Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.
- Something big is happening in AI. Think of how clumsy the original Boston Dynamics robots were and how nimble they are now, That's like AI but AI is on a much more accelerated timetable. (HT A Layman's Blog)
- AJ Jacobs with a new way to watch TV. I'm going to give this a try.
- I'm a sucker for any posts about Christopher Lee. He was a badass.
- Inside Pickleball's plan to become a billion dollar platform.
Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.
- A Few Things I'm Pretty Sure About. He's posted this before but worth the read (or re-read).
- Is Curt Cignetti the most valuable coach in college football? Interesting point - a student that attends games is more likely to become a donor post graduation. Cigetti's true impact won't be known for generations to come.
- Sahil Bloom's 35 lessons from 35 years. Good advice, (HT A Layman's Blog)
- News you can use: How did TV's get so cheap? I feel more informed for having read that.
Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.
- Glenn Reynolds: Slouching towards war? I too worry we may be casually moving toward WW III. It should also be noted that Xi Jinping is rumored to be on the outs in China - what if he turns more hawkish to retain power or whoever replaces him does?
- From the archives: The Fox sisters and Spiritualism.
- Televised events everybody watched. I'd add the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster to that list (and for some Joe Theisman getting his leg broken).
- VDH: The war between Trump's chemotherapy and the Biden cancer. He's not wrong.
Combine the craziness for Sports Talk Radio and Poker on TV. Here's the format:
Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.
- Phoenix Suns and Mercury move forward with free over the air and streaming. Look for this to be the future of NBA. NHL and MLB.
- Honestly this is the first thing I though of when I saw the video.
- Was not aware of this about Goya
- Is the next frontier for Large Language Models biology? Can definitely see this - especially in personal health care.
One of the most iconic episodes in TV history. Makes for good Thanksgiving reading. "As God as my witness I thought turkey's could fly."
Some quotes I hope may resonate with you.
"Exotic car companies don't run commercials on TV because their customers aren't sitting around watching TV. Let that sink in." - Richard Cooper
"Flying by the seat of your pants precedes crashing by the seat of your pants." - Bill Walsh
"It's common for the peanut gallery to think they could have done a better job than the experts. The unusual thing about Afghanistan is that in this case they're probably right." - Paul Graham
"I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery." - Thomas Jefferson
Some quotes I hope may resonate with you.
"A glory that costs everything and means nothing." - Steve Erickson
"Exotic car companies don't run commercials on TV because their customers aren't sitting around watching TV. Let that sink in." - Richard Cooper
"Flying by the seat of your pants precedes crashing by the seat of your pants." - Bill Walsh
"It's common for the peanut gallery to think they could have done a better job than the experts. The unusual thing about Afghanistan is that in this case they're probably right." - Paul Graham
"I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery." - Thomas Jefferson
"Who makes us ignorant? We ourselves. We put our hands over our eyes and weep that it is dark." - Swami Vivekananda
"What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right." - Albert Einstein
Here's my Top 5 reasons I feel the NBA is in trouble. I did not number them because to me all these reasons are inter-related.
- The costs of attending an NBA game have gotten out of reach for the average family. This has bred some resentment that I think goes under the radar. With the kids never having the magic of attending their first NBA games the next generation of NBA fans has been eroding away for some time now. The experience of a kid just seeing the NBA through the prism of TV or a video game isn't the same. Too easy to change the channel or play a more interesting game instead.
- The domestic political stances taken by the league have driven away many fans. The attitude of "If you don't agree with our stances and vote Democrat then you are a racist" is basically the message many fans have taken away from the NBA's actions. And Adam Silver saying there will be no on court messaging next season is a tacit admission that this has hurt the NBA's bottom line. It may be too little to late for many fans though.
- Player movement has hurt many fans emotional attachment to players. Think of this as "the LeBron Effect." His "decision" to leave Cleveland for Miami caused great psychic harm to the fans in Cleveland that never truly healed and ushered in many NBA stars following suit. As great as Kevin Durant is as a player he will never get his historical due because no fan base ever became emotionally attached to his vagabond ways the way past generations fell in love with a Michael Jordan or a Larry Bird. And if the shutdown related revenue drops cause a work stoppage - look for fans to run away from the NBA in droves because for most that emotional attachment to the players has been severed or never developed in the first place.
- China: They choose blood money over the freedom of the people of Hong Kong and gave up the moral high ground basically for generations. Given the damage the Wuhan virus has caused to this country many will neither forget nor forgive the NBA for this huge moral shortcoming. No other professional sports league is saddled with this problem. The damage will be unique to the NBA.
- Commercials: This isn't just an issue for the NBA but it is exacerbated by the nature of their game. For as long as I've watched the NBA people have opined that you only need to watch the last few minutes (tough to argue against this idea). People in general have become more reluctant to sit through the commercials that permeate live TV sports which is one of the reasons sports TV ratings are down across the board. But given the nature of NBA play many people wonder why subject yourself to two hours of commercial ridden TV when you can just catch the highlights on YouTube? Some NBA owners highlight the uptick of NBA clips on digital platforms as a positive but it's really more of a symptom of a deep problem for the league.
Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.
The Big 10 is looking at starting football around Thanksgiving. The cynic in me wonders why football suddenly becomes OK only after the election. The pragmatist in me says the Big 10 will be viewed as a JV conference for decades to come... "Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision." - Peter Drucker... The theme song to Ironsides makes a great ringtone for calls from the wife (saying maybe just the first few seconds)... Living life without commercials will make it so much easier for many to live without broadcast TV live sports. One of the reasons all sports TV ratings are going down. You can thank incessant GEICO and Progressive commercials for that... Hot Milk would be a great name for an LDS punk band... Maybe the act of innovation itself is a rebellion against God and the perceived natural order of things (why yes I did just start reading Matt Ridley's latest book)...
Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.
- The TV industry will never recover from the coronavirus. Not sure if it's correct to imply the implosion of the TV industry is related to the Wuhan virus. The same dynamics that decimated the newspaper and magazine industries just took a while longer to get to TV.
- Professor says coronavirus not as deadly as thought. "I am concerned people have become overly frightened and throughout this pandemic, the fear instilled in people has been a real problem."
- Heh Heh
- Fibonacci is truly one of the most unheralded heroes of Western Civilization
- Suicides rise sharply in US between 200-2018 especially in rural areas. And this doesn't even take into account the even bigger spike due to the lockdown. I bet more high school age kids and college kids will have died from suicide these past six months than all the deaths from Covid-19 in those age groups.
Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.
The disinterest in sports and the cancellation of a number of college football conferences will have another effect that will have long term repercussions. Many people cling to cable TV mainly for the RSN's (Regional Sports Networks) such as NESN (Red Sox and Bruins), YES (Yankees), The Big 10 Network, etc. Look for the number of people "cutting the cord" to greatly increase in the next six months or so largely due to people not caring about sports or not having access to games to actually watch... Victor David Hanson on Who or What Exactly is Running Against Trump?. The line I really enjoyed was about Kamala Harris "hovering and rummaging about as in impatient President in waiting"... The revenue generated from the RSN subscription fees are largely what have driven the great increase player salaries over the past two decades. Now a lot of that revenue will go POOF. Look for pro contracts in baseball, basketball, and hockey to be for less money and fewer years in the near future... History repeats itself? A hundred years ago the most popular sports in America were baseball, boxing, and horse racing. Football, basketball and hockey were very much niche sports (with college football being much more popular than pro football). Today the UFC is gaining in popularity and has been the most popular TV sport during the pandemic while it could be argued that basketball and hockey are reverting to niche sports... What does Taylor Swift think about the choice of Kamala Harris as VP? How come she hasn't spoken out? What is she trying to hide?...
