FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
And every gimmick hungry yob
Digging gold from rock n roll
Grabs the mic to tell us
he'll die before he's sold
But I believe in this
And it's been tested by research
He who fucks nuns
Will later join the church
User ID: 195
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
10hr ago
The problem for a market-maker in the NFL is that there are very few participants, most are in some degree of professional precarity, and all moves are publicly noted and debated. So very quickly you see situations where teams refuse to take Howie's calls, like Billy Beane in the NFL before him, because they don't want to be the next fool in the Howie mythos.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
10hr ago
If that never comes to pass, will you amend your position?
My position on what?
I think it's bad if the government places essential services that one must access in places that people can't get to them. Typically in planning this comes up with the opposite valence, that government offices must be served by public transit to protect the car-less. I don't think it's necessarily bad to limit car traffic in inner cities.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
10hr ago
There are three different views of the trade that you see among Eagles fans:
-- The Dotson trade was bad because Dotson didn't put up any numbers and disappeared for long periods of the regular season, even when he was WR1 or WR2 with Smith and Brown injured. Simple as.
-- The Dotson trade was bad because Jalen Hurts never throws to receivers not named Smith or Brown, so putting resources into a WR3 will never pay off. Dotson was never going to put up any numbers to justify the cost so the trade was a bad idea from the start. The Eagles might think they need to go get a WR3, but it's never
-- The Dotson trade was Good, because Dotson had a couple huge receptions in the playoffs, he blocked hard on runs, he had a couple huge picks on big catches by other receivers; and ultimately you don't think about the value of that third round pick ever again after you win a super bowl.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
11hr ago
Absolutely--but neither are the kids taking AP tests to boost their college applications. There's no reason to do that unless your SAT equivalent score is well above that point.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
12hr ago
I fully expect it to be illegal (or at least extremely inconvenient) to drive a private ICE car into Manhattan within ten years. It just makes sense to me.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
12hr ago
I honestly don't know how you get anything else at an elite level. I got one 4 out of 8 AP tests, in a class I hadn't taken and hadn't really studied for. The AP tests just aren't that hard.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
12hr ago
Howie just can't help himself. He does rt every year, moving from 10 to 9 to get Jalen Carter, and moving up a couple spots to get Kelee Ringo, moving up to get Coop last year. Other front offices were saying anonymously that they just blocked the entire 215 area code on draft night because they weren't going to take any calls from Philadelphia, for fear of "losing" the trade. It's telling that the trade was with KC, arguably the front office with the most security right now outside of Howie.
Howie is a hero right now, but he also has a lot of trades that sort of seem pointless, or trades he arguably lost (Jahan Dotson last year, though you probably don't worry about it after he got three big playoff catches in a championship run). Dude just loves making obscure complicated trades.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
14hr ago
To the degree there's a misunderstanding between us, it's because my initial question was aimed at clearing up any misconceptions that other posters may have had that banks have to be in NYC because the stock exchange is there or because of laws or whatever.
More broadly and theoretically, there's a moral difference to me between the two situations:
a) The government legally requires that I go to a location, and then creates policies that restrict how I can reach that location. Such as placing it out of town and away from transit somewhere that can only be reached by car so that poor people and drunks are out of luck or taking an expensive Uber; or placing it downtown somewhere without any available parking where I can't reach it by car.
b) There exists a Thing, government makes a decision which restricts which transit modes can most conveniently reach the Thing.
Scenario a) strikes me as inherently tyrannical in that they're double-dipping on government power, while b) strikes me as the kind of inevitable choice about whose ox will be gored today that is inherent in any government decision. It strikes me as fully within a government's core competency to make choices that will benefit one group or another. If the financial industry in NYC really, really didn't like it, it's unlikely it would have been implemented in the first place; Wall Street is hardly an oppressed minority.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
15hr ago
The most narrow-technical prediction win I've ever landed:
My Philadelphia Eagles, coming off a crushing Super Bowl victory over the Chiefs, had the 32nd pick out of 32 first round picks in the NFL draft, held last night.
In every fan discussion, I loudly predicted that there was no way Eagles GM Howie Roseman would pick at 32. He would either trade up to pick up a falling star in the mid 20s, or he would trade out of the first round and pick up an extra pick somewhere else. My reasoning being that 1) In mock drafts you often see a guy who was a consensus top-ten pick drop into the early 20s, but rarely past that; 2) Howie Roseman comes from some kind hyper-trade-oriented Jewish merchant genetic stock or he's sold his soul to Tzeentch or something, but he loves making trades, he's always trading two late round picks to move up five picks in the second and pick up a third next year then trading the future third to pick up two late round picks. He loves moving around; 3) the Eagles have tremendous job security for their staff and a roster without any serious holes, so they're free to do radical things. My logic felt so airtight that I put a bit of money on it among friends.
Well the draft comes around last night, my mom wants to watch it. I watch it with her to keep her company, but to be honest, it was a slog with the Eagles picking so late. And what do the Eagles do, around midnight? They make a trade, just like I predicted!, to move up one spot from 32 to 31, to jump another team and draft Jihaad Campbell, a local South Jersey kid.
I won the bets by the narrowest margin possible, and I look forward to buying the most tasteless off-brand t-shirts imaginable outside the Linc next year.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
I think we've lost the plot, bro.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
Sorry, I skipped a step, that's a hypothetical.
I have told people that I'll still own my current truck when it is illegal to drive it in manhattan.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
I'd imagine that in those manlier days, such a person would experience some mix of:
-- Complete loss of honor and social standing if a gentleman
-- Possibly being lynched as a miscreant if not
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
The statement: he threatened to punch me and I was scared for my life is effeminate.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
...Sorry but what the fuck are you talking about? Your link described a gunfight that turned into a knife fight. No one is mentioned as punching anyone!
Bowie would have never drawn his knife to "protect" himself from a shove.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
What were the others, if you remember?
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
April BJJ Notes
-- I traveled to New England see my in-laws for Easter, and I looked up a local gym with a Saturday open mat and called to ask if I could drop in. The owner said if I was just stopping by for the weekend, in lieu of payment I should just bring him a six pack of Yuengling, I brought a case. I'll be honest in this space: I was really nervous about it. I've been going to BJJ at my gym pretty consistently three to five times a week, mostly progressing from losing quickly to losing slowly, and I'm pretty comfortable with rolling with anybody at my gym, comfortable with my level of sucking. But I hadn't yet rolled outside of that community, and I was pretty nervous: that I actually sucked way worse than I thought I sucked and everyone at my gym was just being nice to me, that my gym itself actually sucked and I just didn't realize it because it was all I knew, that I was going to be missing some key element of the game or of etiquette and would look like a fool, that everyone would dislike me for whatever reason. None of that happened, it was fantastic, 99th percentile realistic outcome. I had fun flow rolling with the upper belts who were very helpful, I felt pretty strong rolling with the lower belts, and I was able to hit a lot of things I've been working on at my gym like flower sweeps, and hitting underhooks and wrestling up from bottom half guard. Actually a great experience.
-- The severe bruising that I asked about when I started has more or less totally faded and is no longer a concern. I still have a few small bruises after every class, but it's not longer very painful or large. Among other suggestions I received was a possible deficiency in Vitamin D, and I started taking supplements. That might have worked. It might have also been changes in technique, or adjusting to it (though @self_made_human indicated that was impossible and he knows more than I do).
-- I've now reached the level of relative experience where the coaches ask me to drill with and roll with new sign ups and female students, and now newly signed up female students. I generally hate working with the women and try to avoid it unless directly asked or it comes up when we're all rotating, drilling even moreso than rolling. Nothing personal, I'm happy they are there and having a good time, it just doesn't have any benefits for me personally. I'm close to 200lbs, I need to be extremely gentle to avoid just overpowering a 130lb female, especially with the concern of avoiding being inappropriate. This is even worse when drilling; the other week I had the mortifying experience of one of the girls in class asking me to drill with her, and every single drill started with "Ok, get on top of your partner and put your hands on their chest and put all your weight on them..." Rolling isn't as bad because at least I can just decide not to use techniques that would lead to positions I'm uncomfortable with. I roll with girls if I have to, but I don't seek it out. BJJ is mostly a masculine experience, and a masculine activity, but I reflected recently that it actually makes a lot more sense for women than it does for men from a self defense perspective. A lot of times, the guys (other than the cops) kind of giggle when the coach is going through "self defense" applications for techniques: we are vanishingly unlikely to face a peer fight that matters at all. To beat an untrained person, I could have quit two months ago and been pretty confident, and the odds that I run into another big strong trained guy are low; to say nothing of my being in middle age and having avoided getting into any fights in years and years. For a young woman though, the odds of finding yourself with a larger stronger man on top of you and between your legs, who you want to control and stop, probably without using overly much violence; well I'm not going to turn this into a quibble over statistics but they have a decent chance of being in that situation in their lifetime. So in some ways, I should spare a thought for their needs in class: they might actually be doing something useful here.
-- So what am I getting out of it? I ran into this quote about tennis in Infinite Jest the other day and wrote it down in my notebook:
And then also, again, still, what are those boundaries, if they’re not baselines, that contain and direct its infinite expansion inward, that make tennis like chess on the run, beautiful and infinitely dense? The true opponent, the enfolding boundary, is the player himself. Always and only the self out there, on court, to be met, fought, brought to the table to hammer out terms. The competing boy on the net’s other side: he is not the foe: he is more the partner in the dance. He is the what is the word excuse or occasion for meeting the self. As you are his occasion. Tennis’s beauty’s infinite roots are self-competitive. You compete with your own limits to transcend the self in imagination and execution. Disappear inside the game: break through limits: transcend: improve: win. Which is why tennis is an essentially tragic enterprise. You seek to vanquish and transcend the limited self whose limits make the game possible in the first place. It is tragic and sad and chaotic and lovely. All life is the same, as citizens of the human State: the animating limits are within, to be killed and mourned, over and over again. Mario thinks hard again. He’s trying to think of how to articulate something like: But then is battling and vanquishing the self the same as destroying yourself? Is that like saying life is pro-death? And then but so what’s the difference between tennis and suicide, life and death, the game and its own end?
That's ultimately the goal of all athletics, and the other guy on the mat gives me a better excuse or occasion to explore my limits every week. I've dabbled in a lot of fitness hobbies over the years, and this has me stoked in a way I haven't been in a while. Every day is a challenge, and I can feel that I'm making progress, even if progress just looks like losing slower against the same opponent week over week, or hitting one good move in a round. I still suck, I'll probably always suck I'm not a naturally gifted athlete, but that feeling of progress is addictive.
-- I think my goal going forward is to work on narrowing down the moves I'm using in matches. Work on targeting a limited number of moves, and hitting them consistently, rather than the scattershot approach I've been taking so far. I love my gym for a lot of reasons, but I don't always get the most value out of the daily lessons because sometimes we're talking about seven-step leg locks from De La Riva and I'm just not gonna get it anytime soon. If I can get to the point where I've got a toolbox of a few good sweeps and a few good subs, I'll be way better off. I don't want to say my defense is good, but I'm reasonably decent at bogging things down when I'm in a bad position, and I can often sneak back into half-guard and fight from there. Counterintuitively, I think right now one of my goals needs to be to give up my back more this month. I almost never give up my back, the better players I see often do, so I think the fact that I'm not giving up my back indicates I'm over-valuing protecting my back, and need to take more risks.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
But see what you've described is an advantage as opposed to a requirement. A would like to or a should rather than a must.
It's one thing to say legally I must travel to this office and I cannot reach it by car.
It's another to say, NYC has advantages in terms of networking and disadvantages in terms of congestion pricing. NYC is already a stupid place to have a car unless you're rich or must have one for work, NYC already has disadvantages for having a car.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
Not something you need thousands of employees for, at all. A small nominal office could do that while moving the rest of your staff to Wilmington or Greenwich or Trenton.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
Why do they have to be in NYC?
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
It's absolutely shocking to me how effeminate our culture has become, that anyone can consider use of a knife or gun to be proportional self defense to an offer of fisticuffs.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
$50 grill, are you buying used? About the only new thing I see in that price is a Weber Smokey Joe, which is probably not most people's ideal grill for most things. What model you got?
I have no idea. It's red, it's from home depot's clearance sale in the fall three years ago, and it's got a picture of a Kangaroo somewhere in the logo. Tbf, the price quoted is based on having purchased them A) years ago and B) on Clearance in the fall. The thing about Charcoal grills is that the cheap ones work just fine. Unless you're getting something like a big green egg or a pizza oven, all you need is a piece of tin that holds the charcoal and the rest is details.
You don't do that?
There's a difference between intentionally having evenly burning areas at different temperatures, and unintentionally having cold spots where you don't want them. If you're trying to have different areas of the grill at different temps, you need to be even more careful to make sure you have each "zone" burning evenly.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
Loving Carmelo Anthony is itself mild evidence towards stupidity, like driving a Nissan or wearing a TAPOUT t shirt.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
I prefer charcoal. Mostly because of cost: I buy a $50ish charcoal grill every five years or so, and when it rusts out I scrap it and buy a new one. Where good gas grills are hundreds or thousands, and I'm not sure they last all that long anyway.
Consider using different kinds of charcoal. Most stores carry regular briquettes, but also lump charcoal and various hardwood flavor charcoals. You can get really interesting flavors, and sometimes just blending a little bit of expensive stuff in with your briquettes can get you the flavor. Lump charcoal is often a little harder to manage than briquettes, and it's important to make sure you get an even burn, but it can add a lot to the process.
On that note: get a small metal fan to blow on the charcoal, along with good fireplace. This will help you manage heat, get everything hot quickly, keep it even across the grill. You have to be careful to make sure you don't have a hot spot at one end where the burgers burn and a cold spot at the other where they're raw. A certain degree of unevenness is probably inevitable, and you want to rotate things to make sure all of them get heated evenly.
Grill everything. Vegetable, fish, sausages, burnt ends, fruit. Have fun with it!
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
I've experienced it myself with podcasters and bloggers, where I've had good feelings towards a content creator and wanted to support them. I don't think that's wrong.
What strikes me as odd is the extremity of the reaction towards what strike me as at most pretty mild alterations in position.
A "dueling" knife, intended to be used against someone else similarly armed. In a duel.
Not to be used to murder an unarmed foe.
It is effeminate to be so frightened of a fistfight that one immediately resorts to murdering one's opponent to "end the threat."
One is absolutely obligated by masculine honor to be willing to defend oneself in a physical fight.
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