Site Shutdown

[michiken]

For those of you that had a chance to view or be a beta tester for my handicapping site, I officially pulled the plug on it today.

This was done in addition to cancelling my bris accounts in protest.

From speaking with some of you privately, the data companies are only interested in the big fish, I am just a minnow! >>>( *)>

My personal thanks to all who participated!

[traynor]

If I remember correctly, you were developing an application in PHP? Have you ever considered collaborating with others to produce an application for personal use, or to release as open source? People winning is good for everyone, and if you can put out an application that enables people to start winning, most will have good sense enough to continue. At the very least, enabling people to win will put more activity in the mutuel pools, which benefits other bettors.

With all the OCD PHP developers around, it should be easy to find a whole bunch willing to collaborate to extend, develop, and use a workable app. As mentioned previously, we are currently working on an application that we intend to release as open source, as soon as it is "translated" from Python (too slow) to Java (very fast).

Open source handicapping apps are not a new idea, and several other groups are working on the same thing. If you poke around a little, you can find them.
Good Luck

[richrosa]

I have made available a BRIS DRF file parser written in PHP. You can get it for free at https://sourceforge.net/projects/handicappingos. You probably could apply lots of the code in my DRF parser to use against their comma-delimited chart files.

My HandicappingOS tools are released as GPL. They are bit raw and are part of a commerical project that will be released soon, but they are a really good start.

[46zilzal]

nice to find an intelligent guy around here

[PaceAdvantage]

nice to find an intelligent guy around here

Like I said in another thread, your posts are filled with nothing but condescension and smugness, and this one just adds to your resume.

I apologize that this board does not offer adequate stimulation for your Mensa mind.

[46zilzal]

Like I said in another thread, your posts are filled with nothing but condescension and smugness, and this one just adds to your resume.

I apologize that this board does not offer adequate stimulation for your Mensa mind.
Richard Rosa is a very good handicapper and friend of mine. His abilities at breaking down a horse race are very unique and require recognition. His latest handicapping program seems a bit confusing in all it's data presentation, but the author has few peers at what he is able to do with the information.

You guys have a time reading things into a message that ARE NOT THERE!

[PaceAdvantage]

You guys have a time reading things into a message that ARE NOT THERE!

Ok then, my apologies. Like any other normal person with a college education and an advanced degree, I interpreted the following line:

"Nice to find an intelligent guy around here"

to mean:

"there aren't very many intelligent people on this board, so I am going to take time out and let everyone know that I finally found another one (besides myself of course)."

Are you telling me I misinterpreted your meaning 46? If so, I guess I must place myself into the "idiot camp." I'm ashamed I will no longer have a chance to join the "intelligent guy's" club.

[PaceAdvantage]

PS. Richrosa, thanks for sharing your program!

[46zilzal]

O
"Nice to find an intelligent guy around here"

to mean:

"there aren't very many intelligent people on this board, so I am going to take time out and let everyone know that I finally found another one (besides myself of course)."

Are you telling me I misinterpreted your meaning 46? If so, I guess I must place myself into the "idiot camp." I'm ashamed I will no longer have a chance to join the "intelligent guy's" club.

You took the quantum leap adding in the negative comments. I was only referring to Richard and NO ONE ELSE

[PaceAdvantage]

You took the quantum leap adding in the negative comments. I was only referring to Richard and NO ONE ELSE

I'm sorry, I don't see it as a quantum leap. We'll leave it at that.

[richrosa]

thanks Tim for your comments.

For the record:

I produced a personal handicapping program web-based using PHP, MySQL, and Apache. It can run on nearly any OS that supports those. I seperated the code that imports BRIS files into a MySQL database using PHP into a package that I released as GPL (free for all to use) as a payback to all the good, smart people on this board and others who have helped me become a better handicapper (Tim aka 46zizal and PA are two who have helped).

My package will allow you to begin programming your own handicapping tool without the hassle and overhead of doing the data import. When implimented, you have all the race data in a MySQL database for you to use in your program. In many ways you have about 60-75% of the work necessary to make your own program. The code is a bit raw and requires some massaging to get it to work for your platform, but I've helped others here get it installed and working. If you drop me an email, I will help you too (time permitting, I travel a lot).

My handicapping program has evolved to the point where I've changed the data source, and am taking steps to commercialize it. When the time is right, I will ask for permission from PA to promote it and provide more details. In the meantime, for all you open source code junkies, I have freeely contributed a significant amount of code for you all to chew on.

[cj]

No doubt that preparing the data for use in a program is the lion's share of the work. The rest is gravy. Great job.

I agree with PA, 46's comment was a bit rude, but what else is new?

[michiken]

Traynor and Rich,

I appreciate the suggestion to get involved with an OSS group but my code is probaly 98% finished (or perhaps I should say 'at least it ran and worked on my server').

Rich was very generous in donating his HandicappingOS and phone calls to me to try and get it working. Had I not already had written my own import script and databases, I would probably had started with his code as a base. The important thing for me as a non-programmer was to be able to read thru his source code. It brought up ideas and other efficiencies that I could have used.....

My free time is limited due to a new job. I will also be releasing an Open Source Version of the software once I convert it over to more of a non-server based program. There is no real rush for me as I don't care to be part of or use bris data...