Balta1701

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 15, 2015 -> 03:38 PM) I'd link to it if I could find it, but there is a report that the sun will be in an inoperable stage in about 20 years and it will be winter all the time, so cold that rivers will freeze. There will be no baseball; there will be no football; life as we know it will end with such cold temps. Look, it's pretty obvious we people of this earth are ruining our own planet and that will be our ultimate demise (as well as the possibility of some nut lobbing a nuke at us and other countries). It's time to make the environment No. 1 priority with economy 1.a. FWIW, the report was completely, utterly wrong in a number of ways and that interpretation is 100% wrong. 60% drop in sunspots = Here's a full description of how that report went wrong, if you want the details. This was, FWIW, actually written by a geologist.

QUOTE (DrunkBomber @ Jul 15, 2015 -> 02:35 PM) I got a slickdeals alert that Best Buy was selling $200 gift cards for $15 (Obviously some type of mistake but w/e) I ordered 3 and got a confirmation email that says its preparing to ship. Definitely not expecting to get these but if I did that would be pretty cool. Reading the thread on slickdeals and it seems like a lot of people who ordered 10 or more or used expedited shipping already got cancellation emails which I still havent got so fingers crossed. Reports said they were going to honor some of them, not sure what the exact setup was but it was their mistake.

If you're up for one long-form science-related article this summer, make it this Slate piece on GMOs.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 15, 2015 -> 01:43 PM) How is this any different than now? Do you seriously think Russia and China would keep their end of the sanctions forever, with no plan here? There is an actual an actual international agreement here of ways to proceed. Yes, China and Russia could decide not to snap back, and go against that agreement. But they could do so today, and if they did, Iran would be much closer to nuclear capabilities than they would be in 2 years of Iran has cheated, as we would have already removed much of their technology. The sanctions regime was already right on the verge of breaking down and frankly we should all compliment Hillary on having put together such a strong program in the first place even though many of the countries involved lost money overall. If the U.S. had what Europe judged as a good deal on the table, with detailed verification including of uranium production, and backed away, the sanctions regime would crumble and it wouldn't be coming back, ever.

QUOTE (Mike F. @ Jul 15, 2015 -> 01:52 PM) The Cell isn't a pitchers park either in my opinion. Both the Cell and Minute Maid or wahtever the heck its called now are parks that do favor the hitter (regardless of how the White Sox pitching staff is skewing the ESPN corrections this year), whereas Seattle is clearly one of the best pitchers parks in the league even compared with Cleveland. Ergo, Keuchel and Sale are about even on that whereas Kluber got an advantage over Felix. Any clearer?

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Jul 15, 2015 -> 10:48 AM) I say he just needs to get it below 2.50. Felix had a decent ERA lead over Kluber last year (2.14 to 2.44) and Kluber still won. Some of that is ballpark corrected though since Felix pitches in Seattle. Houston isn't a pitcher's park, so Keuchel will have a stronger case if he's leading the ERA list.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jul 14, 2015 -> 09:30 PM) Even an OCF like Larry Bird recognizes where the game is/headed. Wants to play Paul George at PF next year. http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/13256880...position-switch insert lemming joke here

Someone add a comment if Chris does start warming?

"Whatever you do just don't strap it on."

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 14, 2015 -> 03:57 PM) Pitching in an All-Star game is nothing like a side session. Wednesday-Thursday-Friday-Saturday = 4 days rest = normal rest. Chris going today would give him 1 inning over a 7 day period and then throwing on Sunday still puts him on normal rest.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 14, 2015 -> 03:56 PM) Not sure where else to put this, but the ratings have been horrific for the Sox this year on Comcast http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal...a/MLB-RSNs.aspx Took me a minute of wondering how the Dodgers could be worse to remember that many viewers out there don't even get the network they're on. If you leave the Dodgers off the list for that reason, we're the worst!

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 14, 2015 -> 03:14 PM) [stakes claim to Otisburg.] (still won't have any water).

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jul 14, 2015 -> 03:06 PM) Since they're not on a plate boundary, what's the source of Hawaii's earthquakes? Volcanic activity? Generally yes, it has something to do with volcanoes. When magma rises up, it has to break solid rocks in order to move upwards. Cracking and splitting rocks produces earthquakes, those are directly related to the molten rock rising up. They generally aren't strong, but there's a lot of them. Those aren't the only ones though. If you drive down by the active eruption site on Kilauea, you'll see there's a huge scarp, known as the Hilina Pali. That scarp is actually one of a great number of large faults on the island produced by the growth of the volcanoes. When you pile up dirt on top of a central spot to build a hill, eventually things break off and avalanche down the sides once it gets too steep. Rock has a little bit more trouble doing that, solid rock can't avalanched downward without cracking. Hawaii is kind of like that - the volcanoes want to grow upwards and gravity wants to drag them back down. If there's a weak layer beneath the surface, those weak layers can serve as breakaway points where the rocks above them start sliding downwards. Those cracks, therefore, form normal faults - the kind where one set of rocks slides downward compared to the other side. The Hilina Pali is a giant normal fault scarp that keeps getting covered by Lava. A magnitude ~7.9 earthquake occurred on this fault in the 1800s. Those aren't the biggest things they can do though. Once the islands start growing, sometimes they actually collapse along those faults. Off the coastline of the Hawaiian Islands there are huge landslide deposits, formed when parts of the Island actually broke off and slid into the sea. The map view of Molokai shows these really well, the north and south sides of the island are pretty close to straight lines and each of them is the remnant of a giant landslide that broke away on a fault like the one on Kilauea. When those happen, they're probably very large earthquakes and they probably produce tsunami waves large enough to devastate the islands. Thankfully those are rare, probably every few hundred thousand years or so.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 14, 2015 -> 01:29 PM) Ha. I think it all started over the period of a few years when I was young and Mt St Helens erupted, and a few years later I got to ride out a hurricane in Texas. I have always been interested in natural disasters. I can't tell you how much reading and watching I have done on earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, etc over the years. Even the only prize I ever won in a science fair was a project on the reforestation of Mt St Helens. The article on Cascadia was spectacular. I have seen it mentioned on a couple of different programs over the years, including the clues of the saltwater-killed forests hundreds of feet above the water line, but this article was great in its detail and length. If you have more on that, I'd be most interested to hear. I am finding a ton of good and interesting stuff on Pluto. I am a pig in mud right now. Interestingly, the actual shaking along the San Andreas fault when it goes will likely be more intense than any shaking felt in the Pacific Northwest when Cascadia goes, but it will be over a much larger area and California generally does have better building codes for recent structures.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Jul 14, 2015 -> 01:40 PM) I'll echo that. My job involves natural disasters pretty heavily so I already knew some of that stuff, but the salt water killing the forests specifically was something I had never heard and found fascinating. Really well-written piece. As the plate bends those forests are actually popping back out. We saw something similar happen with coral reefs in the Indonesia quake.

So you're dropping space and geology links with the geologist here? Any questions? Something you'd like to hear more about?

QUOTE (LDF @ Jul 14, 2015 -> 01:21 PM) excellent point and i agree. remember last yr, Rodon had to be shelved b/c of innings he pitched. well Fulmer went the whole rt, all the way to ncaa college world series. Rodon also had to be shelved because the minor league seasons were ending and they went right up to the deadline for signing him while negotiating with Boras. Calling him up would have cost them a year of free agency for him and they weren't doing that after that negotiation.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 14, 2015 -> 01:17 PM) It will take months to get back all of the info from Pluto http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/project...s&smtyp=cur Right now we're all waiting until just before 9:00 EDT tonight because that's when we're supposed to receive the initial spacecraft message saying "I'm healthy". It's out of contact for about 24 hours to collect data (can't point the antenna at Earth at the same time as pointing cameras at Pluto) and then it takes 4.5 hours for a signal from it to reach Earth.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Jul 14, 2015 -> 12:04 PM) Iran has never followed any agreement before, this time will no different. At least this time we'll have the IAEA actively in the country (and seriously, the toys they have to work with are really impressive. Like making scientists jealous impressive).

I liked the clock but I think it's obvious the clock gives the guy up 2nd a huge, huge advantage. Something has to change about that, I think the guy going first won once. My immediate suggestion: I liked 4 minutes, move the bonus time until after the 2nd guy has swung.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 14, 2015 -> 10:57 AM) Two things I have learned. Our moon is bigger than Pluto. Pluto's polar ice cap looks amazingly like the shape of Disney's Pluto's head. That's actually at the equator.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jul 13, 2015 -> 09:04 PM) Doesn't look great so far. He needs about 1500 plate appearances though regardless of what Soxtalk thinks. He'll get that...the problem is that "teams that are trying to compete right now" can't afford too many positions where guys are working in and adapting.

QUOTE (LDF @ Jul 13, 2015 -> 05:48 PM) i am wavering around here. 1 part of me is saying, the sox can comeback. but the other is saying no, the sox should think of trading shark, if the price is right. if it is the second, i rather shelf Sale, instead of running him out there to get hurt, or limit him games and innings. should the sox chance sale getting hurt?? Pitch Sale. Maybe you give him an outing off later this season, esp. if he gets tired and they're out of it fully, but pitch him.