Jake

A good friend of mine got a tungsten ring, was boasting of its unbreakableness, then dropped it onto their tile floor as we all watched it shatter. I don't know if he got jipped or what

It takes somebody doing something very right to get a bunch of kids to live in s***holes like Tuscaloosa and Baton Rouge. Even crazier that black kids are flocking to those places. When I was working for the news, we reported on a (admittedly small) group of Ole Miss students burning Obama in effigy and chanting the n-word after the 2012 election was decided. How do you gloss over that s***? Maybe it's $$$

QUOTE (farmteam @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 10:36 PM) This is really interesting, what sort of studies have there been on this? This comes most generally from the field of moral psychology. That isn't my field of expertise, so I can't speak to the absolute agreement of that field, but one of its most esteemed researchers is a man whose work I am quite familiar with. His name is Jonathan Haidt and if you're interested in a book, The Righteous Mind is what you're looking for. There are many good YouTube videos out there, including a TED talk, where he lays things out pretty accessibly. Bear in mind that he has had some new developments since his TED talk though, even though the core is largely the same. He has begun to tease out libertarians as a tertiary group to study beyond the more vague "liberal vs. conservative" binary. Another fun place to go is YourMorals.org where you can take some of a whole bunch of surveys to see how you rank among your peers in this, that, and the other thing. By answering a few questions about your age, gender, and political beliefs (a couple of other things I can't remember too) you are also anonymously contributing to ongoing research. It is run by the same man, Haidt, and some other researchers. I think you can browse results without actually taking them too.

I think the MLB at its best had individuals with more appeal than basically anyone in today's game. Ken Griffey Jr. had notoriety that so far exceeds anyone playing right now that it isn't even worth bringing up a player to compare to. Big Frank was internationally known. McGwire/Sosa was a larger than life time for the sport. You had pitchers like Randy Johnson that everybody knew. How many people are out there that could tell you everything about Griffey, Frank Thomas, and the McGwire record but not have a clue who the hell Clayton Kershaw is? I think it is an astonishing amount. Puig is a guy who generated a lot of buzz but this time it never felt like it had a ton of merit. It was a lot more Linsanity-esque than anything else, like ESPN was bored and needed something to talk about while baseball was the only game in town. We need people that are really likable and give fans, average and otherwise, the sense that they are watching something really great. I think the steroid era to some extent is responsible for this. We like teams, but investing your emotions/fandom in a particular player feels like an easy way to get burned by a positive test later on.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 12:47 PM) The evolution/creation "culture war" seems to have peaked around 2005/Dover. I've watched a bit of the debate, but I can't say I really understand the point of it. I guess I could classify myself as an atheist, but people who make atheism a big part of their identity or essentially replace their previous religious fundamentalism with new atheist fundamentalism annoy the hell out of me. PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins and the whole atheist 'movement' is generally pretty awful. Yeah, I think that is why folks are trying to reach for other "names" like humanists, secularists, etc. because some atheists are such pricks. Of course, this is just how humans are. We have an evolutionary predilection for groupishness under certain circumstances, which is for instance why some of us become devout fans of a sports team. Similarly, some people will find that in religious or irreligious groups. Groups tend to be good at self-sustenance, but often suck at relating to people outside the group. Interestingly, people who are politically left-liberal tend to test low on the personality traits that predict that sort of groupishness. Instead, they more often think in global terms, feeling a less intense fellowship with everyone instead of intense fellowship with a narrower group of people. This is why some say the Democratic party seems ineffectual or dispassionate compared to the right as well as why there are a lot fewer crazy atheists than there are atheists.

Conor Gillaspie would be at the upper range of prices I'm willing to pay

FWIW, in terms of Nye v Ham, I don't think you have to be an atheist to disagree w/ Ken Ham

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 12:41 PM) My mother taught middle school for >25 years. In her early 60's when she was not eligible for Medicare, she had a knee replaced after several years of it causing a lot of problems. After the replacement, she could barely walk correctly for a couple years and frankly she should have retired. But she couldn't, because she couldn't get health care on the individual market, so she basically taught her class from a chair for the next couple years until she became eligible. Please call more people like this lazy asses to their faces. Please. I await this morphing into a "this is why teacher's unions are evil!" discussion

Look at all the f***s MJ gives about life

After seeing all the attention the Nye vs. Ham debate had, I wondered if there is a community here for this kind of catch-all. Normally this stuff has turned into useless arguments on Soxtalk, not entirely unlike the Nye vs Ham, but with its own thread we can talk about this, that, or the other thing without bothering our religious friends. It's possible we've had something like this before and it didn't work out, in which case feel free to delete! I'll start with a picture from last night (an artist's rendering):

QUOTE (Jake @ Feb 4, 2014 -> 12:54 PM) Apparently W8.1 can do this through command prompt and I apparently have hardware that supports it. I've been getting BSOD as soon as any device tries to connect to it, indicating a driver error. When I get time, I'll look into whether a tweak to that driver will remedy the issue Bleck, I got it to quit blue screening me but it still doesn't work. Think I might get this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007PTCFF...=A2F6E975V906X0

Sounds like "as soon as I can get rid of Keppinger or get decent value for Conor, Davidson will be playing Chicago"

Yeah, I'm not particularly persuaded by the "nobody picked him up on waivers" argument. GMs do dumb stuff all the time. It is common practice in August to put people on waivers to see if the other GMs don't notice. People weren't on the ball. It's all good. He's a nice player so long as he is healthy. He's been better than Dylan Axelrod in every way and for good reason. He's more Barry Zito than Mark Buehrle. Is he going to be good? I'm not sure. Is he one of the best prospects ready to pitch on the MLB staff? Absolutely.

MJ was in the middle of a legitimate defensive play in which the only appropriate thing to do is 1. take a charge or 2. get the f*** out of the way. Jordan did both. LBJ flops in the middle of a f***ing fight for Christ's sake. It may or may not affect whether one or the other is GOAT, but it sure as hell makes me like LBJ less

I'm so inept at steering a riding lawnmower that I just used a push one in my old, complicated-shape yard

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Feb 3, 2014 -> 01:59 PM) Hmm. Let me think about that one. Apparently W8.1 can do this through command prompt and I apparently have hardware that supports it. I've been getting BSOD as soon as any device tries to connect to it, indicating a driver error. When I get time, I'll look into whether a tweak to that driver will remedy the issue

Will be interesting what the effects of increasing the amount of people with health insurance and vastly improving the average person's health insurance will have

It's interesting how Santiago and Reed wouldn't have felt like core pieces, but the players we got back for them do

QUOTE (ptatc @ Feb 3, 2014 -> 07:17 PM) All of them will hasten your death. What many don't realize about pot is that it's cardiac equivalent is 5 cigarettes. So if you smoke pot you will have a heart attack. It also really limits your healing ability. It has a medical value because it basically eliminates inflammation and something like glaucoma is helped by this. However, it really limits regular healing and takes 2-3 times as long for normal injuries to heal. The best redeeming quality is that it has a non-addictive quality that no other legal or illegal drugs of abuse have. I wouldn't say it's completely non-addictive, but the physical/biological aspect of it is so minimal that it's nice to think that most people who smoke it will retain their agency to stop it if they feel they aren't going down the right path. I've seen some people who use it as a crutch to get away from things and related uses, in which case they are at least psychologically addicted, so I don't want to see it is entirely benign in that regard. QUOTE (Y2HH @ Feb 4, 2014 -> 08:02 AM) I have to agree with badger here, when people correct a spelling or punctuation error on the Internet, it's because they have nothing of substance to add to the conversation OR any valid response to the actual point that was being made. So long as you understand what the person was trying to say, just let it go, and respond to their point, not their grammar. Badger has the benefit here of being known as an intelligent guy, in which case I would have considered "correcting" him just so that he would know. While we like to pick on grammar as a substitute for ad hominem attacks during arguments, in this context I perceived it as just helping a brother out.

There is plenty of talent in that group. Of course, lots of questions too. Is it talented enough? Yes. Is it "good" enough? No way to know. Chances are you'll have to add to it, but we don't yet know which will need replaced or which peripheral positions will need supplementing. We also don't know what sorts of prospects will emerge and begin to look like part of that core. It's nice to know that if we give every current player arbitration, pick up every current player's options, and trade nobody before next season, we've only committed $77M in payroll. With a year's worth of information about the guys on this team, we'll be able to figure out how we want to spend what could quite possibly be a whole lot of money. On the other hand, I don't want us to spend money just so we're spending as much as we can. Payroll flexibility is such a luxury and you don't want to lose it just because you feel uncomfortable having it.

I'd probably not let on to my terrorizer that he was getting to me if I could help it. With that said, who knows what's going on. I'm curious what the NFL investigation will turn up. Also, another subject, Ratliff at 3-4 NT - be aware that Dallas played a one-gap 3-4, which is a bit outside of the norm. There's no way to be sure whether Ratliff could be a two-gap NT

Bears: 4-3, 3-4, 4-3 under, some sort of other hybrid?

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Feb 3, 2014 -> 08:55 AM) I'm guessing I wasn't the only person in America who saw the name and said "where do I know that name?" and then looking him up and saying "God he looks so familar, what the heck has he been in?" and then seeing that oh yeah, this guy has been in a ton of stuff.

1. Taj has really brought it this season. He regressed last year, but that is not the case anymore. He has taken another step up and has earned some degree of increased PT 2. Given that we are not awaiting Rose's return to take us deep in the playoffs and have already traded away Deng, it makes some sense to err on the side of playing the younger guy with the longer deal.