Jump to content

Huckleberry

Certifiably Surly
  • Posts

    14466
  • Joined

  • Days Won

    22

Posts posted by Huckleberry

  1. If only there were a way to figure out whether living in Austin or Lubbock is more appealing to the general population.

    image.png

    Obviously I rigged that as well as I could in Lubbock's favor by not just using raw population totals or increases. Now can we stop talking about this settled issue and get back to figuring out ways that Smart is gone?

    • Like 1
  2. No, I'm saying if UT is a top 5, even a top 1 or 2 program, in almost every sport, shouldn't UT have one of the best 2 or 5 coaches in the country most of the time in most sports?
    No. That makes zero sense.
  3. I find it telling that as a guy who has lived in Austin 20+ years, got two graduate degrees, and has worked on campus for seven years, not once did you ever refer to UT as "my" school or "our" school and seem largely ambivalent if not derisive about the University, in general.


    The more humorous thing related to that life story is that he brushes aside arguments that Austin and UT are significantly more appealing than Lubbock and Tech despite being a Tech grad who bolted to Austin and UT and stayed there for 20 plus years as soon as he had his Tech degree.
  4. 1 hour ago, slorch said:

    Nice financial protection for ET:

    The source said the deal includes $32 million fully guaranteed at signing, with $22 million coming in the first nine months.

    Fantastic news that the injury didn't screw him as badly as everyone feared.

  5. On 3/11/2019 at 7:40 PM, Gil Bang said:

    McGregor's a piece of shit and he's gonna get deported.  And the US will be a better place the minute it happens. 

    Is it a bad sign when your attorney obviously tries to avoid saying you're innocent in his official statement on the incident?

    http://www.espn.com/mma/ufc/story/_/id/26247519/surprised-mcgregor-grabbed-phone

    McGregor's defense attorney, Sam Rabin, issued the following statement on Monday.

    "Last evening, Conor McGregor was involved in a minor altercation involving a cell phone that resulted in a call to law enforcement," Rabin said. "Mr. McGregor appreciates the response of law enforcement and pledges his full cooperation."

  6. I would imagine that "behavioral decisions" are conditioned to some extent by environmental factors, and thus are not totally unencumbered by factors out of the individual's control.  Thus, there is really on a difference in degree in the amount of control an individual has over those behavioral factors and something like his or her genetics.  Given that we are discussing a difference in degree and not category, there is really no sound basis in asserting that insurance companies should be able to discriminate on the basis of one and not the other.  
    You are attempting to argue that insurance companies should not be allowed to charge a higher premium on life insurance for professional daredevils.

    It's an absurd argument to make.

    As for the specific example at hand, the unvaccinated generally aren't responsible for their health insurance premiums until they're old enough to have learned better and gotten themselves vaccinated.
  7. 2 hours ago, texifornia said:

    I thought it was pretty clear that it's a lower bar than for non-athletes, but still higher than your garden variety college admissions process. Similar to how the Ivies need their recruits to collectively hit an average academic target score (created by blending test scores and GPA).

    The scandal lets the dumb rich kids freeload on the smarter athletes and get rolled into that athletic average.

    You may know it, but many don't. Otherwise their administration wouldn't feel the need to lie about it and then get called out by their own alumni.

    https://www.stanforddaily.com/2015/02/22/the-price-of-athletics-at-stanford/

    Perhaps the most controversial aspect of this trade-off is admissions standards for athletes. Many of my friends at Stanford with whom I have discussed athletic admissions are under the impression that academic standards for admission are essentially the same for athletes and non-athletes, even in high revenue sports like football. This impression is pushed by the athletics department. When Duke University economist Charles Clotfelter gave a presentation at Stanford claiming that universities were making academic concessions, including relaxed admissions standards, in order to have successful athletic programs, Stanford’s senior associate athletic director responded: “I beg to differ on that. We haven’t lowered our academic standards.” Football coach David Shaw has repeated this mantra: Responding to critics claiming that Stanford had relaxed its academic standards to achieve football success, he claimed, “We have the same academic standards.”

    But this is not actually true. Although we do not have comprehensive statistics comparing athletic admits to regular admits, some data does exist. Looking at a group of 10 elite colleges and using SAT scores (on the 1600 point scale) as a proxy for academic ability, Princeton researchers found that being a recruited athlete gave an admissions boost equivalent to scoring 200 points higher on the SAT. We can also look at high school scouting reports for football players. Looking at the Stanford recruitment class of 2009 (this year was quite typical in terms of test scores), the median football player who reported scores got an 1800 out of 2400 on the SAT and 26 on the ACT. Based on university statistics, this puts the football median comfortably in the bottom quartile and likely somewhere in the bottom 10 percent in terms of test scores. Stanford football players are quite smart, but the data suggests they place near the bottom of Stanford’s admits.

    • Like 1
  8. I get that it used to be done, but seems strange at this point. At least it's limited to the points places in order to earn the point. Otherwise you'd see all the cars in 11th and lower positions coming in for new tires on the third to last lap to make one big run at it on fresh tires and low fuel loads. Not that they'd have a real high probability of hitting the fastest lap but there'd be no reason not to try. And if a front running car had some sort of wing damage early in the race and found themselves in something like 12th place with 3 laps to go they absolutely would do that.

    • Like 1
  9. 39 minutes ago, satyanash said:

    Suddenly I'm glad Texas has struggled to recruit IMG kids... not that it did any good for men's tennis

    So we've been led to believe for years that Stanford doesn't lower admissions requirements for recruits, even in football.

    Today we find out that is complete and total bullshit. It's apparently worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for their fucking SAILING coach to say you're a recruited athlete in order to help with the admissions process.

    The entire brand and aura they've created around getting admitted as a football recruit is one hundred percent bullshit.

    • Like 1
  10. But that's also simply school policy. The so-called recruits would still have to hit NCAA minimums for eligibility. The fact that the school might admit a lesser student if they're an athlete has nothing to do with the NCAA (see the Stanford bogeyman on the recruiting forum).

  11. Haven't read anything on that "proposal" but it would also seem at first glance to favor people who are already in a better financial situation. Poorer people tend to have children younger and therefore won't have as much social security savings as richer people who have kids later.

×
×
  • Create New...