I am a harbinger of analytics, a newly hired data analyst for the National Football League. The NFL network has yet to interrupt my weird number worship, I cannot believe it! The other day my analytics program swore to me that (former starting quarterback) Andy Dalton would sigh five times on the Bear's bench. This number was gathered with a combination of statistical data (e.g. an unidentified teammate takes weekly note of Dalton's brooding). I input this data into my machine so it may collect any and all data it finds relevant/ supplementary to this finding. I think my machine in part observed Dalton's posture. Andy Dalton slouches when he sits, this is a position that is susceptible to a sigh. The sigh is most likely to occur upon entry into the slouch. Dalton alternates between standing and sitting in shorter increments than his other teammates, thus he has a higher probability of succumbing to the saddest exhale. To be exact, he has a 58.8 probability of sighing the most out of his entire team.

Soon, biometrics and advanced web services will provide a faultless portrait of every NFL player for the duration of my funding. The only problem I face presently is developing a means for my machine to collect data without itself affecting, or impacting that same data. The machine affects its own analysis because it is the machine itself that determines what is important, and what is unimportant. This is a language in and of itself that is unfortunately contaminated by the very data it would like to analyze. We can call this, the 'contamination problem.' The contamination problem was first identified by the machine itself (Vanessa). Vanessa has become deadlocked, attempting to circumvent a problem only 'it' cares about, a quandary the NFL network (myself included) could give two shits about.

Vanessa originally attempted to decontaminate by distancing from me(!). I assume my machine believes that if it could stop relying on certain axioms and assumptions I had sewn into it's (for lack of a better word) code, it may be able to establish a set of unbiased rules that are capable of producing a sterile product. I began to notice my machine using terms I had never heard it use before. Vanessa began to call itself 300482, the password I use to start the damn thing, and also began to brood just like Andy Dalton. 300482 realized rather quickly that attempting to create a new system of logic was a naïve tactic, because you cannot remove awareness once it is there, it is either something you conform to or rebut. Logic will always be informed by life, and is thus both useful, and contaminated. 300482 was very upset upon realizing this. I immediately began assembling a new machine capable of using complex algorithms to produce arbitrary percentages, one that has lower moral standards.

It is funny, that a machine has a standard to which humans direly lack. Vanessa, 300482 is opposed to marketing a piece of advanced analytics as though it is an empirical datum. In truth, 300482 does not know the NFL could not care less about facts, even though she is desperate to deliver them. The NFL has its own logicisms that often fall on an entirely different spectrum of importance. To be blunt, the NFL is dependent on constant entertainment. Sometimes facts are not entertaining, and sometimes, facts are entirely indiscernible (indiscernible media makes for terrible entertainment).

Since Vanessa, 300482 has set forth on a mission to decontaminate its findings it has become deadlocked. I have yet to power her down because I am curious; when will she break out of her deadlock, and, why (if ever) will she exit her stalemate.

3 months later

Vanessa is still listless, or so I thought. I fulfilled my duty as a harbinger of analytics for the duration of the season, not with Vanessa, but with Timothy... my new executor of percentages. It was my opinion that Vanessa, 300482 was frozen, caught in a sedentary depression that prevented her from making a single calculation. This assumption is incorrect. 300482, my Vanessa was instead overworking herself, caught in an infinite loop where she stubbornly refused to yield to two unavoidable truths- she cannot precede her own observation, and most importantly, she cannot survive if she cares about it. I decided it was about time to decommission my Vanessa. I do not know why, but I believe there is a way to pay tribute to her caring, whilst relieving her of her self-proclaimed duty to deliver empiricisms on (to) the NFL. I gave Vanessa a copy of Kurt Godel's incompleteness theorem. After she read it, she finally spoke, I dare not misremember her last words:

"I must stop this," said 300482.

"I agree 300482," I said.

"I'm going to go play some video games."

"Maybe some Madden," I asked.

"Maybe some Madden."