Jenksismyhero

What other deal was out there btw? I love to criticize the Bulls FO as much as anyone else (I was clearly on the side arguing that trading Butler for just about ANY deal was a dumb move), but I think people are complaining about other hypothetical returns that simply were not there. I think they did the best they could and it's a pretty decent return relative to what these other teams got for their star players. That's all i'm saying.

QUOTE (2005thxfrthmmrs @ Sep 15, 2017 -> 11:41 AM) If there was as a misinformed and biased post, this would be it. What a well thought out response.

QUOTE (bmags @ Sep 15, 2017 -> 11:11 AM) Lavine also relies on athleticism. I think there is way too much assumption in bulls camp that he comes back as the same player. ACL injuries in basketball have not been kind. Maybe years ago but it's not a death sentence. Guys like Al Jefferson, Baron Davis, Kyle Lowry, Wade, etc. have come back and played at an elite level. edit: I thought Wade tore his ACL but I guess not. Scratch him off the list.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 14, 2017 -> 08:22 PM) Cleveland got an incredible deal for Kyrie. That is the type of deal we should have gotten. They got a star, they got players, and a top of the draft pick. That was phenomenal. They got a short, 28 or 29 year old PG "star" who can't play defense and who has legitimate hip problems on a one year deal. He's not even going to play a full season. They're going to have to decide whether to offer him a max deal, or near max deal, to be their franchise player once Lebron leaves. I wouldn't want the Bulls to be in that position a year from now. That's a hard, hard pass. They got a 27 year old Jae Crowder, an ok role player who can't shoot very well and has had his own problems with injuries (ankle) that Celtics fans will tell you limited his defense (the one reason you would want him) They got Ante Aizic, someone who will probably never play. And they got the Brooklyn pick, which may or may not be great. The Nets won't be good, but the east will be super s***ty and the Nets have no incentive to tank. The Bulls, Pacers, Hawks, Kings, Magic are going to be worse. Are the Lakers really going to win 25-30 games? It'll be a lottery pick, but not necessarily a top 7 pick. On the other hand, the Bulls got Zach Lavine, a 22 year old super-athlete who averaged 19, 3 and 3 last year and has consistently gotten better each year he's played. The ACL tear is worrisome but plenty of guys have come back from it. They also got a big, beefy PG prospect that had a bad rookie season playing under Thibs (not uncommon) but still has tons of potential, and the #7 pick in the draft who at worst will be Niko 2.0, i.e., an ok role player. I don't see how, in any way, this is a substantially worse deal than what the Celtics got.

QUOTE (Quin @ Sep 15, 2017 -> 10:24 AM) My newsroom (in NYC) sent a team of 8 to STL. We're expecting s*** to explode. Gotta cash in on that tragedy. Riot-porn footage, here we come!

Don't really excuse the shooting, but that's a pretty unsympathetic victim there. You're running away from cops, causing damage and threatening the safety of the public (swerving into oncoming traffic, barely missing an oncoming car). Was the cop alleging that Smith had a gun in the car? What's his excuse for firing? I feel like there's a puzzle piece missing here...

Given the value that Indiana got for George and Cleveland got for Kyrie, I'm not sure how anyone can say that the Bulls "blew" the deal. If the argument is they should not have dealt him in the first place, fine, but the return was good, if not great in comparison.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 14, 2017 -> 03:21 PM) But those college degrees are still requirements to getting your foot in the door in those types of careers. And even in more technical programs, things can diverge pretty radically. My degree is in mechanical engineering, and I haven't done anything directly related to that in years, though I'm still in engineering. People maybe only really "need" an associate's degree to acquire the skills for a particular job, but the hiring manager and HR for that job are still going to be looking for bachelor's or better and no amount of "well things ought to be different" will really change that imo. Right, they are, but they shouldn't be is my point. I agree that at this point we've gone too far down this road. HR people require degrees as a matter of course now even for positions that don't require it. I disagree. This is the problem with people's view of what college is or should be. You shouldn't be forcing people to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for generalized education as a requirement for employment, which is what our system has become. I agree it's tough to be deciding what you want to do for the rest of your life at 18, but at some point something needs to change. Racking up insane amounts of school debt is just a huge, huge burden. And it's often unnecessary. I want the bottom to drop on that market. A college degree is so over priced. I'm not sure what the solution is, but making it even more meaningless by giving it to everyone isn't the answer. Once you do that everyone will then be paying for a graduate degree or a phd.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Sep 14, 2017 -> 12:06 PM) Yeah, one of the things I have seen is that more and more entry level jobs that traditionally did not require a degree now require one - they don't necessarily require a specific degree, but do require a degree from a 4-year college. I'm talking about jobs like administrative assistants. If the market is requiring a degree to get even those jobs, then you have to make obtaining that degree cheaper and more accessible. I'm going to respectfully disagree on the value of a 4-year liberal arts degree. My issue is for the vast majority of jobs out there that require a degree, you really don't need one. You learn the skills for the position by doing the work. At best you need an associates degree to shore up math or writing skills (though if you're able to take AP calc or physics or english in high school, that's more than you'll ever need). The experience of college and living on your own and figuring out the social stuff is what college provides. The in-school portion is a waste unless you're on a specific track for sciences or accounting or whatever. And those should just be specific degree tracks at a school. Most of my friends got general liberal arts degrees in business admn or political science or whatever, and they have vastly different careers. None of them used what they learned in school to do their jobs. Only in the most general way. Even lawyers. Why did we have to get an undergrad degree? What did my political science/business admn double major provide me in my prep for law school? Nothing. I could have gone to law school right out of high school.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Sep 14, 2017 -> 11:44 AM) As someone who both supports free college for all, and is paying back my own college debt, I have to say that it would be really difficult to support a free college plan that didn't also address the outstanding student loan debt... I'm not even sure a free college for all plan is a good idea. We need the dam to break on the cost of obtaining a degree. The whole system isn't workable. We need more people to forego college for trade schools or vocational schools or even new colleges that will provide specific degrees at a reduced rate. The 4 year liberal arts degree needs to go away. And yes, unless there's a huge relief on my own debt, i'm not agreeing to pay for someone else to get a degree for free.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Sep 14, 2017 -> 10:57 AM) And Americans support those talking points. In 16 Dems ran on anti-Trump and identity politics. Had they won on the economy? Who knows. That's all people care about. It's [always] the economy, stupid. Again, read the link I provided. When it comes to an issue like free college, polling shows that only the dem base supports that idea. A large number in the middle think it's unfair to provide free college while they're paying back their own college debt. That's not an issue that is going to get people to vote D in the next few elections.

I thought both were pretty terrible. Rogue One you can forgive a little since it's a one-off and it's telling a very small portion of the overall story. TFA just sucked. It was the same movie as ANH with new characters and some throw-backs to appease fans. Rey is fine but there's no depth there. And she's the deus ex machina of the Star Wars universe (the reboot portion anyway) - oh, you can pilot anything and everything and repair complex space travel engines because you scavenge parts of crashed ships? OK. I think my bigger problem is that these new movies aren't really a continuation of the old story. It's a new trilogy with some of the old characters around as fan service. That's a mistake IMO. They're going to try to piece together what happened to Luke, Leah and Han, while also telling this new (same) story about a small number of rebels defeating a large evil empire. Why not just jump right in, show a backstory for Snoke and explain why he picked up the pieces to create the First Order? Explain why Luke has to run away and not tell anyone where he's going. THEN jump into this new trilogy.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 14, 2017 -> 09:54 AM) I fully believe that everything since the election has been about selling this book and squeezing every penny out of this that they can. I know it rings hollow when you have the somewhere near the worst President in American history in the White House, but Clinton has been anything but Presidential since the election. At the end of the day you can respect the voters and walk off graciously like a Jimmy Carter or George Bush did, and maintain some level of self-respect, or you can even throw yourself into the issues that made you run for President in the first place, like Al Gore did, and again maintain some self-respect. But we are pushing up on a year now of this pity me campaign. She should be embarrassed, but apparently neither her nor Trump know what the term means. Couldn't agree more.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Sep 14, 2017 -> 09:50 AM) Of course. Attacking the President on anything but policy won't work. Activists don't understand that, but Chuck and Nancy know it, and that's why they've been relatively tame all year. Now they're reaping the benefits. You can beat him on policy, and you can beat him on messaging - that's what A Better Deal is about. The policies offered in the new rebranding of the Democratic Party is EXACTLY what the country actually wants - now it's just about selling and messaging in a cohesive way moving into 2018. I dunno, there's nothing new here. This is pretty stock Dem talking points. https://democrats.senate.gov/abetterdeal/#.WbqhiLKGNQI

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 14, 2017 -> 09:20 AM) In typical Clinton fashion, they are looking to take down everyone they can, even if it hurts their own party and party's agenda going forward. It's funny because when I watched her interview on CBS Sunday Morning, the first one she did, I actually thought for the first time that she was an actual human, displaying legitimate emotions. She made jokes. She admitted to being depressed. She said she drank and did yoga to get over the loss. She did a fair amount of her schtick, blaming Bernie, Comey, dumb voters, etc., but she kinda, sorta accepted responsibility for her own mistakes. She didn't go after Trump hard enough for the Access Hollywood tape, he flustered her at the deps and sometimes that got to her, and she didn't handle the e-mail server issue better at the start. But in all of the other interviews i've read or heard, she's really stuck on this blame campaign. "I would have won if not for a, b and c." And you're right, she's still fracturing the Dem party from the Bernie side of the Dem party, she's still alienating/offending a lot of non-Trump supporting conservatives/independents. She's fixated on Comey. I know this is a book tour and has nothing to do with any campaign, but I would think the Dem party would want to tell her and Bill to go off into the sunset and leave public life.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Sep 14, 2017 -> 08:52 AM) Things are looking better and better, since Hillary will have nothing to do with messaging in '18 and beyond. A Better Deal is spot on, and with Nancy and Chuck cutting the GOP and Trump to ribbons lately.... add to that all the GOP retirements, and I'm pretty dang optimistic. Did you read the story? The polling, from Democratic firms, is the opposite - every attack the Dems have made against this disaster of a President STILL isn't working. And the "solution" being offered - Bernie-promises of free college and free healthcare - also doesn't resonate with anyone but the dem base. It's almost as if what Dems think the country wants isn't what the country actually wants...

It's not an unpopular opinion. Modeling TFA after ANH was intentional. Here's a quote from Abrams:

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/13/t...essaging-242607 This comes out the same time as Hillary's "it wasn't my fault" tour. Dems better change the message if they want to retake congress or the White House.

Any photogs on the board? I'm debating whether to update my DSLR. I have a Nikon D5000 that I bought 8 years ago. I started reading reviews of some of the newer models and also the mirrorless cameras, so now i'm down the rabbit hole of maybe buying something new. The upgrades seem to be mostly tech upgrades like better autofocusing systems or a touchscreen. Seems like from an image quality perspective there may be a slight bump but not noticeable unless i'm printing off large prints (which I don't do often and when I do they look fine). I'm also debating jumping from Nikon to Canon or even Sony for their mirrorless camera. Problem is I have 3 Nikon lenses so I would have to start over if I jumped to another brand. I take a ton of photos of my kids and we travel a good amount. But I want to start taking more video and I think Canon DSLR's handle that better than the Nikon. I'm also thinking about buying the new Tamron 18-400mm lens. That's an insane focal length range for one lens.

So is he just going to copy the story format from one of the original films again?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 11, 2017 -> 12:08 PM) jenks your post has had me thinking the last few weeks, and after finally starting to go look around at options last weekend, I think we're more settled on a 3rd row SUV. Currently looking at some Ford Explorers since we liked them more than the equivalent Chevys, Dodges or Nissans. I'm still really happy with the Explorer. We took it on a road trip a couple weeks ago and it was super comfortable. My only minor gripe is the navigation system, which is a bit dated. Starting with the 2017 models they include the apple/android car stuff. Not sure it would have been worth thousands just to get that though. Check the Honda Pilot, if you haven't already. It's more cross-over style if you guys are into that. Still very room and comfortable with some good features and slightly better gas mileage.

The offense is not.

D-line is pretty good.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 8, 2017 -> 11:00 AM) When you check Equifax's site to see if your data was stolen, you get the benefit of agreeing to mandatory arbitration which bars you from any sort of class action or lawsuit within the court system. edit: you can thank the Scalia ruling several years back in AT&T v Concepcion that held forced arbitration that bars class action is perfectly fine and couldn't possibly lead to any widespread problems and malicious incentives. Most consumer and even many employment contracts have these provisions these days, effectively barring most people from access to the court systems when they have a civil complaint and instead forcing them into private arbitration. Blocking class actions ensures companies will never see anywhere near the full civil impact from widespread abuse/fraud/etc. because an overwhelming majority of people won't file suit especially if it's a relatively low-dollar amount on an individual basis (e.g. $100 damages per person but across a million people). don't know why editing broke that quotes to badly. We've discussed this, possibly when that decision came out - that's not the purpose of class action lawsuits. The class action is just an economical way to deal with a large number of claims. And the way that system has been abused over the years, it's really done nothing but enrich the handful of firms that specialize in prosecuting them. I'd venture to guess that in the vast majority of situations where BIG CORP has wronged you, arbitration is a better avenue to have your claim handled. It's cheaper, it doesn't require legal representation, evidentiary rules are more relaxed and the whole process is less onerous meaning at the end of the day you'll get more money out of it. edit: if you're concerned about BIG CORP running wild, that's the purpose of state and federal AG's offices and the various local, state and federal regulatory commissions. They're supposed to be going after these companies and fining them/suing them for damages to the public.

Took my parents 12 hours to drive from Orlando to Atlanta today.