#….now I just have to go back and record all of 2023 2022 2021 2020 aaand 2019…

[cowboyshit]

on one hand I’m getting better at organizing and uploading all of my hangman recordings for later reference/use. on the other hand I have to upgrade to more storage and start paying a monthly fee (small one, but still). all because I like looking at this dummy and making stupid moving pictures of this dummy and I want easy access to a private library of footage at my immediate disposal

[notquitedeadpod]

Hi! I'm one of the people currently making the wiki, and we would like to ask for some clarification, if that's okay? In episode 1, Alfie says he's 27: "and not just because I was a twenty-seven-year-old man (...)", but in the same episode, his mother says he's 26: "You’re twenty-six, you should be in love (...)". It's totally understandable if it just got missed, but still, I would appreciate a clarification what his age is supposed to be at that point

Oh nooooo! The answer is he's neither 27 nor 26 at that point. Hilariously, this is a problem I'm the midst of fixing ahead of S2's release. Please just ignore all the ages given in eps 1-5. Fixed versions are coming out very soon to patch these errors, which are there because I wrote episodes 1-5 like a man posessed and then just! Released them into the wild! Very little thought to the passage of time was given; I was writing for The Vibes and only The Vibes. And then when I came back to releasing the show after the break, I fully Forgot to Fix the Problem, which, when it came to pinning down dates for S2, became a bit of a nightmare!

It's so immensely exciting you're putting together a wiki; please bear with me as I patch up these things! Fixed early episodes will be out SOON, but in the mean time have this timeline I recently cobbled together ahead of S2, which I've included after the cut for reasons of vague spoilers.

Here's a rough timeline: - August 2020 - Alfie leaves Ben and moves back in with his mum 'for a few weeks' - September 2020 - Alfie turns 28 - January 2021 - Alfie sees the first victim, the girl on the gurney, and his mum tells him to move out - April 2021 - Alfie moves into a new flat ('it had taken me the best part of five months to actually find a place' Beer and Bloodlust) - August 2021 - middle-aged woman in athletic-wear ('I didn’t see another one of the patients with torn open necks for a long time after the third one?', Beer and Bloodlust) - Linda the day after that ('The next day, I met Haley in town for coffee', Beer and Bloodlust) - September 2021 - victims six and seven - September 2021 - Alfie turns 29 - November 2021 - Cas blurs Alfie's memory ('after months of dreaming about him, I saw him again. It was mid-November', Everyone's Miracle) - June 2022 - Ben by the river ('it was the start of summer', A Cobweb on the Soul) - June 2022 - Alfie and Cas talk about their ages and Alfie says 'I’ll be thirty in September, if you were wondering' ('A week. I had known him for a week.', What Are We?) - September 2022 - Alfie turns 30 - October 2022 - Alfie sees another victim ('I didn’t actually see another victim myself until summer was well and truly over,', What Are We?) - November 2022 - Alfie and Cas go to the vampire house ('We were a few days past Halloween', In for a Penny) - December 2022 - death of the guy from paediatrics ('A week or two into this new high alert we were living under,' Tear Me to Shreds) - Early July 2023 - Cas and Alfie find Moira in the river ('It was the middle of summer, still kind of warm', A Different Kind of Holy) - Late July 2023 - Alfie and Cas go to Whitby - Early August 2023 - Alfie nearly dies - September 2023 - Cas leaves. Alfie starts recording what's been happening to him.

Chalk any wibbly-wobbly-ness in the timeline to Alfie's brain being addled by vampire blood for now, and I'll see if I can patch the accidental wrong-aging in the first ep.

-- Eira x

[pumathoughts]

NFL Conference Championship Rundown

And then, there were four. Here is my NFL Conference Championship Rundown:

Conference championships: Jan. 28

AFC

(3) Kansas City Chiefs at (1) Baltimore Ravens

Sunday, Jan. 28, 3 p.m. ET on CBS

The Kansas City Chiefs are in their 6th straight AFC Championship game. Patrick Mahomes will have his second career road game in the post season. The Baltimore Ravens are hosting their first ever AFC Championship game, the last conference championship game in Baltimore was in 1971 when the Baltimore Colts took on the Oakland Raiders. TE Travis Kelce and LS James Winchester will extend their Chiefs record for playoff games by appearing in their 21st. Andy Reid is the only coach to reach at least four conference title games with two different franchises. He has six in Kansas City, and 5 with Philadelphia. Mahomes has thrown for 4,561 yards in the postseason. He needs 404 yards to pass John Elway for eighth on the NFL’s career list. Mahomes will be playing in his 17th game while it took Elway 22 to reach his total. Mahomes has 44 TD passes in the postseason. He needs three to pass Peyton Manning for fifth on the career list. Mahomes has 13 postseason wins. He can tie Elway, Manning, Steve Young and Terry Bradshaw for third behind Tom Brady and Joe Montana on the career list with a victory Sunday.

During the regular season, the Ravens won an NFL-record 10 games against teams that finished with winning records. They won those 10 games by an average of 17.8 points. Baltimore led the league in scoring defense (16.5 points per game) and sacks (60) and tied for first in takeaways (31). The Ravens are the first team to lead the NFL in all three of those categories. The Ravens had 16 players with at least one sack this season. Only Detroit (18) had more.

Now that I’ve dumped those stats on you, this game should be close and it should be low scoring. The Ravens are one of the most balanced teams while the Chiefs are coming together at the right time. I think the Ravens might take this one by a field goal. Lamar Jackson is gunning or a second MVP and this game will be the one that solidifies it. Also, teams who have beaten Josh Allen in the playoffs have gone on to lose their next game. 2020 Houston beat Buffalo then lost to KC. 2021 KC beat Buffalo then lost to Tampa. 2022 KC beat Buffalo then lost to Cincinnati. 2023 Cincy beat Buffalo then lost to KC. Just saying.

NFC

(3) Detroit Lions at (1) San Francisco 49ers

Sunday, Jan. 28, 6:30 p.m. ET on Fox

America’s sweethearts the Detroit Lions are one step closer to a Super Bowl. Only problem is they have to play arguably the most balanced and well coached team in the league to do it. San Francisco can beat you in a multitude of ways and every player is good at the little things. It’s all going to come down to can Detroit stop Christian McCaffrey. Can Detroit’s defense keep an explosive 49er offense grounded. The wild card in this game is Lions coach Dan Campbell. Detroit leads the NFL with 118 fourth-down tries since Campbell got the job, converting 52.5% of them. The Lions have converted both 4th down attempts in the postseason, scoring TDs on two fourth-and-shorts. Detroit's 13 TDs on fourth down in the regular season and playoffs since 2021 are tied for the most in the NFL. San Francisco has attempted only 50 fourth-down tries the past three seasons, the third fewest in the league.

Jared Goff is looking to return to the Super Bowl trying to avenge a 13-3 loss to the Patriots in Super Bowl 53. Jared Goff is also trying to reverse some bad mojo. Quarterbacks who have lost in their first Super Bowl appearance since 2000 have not gone back to the Super Bowl. My heart wants Detroit to shock the world and win it all. They deserve it. But I can’t overlook a battle tested 49ers team looking to avenge last season’s NFC Championship loss. I think the 49ers win because the Lions do not convert a 4th down they had to have.

[chorusfm]

2023 Holiday Gift Guide

Each year I put together a small gift guide post full of things that I think make great gifts and are a lot of fun to give or receive for the holidays. Everything on the list is something I’ve used and enjoyed and recommend. I have recommendations posts for software, headphones, and miscellaneous stuff around the house, so the things on this list will be more focused on stuff not included in those posts and geared toward things I’ve come across in the past year or so and think would make good gifts. I used my Amazon affiliate link when the product showed up there, which gives our website a slight percentage back if you make a purchase and therefore helps fund our continued existence. If you’d like to get me a gift, becoming a supporting member or gifting another user a supporting membership for a year would mean the world to me. And, if you’re looking for something in just about any price range with a Chorus.fm or AbsolutePunk.net logo on it, check our merch shop. Under $25 Where Are Your Boys Tonight?: The Oral History of Emo’s Mainstream Explosion A great book detailing the history of emo and pop-punk from 1999-2008. Holiday Funko I recommended these in 2020, but there’s even more now! There’s a bunch of new super-hero and Star Wars Funko Pops in various Holiday costumes that are lots of fun if you’re into that sort of thing. Under $50 EUFY Home Security Camera I know some people have had issues with Apple Secure Home Video, but it’s worked great for me. Knowing the video is secure and only records when we’re not at home gives me peace of mind. Nomad MagSafe Compatible Charger Hannah’s new phone going to USB-C this year meant I could finally upgrade our old docks on the bedroom side tables. These have the benefit of matching our bedframe and look great. I’m a big fan of standby mode during the night and love how these look. MIIR Drinkware We have multiple products from Miir and they’re all fantastic. Vinturi Wine Aerator I’m not saying I can tell the difference when it’s used, but all my wine nerd friends swear by it. Band Hoodies During the winter I spend almost every day in Mack Weldon sweatpants and a band hoodie. Under $100 Grovemade: Desk Accessories From their planters (I have two on my desk) to various desk accessories, I love everything they make. Website Subscriptions These days there are a bunch of websites and newsletters that have membership programs. The holidays are a great time to gift one of these memberships to a friend or family member, and trust me, as someone that runs one, it goes a long way to helping your favorite website as well. Some of the websites I recommend checking out their membership packages include: MacStories, Relay.fm, SixColors, Popular.info, Last.fm, and ATP. Over $100 Bearaby Weighted Blankets Hannah asked for one for her birthday this year and has given it rave reviews. On Running Waterproof Shoes My go-to shoe for navigating the city during the fall/winter season. I love how easily they slip on, and the waterproofing is greatly appreciated in Oregon. I still think streaming services are a great yearly gift. Apple Music, Disney+, or one of the services you don’t have is a great way to gift a year of entertainment. Any Amount Ask your friends and family to donate to the ACLU, National Bail Fund Network, EFF, or other non-profits of your choice. Subscribers to the weekly newsletter will probably recognize some of these items because I write about them throughout the year when I find something I like and enjoy. So, if you like reading things like this, plus getting my weekly thoughts on music and entertainment, you should signup. Archive * 2022 Gift Guide * 2021 Gift Guide * 2020 Gift Guide * 2019 Gift Guide * 2018 Gift Guide * 2017 Gift Guide * 2016 Gift Guide --- Please consider becoming a member so we can keep bringing you stories like this one. ◎ https://chorus.fm/features/articles/2023-holiday-gift-guide/

[mjae]

The theme of the year is "Restoration"

I had trouble sleeping last night. My brain was buzzing even well past midnight. Recently, I noticed that I get sleepy earlier in the evening. It didn't happen last night. I have no idea why it happened, but it was probably because of the things that were churning in my head.

Or just the energy drink I had to stay awake for New Year's!

I know it's been a few days, but still...

Well, whatever it was, I did eventually just fall asleep. I don't know what time it was, but it was probably from sheer exhaustion.

All that said, I really just wanted to get started on writing again...

So, here we are.

It's 2023!

Welcome to another start in my periodic quest to write every day!

Like I said in the title, the theme of the year is restoration.

The pandemic did all sorts of different things for all sorts of different people.

Taylor Swift was really productive and produced two albums in one year during this time. Made all of us look plenty lazy. Me, included.

Instead of being more productive, I got less productive. The pandemic restricted a lot of activity, most of them things that we took for granted and expected to simply be able to do every day without question or thought.

Now that I think about it, I couldn't adjust very well. It didn't help that I started a new job in 2021: a part-time instructor at a local uni.

That was when I got way less productive.

Well, technically, I was productive in the area of being an instructor, but not in the things I usually do.

Last year, 2022, the pandemic started waning for real. There's still cases today, of course, but it's not something we are not too alarmed about anymore. It's probably gonna stick with us forever now. Like regular coughs and colds. It's now another one of those diseases that we could possibly get just anytime.

So, hopefully, 2023 will be a good year for me to start try and get back to those old things.

This is where the restoration part comes in.

The first step was to find and use a tracking app. I found a habit tracker called Timecap. Seems decent, so I'm using that.

Here are a couple of things I am simply tracking:

Play I'm tracking this because, even without the recaps from my various apps and platforms, I know I played way less than I used to. Probably comes with the territory of having more work, but I want to change that.

Read Unfortunately, I also read way less last year. Goodreads says I only read 12 books last year. That's barely an average of one book a month. Definitely not a good look, especially with a record of 26 in 2021 and 43 in 2020. Yes, it's been a downhill ride. I hope to change that this year and finish well over 12 this time.

I'm tracking them so I can see how much time I'm spending on them. Or, how little.

A couple of things I am building:

Exercise Before the pandemic, I was cycling practically every day. The lockdowns and the quarantines did not do me a favor when it came to exercise. I ended up doing this way less until I couldn't anymore. I did have a period with the boxing app on my Switch, but I couldn't stick with it either. I want to try again. Although... I did not have a good start with this one today. I woke up to something terrible, so I couldn't get started. Probably just an excuse, but we'll see.

Learn Japanese Another one of those things that got disrupted. I had a really nice streak and it was going so well, until a period of disruption upset my progress. I've had to reset maybe twice now. I'm wondering now whether I should reset again, but that's another thing we'll see.

Write This one I seem to be having a good start on. I don't know how long it will last this time, but I hope longer. There's a routine change coming at the start of next week, though, so that's something that does not bode well for this. Still, gotta start somehow, right?

An aside... Like I always do when I want to start writing again, I got hung up for a good time on where to write. It's a good thing I already had something in mind: since we're talking about restoration I thought to use one of my old blogs. I had something in mind, but I was misremembering it. It didn't look like I thought it did. So, I spent some time looking at these old spaces. This old Tumblr blog is it this time. The last post is actually from January 2nd, 2022. It's not even an actual post, just a share from Instagram. The last real post is from August 23rd, 2019 - one of my sort of rants about Descendants 3. So, it's been over three years...

In another note, I also wanted to change the theme. I almost got stuck on that again, but I realized what I was doing, so I got to stop myself and just picked the top result: Tumblr Official.

No qualms, no thinking too hard. Any space will do, so just get on with it!

Now, I don't have a good record with these habit tracking things. I get tired of them after a while. The longest I've gone is probably just a couple of weeks. Hope it will be different this time.

Here's to 2023 🎉

[lastchancevillagegreen]

Monday, 21 November 2022:

World Record Neil Young with Crazy Horse (Reprise) (released 18 November 2022)

It is getting to be quite an annual expectation having Neil Young release a brand new album of all new songs in the fourth quarter of the year.  We’ve had Peace Trail (December 2016), The Visitor (December 2017), Colorado (October 2019), Barn (December 2021) and now World Record.  (Songs For Judy and Return To Greendale were both live albums of previously released songs but they came out respectively in December 2018 and in November 2020, meaning Neil has released a fourth quarter album for the past seven years.)

Above you see the album cover and again, I must apologize for the lack of focus.  By the time I realized there was not a decent focused shot of the cover, the light had turned to dusk leaving me little choice but to use this shot.  Then you will find the gatefold and finally the back of the album.  I love that Neil uses a photo of himself in a mask, documenting forever the pandemic and his willingness to wear a mask. 

This album is unique in that it is on colored vinyl which his website claims is the first time that he has done so.  (According to the Hoffman boys, there is coming a time when the labels will announce they will no longer use black vinyl because of the environmental concerns.  Seems to me this can’t be true considering it takes petroleum to make vinyl be it colored or black.  The Hoffman boys don’t seem to accept this as gospel but the poster swears it will be announced in 2023.)  You can see the clear vinyl in the shot below which is as unfocused as that opening cover shot is.

This is a three sided album and that means it has an etching on Side 4.  Surprisingly enough it is not of the Indian on the horse that seemingly adorns 90% of Neil’s three sided albums.  Instead, this is an etching of the world.  It doesn’t show up very well in any of my photographs, but at least in the one below you can vaguely see some of this etching.

Neil is using his family as graphics on this album.  That is his father on the cover of the album.  The jacket, by the way, is somewhat textured.  Not like Tonight’s The Night but nonetheless it is textured.  The gatefold shows Neil’s mother.  Therefore it only makes sense that the inner sleeves reveal photos of Neil’s brother and sister.  Below are the inner sleeves for the first album. 

Then on the second record’s inner sleeve you will find Neil’s sister.  Neil is doing something interesting these days in that he is providing anti-static inner sleeves that the records go in but still providing custom inner sleeves which contains all this imagery I am showing. 

The next three photos show you what the labels look like.  Each label contains a different view of the world.  We progress in numerical order: one, two and three.

Look at the running times on Side 3.  The CD version of this album is a two CD set.  The second CD contains only Side 3.  A 14 minute CD.  The first two sides of this album run 28 minutes long while the third side lasts roughly 14 minutes long.  It all could have fit on one CD.  Two CDs.  CDs notoriously are bad for the environment, so this double CD seems to refute Neil’s endless odes to loving Planet Earth.  Oh well, I’m as much part of the problem as Neil is.  Still.  (And of course, I completely forgot to take photos of the album sized booklet!)

Lastly, this is the final new album I will be buying this year.  Anything else that arrives in my post and gets posted on this tumblr will have been a preorder.  I am only aware of two more pre-orders I have coming, but that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be more than that.  Just the same, World Record is the final new album I am aware of that I might want.  If there are others out there between now and 1 January, they are going to have to wait until 2023. 

[anthonypaulh]

A RETURN to THE CONVENTIONAL CONVENTION

Since the turmoil that Covid -19 inflicted on each and every one of us, we have all had to do so many things differently. It is clear that life has changed in so many ways and we have all come to do things in new ways. Adapt, evolve, survive seems to cover it.

We have, of course here at he ITP Support Association, not been immune to the challenges and demands for change that the pandemic has inflicted. So many people, reading this article will know that we have been running regular online local support groups via the ZOOM facility, to combat some of the difficulties that the pandemic threw our way. 

In addition to the local support groups we have also been obliged to hold the last three annual conventions online too. So the 2020, 2021& 2022 conventions were switched to an online basis to ensure that we kept safe, secure & away from the ravages of Covid. 

It has to be said that the 2020, 2021 and 2022 online conventions were hugely successful and were attended by record numbers of people online from all across the globe. But even so, we have had many requests from our members and followers to get back to more face to face events.

In my experience of attending the face to face annual conventions in the past , I can only say that they are tremendously informative, inspiring and helpful. There is just no substitute for being in the moment with other people who are going through the same trials and tribulations.

I have been living with ITP for over 16 years now and I can still remember attending my first annual convention. It just felt so reassuring to be able to talk to other people who had themselves been through some of the things that I had encountered. It made me feel more confident about living better with my illness and gave both me and my wife and family a huge boost. At last we had other people who knew what we were talking & worrying about.

The events have also introduced me to fellow ITP patients from across the globe who I am in regular contact with to this day. It reinforces for me the fact that we are all fighting our own individual battles with this enigmatic condition wherever we may be from BUT we are stronger together by sharing knowledge, information and supporting each other.

The convention always brings together some of the leading medical professionals in ITP but, I think just as importantly it also provides a platform for us ITP patients to talk to each other, swap our experiences and encourage each other. No man is an island and all that !

It is wonderful to know that in 2023 we will be able to get back to a more conventional Convention but we also appreciate that some of our members and followers prefer a non face to face way of keeping in touch. For that reason we are continuing our programme of online local support groups via Zoom and it is also why we are available on the many social media platforms.

Of course we also have our quarterly magazine The Platelet as another way of communicating between us ITP folk. 

Our aim at the ITP Support Association is to be available wherever people want to connect with us. As ever it is different things for different people and we try to cover as many bases as we can.

We can be found on the following social media platforms -

LinkedIn, TWITTER, Facebook, Instagram, You Tube, which can all be accessed via the main ITP Support Association website - 

https://www.itpsupport.org.uk/index.php/en/ 

Our local support groups online are listed at the following link -

https://www.itpsupport.org.uk/index.php/en/itp-local-group-meetings 

Tickets for the 2023 Annual Convention are available via the following link -

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/itp-support-association-annual-patient-convention-2023-tickets-438996338867

 Wherever and whenever you wish to connect with us, we hopefully have a platform for everyone.

29th October 2022

#ITPAware #ITPAwareness #ITPSupportAssociation #ITPAustralia 

[bananaofswifts]

Taylor Swift’s ‘Folklore’: Album Review

It’s hard to remember any contemporary pop superstar that has indulged in a more serious, or successful, act of sonic palette cleansing than Swift has with her eighth album, a highly subdued but rich affair written and recorded in quarantine conditions.

While most of us spent the last four months putting on some variation of “the quarantine 15,” Taylor Swift has been secretly working on the “Folklore” 16. Sprung Thursday night with less than a day’s notice, her eighth album is a fully rounded collection of songs that sounds like it was years in the interactive making, not the product of a quarter-year’s worth of file-sharing from splendid isolation. Mind you, the words “pandemic hero” should probably be reserved for actual frontline workers and not topline artistes. But there’s a bit of Rosie the Riveter spirit in how Swift has become the first major pop artist to deliver a first-rank album that went from germination to being completely locked down in the midst of a national lockdown.

The themes and tone of “Folklore,” though, are a little less “We can do it!” and a little more “Can we do it?” Because this new collection is Swift’s most overtly contemplative — as opposed to covertly reflective — album since the fan favorite “Red.” Actually, that’s an understatement. “Red” seems like a Chainsmokers album compared to the wholly banger-free “Folklore,” which lives up to the first half of its title by divesting itself of any lingering traces of Max Martin-ized dance-pop and presenting Swift, afresh, as your favorite new indie-electro-folk/chamber-pop balladeer. For fans that relished these undertones of Swift’s in the past, it will come as a side of her they know and love all too well. For anyone who still has last year’s “You Need to Calm Down” primarily in mind, it will come as a jolting act of manual downshifting into actually calming down. At least this one won’t require an album-length Ryan Adams remake to convince anyone that there’s songwriting there. The best comparison might be to take “Clean,” the unrepresentative denouement of “1989,” and… imagine a whole album of that. Really, it’s hard to remember any pop star in our lifetimes that has indulged in a more serious act of sonic palette cleansing.

The tone of this release won’t come as a midnight shock to anyone who took spoilers from the announcement earlier in the day that a majority of the tracks were co-written with and produced by the National’s Aaron Dessner, or that the man replacing Panic! at the Disco’s Brendon Urie as this album’s lone duet partner is Bon Iver. No matter how much credit you may have given Swift in the past for thinking and working outside of her box, a startled laugh may have been in order for just how unexpected these names felt on the bingo card of musical dignitaries you expected to find the woman who just put out “Me!” working with next. But her creative intuition hasn’t led her into an oil-and-water collaboration yet. Dessner turns out to be an ideal partner, with as much virtuosic, multi-instrumental know-how (particularly useful in a pandemic) as the most favored writer-producer on last year’s “Lover” album, Jack Antonoff.

He, too, is present and accounted for on “Folklore,” to a slightly lesser extent, and together Antonoff and Dessner make for a surprisingly well-matched support-staff tag team. Swift’s collabs with the National’s MVP clearly set the tone for the project, with a lot of fingerpicking, real strings, mellow drum programming and Mellotrons. You can sense Antonoff, in the songs he did with Swift, working to meet the mood and style of what Dessner had done or would be doing with her, and bringing out his own lesser-known acoustic and lightly orchestrated side. As good of a mesh as the album is, though, it’s usually not too hard to figure out who worked on which song — Dessner’s contributions often feel like nearly neo-classical piano or guitar riffs that Swift toplined over, while Antonoff works a little more toward buttressing slightly more familiar sounding pop melodies of Swift’s, dressed up or down to meet the more somber-sounding occasion.

For some fans, it might take a couple of spins around the block with this very different model to become re-accustomed to how there’s still the same power under the hood here. And that’s really all Swift, whose genius for conversational melodies and knack for giving every chorus a telling new twist every time around remain unmistakable trademarks. Thematically, it’s a bit more of a hodgepodge than more clearly autobiographical albums like “Lover” and “Reputation” before it have been. Swift has always described her albums as being like diaries of a certain period of time, and a few songs here obviously fit that bill, as continuations of the newfound contentment she explored in the last album and a half. But there’s also a higher degree of fictionalization than perhaps she’s gone for in the past, including what she’s described as a trilogy of songs revolving around a high school love triangle. The fact that she refers to herself, by name, as “James” in the song “Betty” is a good indicator that not everything here is ripped from today’s headlines or diary entries.

But, hell, some of it sure is. Anyone looking for lyrical Easter eggs to confirm that Swift still draws from her own life will be particularly pleased by the song “Invisible String,” a sort of “bless the broken roads that led me to you” type song that finds fulfillment in a current partner who once wore a teal shirt while working as a young man in a yogurt shop, even as Swift was dreaming of the perfect romance hanging out in Nashville’s Centennial Park. (A quick Google search reveals that, yes, Joe Alwyn was once an essential worker in London’s fro-yo industry.) There’s also a sly bit of self-referencing as Swift follows this golden thread that fatefully linked them: “Bad was the blood of the song in the cab on your first trip to L.A.,” she sings. The “dive bar” that was first established as the scene of a meet-cute two albums ago makes a reappearance in this song, too.

As for actual bad blood? It barely features into “Folklore,” in any substantial, true-life-details way, counter to her reputation for writing lyrics that are better than revenge. But when it does, woe unto he who has crossed the T’s and dotted the I’s on a contract that Swift feels was a double-cross. At least, we can strongly suspect what or who the actual subject is of “Mad Woman,” this album’s one real moment of vituperation. “What did you think I’d say to that?” Swift sings in the opening lines. “Does a scorpion sting when fighting back? / They strike to kill / And you know I will.” Soon, she’s adding gas to the fire: “Now I breathe flames each time I talk / My cannons all firing at your yacht / They say ‘move on’ / But you know I won’t / … women like hunting witches, too.” A coup de gras is delivered: “It’s obvious that wanting me dead has really brought you two together.” It’s a message song, and the message is: Swift still really wants her masters back, in 2020. And is really still going to want them back in 2021, 2022 and 2023, too. Whether or not the neighbors of the exec or execs she is imagining really mouth the words “f— you” when these nemeses pull up in their respective driveways may be a matter of projection, but if Swift has a good time imagining it, many of her fans will too.

(A second such reference may be found in the bonus track, “The Lakes,” which will only be found on deluxe CD and vinyl editions not set to arrive for several weeks. There, she sings, “What should be over burrowed under my skin / In heart-stopping waves of hurt / I’ve come too far to watch some namedropping sleaze / Tell me what are my words worth.” The rest of “The Lakes” is a fantasy of a halcyon semi-retirement in the mountains — in which “I want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet / Because I haven’t moved in years” — “and not without my muse.” She even imagines red roses growing out of a tundra, “with no one around to tweet it”; fantasies of a social media-free utopia are really pandemic-rampant.)

The other most overtly “confessional” song here is also the most third-person one, up to a telling point. In “The Last Great American Dynasty,” Swift explores the rich history of her seaside manse in Rhode Island, once famous for being home to the heir to the Standard Oil fortune and, after he died, his eccentric widow. Swift has a grand old time identifying with the women who decades before her made fellow coast-dwellers go “there goes the neighborhood”: “There goes the maddest woman this town has ever seen / She had a marvelous time ruining everything,” she sings of the long-gone widow, Rebekah. “Fifty years is a long time / Holiday House sat quietly on that beach / Free of women with madness, their men and bad habits / Then it was bought by me… the loudest woman this town has ever seen.” (A fine madness among proud women is another recurring theme.)

But, these examples aside, the album is ultimately less obviously self-referential than most of Swift’s. The single “Cardigan,” which has a bit of a Lana Del Rey feel (even though it’s produced by Dessner, not Del Rey’s partner Antonoff) is part of Swift’s fictional high school trilogy, along with “August” and “Betty.” That sweater shows up again in the latter song, in which Swift takes on the role of a 17-year boy publicly apologizing for doing a girl wrong — and which kicks into a triumphant key change at the end that’s right out of “Love Story,” in case anyone imagines Swift has completely moved on from the spirit of early triumphs.

“Exile,” the duet with Bon Iver, recalls another early Swift song, “The Last Time,” which had her trading verses with Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol. Then, as now, she gives the guy the first word, and verse, if not the last; it has her agreeing with her partner on some aspects of their dissolution (“I couldn’t turn things around”/”You never turned things around”) and not completely on others (“Cause you never gave a warning sign,” he sings; “I gave so many signs,” she protests).

Picking two standouts — one from the contented pile, one from the tormented — leads to two choices: “Illicit Affairs” is the best cheating song since, well, “Reputation’s” hard-to-top “Getaway Car.” There’s less catharsis in this one, but just as much pungent wisdom, as Swift describes the more mundane details of maintaining an affair (“Tell your friends you’re out for a run / You’ll be flushed when you return”) with the soul-destroying ones of how “what started in beautiful rooms ends with meetings in parking lots,” as “a drug that only worked the first few hundred times” wears off in clandestine bitterness.

But does Swift have a corker of a love song to tip the scales of the album back toward sweetness. It’s not “Invisible String,” though that’s a contender. The champion romance song here is “Peace,” the title of which is slightly deceptive, as Swift promises her beau, or life partner, that that quality of tranquility is the only thing she can’t promise him. If you like your love ballads realistic, it’s a bit of candor that renders all the compensatory vows of fidelity and courage all the more credible and deeply lovely. “All these people think love’s for show / But I would die for you in secret.”

That promise of privacy to her intended is a reminder that Swift is actually quite good at keeping things close to the vest, when she’s not spilling all — qualities that she seems to value and uphold in about ironically equal measure. Perhaps it’s in deference to the sanctity of whatever she’s holding dear right now that there are more outside narratives than before in this album — including a song referring to her grandfather storming the beaches in World War II — even as she goes outside for fresh collaborators and sounds, too. But what keeps you locked in, as always, is the notion of Swift as truth-teller, barred or unbarred, in a world of pop spin. She’s celebrating the masked era by taking hers off again.

Taylor Swift “Folklore” Republic Records

[heliosphoenix]

State of the Planet: 2020 Edition.

I know what you're thinking.

"How can you even think of doing one of these for this year? After everything that happened? You can't possibly be trying to do your little feel-good writeup!" 

Well...you're right. I can't. That's right, State of the Planet is cancelled.

I don't really have to explain why, do I? I have no words to describe this year and I know you don't want to hear them anyway. I understand your anger, your frustration, your sadness, everything you're feeling, I get it.

This wasn't the year you imagined and almost certainly not the one you wanted. Thanks for being there the entire way, and I'll see you next year.

Okay, I'm just kidding. I couldn't do that to you folks, I just wanted to get some more mileage out of a dead meme.

I first started this missive several years ago when I noticed that people were developing a tendency to condense the previous lap around the ol Sun into a series of terrible, horrible, no good very bad events at the expense of anything good that may have happened. I don't know why this was done, maybe as a ways to ensure that the coming year would have to be better by default.

Well...we all saw how that worked out for this year, didn't we?

As you all know I prefer to do things differently. I prefer to go out on a high note and remember all the good things that happened in the past year. If nothing else, I think it helps remind us that as much as we want to bemoan and be pessimistic about the state of our culture, society, civilization and even species, there's plenty of evidence to suggest we're not doing so bad after all.

And even thought it feels like this past year the world went out of its way to teach us some rather harsh lessons, I'm still determined to find something good that happened. So let's take a look back at some of the good things that happened in 2020:

A circumbinary planet was discovered at the TOI 1338 system.

Luxembourg became the first country to make it's public transportation free.

The Bhadla Solar Park became the largest solar park in the world.

The BepiColumbo space probe departed for Venus, en route to an arrival at Mercury in 2025.

A fast radio burst was detected from a Magnetar in the Milky Way, the first time such an event has been detected in the Galaxy.

A team of British and Kenyan scientists discovered a microbe that can block mosquitos from transmitting malaria.

A black hole was discovered in the QV Telescopii system, at 1120 light years away it is the closest known black hole to Earth.

A 425 million year old fossil of a millipede was discovered in Scotland, one of the oldest fossils ever found.

SpaceX launched their Dragon 2 spacecraft on its first crewed missions, the first astronauts to launch from US soil since 2011.

The Perseverance rover was launched to Mars and is expected to touch down in February.

The Barakah nuclear power plant in the UAE became the first operational nuclear power plant in the Arab states.

Wild polio was eradicated from the continent of Africa.

Skeletons of 31 prehistoric animals, including 200 mammoths, were found at a construction site in Mexico City, it was the largest finding of mammoth bones ever.

The 5.37 mile La Linea highway tunnel was opened in Colombia, it's the largest road tunnel in South America.

Kosovo, Serbia, Sudan and Bahrain all decided to normalize their relations with Israel.

Phosphine, a strong predictor of microbiological life, was discovered in the atmosphere of Venus.

Preserved remains of a cave bear were discovered in Siberia.

A 1634 edition of Shakespeare's final play, The Two Noble Kingsman, was discovered at the Royal Scots College's library in Spain.

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft landed on the asteroid Bennu and collected samples for return to Earth in 2023.

The Falkland Islands were declared free of land mines.

Molecular water was detected near Clavius crater on the Moon. 

An AI algorithm called AlphaFold was able to figure out the process of Protein Folding. 

The UN commission on Narcotic Drugs removed cannabis from its list of dangerous drugs.

The EU committed themselves to reducing greenhouse emissions by 55% over the next decade.

A Great Conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn occurred, the closest one seen in the night sky since 1226.

Comet NEOWISE passed by the Earth and was the brightest comet in the night sky since Hale-Bopp in 1997.

Among Us became one of the most popular games in the world.

Half Life: Alyx was released, the first Half Life game in 13 years (FINALLY).

Joe Biden was elected as the 46th President of the United States.

Remember all that? Good. Because that's where I'm at.

You, dear reader, are in the future. Perhaps you're reading this in the final hours of 2020, or the first hours of 2021. Or maybe so much time has passed that both those years are now confined to the history books.

Perhaps everything I listed above is not enough to overcome all the bad things that happened this year, and that's a fair assessment. Maybe at the end of the day there's nothing that can overshadow the fact that someone in China who ate the wrong bat resulted in the entire world coming to a stop. If that's your feeling, then I understand completely.

But let the record show that those things did happen. In a year full of chaos and uncertainty and anxiety and dread, there were still moments where we could objectively punch our fists in the air and say "yes!" Even if only for a moment.

So now comes the part where I have to take all the things that we just went through and sum it up in a single word. Usually I don't think about this until the day of, but this time I've actually known for months what I was going to say:

The word is...Goodbye.

It sounds both strange and appropriate at the same time, doesn't it? As we close out this year, as well as this decade (reminder that 2021 is the real start of the next decade) we can look back and realize we've had many experiences. Both positive and negative. Hopefully they were mostly positive, even during this year.

But there is at least one experience we've all shared together, especially in times like these: saying goodbye.

I will confess to you all that I have a hard time saying goodbye. Hell, I don't even like the word. Whenever I end a conversation, I always use some variant of "see you later", since, to me at least, "goodbye" just sounds so final. Though with that said, I will also admit there's some people in this world that I had no problem saying goodbye to, and I don't mean "till we meet again", I mean "get lost." And I'd be lying if I said there weren't some people who felt the same about me, but I digress.

In the last episode of his show, Red Green delivered a monologue about saying goodbye. A monologue that I am now shamelessly ripping off for your reading pleasure. Not just because it's a way to get this done quickly, but because I think what he said is very true.

Red says that when it comes to your good friends and your family, you never really have to say goodbye. Why? Because they're always in your mind. And whenever you think about them, you're together again. I can tell you from experience that works rather well, even when it involves people that I don't want to think about. But even in that instance, where our last interaction was a negative one, I can't help but think back to all the good times we had together, and for a moment I reminisce. It's nice when it happens.

We've all heard the phrase "nothing lasts forever" and we tend to dismiss it as a cliché. But we're still constantly confronted with that reality, even if we never realize it. As Al Pacino said in Any Given Sunday; "When you get old in life, things get taken from you. That's a part of life."  

We've all lost things in our lives, and I just don't mean toys that have been sold or people that we love who are no longer on this mortal coil. I'm referring to the moments in our lives where we're forced to accept that our circumstances have permanently changed, and that the way things were can no longer be the way things are. This is why you shouldn't be having kids when you're in your 70's, and no one over the age of 50 should be naked in public.

On a more personal note, this year I got that feeling once again. It's not just because I'm most likely leaving one job behind for another job, but there were things in my personal life that shifted so dramatically that I knew things could never be the same again. And seeing as how, for the most part, I liked how things were, I'd be lying if I said that this change didn't cause me some distress.

But that's all a part of growing up, isn't it? As much as I may cringe about reaching 30 years of life on this Earth, I accept it all the same. Because, if nothing else, it's a reminder that I need to keep moving forward. Is it sad that the good ol days are now just memories and dreams? You're damn right it is. But that doesn't have to be a bad thing, because even if they're not what's happening now, they still did happen. And who knows? Perhaps the days to come will be just as good, if not better. In my opinion, that's something to look forward to.

And the same is true for all of us: if we want to live a happy fulfilling life, we have to keep moving forward. We can reminisce about all the fun we've had in days gone by, but it's just as important to be ready for the days yet to come.

I think that's why New Year's is such a poignant holiday for all of us. It's a tacit acknowledgement that we have to say goodbye to the old, so we can say hello to the new.

And at the risk of making this entry so long that by the time you're finished it will be 2022, I'd like to do that now.

To all the people that have been with me since my early days, thanks so much for all that you've done. I appreciate you sticking it out with me this far and I hope you'll continue to do so for many years to come.

To all the people that I've met recently and have decided to join me on this ride, welcome aboard. We're glad you could make it and we hope you'll stay a while as well.

And finally, to all the people that are no longer here, whether they've merely left my social circle or left this mortal coil altogether, all I can say is that we've had a great run. Whatever our reasons for parting are irrelevant now and I wish you nothing but good fortune in whatever it is you decide to do. Perhaps, God willing, our paths will cross again some day. But even if they don't, I hope that every so often we'll think about each other and smile a bit.

And now I'd like to close with something different. Usually I ask you to comment below with something good that happened to you this year. You're more than welcome to do that. But if you're looking for a change of pace, may I suggest that you close out your 2020 (or open your 2021) by listening to this song from the great Ashleigh Ball and Michelle Creber (yes I know many of you are hoping to leave the Miniature Equines in the past, but I'm hoping you'll permit them one last indulgence).

https://youtu.be/XjkPH6sZM_o 

This is the song that inspired me to write this missive (along with the aforementioned Red Green) and as you're listening, I want you to think about all of those you said goodbye to this past decade. Think about all the fond memories you had together and give yourself a smile as the clock strikes midnight. Even if they're not with us today, we still have all the memories of them that no one can take from us, no matter what happens to the world.

And now the time has come for me to end this missive. Let the record show that this was my final word on 2020 as well as my expressed hope for charity, kindness and goodwill to flourish throughout the world in the years to come.

So, good night unto you all.

Give me your hands, if we be friends

.And 2021 shall restore amends.

[breckcarter]

When did gaming become so complicated? - Week 10

Everyone knows a serious gamer. If you don’t, chances are you are one yourself. Gaming used to be thought of as just owning a ‘Game Boy’, but has now extended into so many types and forms that it’s possible to call yourself a gamer while being completely unknowledgeable about particular groups of games. These groups form gaming communities, people who connect via specific types/genres/forms of games such as Animal Crossing on the Nintendo Switch or Call of Duty on PlayStation.

Getting involved with games doesn’t just extend to playing them either. The largest personal YouTube account, PewDiePie, has over 104 million subscribers who mostly watch videos of him playing video games (See: https://www.youtube.com/user/PewDiePie/videos). Twitch is a whole platform based off live streaming gamers and this year is estimated to have a net worth of $5 billion after being launched in 2011 (The Wealth Record, 2019). As shown below, live stream gaming is a significant part of the internet (Quartz 2020).

Equally, social gaming is fosters a large community in the gaming world. Initially set up as almost a placeholder for casinos, games such as Farmville on Facebook, Angry Birds and Candy Crush have since been based off this framework, notorious for getting players to pay money for benefits to the point that within two years the global social gaming market is expected to be worth about $25 billion (Social Gaming: It’s Bigger Than You Think, 2017).

The fact that gaming is now so serious, with money involved and all, means that governments must also involve themselves in the matter and can have lasting impacts on the physical world. An example of this is EVE. EVE Online is a space-themed massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) that has over half a million subscribers and encourages players to communicate with those in charge of the game and help develop it, bringing on a range of disputes and controversies in its history (Zwart & Humphreys 2014, pp. 77-78).

EVE was intentionally designed to be “lawless” making it problematic for people who go too far (Zwart & Humphreys 2014, p. 82). Cases such as the ‘Eve Investment Bank’ which created a scam banking structure that now owes approximately AU $126,000, shows how each games’ environmental and user “norms” are individual and it can be hard for governments and game managers to navigate the rules and laws to reach a solution (Suzor & Woodford 2013, p. 6).

The only times I ever played any type of video game was with my Nintendo DS. This largely involved me sitting in the back seat of my parents car playing Nintendogs, screaming my dog’s name in order for it to learn it. I’m sure it wouldn’t surprise you to hear that this side of gaming has come as a shock to me and I’m still struggling to wrap my head around it all. I apologise if the result of that is a sub-par Tumblr post. What I can say is that next time you consider gaming to be just an innocent, uncomplicated hobby, think again because the gaming world is one of many complexities.

References:

Quartz, ‘Worth Graph’, in Khalid, A 2020, YouTube is now the biggest threat to Twitch, Quartz, 29 January, viewed 16 April 2020, <https://qz.com/1792011/twitch-is-losing-users-to-youtube-and-other-live-stream-platforms/>.

Social Gaming: It’s Bigger Than You Think, 2017, The Drop, viewed 16 April 2020, <https://the-drop.com.au/social-gaming-its-bigger-than-you-think/>.

Suzor, N & Woodford, D 2013, ‘Evaluating Consent and Legitimacy amongst Shifting Community Norms: an EVE Online Case Study’, Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 1-14.

The Wealth Record, 2019, Twitch Net Worth, The Wealth Record, viewed 16 April 2020, <https://www.thewealthrecord.com/celebs-bio-wiki-salary-earnings-2019-2020-2021-2022-2023-2024-2025/other/twitch-net-worth/>.

Zwart, M.D & Humphreys, S 2014, ‘The Lawless Frontier of Deep Space: Code as Law in EVE Online’, Cultural Studies Review, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 77-99.

[gradiant-fantasy]

The 2nd round rookie receiver who will soar to dynasty super-stardom

Ahead of the 2021 season, to say that then-dynasty-darling, Saquon Barkley, who had an overall dynasty ADP of three (according to DLF mock drafts), would drop to 31, in just nine months, would have gotten you laughed out of a few Reddit threads. Conversely, you would have been #canceled on Twitter for suggesting that Ja'Marr Chase would rise from an ADP of 31* before last season, to the top overall ranked player in dynasty start up drafts in less than a full calendar year.

The shifting tides of dynasty values can be as aggressive as they are cruel (sorry Calvin Ridley managers), but that is not to say they are entirely unpredictable. If you were somehow able to foresee either of the aforementioned ADP swings, you could have leveraged those seismic deltas to get off of the Giants running back before he suffered a bitcoin-esque crash or acquire the Bengal's super-stud for a fair price, before his value peaked.

Another time we may dive into a few players who are at risk of dropping off the fantasy map as Barkley did, but for this article we are going to focus on the positives and try to identify a player who has a chance to shoot up dynasty startup draft boards before the start of next season.

Although Chase's climb was faster than many had predicted, he was an indomitable prospect being paired with a talented QB and one that he was familiar with after playing with Joe Burrow at LSU. All these signs pointed to a likely jump in ADP, even if the number one overall player was a step above what even the biggest fans could have predicted. To stake a bolder claim for this article, and one that will cost you a bit less in your dynasty leagues, I only considered players who are currently ranked outside of the top 24 at their position in startup dynasty ADP and identified a receiver who I think has a shot at being ranked amongst the top 12 WRs heading into the 2023 season.

George Pickens WR, PIT | Age: 21 | Current ADP: 43

For years, there had been a pervasive thought in fantasy football, and especially in dynasty circles, that first year wide receivers were unlikely to contribute to winning a championship. When studying an incoming class, it was common to hear "there's no Julio Jones or AJ Green in this crop of rookies," referring to the excellent duo of WRs taken in the top 6 picks in the 2011 draft. While there were outliers like Michael Thomas (2016), Mike Evans (2014), and Odell Beckham Jr (2014) who all posted impressive stat lines in their first year, this belief persisted until Justin Jefferson set the record for the best rookie WR season of all time in 2020 and his former LSU teammate, Ja'Marr Chase, bested it just one year later.

No longer do contending fantasy managers assume WRs cannot contribute to their championship chase in year one and as such, Treylon Burks (18), Garrett Wilson (21), and Drake London (23), all find themselves within the top 24 dynasty receivers, by ADP. For that reason, I had to look a little deeper in this rookie class to find this potential riser.

Enter George Pickens, someone who I predict will be the next great WR in a line of many great WRs that the Pittsburgh Steelers have drafted. Now, I don't expect Pickens will have the same supernova-esque season that Jefferson and Chase have had over the past two years, but with Pickens, we're playing for 2023. In 2022 the polarizing receiver has to deal with a rookie quarterback, serious target competition from Diontae Johnson, Chase Claypool, Pat Friermuth, and Najee Harris, and has the cloud of "off the field concerns" hanging over him. You can easily make the case that 8 or 9 other rookies should have better seasons than him this year, but that's exactly the type of player that we want to identify if there are reasons to believe his situation will improve and we can get ahead of the market correction.

So, if he's dealing with this murky situation in 2022, why should we be so high on George Pickens?

Pickens is an elite prospect. The former Georgia Bulldog is 6'3", weighs 200 pounds, profiles as a prototypical x-receiver, and had a college breakout age* of 18.5, which is in the 97th percentile. Athletically, Pickens best comparable pro is Jerry Jeudy of the Denver Broncos, who was a first round pick just two seasons ago. During his time at Georgia, Pickens compiled 1,300 yards and 14 touchdowns over three years. These numbers would be even more eye-popping had he not torn his ACL which forced him to miss nearly all the 2021 season. That ACL tear, coupled with the off the field concerns, could explain Pickens falling to pick 52 on day two of the NFL draft.

While there is always risk of a re-injury, in today's NFL, it is not foolish to be optimistic about his recovery and the likelihood of him to return to pre-injury form. As far as the troubled past or character concerns that seem to be cast about frequently when analysts are describing Pickens, I fail to take issue with what is being highlighted during his college career. The first incident was when Pickens was suspended for fighting Georgia Tech cornerback, Tre Swiling during a game, and the second dealt with the mercurial talent spraying Tennessee QB, Jarrett Guarantano with a water bottle when he was tackled along the Georgia sideline.

These antics are reminiscent of actions from players like Jalen Ramsey, Aquib Talib, Andre Johnson, and even AJ Green in recent years in the NFL. If Pickens can be as productive as any of those players, I think his lack of conflict avoidance can be overlooked in pursuit of production. And even if they do persist, what team over the past decade has handled difficult personalities better than the Steelers? If Pickens continues to be magnet for controversy, I have full confidence that Mike Tomlin, who handled the egos and eccentricities of Antonio Brown and Le'Veon Bell masterfully during their time in Pittsburgh, has more than enough structure in place to keep Pickens focused on the field.

So, if we feel comfortable that Pickens is an elite talent, as he proved to be in college, has an easy path to full health, and are comfortable with why he fell to day two and doesn't have the same draft capital as other elite receivers, all that stands in his way of skyrocketing up fantasy draft boards is opportunity and the talent of the QB who has to get him the ball.

Let's tackle opportunity first. While there are 163 targets available in Pittsburgh, in part due to the vaccuum of JuJu Smith-Schuster's absence, who departed for Kansas City this off season, Diontae Johnson still owns a 28.4% target share in this offense which is good enough for the 4th best such mark in the NFL. With Chase Claypool (18%), Pat Friermuth (13%), and Najee Harris (14.5%) all commanding heavy pass catching roles as well, there may not be much left for the rookie. But that is just for 2022. Diontae Johnson is set to become an unrestricted free agent in 2023 and with the explosion of FA WR deals, there is not guarantee that Pittsburgh is going to want to re-sign him at the level he is sure to receive when he hits the open market. Pittsburgh may have tipped their hand at this by drafting two WRs in Pickens and Calvin Austin III this year, but that could also have just been a way to replace the outgoing Smith-Schuster. But if you follow the money on this offense, you can learn how the Steelers view their offense. In an alarming and unsettling surprise, FB Derek Watt is actually the largest cap-hit on the Steelers offense at $4.75M. If Pittsburgh is intentionally keeping offensive salaries down, paying Diontae Johnson $80M+ over four years may not be high on their list of things to do.

So, if Diontae Johnson does leave in 2023 and the door opens for Picken's skyward ascension, only one small hurdle could trip him up on becoming the Steelers' WR1. One small, but tall and fast, hurdle named Chase Claypool. After a promising rookie season in Pittsburgh, the ND almost-turned-TE-but-not-really-WR, Claypool laid something of an egg in his second year, failing to capitalize on the momentum that he generated as a rookie. Despite starting 7 more games in 2021, Claypool recorded less catches, less yards, and less touchdowns than he did in 2020. This may have been caused by the linguini tendons in Ben Roethlisberger's elbow, but Claypool critics would be quick to point out that Big Ben's arm strength was somehow worse in 2020 than last year. Either way, if Pickens is as good as the Steelers expect, as a much more well-rounded and productive player in college, climbing past Claypool on the depth chart should not be much of an issue for Pickens.

If that path to massive opportunity does present itself for Pickens, the hardest remaining part of his projection, is what the quarterback that will be throwing him the ball in 2023 will look like. Unless he has one of the most catastrophic rookie seasons of all time, that player should be former Pitt Panther and the first QB off the board in this year's NFL draft, Kenny Pickett.

It is easy for us in the fantasy sphere to poke fun at Pickett because of his perceived lack of mobility (FWIW I think he has a little more juice than he gets credit for), his small hands, and the fact that he was the best of a bad group of QBs a year after we saw 5 potential franchise signal callers taken in the first round of the 2021 draft. But if you take a step back an assess who Pickett is as a player, you can see why the Steelers felt so confident in drafting him. In his final season at Pitt, Pickett accounted for 47 total touchdowns and committed just 13 turnovers and his EPA* was in the 94th percentile among drafted QBs over the past 17 years. While his lack of elite physical traits, limited production in college, and apparent inability to look past his first and second read will likely limit his ceiling, there is reason to believe that Pickett can go on to be an average, if not good NFL starter for at least the duration of his rookie contract.

If Kirk Cousins can do what he has done for Justin Jefferson over the past two years and Ryan Tannehill was able to support AJ Brown as the top dynasty WR this time last year, Kenny Pickett should absolutely not be the reason that you shy away from taking a shot on the supreme upside of George Pickens' talent and potential opportunity.  

* * *

*Remember the concerns we all had about his drops in the preseason and his inability to see and catch an NFL football?

*Breakout age is defined as the player's age at the start of the college football season when they first posted a Dominator Rating above 20%. Dominator rating is a calculation of the number of touchdowns and receiving yards a player is responsible for on his team.

*Expected Points Added is the difference between a team's expected points after a play versus their expected points before a play.

[junker-town]

MLB’s Astros punishment was extraordinary, and still not harsh enough

Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images

Let’s make sense of the fallout from the Astros cheating scandal.

Major League Baseball levied one of the most significant punishments in the history of the sport on the Houston Astros for cheating during their championship season in 2017. Executive Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch were suspended for the 2020 season, while the team was stripped of four draft picks and fined $5 million.

This Astros discipline somehow achieved the opposing feats of being unprecedented in scope yet also not punitive enough.

What hurts

The loss of draft picks is huge, and will probably do the most long-term damage of any of the penalties laid out by Major League Baseball. Given where the Astros will likely pick in the 2020 and 2021 drafts (late in the first round; this is still a very talented team coming off three consecutive 100-win years), using FanGraphs’ valuation tool has those picks — first- and second-rounders in the next two drafts — worth roughly $25-30 million in net present value.

Houston’s roster is filled with homegrown talent, including Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa, and George Springer, who were drafted very early in the first round back when the Astros were tanking on purpose. But later first-round picks, closer to where the Astros will probably pick in the next two drafts, were used to get Justin Verlander (Daz Cameron) and Zack Greinke (J.B. Bukauskas, Seth Beer) in trades. Losing those four picks not only removes four potential prospects, but also limits the total pool of bonus money the team is allowed to spend. This is a significant developmental loss.

Managers and general managers don’t grow on trees

Luhnow and Hinch took the biggest hits, as they were not only suspended without pay for a season by MLB on Monday but subsequently fired by Astros owner Jim Crane as well. Both signed contract extensions during the 2018 season, a year after the team won the World Series in seven games. Luhnow was signed through 2023, and Hinch through 2022. Now, they need to be replaced, after every other team has filled its vacancies in those two spots this offseason.

Hinch is only the third manager in the last 100 years to be suspended for at least one season, joining Leo Durocher (1947) and Pete Rose (1989), per Jayson Stark.

For the Braves’ international and amateur scouting transgressions in 2017, general manager John Coppolella was banned for life and the team lost one first-round draft pick and saw their spending limited in two international signing periods. The combination and volume of draft pick loss plus the suspension of not only the Astros GM and manager make Houston’s punishment the most severe in baseball since the Black Sox scandal in 1919.

Hinch was found by MLB to not have participated in the trash-can-banging scheme in 2017 nor the Astros’ usage of the video replay room to relay signals to the dugout in 2018. Hinch, per MLB, even went so far as to “signal his disapproval of the scheme by physically damaging the monitor on two occasions, necessitating its replacement.” But his culpability came in knowing about both plans and doing nothing to stop it.

In addition to the integrity-damaging proof through this investigation that the Astros cheated during the postseason that ended with their championship, the timing of this is key. During the 2017 season, the Yankees complained to the commissioner’s office that the Red Sox were illegally using electronic equipment to relay signs from their video replay room to the dugout. The league released a memo on Sept. 15 that year confirming the Red Sox violation, which came with an undisclosed fine, and the warning that “all 30 Clubs have been notified that future violations of this type will be subject to more serious sanctions, including the possible loss of draft picks.”

The Astros, who by this point already implemented their own sign-stealing scheme against baseball’s rules, continued to use the system in the playoffs. It was a direct violation after MLB already warned that they would turn this car around right now if any of you kids keep this up.

Luhnow was not implicated in the sign-stealing scheme, but was found through MLB’s investigation to have knowledge of it, and his failure to try to stop it was his undoing. Commissioner Rob Manfred also made note of Luhnow’s “problematic” baseball operations department:

But while no one can dispute that Luhnow’s baseball operations department is an industry leader in its analytics, it is very clear to me that the culture of the baseball operations department, manifesting itself in the way its employees are treated, its relations with other Clubs, and its relations with the media and external stakeholders, has been very problematic. At least in my view, the baseball operations department’s insular culture – one that valued and rewarded results over other considerations, combined with a staff of individuals who often lacked direction or sufficient oversight, led, at least in part, to the Brandon Taubman incident, the Club’s admittedly inappropriate and inaccurate response to that incident, and finally, to an environment that allowed the conduct described in this report to have occurred.

Taubman, an assistant general manager under Luhnow, aggressively taunted a group of female reporters in the Astros clubhouse regarding closer Roberto Osuna — who was acquired as a distressed asset by Houston in 2018 while he served a 75-game suspension for violating the league’s domestic violence policy — all while celebrating the club’s ALCS win over the Yankees in October 2019.

The Astros bungled the response to the incident, including accusing Sports Illustrated reporter Stephanie Apstein of fabricating the story. An apology from Luhnow didn’t come until five days later, and on Monday he continued that trend with a statement bereft of remorse.

Here is Jeff Luhnow's full statement, his first response to today's news. pic.twitter.com/9AbDFEtkbP

— Jared Diamond (@jareddiamond) January 13, 2020

Luhnow’s statement began with “I accept responsibility,” then proceeded to list the ways in which he was not responsible. He was sure to note the video decoding of signs “was executed by lower-level employees working with the bench coach,” which brings us to who could perhaps face the biggest penalty of all.

Alex Cora was the bench coach for the Astros in 2017, and was found through MLB’s investigation to have arranged a video monitor just outside the Astros dugout, showing the center field camera feed. The explanation further notes the Astros’ sign-stealing scheme was player-driven, with Cora the only member of the coaching staff involved in the plan (along with some team employees in the video room).

“Cora participated in both schemes, and through his active participation, implicitly condoned the players’ conduct,” Manfred wrote.

As if the direct culpability in the Astros’ schemes weren’t enough, Cora is also the subject of MLB’s current investigation into whether the 2018 Red Sox engaged in impermissible electronic sign stealing. Cora won the World Series as Boston’s manager that year.

MLB hasn’t yet determined Cora’s penalty, with an investigation ongoing, but he figures to get punished at least as much as Hinch and Luhnow just for his Astros’ involvement alone. Cora is signed with the Red Sox through 2021, with a club option for 2022.

What about the players?

You might be wondering if what the Astros did was against baseball rules, and if their sign-stealing scheme was player driven, why weren’t any players suspended or even fined for their transgressions?

Manfred for one correctly noted that it’s the responsibility of the general manager and field manager to make sure players know and follow the rules, and that’s why Luhnow and Hinch took the fall. Also, though unsaid, suspending players would be met with pushback from the players union, and with a looming labor battle and a collective bargaining agreement that expires after the 2021 season that’s probably an extra fight MLB wants little part of.

It’s also a logistical nightmare.

“It is difficult because virtually all of the Astros’ players had some involvement or knowledge of the scheme, and I am not in a position based on the investigative record to determine with any degree of certainty every player who should be held accountable, or their relative degree of culpability,” Manfred wrote. “It is impractical given the large number of players involved, and the fact that many of those players now play for other Clubs.”

Keep in mind that this was a thorough investigation, in which 68 people were interviewed and “tens of thousands of emails, Slack communications, text messages, video clips, and photographs” were reviewed. 23 of those interviewed were current or former Astros players. It’s unclear if any sort of immunity was promised by MLB to get these players to talk, but that so many cooperated certainly helped the investigation.

Everything is fine

The final Astros punishment was a fine of $5 million, which is the largest allowed by the Major League constitution. It’s also a drop in the bucket for a franchise valued (by Forbes) at $1.775 billion in 2019, a 161-percent increase from Crane’s $680 million purchase price in 2011.

Even if the fine was $50 million, the Astros made much more than that by virtue of their three extended postseason runs the last three years (they also made the World Series in 2019, but won none of their four home games).

There is no going back in time and stripping the Astros of their World Series title. The games happened, the memories exist, and changing the past doesn’t really do anything. The best MLB can hope for is to prevent this type of scandal from happening again, and the way to do that is to make an owner piss their pants when they see a cost that is actually prohibitive.

Because if the cost for electronically stealing signs is $5 million, four draft picks, and one-year suspensions of the manager and general manager, I’m not sure that’s steep enough to outweigh all the benefits that come with winning a World Series.

[lovemesomesurveys]

5,000 Question Survey--Part twenty-two

Uh... so I found this in my drafts. Apparently, I went from part twenty-one to twenty-three, skipping right over this one. So... here it is. Out of order. I’m leaving what I had answered already, so the answers aren’t current until 2053. Not that it matters, but yeah.

2001. Can you believe that we have only gotten through two fifths of this survey so far? I’d probs be further along, but it’s taken me awhile. I forgot about it for a bit.

2002. What is your opinion of Dave Coulier? I don’t really have much of an opinion on him. I know him from Full House, but that’s it. Oh, and that he dated Alanis Morrisette, which her song, “Oughta Know” is about. 2003. If you were to a write a Choose Your Own Adventure book, what would it be about? I used to love those books as a kid! They were fun. I don’t know, what kind I would write. Probably a mystery one like the ones I used to read. 2004. What was your best find from a flea market, garage sale, ebay or thrift store? I haven’t gotten anything from any of those things/places.  2005. What do you not have enough money for right now? Anything. I’m broke at the moment.

2006. Do you believe that Teras for Fears were right when they said, "Everybody wants to rule the world?" Nah. I know I don’t want to rule the world.  2007. What is the design on your beach towel? I don’t have a beach towel.  2008. What stirs something deep and animalistic inside you? Uhh. I don’t know. 2009. Have you ever cross dressed (even as a joke)? Nope.

2010. Do you own anything with a rainbow on it? I don’t. 2011. What would be the worst object for a child to take on a long car ride with you? Anything that made a lot of annoying noises. Or played something repeatedly.  2012. What's the Best Beatles song in your opinion? I don’t have a favorite. I like a few, but that’s it. 2013. Why do you suppose that diary sites are more popular with females than males? I don’t know? 2014. What do these color combinations remind you of: orange and pink: Sherbet. pink and green: A pink flower. green and gold: Money.  purple and gold: I don’t know. gold and red: San Francisco 49ers. red and white: Candy canes. blue and grey: Not sure. 2015. What is one selfish thing you tend to do? I’ve been kind of selfish this past year dealing with my health stuff. Chronic illness can be very isolating. I’ve pushed people away. I’ve holed up at home. I haven’t been there for my friends. It hasn’t been good.  2016. When do you think technology will catch up with the Jetson's? I don’t know, man. It’s funny to think that people thought it would be that way by the year 2000. We’re a digital age for sure, but there’s still no flying cars. Though, I don’t even know how that work to be honest. Can you imagine all those cars in the sky? Everyone would have to take flying lessons. Learn the routes. It would be expensive as hell. Craaaazy. 2017. What made you laugh today? My brother. 2018. Do you ever stick your entries in any of the diary circles? I don’t use LiveJournal. 2019. Can you freestyle rap? Haha no.

2020. Are you: stylish? I don’t know. I wear what I like, so since I like it that means I think it looks cute/nice. I follow some trends, but not because it’s “in.” If I like it, I’ll wear it. There’s a lot of fashion trends that I’m like, ...no. 

shiek? Is this supposed to be chic? If so, isn’t that the same as stylish? smart? Meh. I guess. I mean, we all are in different ways. I always think of the Einstein quote that basically says don’t judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree. That’s not it’s area or its skill. But put it in its environment, and it knows what to do.  2021. Do you find you self only buying brand name products? Not always. With some things, yes. 2022. Would you ever want to buy an article of clothing or an acessory because you saw a celebrity wear it? If I saw it, and liked it. Not just because that celebrity wore it. Like I said, I wear what I like, not just what is “in.” 2023. What song do you feel the sexiest dancing to? I don’t feel sexy. 

2024. Who do you know who looks silly when they dance? Me. 2025. Sweaty sex or clean sex? Virgin. 2026. Which is more important to you: being kind or being right? Being kind. 2027. Can you do any special dances like swing, tap, or ballroom? Nope. 2028. Are you scared of monsters? No.  2029. Who would you like to remind people of? I don’t know. No one? 2030. Do you walk to school or do you bring your lunch? I’m no longer in school. 2031. Rate your skills from one to ten (10 = you are the best at it): socializing: making friends: working with computers: arts: crafts: dancing: skating: talking other people into things: writing: living life to the fullest each day: cooking: gardening: cleaning up after yourself: playing poker: surviving in the woods: managing your time: attracting the opposite sex (or same sex if you prefer)? 2032. Have you ever been to an indian reservation? No. 2033. What is going to happen tommorrow that you can celebrate, even if it's a little thing? I don’t have anything going on. 2034. Do you save things for special occassions or is everyday a special occassion? I certainly don’t feel like everyday is a special occasion.  2035. What is one thing you are terrible at: Just one thing? 2036. What's your favorite: rap song: country song: industrial song: cover song: punk song: odd song: 2037. What do you get your teacher or your boss for the holidays? I only got a few teachers something for the holidays, it wasn’t something I did every year. I probably did it more often in elementary school. It would be something a box of candy. 2038. Do you like to read books by Virgina Wolfe? I’m not familiar with that author.  2039. What is your favorite tv show from when you were a kid? When I was like 4 I was obsessed with Barney. Like obsessed. I’d be upset if I had to miss an episode, so my mom would record them lol. I’d re-watch episodes, and I was always singing the songs. I’m sure I was rather annoying. 2040. What is now proved was once only imagined. - William Blake. What do you imagine? I don’t know. 2041. What has been passed down through at least two generations to you? Like a physical item? Nothing. As for something genetic, there’s some health stuff. 2042. Do we live in a particularly bad age for romance? No? 2043. Have you ever cheated on someone? No. Do you believe that once someone is a cheater they can never be trusted? Not necessarily. But it would take a lot of work getting that trust back. 2044. Have you ever gone: christmas caroling? Yes. pumpkin picking? Yes. on a hay wagon ride? Yes. on a romantic valentine's day date? No. to a new year's eve party? Yes. to a memorial day parade? No. to the Macy's thanksgiving day parade? Nope. to search for gold coins on st patrick's day? Nope. 2045. Have you ever done any modeling? Ha, no. 2046. Would you consider yourself to be psychologically damaged? I got some issues.  2047. How aware are you of the reasons behind your actions and words? I don’t know how aware I am? Like I don’t know how to rate that. 2048. What is the sickest you ever drank or drugged yourself? I’ve gotten pretty sick from drinking. Not fun. 2049. Would you prefer it if clothing was optional? No. 2050. What is one interesting fact about you: I’m obsessed with giraffes. I don’t know if that’s interesting, but that’s what I got.

2051. Are more people depressed because they are alone, or are more people alone because they are depressed? It’s like a loop for some people.  2052. Have you ever gotten a mug, t-shirt, key chain, etc. that was personalized with your picture? Nope. 2053. What was the last thing that you experienced for the first time? Golden Double Stuffed Oreos dipped in coffee. I’ve talked about this a few times, but it’s SO good. 2054. If you were going to die tomorrow and you were leaving a postcard for someone to read after you were gone what would it say? I really don’t know. 2055. If you were about to be executed what would your last request be? I wouldn’t be concerned with that. I’d be scared about the fact I was being executed. 2056. What kinds of people do you find intimidating? The intimidating kind. 2057. How much conviction do you have in your feelings and beliefs? I don’t know how to put an amount on that. I truly believe what I believe and feel what I feel? Maybe my feelings aren’t always justified, or maybe they’re exaggerated, but I still feel them wholeheartedly. 2058. In your house where is the: crazy glue? We don’t have any. flashlight? My dad has big, bright one he keeps in his closet. 2059. Out of everyone you know who has the most personality? Hmm. My younger brother or my mom. 2060. If you could go back in time to experince a musical movement or era, which one would you choose to live through? I’m not sure. 2061. Do you suffocate people with your love? No, I don’t think so. 2062. Do you feel your life is charmed? No. 2063. What character do you identify the most with from Winnie the Pooh? Pooh Bear because he’s always hungry and thinking about honey, which same but instead of honey I’m always thinking about food and the next meal. I’m also like Piglet because I’m anxious and scared of everything. 2064. When do you do your best thinking? In the shower or while lying out on the beach. 2065. What motivates you? Nothing. :/ 2066. Look back at all the people you've dated. Has there been a pattern? There’s only been two, so. I can’t really make any patterns out of that. 2067. Things change but what will always remain the same for you? My love for my family. And to be a downer, I’ll always have my health issues. 2068. Is divorce something you would ever consider or do you feel that marriage is permanantly binding? If I ever got married, and things just weren’t working out after we tried working on our marriage and used the resources and help available to us, then divorce would be the next step. I believe in trying to work things out first, if possible. Unless it’s an extreme case and abuse is involved.  2069. What's the strangest movie you ever saw? Hmm. There’s been a few. A Clockwork Orange came to mind first. 2070. If you could go into virtual reality and set up your life there to be perfect and it would seem real but not be real would you trade your life now for the virtual life? I’d sure like to try it out at least. 2071. Does it seem like life is more difficult for you than for anyone else? We all have our struggles. Sometimes it might seem like other people have it all figured out and don’t have many problems, but truth is you just never really know what someone is going through. I guess; though, because we are the ones experiencing our life and the difficulties we face, it may seem more difficult in comparison sometimes just cause it’s your reality. That’s why I don’t like when people say you shouldn’t be upset because others have it worse. It doesn’t make what I’m experiencing any less or any better. It’s very real for me. 2072. What are you grateful for? My family first and foremost, a roof over my head, clothes to wear, and food to eat. 2073. What was a choice that you didn't want to make but you had to? Health related things. 2074. Have you ever had dental surgery? Yes. 2075. At what point exactly are you grown up? I don’t think there’s a certain point that everyone is automatically a grown up. Legally, you’re an adult by a certain age, but being “grown up” is different. 2076. If there was a weightloss procedure that would destroy your ability to taste food so you wouldn't be tempted by junk food, would you have it done? No. I don’t need a weight loss procedure. 2077. What is one thing that happened that you never expected? Again, some health related things. That’s the focus of my life if you haven’t noticed. It’s really the center of everything. 2078. If you called one of your friends and they said "It's nothing personal but I don't want to talk to anyone right now," would you take it personally? I would try and understand because that’s how I’ve been feeling. For quite awhile, actually. And yet, I probably would be bothered by it slightly. Ridiculous, I know. I definitely shouldn’t. 2079. What is your favorite girl's name? I don’t really have a favorite girl’s name. 2080. Do you ever feel guilty for being more fortunate then others? I feel fortunate, grateful, and appreciative. That’s why I try not to take things for granted. I feel sad others aren’t so fortunate, and I wish that wasn’t the case. It doesn’t make me a bad person or should feel guilty about because I am, though. 2081. If you had to wear a shirt with one word on it for a year, what word would you choose? Coffee. 2082. What is evian spelled backwards? Naive. Ha. 2083. You drop 10 pounds of feathers and a ten pound bowling ball off the top of the same building. Which will hit the ground first? Isn’t it the feathers? If I recall correctly. 2084. Even though you may never get what you want, are you happy because you're trying? I’m not happy. :/ I don’t give myself a lot of credit. I feel like I could be doing more than what I am. 2085. If you started a petition what would it be about? I have no idea. 2086. When was the last time you asked someone to do something and they said no? Hmm... not sure. 2087. Do bad things happen to you on friday the 13th? Something bad might happen, but not because it’s Friday the 13th. Bad things happen other days, too. So, I wouldn’t say any more so. 2088. What's your favorite: Madonna song? John Lennon song? Michael Jackson song? Doors song? Rolling Stones song? David Bowie song? Elvis song? 2089. If you had started a relationship with someone and they said that it would be best if no one knew about it just to see how it goes, would you be offended? Absolutely. I wouldn’t be okay with that. 2090. Do you know any self defence? I’d be kind of screwed. How about CPR? Nope. 2091. If you had to look into a mirror and see your naked soul stripped of all delusions and pretenses (Never ending Story style)could you handle it? Uhhh. 2092. Are you a genius? Haha nooo. Not even close. I’m very much average. 2093. How did you find out that Santa Clause wasn't real? I think I saw the presents were already put out or something like that. 2094. Which is your favorite tarot card? I don’t have one. I don’t believe in that. 2095. Does the internet seperate people or connect them? It can do both. 2096. Have you ever written a letter to a soldier? No. 2097. Does pain and fear make you feel alive? No. 2098. Are you: good looking? I don’t think I am. thin? Yes. happy? No.

successful? No. confident? Noo. 2099. Are you deciseive or wishy washy? I’m very indecisive. 2100. Do you feel pop stars should be morally responsible to set a good example for their fans? That’s not their responsibility, no. If they want to be, great, but it’s not their job.

[gokul2181]

Looking forward to playing under leadership of Virat Kohli, says Aaron Finch | Cricket News

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Looking forward to playing under leadership of Virat Kohli, says Aaron Finch | Cricket News

NEW DELHI: “I know how competitive and driven he is,” said Australia’s limited-overs skipper Aaron Finch while talking about the prospect of playing under the leadership of Virat Kohli for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020. The IPL 2020 will be played in the UAE from September 19-November 10 and the tournament will run for 53 days. In the players’ auction which was conducted in December 2019, RCB managed to bag key players like Finch, Chris Morris, Dale Steyn, Joshua Philippe, and Isuru Udana. Addition of Finch into the side will now bolster RCB’s batting which already comprises of Kohli and AB de Villiers. In an interaction with ANI, Finch talked about playing alongside Kohli, the role of Justin Langer on his leadership, and what makes Kohli and Steve Smith stand out as leading batsmen in the world currently. “I can’t wait to join up with RCB. To get the opportunity to play for a franchise that has some of the greatest players in the world is going to be fun. It would have been amazing to play in front of the home crowd at Chinnaswamy but representing the franchise in UAE will still mean a huge amount to me,” Finch told ANI. “It will be my first time playing under Virat’s leadership but something I’m very excited about. Having played against him for a number of years now in international cricket and IPL I know how driven and competitive he is, that something I’m looking forward to seeing up close,” added the Australian ODI and T20I skipper. When asked whether Finch’s leadership skills will come in handy for the franchise, he replied: “I hope that my experience will come in handy, being able to help out anyone I can during the IPL. If that means I can help take some pressure off Virat then I will do everything I have to.” Finch has played 5 Tests, 126 ODIs, and 61 T20Is for Australia, and over the past few years, the right-handed batsman has become one of the most fierce opening batters around the world. His ability to strike big shots is the one thing that most teams dread about. Finch also has the record of registering the highest individual score in T20I cricket as he played a knock of 172 against Zimbabwe in 2018. However, the limited-overs skipper has not managed to cement his place in the Test line-up, and when asked about returning to the longest format of the game, Finch said: “I would love to get an opportunity to play Test cricket again, but realistically I think it will be very tough to force my way back into the team. Not having the opportunity to play as much first-class cricket as I would like to put the required runs on the board makes it a bit harder.” The right-handed batsman also explained the reason for Kohli and Smith being rated as probably the two best batsmen in the world currently. He also gave his take as to why the India-Australia series is now considered to be a “marquee” event in world cricket. “As for the best batsman in the world, you could throw a blanket over a handful of players over 3 formats. The consistency of Steve Smith and Virat Kohli in Test cricket both home and away over a long period of time probably makes them stand out from the rest,” Finch said. “The passion of Australian and Indian fans, along with an amazing history of close and competitive series makes it a marquee series. The pressures, the expectations, and the rivalry make it a brilliant series to be a part of,” he added. The T20 World Cup was slated to be played in Australia this year, but it has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Now, in three years (2021-2023), three World Cups will be played (T20 World Cup 2021, T20 World Cup 2022, and 50-over World Cup 2023) and Finch said he is looking forward to his side being really competitive in all those tournaments. “World Cups are obviously the pinnacle of the white ball game and T20 is a format that we probably haven’t played our best cricket in the past. Having played a lot more of this format over the last couple of years as a team, we have seen some great improvement and it is really exciting. We feel as though our game plan can stand up to the pressure of a World Cup, then it just comes down to executing your skills on the day,” Finch said. Australian cricket was in a bit of turmoil in 2018 as the trio of Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft were banned for one year for their involvement in the ball-tampering scandal against South Africa in Cape Town. After that incident, Justin Langer took over as the coach of the side and Australia has now returned to its old winning ways. Australia is now the number one ranked side in the Test and T20I format, while the Finch-led lineup is at the fifth place in the ODI rankings. Talking about the effect of Langer, Finch said: “Justin has been great, not just for my batting but also my leadership and life. Like all coach/player relationships we are always talking about small things that we can look at to improve my game.” “When you are constantly going from series to series there isn’t always a lot of time to make big technical changes, a lot of the time it’s just a mental shift that can help you more than anything,” he added. Before the IPL starts, Australia is expected to tour England for a limited-overs series, comprising of three ODIs and as many T20Is. The side was last seen in action in March this year as they played one ODI against New Zealand in Sydney. After the first match, the remaining two ODIs were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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[componentplanet]

We’ve Never Seen Intel Struggle Like This

The Robert N. Boyce Building in Santa Clara, California, is the world headquarters for Intel Corporation. This photo is from Jan. 23, 2019. (Credit: Walden Kirsch/Intel Corporation)

Last week, Intel announced that it would delay its 7nm process node at least six months. According to company CEO Bob Swan, the node is at least 12 months behind Intel’s internal roadmaps. In the short term, that means product delays and probably some refreshed 10nm hardware in place of new 7nm equipment. In the long term, the potential outcomes range from “Intel regains process leadership” to “Intel becomes a fabless company.” Not much pressure there.

Intel’s current situation is historically unprecedented for the giant CPU manufacturer. While Intel shipped 10nm commercial laptop silicon in volume beginning ~12 months ago, the company has yet to transition its desktops or servers to the new node. Production volumes of Ice Lake servers are expected to start shipping at the end of 2020, with the first desktop 10nm CPUs scheduled for H2 2021. It took Intel about five years to move from 14nm Broadwell to Ice Lake (mobile), 5-5.5 years for Xeon depending on which models launch first, and six years for desktop. Rocket Lake may deliver a new architecture on 14nm, but Alder Lake will be the first new node.

While Intel’s 14nm transition woes have occupied a majority of column inches, they aren’t the only headwinds the company is currently facing. Two years ago, I wrote a story titled “Intel is at a Crossroads,” discussing both the company’s manufacturing problems and the bets it was making in fields like AI and 5G. Two years later, some of those bets have either failed or have yet to pay off.

Intel’s 5G business became much narrower after the company sold its modem IP to Apple. Intel’s upcoming Movidius platform, Keem Bay, which reportedly offers much higher efficiencies than competing parts from Nvidia, allegedly integrates a Cortex-A53 CPU rather than an Intel x86 part. In January, Intel announced it was ending its investment into Nervana and moving its product plans to IP created by rival Habana Labs.

Ponte Vecchio, which was supposed to be Intel’s first 7nm chip and set to debut in early 2021, has been pushed to late 2021/early 2022. Immediately after notifying investors that Ponte Vecchio had slipped, CEO Bob Swan stated: “We now expect to see initial production shipments of our first Intel-based 7-nanometer product, a client CPU in late 2022 or early 2023.” The implication here is that Ponte Vecchio is either no longer being built on 7nm, or that the GPU core is no longer being built at Intel. During Intel’s conference call, multiple investors picked up on the fact that the company referred to 7nm as being 12 months behind internally but facing only six months’ worth of delay, and sources we spoke to with some knowledge of Intel’s roadmaps echoed those uncertainties. There is not a great deal of confidence in the industry about Intel’s ability to hit these new dates — not given the tremendous problems the company has encountered to-date.

Intel’s PSG (Programmable Solutions Group), which contains its Altera FPGA business, continues to bump along at ~$500M per quarter — not chump change, but well behind Xilinx. The entire concept of CPU + FPGA on the same piece of silicon seems to have taken a backseat to other advances. Intel launched a Xeon with an integrated FPGA with the Xeon Gold 6138P back in 2018 but has not updated the SKU since.

Optane may have long-term potential as a memory technology and 2nd generation should be faster than first, but existing software often has to be rewritten to take advantage of Optane’s characteristics and it’s still at a disadvantage to NAND in terms of cost. Foveros and Intel’s Omni-Directional Interconnect could be foundational breakthroughs for future technologies, but even the best interconnect needs solid components to attach to. Jim Keller’s decision to leave for “personal reasons” doesn’t really pass the sniff test.

What Intel Risks

Intel has a remarkable habit of making tons of money when it’s in trouble, technologically speaking. Prescott was both the worst CPU Intel ever shipped and a revenue record-breaker when it was new, and Intel’s overall data center and CPU sales have been doing very well the past few quarters. Part of that boost is from COVID-19, but the company was enjoying robust demand even before the pandemic hit. Those of you hoping that 2023 will dawn on a broken Intel, begging for financial relief from the likes of AMD or TSMC had best temper those expectations. Intel will continue to do well for a number of reasons, including continued excellence in specific markets/workloads, familiarity, inertia, multi-year purchase agreements, and being the platform of choice for a lot of software in circumstances where customers buy what their applications officially support, Intel is going to continue to hold on to large segments of workstation, desktop, and server markets.

If this was 2012, the article might end right there. With no ARM or x86 competitors on the horizon, Intel could ride out the next 3-5 years, fix its process nodes and its CPUs, and get back in the saddle without ever facing a serious competitor. But this isn’t 2012, and Intel is facing threats across the spectrum. Its rival x86 manufacturer, AMD, is making a serious play for overall market leadership. At the same time, Intel faces not just one ARM-based competitor, but a number of them: Qualcomm and Apple in laptops and Amazon, Ampere, Nuvia, and all other Neoverse-based products in servers. All we need at this point is for Western Digital to announce a new RISC V-based high-performance processor.

It’s not the near-term risks in 2021 – 2022 that should be keeping Intel investors up at night. It’s the question of how this situation evolves in 2024, 2025, and beyond. At this point, there is little reason to believe that Intel is going to have 7nm ready to ship six months after its original target. Backporting 10nm features into Rocket Lake’s 14nm will buy Intel some time, but the company obviously can’t keep designing chips for the same node forever.

All of these delays are virtually certain to pile into each other, because there are some critical technology introduction windows that have to happen at node transition boundaries. EUV has to go in. Once installed, continuing to scale downwards will require either high-NA EUV devices or the adoption of multi-patterning. Either way, these aren’t fire-and-forget technologies for Intel — they’re technologies that have to be installed and then scale downwards while improving yield as well.

It’d be stupid to count Intel out altogether, given the company’s history and long track record of proven performance — but it’d be just as stupid to pretend everything is going well at the silicon giant. I stand by my estimates from last week — Intel has 2-3 years to demonstrate a fundamental turnaround, or investors are going to start raising serious questions about its future as an IDM.

Now Read:

Intel Announces 7nm Delays, May Use External Foundries For Future CPUs

x86 Beware: Nvidia May Be Eyeing an ARM Takeover From Soft Bank

AMD Ryzen 4000G Desktop Chips Could Finally Deliver on the Promise of APUs

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/computing/313208-weve-never-seen-intel-struggle-like-this from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/07/weve-never-seen-intel-struggle-like-this.html

[womenofcolor15]

SHEESH! Super Bowl Champ QB Patrick Mahomes Broke The Internet With His New Half Billion NFL Contract

Oh, he's RICH rich.  Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes just signed the BIGGEST contract in pro sports history. Deets on his 10-year, $503 million contract extension inside….

THIS. IS. HUGE.

2020 has been a sh*tshow thus far. However, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes has something to celebrate.

The Super Bowl winning quarterback – the youngest QB to be named Super Bowl MVP - just signed the BIGGEST contract in pro sports history. According to ESPN, Patrick and the Chiefs reached an agreement on a 10-year contract extension worth $450 million and could be worth up to $503 million! ESPN’s Adam Schefter said the deal includes a $140 million injury guarantee, as well as a no-trade clause.

        View this post on Instagram

                  The richest valued contract in sports history

A post shared by ESPN (@espn) on Jul 6, 2020 at 4:25pm PDT

Not only that, there’s a clause that gives Patrick the ability to have outs if certain “guaranteed mechanisms” aren’t exercised.

After signing the historic deal, Patrick took to Twitter following the announcement:

Here to stay. . .! pic.twitter.com/mfwMga3Kl0

— Patrick Mahomes II (@PatrickMahomes) July 6, 2020

The 24-year-old NFLer will reportedly receive $83 million+ in signing bonuses from 2021 to 2023 ($21.7 million in 2021, $27.4 million in 2022, and $34 million+ in 2023). The first three years are guaranteed.

The Chiefs organization added $25 million in incentives over 10 years for Patrick. The NFL star will receive a $1.25 million incentive for winning the AFC Championship Game and a $1.25 million incentive for winning NFL MVP. You'll recall, Patrick led the Chiefs to victory over the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LIV where he became the youngest QB in NFL history to win the MVP and a Super Bowl before turning 25. He doesn't turn 25 until September 17th.

Football fans have been cutting up on Twitter over the contract extension, poking fun that Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott will try to negotiate a mega contract extension like Patrick's:

Dak Prescott to Jerry Jones after seeing Patrick Mahomes’ record breaking contract extension: pic.twitter.com/LjL8vUqfXg

— (@MecoleMVP) July 6, 2020

“Patrick Mahomes has signed a 10 year contract extension with the Kansas City Chiefs”

Dak Prescott: pic.twitter.com/tENu0WLPOf

— (@DakZekeCooper) July 6, 2020

*mahomes signs 10 yr./ $400 million contract*

*Dak Prescott walking into the office tomorrow to talk to Jerry Jones* pic.twitter.com/ZJtUmbyc1s

— AJ (@AjRubio3) July 6, 2020

Dak Prescott ignoring talent & stats on his way to complain to his agent about Patrick Maholmes’ new contract pic.twitter.com/dylGit0tkJ

— Allen Stiles (@The_StilesFiles) July 6, 2020

Jerry Jones when Dak Prescott thinks about mentioning Patrick Mahomes’ contract in their next negotiation meeting: pic.twitter.com/T10N0ksn4M

— Bleacher Fan Sports (@Bleacher_Fan) July 6, 2020

Patrick Mahomes after getting his contract and seeing Dak Prescott pic.twitter.com/bsJBZU6zP7

— Lakers (49-14) (@thatkid856) July 6, 2020

Dak Prescott right now after seeing Mahomes get his new contract: pic.twitter.com/N6rpARhDWy

— Jay WRLD (@CaffeinatedJay) July 6, 2020

The Internet is still undefeated.

Patrick Mahomes even cracked jokes about his contract extension on social media:

Had to make a quick trip I’ll be back tomorrow https://t.co/mllfzNXdXj

— Patrick Mahomes II (@PatrickMahomes) July 6, 2020

HA!

Patrick's new contract was so huge, Lakers baller LeBron James even asked to borrow money:

  Bron asked for a piece of Mahomes' bag pic.twitter.com/l9NzLKgFeO

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) July 7, 2020

  *dead*

Other athletes joined in on the contract extension fun:

  Lol i got you Man! I know you going to be able to get me back here soon https://t.co/xS7suwKz9A

— Patrick Mahomes II (@PatrickMahomes) July 7, 2020

  Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young promised to put his tab on Patrick's bill the next time they go out together.

Keep running! https://t.co/91bZPRU6OJ

— Patrick Mahomes II (@PatrickMahomes) July 7, 2020

What's understood doesn't need to be explained. #Ferrari @PatrickMahomes pic.twitter.com/bK4QflAop0

— Jamal Adams (@Prez) July 6, 2020

Congrats bro! Gonna have to celebrate on the course soon @PatrickMahomes

— Brooks Koepka (@BKoepka) July 7, 2020

The Young man deserve it all. One of the best I’ve been around. One of the Greats. #15 #RunItBack

— Tyrann Mathieu (@Mathieu_Era) July 6, 2020

We always talk about how NFL players aren't respected enough contrat-wise for how much they put their bodies through for sports entertainment.  It looks like things are changing and it will possibly trickle down to other positions getting paid what they're actually worth as well. 

Congrats, Patrick Mahomes!

  Photo: Jamie Lamor Thompson/Shutterstock.com

[Read More ...] source http://theybf.com/2020/07/07/wow-chiefs-qb-patrick-mahomes-cops-biggest-contract-in-sports-history-503-million-over-10