unclevlad

It also feels like a very questionable deployment...probably legal, I suspect, but questionable. A governor has broad latitude to do this, but ordering a deployment should still require a plausible mission statement. I don't see it here, save for the actual border states perhaps. And it's a bad idea to force the Guard personnel to deploy for what is, I agree, a purely political stunt. And one which has no clear boundaries...how long will this last? The minimum commitment is 3 years, so the troops sent commonly have no choice but to go. This can't have a positive effect on recruiting.

I agree they're built badly. The defensive issues have been brought up on several occasions I've seen. Backing this up, here's a breakdown: http://www.fieldingbible.com/TeamDefensiveRunsSaved 4th worst in baseball. They're also dead last in stolen bases...17 (!!!!!) to this point. Even if you compare against teams in the middle, that's about *half* of what they've done. That also translates to having to play station to station baseball most of the time...you're probably not getting many extra bases, like first to third on singles. I sometimes look at the style of an individual hitter by looking at his RBI divided by his HR. Low on this ratio...you're not getting the sac flies, or grounding into double plays with runners on first and third and one out, or...you get the idea. It's even more applicable at the team level. Yankees have 106 HRs but only 305 RBI, so the ratio is 2.88. That's the worst in baseball. And they're already in trouble insofar as making the playoffs. We're almost spot on the halfway mark; 5 teams in the AL have 47+ wins, which means they project to 94+. That means the Yankees need to win 53 of 82 to get into a projected tie. If the Giants win their next 3, they'd match that pace...but no one else will. It's possible to do it, but realistically? With the core flaws of the Yankees? It's not gonna happen, or at least, their margin of error is already quite thin.

They only cancel when the other advantages and limitations are equal. It's a fairly safe bet, tho, that this won't be true here. Granted that it'll be *close* to the same but not quite. And as I noted...I think I'd be OK with the broad -1/4 limitation "must have END in the reserve" for the comms, sensors, and most life support, because the armor will presumably have a focus limitation anyway, and because the intent is the Reserve has no Recovery. That DOES create tactical issues even if it doesn't per se actually arise. Heck, there's plenty of limitations that actually rarely arise in practice. That said, I still feel it's very bad real-world design, and Id shut down other systems when the Reserve runs critically low. This may well NOT be worth a limitation, tho...especially given that we're only talking 1 or 2 points for the END that's blocked.

Learned this one from an FB author's group; I think y'all will appreciate it... https://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-quo2.htm

I had that game on early, but both the CWS final game and NBA playoffs were on, so left after a while. Didn't come back until after the NBA postgame...and at that point, MLB Network had decided to shift away from it to a West Coast game, at least in my area. When THAT ended, Quick Pitch was on. So...I didn't see the 9th. Wish I had. Yankees lose! THEEEEEEE Yankees LOSE!! Wonderful. (I'm less anti-Yankee than that I *loathe* John Sterling with a passion that knows no bounds.) Go in with a 4 run lead...lose by 3. Methinks Aaron Boone will be back in broadcasting next year...if not sooner. They've gone from 30-25, and a half game out of the WC, to 41-39 and 5 1/2 out. And being in contention for the 2nd WC is not exactly acceptable for that team's fan base. And shouldn't be, with the money the team spends. NOTE: ESPN is just now reporting that Hal Steinbrenner has no intention to fire Boone or Brian Cashman right now. But we shall see about the end of the season. And the boos I heard during Quick Pitch...don't remember if it was as the top of the 9th ended or the game ended...were fairly substantial. Especially given that it was around 1 AM, after those 2 rain delays. So I still think it's possible Boone is ousted before the end of the season. Boone's track record isn't *terrible*...Yanks have been in the playoffs every year, but losing twice in the division series isn't enough.

Well, there's the exclamation point on what I was planning to post... To wit, does anyone else think this has been the chippiest postseason in memory? Not the most physical per se, but so much chippiness. The capper just now, Chris Paul hits a 3 with about 6 minutes left to take the lead to 26...ergo, game's over. Clips call a timeout. Everyone's walking to the benches; Paul *might* have said something quietly, it's not clear...but Beverly turns around, takes 2 steps, and pushes Paul HARD in the back, to the ground. Beverly is, of course, ejected. But that kind of stuff has been rampant this year, it seems to me. Clippers haven't been the only offenders; I gotta give Paul George some props; he carried the Clippers for several wins, but the injuries were gonna be hard to overcome. And the Suns strike me as a well-constructed team...guard play, front court play, a big man that plays big and does it well (Ayton), veteran leadership, young talent, very good starters, good bench. Very good from 3, but not solely reliant on it; their offense threatens to socre from every zone on the court. I'm quite impressed with them.

How bout for Dan Snyder? BIG problem with Ohtani pitching and being the DH is raging in full force tonight. He walked 4, gave up 3 hits...and 7 runs. In the first. As you can guess, he's out...which also means the Angels lose the DH for the rest of the game. And happy birthday to Trea Turner. To celebrate, all he did today was hit for the cycle. First time that's happened, not overly surprisingly. Cycles aren't terribly common. Also the third in his career, which ties the record.

I have to disagree. That ship never existed. It was less real than the Discovery One...but Trump does do a good job of being HAL, so the confusion may be understandable. On one hand, the threat of a civil war is just hot air, IMO. And, realistically, why should their minds have changed? It was utter delusion from the start, and nothing has happened to disturb that delusion. On the other hand, tho, you do have to be concerned that there's enough of a mass of these fools to potentially cause a serious problem.

Ok, I see those...but again, look at the differences between home and road. And what bugs me is the brutally low batting average on the road...with the 80 point gap. That looks like the batters are being tentative to me, on the road.

Tennis is less a game of pure speed, altho that can help, and more a game of explosive starts and stops. So, yeah, it's a problem. And grass is the least common surface these days, by a lot. The other side is...the probability for Serena to get #24 drops another few points. And Mannarino had Fed going *big* time. He had a 2-1 set lead, altho when he slipped the 4th set was 4-1 for Fed, so a 5th set looked likely. And who knows what'll happen. But at Wimbledon...Fed losing *2* sets in the first round? That's crazy talk. Rust is plausible, but I don't see him rounding to real match sharpness faster than the level of his opponent is likely to rise.

Yeah, that's a common...to say the least...feeling. I suspect that if we tried to count teams whose fans feel that way, across the NBA, NFL, and MLB, we'd run out of toes.

What I don't get is *why* the Rocks are so utterly, disastrously AWFUL on the road. Ohh. I see. Rockies' slash lines: (BA / OBP / Slug / OPS) home: .280 / .339 / .471 / .810 (#3 in OPS in MLB, which is what I swapped to for sorting) road: .196 / .270 / .296 / .566 (dead last in OPS) Stats are from MLB.com; they let you split team stats in many different ways, including home or away only. This extreme difference is crazy. My first take is, on the road they're simply not aggressive enough. On base percentage 70 points higher than batting average? That's pretty weird these days. The slugging percentage...ok, to a point that's tied t the batting average, but still, 175 points lower is crazy. Not only are they barely getting hits, they're heavily weighted to singles. So...well, hey, I get the complaint that they're burning down their own houses in these moves, but how much do they have that's worth keeping? How much of this is a terrible front office, how much a poor coaching staff that can't break these *extreme* home/road discrepancies?

Unfortunately, they have a case. The law explicitly created preferential treatment. It's a paradox in trying to redress discrimination; the laws attempting to prevent discrimination block efforts to give favorable treatment...because that is in itself an act of discrimination. I'm not *happy* with the Texas ruling, but it also doesn't surprise me at all.

But understand that conflicting advice from "so-called experts" feeds into the denial narrative...and the climate change narrative...and anything siimilar. It gives the pundits of that stripe PROOF!!! that scientists are part of the left-leaning Godless heathens who obey the whims of their political masters, and that they can't be trusted, see???? Covid denial and vaccine denial could not have had the enormous success they gained without having this ground well fertilized in advance. And the advice itself just *sounds* alarmist as heck. I'm not saying it's wrong; I'm just looking at its reception. Oh, here we go again, next thing you know those libs will be pushing for shutdowns again!!! I gotta say, the question to me is, ok, the delta variant is nasty. BUT, if I'm vaccinated, what are my risks? Even I have to ask if this is a reasonable move or a "the only acceptable level of risk is zero" move. Is this being driven by bad interpretations of the statistical data...that is, ok, the delta variant is causing an increase in cases. BUT, what percentage is among those who never got vaccinated??? Hey, public health officials got burned once, so it's not a great stretch to say they're gonna be seriously gunshy now.

Ohhhh man....... Maybe there have been postseasons MORE impacted by injury than this one but...here we go again... Giannis going for a rebound. Comes down; one of the Hawks players, in the scrum under the basket, comes down, forcing his left leg to look like a (. Knees do not pivot in that direction. Looked potentially nasty, but Giannis was able to walk off under his own power at least. Bucks have been down, tho, this whole game...and Trae Young is out. Took 23 3-pointers in the first half. Cripes. This team has as much fire as a snowfield.

Getting "no such page"...granted that might be due to odd extraneous factors today...things have been an intermittent mess...

Argh. Conflicting recommendations is the worst situation... This is the kind of stuff the anti-vaxers (and the anti-science faction generally) feed on.

Yep. Both insane streaks ended on, IIRC, consecutive days, or possibly the same day. Just as well; losing streaks limited to road games only are much less noticeable but any seriously long losing streak is not good for the sport. These became long enough to draw broad interest. But you've got Arizona and Baltimore both 30 (or more) under .500 coming into the halfway point of the season. To even reach 90 wins, Baltimore would need to go ~ 65-16; Arizona, 67-14. Give or take 1 maybe, depending on their exact records. The best first half in MLB history (for 81 games) is the absolutely awesome '98 Yankees...the best team I can remember. They went 61-20. So we can fundamentally say, there's NO chance either team will make the playoffs. (And heck, just reaching 90 will probably NOT be all that close to a playoff berth.) So 2 teams are already fundamentally, if not technically, eliminated before the 4th of July. That is not good. And, Texas and Pittsburgh are almost there; they'd need ~ 60 wins in the second half to reach 90. They have the better shot at getting in with just 90 wins, too. But by the All-Star break, there's a good chance that these 4, plus at least 1 or 2 from the next-worst group (Detroit, KC, Minnesota, Miami, Colorado) will be fundamentally eliminated. That's just too many non-competitive teams.

Let's assign that your Reserve 1 has a REC that's 1 lower than the per-turn END cost, which is the recovery interval for an END Reserve. Doesn't matter what the actual END per turn amounts to. So the reserve has to be sized at 1 per turn of operation. That's 5 per minute, or 300 per hour. Even 6 hours...which might be an OK mission operation time...is 1800 END. That's 450 points before limitations, IIRC. That is ludicrous, and if the intent is to model a tech armor suit, it's a total failure. Granted: if you break it down like this, the suit's combat END reserve is gonna be hideously large if it's to operate for any extended period. Even with Reduced END. Or it uses charges. But again, look at the design, look at the combat mission profile for which these would be deployed. Now work out the weapons loadouts and END requirements. It might be nastier than you think.

Yeah, Dan, but yours is going to be worse, I gotta say. Figure that the suit comms (enhanced sense), sensors (probably multiple lines from Enhanced Senses), and life support all have Costs END continuously. EACH power will cost 1 END, quite probably; they'll be below 15 points for the most part. You may *well* be looking at 5-6 END per phase because they're separate powers. So you're looking at a *high* REC. Now, you can bypass this a bit by defining a single Custom Power, to bundle all of these together and thereby get *1* Active Point cost to use to determine the END cost. But the senses and LS will add up; it's still likely 3 END per phase, and thus still a rather high REC for your Reserve #1. Also in your build, you can't wear the suit indefinitely, even if you're doing nothing. The problem I think is that comms, sensors, and life support inherently don't cost END for a reason, and thus applying Costs END adds an *insane* load onto the armor's electrical systems compared to the offensive and defensive systems. So I don't think it's handwavium here, it's a problem with the translation into END.

Yeah, plus, Costs END will mean each little power will cost 1+ END, making for a ridiculously large-looking drain. And as noted, it's a bookkeeping PITA. I'd have to look at what you want to apply that to, but I might allow a -1/4 limitation. Guys, a point here to consider is this is probably getting a -1/2 OIF (Power Armor Suit) blanket limit, so an extra -1/4 on small stuff won't be saving many points at all. The armor's END Reserve can't recharge except at the base is a MAJOR issue, IMO. Especially if this cuts the life support off. Not thinking in game terms here; I'm putting on my combat engineer and systems integrator caps. I'd design it differently, I think...if the END reserve drops below a certain point, offensive systems shut down. Below another, lower, point, defenses that cost END cut out. You DO NOT want comms and life support being lost; that's a deathtrap design.

Bob Costas pointed out, during an MLB Network braodcast, that at one point this year, the D'Backs were 15-13. Since then...7-44. So 7-43 for 50 games. Can't find if this is a record worst or not, but the complement...a 43-7 or better stretch has only happened twice. In 1906 and 1912. Dodgers ran off a 42-8 outburst in 2013; other than that, 40-10 hasn't happened since 1977. Stretching things out, the lowest numbers of wins in the 162-game season era are 47 (2018 Orioles, 2019 Tigers but they only played 161); the 2003 Tigers at 43, and the poster child for utter baseball ineptitude, the 1962 Mets. D'backs are on pace for ~ 45. Looking at it: I find it interesting that this will make a third team to lose 70+% of their games in 3 full seasons, if that pace continues. Maybe it's coincidence, but I think it's pattern, to a degree. Bad teams, and the D'backs, Tigers, and Orioles have all been bad for several years, have a harder time keeping anyone good, and this process might be getting worse. Mmm...nope. Rockies have a bad road record but they win games here and there. Lose 6, win 1; lose 5, win 1; lose 1, win 1; lose 5, win 1, since the start of May. You might be thinking of the Orioles; they lost 20 in a row, but won Saturday. Rangers had a 15 game road losing streak, but I believe that one's over too. EDIT: not that you're that far off, as the Rockies have the worst road record *by a mile* even with the D'back losing streak. They're currently 6-31 (.162); D'backs are 10-33 (.232). Further, I suspect the Rockies will likely at least approach the most extreme home/road difference. They're 26-16 at home; that's .619. That's VERY good. OK, I'm pretty sure that this has been a pattern of theirs, but I dunno if it's been THIS bad.

Bloody hell, it's blatant beyond belief. The freakin' principal walks into the view RIGHT as the kid says "after I came out as queer" and fiddles...then the mic dies. Geeeeee.... PG, that's not 'harassment' it's discrimination, severe abuse of authority, and IMO a COMPLETE failure to recognize that any points about mental health or the difficulty of fitting in, would resonate with a LOT of the students. I think that school will have a new principal when classes return in the fall.

Philles fans feel the same. Midweek game last week vs. the Nats. Philly is up 5-0 after 4. They give up 5 in the top of the 5th. They score 4 more in the bottom of the 5th. They give up 6 in the top of the 6th. They score 1 in the 7th, 2 in the 8th to get the lead back, 12-11, going into the 9th. And give up 2 more in the top of the 9th. Altho their bullpen hasn't been as bad as some overall. But what we see so often is, when the pitching is bad, it is VERY bad. And in a stunning turn of events, both the D'backs and Orioles have won a road game over the weekend. (Friday night counts, you know it does.)

Update on the NC State situation: it went from one positive test Thursday to multiple positive tests after testing late Friday or early Saturday...the game was delayed by rain and ended late. That was apparently the trigger, the explosive growth in the # of positive tests. The crypto story is interesting because one of the problems is apparently jurisdiction, so on the assumption that we're ALL making, that this was TRULY GRAND embezzlement, the perps have a rather nice lead.