Jake

4 years or longer deals to FA pitchers are a fool's errand. Only partake if you need some wins right away. When you sign a veteran pitcher to an expensive, long-term deal, you just hope he's worth half the money after the first couple years.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 3, 2014 -> 02:10 PM) I think the biggest thing that could get the farm stronger is the development of some of the LatAm bonus babies. We've spent a couple years now dramatically increasing spending down there, and will do so again this July. There are 5 or 6 guys we already signed that are just starting DSL ball, or will be soon, that should be reaching state-side affiliates in 2014 and 2015. This is where we should be seeing the added value of Marco Paddy, if it indeed exists.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Feb 3, 2014 -> 10:32 AM) Working for the government or something? Thats a strange use case. i think you will spend more money and time trying to convert the peer to peer tech into a broader tech than you would just getting another internet or wireless pipe. Maybe invest in a MiFI from verizon? I'm working for a college Residence Life Office, meaning I live on that campus (hey, it's free!). Campus internet uses that authentication. They also have a WPA service that requires sign-in via a browser which I haven't been able to figure out on things like Roku.

Quick question - For the next few months, I'll be living in a place in which my wi-fi uses 802.1x authentication. This means my Roku, for instance, can't natively connect to the wi-fi. Right now, I'm using an old laptop w/ an ethernet cord to bridge my connection. Now, I want to sell that laptop...but I don't want to not have my Roku work. It looks like a lot of the internet sharing stuff doesn't play nice with Windows 8. I've tried to use Connectify on my desktop and it doesn't work. I tried to do the ethernet stuff with my desktop and it didn't work then either. I believe W8 is the reason for this, based on my research, though I can't remember the reasoning. Any other ideas? I don't mind paying a few bucks for some kind router-esque device. FWIW I do not have access to an ethernet port, so I need something that can connect to the wireless network to share its connection, whether its via ethernet or creating an ad hoc type of network.

When Rick Astley overplayed the geeky/cool card too far to the cool side:

QUOTE (Knuckles @ Feb 2, 2014 -> 11:31 PM) I put some stuff together, check it out top-rated comment:

MLB.tv also on Roku

Well, if anyone can do it....

Starters quit playing on special teams in 3...2...

What a brutal PI call EDIT: I take it back

MLB has greater parity than the NFL I always look forward to this

Ray Guy! Finally

Cubs ought to move to Iowa

A line of my family traces its roots back to Newmarket in County Cork where they farmed about 100 acres of land it seems until the 1860s. From what we can tell, they had lived in Garrison (now on the border to N. Ireland) until somebody in the family stole a horse and the rest of the family got the hell out of there. After Newmarket, most of the family moved to Cappamore near Limerick. From there, my great-great-grandfather moved to Chicago to become a lightweight prize fighter. There are some official records of how he did, but they are bafflingly contradictory. Two newspapers would report opposite results. We have a picture of him wearing a belt, but we are unsure of the significance. We don't think, at least by the time he finished, that he very far over .500. He did it to make a living. His son played for the White Sox's farm teams for a while back in the 1930s. We have a picture of him playing for the big club's Spring Training team somewhere. He had been invited to stay on as the big league backup, but the time in Pasadena made him very homesick and he came back to Chicago and played in local leagues before quitting entirely. Sadly, I'm told, this part of the family was entirely Cubs-oriented.

If we have interest in Colby Rasmus, then things have gone horribly wrong

I'd say Harden is the one who retains most of his value as a non-ball-in-hands guy. He was really efficient with that team as a guy who didn't have to create his shot every time down the floor.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Jan 31, 2014 -> 06:13 PM) Scott Feldman signing all over again. It's a strategy I wish this organization would employ. They turned Feldman in to Jake Arrieta, Pedro Strop, and international bonus $$$. We signed Felipe Paulino -- and for $1.75 million plus a $4 million team option, both reducing our risk if he's no good and drastically increasing our reward if he is. Anyway, we don't fill our pitching staff with has-beens every year because our system actually produces pitchers worth giving MLB innings.

I just don't see Denver being held under 28 points and I don't see Seattle scoring that many.

While I normally balk at people that are inexplicably super well-liked, I can't help but root for Peyton. I like to see greatness in action and he's very easy to root for.

I kind of like the Samsung Smart PC Pro 700T. 11.6 1080P display, much better battery life than original Surface Pro at nearly 7 hours, same 3rd gen i5 processor plus 4GB RAM plus 128GB SSD. Real dock solution, Wacom digitizer with onboard S Pen storage. I can get factory refurb for about $650.

Hmm...Microsoft Surface Pro is $500 today at Best Buy. That could possibly take the place of both laptop and tablet? Active digitizer is a must for me and it has that. Battery life is huge concern though.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 31, 2014 -> 08:32 AM) For the most part you don't actually need a docking station. While they make things a bit more convenient for an additional cost, they're not necessary. All you really need to do is take your laptop and plug it into your monitor/keyboard/mouse. The only thing the docking station does is allow you to plug those things into it, and then put your laptop into the dock, so you don't have to repeat the steps of plugging those devices in over and over...but other than that it doesn't do anything. If you are interested in anything highly graphically intensive, such as video, I'd recommend a desktop for serious work, and a combination of your tablet/phone to synch any necessary items on the go. Laptops always use mobile versions of their desktop counterparts, such as a mobile-gfxcard, a mobile-processor, which are always slower, and tend to run a LOT hotter. A laptop is fine for photo work, however, so long as it's color calibrated properly, and out of the box, almost no LCD is. I can't decide what I want to do. FWIW, my work is academic research, which means that screen real estate and multi-tasking/RAM capability is more important than much else. My laptop has 4GB RAM and I believe that tends to be the bottleneck as I work. My desktop has 8GB and works great, other than the slow-ass HDD that makes it start up slowly. If I keep it, I plan to install an SSD in its mSATA port and keep the HDD in place for file storage. The heat issue is one of the things that prevents me from feeling like the docking/plug-n-play-as-if-it-were-a-desktop solution is something I can just go and do. I can imagine many consumer laptops getting really hot with heavy usage while outputting to a big monitor/multi-monitor setup.

Trolls - meh People who have outrageously non-normal opinions - this can be good, especially when there aren't organically interesting things to talk about In times where there are things to talk about that will already be divisive/interesting to talk about, I'm not nearly as fond of the non sequitur.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 30, 2014 -> 10:07 PM) His choke signal was his horrendously poor decision to throw that ball. Except, of course, that was him playing bad rather than taunting his opponent on the field after winning. I don't think Sherman's a bad guy or anything, but he definitely didn't endear himself to me with the way he acted. Not a fan. But that's okay.