ortho SFB
| Keyboard | Total SFB | Left hand SFB | Right hand SFB | L Pinky | L Ring | L Middle | L Index | R Index | R Middle | R Ring | R Pinky |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QWERTY | 195,687 | 136,337 | 59,350 | 1,105 | 1,661 | 86,462 | 47,108 | 34,166 | 3,970 | 21,214 | 0 |
| Workman | 79,561 | 30,682 | 48,878 | 1,105 | 3,712 | 8,206 | 17,659 | 27,338 | 5,037 | 16,503 | 0 |
| Dvorak | 70,365 | 28,101 | 42,264 | 0 | 31 | 1,591 | 26,480 | 12,142 | 16,265 | 8,229 | 5,629 |
| Middlemak | 42,816 | 23,924 | 18,892 | 1,105 | 1,661 | 14,888 | 6,270 | 12,415 | 3,134 | 3,343 | 0 |
| Colemak | 30,032 | 14,345 | 15,687 | 1,105 | 1,267 | 5,702 | 6,270 | 9,831 | 5,037 | 819 | 0 |
| MTGAP | 34,151 | 14,550 | 19,601 | 1,147 | 339 | 3,134 | 9,931 | 4,629 | 8,633 | 5,071 | 1,267 |
Middlemak on Ortho actually comes in just a tad lower, but Colemak takes a bigger dip.
This basically moves most of the SFB from the index finger to the middle finger. On Middlemak, ortho takes out CT on the index finger and puts in CR and CL on the middle finger, which is only a tad lower. On Colemak, ortho takes out CT and puts in SC which is much lower.
I think it still works well. The middle finger is a strong finger and can cover most of these well. The one issue is that CL which is a two row jump.
I’ll break down the full Mayzner numbers:
First the index finger pressing CT/TC is 12,998 / 737. This is what ortho removes.
Middlemak Ortho puts in CRC which is 4,214 / 3,423. And puts in CL / LC which is 4,202 / 333. In percentages, CR is 32% of CT, RC is 26% of CT, and CL is 32% of CT. Adding it all up and including all the others (CP, CG, etc), Middlemak Ortho comes in at 87% of CT+TC. Just a tad lower.
Colemak Ortho puts in CS/SC, which is 644 / 4,363. CF/ FC is pretty much nill. In percentages, SC is 34% of CT. Adding it all up and including the others, Colemak Ortho comes in at 36% of CT+TC. A big dip.
If you want overall percentages (middle finger pressing C, Ortho style), Middlemak comes in at 2.16%, vs Colemak’s 1.669%, vs Workman’s 3.147%, vs Qwerty’s 6.575%. This is from Colemak-DH analyzer which says Middlemak ortho increases, as opposed to what I found that Middlemak ortho decreases SFB. I think it comes down to the data set used.
6) Low ring-to-pinky rolls. And the amazing inside roll from H.
A secondary design goal was to decrease the awkward ring-to-pinky roll. Middlemak greatly reduces this roll.On the left hand: Middlemak’s ring-to-pinky outside roll of SA and WA is actually pretty low. SA is actually the lowest bigram of the common consonants to A. So SA and WA comes out to be a good design. Compared to Colemak, Middlemak’s SA outside roll is far less common than Colemak’s RA. (The exact Mayzner in millions are: Middlemak’s SA is 6,147. Colemak’s RA is 19,333. WA is the same for both at 10,865.)
On the right hand: Middlmak’s ring-to-pinky roll of IH and UH is very low. Vs Colemak: IO is very common and even YO is pretty common. (The exact numbers are Middlemak’s IH is 59, UH is 30. Vs Colemak’s IO 23,542, YO is 4,227.)
This next bit isn’t even a secondary design goal, but it’s worth mentioning: On the right hand, outside rolls from any of the fingers to the pinky H are very low. The common letters that come before H are usually TH, CH, WH, SH, and GH. All of those are on the opposite left hand. Doing the math, 97% of the letters before H are on the left hand. H on the pinky gives an amazing inside roll almost all the time.
Also worth mentioning is I think this also de-emphasizes the pinky a bit. First it limits the ring-to-pinky rolls. Second, the frequency of H is much lower than Colemak’s O. Third, the bigram HH is virtually nill, vs Colemak’s OO which is pretty common. None of these are massive, but I think they add up to de-emphasizing the pinky a bit.
7) Qwerty similarity.
Last but not least, this maintains Qwerty similarity to make it easier to learn.First, this maintains the bottom row (except N) and maintains Q, W, A, and S. Many letters move on the same finger, including T, G, N, Y, J .
Second, this “keeps” the ASRT order. People learning Colemak commonly say that R and S are reversed. Technically it’s not because R was never on the middle finger to begin with. But it seems to be reversed in the brain. I think it’s two things. First ASRT keeps it in the same order, with R between S and T, even if R changes fingers. Second, I wonder how many people alt-fingered R typing in Qwerty, either all the time or for the RT bigram.
(I've also wondered if, for example, patterns like the very common ION simply being easier to type would make this faster to learn. I’m not certain about that though.)
Comparing layouts:
- Middlemak: 10 letters stay in their original spot and 16 move, with 5 letters moving on the same finger and 11 letters switching fingers.
- Colemak: 10 letters stay in their original spot and 16 move, with 4 letters moving on the same finger and 12 letters switching fingers.
- Colemak-DH: 5 letters stay in their original spot and 21 move, with 6 letters moving on the same finger and 15 letters switching fingers.
- Workman: 6 letters stay in their original spot and 20 move, with 8 letters moving on the same finger and 12 letters switching fingers.
Considering letters swapping on the same finger, this has fewer changes than Colemak. And I think “keeping” the ASRT order will make it even easier to adopt than the numbers suggest.
(I hope people don’t think that I’m overly focused on keeping S in the Qwerty location just because. For this layout, it does work better with ASRT, I address it in more detail in excessive amount of details.)
Downsides
1) There is a slight increase in SFB compared to Colemak. But overall I think SFB is still low.2) There are a handful of NFB with R: BR, GR, PR, etc. Same with L and BL. This isn’t enough to change the home row to ARST. There is more below but ASRT has lower SFB, lower ring-to-pinky rolls, and is easier to learn. Also note these are much, much lower than the extremely high NFB that Colemak has with HE, LE, etc, (to solve those I paid L and R together).
3) I wanted a less common letter in the G location (Qwerty T location). I really tried to put a less common letter there, but it simply didn’t work.
4) I mention this above but to add more: The OM scissor-gram is a bit more common than I'd like. This is a limitation of keeping Qwerty similarity (the M) and wanting to put O on the upper-row-middle-finger. (MTGAP has a good design on this. It paired its EO with a lot of punctuation on the index finger to reduce NFBs.)
Conclusion
I'm really happy with this layout. I think it is a great combination of pretty low SFB, good use of the strong middle-finger-upper-row position, reduced NFB and pinballing, keeping Qwerty similarity, and easy to transition to.Honestly I’m surprised no one else has stumbled on this arrangement, since many people have taken to trying to fix Colemak’s issues and keep Qwerty similarity.
Some nice rolls and combinations
Although this increases alternating, there are still plenty of rolls left. Some I want to mention:HE is very easy.
LD feels very good.
OU feels very comfortable.
OF/FO is very common and feels very good.
IO and ION are very nice rolls.
This maintains the nice IEN roll.
IOU is a redirect, but overall feels pretty ok.
YOU has a lateral move, but feels comfortable.
OU+LD together to make OULD feels good.
The very common TH, THE, and THE_ feel very nice not having to move the fingers off the home row.
Vs Colemak and Vs Colemak-DH
I made Middlemak to try to solve the problems I found with Colemak. I think all the items came out above, but as a bit of a summary and to include Colemak-DH.Colemak:
1) Colemak has an issue with high lateral movement with D and H. You see this especially with H and its NFBs, but D isn’t the best either.
2) Colemak’s right index finger is overworked. It just has too much to do with N, H, and L.
3) Colemak has a pinballing issue due to placing most vowels and many common consonants on the same hand.
4) Colemak has a ton of NFB with EL/LE and HE.
5) Colemak has a hand balance issue. It places a lot of emphasis on the right hand with the vowels and several common consonants. (Hand dominance and pinballing are technically separate items.)
6) Colemak’s awkward ring-to-pinky rolls. Notably IO, YO (especially when typing YOU), and also RA on the right hand.
7) Not exactly a direct issue with Colemak, but Middlemak is easier to learn coming from Qwerty. Many new users want to ‘keep’ the order of ASRT instead of ‘reversing’ S and R.
Middlemak is a pretty low increase in SFBs and it fixes those issues.
Colemak DH:
Colemak-DH solves 1) the lateral movements. But it doesn’t solve 2) the right index finger overwork, 3) the pinballing, 4) the NFBs 5) the hand balance, 6) the awkward ring-to-pinky rolls, and 7) coming from Qwerty it’s pretty much a full change layout, taking out ease of transition. This also means common shortcuts move. They are still accessible, but they move (paste is the same. Undo, cut, and copy move.)
Option: Swap A and H
This gives:QWLDG JFOU: HSRTP YNEIA ZXCVB KM,./The good: This is good if you want to put all the vowels and most consonants on opposite hands. Overall this increases alternating. This mostly comes from moving A to the right hand because A pairs a lot with the L, R, S, T, etc. This is the biggest appeal if you find those uncomfortable. Moving H actually decreases alternating because there’s a high bigram with TH (you can test your own comfortability on that. Don’t forget capitalized Th is common.) Excessive details: Middlemak A has 41% of bigrams on the opposite hand, swapping gives 65%. Middlemak H has 58% of bigrams on the opposite hand, swapping gives 51% (again, mostly because of TH). Overall, middlemak A+H has 48% on the opposite hand, swapping gives 59%.
The neutral: On the left hand, the ring-to-pinky outside roll of SH is slightly higher, but in a similar range. Data from Mayzner is SH is 8,889, and original is SA is 6,147. Changing WA to WH is practically identical.
The bad: On both the right and left hand, the all-fingers-to-pinky outside roll is higher. On the left hand, it’s because TH is very common. On the right hand, it takes away the remarkable inside roll of H and adds in a moderate number of all-fingers-to-A bigrams with EA, IA, NA, MA, etc, (OA is actually low). Notably, the ring-to-pinky outside roll is higher with IA and UA coming in at 8,072 and 3,844, vs original IH and UH of 59 and 30.
The complicated: This option decreases the pinky-to-all-fingers rolls inside rolls on both hands. It increases the all-fingers-to-pinky rolls outside rolls. The overall sum of inside rolls plus outside rolls is lower. In short: this option lowers inside rolls, increases outside rolls, with an overall sum that is lower.
Basically stick to the original if you want to lower ring-to-pinky movement, lower outside rolls, and easier to learn. Overall I put this as a decent option if someone wants to maximize alternating without going to a full change layout.
Excessive amount of stats
This section has details on distance reductions, hand balance based on frequency, hand balance based on distance, and raw distance numbers. I'm going to give lots of charts to cover all the details. Those that want to know all the details or those that like to analyze will find this interesting, but others don’t have to read.Distance reduction from Qwerty
| Keyboard | Distance | Distance | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| (km) | (miles) | (% reduction from Qwerty) | |
| MTGAP | 2.592 | 1.611 | 46.3% |
| Workman | 2.613 | 1.624 | 45.9% |
| Norman | 2.615 | 1.625 | 45.9% |
| Colemak | 2.616 | 1.625 | 45.8% |
| Middlemak | 2.710 | 1.684 | 43.9% |
| Semimak | 2.739 | 1.702 | 43.3% |
| Dvorak | 2.813 | 1.748 | 41.8% |
| QWERTY | 4.829 | 3.001 | 0% |
Middlemak’s distance reduction is good, most alt keyboards are in the same range. It’s a tad worse on distance than some others because putting O off the home row increases distance, with the O being more frequent. (MTGAP puts O off the home row, but has all the punctuation on the diagonals to decrease distance.)
All Finger Distances
This is the raw distance travelled in metres. Percentages rely on the total distance travelled, which changes between layouts so it's not comparable. Note that distance is different from frequency. The fingers don't move for the home row, the distance travelled is to the other letters.| Keyboard | L Pinky | L Ring | L Middle | L Index | R Index | R Middle | R Ring | R Pinky | L Total | R Total | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTGAP | 293 | 116 | 413 | 246 | 667 | 320 | 219 | 318 | 1068 m | 1524 m | 2592 m |
| Workman | 123 | 232 | 330 | 753 | 505 | 200 | 146 | 325 | 1437 m | 1176 m | 2613 m |
| Norman | 127 | 127 | 223 | 674 | 525 | 377 | 244 | 319 | 1150 m | 1465 m | 2615 m |
| Colemak | 130 | 127 | 116 | 842 | 747 | 200 | 141 | 315 | 1214 m | 1402 m | 2616 m |
| Middlemak | 134 | 127 | 207 | 847 | 440 | 460 | 189 | 306 | 1314 m | 1396 m | 2710 m |
| Semimak | 238 | 237 | 326 | 390 | 506 | 200 | 450 | 393 | 1191 m | 1549 m | 2739 m |
| Dvorak | 205 | 54 | 34 | 692 | 753 | 285 | 395 | 396 | 984 m | 1829 m | 2813 m |
| QWERTY | 130 | 127 | 670 | 1413 | 1169 | 452 | 450 | 418 | 2340 m | 2489 m | 4829 m |
First, you can see Qwerty’s distances are extremely high. All the alternatives make big reductions.
Notice that the index fingers move way more than the other fingers.
Middlemak balances this out decently and moves more distance to both middle fingers. The left index finger is still a bit high because it has D off the home row (this brings it back to the discussion of where does the 11th letter go). Middlemak’s left index is slightly higher than Colemak’s even though they have the same letters because the row stagger technically puts D on a slight diagonal. A technicality really.
The right index finger is low, a good feature that the index finger next to the vowels doesn’t have to travel much. Compared to Colemak, Middlemak’s movement is 41% lower than Colemaks.
Zoom in on index fingers
| Keyboard | Distance | Distance | Total | Index Finger % of total distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| L Index | R Index | L+R Index | L+R Index | |
| MTGAP | 246 | 667 | 913 m | 35% |
| Workman | 753 | 505 | 1259 m | 48% |
| Norman | 674 | 525 | 1200 m | 46% |
| Colemak | 842 | 747 | 1589 m | 61% |
| Middlemak | 847 | 440 | 1287 m | 47% |
| Semimak | 390 | 506 | 896 m | 33% |
| Dvorak | 692 | 753 | 1445 m | 51% |
| QWERTY | 1413 | 1169 | 2582 m | 53% |
You can also look at the percentage of travel with the index finger. Middlemak’s is down at 47% - meaning the index fingers are responsible for 47% of all the distance travelled. On Colemak the index fingers account for 61% the distance travelled, quite a big difference relatively. Workman and Norman are close to Middlemak. MTGAP and Semimak are very low. Dvorak and Qwerty percentages are a bit deceiving though - the higher index finger distances are hidden by the higher total amount of distance.
So even when Middlemak’s left index finger doesn’t have a reduction in distance, the total index finger distance is significantly reduced.
Hand Balance based on Distance
This is the distance in percentages for all the fingers (unlike the raw distances in metres above) so that I can add them up to look at hand balance.| Keyboard | Left hand | Right hand | Hand Balance Ratio | L Pinky | L Ring | L Middle | L Index | R Index | R Middle | R Ring | R Pinky |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTGAP | 41.2* | 58.8 | 1.43 | 11.3 | 4.5 | 15.9 | 9.5 | 25.7 | 12.3 | 8.4 | 12.3 |
| Workman | 55.0 | 45.0* | 0.82 | 4.7 | 8.9 | 12.6 | 28.8 | 19.3 | 7.6 | 5.6 | 12.5 |
| Norman | 44.0 | 56.0 | 1.27 | 4.8 | 4.8 | 8.5 | 25.8 | 20.1 | 14.4 | 9.3 | 12.2 |
| Colemak | 46.4 | 53.6* | 1.15 | 5.0 | 4.8 | 4.4 | 32.2 | 28.6 | 7.6 | 5.4 | 12.0 |
| Middlemak | 48.5 | 51.5* | 1.06 | 5.0 | 4.7 | 7.6 | 31.2 | 16.3 | 17.0 | 7.0 | 11.3 |
| Semimak | 43.5 | 56.5* | 1.30 | 8.7 | 8.7 | 11.9 | 14.2 | 18.5 | 7.3 | 16.4 | 14.4 |
| Dvorak | 35.0* | 65.0 | 1.86 | 7.3 | 1.9 | 1.2 | 24.6 | 26.8 | 10.1 | 14.0 | 14.1 |
| QWERTY | 48.5 | 51.5 | 1.06 | 2.7 | 2.6 | 13.9 | 29.3 | 24.2 | 9.4 | 9.3 | 8.7 |
I think the raw distances are better for comparison between layouts, but some people like percentages. I used this mostly to calculate hand balance.
You can see Middlemak spreads out the work. The pinkies are low, ring fingers are reasonable, middle takes on more, and the indexes have most of the distances.
Hand Balance based on Frequency
Now we’re shifting to frequency. You can see the data for all the fingers, this is enlightening on its own. I also add them up to look at the hand balance.| Keyboard | Left hand | Right hand | Hand Balance Ratio | L Pinky | L Ring | L Middle | L Index | R Index | R Middle | R Ring | R Pinky |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTGAP | 49.9* | 50.0 | 1.00 | 10.8 | 8.4 | 18.8 | 11.9 | 16.3 | 14.5 | 9.8 | 9.4 |
| Workman | 50.7 | 49.3* | 0.97 | 9.3 | 10.1 | 11.1 | 20.2 | 15.2 | 14.9 | 9.7 | 9.5 |
| Norman | 51.7 | 48.3 | 0.93 | 9.3 | 8.3 | 15.4 | 18.7 | 15.2 | 13.2 | 11.8 | 8.1 |
| Colemak | 46.7 | 53.2* | 1.14 | 9.4 | 7.7 | 8.2 | 21.4 | 19.4 | 14.9 | 9.1 | 9.8 |
| Middlemak | 48.8 | 51.2* | 1.05 | 9.4 | 8.3 | 9.7 | 21.4 | 13.7 | 19.6 | 9.9 | 8.0 |
| Semimak | 46.6 | 53.4* | 1.15 | 9.7 | 10.1 | 11.8 | 15.0 | 12.2 | 14.9 | 15.6 | 10.7 |
| Dvorak | 44.8* | 55.3 | 1.23 | 10.3 | 8.1 | 12.2 | 14.2 | 17.2 | 13.4 | 13.0 | 11.7 |
| QWERTY | 56.5 | 43.5 | 0.77 | 9.4 | 8.3 | 15.4 | 23.4 | 18.8 | 8.4 | 11.8 | 4.5 |
The ratio between the hands can change quite quickly, so I think that highlights the differences between the layouts better than the percentages. I know it doesn't add up to 100%, the analyzer is doing some rounding or something behind the scenes, I'm not going to round any further.
E is so common that it bumps up any finger it’s on.
Middlemak’s left middle finger takes on a bit more work. The left index is still high because of D. The right index is notably lower taking off common letters. The right middle takes on more of the work with O. And the right pinky is lower too with the H there.
Hand Balance Distance + Frequency
This is the same chart that was above, just for a summary.| Keyboard | Dominant Hand | Hand Balance ratio based on Frequency | Hand Balance ratio based on Distance | Hand Balance ratio based on Frequency and Distance | Corrected comparison number for left hand dominant |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTGAP | Right | 1.00 | 1.43 | 1.43 | |
| Workman | Left | 0.97 | 0.82 | 0.80 | 1.26 |
| Norman | Right | 0.93 | 1.27 | 1.19 | |
| Colemak | Right | 1.14 | 1.15 | 1.32 | |
| Middlemak | Right | 1.05 | 1.06 | 1.11 | |
| Semimak | Right | 1.15 | 1.30 | 1.49 | |
| Dvorak | Right | 1.23 | 1.86 | 2.30 | |
| QWERTY | Left | 0.77 | 1.06 | 0.82 | 1.22 |
1 indicates right hand dominant, <1 indicates left hand dominant. Hand Balance ratio based on Frequency and Distance is a simple multiplication of the two.
Frequency-off-home-row (F.O.H.R.)
At the risk of too much information, another way to look at this is the frequency that’s off-home-row. I.e. the frequency that is not under the fingers.Distances weigh the keys differently, while frequency-off-home-row levels that field. This should be read in conjunction with distance. Neither is better than the other, it’s just a different measurement.
| Keyboard | L Pinky | L Ring | L Middle | L Index | R Index | R Middle | R Ring | R Pinky | L+R Index | Index FOHR as % of All fingers FOHR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTGAP | 4.0 | 2.0 | 7.2 | 4.1 | 10.8 | 5.8 | 3.6 | 3.8 | 14.9% | 36% |
| Workman | 1.5 | 3.9 | 5.6 | 11.5 | 8.8 | 3.3 | 2.5 | 2.7 | 20.3% | 51% |
| Norman | 1.5 | 2.1 | 3.8 | 10.0 | 8.8 | 6.4 | 4.6 | 2.6 | 18.8% | 47% |
| Colemak | 1.6 | 2.1 | 2.0 | 12.7 | 13.0 | 3.3 | 2.3 | 2.6 | 25.7% | 65% |
| Middlemak | 1.6 | 2.1 | 4.1 | 12.7 | 7.3 | 8.0 | 3.1 | 2.5 | 20.0% | 48% |
| Semimak | 3.5 | 4.5 | 5.4 | 6.3 | 8.4 | 3.3 | 7.8 | 3.9 | 14.7% | 34% |
| Dvorak | 2.5 | 0.9 | 0.6 | 11.7 | 11.7 | 4.7 | 6.6 | 5.5 | 23.4% | 53% |
| QWERTY | 1.6 | 2.1 | 11.6 | 21.4 | 18.6 | 7.5 | 7.8 | 4.5 | 40.0% | 53% |
The effect is similar on most of the layouts: FOHR tones down the left hand dominance and bumps up the right hand dominance. With Colemak the frequency of H and L is enough to actually flip them. This is more noticeable with layouts that keep Qwerty’s B (which is just frequent enough to skew things), layouts that change the letter to a less common one shift less.
Also insightful is “Index FOHR as % of All fingers FOHR”. It shows that on Middlemak the index fingers do 48% of all frequency-off-home-row, quite reasonable. Whereas on Colemak the index fingers have 65% of all frequency-off-home-row, very high. Workman is just a tad higher with the index fingers doing 51% of frequency-off-home-row. Dvorak’s and Qwerty’s 53% for index fingers is a bit deceiving though, it appears low but that's because the overall total FOHR is much higher.
This is similar to “Zoom in on the index fingers”, but this shows an even greater difference between Middlemak and Colemak. This shows Middlemak at 48% and Colemak at 65% based on index finger % of total FOHR. Recall Middlemaks was 47% and Colemaks was 61% based on index finger % of total distance. Same thing, when the distances to the diagonals are levelled out, the frequency stands out.
Excessive amount of detail on letters
You really don’t need to read this, mostly if you have any lingering or specific Q on specific letters.D position and why not curl?
Back to the discussion of there being 11 common letters: Where to place that 11th letter is difficult, it’s either the ring finger or index finger. Many find the ring finger to not be very dexterous for such a frequent letter. So putting D on the index finger with T works very well for low SFB.Why not the middle row? First, I think most people find it easier to reach up and down rather than laterally. Second, it works very well with the LD roll.
Why not the bottom row? I want to leave the bottom row the same as Qwerty for easy adoption and to leave the shortcuts of undo=cut-copy-paste the same. I also think C and M (the curl locations) are already near perfect frequencies for those locations. Those are the middle of the pack frequencies, which are perfect for the index fingers - which cover 6 to 7 letters.
I previously said that I’m not a fan of Colemak’s L position, which is the same upper-row-index-finger. But Colemak’s L has a ton of NFBs with the vowels, especially with E but also with all the other vowels. Looking at the whole hand, 62% of Colemak’s L bigrams are on the same hand. I think that’s a big source of discomfort. But with Middlemak’s D, only 22% of bigrams are on the same hand. So Middlemak has far lower same-hand-gymnastics.
The R and L position
I’m sure the R and S location will attract attention, so I’ll discuss it more here.If you want to skip this, the main factor is that R and L pair well together. Better than S and L. That means the RL column goes on the middle finger. R being more common goes on the home row, and L goes on the middle-finger-upper-row which is a strong location.
[First note that Colemak had to go with ARST because of F on the middle-finger-upper-row. The SFB of RF/FR is more common than SF/FS.]
ASRT, making a RL column
The pros of ASRT is it gives fewer SFB, with LRL being less than half as common as SL/LS. It also gives fewer ring-to-pinky-rolls with SA being far less common than Colemak’s RA. It also makes it much easier to learn from Qwerty.The cons is that the R position leads to more NFB with the index finger. Most of these feel ok but RD, GR, BR are not so good. These aren’t super common, but they are there. PR gives the commonly disliked lateral NFB, but I think it’s relatively ok for the frequency - it’s not super common. RS creates an outside roll, but I’d rather have the RS on Middlemak’s middle-to-ring fingers than Colemak’s RA on the ring-to-pinky fingers. Colemak’s RA is much more common than Middlemak’s RS too.
ARST, making a SL column
The pros of ARST is that it gives an inside roll of RS. It also separates R from the NFB letters on the index finger, which do add up. However, I’m trying to resolve the NFBs of Colemak’s right hand H and L with E which is a magnitude larger, in addition to the pinballing that it creates which requires moving L.The cons with ARST is that it gives more SFB. It’s not huge, but it is there. It also gives a lot of ring-to-pinky outside rolls with RA. And finally this makes it much harder to learn coming from Qwerty.
Verdict: ASRT, RL column
None of these are huge deal breakers for one or the other. I went with lower SFB, lower ring-to-pinky rolls, and much easier to learn. At the cost of some NFB on the index finger and inside roll of RS.(If someone comes from Colemak and wants ARST, they can. It's not a humongous downside to do that. Mostly the more common RA ring-to-pinky roll and slightly more SFB of SD/DS.)
(This layout truly does work better with ASRT. If it didn’t work, I would have changed it. For example, I wanted to keep G on its Qwerty location but it’s better to move it, so I didn’t shy away from changes.)
P and G location
It’s better to move G than keep it in its Qwerty location.P and G are pretty much the same frequency, so it doesn’t matter in that sense.
P has a SFB with T, and it has common bigrams of PR, SP, and even PA. Those work better with P on the middle row. There is PL, but the ones above outweigh it.
G has a bigram with NG. With N on the opposite hand, that means G can go on the worse diagonal spot. There is GR, but PR is far more common.
O location
O and E together give very low SFB. This is a great opportunity to put them together. The strong middle finger only has 3 keys, so it can handle two very frequent letters.U, Y and F locations
U works pretty well with I, the SFB are reasonably low. This location also creates a nice OU and YOU roll.Y goes to the index finger, which actually works pretty well. I broke down the numbers in SFB section.
F goes to the right hand index finger, because putting P or G on the right hand gives too many SFB with M and N. The F location works quite well for both moderate frequency and low SFB. It has a lot of NFB with OF/FO, so placing it next to O makes a comfortable roll.
2023.04.01 19:55 someguy3 Middlemak Layout, a new writeup and renamed. A layout that uses the middle-finger-upper-row.
This is a new writeup for Middlemak (Posted before, but there's a new name for those interested). Named for the emphasis on the middle finger and use of the middle-finger-upper-row locations for frequent letters
Link to Layout heatmap
Link to GitHub download Middlemak-AH.
Middlemak has also been created. The same writeup has been posted there.
The main design criteria was:
1) Use the middle-finger-upper-row position. The middle finger is a very strong finger, and the middle-finger-upper-row is a very good location for a common letter.
2) To reduce pinballing by putting most vowels on the right hand and putting most of the frequent consonants on the left hand.
3) Reduce the number of Near Finger Bigrams (NFBs).
4) Improve hand balance.
5) Keep SFB down of course.
6) A secondary design criteria was low ring-to-pinky-rolls. I find this to be an awkward movement.
7) Maintain Qwerty similarity to make it easier to learn.
These are all discussed in more detail below. (I’ll be talking in the context of Colemak for some of it. I don’t mean this to be a hit piece on Colemak, it’s just the best way to frame the items.)
When you look at the letter frequency, there are 11 common letters before it takes a big drop off. The first eight letters go on the home row under the fingers. The next question is where do the next 3 letters go. Middlemak’s philosophy is to place 2 on the middle-finger-upper-row, and 1 on the index-finger-upper-row. Colemak places 2 on the centre columns, requiring a lateral movement that many find uncomfortable. Workman has 1 middle-finger-upper-row, 1 ring-finger-upper-row, and 1 index-finger-lower-row, a mixed bag.
L pairs well with R for low SFB. Middlemak places the RL column on the middle finger, which puts the common L on the middle-finger-upper-row.
E and O pair very well for low SFB. Placing EO column on the middle finger puts the very common O on the middle-finger-upper-row.
Using the middle finger also unloads the index fingers. The index fingers can get very busy with 6-7 letters compared with the other letters 3, especially when multiple frequent letters are put on them. I’ll give the distance stats in “Excessive amounts of stats” section far below which shows the drastic difference.
(I’ll skip discussing D here, it’s in “Excessive amounts of detail”. I also cover the R position more there.)
I’ll cover Colemak first to outline the issue. Having most of the vowels EOIUY and many frequent consonants of NHLMKJ on the right hand leads to a pinballing problem. I call this the NHLMKJ wall, it’s a wall of consonants that the vowels pinball off of
To reduce pinballing Middlemak does two things:
First Middlemak moves L off the vowel hand and to the consonant hand. This (and moving H) reduces the wall to NMFPJ which is much, much lower frequency for movements to pinball off of. Or if the word starts with NMFPJ, it’s again much lower frequency.
Second it moves H to the pinky. H is a very unique letter because it’s almost always followed by a vowel. Moving H to the pinky means it almost always gives an inside roll. After the vowel, it generally continues to the consonants NMFPJ continuing the inside roll, or it alternates to the other hand. Rarely goes back to H. Generally only after the third letter can it start to pinball back to the vowels or back to H.
Combined, this reduces pinballing and increases alternating. It’s not entirely alternating, Middlemak still has rolls because it has N, H, and MKFJ. For N I find the rolls to be comfortable, likely because N is on the home row.
I’ll cover Colemak first again to highlight the issue. On Colemak there are extremely common NFBs with HE and LE/EL. (There is also NE/EN, but I find the HE and EL/LE to be awkward because L and H are not on the home row.)
Pretty much all E bigrams are fairly high. I think you want to move common consonants away from E to reduce NFBs. For Middlemak, that means moving them away from the EO column.
Middlemak drastically reduces the NFBs by moving the common letters L and H off the adjacent index finger. The replacements of F and Y have dramatically lower NFBs with E and O. I wanted to keep Colemak’s K there since this doesn’t have many bigrams with E and O.
Looking at other layouts: Workman still has high NFB with L and E. Colemak-DH maintains L and H next to E. Many find the new HE roll to be more comfortable but it’s still a ton of NFB, and LE/EL is still there. MTGAP moved practically all letters away from its E and O and instead put punctuation there, a very good solution.
Middlemak does create some NFB with O placement. Namely OF, ON, and OM. However OF and ON are very comfortable, having the middle finger extended up feels pretty comfortable. OM is ok, and it’s the least common of those 3. The OM scissor-gram is a bit more common than I'd like, but it feels ok. This is about the best location for a scissor-gram too, with the long-middle-finger up and the curl-index-finger down being able to handle it fairly well. (Just to mention Colemak’s EL/LE, not exactly a scissor-gram, I find is bad since the shorter index finger has to reach up and the middle finger is so long it’s already curled just to be on the home row.)
Overall, Middlemak moving common consonants away from E drastically lowers the number of NFBs and takes away a ton of awkward movements. Visually, I think you can see this pretty easily in the heatmaps.
(You can extend this concept to fingers further away, to include Colemaks HI, LI, etc. This can be valid, but for here I’ll focus on adjacent fingers.)
Notes: Ratio >1 indicates right hand dominant, <1 indicates left hand dominant. The hand balance ratios are based on each hand's frequency/distance, right hand divided by left hand. E.g. Middlemak: 51.2% right hand frequency divided by 48.8% left hand frequency equals 1.05. Colemak: 53.2% right hand frequency divided by 46.7% left hand frequency equals 1.14. Hand Balance ratio based on Frequency and Distance is a simple multiplication of the two ratios. I did this because having more frequency and more movement on the same hand amplifies the hand dominance. Or if one hand has more frequency and the other hand has more movement, that would mitigate it to some degree. This is by no means the most definitive way to look at it, but it's what I've managed to come up with. The "Corrected comparison number for left hand dominant" is a hard math thing to explain (that I hope I'm right about anyway). E.g. for Workman listing 0.80 gives the wrong impression the hand dominance is equivalent to 1.2 (20%). But it's actually 1.26 (26%), obtained from 1/0.796=1.26.
Middlemak is more balanced on both frequency and distance. When both are considered, it really adds up to being more balanced. Middlemak combined balance ratio is 1.11, compared to Colemak’s 1.32 or Workman’s 1.26.
Ratios can change quite quickly because both the numerator and the denominator (in this case, the left and right hand) can go in opposite directions. Moving L to the other hand does exactly this - changing both the numerator and denominator, and it changes both the frequency and the distance. So that one move really helps to balance out the hands.
(I’ll add the full data in “Excessive amounts of stats” for both frequency and distance, broken down to hands and fingers. The individual finger load is quite interesting too.)
Notes: This is with index finger pressing C location, how I think most people type. Adding in punctuation the numbers would be higher, I expect they would increase by similar absolute amounts.
For Middlemak: You can see it’s not all that much of an increase in SFB from Colemak. Overall the numbers are low considering it keeps many Qwerty aspects.
On the left hand: The middle finger goes up with R and L. This was to allow more consonants on the left hand and use of the middle-finger-upper-row. I think the middle finger being a strong finger and comfortable reach can handle these quite well. The index finger is the same as Colemak.
On the right hand: The right index goes up a little bit, mostly with NY and MY. They aren’t as high as you may think. But the Y SFBs and adding in NK/KN, NF, etc, they do add up a little. It’s not all that much but it is more. I think it’s still easily manageable. NY is actually not all that common, for example it’s actually less common than EU/UE. (The exact Mayzner numbers are: NY/YN is 2,761 / 373. Compared to EU/UE is 878 / 4,158. MY/YM is 1,753 / 668.) The middle finger actually goes down, EO/OE is very low. The ring finger goes up a bit with UI/IU being more common than Colemak’s IY/YI.
If you want overall percentages (index finger pressing C), Middlemak comes in at 2.078%, vs Colemak’s 1.815%, vs Workmans 3.053%, vs Qwerty’s 6.264%.
Colemak really did a good job finding low SFB pairings of SF, DT, NHL, RW, and IY. So changing 3 of those pairings does come at a cost. But it’s really not much and it’s done so that Middlemak can put more frequent letters to better spots, reduce pinballing, and reduce NFB. I think the SFB is in the same realm as Colemak, it’s still pretty low.
Notes: This is with the middle finger pressing C location, “proper” or ortho style. Same data as above.
Middlemak on Ortho actually comes in just a tad lower, but Colemak takes a bigger dip.
This basically moves most of the SFB from the index finger to the middle finger. On Middlemak, ortho takes out CT on the index finger and puts in CR and CL on the middle finger, which is only a tad lower. On Colemak, ortho takes out CT and puts in SC which is much lower.
I think it still works well. The middle finger is a strong finger and can cover most of these well. The one issue is that CL which is a two row jump.
I’ll break down the full Mayzner numbers:
First the index finger pressing CT/TC is 12,998 / 737. This is what ortho removes.
Middlemak Ortho puts in CRC which is 4,214 / 3,423. And puts in CL / LC which is 4,202 / 333. In percentages, CR is 32% of CT, RC is 26% of CT, and CL is 32% of CT. Adding it all up and including all the others (CP, CG, etc), Middlemak Ortho comes in at 87% of CT+TC. Just a tad lower.
Colemak Ortho puts in CS/SC, which is 644 / 4,363. CF/ FC is pretty much nill. In percentages, SC is 34% of CT. Adding it all up and including the others, Colemak Ortho comes in at 36% of CT+TC. A big dip.
If you want overall percentages (middle finger pressing C, Ortho style), Middlemak comes in at 2.16%, vs Colemak’s 1.669%, vs Workman’s 3.147%, vs Qwerty’s 6.575%. This is from Colemak-DH analyzer which says Middlemak ortho increases, as opposed to what I found that Middlemak ortho decreases SFB. I think it comes down to the data set used.
On the left hand: Middlemak’s ring-to-pinky outside roll of SA and WA is actually pretty low. SA is actually the lowest bigram of the common consonants to A. So SA and WA comes out to be a good design. Compared to Colemak, Middlemak’s SA outside roll is far less common than Colemak’s RA. (The exact Mayzner in millions are: Middlemak’s SA is 6,147. Colemak’s RA is 19,333. WA is the same for both at 10,865.)
On the right hand: Middlmak’s ring-to-pinky roll of IH and UH is very low. Vs Colemak: IO is very common and even YO is pretty common. (The exact numbers are Middlemak’s IH is 59, UH is 30. Vs Colemak’s IO 23,542, YO is 4,227.)
This next bit isn’t even a secondary design goal, but it’s worth mentioning: On the right hand, outside rolls from any of the fingers to the pinky H are very low. The common letters that come before H are usually TH, CH, WH, SH, and GH. All of those are on the opposite left hand. Doing the math, 97% of the letters before H are on the left hand. H on the pinky gives an amazing inside roll almost all the time.
Also worth mentioning is I think this also de-emphasizes the pinky a bit. First it limits the ring-to-pinky rolls. Second, the frequency of H is much lower than Colemak’s O. Third, the bigram HH is virtually nill, vs Colemak’s OO which is pretty common. None of these are massive, but I think they add up to de-emphasizing the pinky a bit.
First, this maintains the bottom row (except N) and maintains Q, W, A, and S. Many letters move on the same finger, including T, G, N, Y, J .
Second, this “keeps” the ASRT order. People learning Colemak commonly say that R and S are reversed. Technically it’s not because R was never on the middle finger to begin with. But it seems to be reversed in the brain. I think it’s two things. First ASRT keeps it in the same order, with R between S and T, even if R changes fingers. Second, I wonder how many people alt-fingered R typing in Qwerty, either all the time or for the RT bigram.
(I've also wondered if, for example, patterns like the very common ION simply being easier to type would make this faster to learn. I’m not certain about that though.)
Comparing layouts:
Considering letters swapping on the same finger, this has fewer changes than Colemak. And I think “keeping” the ASRT order will make it even easier to adopt than the numbers suggest.
(I hope people don’t think that I’m overly focused on keeping S in the Qwerty location just because. For this layout, it does work better with ASRT, I address it in more detail in excessive amount of details.)
2) There are a handful of NFB with R: BR, GR, PR, etc. Same with L and BL. This isn’t enough to change the home row to ARST. There is more below but ASRT has lower SFB, lower ring-to-pinky rolls, and is easier to learn. Also note these are much, much lower than the extremely high NFB that Colemak has with HE, LE, etc, (to solve those I paid L and R together).
3) I wanted a less common letter in the G location (Qwerty T location). I really tried to put a less common letter there, but it simply didn’t work.
4) I mention this above but to add more: The OM scissor-gram is a bit more common than I'd like. This is a limitation of keeping Qwerty similarity (the M) and wanting to put O on the upper-row-middle-finger. (MTGAP has a good design on this. It paired its EO with a lot of punctuation on the index finger to reduce NFBs.)
Honestly I’m surprised no one else has stumbled on this arrangement, since many people have taken to trying to fix Colemak’s issues and keep Qwerty similarity.
HE is very easy.
LD feels very good.
OU feels very comfortable.
OF/FO is very common and feels very good.
IO and ION are very nice rolls.
This maintains the nice IEN roll.
IOU is a redirect, but overall feels pretty ok.
YOU has a lateral move, but feels comfortable.
OU+LD together to make OULD feels good.
The very common TH, THE, and THE_ feel very nice not having to move the fingers off the home row.
Colemak:
1) Colemak has an issue with high lateral movement with D and H. You see this especially with H and its NFBs, but D isn’t the best either.
2) Colemak’s right index finger is overworked. It just has too much to do with N, H, and L.
3) Colemak has a pinballing issue due to placing most vowels and many common consonants on the same hand.
4) Colemak has a ton of NFB with EL/LE and HE.
5) Colemak has a hand balance issue. It places a lot of emphasis on the right hand with the vowels and several common consonants. (Hand dominance and pinballing are technically separate items.)
6) Colemak’s awkward ring-to-pinky rolls. Notably IO, YO (especially when typing YOU), and also RA on the right hand.
7) Not exactly a direct issue with Colemak, but Middlemak is easier to learn coming from Qwerty. Many new users want to ‘keep’ the order of ASRT instead of ‘reversing’ S and R.
Middlemak is a pretty low increase in SFBs and it fixes those issues.
Colemak DH:
Colemak-DH solves 1) the lateral movements. But it doesn’t solve 2) the right index finger overwork, 3) the pinballing, 4) the NFBs 5) the hand balance, 6) the awkward ring-to-pinky rolls, and 7) coming from Qwerty it’s pretty much a full change layout, taking out ease of transition. This also means common shortcuts move. They are still accessible, but they move (paste is the same. Undo, cut, and copy move.)
The neutral: On the left hand, the ring-to-pinky outside roll of SH is slightly higher, but in a similar range. Data from Mayzner is SH is 8,889, and original is SA is 6,147. Changing WA to WH is practically identical.
The bad: On both the right and left hand, the all-fingers-to-pinky outside roll is higher. On the left hand, it’s because TH is very common. On the right hand, it takes away the remarkable inside roll of H and adds in a moderate number of all-fingers-to-A bigrams with EA, IA, NA, MA, etc, (OA is actually low). Notably, the ring-to-pinky outside roll is higher with IA and UA coming in at 8,072 and 3,844, vs original IH and UH of 59 and 30.
The complicated: This option decreases the pinky-to-all-fingers rolls inside rolls on both hands. It increases the all-fingers-to-pinky rolls outside rolls. The overall sum of inside rolls plus outside rolls is lower. In short: this option lowers inside rolls, increases outside rolls, with an overall sum that is lower.
Basically stick to the original if you want to lower ring-to-pinky movement, lower outside rolls, and easier to learn. Overall I put this as a decent option if someone wants to maximize alternating without going to a full change layout.
*Source: 62 page / 31k word compilation. Left index used to press Qwerty C location. Includes punctuation.
Middlemak’s distance reduction is good, most alt keyboards are in the same range. It’s a tad worse on distance than some others because putting O off the home row increases distance, with the O being more frequent. (MTGAP puts O off the home row, but has all the punctuation on the diagonals to decrease distance.)
*All distances in metres. Same source as table above.
First, you can see Qwerty’s distances are extremely high. All the alternatives make big reductions.
Notice that the index fingers move way more than the other fingers.
Middlemak balances this out decently and moves more distance to both middle fingers. The left index finger is still a bit high because it has D off the home row (this brings it back to the discussion of where does the 11th letter go). Middlemak’s left index is slightly higher than Colemak’s even though they have the same letters because the row stagger technically puts D on a slight diagonal. A technicality really.
The right index finger is low, a good feature that the index finger next to the vowels doesn’t have to travel much. Compared to Colemak, Middlemak’s movement is 41% lower than Colemaks.
Here you can really see how much work the index fingers do. Middlemak’s sum of the index fingers is nice and low.
You can also look at the percentage of travel with the index finger. Middlemak’s is down at 47% - meaning the index fingers are responsible for 47% of all the distance travelled. On Colemak the index fingers account for 61% the distance travelled, quite a big difference relatively. Workman and Norman are close to Middlemak. MTGAP and Semimak are very low. Dvorak and Qwerty percentages are a bit deceiving though - the higher index finger distances are hidden by the higher total amount of distance.
So even when Middlemak’s left index finger doesn’t have a reduction in distance, the total index finger distance is significantly reduced.
Notes: * indicates vowel hand (Norman and Qwerty are mixed enough that there is no clear vowel hand). The ratio between the hands can change quite quickly, so I think that highlights the differences between the layouts better. Ratio >1 indicates right hand dominant, <1 indicates left hand dominant.
I think the raw distances are better for comparison between layouts, but some people like percentages. I used this mostly to calculate hand balance.
You can see Middlemak spreads out the work. The pinkies are low, ring fingers are reasonable, middle takes on more, and the indexes have most of the distances.
* indicates vowel hand (Norman and Qwerty are mixed enough that there is no vowel hand). Ratio of >1 indicates right hand dominant, <1 indicates left hand dominant.
The ratio between the hands can change quite quickly, so I think that highlights the differences between the layouts better than the percentages. I know it doesn't add up to 100%, the analyzer is doing some rounding or something behind the scenes, I'm not going to round any further.
E is so common that it bumps up any finger it’s on.
Middlemak’s left middle finger takes on a bit more work. The left index is still high because of D. The right index is notably lower taking off common letters. The right middle takes on more of the work with O. And the right pinky is lower too with the H there.
Distances weigh the keys differently, while frequency-off-home-row levels that field. This should be read in conjunction with distance. Neither is better than the other, it’s just a different measurement.
I did this after noticing, on Colemak, that my right index finger moves off the home row a lot. For Colemak the left index finger has more distance, but the right index finger has more frequency-off-home-row. The long distance to B on the left hand skews the distance travelled.
The effect is similar on most of the layouts: FOHR tones down the left hand dominance and bumps up the right hand dominance. With Colemak the frequency of H and L is enough to actually flip them. This is more noticeable with layouts that keep Qwerty’s B (which is just frequent enough to skew things), layouts that change the letter to a less common one shift less.
Also insightful is “Index FOHR as % of All fingers FOHR”. It shows that on Middlemak the index fingers do 48% of all frequency-off-home-row, quite reasonable. Whereas on Colemak the index fingers have 65% of all frequency-off-home-row, very high. Workman is just a tad higher with the index fingers doing 51% of frequency-off-home-row. Dvorak’s and Qwerty’s 53% for index fingers is a bit deceiving though, it appears low but that's because the overall total FOHR is much higher.
This is similar to “Zoom in on the index fingers”, but this shows an even greater difference between Middlemak and Colemak. This shows Middlemak at 48% and Colemak at 65% based on index finger % of total FOHR. Recall Middlemaks was 47% and Colemaks was 61% based on index finger % of total distance. Same thing, when the distances to the diagonals are levelled out, the frequency stands out.
Why not the middle row? First, I think most people find it easier to reach up and down rather than laterally. Second, it works very well with the LD roll.
Why not the bottom row? I want to leave the bottom row the same as Qwerty for easy adoption and to leave the shortcuts of undo=cut-copy-paste the same. I also think C and M (the curl locations) are already near perfect frequencies for those locations. Those are the middle of the pack frequencies, which are perfect for the index fingers - which cover 6 to 7 letters.
I previously said that I’m not a fan of Colemak’s L position, which is the same upper-row-index-finger. But Colemak’s L has a ton of NFBs with the vowels, especially with E but also with all the other vowels. Looking at the whole hand, 62% of Colemak’s L bigrams are on the same hand. I think that’s a big source of discomfort. But with Middlemak’s D, only 22% of bigrams are on the same hand. So Middlemak has far lower same-hand-gymnastics.
If you want to skip this, the main factor is that R and L pair well together. Better than S and L. That means the RL column goes on the middle finger. R being more common goes on the home row, and L goes on the middle-finger-upper-row which is a strong location.
[First note that Colemak had to go with ARST because of F on the middle-finger-upper-row. The SFB of RF/FR is more common than SF/FS.]
The cons is that the R position leads to more NFB with the index finger. Most of these feel ok but RD, GR, BR are not so good. These aren’t super common, but they are there. PR gives the commonly disliked lateral NFB, but I think it’s relatively ok for the frequency - it’s not super common. RS creates an outside roll, but I’d rather have the RS on Middlemak’s middle-to-ring fingers than Colemak’s RA on the ring-to-pinky fingers. Colemak’s RA is much more common than Middlemak’s RS too.
The cons with ARST is that it gives more SFB. It’s not huge, but it is there. It also gives a lot of ring-to-pinky outside rolls with RA. And finally this makes it much harder to learn coming from Qwerty.
(If someone comes from Colemak and wants ARST, they can. It's not a humongous downside to do that. Mostly the more common RA ring-to-pinky roll and slightly more SFB of SD/DS.)
(This layout truly does work better with ASRT. If it didn’t work, I would have changed it. For example, I wanted to keep G on its Qwerty location but it’s better to move it, so I didn’t shy away from changes.)
P and G are pretty much the same frequency, so it doesn’t matter in that sense.
P has a SFB with T, and it has common bigrams of PR, SP, and even PA. Those work better with P on the middle row. There is PL, but the ones above outweigh it.
G has a bigram with NG. With N on the opposite hand, that means G can go on the worse diagonal spot. There is GR, but PR is far more common.
Y goes to the index finger, which actually works pretty well. I broke down the numbers in SFB section.
F goes to the right hand index finger, because putting P or G on the right hand gives too many SFB with M and N. The F location works quite well for both moderate frequency and low SFB. It has a lot of NFB with OF/FO, so placing it next to O makes a comfortable roll.
submitted by someguy3 to Colemak [link] [comments]
Link to Layout heatmap
QWLDG JFOU: ASRTP YNEIH ZXCVB KM,./Link to Middlemak GitHub download.
Link to GitHub download Middlemak-AH.
Middlemak has also been created. The same writeup has been posted there.
The main design criteria was:
1) Use the middle-finger-upper-row position. The middle finger is a very strong finger, and the middle-finger-upper-row is a very good location for a common letter.
2) To reduce pinballing by putting most vowels on the right hand and putting most of the frequent consonants on the left hand.
3) Reduce the number of Near Finger Bigrams (NFBs).
4) Improve hand balance.
5) Keep SFB down of course.
6) A secondary design criteria was low ring-to-pinky-rolls. I find this to be an awkward movement.
7) Maintain Qwerty similarity to make it easier to learn.
These are all discussed in more detail below. (I’ll be talking in the context of Colemak for some of it. I don’t mean this to be a hit piece on Colemak, it’s just the best way to frame the items.)
1) Middle-Finger-Upper-Row
The main purpose of this layout is to place 2 common letters on the middle-finger-upper-row. The middle finger is very strong and these are excellent locations that are easy to reach.When you look at the letter frequency, there are 11 common letters before it takes a big drop off. The first eight letters go on the home row under the fingers. The next question is where do the next 3 letters go. Middlemak’s philosophy is to place 2 on the middle-finger-upper-row, and 1 on the index-finger-upper-row. Colemak places 2 on the centre columns, requiring a lateral movement that many find uncomfortable. Workman has 1 middle-finger-upper-row, 1 ring-finger-upper-row, and 1 index-finger-lower-row, a mixed bag.
L pairs well with R for low SFB. Middlemak places the RL column on the middle finger, which puts the common L on the middle-finger-upper-row.
E and O pair very well for low SFB. Placing EO column on the middle finger puts the very common O on the middle-finger-upper-row.
Using the middle finger also unloads the index fingers. The index fingers can get very busy with 6-7 letters compared with the other letters 3, especially when multiple frequent letters are put on them. I’ll give the distance stats in “Excessive amounts of stats” section far below which shows the drastic difference.
(I’ll skip discussing D here, it’s in “Excessive amounts of detail”. I also cover the R position more there.)
2) Pinballing
I wrote about pinballing in length here. The short of it is that there is an incredibly strong interaction between vowels and the consonants, with 75% of all bigrams between vowels and consonants. PInballing can happen when a lot of vowels and consonants arn put on the same hand, the hand movement will pinball back and forth between the vowels and consonants.I’ll cover Colemak first to outline the issue. Having most of the vowels EOIUY and many frequent consonants of NHLMKJ on the right hand leads to a pinballing problem. I call this the NHLMKJ wall, it’s a wall of consonants that the vowels pinball off of
To reduce pinballing Middlemak does two things:
First Middlemak moves L off the vowel hand and to the consonant hand. This (and moving H) reduces the wall to NMFPJ which is much, much lower frequency for movements to pinball off of. Or if the word starts with NMFPJ, it’s again much lower frequency.
Second it moves H to the pinky. H is a very unique letter because it’s almost always followed by a vowel. Moving H to the pinky means it almost always gives an inside roll. After the vowel, it generally continues to the consonants NMFPJ continuing the inside roll, or it alternates to the other hand. Rarely goes back to H. Generally only after the third letter can it start to pinball back to the vowels or back to H.
Combined, this reduces pinballing and increases alternating. It’s not entirely alternating, Middlemak still has rolls because it has N, H, and MKFJ. For N I find the rolls to be comfortable, likely because N is on the home row.
3) Near Finger Bigrams, NFB
NFB are bigrams that are on adjacent fingers. Too many or an uncomfortable arrangement can be an issue. NFB and pinballing are separate issues: NFB is the smaller pattern of adjacent fingers, pinballing is the much larger pattern of pinballing between all vowels and constants.I’ll cover Colemak first again to highlight the issue. On Colemak there are extremely common NFBs with HE and LE/EL. (There is also NE/EN, but I find the HE and EL/LE to be awkward because L and H are not on the home row.)
Pretty much all E bigrams are fairly high. I think you want to move common consonants away from E to reduce NFBs. For Middlemak, that means moving them away from the EO column.
Middlemak drastically reduces the NFBs by moving the common letters L and H off the adjacent index finger. The replacements of F and Y have dramatically lower NFBs with E and O. I wanted to keep Colemak’s K there since this doesn’t have many bigrams with E and O.
Looking at other layouts: Workman still has high NFB with L and E. Colemak-DH maintains L and H next to E. Many find the new HE roll to be more comfortable but it’s still a ton of NFB, and LE/EL is still there. MTGAP moved practically all letters away from its E and O and instead put punctuation there, a very good solution.
Middlemak does create some NFB with O placement. Namely OF, ON, and OM. However OF and ON are very comfortable, having the middle finger extended up feels pretty comfortable. OM is ok, and it’s the least common of those 3. The OM scissor-gram is a bit more common than I'd like, but it feels ok. This is about the best location for a scissor-gram too, with the long-middle-finger up and the curl-index-finger down being able to handle it fairly well. (Just to mention Colemak’s EL/LE, not exactly a scissor-gram, I find is bad since the shorter index finger has to reach up and the middle finger is so long it’s already curled just to be on the home row.)
Overall, Middlemak moving common consonants away from E drastically lowers the number of NFBs and takes away a ton of awkward movements. Visually, I think you can see this pretty easily in the heatmaps.
(You can extend this concept to fingers further away, to include Colemaks HI, LI, etc. This can be valid, but for here I’ll focus on adjacent fingers.)
4) Hand balance
Hand balance is a difficult topic. The two most obvious metrics for hand dominance are 1) the frequency of the letters, and 2) the distance the fingers have to travel (which is different from frequency because you don't travel to the home-row). But any pinballing from having too many vowels and consonants on the same hand doesn’t show up in those numbers. Having said all that, I’m going to look at frequency and distance.| Keyboard | Vowel Hand | Dominant Hand | Hand Balance ratio based on Frequency | Hand Balance ratio based on Distance | Hand Balance ratio based on Frequency and Distance | Corrected comparison number for left hand dominant |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTGAP | Left | Right | 1.00 | 1.43 | 1.43 | |
| Workman | Right | Left | 0.97 | 0.82 | 0.80 | 1.26 |
| Norman | n/a | Right | 0.93 | 1.27 | 1.19 | |
| Colemak | Right | Right | 1.14 | 1.15 | 1.32 | |
| Middlemak | Right | Right | 1.05 | 1.06 | 1.11 | |
| Semimak | Right | Right | 1.15 | 1.30 | 1.49 | |
| Dvorak | Left | Right | 1.23 | 1.86 | 2.30 | |
| QWERTY | n/a | Left | 0.77 | 1.06 | 0.82 | 1.22 |
Middlemak is more balanced on both frequency and distance. When both are considered, it really adds up to being more balanced. Middlemak combined balance ratio is 1.11, compared to Colemak’s 1.32 or Workman’s 1.26.
Ratios can change quite quickly because both the numerator and the denominator (in this case, the left and right hand) can go in opposite directions. Moving L to the other hand does exactly this - changing both the numerator and denominator, and it changes both the frequency and the distance. So that one move really helps to balance out the hands.
(I’ll add the full data in “Excessive amounts of stats” for both frequency and distance, broken down to hands and fingers. The individual finger load is quite interesting too.)
5) SFB
The SFB of this layout is still pretty low, but it does come out a tad higher than Colemak’s. I’ve debated how to show this and decided to go with the full nuclear information. Data is from Mayzner revisited in millions (which only has letter bigrams and doesn’t have punctuation data, that’s what the 0’s are).| Keyboard | Total SFB | Left hand SFB | Right hand SFB | L Pinky | L Ring | L Middle | L Index | R Index | R Middle | R Ring | R Pinky |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QWERTY | 185,270 | 125,920 | 59,350 | 1,105 | 1,661 | 54,502 | 68,651 | 34,166 | 3,970 | 21,214 | 0 |
| Workman | 78,147 | 29,268 | 48,878 | 1,105 | 3,712 | 2,806 | 21,645 | 27,338 | 5,037 | 16,503 | 0 |
| Dvorak | 70,570 | 28,306 | 42,264 | 0 | 31 | 0 | 28,275 | 12,142 | 16,265 | 8,229 | 5,629 |
| Middlemak | 44,698 | 25,806 | 18,892 | 1,105 | 1,661 | 2,716 | 20,323 | 12,415 | 3,134 | 3,343 | 0 |
| Colemak | 39,023 | 23,336 | 15,687 | 1,105 | 1,267 | 639 | 20,323 | 9,831 | 5,037 | 819 | 0 |
| MTGAP | 34,151 | 14,550 | 19,601 | 1,147 | 339 | 3,134 | 9,931 | 4,629 | 8,633 | 5,071 | 1,267 |
For Middlemak: You can see it’s not all that much of an increase in SFB from Colemak. Overall the numbers are low considering it keeps many Qwerty aspects.
On the left hand: The middle finger goes up with R and L. This was to allow more consonants on the left hand and use of the middle-finger-upper-row. I think the middle finger being a strong finger and comfortable reach can handle these quite well. The index finger is the same as Colemak.
On the right hand: The right index goes up a little bit, mostly with NY and MY. They aren’t as high as you may think. But the Y SFBs and adding in NK/KN, NF, etc, they do add up a little. It’s not all that much but it is more. I think it’s still easily manageable. NY is actually not all that common, for example it’s actually less common than EU/UE. (The exact Mayzner numbers are: NY/YN is 2,761 / 373. Compared to EU/UE is 878 / 4,158. MY/YM is 1,753 / 668.) The middle finger actually goes down, EO/OE is very low. The ring finger goes up a bit with UI/IU being more common than Colemak’s IY/YI.
If you want overall percentages (index finger pressing C), Middlemak comes in at 2.078%, vs Colemak’s 1.815%, vs Workmans 3.053%, vs Qwerty’s 6.264%.
Colemak really did a good job finding low SFB pairings of SF, DT, NHL, RW, and IY. So changing 3 of those pairings does come at a cost. But it’s really not much and it’s done so that Middlemak can put more frequent letters to better spots, reduce pinballing, and reduce NFB. I think the SFB is in the same realm as Colemak, it’s still pretty low.
Ortho SFB
| Keyboard | Total SFB | Left hand SFB | Right hand SFB | L Pinky | L Ring | L Middle | L Index | R Index | R Middle | R Ring | R Pinky |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QWERTY | 195,687 | 136,337 | 59,350 | 1,105 | 1,661 | 86,462 | 47,108 | 34,166 | 3,970 | 21,214 | 0 |
| Workman | 79,561 | 30,682 | 48,878 | 1,105 | 3,712 | 8,206 | 17,659 | 27,338 | 5,037 | 16,503 | 0 |
| Dvorak | 70,365 | 28,101 | 42,264 | 0 | 31 | 1,591 | 26,480 | 12,142 | 16,265 | 8,229 | 5,629 |
| Middlemak | 42,816 | 23,924 | 18,892 | 1,105 | 1,661 | 14,888 | 6,270 | 12,415 | 3,134 | 3,343 | 0 |
| Colemak | 30,032 | 14,345 | 15,687 | 1,105 | 1,267 | 5,702 | 6,270 | 9,831 | 5,037 | 819 | 0 |
| MTGAP | 34,151 | 14,550 | 19,601 | 1,147 | 339 | 3,134 | 9,931 | 4,629 | 8,633 | 5,071 | 1,267 |
Middlemak on Ortho actually comes in just a tad lower, but Colemak takes a bigger dip.
This basically moves most of the SFB from the index finger to the middle finger. On Middlemak, ortho takes out CT on the index finger and puts in CR and CL on the middle finger, which is only a tad lower. On Colemak, ortho takes out CT and puts in SC which is much lower.
I think it still works well. The middle finger is a strong finger and can cover most of these well. The one issue is that CL which is a two row jump.
I’ll break down the full Mayzner numbers:
First the index finger pressing CT/TC is 12,998 / 737. This is what ortho removes.
Middlemak Ortho puts in CRC which is 4,214 / 3,423. And puts in CL / LC which is 4,202 / 333. In percentages, CR is 32% of CT, RC is 26% of CT, and CL is 32% of CT. Adding it all up and including all the others (CP, CG, etc), Middlemak Ortho comes in at 87% of CT+TC. Just a tad lower.
Colemak Ortho puts in CS/SC, which is 644 / 4,363. CF/ FC is pretty much nill. In percentages, SC is 34% of CT. Adding it all up and including the others, Colemak Ortho comes in at 36% of CT+TC. A big dip.
If you want overall percentages (middle finger pressing C, Ortho style), Middlemak comes in at 2.16%, vs Colemak’s 1.669%, vs Workman’s 3.147%, vs Qwerty’s 6.575%. This is from Colemak-DH analyzer which says Middlemak ortho increases, as opposed to what I found that Middlemak ortho decreases SFB. I think it comes down to the data set used.
6) Low ring-to-pinky rolls. And the amazing inside roll from H.
A secondary design goal was to decrease the awkward ring-to-pinky roll. Middlemak greatly reduces this roll.On the left hand: Middlemak’s ring-to-pinky outside roll of SA and WA is actually pretty low. SA is actually the lowest bigram of the common consonants to A. So SA and WA comes out to be a good design. Compared to Colemak, Middlemak’s SA outside roll is far less common than Colemak’s RA. (The exact Mayzner in millions are: Middlemak’s SA is 6,147. Colemak’s RA is 19,333. WA is the same for both at 10,865.)
On the right hand: Middlmak’s ring-to-pinky roll of IH and UH is very low. Vs Colemak: IO is very common and even YO is pretty common. (The exact numbers are Middlemak’s IH is 59, UH is 30. Vs Colemak’s IO 23,542, YO is 4,227.)
This next bit isn’t even a secondary design goal, but it’s worth mentioning: On the right hand, outside rolls from any of the fingers to the pinky H are very low. The common letters that come before H are usually TH, CH, WH, SH, and GH. All of those are on the opposite left hand. Doing the math, 97% of the letters before H are on the left hand. H on the pinky gives an amazing inside roll almost all the time.
Also worth mentioning is I think this also de-emphasizes the pinky a bit. First it limits the ring-to-pinky rolls. Second, the frequency of H is much lower than Colemak’s O. Third, the bigram HH is virtually nill, vs Colemak’s OO which is pretty common. None of these are massive, but I think they add up to de-emphasizing the pinky a bit.
7) Qwerty similarity.
Last but not least, this maintains Qwerty similarity to make it easier to learn.First, this maintains the bottom row (except N) and maintains Q, W, A, and S. Many letters move on the same finger, including T, G, N, Y, J .
Second, this “keeps” the ASRT order. People learning Colemak commonly say that R and S are reversed. Technically it’s not because R was never on the middle finger to begin with. But it seems to be reversed in the brain. I think it’s two things. First ASRT keeps it in the same order, with R between S and T, even if R changes fingers. Second, I wonder how many people alt-fingered R typing in Qwerty, either all the time or for the RT bigram.
(I've also wondered if, for example, patterns like the very common ION simply being easier to type would make this faster to learn. I’m not certain about that though.)
Comparing layouts:
- Middlemak: 10 letters stay in their original spot and 16 move, with 5 letters moving on the same finger and 11 letters switching fingers.
- Colemak: 10 letters stay in their original spot and 16 move, with 4 letters moving on the same finger and 12 letters switching fingers.
- Colemak-DH: 5 letters stay in their original spot and 21 move, with 6 letters moving on the same finger and 15 letters switching fingers.
- Workman: 6 letters stay in their original spot and 20 move, with 8 letters moving on the same finger and 12 letters switching fingers.
Considering letters swapping on the same finger, this has fewer changes than Colemak. And I think “keeping” the ASRT order will make it even easier to adopt than the numbers suggest.
(I hope people don’t think that I’m overly focused on keeping S in the Qwerty location just because. For this layout, it does work better with ASRT, I address it in more detail in excessive amount of details.)
Downsides
1) There is a slight increase in SFB compared to Colemak. But overall I think SFB is still low.2) There are a handful of NFB with R: BR, GR, PR, etc. Same with L and BL. This isn’t enough to change the home row to ARST. There is more below but ASRT has lower SFB, lower ring-to-pinky rolls, and is easier to learn. Also note these are much, much lower than the extremely high NFB that Colemak has with HE, LE, etc, (to solve those I paid L and R together).
3) I wanted a less common letter in the G location (Qwerty T location). I really tried to put a less common letter there, but it simply didn’t work.
4) I mention this above but to add more: The OM scissor-gram is a bit more common than I'd like. This is a limitation of keeping Qwerty similarity (the M) and wanting to put O on the upper-row-middle-finger. (MTGAP has a good design on this. It paired its EO with a lot of punctuation on the index finger to reduce NFBs.)
Conclusion
I'm really happy with this layout. I think it is a great combination of pretty low SFB, good use of the strong middle-finger-upper-row position, reduced NFB and pinballing, keeping Qwerty similarity, and easy to transition to.Honestly I’m surprised no one else has stumbled on this arrangement, since many people have taken to trying to fix Colemak’s issues and keep Qwerty similarity.
Some nice rolls and combinations
Although this increases alternating, there are still plenty of rolls left. Some I want to mention:HE is very easy.
LD feels very good.
OU feels very comfortable.
OF/FO is very common and feels very good.
IO and ION are very nice rolls.
This maintains the nice IEN roll.
IOU is a redirect, but overall feels pretty ok.
YOU has a lateral move, but feels comfortable.
OU+LD together to make OULD feels good.
The very common TH, THE, and THE_ feel very nice not having to move the fingers off the home row.
Vs Colemak and Vs Colemak-DH
I made Middlemak to try to solve the problems I found with Colemak. I think all the items came out above, but as a bit of a summary and to include Colemak-DH.Colemak:
1) Colemak has an issue with high lateral movement with D and H. You see this especially with H and its NFBs, but D isn’t the best either.
2) Colemak’s right index finger is overworked. It just has too much to do with N, H, and L.
3) Colemak has a pinballing issue due to placing most vowels and many common consonants on the same hand.
4) Colemak has a ton of NFB with EL/LE and HE.
5) Colemak has a hand balance issue. It places a lot of emphasis on the right hand with the vowels and several common consonants. (Hand dominance and pinballing are technically separate items.)
6) Colemak’s awkward ring-to-pinky rolls. Notably IO, YO (especially when typing YOU), and also RA on the right hand.
7) Not exactly a direct issue with Colemak, but Middlemak is easier to learn coming from Qwerty. Many new users want to ‘keep’ the order of ASRT instead of ‘reversing’ S and R.
Middlemak is a pretty low increase in SFBs and it fixes those issues.
Colemak DH:
Colemak-DH solves 1) the lateral movements. But it doesn’t solve 2) the right index finger overwork, 3) the pinballing, 4) the NFBs 5) the hand balance, 6) the awkward ring-to-pinky rolls, and 7) coming from Qwerty it’s pretty much a full change layout, taking out ease of transition. This also means common shortcuts move. They are still accessible, but they move (paste is the same. Undo, cut, and copy move.)
Option: Swap A and H
This gives:QWLDG JFOU: HSRTP YNEIA ZXCVB KM,./The good: This is good if you want to put all the vowels and most consonants on opposite hands. Overall this increases alternating. This mostly comes from moving A to the right hand because A pairs a lot with the L, R, S, T, etc. This is the biggest appeal if you find those uncomfortable. Moving H actually decreases alternating because there’s a high bigram with TH (you can test your own comfortability on that. Don’t forget capitalized Th is common.) Excessive details: Middlemak A has 41% of bigrams on the opposite hand, swapping gives 65%. Middlemak H has 58% of bigrams on the opposite hand, swapping gives 51% (again, mostly because of TH). Overall, middlemak A+H has 48% on the opposite hand, swapping gives 59%.
The neutral: On the left hand, the ring-to-pinky outside roll of SH is slightly higher, but in a similar range. Data from Mayzner is SH is 8,889, and original is SA is 6,147. Changing WA to WH is practically identical.
The bad: On both the right and left hand, the all-fingers-to-pinky outside roll is higher. On the left hand, it’s because TH is very common. On the right hand, it takes away the remarkable inside roll of H and adds in a moderate number of all-fingers-to-A bigrams with EA, IA, NA, MA, etc, (OA is actually low). Notably, the ring-to-pinky outside roll is higher with IA and UA coming in at 8,072 and 3,844, vs original IH and UH of 59 and 30.
The complicated: This option decreases the pinky-to-all-fingers rolls inside rolls on both hands. It increases the all-fingers-to-pinky rolls outside rolls. The overall sum of inside rolls plus outside rolls is lower. In short: this option lowers inside rolls, increases outside rolls, with an overall sum that is lower.
Basically stick to the original if you want to lower ring-to-pinky movement, lower outside rolls, and easier to learn. Overall I put this as a decent option if someone wants to maximize alternating without going to a full change layout.
Excessive amount of stats
This section has details on distance reductions, hand balance based on frequency, hand balance based on distance, and raw distance numbers. I'm going to give lots of charts to cover all the details. Those that want to know all the details or those that like to analyze will find this interesting, but others don’t have to read.Distance reduction from Qwerty
| Keyboard | Distance | Distance | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| (km) | (miles) | (% reduction from Qwerty) | |
| MTGAP | 2.592 | 1.611 | 46.3% |
| Workman | 2.613 | 1.624 | 45.9% |
| Norman | 2.615 | 1.625 | 45.9% |
| Colemak | 2.616 | 1.625 | 45.8% |
| Middlemak | 2.710 | 1.684 | 43.9% |
| Semimak | 2.739 | 1.702 | 43.3% |
| Dvorak | 2.813 | 1.748 | 41.8% |
| QWERTY | 4.829 | 3.001 | 0% |
Middlemak’s distance reduction is good, most alt keyboards are in the same range. It’s a tad worse on distance than some others because putting O off the home row increases distance, with the O being more frequent. (MTGAP puts O off the home row, but has all the punctuation on the diagonals to decrease distance.)
All Finger Distances
This is the raw distance travelled in metres. Percentages rely on the total distance travelled, which changes between layouts so it's not comparable. Note that distance is different from frequency. The fingers don't move for the home row, the distance travelled is to the other letters.| Keyboard | L Pinky | L Ring | L Middle | L Index | R Index | R Middle | R Ring | R Pinky | L Total | R Total | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTGAP | 293 | 116 | 413 | 246 | 667 | 320 | 219 | 318 | 1068 m | 1524 m | 2592 m |
| Workman | 123 | 232 | 330 | 753 | 505 | 200 | 146 | 325 | 1437 m | 1176 m | 2613 m |
| Norman | 127 | 127 | 223 | 674 | 525 | 377 | 244 | 319 | 1150 m | 1465 m | 2615 m |
| Colemak | 130 | 127 | 116 | 842 | 747 | 200 | 141 | 315 | 1214 m | 1402 m | 2616 m |
| Middlemak | 134 | 127 | 207 | 847 | 440 | 460 | 189 | 306 | 1314 m | 1396 m | 2710 m |
| Semimak | 238 | 237 | 326 | 390 | 506 | 200 | 450 | 393 | 1191 m | 1549 m | 2739 m |
| Dvorak | 205 | 54 | 34 | 692 | 753 | 285 | 395 | 396 | 984 m | 1829 m | 2813 m |
| QWERTY | 130 | 127 | 670 | 1413 | 1169 | 452 | 450 | 418 | 2340 m | 2489 m | 4829 m |
First, you can see Qwerty’s distances are extremely high. All the alternatives make big reductions.
Notice that the index fingers move way more than the other fingers.
Middlemak balances this out decently and moves more distance to both middle fingers. The left index finger is still a bit high because it has D off the home row (this brings it back to the discussion of where does the 11th letter go). Middlemak’s left index is slightly higher than Colemak’s even though they have the same letters because the row stagger technically puts D on a slight diagonal. A technicality really.
The right index finger is low, a good feature that the index finger next to the vowels doesn’t have to travel much. Compared to Colemak, Middlemak’s movement is 41% lower than Colemaks.
Zoom in on index fingers
| Keyboard | Distance | Distance | Total | Index Finger % of total distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| L Index | R Index | L+R Index | L+R Index | |
| MTGAP | 246 | 667 | 913 m | 35% |
| Workman | 753 | 505 | 1259 m | 48% |
| Norman | 674 | 525 | 1200 m | 46% |
| Colemak | 842 | 747 | 1589 m | 61% |
| Middlemak | 847 | 440 | 1287 m | 47% |
| Semimak | 390 | 506 | 896 m | 33% |
| Dvorak | 692 | 753 | 1445 m | 51% |
| QWERTY | 1413 | 1169 | 2582 m | 53% |
You can also look at the percentage of travel with the index finger. Middlemak’s is down at 47% - meaning the index fingers are responsible for 47% of all the distance travelled. On Colemak the index fingers account for 61% the distance travelled, quite a big difference relatively. Workman and Norman are close to Middlemak. MTGAP and Semimak are very low. Dvorak and Qwerty percentages are a bit deceiving though - the higher index finger distances are hidden by the higher total amount of distance.
So even when Middlemak’s left index finger doesn’t have a reduction in distance, the total index finger distance is significantly reduced.
Hand Balance based on Distance
This is the distance in percentages for all the fingers (unlike the raw distances in metres above) so that I can add them up to look at hand balance.| Keyboard | Left hand | Right hand | Hand Balance Ratio | L Pinky | L Ring | L Middle | L Index | R Index | R Middle | R Ring | R Pinky |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTGAP | 41.2* | 58.8 | 1.43 | 11.3 | 4.5 | 15.9 | 9.5 | 25.7 | 12.3 | 8.4 | 12.3 |
| Workman | 55.0 | 45.0* | 0.82 | 4.7 | 8.9 | 12.6 | 28.8 | 19.3 | 7.6 | 5.6 | 12.5 |
| Norman | 44.0 | 56.0 | 1.27 | 4.8 | 4.8 | 8.5 | 25.8 | 20.1 | 14.4 | 9.3 | 12.2 |
| Colemak | 46.4 | 53.6* | 1.15 | 5.0 | 4.8 | 4.4 | 32.2 | 28.6 | 7.6 | 5.4 | 12.0 |
| Middlemak | 48.5 | 51.5* | 1.06 | 5.0 | 4.7 | 7.6 | 31.2 | 16.3 | 17.0 | 7.0 | 11.3 |
| Semimak | 43.5 | 56.5* | 1.30 | 8.7 | 8.7 | 11.9 | 14.2 | 18.5 | 7.3 | 16.4 | 14.4 |
| Dvorak | 35.0* | 65.0 | 1.86 | 7.3 | 1.9 | 1.2 | 24.6 | 26.8 | 10.1 | 14.0 | 14.1 |
| QWERTY | 48.5 | 51.5 | 1.06 | 2.7 | 2.6 | 13.9 | 29.3 | 24.2 | 9.4 | 9.3 | 8.7 |
I think the raw distances are better for comparison between layouts, but some people like percentages. I used this mostly to calculate hand balance.
You can see Middlemak spreads out the work. The pinkies are low, ring fingers are reasonable, middle takes on more, and the indexes have most of the distances.
Hand Balance based on Frequency
Now we’re shifting to frequency. You can see the data for all the fingers, this is enlightening on its own. I also add them up to look at the hand balance.| Keyboard | Left hand | Right hand | Hand Balance Ratio | L Pinky | L Ring | L Middle | L Index | R Index | R Middle | R Ring | R Pinky |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTGAP | 49.9* | 50.0 | 1.00 | 10.8 | 8.4 | 18.8 | 11.9 | 16.3 | 14.5 | 9.8 | 9.4 |
| Workman | 50.7 | 49.3* | 0.97 | 9.3 | 10.1 | 11.1 | 20.2 | 15.2 | 14.9 | 9.7 | 9.5 |
| Norman | 51.7 | 48.3 | 0.93 | 9.3 | 8.3 | 15.4 | 18.7 | 15.2 | 13.2 | 11.8 | 8.1 |
| Colemak | 46.7 | 53.2* | 1.14 | 9.4 | 7.7 | 8.2 | 21.4 | 19.4 | 14.9 | 9.1 | 9.8 |
| Middlemak | 48.8 | 51.2* | 1.05 | 9.4 | 8.3 | 9.7 | 21.4 | 13.7 | 19.6 | 9.9 | 8.0 |
| Semimak | 46.6 | 53.4* | 1.15 | 9.7 | 10.1 | 11.8 | 15.0 | 12.2 | 14.9 | 15.6 | 10.7 |
| Dvorak | 44.8* | 55.3 | 1.23 | 10.3 | 8.1 | 12.2 | 14.2 | 17.2 | 13.4 | 13.0 | 11.7 |
| QWERTY | 56.5 | 43.5 | 0.77 | 9.4 | 8.3 | 15.4 | 23.4 | 18.8 | 8.4 | 11.8 | 4.5 |
The ratio between the hands can change quite quickly, so I think that highlights the differences between the layouts better than the percentages. I know it doesn't add up to 100%, the analyzer is doing some rounding or something behind the scenes, I'm not going to round any further.
E is so common that it bumps up any finger it’s on.
Middlemak’s left middle finger takes on a bit more work. The left index is still high because of D. The right index is notably lower taking off common letters. The right middle takes on more of the work with O. And the right pinky is lower too with the H there.
Hand Balance Distance + Frequency
This is the same chart that was above, just for a summary.| Keyboard | Dominant Hand | Hand Balance ratio based on Frequency | Hand Balance ratio based on Distance | Hand Balance ratio based on Frequency and Distance | Corrected comparison number for left hand dominant |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTGAP | Right | 1.00 | 1.43 | 1.43 | |
| Workman | Left | 0.97 | 0.82 | 0.80 | 1.26 |
| Norman | Right | 0.93 | 1.27 | 1.19 | |
| Colemak | Right | 1.14 | 1.15 | 1.32 | |
| Middlemak | Right | 1.05 | 1.06 | 1.11 | |
| Semimak | Right | 1.15 | 1.30 | 1.49 | |
| Dvorak | Right | 1.23 | 1.86 | 2.30 | |
| QWERTY | Left | 0.77 | 1.06 | 0.82 | 1.22 |
1 indicates right hand dominant, <1 indicates left hand dominant. Hand Balance ratio based on Frequency and Distance is a simple multiplication of the two.
Frequency-off-home-row (F.O.H.R.)
At the risk of too much information, another way to look at this is the frequency that’s off-home-row. I.e. the frequency that is not under the fingers.Distances weigh the keys differently, while frequency-off-home-row levels that field. This should be read in conjunction with distance. Neither is better than the other, it’s just a different measurement.
| Keyboard | L Pinky | L Ring | L Middle | L Index | R Index | R Middle | R Ring | R Pinky | L+R Index | Index FOHR as % of All fingers FOHR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTGAP | 4.0 | 2.0 | 7.2 | 4.1 | 10.8 | 5.8 | 3.6 | 3.8 | 14.9% | 36% |
| Workman | 1.5 | 3.9 | 5.6 | 11.5 | 8.8 | 3.3 | 2.5 | 2.7 | 20.3% | 51% |
| Norman | 1.5 | 2.1 | 3.8 | 10.0 | 8.8 | 6.4 | 4.6 | 2.6 | 18.8% | 47% |
| Colemak | 1.6 | 2.1 | 2.0 | 12.7 | 13.0 | 3.3 | 2.3 | 2.6 | 25.7% | 65% |
| Middlemak | 1.6 | 2.1 | 4.1 | 12.7 | 7.3 | 8.0 | 3.1 | 2.5 | 20.0% | 48% |
| Semimak | 3.5 | 4.5 | 5.4 | 6.3 | 8.4 | 3.3 | 7.8 | 3.9 | 14.7% | 34% |
| Dvorak | 2.5 | 0.9 | 0.6 | 11.7 | 11.7 | 4.7 | 6.6 | 5.5 | 23.4% | 53% |
| QWERTY | 1.6 | 2.1 | 11.6 | 21.4 | 18.6 | 7.5 | 7.8 | 4.5 | 40.0% | 53% |
The effect is similar on most of the layouts: FOHR tones down the left hand dominance and bumps up the right hand dominance. With Colemak the frequency of H and L is enough to actually flip them. This is more noticeable with layouts that keep Qwerty’s B (which is just frequent enough to skew things), layouts that change the letter to a less common one shift less.
Also insightful is “Index FOHR as % of All fingers FOHR”. It shows that on Middlemak the index fingers do 48% of all frequency-off-home-row, quite reasonable. Whereas on Colemak the index fingers have 65% of all frequency-off-home-row, very high. Workman is just a tad higher with the index fingers doing 51% of frequency-off-home-row. Dvorak’s and Qwerty’s 53% for index fingers is a bit deceiving though, it appears low but that's because the overall total FOHR is much higher.
This is similar to “Zoom in on the index fingers”, but this shows an even greater difference between Middlemak and Colemak. This shows Middlemak at 48% and Colemak at 65% based on index finger % of total FOHR. Recall Middlemaks was 47% and Colemaks was 61% based on index finger % of total distance. Same thing, when the distances to the diagonals are levelled out, the frequency stands out.
Excessive amount of detail on letters
You really don’t need to read this, mostly if you have any lingering or specific Q on specific letters.D position and why not curl?
Back to the discussion of there being 11 common letters: Where to place that 11th letter is difficult, it’s either the ring finger or index finger. Many find the ring finger to not be very dexterous for such a frequent letter. So putting D on the index finger with T works very well for low SFB.Why not the middle row? First, I think most people find it easier to reach up and down rather than laterally. Second, it works very well with the LD roll.
Why not the bottom row? I want to leave the bottom row the same as Qwerty for easy adoption and to leave the shortcuts of undo=cut-copy-paste the same. I also think C and M (the curl locations) are already near perfect frequencies for those locations. Those are the middle of the pack frequencies, which are perfect for the index fingers - which cover 6 to 7 letters.
I previously said that I’m not a fan of Colemak’s L position, which is the same upper-row-index-finger. But Colemak’s L has a ton of NFBs with the vowels, especially with E but also with all the other vowels. Looking at the whole hand, 62% of Colemak’s L bigrams are on the same hand. I think that’s a big source of discomfort. But with Middlemak’s D, only 22% of bigrams are on the same hand. So Middlemak has far lower same-hand-gymnastics.
The R and L position
I’m sure the R and S location will attract attention, so I’ll discuss it more here.If you want to skip this, the main factor is that R and L pair well together. Better than S and L. That means the RL column goes on the middle finger. R being more common goes on the home row, and L goes on the middle-finger-upper-row which is a strong location.
[First note that Colemak had to go with ARST because of F on the middle-finger-upper-row. The SFB of RF/FR is more common than SF/FS.]
ASRT, making a RL column
The pros of ASRT is it gives fewer SFB, with LRL being less than half as common as SL/LS. It also gives fewer ring-to-pinky-rolls with SA being far less common than Colemak’s RA. It also makes it much easier to learn from Qwerty.The cons is that the R position leads to more NFB with the index finger. Most of these feel ok but RD, GR, BR are not so good. These aren’t super common, but they are there. PR gives the commonly disliked lateral NFB, but I think it’s relatively ok for the frequency - it’s not super common. RS creates an outside roll, but I’d rather have the RS on Middlemak’s middle-to-ring fingers than Colemak’s RA on the ring-to-pinky fingers. Colemak’s RA is much more common than Middlemak’s RS too.
ARST, making a SL column
The pros of ARST is that it gives an inside roll of RS. It also separates R from the NFB letters on the index finger, which do add up. However, I’m trying to resolve the NFBs of Colemak’s right hand H and L with E which is a magnitude larger, in addition to the pinballing that it creates which requires moving L.The cons with ARST is that it gives more SFB. It’s not huge, but it is there. It also gives a lot of ring-to-pinky outside rolls with RA. And finally this makes it much harder to learn coming from Qwerty.
Verdict: ASRT, RL column
None of these are huge deal breakers for one or the other. I went with lower SFB, lower ring-to-pinky rolls, and much easier to learn. At the cost of some NFB on the index finger and inside roll of RS.(If someone comes from Colemak and wants ARST, they can. It's not a humongous downside to do that. Mostly the more common RA ring-to-pinky roll and slightly more SFB of SD/DS.)
(This layout truly does work better with ASRT. If it didn’t work, I would have changed it. For example, I wanted to keep G on its Qwerty location but it’s better to move it, so I didn’t shy away from changes.)
P and G location
It’s better to move G than keep it in its Qwerty location.P and G are pretty much the same frequency, so it doesn’t matter in that sense.
P has a SFB with T, and it has common bigrams of PR, SP, and even PA. Those work better with P on the middle row. There is PL, but the ones above outweigh it.
G has a bigram with NG. With N on the opposite hand, that means G can go on the worse diagonal spot. There is GR, but PR is far more common.
O location
O and E together give very low SFB. This is a great opportunity to put them together. The strong middle finger only has 3 keys, so it can handle two very frequent letters.U, Y and F locations
U works pretty well with I, the SFB are reasonably low. This location also creates a nice OU and YOU roll.Y goes to the index finger, which actually works pretty well. I broke down the numbers in SFB section.
F goes to the right hand index finger, because putting P or G on the right hand gives too many SFB with M and N. The F location works quite well for both moderate frequency and low SFB. It has a lot of NFB with OF/FO, so placing it next to O makes a comfortable roll.
2023.04.01 19:47 someguy3 Middlemak Layout writeup and download link.
Named for the emphasis on the middle finger and use of the middle-finger-upper-row locations for frequent letters
Link to Layout heatmap
Link to GitHub download Middlemak-AH.
Middlemak is also up for easy sub to get to.
The main design criteria was:
1) Use the middle-finger-upper-row position. The middle finger is a very strong finger, and the middle-finger-upper-row is a very good location for a common letter.
2) To reduce pinballing by putting most vowels on the right hand and putting most of the frequent consonants on the left hand.
3) Reduce the number of Near Finger Bigrams (NFBs).
4) Improve hand balance.
5) Keep SFB down of course.
6) A secondary design criteria was low ring-to-pinky-rolls. I find this to be an awkward movement.
7) Maintain Qwerty similarity to make it easier to learn.
These are all discussed in more detail below. (I’ll be talking in the context of Colemak for some of it. I don’t mean this to be a hit piece on Colemak, it’s just the best way to frame the items.)
When you look at the letter frequency, there are 11 common letters before it takes a big drop off. The first eight letters go on the home row under the fingers. The next question is where do the next 3 letters go. Middlemak’s philosophy is to place 2 on the middle-finger-upper-row, and 1 on the index-finger-upper-row. Colemak places 2 on the centre columns, requiring a lateral movement that many find uncomfortable. Workman has 1 middle-finger-upper-row, 1 ring-finger-upper-row, and 1 index-finger-lower-row, a mixed bag.
L pairs well with R for low SFB. Middlemak places the RL column on the middle finger, which puts the common L on the middle-finger-upper-row.
E and O pair very well for low SFB. Placing EO column on the middle finger puts the very common O on the middle-finger-upper-row.
Using the middle finger also unloads the index fingers. The index fingers can get very busy with 6-7 letters compared with the other letters 3, especially when multiple frequent letters are put on them. I’ll give the distance stats in “Excessive amounts of stats” section far below which shows the drastic difference.
(I’ll skip discussing D here, it’s in “Excessive amounts of detail”. I also cover the R position more there.)
I’ll cover Colemak first to outline the issue. Having most of the vowels EOIUY and many frequent consonants of NHLMKJ on the right hand leads to a pinballing problem. I call this the NHLMKJ wall, it’s a wall of consonants that the vowels pinball off of
To reduce pinballing Middlemak does two things:
First Middlemak moves L off the vowel hand and to the consonant hand. This (and moving H) reduces the wall to NMFPJ which is much, much lower frequency for movements to pinball off of. Or if the word starts with NMFPJ, it’s again much lower frequency.
Second it moves H to the pinky. H is a very unique letter because it’s almost always followed by a vowel. Moving H to the pinky means it almost always gives an inside roll. After the vowel, it generally continues to the consonants NMFPJ continuing the inside roll, or it alternates to the other hand. Rarely goes back to H. Generally only after the third letter can it start to pinball back to the vowels or back to H.
Combined, this reduces pinballing and increases alternating. It’s not entirely alternating, Middlemak still has rolls because it has N, H, and MKFJ. For N I find the rolls to be comfortable, likely because N is on the home row.
I’ll cover Colemak first again to highlight the issue. On Colemak there are extremely common NFBs with HE and LE/EL. (There is also NE/EN, but I find the HE and EL/LE to be awkward because L and H are not on the home row.)
Pretty much all E bigrams are fairly high. I think you want to move common consonants away from E to reduce NFBs. For Middlemak, that means moving them away from the EO column.
Middlemak drastically reduces the NFBs by moving the common letters L and H off the adjacent index finger. The replacements of F and Y have dramatically lower NFBs with E and O. I wanted to keep Colemak’s K there since this doesn’t have many bigrams with E and O.
Looking at other layouts: Workman still has high NFB with L and E. Colemak-DH maintains L and H next to E. Many find the new HE roll to be more comfortable but it’s still a ton of NFB, and LE/EL is still there. MTGAP moved practically all letters away from its E and O and instead put punctuation there, a very good solution.
Middlemak does create some NFB with O placement. Namely OF, ON, and OM. However OF and ON are very comfortable, having the middle finger extended up feels pretty comfortable. OM is ok, and it’s the least common of those 3. The OM scissor-gram is a bit more common than I'd like, but it feels ok. This is about the best location for a scissor-gram too, with the long-middle-finger up and the curl-index-finger down being able to handle it fairly well. (Just to mention Colemak’s EL/LE, not exactly a scissor-gram, I find is bad since the shorter index finger has to reach up and the middle finger is so long it’s already curled just to be on the home row.)
Overall, Middlemak moving common consonants away from E drastically lowers the number of NFBs and takes away a ton of awkward movements. Visually, I think you can see this pretty easily in the heatmaps.
(You can extend this concept to fingers further away, to include Colemaks HI, LI, etc. This can be valid, but for here I’ll focus on adjacent fingers.)
Notes: Ratio >1 indicates right hand dominant, <1 indicates left hand dominant. The hand balance ratios are based on each hand's frequency/distance, right hand divided by left hand. E.g. Middlemak: 51.2% right hand frequency divided by 48.8% left hand frequency equals 1.05. Colemak: 53.2% right hand frequency divided by 46.7% left hand frequency equals 1.14. Hand Balance ratio based on Frequency and Distance is a simple multiplication of the two ratios. I did this because having more frequency and more movement on the same hand amplifies the hand dominance. Or if one hand has more frequency and the other hand has more movement, that would mitigate it to some degree. This is by no means the most definitive way to look at it, but it's what I've managed to come up with. The "Corrected comparison number for left hand dominant" is a hard math thing to explain (that I hope I'm right about anyway). E.g. for Workman listing 0.80 gives the wrong impression the hand dominance is equivalent to 1.2 (20%). But it's actually 1.26 (26%), obtained from 1/0.796=1.26.
Middlemak is more balanced on both frequency and distance. When both are considered, it really adds up to being more balanced. Middlemak combined balance ratio is 1.11, compared to Colemak’s 1.32 or Workman’s 1.26.
Ratios can change quite quickly because both the numerator and the denominator (in this case, the left and right hand) can go in opposite directions. Moving L to the other hand does exactly this - changing both the numerator and denominator, and it changes both the frequency and the distance. So that one move really helps to balance out the hands.
(I’ll add the full data in “Excessive amounts of stats” for both frequency and distance, broken down to hands and fingers. The individual finger load is quite interesting too.)
Notes: This is with index finger pressing C location, how I think most people type. Adding in punctuation the numbers would be higher, I expect they would increase by similar absolute amounts.
For Middlemak: You can see it’s not all that much of an increase in SFB from Colemak. Overall the numbers are low considering it keeps many Qwerty aspects.
On the left hand: The middle finger goes up with R and L. This was to allow more consonants on the left hand and use of the middle-finger-upper-row. I think the middle finger being a strong finger and comfortable reach can handle these quite well. The index finger is the same as Colemak.
On the right hand: The right index goes up a little bit, mostly with NY and MY. They aren’t as high as you may think. But the Y SFBs and adding in NK/KN, NF, etc, they do add up a little. It’s not all that much but it is more. I think it’s still easily manageable. NY is actually not all that common, for example it’s actually less common than EU/UE. (The exact Mayzner numbers are: NY/YN is 2,761 / 373. Compared to EU/UE is 878 / 4,158. MY/YM is 1,753 / 668.) The middle finger actually goes down, EO/OE is very low. The ring finger goes up a bit with UI/IU being more common than Colemak’s IY/YI.
If you want overall percentages (index finger pressing C), Middlemak comes in at 2.078%, vs Colemak’s 1.815%, vs Workmans 3.053%, vs Qwerty’s 6.264%.
Colemak really did a good job finding low SFB pairings of SF, DT, NHL, RW, and IY. So changing 3 of those pairings does come at a cost. But it’s really not much and it’s done so that Middlemak can put more frequent letters to better spots, reduce pinballing, and reduce NFB. I think the SFB is in the same realm as Colemak, it’s still pretty low.
Notes: This is with the middle finger pressing C location, “proper” or ortho style. Same data as above.
Middlemak on Ortho actually comes in just a tad lower, but Colemak takes a bigger dip.
This basically moves most of the SFB from the index finger to the middle finger. On Middlemak, ortho takes out CT on the index finger and puts in CR and CL on the middle finger, which is only a tad lower. On Colemak, ortho takes out CT and puts in SC which is much lower.
I think it still works well. The middle finger is a strong finger and can cover most of these well. The one issue is that CL which is a two row jump.
I’ll break down the full Mayzner numbers:
First the index finger pressing CT/TC is 12,998 / 737. This is what ortho removes.
Middlemak Ortho puts in CRC which is 4,214 / 3,423. And puts in CL / LC which is 4,202 / 333. In percentages, CR is 32% of CT, RC is 26% of CT, and CL is 32% of CT. Adding it all up and including all the others (CP, CG, etc), Middlemak Ortho comes in at 87% of CT+TC. Just a tad lower.
Colemak Ortho puts in CS/SC, which is 644 / 4,363. CF/ FC is pretty much nill. In percentages, SC is 34% of CT. Adding it all up and including the others, Colemak Ortho comes in at 36% of CT+TC. A big dip.
If you want overall percentages (middle finger pressing C, Ortho style), Middlemak comes in at 2.16%, vs Colemak’s 1.669%, vs Workman’s 3.147%, vs Qwerty’s 6.575%. This is from Colemak-DH analyzer which says Middlemak ortho increases, as opposed to what I found that Middlemak ortho decreases SFB. I think it comes down to the data set used.
On the left hand: Middlemak’s ring-to-pinky outside roll of SA and WA is actually pretty low. SA is actually the lowest bigram of the common consonants to A. So SA and WA comes out to be a good design. Compared to Colemak, Middlemak’s SA outside roll is far less common than Colemak’s RA. (The exact Mayzner in millions are: Middlemak’s SA is 6,147. Colemak’s RA is 19,333. WA is the same for both at 10,865.)
On the right hand: Middlmak’s ring-to-pinky roll of IH and UH is very low. Vs Colemak: IO is very common and even YO is pretty common. (The exact numbers are Middlemak’s IH is 59, UH is 30. Vs Colemak’s IO 23,542, YO is 4,227.)
This next bit isn’t even a secondary design goal, but it’s worth mentioning: On the right hand, outside rolls from any of the fingers to the pinky H are very low. The common letters that come before H are usually TH, CH, WH, SH, and GH. All of those are on the opposite left hand. Doing the math, 97% of the letters before H are on the left hand. H on the pinky gives an amazing inside roll almost all the time.
Also worth mentioning is I think this also de-emphasizes the pinky a bit. First it limits the ring-to-pinky rolls. Second, the frequency of H is much lower than Colemak’s O. Third, the bigram HH is virtually nill, vs Colemak’s OO which is pretty common. None of these are massive, but I think they add up to de-emphasizing the pinky a bit.
First, this maintains the bottom row (except N) and maintains Q, W, A, and S. Many letters move on the same finger, including T, G, N, Y, J .
Second, this “keeps” the ASRT order. People learning Colemak commonly say that R and S are reversed. Technically it’s not because R was never on the middle finger to begin with. But it seems to be reversed in the brain. I think it’s two things. First ASRT keeps it in the same order, with R between S and T, even if R changes fingers. Second, I wonder how many people alt-fingered R typing in Qwerty, either all the time or for the RT bigram.
(I've also wondered if, for example, patterns like the very common ION simply being easier to type would make this faster to learn. I’m not certain about that though.)
Comparing layouts:
Considering letters swapping on the same finger, this has fewer changes than Colemak. And I think “keeping” the ASRT order will make it even easier to adopt than the numbers suggest.
(I hope people don’t think that I’m overly focused on keeping S in the Qwerty location just because. For this layout, it does work better with ASRT, I address it in more detail in excessive amount of details.)
2) There are a handful of NFB with R: BR, GR, PR, etc. Same with L and BL. This isn’t enough to change the home row to ARST. There is more below but ASRT has lower SFB, lower ring-to-pinky rolls, and is easier to learn. Also note these are much, much lower than the extremely high NFB that Colemak has with HE, LE, etc, (to solve those I paid L and R together).
3) I wanted a less common letter in the G location (Qwerty T location). I really tried to put a less common letter there, but it simply didn’t work.
4) I mention this above but to add more: The OM scissor-gram is a bit more common than I'd like. This is a limitation of keeping Qwerty similarity (the M) and wanting to put O on the upper-row-middle-finger. (MTGAP has a good design on this. It paired its EO with a lot of punctuation on the index finger to reduce NFBs.)
Honestly I’m surprised no one else has stumbled on this arrangement, since many people have taken to trying to fix Colemak’s issues and keep Qwerty similarity.
HE is very easy.
LD feels very good.
OU feels very comfortable.
OF/FO is very common and feels very good.
IO and ION are very nice rolls.
This maintains the nice IEN roll.
IOU is a redirect, but overall feels pretty ok.
YOU has a lateral move, but feels comfortable.
OU+LD together to make OULD feels good.
The very common TH, THE, and THE_ feel very nice not having to move the fingers off the home row.
Colemak:
1) Colemak has an issue with high lateral movement with D and H. You see this especially with H and its NFBs, but D isn’t the best either.
2) Colemak’s right index finger is overworked. It just has too much to do with N, H, and L.
3) Colemak has a pinballing issue due to placing most vowels and many common consonants on the same hand.
4) Colemak has a ton of NFB with EL/LE and HE.
5) Colemak has a hand balance issue. It places a lot of emphasis on the right hand with the vowels and several common consonants. (Hand dominance and pinballing are technically separate items.)
6) Colemak’s awkward ring-to-pinky rolls. Notably IO, YO (especially when typing YOU), and also RA on the right hand.
7) Not exactly a direct issue with Colemak, but Middlemak is easier to learn coming from Qwerty. Many new users want to ‘keep’ the order of ASRT instead of ‘reversing’ S and R.
Middlemak is a pretty low increase in SFBs and it fixes those issues.
Colemak DH:
Colemak-DH solves 1) the lateral movements. But it doesn’t solve 2) the right index finger overwork, 3) the pinballing, 4) the NFBs 5) the hand balance, 6) the awkward ring-to-pinky rolls, and 7) coming from Qwerty it’s pretty much a full change layout, taking out ease of transition. This also means common shortcuts move. They are still accessible, but they move (paste is the same. Undo, cut, and copy move.)
The neutral: On the left hand, the ring-to-pinky outside roll of SH is slightly higher, but in a similar range. Data from Mayzner is SH is 8,889, and original is SA is 6,147. Changing WA to WH is practically identical.
The bad: On both the right and left hand, the all-fingers-to-pinky outside roll is higher. On the left hand, it’s because TH is very common. On the right hand, it takes away the remarkable inside roll of H and adds in a moderate number of all-fingers-to-A bigrams with EA, IA, NA, MA, etc, (OA is actually low). Notably, the ring-to-pinky outside roll is higher with IA and UA coming in at 8,072 and 3,844, vs original IH and UH of 59 and 30.
The complicated: This option decreases the pinky-to-all-fingers rolls inside rolls on both hands. It increases the all-fingers-to-pinky rolls outside rolls. The overall sum of inside rolls plus outside rolls is lower. In short: this option lowers inside rolls, increases outside rolls, with an overall sum that is lower.
Basically stick to the original if you want to lower ring-to-pinky movement, lower outside rolls, and easier to learn. Overall I put this as a decent option if someone wants to maximize alternating without going to a full change layout.
*Source: 62 page / 31k word compilation. Left index used to press Qwerty C location. Includes punctuation.
Middlemak’s distance reduction is good, most alt keyboards are in the same range. It’s a tad worse on distance than some others because putting O off the home row increases distance, with the O being more frequent. (MTGAP puts O off the home row, but has all the punctuation on the diagonals to decrease distance.)
*All distances in metres. Same source as table above.
First, you can see Qwerty’s distances are extremely high. All the alternatives make big reductions.
Notice that the index fingers move way more than the other fingers.
Middlemak balances this out decently and moves more distance to both middle fingers. The left index finger is still a bit high because it has D off the home row (this brings it back to the discussion of where does the 11th letter go). Middlemak’s left index is slightly higher than Colemak’s even though they have the same letters because the row stagger technically puts D on a slight diagonal. A technicality really.
The right index finger is low, a good feature that the index finger next to the vowels doesn’t have to travel much. Compared to Colemak, Middlemak’s movement is 41% lower than Colemaks.
Here you can really see how much work the index fingers do. Middlemak’s sum of the index fingers is nice and low.
You can also look at the percentage of travel with the index finger. Middlemak’s is down at 47% - meaning the index fingers are responsible for 47% of all the distance travelled. On Colemak the index fingers account for 61% the distance travelled, quite a big difference relatively. Workman and Norman are close to Middlemak. MTGAP and Semimak are very low. Dvorak and Qwerty percentages are a bit deceiving though - the higher index finger distances are hidden by the higher total amount of distance.
So even when Middlemak’s left index finger doesn’t have a reduction in distance, the total index finger distance is significantly reduced.
Notes: * indicates vowel hand (Norman and Qwerty are mixed enough that there is no clear vowel hand). The ratio between the hands can change quite quickly, so I think that highlights the differences between the layouts better. Ratio >1 indicates right hand dominant, <1 indicates left hand dominant.
I think the raw distances are better for comparison between layouts, but some people like percentages. I used this mostly to calculate hand balance.
You can see Middlemak spreads out the work. The pinkies are low, ring fingers are reasonable, middle takes on more, and the indexes have most of the distances.
* indicates vowel hand (Norman and Qwerty are mixed enough that there is no vowel hand). Ratio of >1 indicates right hand dominant, <1 indicates left hand dominant.
The ratio between the hands can change quite quickly, so I think that highlights the differences between the layouts better than the percentages. I know it doesn't add up to 100%, the analyzer is doing some rounding or something behind the scenes, I'm not going to round any further.
E is so common that it bumps up any finger it’s on.
Middlemak’s left middle finger takes on a bit more work. The left index is still high because of D. The right index is notably lower taking off common letters. The right middle takes on more of the work with O. And the right pinky is lower too with the H there.
Distances weigh the keys differently, while frequency-off-home-row levels that field. This should be read in conjunction with distance. Neither is better than the other, it’s just a different measurement.
I did this after noticing, on Colemak, that my right index finger moves off the home row a lot. For Colemak the left index finger has more distance, but the right index finger has more frequency-off-home-row. The long distance to B on the left hand skews the distance travelled.
The effect is similar on most of the layouts: FOHR tones down the left hand dominance and bumps up the right hand dominance. With Colemak the frequency of H and L is enough to actually flip them. This is more noticeable with layouts that keep Qwerty’s B (which is just frequent enough to skew things), layouts that change the letter to a less common one shift less.
Also insightful is “Index FOHR as % of All fingers FOHR”. It shows that on Middlemak the index fingers do 48% of all frequency-off-home-row, quite reasonable. Whereas on Colemak the index fingers have 65% of all frequency-off-home-row, very high. Workman is just a tad higher with the index fingers doing 51% of frequency-off-home-row. Dvorak’s and Qwerty’s 53% for index fingers is a bit deceiving though, it appears low but that's because the overall total FOHR is much higher.
This is similar to “Zoom in on the index fingers”, but this shows an even greater difference between Middlemak and Colemak. This shows Middlemak at 48% and Colemak at 65% based on index finger % of total FOHR. Recall Middlemaks was 47% and Colemaks was 61% based on index finger % of total distance. Same thing, when the distances to the diagonals are levelled out, the frequency stands out.
Why not the middle row? First, I think most people find it easier to reach up and down rather than laterally. Second, it works very well with the LD roll.
Why not the bottom row? I want to leave the bottom row the same as Qwerty for easy adoption and to leave the shortcuts of undo=cut-copy-paste the same. I also think C and M (the curl locations) are already near perfect frequencies for those locations. Those are the middle of the pack frequencies, which are perfect for the index fingers - which cover 6 to 7 letters.
I previously said that I’m not a fan of Colemak’s L position, which is the same upper-row-index-finger. But Colemak’s L has a ton of NFBs with the vowels, especially with E but also with all the other vowels. Looking at the whole hand, 62% of Colemak’s L bigrams are on the same hand. I think that’s a big source of discomfort. But with Middlemak’s D, only 22% of bigrams are on the same hand. So Middlemak has far lower same-hand-gymnastics.
If you want to skip this, the main factor is that R and L pair well together. Better than S and L. That means the RL column goes on the middle finger. R being more common goes on the home row, and L goes on the middle-finger-upper-row which is a strong location.
[First note that Colemak had to go with ARST because of F on the middle-finger-upper-row. The SFB of RF/FR is more common than SF/FS.]
The cons is that the R position leads to more NFB with the index finger. Most of these feel ok but RD, GR, BR are not so good. These aren’t super common, but they are there. PR gives the commonly disliked lateral NFB, but I think it’s relatively ok for the frequency - it’s not super common. RS creates an outside roll, but I’d rather have the RS on Middlemak’s middle-to-ring fingers than Colemak’s RA on the ring-to-pinky fingers. Colemak’s RA is much more common than Middlemak’s RS too.
The cons with ARST is that it gives more SFB. It’s not huge, but it is there. It also gives a lot of ring-to-pinky outside rolls with RA. And finally this makes it much harder to learn coming from Qwerty.
(If someone comes from Colemak and wants ARST, they can. It's not a humongous downside to do that. Mostly the more common RA ring-to-pinky roll and slightly more SFB of SD/DS.)
(This layout truly does work better with ASRT. If it didn’t work, I would have changed it. For example, I wanted to keep G on its Qwerty location but it’s better to move it, so I didn’t shy away from changes.)
P and G are pretty much the same frequency, so it doesn’t matter in that sense.
P has a SFB with T, and it has common bigrams of PR, SP, and even PA. Those work better with P on the middle row. There is PL, but the ones above outweigh it.
G has a bigram with NG. With N on the opposite hand, that means G can go on the worse diagonal spot. There is GR, but PR is far more common.
Y goes to the index finger, which actually works pretty well. I broke down the numbers in SFB section.
F goes to the right hand index finger, because putting P or G on the right hand gives too many SFB with M and N. The F location works quite well for both moderate frequency and low SFB. It has a lot of NFB with OF/FO, so placing it next to O makes a comfortable roll.
submitted by someguy3 to Middlemak [link] [comments]
Link to Layout heatmap
QWLDG JFOU: ASRTP YNEIH ZXCVB KM,./Link to Middlemak GitHub download.
Link to GitHub download Middlemak-AH.
Middlemak is also up for easy sub to get to.
The main design criteria was:
1) Use the middle-finger-upper-row position. The middle finger is a very strong finger, and the middle-finger-upper-row is a very good location for a common letter.
2) To reduce pinballing by putting most vowels on the right hand and putting most of the frequent consonants on the left hand.
3) Reduce the number of Near Finger Bigrams (NFBs).
4) Improve hand balance.
5) Keep SFB down of course.
6) A secondary design criteria was low ring-to-pinky-rolls. I find this to be an awkward movement.
7) Maintain Qwerty similarity to make it easier to learn.
These are all discussed in more detail below. (I’ll be talking in the context of Colemak for some of it. I don’t mean this to be a hit piece on Colemak, it’s just the best way to frame the items.)
1) Middle-Finger-Upper-Row
The main purpose of this layout is to place 2 common letters on the middle-finger-upper-row. The middle finger is very strong and these are excellent locations that are easy to reach.When you look at the letter frequency, there are 11 common letters before it takes a big drop off. The first eight letters go on the home row under the fingers. The next question is where do the next 3 letters go. Middlemak’s philosophy is to place 2 on the middle-finger-upper-row, and 1 on the index-finger-upper-row. Colemak places 2 on the centre columns, requiring a lateral movement that many find uncomfortable. Workman has 1 middle-finger-upper-row, 1 ring-finger-upper-row, and 1 index-finger-lower-row, a mixed bag.
L pairs well with R for low SFB. Middlemak places the RL column on the middle finger, which puts the common L on the middle-finger-upper-row.
E and O pair very well for low SFB. Placing EO column on the middle finger puts the very common O on the middle-finger-upper-row.
Using the middle finger also unloads the index fingers. The index fingers can get very busy with 6-7 letters compared with the other letters 3, especially when multiple frequent letters are put on them. I’ll give the distance stats in “Excessive amounts of stats” section far below which shows the drastic difference.
(I’ll skip discussing D here, it’s in “Excessive amounts of detail”. I also cover the R position more there.)
2) Pinballing
I wrote about pinballing in length here. The short of it is that there is an incredibly strong interaction between vowels and the consonants, with 75% of all bigrams between vowels and consonants. PInballing can happen when a lot of vowels and consonants arn put on the same hand, the hand movement will pinball back and forth between the vowels and consonants.I’ll cover Colemak first to outline the issue. Having most of the vowels EOIUY and many frequent consonants of NHLMKJ on the right hand leads to a pinballing problem. I call this the NHLMKJ wall, it’s a wall of consonants that the vowels pinball off of
To reduce pinballing Middlemak does two things:
First Middlemak moves L off the vowel hand and to the consonant hand. This (and moving H) reduces the wall to NMFPJ which is much, much lower frequency for movements to pinball off of. Or if the word starts with NMFPJ, it’s again much lower frequency.
Second it moves H to the pinky. H is a very unique letter because it’s almost always followed by a vowel. Moving H to the pinky means it almost always gives an inside roll. After the vowel, it generally continues to the consonants NMFPJ continuing the inside roll, or it alternates to the other hand. Rarely goes back to H. Generally only after the third letter can it start to pinball back to the vowels or back to H.
Combined, this reduces pinballing and increases alternating. It’s not entirely alternating, Middlemak still has rolls because it has N, H, and MKFJ. For N I find the rolls to be comfortable, likely because N is on the home row.
3) Near Finger Bigrams, NFB
NFB are bigrams that are on adjacent fingers. Too many or an uncomfortable arrangement can be an issue. NFB and pinballing are separate issues: NFB is the smaller pattern of adjacent fingers, pinballing is the much larger pattern of pinballing between all vowels and constants.I’ll cover Colemak first again to highlight the issue. On Colemak there are extremely common NFBs with HE and LE/EL. (There is also NE/EN, but I find the HE and EL/LE to be awkward because L and H are not on the home row.)
Pretty much all E bigrams are fairly high. I think you want to move common consonants away from E to reduce NFBs. For Middlemak, that means moving them away from the EO column.
Middlemak drastically reduces the NFBs by moving the common letters L and H off the adjacent index finger. The replacements of F and Y have dramatically lower NFBs with E and O. I wanted to keep Colemak’s K there since this doesn’t have many bigrams with E and O.
Looking at other layouts: Workman still has high NFB with L and E. Colemak-DH maintains L and H next to E. Many find the new HE roll to be more comfortable but it’s still a ton of NFB, and LE/EL is still there. MTGAP moved practically all letters away from its E and O and instead put punctuation there, a very good solution.
Middlemak does create some NFB with O placement. Namely OF, ON, and OM. However OF and ON are very comfortable, having the middle finger extended up feels pretty comfortable. OM is ok, and it’s the least common of those 3. The OM scissor-gram is a bit more common than I'd like, but it feels ok. This is about the best location for a scissor-gram too, with the long-middle-finger up and the curl-index-finger down being able to handle it fairly well. (Just to mention Colemak’s EL/LE, not exactly a scissor-gram, I find is bad since the shorter index finger has to reach up and the middle finger is so long it’s already curled just to be on the home row.)
Overall, Middlemak moving common consonants away from E drastically lowers the number of NFBs and takes away a ton of awkward movements. Visually, I think you can see this pretty easily in the heatmaps.
(You can extend this concept to fingers further away, to include Colemaks HI, LI, etc. This can be valid, but for here I’ll focus on adjacent fingers.)
4) Hand balance
Hand balance is a difficult topic. The two most obvious metrics for hand dominance are 1) the frequency of the letters, and 2) the distance the fingers have to travel (which is different from frequency because you don't travel to the home-row). But any pinballing from having too many vowels and consonants on the same hand doesn’t show up in those numbers. Having said all that, I’m going to look at frequency and distance.| Keyboard | Vowel Hand | Dominant Hand | Hand Balance ratio based on Frequency | Hand Balance ratio based on Distance | Hand Balance ratio based on Frequency and Distance | Corrected comparison number for left hand dominant |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTGAP | Left | Right | 1.00 | 1.43 | 1.43 | |
| Workman | Right | Left | 0.97 | 0.82 | 0.80 | 1.26 |
| Norman | n/a | Right | 0.93 | 1.27 | 1.19 | |
| Colemak | Right | Right | 1.14 | 1.15 | 1.32 | |
| Middlemak | Right | Right | 1.05 | 1.06 | 1.11 | |
| Semimak | Right | Right | 1.15 | 1.30 | 1.49 | |
| Dvorak | Left | Right | 1.23 | 1.86 | 2.30 | |
| QWERTY | n/a | Left | 0.77 | 1.06 | 0.82 | 1.22 |
Middlemak is more balanced on both frequency and distance. When both are considered, it really adds up to being more balanced. Middlemak combined balance ratio is 1.11, compared to Colemak’s 1.32 or Workman’s 1.26.
Ratios can change quite quickly because both the numerator and the denominator (in this case, the left and right hand) can go in opposite directions. Moving L to the other hand does exactly this - changing both the numerator and denominator, and it changes both the frequency and the distance. So that one move really helps to balance out the hands.
(I’ll add the full data in “Excessive amounts of stats” for both frequency and distance, broken down to hands and fingers. The individual finger load is quite interesting too.)
5) SFB
The SFB of this layout is still pretty low, but it does come out a tad higher than Colemak’s. I’ve debated how to show this and decided to go with the full nuclear information. Data is from Mayzner revisited in millions (which only has letter bigrams and doesn’t have punctuation data, that’s what the 0’s are).| Keyboard | Total SFB | Left hand SFB | Right hand SFB | L Pinky | L Ring | L Middle | L Index | R Index | R Middle | R Ring | R Pinky |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QWERTY | 185,270 | 125,920 | 59,350 | 1,105 | 1,661 | 54,502 | 68,651 | 34,166 | 3,970 | 21,214 | 0 |
| Workman | 78,147 | 29,268 | 48,878 | 1,105 | 3,712 | 2,806 | 21,645 | 27,338 | 5,037 | 16,503 | 0 |
| Dvorak | 70,570 | 28,306 | 42,264 | 0 | 31 | 0 | 28,275 | 12,142 | 16,265 | 8,229 | 5,629 |
| Middlemak | 44,698 | 25,806 | 18,892 | 1,105 | 1,661 | 2,716 | 20,323 | 12,415 | 3,134 | 3,343 | 0 |
| Colemak | 39,023 | 23,336 | 15,687 | 1,105 | 1,267 | 639 | 20,323 | 9,831 | 5,037 | 819 | 0 |
| MTGAP | 34,151 | 14,550 | 19,601 | 1,147 | 339 | 3,134 | 9,931 | 4,629 | 8,633 | 5,071 | 1,267 |
For Middlemak: You can see it’s not all that much of an increase in SFB from Colemak. Overall the numbers are low considering it keeps many Qwerty aspects.
On the left hand: The middle finger goes up with R and L. This was to allow more consonants on the left hand and use of the middle-finger-upper-row. I think the middle finger being a strong finger and comfortable reach can handle these quite well. The index finger is the same as Colemak.
On the right hand: The right index goes up a little bit, mostly with NY and MY. They aren’t as high as you may think. But the Y SFBs and adding in NK/KN, NF, etc, they do add up a little. It’s not all that much but it is more. I think it’s still easily manageable. NY is actually not all that common, for example it’s actually less common than EU/UE. (The exact Mayzner numbers are: NY/YN is 2,761 / 373. Compared to EU/UE is 878 / 4,158. MY/YM is 1,753 / 668.) The middle finger actually goes down, EO/OE is very low. The ring finger goes up a bit with UI/IU being more common than Colemak’s IY/YI.
If you want overall percentages (index finger pressing C), Middlemak comes in at 2.078%, vs Colemak’s 1.815%, vs Workmans 3.053%, vs Qwerty’s 6.264%.
Colemak really did a good job finding low SFB pairings of SF, DT, NHL, RW, and IY. So changing 3 of those pairings does come at a cost. But it’s really not much and it’s done so that Middlemak can put more frequent letters to better spots, reduce pinballing, and reduce NFB. I think the SFB is in the same realm as Colemak, it’s still pretty low.
Ortho SFB
| Keyboard | Total SFB | Left hand SFB | Right hand SFB | L Pinky | L Ring | L Middle | L Index | R Index | R Middle | R Ring | R Pinky |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QWERTY | 195,687 | 136,337 | 59,350 | 1,105 | 1,661 | 86,462 | 47,108 | 34,166 | 3,970 | 21,214 | 0 |
| Workman | 79,561 | 30,682 | 48,878 | 1,105 | 3,712 | 8,206 | 17,659 | 27,338 | 5,037 | 16,503 | 0 |
| Dvorak | 70,365 | 28,101 | 42,264 | 0 | 31 | 1,591 | 26,480 | 12,142 | 16,265 | 8,229 | 5,629 |
| Middlemak | 42,816 | 23,924 | 18,892 | 1,105 | 1,661 | 14,888 | 6,270 | 12,415 | 3,134 | 3,343 | 0 |
| Colemak | 30,032 | 14,345 | 15,687 | 1,105 | 1,267 | 5,702 | 6,270 | 9,831 | 5,037 | 819 | 0 |
| MTGAP | 34,151 | 14,550 | 19,601 | 1,147 | 339 | 3,134 | 9,931 | 4,629 | 8,633 | 5,071 | 1,267 |
Middlemak on Ortho actually comes in just a tad lower, but Colemak takes a bigger dip.
This basically moves most of the SFB from the index finger to the middle finger. On Middlemak, ortho takes out CT on the index finger and puts in CR and CL on the middle finger, which is only a tad lower. On Colemak, ortho takes out CT and puts in SC which is much lower.
I think it still works well. The middle finger is a strong finger and can cover most of these well. The one issue is that CL which is a two row jump.
I’ll break down the full Mayzner numbers:
First the index finger pressing CT/TC is 12,998 / 737. This is what ortho removes.
Middlemak Ortho puts in CRC which is 4,214 / 3,423. And puts in CL / LC which is 4,202 / 333. In percentages, CR is 32% of CT, RC is 26% of CT, and CL is 32% of CT. Adding it all up and including all the others (CP, CG, etc), Middlemak Ortho comes in at 87% of CT+TC. Just a tad lower.
Colemak Ortho puts in CS/SC, which is 644 / 4,363. CF/ FC is pretty much nill. In percentages, SC is 34% of CT. Adding it all up and including the others, Colemak Ortho comes in at 36% of CT+TC. A big dip.
If you want overall percentages (middle finger pressing C, Ortho style), Middlemak comes in at 2.16%, vs Colemak’s 1.669%, vs Workman’s 3.147%, vs Qwerty’s 6.575%. This is from Colemak-DH analyzer which says Middlemak ortho increases, as opposed to what I found that Middlemak ortho decreases SFB. I think it comes down to the data set used.
6) Low ring-to-pinky rolls. And the amazing inside roll from H.
A secondary design goal was to decrease the awkward ring-to-pinky roll. Middlemak greatly reduces this roll.On the left hand: Middlemak’s ring-to-pinky outside roll of SA and WA is actually pretty low. SA is actually the lowest bigram of the common consonants to A. So SA and WA comes out to be a good design. Compared to Colemak, Middlemak’s SA outside roll is far less common than Colemak’s RA. (The exact Mayzner in millions are: Middlemak’s SA is 6,147. Colemak’s RA is 19,333. WA is the same for both at 10,865.)
On the right hand: Middlmak’s ring-to-pinky roll of IH and UH is very low. Vs Colemak: IO is very common and even YO is pretty common. (The exact numbers are Middlemak’s IH is 59, UH is 30. Vs Colemak’s IO 23,542, YO is 4,227.)
This next bit isn’t even a secondary design goal, but it’s worth mentioning: On the right hand, outside rolls from any of the fingers to the pinky H are very low. The common letters that come before H are usually TH, CH, WH, SH, and GH. All of those are on the opposite left hand. Doing the math, 97% of the letters before H are on the left hand. H on the pinky gives an amazing inside roll almost all the time.
Also worth mentioning is I think this also de-emphasizes the pinky a bit. First it limits the ring-to-pinky rolls. Second, the frequency of H is much lower than Colemak’s O. Third, the bigram HH is virtually nill, vs Colemak’s OO which is pretty common. None of these are massive, but I think they add up to de-emphasizing the pinky a bit.
7) Qwerty similarity.
Last but not least, this maintains Qwerty similarity to make it easier to learn.First, this maintains the bottom row (except N) and maintains Q, W, A, and S. Many letters move on the same finger, including T, G, N, Y, J .
Second, this “keeps” the ASRT order. People learning Colemak commonly say that R and S are reversed. Technically it’s not because R was never on the middle finger to begin with. But it seems to be reversed in the brain. I think it’s two things. First ASRT keeps it in the same order, with R between S and T, even if R changes fingers. Second, I wonder how many people alt-fingered R typing in Qwerty, either all the time or for the RT bigram.
(I've also wondered if, for example, patterns like the very common ION simply being easier to type would make this faster to learn. I’m not certain about that though.)
Comparing layouts:
- Middlemak: 10 letters stay in their original spot and 16 move, with 5 letters moving on the same finger and 11 letters switching fingers.
- Colemak: 10 letters stay in their original spot and 16 move, with 4 letters moving on the same finger and 12 letters switching fingers.
- Colemak-DH: 5 letters stay in their original spot and 21 move, with 6 letters moving on the same finger and 15 letters switching fingers.
- Workman: 6 letters stay in their original spot and 20 move, with 8 letters moving on the same finger and 12 letters switching fingers.
Considering letters swapping on the same finger, this has fewer changes than Colemak. And I think “keeping” the ASRT order will make it even easier to adopt than the numbers suggest.
(I hope people don’t think that I’m overly focused on keeping S in the Qwerty location just because. For this layout, it does work better with ASRT, I address it in more detail in excessive amount of details.)
Downsides
1) There is a slight increase in SFB compared to Colemak. But overall I think SFB is still low.2) There are a handful of NFB with R: BR, GR, PR, etc. Same with L and BL. This isn’t enough to change the home row to ARST. There is more below but ASRT has lower SFB, lower ring-to-pinky rolls, and is easier to learn. Also note these are much, much lower than the extremely high NFB that Colemak has with HE, LE, etc, (to solve those I paid L and R together).
3) I wanted a less common letter in the G location (Qwerty T location). I really tried to put a less common letter there, but it simply didn’t work.
4) I mention this above but to add more: The OM scissor-gram is a bit more common than I'd like. This is a limitation of keeping Qwerty similarity (the M) and wanting to put O on the upper-row-middle-finger. (MTGAP has a good design on this. It paired its EO with a lot of punctuation on the index finger to reduce NFBs.)
Conclusion
I'm really happy with this layout. I think it is a great combination of pretty low SFB, good use of the strong middle-finger-upper-row position, reduced NFB and pinballing, keeping Qwerty similarity, and easy to transition to.Honestly I’m surprised no one else has stumbled on this arrangement, since many people have taken to trying to fix Colemak’s issues and keep Qwerty similarity.
Some nice rolls and combinations
Although this increases alternating, there are still plenty of rolls left. Some I want to mention:HE is very easy.
LD feels very good.
OU feels very comfortable.
OF/FO is very common and feels very good.
IO and ION are very nice rolls.
This maintains the nice IEN roll.
IOU is a redirect, but overall feels pretty ok.
YOU has a lateral move, but feels comfortable.
OU+LD together to make OULD feels good.
The very common TH, THE, and THE_ feel very nice not having to move the fingers off the home row.
Vs Colemak and Vs Colemak-DH
I made Middlemak to try to solve the problems I found with Colemak. I think all the items came out above, but as a bit of a summary and to include Colemak-DH.Colemak:
1) Colemak has an issue with high lateral movement with D and H. You see this especially with H and its NFBs, but D isn’t the best either.
2) Colemak’s right index finger is overworked. It just has too much to do with N, H, and L.
3) Colemak has a pinballing issue due to placing most vowels and many common consonants on the same hand.
4) Colemak has a ton of NFB with EL/LE and HE.
5) Colemak has a hand balance issue. It places a lot of emphasis on the right hand with the vowels and several common consonants. (Hand dominance and pinballing are technically separate items.)
6) Colemak’s awkward ring-to-pinky rolls. Notably IO, YO (especially when typing YOU), and also RA on the right hand.
7) Not exactly a direct issue with Colemak, but Middlemak is easier to learn coming from Qwerty. Many new users want to ‘keep’ the order of ASRT instead of ‘reversing’ S and R.
Middlemak is a pretty low increase in SFBs and it fixes those issues.
Colemak DH:
Colemak-DH solves 1) the lateral movements. But it doesn’t solve 2) the right index finger overwork, 3) the pinballing, 4) the NFBs 5) the hand balance, 6) the awkward ring-to-pinky rolls, and 7) coming from Qwerty it’s pretty much a full change layout, taking out ease of transition. This also means common shortcuts move. They are still accessible, but they move (paste is the same. Undo, cut, and copy move.)
Option: Swap A and H
This gives:QWLDG JFOU: HSRTP YNEIA ZXCVB KM,./The good: This is good if you want to put all the vowels and most consonants on opposite hands. Overall this increases alternating. This mostly comes from moving A to the right hand because A pairs a lot with the L, R, S, T, etc. This is the biggest appeal if you find those uncomfortable. Moving H actually decreases alternating because there’s a high bigram with TH (you can test your own comfortability on that. Don’t forget capitalized Th is common.) Excessive details: Middlemak A has 41% of bigrams on the opposite hand, swapping gives 65%. Middlemak H has 58% of bigrams on the opposite hand, swapping gives 51% (again, mostly because of TH). Overall, middlemak A+H has 48% on the opposite hand, swapping gives 59%.
The neutral: On the left hand, the ring-to-pinky outside roll of SH is slightly higher, but in a similar range. Data from Mayzner is SH is 8,889, and original is SA is 6,147. Changing WA to WH is practically identical.
The bad: On both the right and left hand, the all-fingers-to-pinky outside roll is higher. On the left hand, it’s because TH is very common. On the right hand, it takes away the remarkable inside roll of H and adds in a moderate number of all-fingers-to-A bigrams with EA, IA, NA, MA, etc, (OA is actually low). Notably, the ring-to-pinky outside roll is higher with IA and UA coming in at 8,072 and 3,844, vs original IH and UH of 59 and 30.
The complicated: This option decreases the pinky-to-all-fingers rolls inside rolls on both hands. It increases the all-fingers-to-pinky rolls outside rolls. The overall sum of inside rolls plus outside rolls is lower. In short: this option lowers inside rolls, increases outside rolls, with an overall sum that is lower.
Basically stick to the original if you want to lower ring-to-pinky movement, lower outside rolls, and easier to learn. Overall I put this as a decent option if someone wants to maximize alternating without going to a full change layout.
Excessive amount of stats
This section has details on distance reductions, hand balance based on frequency, hand balance based on distance, and raw distance numbers. I'm going to give lots of charts to cover all the details. Those that want to know all the details or those that like to analyze will find this interesting, but others don’t have to read.Distance reduction from Qwerty
| Keyboard | Distance | Distance | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| (km) | (miles) | (% reduction from Qwerty) | |
| MTGAP | 2.592 | 1.611 | 46.3% |
| Workman | 2.613 | 1.624 | 45.9% |
| Norman | 2.615 | 1.625 | 45.9% |
| Colemak | 2.616 | 1.625 | 45.8% |
| Middlemak | 2.710 | 1.684 | 43.9% |
| Semimak | 2.739 | 1.702 | 43.3% |
| Dvorak | 2.813 | 1.748 | 41.8% |
| QWERTY | 4.829 | 3.001 | 0% |
Middlemak’s distance reduction is good, most alt keyboards are in the same range. It’s a tad worse on distance than some others because putting O off the home row increases distance, with the O being more frequent. (MTGAP puts O off the home row, but has all the punctuation on the diagonals to decrease distance.)
All Finger Distances
This is the raw distance travelled in metres. Percentages rely on the total distance travelled, which changes between layouts so it's not comparable. Note that distance is different from frequency. The fingers don't move for the home row, the distance travelled is to the other letters.| Keyboard | L Pinky | L Ring | L Middle | L Index | R Index | R Middle | R Ring | R Pinky | L Total | R Total | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTGAP | 293 | 116 | 413 | 246 | 667 | 320 | 219 | 318 | 1068 m | 1524 m | 2592 m |
| Workman | 123 | 232 | 330 | 753 | 505 | 200 | 146 | 325 | 1437 m | 1176 m | 2613 m |
| Norman | 127 | 127 | 223 | 674 | 525 | 377 | 244 | 319 | 1150 m | 1465 m | 2615 m |
| Colemak | 130 | 127 | 116 | 842 | 747 | 200 | 141 | 315 | 1214 m | 1402 m | 2616 m |
| Middlemak | 134 | 127 | 207 | 847 | 440 | 460 | 189 | 306 | 1314 m | 1396 m | 2710 m |
| Semimak | 238 | 237 | 326 | 390 | 506 | 200 | 450 | 393 | 1191 m | 1549 m | 2739 m |
| Dvorak | 205 | 54 | 34 | 692 | 753 | 285 | 395 | 396 | 984 m | 1829 m | 2813 m |
| QWERTY | 130 | 127 | 670 | 1413 | 1169 | 452 | 450 | 418 | 2340 m | 2489 m | 4829 m |
First, you can see Qwerty’s distances are extremely high. All the alternatives make big reductions.
Notice that the index fingers move way more than the other fingers.
Middlemak balances this out decently and moves more distance to both middle fingers. The left index finger is still a bit high because it has D off the home row (this brings it back to the discussion of where does the 11th letter go). Middlemak’s left index is slightly higher than Colemak’s even though they have the same letters because the row stagger technically puts D on a slight diagonal. A technicality really.
The right index finger is low, a good feature that the index finger next to the vowels doesn’t have to travel much. Compared to Colemak, Middlemak’s movement is 41% lower than Colemaks.
Zoom in on index fingers
| Keyboard | Distance | Distance | Total | Index Finger % of total distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| L Index | R Index | L+R Index | L+R Index | |
| MTGAP | 246 | 667 | 913 m | 35% |
| Workman | 753 | 505 | 1259 m | 48% |
| Norman | 674 | 525 | 1200 m | 46% |
| Colemak | 842 | 747 | 1589 m | 61% |
| Middlemak | 847 | 440 | 1287 m | 47% |
| Semimak | 390 | 506 | 896 m | 33% |
| Dvorak | 692 | 753 | 1445 m | 51% |
| QWERTY | 1413 | 1169 | 2582 m | 53% |
You can also look at the percentage of travel with the index finger. Middlemak’s is down at 47% - meaning the index fingers are responsible for 47% of all the distance travelled. On Colemak the index fingers account for 61% the distance travelled, quite a big difference relatively. Workman and Norman are close to Middlemak. MTGAP and Semimak are very low. Dvorak and Qwerty percentages are a bit deceiving though - the higher index finger distances are hidden by the higher total amount of distance.
So even when Middlemak’s left index finger doesn’t have a reduction in distance, the total index finger distance is significantly reduced.
Hand Balance based on Distance
This is the distance in percentages for all the fingers (unlike the raw distances in metres above) so that I can add them up to look at hand balance.| Keyboard | Left hand | Right hand | Hand Balance Ratio | L Pinky | L Ring | L Middle | L Index | R Index | R Middle | R Ring | R Pinky |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTGAP | 41.2* | 58.8 | 1.43 | 11.3 | 4.5 | 15.9 | 9.5 | 25.7 | 12.3 | 8.4 | 12.3 |
| Workman | 55.0 | 45.0* | 0.82 | 4.7 | 8.9 | 12.6 | 28.8 | 19.3 | 7.6 | 5.6 | 12.5 |
| Norman | 44.0 | 56.0 | 1.27 | 4.8 | 4.8 | 8.5 | 25.8 | 20.1 | 14.4 | 9.3 | 12.2 |
| Colemak | 46.4 | 53.6* | 1.15 | 5.0 | 4.8 | 4.4 | 32.2 | 28.6 | 7.6 | 5.4 | 12.0 |
| Middlemak | 48.5 | 51.5* | 1.06 | 5.0 | 4.7 | 7.6 | 31.2 | 16.3 | 17.0 | 7.0 | 11.3 |
| Semimak | 43.5 | 56.5* | 1.30 | 8.7 | 8.7 | 11.9 | 14.2 | 18.5 | 7.3 | 16.4 | 14.4 |
| Dvorak | 35.0* | 65.0 | 1.86 | 7.3 | 1.9 | 1.2 | 24.6 | 26.8 | 10.1 | 14.0 | 14.1 |
| QWERTY | 48.5 | 51.5 | 1.06 | 2.7 | 2.6 | 13.9 | 29.3 | 24.2 | 9.4 | 9.3 | 8.7 |
I think the raw distances are better for comparison between layouts, but some people like percentages. I used this mostly to calculate hand balance.
You can see Middlemak spreads out the work. The pinkies are low, ring fingers are reasonable, middle takes on more, and the indexes have most of the distances.
Hand Balance based on Frequency
Now we’re shifting to frequency. You can see the data for all the fingers, this is enlightening on its own. I also add them up to look at the hand balance.| Keyboard | Left hand | Right hand | Hand Balance Ratio | L Pinky | L Ring | L Middle | L Index | R Index | R Middle | R Ring | R Pinky |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTGAP | 49.9* | 50.0 | 1.00 | 10.8 | 8.4 | 18.8 | 11.9 | 16.3 | 14.5 | 9.8 | 9.4 |
| Workman | 50.7 | 49.3* | 0.97 | 9.3 | 10.1 | 11.1 | 20.2 | 15.2 | 14.9 | 9.7 | 9.5 |
| Norman | 51.7 | 48.3 | 0.93 | 9.3 | 8.3 | 15.4 | 18.7 | 15.2 | 13.2 | 11.8 | 8.1 |
| Colemak | 46.7 | 53.2* | 1.14 | 9.4 | 7.7 | 8.2 | 21.4 | 19.4 | 14.9 | 9.1 | 9.8 |
| Middlemak | 48.8 | 51.2* | 1.05 | 9.4 | 8.3 | 9.7 | 21.4 | 13.7 | 19.6 | 9.9 | 8.0 |
| Semimak | 46.6 | 53.4* | 1.15 | 9.7 | 10.1 | 11.8 | 15.0 | 12.2 | 14.9 | 15.6 | 10.7 |
| Dvorak | 44.8* | 55.3 | 1.23 | 10.3 | 8.1 | 12.2 | 14.2 | 17.2 | 13.4 | 13.0 | 11.7 |
| QWERTY | 56.5 | 43.5 | 0.77 | 9.4 | 8.3 | 15.4 | 23.4 | 18.8 | 8.4 | 11.8 | 4.5 |
The ratio between the hands can change quite quickly, so I think that highlights the differences between the layouts better than the percentages. I know it doesn't add up to 100%, the analyzer is doing some rounding or something behind the scenes, I'm not going to round any further.
E is so common that it bumps up any finger it’s on.
Middlemak’s left middle finger takes on a bit more work. The left index is still high because of D. The right index is notably lower taking off common letters. The right middle takes on more of the work with O. And the right pinky is lower too with the H there.
Hand Balance Distance + Frequency
This is the same chart that was above, just for a summary.| Keyboard | Dominant Hand | Hand Balance ratio based on Frequency | Hand Balance ratio based on Distance | Hand Balance ratio based on Frequency and Distance | Corrected comparison number for left hand dominant |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTGAP | Right | 1.00 | 1.43 | 1.43 | |
| Workman | Left | 0.97 | 0.82 | 0.80 | 1.26 |
| Norman | Right | 0.93 | 1.27 | 1.19 | |
| Colemak | Right | 1.14 | 1.15 | 1.32 | |
| Middlemak | Right | 1.05 | 1.06 | 1.11 | |
| Semimak | Right | 1.15 | 1.30 | 1.49 | |
| Dvorak | Right | 1.23 | 1.86 | 2.30 | |
| QWERTY | Left | 0.77 | 1.06 | 0.82 | 1.22 |
1 indicates right hand dominant, <1 indicates left hand dominant. Hand Balance ratio based on Frequency and Distance is a simple multiplication of the two.
Frequency-off-home-row (F.O.H.R.)
At the risk of too much information, another way to look at this is the frequency that’s off-home-row. I.e. the frequency that is not under the fingers.Distances weigh the keys differently, while frequency-off-home-row levels that field. This should be read in conjunction with distance. Neither is better than the other, it’s just a different measurement.
| Keyboard | L Pinky | L Ring | L Middle | L Index | R Index | R Middle | R Ring | R Pinky | L+R Index | Index FOHR as % of All fingers FOHR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTGAP | 4.0 | 2.0 | 7.2 | 4.1 | 10.8 | 5.8 | 3.6 | 3.8 | 14.9% | 36% |
| Workman | 1.5 | 3.9 | 5.6 | 11.5 | 8.8 | 3.3 | 2.5 | 2.7 | 20.3% | 51% |
| Norman | 1.5 | 2.1 | 3.8 | 10.0 | 8.8 | 6.4 | 4.6 | 2.6 | 18.8% | 47% |
| Colemak | 1.6 | 2.1 | 2.0 | 12.7 | 13.0 | 3.3 | 2.3 | 2.6 | 25.7% | 65% |
| Middlemak | 1.6 | 2.1 | 4.1 | 12.7 | 7.3 | 8.0 | 3.1 | 2.5 | 20.0% | 48% |
| Semimak | 3.5 | 4.5 | 5.4 | 6.3 | 8.4 | 3.3 | 7.8 | 3.9 | 14.7% | 34% |
| Dvorak | 2.5 | 0.9 | 0.6 | 11.7 | 11.7 | 4.7 | 6.6 | 5.5 | 23.4% | 53% |
| QWERTY | 1.6 | 2.1 | 11.6 | 21.4 | 18.6 | 7.5 | 7.8 | 4.5 | 40.0% | 53% |
The effect is similar on most of the layouts: FOHR tones down the left hand dominance and bumps up the right hand dominance. With Colemak the frequency of H and L is enough to actually flip them. This is more noticeable with layouts that keep Qwerty’s B (which is just frequent enough to skew things), layouts that change the letter to a less common one shift less.
Also insightful is “Index FOHR as % of All fingers FOHR”. It shows that on Middlemak the index fingers do 48% of all frequency-off-home-row, quite reasonable. Whereas on Colemak the index fingers have 65% of all frequency-off-home-row, very high. Workman is just a tad higher with the index fingers doing 51% of frequency-off-home-row. Dvorak’s and Qwerty’s 53% for index fingers is a bit deceiving though, it appears low but that's because the overall total FOHR is much higher.
This is similar to “Zoom in on the index fingers”, but this shows an even greater difference between Middlemak and Colemak. This shows Middlemak at 48% and Colemak at 65% based on index finger % of total FOHR. Recall Middlemaks was 47% and Colemaks was 61% based on index finger % of total distance. Same thing, when the distances to the diagonals are levelled out, the frequency stands out.
Excessive amount of detail on letters
You really don’t need to read this, mostly if you have any lingering or specific Q on specific letters.D position and why not curl?
Back to the discussion of there being 11 common letters: Where to place that 11th letter is difficult, it’s either the ring finger or index finger. Many find the ring finger to not be very dexterous for such a frequent letter. So putting D on the index finger with T works very well for low SFB.Why not the middle row? First, I think most people find it easier to reach up and down rather than laterally. Second, it works very well with the LD roll.
Why not the bottom row? I want to leave the bottom row the same as Qwerty for easy adoption and to leave the shortcuts of undo=cut-copy-paste the same. I also think C and M (the curl locations) are already near perfect frequencies for those locations. Those are the middle of the pack frequencies, which are perfect for the index fingers - which cover 6 to 7 letters.
I previously said that I’m not a fan of Colemak’s L position, which is the same upper-row-index-finger. But Colemak’s L has a ton of NFBs with the vowels, especially with E but also with all the other vowels. Looking at the whole hand, 62% of Colemak’s L bigrams are on the same hand. I think that’s a big source of discomfort. But with Middlemak’s D, only 22% of bigrams are on the same hand. So Middlemak has far lower same-hand-gymnastics.
The R and L position
I’m sure the R and S location will attract attention, so I’ll discuss it more here.If you want to skip this, the main factor is that R and L pair well together. Better than S and L. That means the RL column goes on the middle finger. R being more common goes on the home row, and L goes on the middle-finger-upper-row which is a strong location.
[First note that Colemak had to go with ARST because of F on the middle-finger-upper-row. The SFB of RF/FR is more common than SF/FS.]
ASRT, making a RL column
The pros of ASRT is it gives fewer SFB, with LRL being less than half as common as SL/LS. It also gives fewer ring-to-pinky-rolls with SA being far less common than Colemak’s RA. It also makes it much easier to learn from Qwerty.The cons is that the R position leads to more NFB with the index finger. Most of these feel ok but RD, GR, BR are not so good. These aren’t super common, but they are there. PR gives the commonly disliked lateral NFB, but I think it’s relatively ok for the frequency - it’s not super common. RS creates an outside roll, but I’d rather have the RS on Middlemak’s middle-to-ring fingers than Colemak’s RA on the ring-to-pinky fingers. Colemak’s RA is much more common than Middlemak’s RS too.
ARST, making a SL column
The pros of ARST is that it gives an inside roll of RS. It also separates R from the NFB letters on the index finger, which do add up. However, I’m trying to resolve the NFBs of Colemak’s right hand H and L with E which is a magnitude larger, in addition to the pinballing that it creates which requires moving L.The cons with ARST is that it gives more SFB. It’s not huge, but it is there. It also gives a lot of ring-to-pinky outside rolls with RA. And finally this makes it much harder to learn coming from Qwerty.
Verdict: ASRT, RL column
None of these are huge deal breakers for one or the other. I went with lower SFB, lower ring-to-pinky rolls, and much easier to learn. At the cost of some NFB on the index finger and inside roll of RS.(If someone comes from Colemak and wants ARST, they can. It's not a humongous downside to do that. Mostly the more common RA ring-to-pinky roll and slightly more SFB of SD/DS.)
(This layout truly does work better with ASRT. If it didn’t work, I would have changed it. For example, I wanted to keep G on its Qwerty location but it’s better to move it, so I didn’t shy away from changes.)
P and G location
It’s better to move G than keep it in its Qwerty location.P and G are pretty much the same frequency, so it doesn’t matter in that sense.
P has a SFB with T, and it has common bigrams of PR, SP, and even PA. Those work better with P on the middle row. There is PL, but the ones above outweigh it.
G has a bigram with NG. With N on the opposite hand, that means G can go on the worse diagonal spot. There is GR, but PR is far more common.
O location
O and E together give very low SFB. This is a great opportunity to put them together. The strong middle finger only has 3 keys, so it can handle two very frequent letters.U, Y and F locations
U works pretty well with I, the SFB are reasonably low. This location also creates a nice OU and YOU roll.Y goes to the index finger, which actually works pretty well. I broke down the numbers in SFB section.
F goes to the right hand index finger, because putting P or G on the right hand gives too many SFB with M and N. The F location works quite well for both moderate frequency and low SFB. It has a lot of NFB with OF/FO, so placing it next to O makes a comfortable roll.
2023.04.01 16:56 jfiddy NBA Picks - 4/1/23
Predicting the NBA using Monte Carlo Simulations and Advanced Rate Stats
Back at it again this year. For people new to this, here's some quick links for the yearly recaps: 2020-2021 - 2021-2022
TL;DR
Today's Slate (4/1/23)
\) Includes projections for players listed as questionable
† Unofficial projection due to lack of data
# Indicates # of games worth of data available for this team's lineup
Notes
BTC: bc1q339p9sxvk6srp0087c9zaccyc7w9dxu94v7x3k
FAQ:
Link to FAQ
Previous Slate (3/31/23)
# Indicates # of games worth of data available for this team's lineup
Notes
Previous: 3-4 (-5.09U)
Season: 359-382 (-109.59U)
Daily Model Record
ATS: 2-0
O/U: 1-1
Total Model Record
Spread: 139-138 (50%)
O/U: 159-123 (56%)
submitted by jfiddy to jfiddy_caps [link] [comments]
Back at it again this year. For people new to this, here's some quick links for the yearly recaps: 2020-2021 - 2021-2022
TL;DR
Today's Slate (4/1/23)
| Home | Away | Spread | Total | Prediction | % home covering | % over |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MIA | DAL | -1 | 225.5 | 11310 - 12610 \) | 6 | 89 |
| NO | LAC | -3 | 226.5 | 12510 - 1041 † |
† Unofficial projection due to lack of data
# Indicates # of games worth of data available for this team's lineup
Notes
- Out/Questionable:
- MIA/DAL - K Lowry Ques, B Adebayo Ques
- NO/LAC - Z Williamson Out, P George Out, K Leonard Ques
- DAL ML 2U @ 2.00
- MIA/DAL O225.5 2U @ 1.91
- Kyrie 5+ A 2U @ 1.67
BTC: bc1q339p9sxvk6srp0087c9zaccyc7w9dxu94v7x3k
FAQ:
Link to FAQ
Previous Slate (3/31/23)
| Home | Away | Spread | Total | Prediction | % home covering | % over | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CHA | CHI | 10 | 224 | 922 - 11810 † | 91-121 | ||
| WAS | ORL | 1 | 225.5 | 1235 - 10410 | 109-116 | ||
| IND | OKC | 2.5 | 237.5 | 1176 - 11810 † | 121-117 | ||
| PHI | TOR | -5 | 225 | 11310 - 10210 \) | 74 ✅ | 14 ❌ | 117-110 |
| BOS | UTA | -13 | 232 | 11810 - 973 † | 122-114 | ||
| CLE | NY | -3.5 | 222 | 1087 - 10910 † | 116-130 | ||
| BKN | ATL | 1.5 | 240.5 | 11410 - 10910 | 73 ✅ | 4 ✅ | 124-107 |
| MEM | LAC | -5 | 237 | 11410 - 1551 † | 108-94 | ||
| MIN | LAL | 1 | 232.5 | 932 - 1093 † | 111-123 | ||
| HOU | DET | -6.5 | 228.5 | 10810 - 1044 † | 121-115 | ||
| GS | SA | -17.5 | 242 | 12310 - 1063 † | 130-115 | ||
| POR | SAC | 14 | 231 | 1073 - 12310 † | 114-138 | ||
| PHO | DEN | -10 | 227 | 1074 - 9710 † | 100-93 |
Notes
- Out/Questionable:
- CHA/CHI - T Rozier Out, G Hayward Out, A Caruso Ques
- WAS/ORL - B Beal Out, K Kuzma Out
- IND/OKC - T Haliburton Out, M Turner Out, S Gilgeous-Alexander Out
- PHI/TOR - T Harris Ques, G Trent Ques
- BOS/UTA - J Tatum Ques, A Horford Ques, J Brown Ques, R Williams Ques, L Markkanen Out, J Clarkson Out, C Sexton Out, K Olynyk Ques
- CLE/NY - J Allen Out, J Randle Out
- MEM/LAC - S Adams Out, P George Out, N Powell Out, M Morris Out, K Leonard Ques
- MIN/LAL - L James Ques
- HOU/DET - K Martin Ques, B Bogdanović Out, A Burks Out
- GS/SA - A Wiggins Out, D Vassell Ques, K Johnson Ques
- POSAC - D Lillard Out, J Grant Out, J Nurkić Out, A Simons Out
- PHO/DEN - N Jokić Ques, K Caldwell-Pope Ques
- Removed WAS/ORL without Kristaps
- PHI/TOR U225 3U @ 1.91 ❌
- BKN/ATL U240.5 [email protected] 1.91 ✅
- Avdija (WAS) 30+ PRA 3U @ 1.88 ❌ sucks
- Morris (WAS) 12+ P 3U @ 1.91 ❌ hurt
- Trae (ATL) U9.5A 2U @ 1.78 ✅
- Sabonis (SAC) 12+ R 2U @ 1.81 ✅
- Huerter 15+ P 2U @ 1.88 ❌ both kings only played 20 mins
- N/A
Previous: 3-4 (-5.09U)
Season: 359-382 (-109.59U)
Daily Model Record
ATS: 2-0
O/U: 1-1
Total Model Record
Spread: 139-138 (50%)
O/U: 159-123 (56%)
2023.04.01 15:40 MadeUAcctButIEatedIt London and beyond: 2023 day games
This year includes a game starting before 1700 GMT, previously unheard of. Even if you can't be there in person, a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
For new supporters across the pond and old, here are the season's fixtures starting before 9 pm GMT.
Remember to add 1 h for UK/ROI and 2 h for continental Europe.
All fixtures are subject to change for the requirements of television.
submitted by MadeUAcctButIEatedIt to CHICubs [link] [comments]
For new supporters across the pond and old, here are the season's fixtures starting before 9 pm GMT.
Remember to add 1 h for UK/ROI and 2 h for continental Europe.
| Date | Time (GMT) | Opposition | Venue | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sat, 1 | Apr | 18:20 | Milwaukee | H |
| Sun, 2 | Apr | 18:20 | Milwaukee | H |
| Wed, 5 | Apr | 16:35 | Cinncinnati | A |
| Fri, 7 | Apr | 18:20 | Texas | H |
| Sat, 8 | Apr | 20:05 | Texas | H |
| Sun, 9 | Apr | 18:20 | Texas | H |
| Wed, 12 | Apr | 18:20 | Seattle | H |
| Sun, 16 | Apr | 20:10 | Los Angeles | A |
| Wed, 19 | Apr | 19:37 | Oakland | A |
| Fri, 21 | Apr | 18:20 | Los Angeles | H |
| Sat, 22 | Apr | 18:20 | Los Angeles | H |
| Sun, 23 | Apr | 18:20 | Los Angeles | H |
| Thu, 27 | Apr | 18:20 | San Diego | H |
| Sat, 29 | Apr | 20:05 | Miami | A |
| Sun, 30 | Apr | 16:05 | Miami | A |
| Thu, 4 | May | 17:05 | Washington | A |
| Fri, 5 | May | 18:20 | Miami | H |
| Sat, 6 | May | 18:20 | Miami | H |
| Sun, 7 | May | 18:20 | Miami | H |
| Sat, 13 | May | 18:10 | Minnesota | A |
| Sun, 14 | May | 18:10 | Minnesota | A |
| Sat, 20 | May | 20:05 | Philadelphia | A |
| Sun, 21 | May | 17:35 | Philadelphia | A |
| Fri, 26 | May | 18:20 | Cinncinnati | H |
| Sun, 28 | May | 18:20 | Cinncinnati | H |
| Mon, 29 | May | 18:20 | Tampa Bay | H |
| Wed, 31 | May | 18:20 | Tampa Bay | H |
| Sun, 4 | June | 20:10 | San Diego | A |
| Sun, 11 | June | 20:05 | San Francisco | A |
| Fri, 16 | June | 18:20 | Baltimore | H |
| Sat, 17 | June | 18:20 | Baltimore | H |
| Sun, 18 | June | 17:05 | Baltimore | H |
| Wed, 21 | June | 16:35 | Pittsburgh | A |
| Sat, 24 | June | 17:10 | St Louis | A |
| Sun, 25 | June | 14:10 | St Louis | A |
| Fri, 30 | June | 18:20 | Cleveland | H |
| Sun, 2 | July | 18:20 | Cleveland | H |
| Mon, 3 | July | 18:10 | Milwaukee | A |
| Tue, 4 | July | 20:10 | Milwaukee | A |
| Thu, 6 | July | 18:10 | Milwaukee | A |
| Sat, 8 | July | 17:05 | NY Yankees | A |
| Sun, 9 | July | 17:35 | NY Yankees | A |
| Sat, 15 | July | 18:20 | Boston | H |
| Sun, 16 | July | 18:20 | Boston | H |
| Fri, 21 | July | 18:20 | St Louis | H |
| Sat, 22 | July | 18:20 | St Louis | H |
| Sun, 23 | July | 18:20 | St Louis | H |
| Sun, 30 | July | 18:15 | St Louis | A |
| Fri, 4 | Aug | 18:20 | Atlanta | H |
| Sat, 5 | Aug | 18:20 | Atlanta | H |
| Sun, 6 | Aug | 18:20 | Atlanta | H |
| Sat, 12 | Aug | 19:07 | Toronto | A |
| Sun, 13 | Aug | 17:37 | Toronto | A |
| Fri, 18 | Aug | 18:20 | Kansas City | H |
| Sat, 19 | Aug | 18:20 | Kansas City | H |
| Sun, 20 | Aug | 18:20 | Kansas City | H |
| Wed, 23 | Aug | 17:10 | Detroit | A |
| Sun, 27 | Aug | 17:35 | Pittsburgh | A |
| Wed, 30 | Aug | 18:20 | Milwaukee | H |
| Sun, 3 | Sept | 16:10 | Cinncinnati | A |
| Mon, 4 | Sept | 18:20 | San Francisco | H |
| Wed, 6 | Sept | 18:20 | San Francisco | H |
| Fri, 8 | Sept | 18:20 | Arizona | H |
| Sat, 9 | Sept | 18:20 | Arizona | H |
| Sun, 10 | Sept | 18:20 | Arizona | H |
| Wed, 13 | Sept | 19:10 | Colorado | A |
| Sun, 17 | Sept | 20:10 | Arizona | A |
| Fri, 22 | Sept | 18:20 | Colorado | H |
| Sat, 23 | Sept | 18:20 | Colorado | H |
| Sun, 24 | Sept | 18:20 | Colorado | H |
| Sun, 1 | Oct | 19:10 | Milwaukee | A |
2023.04.01 13:26 Powerful_Argument732 GAINERS & LOSERS - WEEK ENDING 3/31 -TOP 10
| GAINERS | % GAIN | # | LOSERS | % LOSS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TORO | 75.82% | 1 | CYXT | (63.64%) |
| BUR | 56.21% | 2 | PIRS | (22.54%) |
| AI | 32.85% | 3 | TCX | (21.54%) |
| KOD | 28.90% | 4 | ARCE | (14.17%) |
| MQ | 28.01% | 5 | STEM | (10.99%) |
| UPST | 22.80% | 6 | FTHM | (9.96%) |
| GENI | 20.58% | 7 | TWST | (6.80%) |
| PACB | 20.50% | 8 | SI | (5.81%) |
| PTON | 18.99% | 9 | INSP | (5.75%) |
| FNKO | 17.58% | 10 | KNSA | (5.70%) |
SMLR33.45%1CYXT(39.57%)BMTX23.63%2GWSFF(32.93%)CMPS21.01%3TRUP(30.70%)LOVE18.59%4AVIR(20.42%)LTCH16.99%5DTIL(19.54%)AI16.88%6SQ(17.98%)PFMT16.19%7SI(16.10%)CPNG15.78%8UPST(15.04%)PACB15.61%9IOVA(14.40%)DV14.96%10LKNCY(14.27%)
WOW....what a week....what a quarter actually...finally. My Fidelity IRA is up 20.6% YTD....got to love that. I will also have to admit that I pulled some shares off the board yesterday.On the LOSERS side I see CYXT leading the pack for the 2nd week in a row. Now this stock, in typical MF fashion has lost 96.7% in the past 12 months and closed the week at 30 cents. Wall St. analysts have it at a Hold....this is worth researching further. Of note....you really have to wonder about companies showing up on the LOSERS side when you have such a good week in the markets. Review the tickers in your portfolios that have lost money this past week and make some decisions as to the worthiness of continuing to hold those stocks.....if you waiting for MF to tell you there will be nothing left when they finally admit their ignorance.
Okay...over on the GAINERS side....both TORO and BUR (recently) have shown up on the other side of the table. AI...what a story that has been....62 million shares traded yesterday running the stock up 21.5% on Friday alone and 57.5% for the month of March....impressive. And I needed that for it finally put me about 20% UP....and I took those profits and closed out position for I do not have confidence that we are "out of the woods yet". The semiconductor industry groups have been doing well - Fabless holds the #2 of 197 groups....Equipment holds #4 and Manufacturing holds #14 spot. I am still holding Mobileye...having sold off about 25%. I am also adding to my SOXS position....an ETF that bets against the semiconductors.
Many have to be glad to see UPST on this list gaining 23% for the week. I have no idea how much of the losses investors will be able to recoup...but I don't see this finding it's way back to $100+ let alone $450ish. That is enough for this week...let's hope for another week like this past week. Y'all have a great weekend.
2023.04.01 13:26 Forsaken-Garlic4818 money diary: I‘m 28, live in Boston, make roughly $70k as a 👩🏼🏫 and everyone is ragey at work this week! (emoji-style baby)
part 1: net worth
positive net worth
debt
casita
NET WORTH: -45,672.46
part 2: income
Nothing exciting here as a public school teacher. My salary is fixed and the entire internet can figure out exactly how much I make. Next year I will apply to be a new teacher mentor to move over a lane (6% raise while I do the job). We won a great raise in our last contract so we can finally be paid almost as much as everyone around us!
This is my 5th year teaching but am on step 6 of 11 due to a full year internship.
read my paycheck and weep
pay schedule: 24 paychecks a year (NOT 26), biweekly Fridays with the exception of holidays and the final day of school, where you receive paychecks 22, 23, 24 and are expected to make that last late June through early September
each paycheck is different, so let’s do paycheck #1
Now paycheck #2
For those keeping track at home, my monthly gross is typically 5,871.66 and my net is typically 3,804.94
Why typically?
⭐
⭐
⭐
⭐
If you add up the categories, I’m in the red and I’m well aware of it – not for much longer though, as I’m saving really aggressively. 😊
part 4: el diario
Day 1 – Saturday
Day 2 – Sunday
Day 3 – Monday
Day 4 – Tuesday
Day 5 – Wednesday
Day 6 – Thursday
Day 7 – Friday
Grand totals:
submitted by Forsaken-Garlic4818 to MoneyDiariesACTIVE [link] [comments]
positive net worth
| category | #shesworthsomething |
|---|---|
| 💹 15,700 | Roth IRA, not much but it’s honest work. I wasn’t able to contribute last year but sent $1400 this month. Don’t think I will max this year but will do what I can. |
| 📱 1,400 | 457, not even sure why I contribute to this ($50/paycheck) |
| 📈 25,100 | Pension – cash value not super relevant here. 11% mandated contribution |
| 💰 7,100 | checking |
| 🤑 3,000 | HYSA @ 4.25% |
| ➕ 52,300 | we keep it positive around here |
| category | oops, she’s in debt again |
|---|---|
| 💷 -45,203 | Private student loan @ 4.79%, paid biweekly but sending extra $ |
| 💸 -72,957 | Undergrad Stafford + grad @ 5.2%. halfway done with PSLF! |
| ➖ 118,160 | 😬 (but it looks worse on paper!) |
| category | ah, but what about the house? |
|---|---|
| 🏡 362,000 | Purchase price, spring 2022, ginormous (income-restricted) condo |
| 💸 -317,026.81 | Mortgage #1 balance @ 2.75% |
| ♊ -23,431.95 | Mortgage #2 balance @ 0%, down-payment assistance paid in full at end of mortgage or resale |
| ➕ 21,541.24 | Equity including both mortgages, since not including #2 feels disingenuous |
part 2: income
Nothing exciting here as a public school teacher. My salary is fixed and the entire internet can figure out exactly how much I make. Next year I will apply to be a new teacher mentor to move over a lane (6% raise while I do the job). We won a great raise in our last contract so we can finally be paid almost as much as everyone around us!
This is my 5th year teaching but am on step 6 of 11 due to a full year internship.
read my paycheck and weep
pay schedule: 24 paychecks a year (NOT 26), biweekly Fridays with the exception of holidays and the final day of school, where you receive paychecks 22, 23, 24 and are expected to make that last late June through early September
each paycheck is different, so let’s do paycheck #1
| 💹 2,935.83 | gross |
|---|---|
| 💊 -37.14 | medicare (but not SS) |
| 👩🏼⚕️ -325.65 | PPO, I get sick often and in unexpected places |
| 🦷 -42.97 | dental |
| 👓 -5.91 | vision |
| 📱 -50 | 457 contribution |
| 🚕 -184.19 | federal withholding |
| 🚖 -114.32 | state withholding |
| 📈 -322.94 | pension withholding |
| ➕ 1,852.71 | behold, how little of my take home I get to actually enjoy |
| 💹 2,935.83 | gross |
|---|---|
| 💊 -48.01 | medicare (but not SS) |
| 📱 -50 | 457 contribution |
| 🚕 -323.86 | federal withholding |
| 🚖 -151.79 | state withholding |
| 📈 -322.94 | pension withholding |
| 💪🏼 -87 | union power, baby |
| ➕ 1,952.23 | Also known at work as “the good paycheck” |
Why typically?
- If we have 3 paychecks in a month: enjoy the big fat no medical or union deduction!
- …unless it’s April onwards, when they deduct health insurance from EVERY paycheck to cover your summer months (we call it double deduction season)
- in December we get a premium holiday (1/2 medical deduction)
- I also run an outdoors club at work, which I am paid $35/hr when I run the club and additional pay for certain trips (last month I was paid $375 alone for our annual weekend overnight before vacation). This can be wildly inconsistent but let’s just say I have an extra $100-150 to play with each month.
| category 💲 | PAY DEM BILLZ |
|---|---|
| 🏡 1343.38 | Putting the PIT in mortgage…or something like that. The other I is paid separately |
| ⛲ 167 | HOA |
| 🔐 68.16 | Was not required to have insurance at closing. Don’t be stupid like me. |
| 🎓 0 | fed loans, thanks Grandpa Joe. I think this will be about $250/m when it starts up again. PSLF date late 2028 |
| ⛽ 31 | YNAB tells me this is my average since moving to my house. Grateful to have big windows and a “put a sweater on” childhood upbringing – touched the heat twice this year |
| 🔌 50 | Averaged to include spicy hot summer months (it was 34 this month) |
| 💻 39.95 | interwebs |
| 🏫 412.92 | Private loan, paid biweekly (so if it’s a rare 3 payment month it’s more). The minimum monthly payment is something like $316, but I’m sending an extra $50 to get some benefit from the power of compound interest. 4.79% is not a make or break rate. Payoff 2034 but hope this can happen sooner. |
| 📰 12.50 | NYT Academic rate |
| 🚊 90 | Monthly pass |
| 🍿 15.99 | Somebody needs to pay the HBO Max |
| ➖ 2234.43 | Assigned this month |
| category 💲 | important semi-regular expenses |
|---|---|
| 🎁 20 | Averaged gifts and donations, we have a special scholarship at work |
| 👗 0 | I haven’t bought new clothes in a while and it’s starting to show. |
| 🤸🏼♀️ 85 | trampoline class |
| 👩🏼⚕️ 60 | YNAB tells me my average is 60/mo, but this is overinflated due to an MRI in November that I will only have to do (hopefully) one more time. I’m usually at the urgent care or a specialist doctor 1x/month (this month: a UTI), so it’s more like 30 |
| 🪑 40 | Hard to quantify. Since I moved in, I had a free couch moved ($200), bought a very nice TV ($750), a vacuum ($250), filters for vacuum ($30), and the world’s nicest washer ($1900). So YNAB is telling me a horrifying $400/mo, but let’s call it 40 going forward |
| 🌷 0 | I was a good urban balcony gardener, but no balcony. Waiting for a community garden spot, hopefully next year |
| 🍉 250 | Includes booze and small household things (TP, paper towels, dish soap) |
| 🥾 30 | Am avid hiker and rollerblader. Averaged cost of trip incidentals like carpool or snacks, admission to roller rink |
| 💊 55 | 3 lifesaving medicines (25/mo + 10/mo + 30 as needed) + 10 for whatever medicine needed for illness of the month (10 for antibiotics this month). Every year I get a new epi-pen for 10 or 30. This month was more like 85 because my pharmacy accidentally sent me a med I have plenty of. |
| ➖ 500 | rough guesstimate |
| monthly 💲 | annual 💲 | annual expenses (save early, save often) |
|---|---|---|
| 🤑 3.95 | 🕛47.33 | Splitting YNAB with a friend on the new family plan |
| 💇🏼♀️ 22.50 | 🕛 270 | 2x curly haircuts a year (cut + tip) |
| 🩰 127.78 | 🕛 1150 | Pair of opening weekend orchestra tickets + donor perks + volunteer dues |
| 🌴 55 | 🕛 650 | My part of family vacation with parents |
| 🕶 33.33 | 🕛 400 | Annual eye visit (exam + contact fitting + 12 months contacts) |
| 📦 11.59 | 🕛 139 | prime shipping, no car in a store desert + my mom likes videos |
| 🎄 50 | 🕛 600 | I love Christmas |
| 💸 ? | 🕛 6500 | Roth IRA, we’re getting aspirational. I sent $1400 this month because it was a 3 paycheck month. Going to try to max and see how far I get. |
| 🦷 86.35 | 🕛 2250 | Saving ½ of estimated costs for Invisalign – never had braces as a kid and now my teeth are pretty bad. Hoping to start May 2024. There is unfortunately no savings for paying everything upfront so I’m saving ½ now and expecting a monthly payment around 150/mo during the treatment. |
| ➖390.50 | 🕛 4,686 | Ignoring the Roth IRA |
| category 💲 | very big savings |
|---|---|
| 🌆 428.57 | 3k goal by August 2023 (current balance: 850), “No August pay” – we don’t get paid in August and the first week of September so setting aside money specifically for this without feeling guilty for draining my emergency fund |
| 🕐 300 | (181.82 since I’m ahead) Homeowner’s 1% Warchest, it’s exactly what it sounds like. For any and all home expenses (things breaking or projects). Current balance: 2k |
| 🛑 140.91 | Building back EF, goal is 3k by December 2023 (current balance: 1.7k). I know this is low but my job is hilariously stable. I will try to add another month in 2024. |
| category 💲 | fun money! |
|---|---|
| 💻 50 | Laptop replacement, just chucking money in there. I’d like to buy a Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 5i since I love the 2 in 1 form factor. Currently have 100/600 |
| 🚝 70 (paused) | Travel fund contribution, but full at 350. BFF getting married in VT in August so hoping to turn it into a girl’s weekend with another BFF |
| 🎮 65 (paused) | General video game fund – keep it topped up at 65 in case a new game drops OR if multiple games go on sale. I try to only buy games on deep sale |
| 🎮 12.99 | Final Fantasy XIV sub, I’ll retire someday |
| 👯♀️ 50 | Anything with friends, including eating out with them. usually 100 in the summer |
| 🍦 30 | “eating out” aka solo treats for myself (breakfast at dunks, small treats) |
| 🎊 10 | events happening that we want to go to not already covered, averaged. |
| ➖ 202.99 | Not including travel and video games since that’s topped up |
part 4: el diario
Day 1 – Saturday
🌅 gotta get dad to the ballet! 4.80total: 30.80
👯♀️ brunch with daddy-o before the ballet, I provide the tickets but he pays for brunch. his wallet is hurting because he only just got paid at his new job, so I kick in 20
👀 because brunch is attached to a swanky hotel and it’s PAX east wknd. 0 for free entertainment
🥤 my father requests a water bottle before the show. 6
🩰 don q, my 3rd time and dad’s 1st. Very good, but very long. 0 because these are volunteer comps
🚊 & 👋🏼
🧼 the casita before the week starts
Day 2 – Sunday
💤 lazy Sunday morning (dw, I’m still up at 6). Read the NYT cover to cover then play 🎮Total: 79.67
🚊 meeting a friend of a friend to help her do taxes but I’m early
📖 it’s gorgeous out so I photosynthesize in the BPL courtyard with my book club book
⛔ the wifi is too slow for us to do taxes so we pack up and 🚶🏼♀️ down newbury st until we settle at trident
👯♀️ I supervise her taxes, and eat a late lunch (grilled cheese w/ avo and tomato). 22.15
🍉 make the mistake of dragging this poor girl with me to the postage stamp sized TJ’s. and it’s 5:15. one does not shop here so much as get in line at the beginning & pick what you want as you go. a tall person fetches me frozen arepas. I come in right on budget so I’m pleased. 57.52
👋🏼 & 🚊 home to plan my week and decompress with 🎮 and 📖
Day 3 – Monday
🌅 it’s just before 6 and birds are happy, but now I am taking the 🚍 to workTotal: 0
🌉 stuck on the bus with my BOSS because a 🚢 is passing through the drawbridge. at least we can now fill out 90 second walk from the bus to dunks with acceptable new england small talk subjects (weather, transit, and sports) before she dips to get coffee
😡 the youth, because tomorrow & wednesday are standardized testing. sorry kids, I don’t make the schedule!
🙏🏼 “my plan is to read the questions carefully and ask God to help me know” – A+ testing strategy
✌🏼 2:30 and on my way home
🤸🏼♀️ take the 🚊 to go to bounce (0, see monthly expenses) and catch up with bounce buddy M.
🚶🏼♀️ walk with M. to the 🚊, go home for 🍜, 🚿, 📖, 🎮
Day 4 – Tuesday
🌅 hello, happy birds as I walk to the 🚍total: 68.16
🔥 the computers are not charged for testing. teenagers have been divested of all electronics and are not allowed to talk to each other. mayhem approaching in 3 … 2 … 1 …
🤬 nonstatus (male) colleague uses a work group text thread to refer to an unknown female colleague as the b-word. mayhem continues
❓ 2 hour (!) meeting after work due to snow day cancellations. male colleague doubles down on his comment before storming out. brain is mush
🚍 I remember nothing
🔐 as I am politely informed by my e-mail 68.16
👩🏼🍳 white bean & tomato stew & watch abbott elementary because it’s cathartic
🗣📕 ballet book club on zoom! we just finished a book about martha graham so we talk about it (I’m hosting next time about james whiteside)
Day 5 – Wednesday
🌅 please go away, very loud mourning doveTotal: 25.99
🍎 computers are charged, the youth are not. Mr. Insult has decided not to come to work today (probably for the best?)
🤬 is there something in the water?! another nonstatus teacher informs me that two of my students are talking to each other in the hallway and are not following her instructions which tbh is a day that ends in Y. important context: her instruction is in English and they only understand Spanish. I send them back to their testing rooms and she says, “when students ignore me and continue to speak in a language they know I don’t understand, they are being assholes” UM! GOODBYE!!!
😡 before I say something I regret I turn heel and inform my boss of this interaction. she takes a breath and thanks me for letting her know
😤 this is me taking a calming inhale / exhale before returning to staring at children
🏹 when I am proctoring (read: not allowed to read, grade, do work, browse the interweb), I like to imagine how the hunger games would go down if these kids were in it. the odds are in this room’s favor overall.
👩🏼🏫 these miserable youth are forced into a half day of classes, so we conference about grades and I let them have some free time
🏕 run weekly outdoors club for the youth. one student informs me a teacher refuses to sign a permission slip & doesn’t know why. make mental note to find this person and politely inquire. students make a great poster of images from our last trip and practice map skills
✌🏼 at 3:30 to get the 🚂 to then get on the 🚊 to go to 🤸🏼♀️ … it sounds awful but it all goes pleasantly smoothly, especially given how the T has been. class is great, lots of one-legged kicking on the trampoline. this is my 2nd week in a row of going from 2x class a week to 3x and it’s a tough adjustment. 0
🚶🏼♀️ to the 🚊 with M., who can’t make it to class on Friday – sad!
💊 the medicine I didn’t ask for but keeps coming has arrived. Note to self to call pharmacy and ask them to stop, but says 0 refills. Not a total waste because I KNOW I will get bronchitis again & need this. 10
🍿 paid for to keep my mother happy 15.99
🍴 eat leftover stew and 📞 my mother and best friend T. to debrief this very strange day
🎮 and 📖 before bed
Day 6 – Thursday
🌅 ahoy! Run into coworker D. on the 🚍 who gets coffee at dunks. I am feeling weak and acquire some 🥑🍞 3.69total: 43.64
🤝🏼 find this teacher who refuses to sign permission slip (who is also new). his reasons are very valid and we agree on conditions the student needs to fulfill to attend trip. hooray, adults being civil!
🤬 that’s it, something is in the water. two best friends in 3rd hour begin a heated verbal altercation about … a girl? in the middle of my class?? One kid takes off so I call security to let them know he would benefit from a check-in. the other student begins texting threats to his buddy and goes off on me when I tell him to stop. what is happening?!
👼🏼 boy returns with security at end of class, so I walk him to dean to process. 35 minutes later dean says everything is gucci and no more problems. hormones, man.
✌🏼 please get me out of here
💻 bill is paid 39.95
👵🏼 our weekly call (she is my only grandparent and is not doing well)
👨🏼 weekly call with father, who still likes his new job
🍜 leftover stew and Mandalorian with my 👩🏼 (we live text each other). finally, a good space battle!
🎮 and 📖 to decompress along with a long hot 🚿
Day 7 – Friday
🌅 I don’t think I can do this today.Total: 1,524.35
🧘🏼♀️ It has been such a frustrating week (there was another incident that happened that I can’t even reference due to state law/FERPA) that was incredibly traumatic and draining.
📱 to best friend T. and work friend R. to ask what they would do. Both endorse me taking a day off after this wild week.
🎮 and 📖 along with some stretching. 📞 with best friend E. to catch up on her wedding prep and life
🤑 payday! Good paycheck since it’s the 3rd of the month, but it might be missing hours from club. I won’t know until I see my paystub on Monday. +2,183.48 (+50 to 457, +322.94 to pension)
💸 ah, but it’s also the 31st. easy come, easy go 🏡 (1343.38) and ⛲ (167)
🚊 to 🤸🏼♀️ to a really 🔥 class. Learn the name of the girl next to me on Fridays who also brings her inhaler and it turns out we’re both teachers!
🍦 take a nice mozzarella sandwich home from tatte 13.97
🚊, 🍴, 🚿, 📖, 🎮
Grand totals:
- food & drank: 65.81
- entertainment: 15.99
- home & health: 10
- clothes & beauty: 0
- transport: 4.80
- other: 1,618.49 (how I would class my house expenses)
2023.04.01 07:30 wyguy_27 Triple Treasurer White Male Interested in STEM Gets Mixed Results
Demographics
Academics
List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported.
List all extracurricular involvements, including leadership roles, time commitments, major achievements, etc.
List all awards and honors submitted on your application.
CS teacher: 8/10-had a great relationship and he loved me, also my soccer coach (didn’t read any of the letters so I’m just making my best guess)
APUSH teacher: 8/10-he also loved me and this year I’ve been stopping in with him a lot bc he’s lent me some of his favorite books to read.
Student council advisor: 6/10-I’m sure he wrote positive things but I’m just not as close with him as my other teachers so I don’t know how much he had to write about me.
School counselor: 5/10-same thing; I’m sure she wrote positive things about me but I barely know her
Interviews
MIT: 7/10- first interview and it seemed like my interviewer liked me, but I was a little nervous and struggled to answer some questions
Princeton: 9/10- it went really well and we had so much to talk about; went well over the time limit and he said I’d be a great fit at Princeton
Essays
Personal Statement: 6/10-wrote about the complexity of the world and the mind-boggling depth and interconnection of everything around me. The concept was really good but I don’t think the final product really conveyed my thought process. Definitely could have done better with this.
Most of my essays were similar to my personal statement where they were fine, but they didn’t stand out. However, I’d give my Princeton and Stanford essays an 8/10 on average. I thought I did really well with those.
Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)
All acceptances are for cs unless they say otherwise
Acceptances:
submitted by wyguy_27 to collegeresults [link] [comments]
- Gender: Male
- Race/Ethnicity: White/Ashkenazi Jewish
- Residence: Upstate NY
- Income Bracket: $300k+
- Type of School: public
- Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): none (elaborated on legacies later)
Academics
- GPA (UW/W): 4.0 UW, ~98/100%
- Rank (or percentile): School doesn’t rank (probably top 10-15 out of 350+ students)
- # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 12 AP, 5 or 6 dual enrollment, rest were honors courses
- Senior Year Course Load: AP Lit, AP Environmental, AP Physics 1, AP Calc BC, Spanish 5 (Dual Enrollment), AP Econ (Micro & Macro), independent study in cs (basically do my own thing and check in with my cs teacher once a week)
List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported.
- SAT I: 1510
- AP/IB: AP World-5, AP Lang-4, APUSH-5, AP Bio-4, AP CSA-5
- Other (ex. IELTS, TOEFL, etc.):none
List all extracurricular involvements, including leadership roles, time commitments, major achievements, etc.
- Varsity and club tennis: singles player for my schools’s varsity team and senior year captain(did not get to list on applications) grades 10-12
- Counselor and lifeguard at local overnight summer camp for summer of 2022
- Class treasurer-plan events and manage class funds (grades 10-12; representative in 9th grade)
- NHS - volunteer locally in my community (treasurer in 12th grade, member in 11th)
- Soccer (varsity in 11th grade and JV in 9th & 10th; also played on a club team through 10th)
- Worked at a grocery store as a cashier and bringing in carts in grades 10-12
- Link crew/freshman connection leader grades 11-12; introduced new students to the high school and periodically checked in with them
- Spanish club treasurer 12th grade-planned and ran meetings learning about culture in Hispanic countries (yes I know I’m treasurer of 3 clubs lol. I probably should’ve had some different leadership roles)
- International club member 11th grade- similar to Spanish club but we covered cultures around the world
List all awards and honors submitted on your application.
- NHS
- Spanish NHS
- AP scholar with distinction
- Candidate for NYS seal of Biliteracy in Spanish (have been preparing for a bit but I don’t present until may)
- Scholar athlete award
CS teacher: 8/10-had a great relationship and he loved me, also my soccer coach (didn’t read any of the letters so I’m just making my best guess)
APUSH teacher: 8/10-he also loved me and this year I’ve been stopping in with him a lot bc he’s lent me some of his favorite books to read.
Student council advisor: 6/10-I’m sure he wrote positive things but I’m just not as close with him as my other teachers so I don’t know how much he had to write about me.
School counselor: 5/10-same thing; I’m sure she wrote positive things about me but I barely know her
Interviews
MIT: 7/10- first interview and it seemed like my interviewer liked me, but I was a little nervous and struggled to answer some questions
Princeton: 9/10- it went really well and we had so much to talk about; went well over the time limit and he said I’d be a great fit at Princeton
Essays
Personal Statement: 6/10-wrote about the complexity of the world and the mind-boggling depth and interconnection of everything around me. The concept was really good but I don’t think the final product really conveyed my thought process. Definitely could have done better with this.
Most of my essays were similar to my personal statement where they were fine, but they didn’t stand out. However, I’d give my Princeton and Stanford essays an 8/10 on average. I thought I did really well with those.
Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)
All acceptances are for cs unless they say otherwise
Acceptances:
- (EA) RPI~40k/year merit aid
- (EA) WPI~35k/year merit aid
- (Deferred EA—>RD) Case Western Reserve University~30k/year merit aid (Current first choice for admitted universities)
- (RD) Clarkson University-I don’t rly remember but I think also around 30-40k off/year
- (RD) St Lawrence University~40k/year merit aid
- (RD) SUNY Stony Brook-2k/year merit aid
- (RD) University of Washington(Seattle)-accepted pre-science program with ~7.5k purple and gold scholarship
- (RD) Middlebury College (current top choice)
- (Deferred EA—>RD) Northeastern
- (RD) Cornell (legacy relative)
- (RD) Amherst College
- (RD) Caltech
- (RD) Carnegie Mellon (legacy relative)
- (Deferred EA—>RD) UChicago (didn’t rly have a “dream” school but whenever someone asked my top choice I told them uchicago)
- (RD) Columbia
- (RD) Harvard
- (Deferred EA—>RD) MIT
- (RD) Princeton 😢 (really came to love Princeton)
- (RD) Rice
- (RD) Stanford
- (RD) WashU
- Stony Brook Honors
- University of Washington Honors
2023.04.01 07:05 asaharyev Matchday Thread 4/1
Major League Soccer
MLS 360 Stream| Home | Away | Time | TV | Match Thread |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New England Revolution | New York City FC | 7:39 PM | Apple TV Free | Match Thread |
| Toronto FC | Charlotte FC | 7:39 PM | Apple TV Free | Match Thread |
| FC Cincinnati | Inter Miami CF | 7:39 PM | Apple TV Free | Match Thread |
| Columbus Crew | Real Salt Lake | 7:39 PM | Apple TV | Match Thread |
| Atlanta United FC | New York Red Bulls | 7:39 PM | Apple TV | Match Thread |
| Orlando City SC | Nashville SC | 7:39 PM | Apple TV | Match Thread |
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2023.04.01 06:46 FinlandBall1939 Ummmm what is happening in my area tomorrow…. Why 5% tornado? :(
 | submitted by FinlandBall1939 to tornado [link] [comments] |
2023.04.01 06:44 FinlandBall1939 I live in Ocean County New Jersey. Wtf is going to happen here tomorrow?!?! Why tornado? D:
 | submitted by FinlandBall1939 to weather [link] [comments] |
2023.04.01 05:14 Infinite-Sir2707 Have a question about this tour
 | Does anybody know how long each band is supposed to play for? submitted by Infinite-Sir2707 to gojira [link] [comments] |
2023.04.01 03:11 steve42089 If you're in Illinois, when do your bars close?
 | submitted by steve42089 to illinois [link] [comments] |
2023.03.31 23:41 CopperQuilt Long Term Investment Advice for 26 Year Old
Looking for long-term investing advice for a 26 year old. Would love some advice given my situation outlined below:
I currently have around $103k sitting in SPAXX (was all sitting in a checking account until this week- big mistake I know!) and trying to decide what to do with it along with everything more broadly. Thinking of putting $100k of that $103k into an S&P 500 index fund and leaving $3k in a MMF (quick access to emergency cash in addition to t-bills listed below). In addition to $103k in SPAXX below is the broader context of my financial situation:
No debt
Pay around $1,500/month rent, around $500-$1,000 most months on food + discretionary items and around $80/month on health insurance premiums
My current annual salary is $140k with a bonus around $6k (I get a paycheck around once every two weeks)
Live in U.S. but hoping to get married and move internationally in a few years (expecting my salary to be significantly lower internationally)
$2k in a checking account
Recently put $51k into t-bills
Roth 401k #1 (current employer): $12.7k (100% STATE ST S&P 500 IDX)
Roth 401k #2 (old employer): $22k (50% in Target Date 2055 Fund, 50% S&P 500 Index Fund)
HSA: $7.3k (just put an order for around $7k in t-bills)
Roth IRA: $18k (99% in VOO)
Currently putting 16%/month into Roth 401k (almost enough to max on the yearly limit) but am hesitant to continue doing this as I don't think the 401k/HSA tax advantages will get recognized internationally. For this reason, I chose not to do a backdoor Roth IRA 2022 tax year and am not sure I want to contribute to an HSA in 2023 tax year. Even though I expect to make a lower salary internationally, I expect the taxes to be higher internationally
As far as current tax implications, my marginal tax rate is the following:
Fed: 24%
NY: 6.25%
NYC: 3.876%
submitted by CopperQuilt to personalfinance [link] [comments]
I currently have around $103k sitting in SPAXX (was all sitting in a checking account until this week- big mistake I know!) and trying to decide what to do with it along with everything more broadly. Thinking of putting $100k of that $103k into an S&P 500 index fund and leaving $3k in a MMF (quick access to emergency cash in addition to t-bills listed below). In addition to $103k in SPAXX below is the broader context of my financial situation:
No debt
Pay around $1,500/month rent, around $500-$1,000 most months on food + discretionary items and around $80/month on health insurance premiums
My current annual salary is $140k with a bonus around $6k (I get a paycheck around once every two weeks)
Live in U.S. but hoping to get married and move internationally in a few years (expecting my salary to be significantly lower internationally)
$2k in a checking account
Recently put $51k into t-bills
Roth 401k #1 (current employer): $12.7k (100% STATE ST S&P 500 IDX)
Roth 401k #2 (old employer): $22k (50% in Target Date 2055 Fund, 50% S&P 500 Index Fund)
HSA: $7.3k (just put an order for around $7k in t-bills)
Roth IRA: $18k (99% in VOO)
Currently putting 16%/month into Roth 401k (almost enough to max on the yearly limit) but am hesitant to continue doing this as I don't think the 401k/HSA tax advantages will get recognized internationally. For this reason, I chose not to do a backdoor Roth IRA 2022 tax year and am not sure I want to contribute to an HSA in 2023 tax year. Even though I expect to make a lower salary internationally, I expect the taxes to be higher internationally
As far as current tax implications, my marginal tax rate is the following:
Fed: 24%
NY: 6.25%
NYC: 3.876%
2023.03.31 23:21 jfiddy NBA Picks - 3/31/23
Predicting the NBA using Monte Carlo Simulations and Advanced Rate Stats
Back at it again this year. For people new to this, here's some quick links for the yearly recaps: 2020-2021 - 2021-2022
TL;DR
Today's Slate (3/31/23)
\) Includes projections for players listed as questionable
† Unofficial projection due to lack of data
# Indicates # of games worth of data available for this team's lineup
Notes
BTC: bc1q339p9sxvk6srp0087c9zaccyc7w9dxu94v7x3k
FAQ:
Link to FAQ
Previous Slate (3/30/23)
# Indicates # of games worth of data available for this team's lineup
Notes
Previous: 1-1 (-0.39U)
Season: 356-378 (-104.5U)
Daily Model Record
ATS: 0-0
O/U: 0-1
Total Model Record
Spread: 137-138 (50%)
O/U: 158-122 (57%)
submitted by jfiddy to jfiddy_caps [link] [comments]
Back at it again this year. For people new to this, here's some quick links for the yearly recaps: 2020-2021 - 2021-2022
TL;DR
Today's Slate (3/31/23)
| Home | Away | Spread | Total | Prediction | % home covering | % over |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CHA | CHI | 10 | 224 | 922 - 11810 † | ||
| WAS | ORL | 1 | 225.5 | 1235 - 10410 | 99 | 57 |
| IND | OKC | 2.5 | 237.5 | 1176 - 11810 † | ||
| PHI | TOR | -5 | 225 | 11310 - 10210 \) | 74 | 14 |
| BOS | UTA | -13 | 232 | 11810 - 973 † | ||
| CLE | NY | -3.5 | 222 | 1087 - 10910 † | ||
| BKN | ATL | 1.5 | 240.5 | 11410 - 10910 | 73 | 4 |
| MEM | LAC | -5 | 237 | 11410 - 1551 † | ||
| MIN | LAL | 1 | 232.5 | 932 - 1093 † | ||
| HOU | DET | -6.5 | 228.5 | 10810 - 1044 † | ||
| GS | SA | -17.5 | 242 | 12310 - 1063 † | ||
| POR | SAC | 14 | 231 | 1073 - 12310 † | ||
| PHO | DEN | -10 | 227 | 1074 - 9710 † |
† Unofficial projection due to lack of data
# Indicates # of games worth of data available for this team's lineup
Notes
- Out/Questionable:
- CHA/CHI - T Rozier Out, G Hayward Out, A Caruso Ques
- WAS/ORL - B Beal Out, K Kuzma Out
- IND/OKC - T Haliburton Out, M Turner Out, S Gilgeous-Alexander Out
- PHI/TOR - T Harris Ques, G Trent Ques
- BOS/UTA - J Tatum Ques, A Horford Ques, J Brown Ques, R Williams Ques, L Markkanen Out, J Clarkson Out, C Sexton Out, K Olynyk Ques
- CLE/NY - J Allen Out, J Randle Out
- MEM/LAC - S Adams Out, P George Out, N Powell Out, M Morris Out, K Leonard Ques
- MIN/LAL - L James Ques
- HOU/DET - K Martin Ques, B Bogdanović Out, A Burks Out
- GS/SA - A Wiggins Out, D Vassell Ques, K Johnson Ques
- POSAC - D Lillard Out, J Grant Out, J Nurkić Out, A Simons Out
- PHO/DEN - N Jokić Ques, K Caldwell-Pope Ques
- PHI/TOR U225 3U @ 1.91
- BKN/ATL U240.5 [email protected] 1.91
- Avdija (WAS) 30+ PRA 3U @ 1.88
- Morris (WAS) 12+ P 3U @ 1.91
- Trae (ATL) U9.5A 2U @ 1.78
- Sabonis (SAC) 12+ R 2U @ 1.81
- Huerter 15+ P 2U @ 1.88
BTC: bc1q339p9sxvk6srp0087c9zaccyc7w9dxu94v7x3k
FAQ:
Link to FAQ
Previous Slate (3/30/23)
| Home | Away | Spread | Total | Prediction | % home covering | % over | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MIL | BOS | -2 | 236.5 | 11310 - 11210 \) | 48 ➖ | 14 ❌ | 99-140 |
| DEN | NO | -6 | 227 | 11610 - 11610 \) | 88-107 |
Notes
- Out/Questionable:
- MIL/BOS - K Middleton Ques, R Williams Ques
- DEN/NO - N Jokić Ques, Z Williamson Out
- DEN/NO - Jokic didn't play
- MIL/BOS U236.5 3U @ 1.91 ❌ lmao we had like 10 pts of margin with a minute left in a 40 pt game, but then 2 flagrants 2 3's and a layup later and here we are
DEN/NO O227 2U @ 1.91 (if Jokic plays)
- Valanciunas (NO) 11+ R 3U @ 1.87 ✅
- N/A
Previous: 1-1 (-0.39U)
Season: 356-378 (-104.5U)
Daily Model Record
ATS: 0-0
O/U: 0-1
Total Model Record
Spread: 137-138 (50%)
O/U: 158-122 (57%)
2023.03.31 22:41 priyansh9 Indian Startup Bro gets dreams crushed
At the bottom of the post, I've attached a reflection detailing my thoughts and feelings.
Demographics
Academics
Awards/Honors
Didn't get any. Babson and Georgetown waived off my interview???
Essays
Common App: 8/10 - Talked about falling short of my own expectations and failing at the biggest stage (tournament of champions of the world scholars cup at yale) and how it has shaped me today. ended with "Had I not failed so miserably back then, I wouldn't be here today, and I wish to fail again in the future. I wish to fail again so the next time I rise, I’ll be even more hungry and determined to achieve my goals." Extremely cliche topic I know, but my application wouldn't have been mine if it missed this part of my identity. i think it was pretty well-written and most people who read it loved it.
Supplementals:
Upenn (7/10) NYU (4/10): horrible essay. i dont know why i submitted it, i didn't even like it. probably my worst one. UC Berkeley (8/10). GMP Program essay (9/10): one of my favourite essays. talked about my experience with global business and tied it to haas' values. CMU (8/10): the third essay was my favourite one. other two were good but nothing special. U Mich (7/10). Ross (6/10) WashU (6-7/10) USC (6-7/10) Emory (8/10): wrote the second essay (the one w options) pretty well as it tied my academic interests with my personality and goals. UCLA (8/10) Georgetown (8.5/10): spent the longest time on these essays and really really liked them. Babson (10/10): did the video, talked about how I've experienced babson's social entrepreneurship spirit and how it has drawn me back to the campus.
I thoroughly enjoyed the essay writing process (I learned so much about myself!) and I'm pretty happy with most of my essays.
Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)
Acceptances:
Only applied to reaches (except babson) because it made financial sense to go full play only at the best business schools. Applied to some of the best business schools and a few safety schools in my home country as a backup.
Reflection:
Emory is a great school, and Goizueta is one of the best business schools in the country. I'd have the opportunity to study my first choice major- Business. I know that I'll be fine there. I know that I'd probably be fine wherever I went. While, I'm extremely grateful for Emory, deep down, though, I can’t help but still feel disappointed.
I'm aware of the fact that I'm not the most qualfied candidate at any of these schools and they were all reaches for me, but its a little heartbreaking to see your dream fall apart. Over the last 3 years, I've made numerous sacrficies to be able to study in the united states, I switched schools in my junior year and joined one of the most competitive highschools in the country so I can have a higher chance of making it. I've spent my summers working on projects and was sleep deprived for most of junior and senior year. I wish I would've gotten into one of my top choices. Right now I can't help but feel I've failed everyone around me. Seeing some of my closest friends get into Stanford and Berkeley—friends with whom I’ve been since the beginnings of my journey —I can’t help but feel left behind. What hurts the most is how close I came, maybe a 1500+ on the SAT or a 43 on the IB would've made all the difference. The 3 waitlists hurt more than the rejections, especially Berkeley :(
But at the end of the day, I'm glad I went through this process. It's only the difficult matches that are worth playing. I know this failure is only going to make me stronger. As my common app essay goes, "I wish to fail again in the future. I wish to fail again so the next time I rise, I’ll be even more hungry and determined to achieve my goals." Well this was that failure, and I'm going to get through it, as a stronger man than before.
Finally, I still don't know where I'm going to spend the next 4 years of my life. I know I'm going to be fine wherever I go and since a big part of my dream to study in the United States has died I'm considering a few options in my home country which will be much much cheaper than Emory and make more finanical sense to me and my family. Nonetheless, I'll be committing to Emory for now as I wait for the rest of my decisions from my home country. 🦅🦅🦅
submitted by priyansh9 to collegeresults [link] [comments]
Demographics
- Gender: Male
- Race/Ethnicity: Brown (Indian)
- Residence: India
- Type of School: Private (one of the most competitive high schools in the country)
- Financial Aid: Full-Pay + Merit Scholarships (hopefully)
- Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): No
Academics
- UW GPA: 39/42 in IBDP Y1. Predicted 41/45.
- Rank (or percentile): N/A
- of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: IB Diploma
- Senior Year Course Load: Economics HL, Business Management HL, Math AA HL, English SL, French AB Initio, ESS SL
- SAT: 1470 (690RW, 780M) submitted to emory, babson, georgetown, umich and usc
- Founder, CEO of a business. Manufacturing and selling NFC technology-embedded business cards. $12,500+ revenue. Innovation Fellow for the Harvard- Crimson Youth Entrepreneurship Society’s inaugural cohort.
- Founder of a not-for-profit ed-tech org. Curated modules and articles on personal finance, taxation, investing, entrepreneurship, and more. 1,000+ members from 23 countries. Collaborated with 3MNCs. Launched an exclusive crypto token for the members: Stock Early ($SE)
- Author of a 75-page book on ‘how to startup’ for other budding high school entrepreneurs by providing anecdotes from my experience of managing two profitable businesses as a student. Sold over 300 copies.
- World Scholar's Cup (debating, quizzing, essay writing competition): Represented India at the Tournament of Champions at Yale. Regional Round 1st place. Global Finals top 100.
- Soccer: National-level player, varsity team captain. Best Player award at national games. Captained the state's only club in the tier-1 youth league.
- Environmental Service: 3 Fundraisers. Raised $10,000+, helped 10+ restaurants in the city transition from plastic cutlery to sustainable cutlery. helped 1,800+ families during the first wave of covid.
- Summer Programmes: 1. Babson Summer Study Program on a full tution scholarship. 2 Ivy Early Entrepreneur Summer Program.
- Clubs: 1. Founder of the Fintech Club: taught a summer program on blockchain financial modeling to 100+ students. 2. President of Finance and Business Club (largest school club: 300+ members)
- Student Investment Fund: founding member and senior investment officer (cryptocurrencies). Asia's first high school SIF. traded $20,000+
- Founder, CEO of a semi-professional gaming clan. national accolades.
Awards/Honors
- 2 Gold and 2 Silver Medals in Essay Writing and Debating while representing India at the World Scholars Cup Tournament of Champions and Global Rounds. (1/1000+ teams)
- Babson College Summer Study Financial Aid Scholarship Award: Admitted to Babson College's Summer Study Program for Entrepreneurship (class of 2022) with a full program tuition scholarship award.
- Most Innovative Idea Award at TiE Rajasthan Business Competition: Won the Most Innovative Idea award for an Ed-Tech platform that fights economic inequality. (1/100+ teams)
- FEELL 150 Changemaker: Given in recognition of my commitment to the progress of SDG goals set by the United Nations through Cardesta. (Given to 150 students from 1,50,000+ in India)
- Best Player Award in Football at the ISSO National Games: Best Player Award at India's annual national-level football tournament.
- Counsellor (7/10): knew me pretty well but i wasn't the sincerest student and i messed up a few times throughout the process. nevertheless, i believe she wrote a pretty good LoR.
- Econ. Teacher (9/10): one of her favourite students and always did pretty well in her class. she helped me take initiatives outside the class. developed a really good relationship with her.
- Business Teacher (6-7/10): one of the brightest performers in her class but only knew her for an year. was also frequently absent from her class because the subject came relatively easily to me and i used to invest the time elsewhere. might've stopped me from developing a better relationship with her.
Didn't get any. Babson and Georgetown waived off my interview???
Essays
Common App: 8/10 - Talked about falling short of my own expectations and failing at the biggest stage (tournament of champions of the world scholars cup at yale) and how it has shaped me today. ended with "Had I not failed so miserably back then, I wouldn't be here today, and I wish to fail again in the future. I wish to fail again so the next time I rise, I’ll be even more hungry and determined to achieve my goals." Extremely cliche topic I know, but my application wouldn't have been mine if it missed this part of my identity. i think it was pretty well-written and most people who read it loved it.
Supplementals:
Upenn (7/10) NYU (4/10): horrible essay. i dont know why i submitted it, i didn't even like it. probably my worst one. UC Berkeley (8/10). GMP Program essay (9/10): one of my favourite essays. talked about my experience with global business and tied it to haas' values. CMU (8/10): the third essay was my favourite one. other two were good but nothing special. U Mich (7/10). Ross (6/10) WashU (6-7/10) USC (6-7/10) Emory (8/10): wrote the second essay (the one w options) pretty well as it tied my academic interests with my personality and goals. UCLA (8/10) Georgetown (8.5/10): spent the longest time on these essays and really really liked them. Babson (10/10): did the video, talked about how I've experienced babson's social entrepreneurship spirit and how it has drawn me back to the campus.
I thoroughly enjoyed the essay writing process (I learned so much about myself!) and I'm pretty happy with most of my essays.
Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)
Acceptances:
- (considering commiting) RD - Emory University, Business
- RD - Babson College, Entrepreneurship
- RD - University of Michigan, Econ/Business
- RD - University of California Berkeley (this one hurt the most), Global Management Program at Haas/Econ.
- RD - University of California Los Angeles, Business Economics
- ED 1 - New York University, B.T.E (business tech entrepreneurship)
- ED 2 (deferred) - Carnegie Mellon University, Business
- RD - University of Pennsylvania, Entrepreneurship and Innovation
- RD - Washington University at St.Louis, Entrepreneurship
- RD - Georgetown University, Business
- RD - University of Southern California, Business
Only applied to reaches (except babson) because it made financial sense to go full play only at the best business schools. Applied to some of the best business schools and a few safety schools in my home country as a backup.
Reflection:
Emory is a great school, and Goizueta is one of the best business schools in the country. I'd have the opportunity to study my first choice major- Business. I know that I'll be fine there. I know that I'd probably be fine wherever I went. While, I'm extremely grateful for Emory, deep down, though, I can’t help but still feel disappointed.
I'm aware of the fact that I'm not the most qualfied candidate at any of these schools and they were all reaches for me, but its a little heartbreaking to see your dream fall apart. Over the last 3 years, I've made numerous sacrficies to be able to study in the united states, I switched schools in my junior year and joined one of the most competitive highschools in the country so I can have a higher chance of making it. I've spent my summers working on projects and was sleep deprived for most of junior and senior year. I wish I would've gotten into one of my top choices. Right now I can't help but feel I've failed everyone around me. Seeing some of my closest friends get into Stanford and Berkeley—friends with whom I’ve been since the beginnings of my journey —I can’t help but feel left behind. What hurts the most is how close I came, maybe a 1500+ on the SAT or a 43 on the IB would've made all the difference. The 3 waitlists hurt more than the rejections, especially Berkeley :(
But at the end of the day, I'm glad I went through this process. It's only the difficult matches that are worth playing. I know this failure is only going to make me stronger. As my common app essay goes, "I wish to fail again in the future. I wish to fail again so the next time I rise, I’ll be even more hungry and determined to achieve my goals." Well this was that failure, and I'm going to get through it, as a stronger man than before.
Finally, I still don't know where I'm going to spend the next 4 years of my life. I know I'm going to be fine wherever I go and since a big part of my dream to study in the United States has died I'm considering a few options in my home country which will be much much cheaper than Emory and make more finanical sense to me and my family. Nonetheless, I'll be committing to Emory for now as I wait for the rest of my decisions from my home country. 🦅🦅🦅