Real Madrid won the Champions League quarter-final first leg against Juventus on Tuesday — their victory sealed via an unconscionable bicycle kick from Cristiano Ronaldo that had the Turin crowd standing to applaud. My prediction methodology this year (seeding by club’s median engineering team size) survived to the quarter-finals, a personal record for the science. The tournament’s lesson never changes and I never tire of it: cup football is variance worship, and variance is why we watch (#091’s out-of-distribution generator, annual license renewed).
The main event is next week though: Zuckerberg testifies before Congress — two days, both chambers, the feed on trial (#127’s bill, now itemized). Prediction, logged for grading (#124’s discipline): the technical literacy gap between witness and committee will produce at least one instantly-immortal soundbite, the stock will RISE during testimony (the market prices survived-theater as strength), and zero binding legislation will exist within a year. I’d love to be wrong on the third.
Also filed: an Alexa/YouTube/April-Fools’ cycle came and went with the now-traditional problem that parody products can’t out-absurd real ones (#055, worsening annually — this year multiple outlets fell for fake products LESS strange than the Dash button, which remains real).
TIL: preparing testimony is an engineering discipline — Facebook’s team has reportedly run murder boards for weeks. Rehearsed audacity (#125’s pattern) applies to hearings too. Everyone drills their trick plays; the committee, notably, does not.