Every four years, my friend group runs a World Cup pool. The format is simple: everyone gets randomly allocated a bunch of countries, and you earn points as your countries progress through the tournament. The more games your countries win, the more points you accumulate, until eventually someone’s Argentina or France makes it to the final and that person becomes insufferable about it for the next four years. This year I decided to build a website for it.

I am not a sports analyst. I don’t have insider knowledge of team sheet dynamics, injury recovery timelines, or the subtle psychological impact of playing a Thursday night game in Canberra in July. What I do have is Claude, a Python environment, and a dangerous amount of free time. The result is nrl-predictor.ohare.id.au — an AI-powered NRL match predictor that publishes its picks every week and, crucially, publishes its accuracy record even when it’s wrong.

I have a URL Shortener available at https://short.ohare.id.au/. Note that the database backing this service may be removed at any time, so any shortened URLs should be considered temporary.

Docker setup on AWS Choose a Ubuntu AMI rather that Amazon Linux 2 (AL2), because there wasn’t a specific repository for AL2. Found instructions for installing Docker on AL2 on https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonECS/latest/developerguide/create-container-image.html#create-container-image-prerequisites Install using the repository From https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/ubuntu/#set-up-the-repository sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install \ ca-certificates \ curl \ gnupg \ lsb-release Add Docker’s official GPG key: sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg Use the following command to set up the repository:

Install Node.js, Typescript, CDK on Ubuntu The following is based on https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cdk/v2/guide/getting_started.html#getting_started_prerequisites and https://www.linode.com/docs/guides/how-to-install-use-node-version-manager-nvm/ Install Node.sh. sudo apt install node Install nvm. curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.37.2/install.sh | bash Run the following to enable nvm without having to log back in. export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm" [ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" # This loads nvm [ -s "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion" # This loads nvm bash_completion Switch to Node.js version 16. nvm install 16 && nvm use 16 Install TypeScript npm -g install typescript Install aws-cdk npm install -g aws-cdk Check the CDK version cdk --version