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Huckleberry

Certifiably Surly
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Posts posted by Huckleberry

  1. The above posters are 100% correct that immigrants were badly mistreated under previous administrations as well. And those abuses should absolutely be investigated.

    The bigger issue now is that the current President has weaponized that mistreatment, as Warren mentioned, and now 40% of the country is saying out loud and in public that such treatment is okay. At least the previous assholes had the decency to hide their behavior.

    • Like 1
  2. One of the articles mentioned they used biometric data for players who had played in the league before. It's not that hard.

    What it will screw is guys like Jeff Bagwell unless they measure the strike zone the right way instead of just basing it on height. Within a decade it will probably be possible to set the strike zone when a guy gets into his stance, which is the right way to do it.

  3. This may be what you're saying, but it's not whether or not they have the money, it's that they don't have anything more productive to spend it on in the preparation to sell their product.

    Theranos had enough money to sponsor an F1 team at one point. Maybe they should have.

  4. 1 minute ago, BurntEyes said:

    So you believe all neglegent behavior resulting in death should be given a pass as an accident.

    Wow!

    That's a free pass for, "I didnt know the gun was loaded" or "I didn't think I was drunk" or "We didn't know these bombs were live" or "We didn't know the chemicals would kill them".

    Wow. Seriously, what a fucking horrible take.

    No, it's a good take. Yours is fucking terrible.

    • Like 3
  5. Well it also doesn't help that kids aren't swinging heavy enough bats. Everyone wants one more mph of bat speed so they are swinging -10 bats.

    [getoffmylawn]Back in my day we used the biggest bat we could swing comfortably, my 11-year-old year I used a 30/24 and my 12-year-old year I used a 32/26. 12-year-old kids these days can't even pick up a bat that size and head up to the plate with a 31/21 if they're the big strong kid on the team.[/getoffmylawn]

    Found a -8 for my kid last season he played and lo and behold the ball was jumping off the bat better.

    In game news, Lufkin beat Western Hills last night so there is a final championship game tonight in Section 1.

  6. 1 minute ago, alincoln said:

    Obviously, if they make the World Cup.  Since they won't and no one pays shit to watch their games, they make virtually nothing.

    I'm sure you probably noticed that the United States men did not participate in the 2018 World Cup. That's why I asked about the Bahamian team. They also participate "in a significantly more popular and competitive sport that generates significantly more revenue than women's soccer." I'm basically asking for you to flesh out your argument with details instead of one-liners. Does the USMNT deserve to be paid more than the USWNT because they play the men's game and the men's game makes more money (this is what you actually said), or do they deserve to be paid more because they specifically generated more revenue than the women's team did?

     

    • Like 1
  7. I liked both my parents, still like my dad but mom's death kind of put a dent in our relationship.

    As for my kids, I like them all, but I absolutely have a favorite. I argue with my wife about this sometimes. I told her if you take any three people in the world that you know, you will like one of them more than the other two. That's just how it works, but somehow that's magically not supposed to apply to my kids?

    For the record, my kids know my theory on this, but I just tell each of them they're my favorite when they ask who it is. And Alexa has been programmed to respond with one of our dog's names when she's asked who my favorite kid is.

    • Like 1
    • Haha 2
  8. A&M's response will be to send all their underprivileged students to the State Legislature to beg for money personally instead of through administrators. Turns out the plan to balloon enrollment to 80,000 solely to have more graduates donate to the athletics program in the future was fucking stupid just like everyone told them it was fucking stupid.

    Did I mention they're fucking stupid?

    • Like 1
    • Haha 1
  9. On 7/6/2019 at 6:42 PM, Sandlot said:

    I’m glad you guys took the time out of your busy NBA coaching schedules to chime in on such things as rotations and so forth. Maybe all you excellent coaches can give Coach Aston some pointers on how to coach.

    lulz

    Basketball is harder than rocket science! It's like neurosurgery except with a bouncing ball!

    • Like 2
  10. Okay, so I'm having a little too much fun playing with the rankings. To show what an automatic pass this has made into the hex, if the USA loses all four of their CONCACAF Nations League matches to Cuba and Canada this coming fall, their FIFA point total will only drop from 1546 (calculated above after the Gold Cup) to 1499. I.e., there is almost no way to miss the hex.

    I really don't think FIFA understands the ratings inflation that is going to happen due to that knockout round rule. As well as the penalty shootout rule (you get a 0.75 game score for winning a penalty shootout and a 0.5 game score - instead of 0.25 - for losing in a penalty shootout). They have guaranteed ratings points inflation with these ad hoc tweaks to the math.

  11. By the way, the new system also helps the USA and Mexico because continental competitions are worth more than the Nations League. So the fact we have two Gold Cups every cycle is a slight boost. But even more interesting is this:

    image.png.9afc2934d3a4cc89326340525e55d4a4.png

    ORLY? If CONCACAF wants to do something right and game the rankings, then there's no reason not to make the Gold Cup 8 groups of 4 teams and then everyone advances to the knockout round, seeded based on group results. Then have it every year. Positive feedback loop would start shooting CONCACAF teams up the rankings. Just sayin'.

  12. 1 hour ago, Captain Ron said:

    I don't see how this helps anyone at all. A shitty as the FIFA rankings are handled, this takes away prime qualification games for teams like the US and Mexico. That was the point of the whole system before because it fattened up teams in points/rankings for the top teams to beat up on. Last go around the US and Mexico had 16 games in qualifying. Sure, 6 were in the 4th round, but it still gave them a chance to increase their rankings.

    The old system really needed to be scrapped, but this is a step backwards, not forwards.

    With the 2018 changes to the formula this actually doesn't hurt as much as it would have before, possibly not at all. Let's take the 2018 qualifying fourth round that actually happened then plug in the current (pre-Gold Cup) FIFA rankings values

    Points before the 4th round: USA 1495, TNT 1260, GUA 1072, SVG 954

    USA 6, SVG 1 - USA moves from 1495 points to 1498 points, SVG from 954 to 951
    GUA 1, TNT 2 - GUA from 1072 to 1064, TNT from 1260 to 1268

    SVG 0, GUA 4 - SVG to 941, GUA to 1074
    TNT 0, USA 0 - TNT to 1273, USA to 1493

    SVG 2, TNT 3 - SVG to 936, TNT to 1278
    GUA 2, USA 0 - GUA to 1095, USA to 1472

    TNT 6, SVG 0 - TNT to 1283, SVG to 931
    USA 4, GUA 0 - USA to 1477, GUA to 1090

    SVG 0, USA 6 - SVG to 928, USA to 1480
    TNT 2, GUA 2 - TNT to 1279, GUA to 1094

    USA 4, TNT 0 - USA to 1485, TNT to 1275
    GUA 9, SVG 3 - GUA to 1099, SVG to 922

    Forgive the rounding. The bottom line is that the USA went 4-1-1 in the fourth round and in the new ranking system would have dropped from 1495 ranking points down to 1485. This reflects a drop from #30 to tied for #33. The new ranking system is better but has flaws, of course. There is no accounting for home versus road matches. This works out for the USA because we play a lot of home matches in the Gold Cup. We should work the system by also scheduling every friendly match between now and 2022 at home.

    Limiting the top teams' opponents to the highest ranked teams actually helps in the new formula. The loss to Guatemala in the fourth round above made it literally impossible for the United States to increase their point total no matter what happened in their last 3 matches of the round. Last three matches were wins by a total of 14-0 and the final point total was still a drop of 10 points for the full fourth round.

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