I like to link links. At the 1974 Academy Awards ceremony, Jack Lemmon won Best Actor for Save the Tiger beating out a pretty impressive list of nominees — Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino and Robert Redford…

And the next night, he did a suprise (to the audience) walk-on on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show…

Back in this message, we linked you to fresh, good quality audios of the opening and closing of the 1966 Marvel Super-Heroes cartoon show. All the themes from that series are now online and you can listen to 'em here. There's reportedly a vinyl (VINYL!) record of them out, too.

Apple has been running many different ads to promote the iPhone 16 – and most of them are related to Apple Intelligence. This time, however, the company has launched a new ad focused on highlighting the performance of the A18 Pro chip, which powers the iPhone 16 Pro models.

more…

Apple recently launched AirPods 4, which are available in two different versions: one with ANC active noise cancellation and support for MagSafe chargers. And if you’ve bought new AirPods 4, read on as we’ve put together a list of some of the best protective cases and lanyards for Apple’s wireless earbuds.

more…

I loved this article about NeonWorks which seems to be the last neon artisan in the Bay Area. The owner, Jim Rizzo is a character, and the article is full of nuggets like:

“I think the love of neon is still there, but because budgets are tight, people are going to LED fake neon. Have you seen that stuff? It’s trying to look like neon, but it’s plastic with little diodes embedded in it. … Nobody makes it in America.”

Rizzo handles the installations, which means he often finds himself hanging 16 stories up in a bosun chair tinkering with hotel signs. He can handle the dizzying elevation: “I love heights.” What he can’t stand are the pigeons. “I will kill a pigeon in a heartbeat, I hate them,” he jokes. “The Avenue Theatre sign (in San Francisco) was so dilapidated and filled with pigeons that every day we pulled up to it, we were just like, ‘Uhhhhhgh.’”

“Tube bending” is the term for heating and shaping neon tubes with almost medieval-like flame torches – the trade is full of such wonderful terms, including “slumping” (when a tube sinks down from gravity), “blockout paint” (black pigment used to create the illusion of letter breaks) and “bombarding” (electrifying a tube to clean out impurities).

(via @notacquiescing.bsky.social)

Tags: design · Jim Rizzo

💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Flush is an app for finding public bathrooms. “Search through over 200,000 public loos all around the world!” Available for iOS and Android. Seems indispensable for parents of young kids.

💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

As you may remember, eleven years ago a group of friends and I bought a five acre island near Halifax, Nova Scotia. We only visit it a few times per year, but those visits are the perfect counterbalance to spending too much time in front of the computer and away from nature.

Progress at the island is best characterized as two steps forward, one step back. So when we weren’t able to go to Canada for three years due to Covid, we just took three steps back. The most urgent issue was that a hurricane destroyed the dome cap of our yurt, but it wasn’t the only problem. The even bigger problem, one that had been brewing for a long time, was that the vinyl roof of our yurt was failing. Small holes had appeared, which the wind whipped into small gashes. Every storm poured gallons of water into the yurt.

The most fun island trips are where there are lots of projects to do, but none of them are urgent. The most stressful are the ones where something absolutely has to get done, because there are always unexpected roadbumps, and being on an island makes everything more complicated.

Earlier this year Brian and I decided that the roof project couldn’t wait and we had to come up with a plan for a rigid wooden roof. As far as I could tell, no one had ever done this on a yurt, or at least no one had explained how they had done it, so we were on our own. We tried to rally other island owners, but no one volunteered to help us. Luckily Brian’s friend Andy volunteered, and even better, decided to drive from Montreal with a bunch of tools.

Brian and I met in his apartment to sketch out a plan. The yurt is about thirty feet in diameter and has thirty-two rafters. We determined that with a bit of clever cutting, we could fill each “pie wedge” with an upper and lower piece of wood, and we could cut those two pieces from just one piece of plywood. Easy! We ordered the wood as well as many gallons of rubber roof coating, and felt ok about the trip. To make things even easier, we would just leave the existing vinyl roof underneath the wooden one, so at no point would we have to expose the interior to the weather.

Roof Trip 1

It took a few days to get the lumber over, prep, clean up the yurt a bit, remove the old (now very moldy) cotton lining, and get ready. We had a big argument over the best way to do things. I wanted to figure out the average dimensions for a wedge, and assembly line build them. Then we’d move each rafter into position to form that size wedge. At the end we’d probably be off by a bit, so we’d do a custom one.

Brian wanted to do custom ones for every single wedge (though he also wanted to move the rafters somewhat to make them even). I convinced him to just try my way, since it would be the fastest if it worked, and we pretty immediately realized that it wouldn’t work. First, we have framed windows and doors and we can’t put rafters on top of them. So that limits the placement of several rafters. But it also limits the placement of rafters between the windows and doors because you want things to be roughly equal in those spaces. We divided the yurt into sections (door to first window, first window to second window, etc) and came up with standard sizes for each of those. But then as we began to move the rafters into place we discovered another problem— we couldn’t just place rafters wherever we wanted to. The rafters latch on to an aircraft cable that circles the yurt and is rested on the lattice that forms the walls, but the lattice sticks up and you can’t put a rafter directly on it.

So we had to measure each one individually. You would think this wouldn’t be THAT hard, since you really only need a couple measurements, but after putting up a few we realized that the bottom edges weren’t lining up. It turns out that the top ring disaster from the year before had skewed the top ring relative to the bottom ring, so now the wedges were no longer isosceles triangles, but actually had different dimensions on each side. To make an extremely long story a bit shorter, we ended up having to get on the roof and measure five dimensions for each panel, and then we made a cad model so that we could plug those numbers in and get our cuts. Then we had to make those cuts basically perfectly because we didn’t have any extra wood (it’s hard to dispose of pressure treated plywood and annoying to carry).

As you can imagine, this took forever.

Getting the panels onto the roof was also a challenge. Our first method involved leaning a ladder against the side of the yurt with me pushing the wood up and the other two guys supporting on the side. We failed to consider the lever action that would take place when the wood flopped down onto the roof and lifted my arms up. In an instant I realized that if I didn’t let go I was going to be pushed backwards off the ladder so I pushed the wood to the side and let it fall in the woods behind me. It nicked me in the neck. Brian and I, used to these sorts of janky setups, just started thinking about our next try. His friend Andy, who is a bit more safety minded than us, took a walk to decompress because, as he said, “I think I just saw you almost get decapitated”. To be fair, I think it looked a lot worse than it was, but I get it. Eventually we got climbing gear from Halifax and hoisted each panel up.

Over the course of our ten day trip we were making progress, but also slipping behind every day. When we first arrived we had grand dreams of installing skylights. Then we settled on just coating the roof with the rubber. Then just getting the panels up, and finally just getting most of them up.

I have never been more tired in my life. My whole body ached with every movement. We’d take a bit of time for a quick tea in the morning and lunch around noon, but besides that we were working all daylight hours and some evening hours if there was stuff we could do inside. By the last day we had gotten the whole bottom ring of panels installed but still had to do the top ones. I was pretty defeated and suggested to Brian that we work until 11pm and then just call it. He agreed, but then said that he’d stay up a bit later and try to get some more done by himself. By the time I woke up the next morning and got to the yurt I could see that he did almost all of the top panels. He had stayed up until 4am and then woken up at 7am again to put up a few more. The main reason he couldn’t do the last four is that our cell service at the island had degraded over the past couple years, and the CAD software we were using was online. He couldn’t even connect to it.

We were happy with our progress, given the difficulty, and felt like we were a bit out of the woods. We left the yurt in total disarray, as we hadn’t allocated time to cleaning in 4-5 days and had been using the main area to cut the smaller pieces of wood.

Some of my enthusiasm evaporated when I reported my progress to my dad and uncle, and both of them told me that pressure treated wood really shouldn’t be left to the elements. I thought that was the whole point, but had never actually looked it up. I was nervous about we’d find when we returned.

Roof Trip 2

We marshaled a bit more help for the second trip. Fellow island owner Ben and his wife Mai came to help as well as my good friend Todd. Neither Ben nor Mai had much experience with construction, but I know Ben to be a relentless hard worker, and Mai seemed very eager as well. Todd is a frequent island visitor and is both competent and very hard working.

The nice thing about having more than two people is that you get quality of life projects done as well as urgent ones. Several steps of the roof only needed 2-3 people, so we would split into groups and get other things done as well.

Brian and I had framed walls for the indoor shower a couple years prior, but had never paneled the walls, even though we had already brought over the plywood. We got those paneled, even though an insane colony of carpenter ants had made a tunneled nest in the stack of wood, which was quite a shock.

We cleaned and organized the entire yurt, rewired some of the electronics, reinforced all of the rafters with vertical studs of the same length, so that the roof would be level, rebuilt parts of the outhouse and added a pee diverter, tiled the bathroom floor, and a ton of other projects. But… I’ll tell you about the one that made the biggest difference.

As I’ve mentioned before our neighbors on the mainland are truly the most kind and generous people I’ve ever met. It’s no exaggeration to say that every time I go to the island I am inspired by them to be a better person. They have helped us in so many ways over the years, and when we thank them or try to do anything to pay them back they act like we’re crazy because they’re just “doing what anyone would do”. Despite them constantly telling us to ask them if we need anything, I try to only ask if something’s important, because I don’t want to bother them.

Our cell service was excellent for years, but as far as I can tell the closest cell tower was removed during covid, and now it’s basically unusable. We looked into starlink but it was expensive to keep it on all year for the 2-3 weeks we’re at the island, and it uses so much power that we’d have to upgrade batteries significantly. I knew that point-to-point wireless links existed and seemed to be good, and when I mentioned it to the neighbors they said, “Oh yeah, of course you can do that”.

I ordered a set to bring to the island and they were way bigger than I thought and there was no way around drilling a hole through the side of the house to install it. I almost gave up on the idea because it felt like a huge ask, but I figured I’d at least show the setup to them and make it very easy for them to say no.

My pitch went something like, “I think this is a crazy big request, so please feel totally ok saying no, but here are these internet…”

“Whoa! You could get internet at the island? We can definitely do it!”

Such is their kindness that I think they may have been more excited for us to get internet than we were… and we were very excited.

Because of line of sight, we actually had to install the transmitter on a two-family house occupied by their parents and cousins. I know the parents well (and they have similarly saved us / helped us many times), but had only met the cousins once because I had lumber shipped to their driveway.

The parents were completely onboard with the idea. I was nervous about drilling a hole in their house, but the father found a long drill bit and drilled the hole before I could even say anything about it. They had an old pole mount set up for some antiquated internet system, so I mounted the transmitter to it. We went inside, cut some ethernet cables, and connected it to the router and power injector.

I sped the boat back, hooked up the receiver and… it didn’t work. The interface was clunky so it wasn’t completely obvious what was going on, but as best I could tell the transmitters could see each other but the sender didn’t seem to be connected to the internet. After exhausting every solution that didn’t involve driving the boat back over, I was left thinking we probably made a bad cable from the router to the transmitter.

I knocked on the door and the cousin who I didn’t know answered the door. He wasn’t home when I was doing the install earlier, so I didn’t know if he even knew about it. He let me in, and I saw that I was interrupting his family watching a movie together. I apologized and replaced the cable, and he came outside with me while I was checking some settings on the transmitter.

“I’m so sorry again to bother you guys. We really appreciate everything you and your family do for us and I wish that there was something we could do to repay you guys for all of your kindness.”

“Oh, you guys are like family to us! You’re a big part of our community here, and our house is your house. You can sleep here if you want! We’ll be out later but we’ll leave the back door unlocked in case you need to do anything else.”

Months later I’m still in awe of how he treated me, someone he’d only briefly talked to once while I was using his driveway as a staging ground.

I got back to the island and the internet was incredibly fast, as if we had a wired connection directly. Super low ping and about 35 megabit download speed. That night we ate in the yurt and all relaxed on the couch catching up on all of the stuff we hadn’t been able to do all week. When we went back to the mainland the next day every family member asked us if the internet worked and celebrated with us as if they were the ones getting internet for the first time.

My cabin is about 250 feet from the yurt and couldn’t receive the wifi signal. The next day we didn’t need everyone on the roof and Mai asked if there was anything she could do. I said if she wanted to she could blaze through the woods in a beeline for my cabin and run an internet cable for me. She put on a full body rainsuit she got at walmart and headed out to the wet forest. Up on the roof I forgot about her, so I was surprised when I saw her emerge from the woods an hour later looking like she’d been in a fight with a velociraptor. Her suit was shredded from the thick forest and she had a big smile on her face from accomplishing the mission. That night my tiny 5 watt router broadcast the second wifi signal on the island.

The last two days were mostly sunny, and we needed the roof to be dry to put on the rubber coating. We seam taped all of the 64+ seams and came up with a system for applying the goo. Two people would be on the roof with climbing harnesses and gri-gris. The person on top would have the big five gallon bucket of goo and would pour it onto a panel. The second person would have a roller and would roll it evenly across the panel. A third person would sit on top of the ladder poking out of the circle at the top of the yurt and would relay supplies to the people on ropes.

And… it worked. The wind got the goo everywhere, the sun had damaged some of the panels so it was hard to get even coverage, and we tried to mostly stand on the rafters, which was difficult. It was impossible not to paint oneself into a corner by the end, and as soon as the goo got on your shoes, they were like ice skates. The rollers we got sucked and would randomly break. We barely had enough parts by the end to combine them to have one that worked enough to paint the last two panels. In the end, we got a pretty good coating on there and we still have enough goo to do one more coat next year if we want to.

It rained a couple days before the coating, and water absolutely poured into the yurt. It got between the untaped seams of the wood and was concentrated by the old vinyl roof into several interior spouts. It rained the morning after we got the coating on and not a single drop got in.

For the first time since Covid, the island is at an all time high. It’s waterproof, we have internet, and we can take hot indoor showers without flashing everyone in the living room. I dreaded the first roof trip, was nervous about the second one, but now I’m fired up an can’t wait to get back to the island. Now that the critical stuff is done we can work on better power, running water, interior walls, and upgrading the kitchen.

###

Photo on the top is the finished roof!

I just finished a truly epic and absurd project today after over a year (!) of intermitent work on it. It’s so ridiculous that I’m thinking about making a little youtube video about it as well as a blog post.

The post The Island Since Covid appeared first on Tynan.com.

I’m sitting in a van in China, full of people who are speaking in Chinese, so I can’t really be part of the conversation. I speak just enough Chinese that if I strain with sufficient effort I can get the gist of the conversation, which is exhausting after a while. As I zone out and retreat into my thoughts, I think about food.

I really like Chinese food, specifically Sichuan food. Our first couple days had been in Sichuan, so I was eating a huge amount of food. The first thought that begins a whole two hour train of logic is, “wouldn’t it be amazing if when I ate the amount of food I wanted to eat, my body needed and could use all of that food?”.

Next I think, “but if that were the case, I would just adjust and overeat.”

Growing up I was always very skinny. I would eat a lot at times, but I was a picky eater so I didn’t eat a ton of calories. When I went to college my friend Terry (similarly skinny) and I had a contest to see who could gain more weight in the first year. I gained seven pounds, mostly by eating ice cream sundaes every breakfast. It was funny to me to eat a lot of food, because it didn’t affect me.

I’ve never been overweight, but I notice now that my natural inclination is to gain weight while I’m away from home, but then when I’m back I naturally settle back in to my daily routine of nuts and warm and brown, and I start losing weight again.

To be fair, I’ve always been a healthy weight. During the pandemic (no travel), I settled around 150lb, which is probably a bit light for my height, and I’ve never been over 170. One seventy is apparently a healthy weight for my height, but it I start feeling a bit soft around the edges when I get near it, so I tighten things up.

If I would just adjust to eating more, I think, why couldn’t I just adjust to eating less? What’s so magical about the amount that I’m currently adjusted to? I bet I could adjust to less.

Then I have what is, to me at least, a huge epiphany. The first bite of every meal is both the most enjoyable and the best for my body. The last is the least enjoyable and damages my body. Why am I eating those last bites?

If I just eliminate the last 20% of whatever I eat, I am still probably getting about 95% of the enjoyment from the food, but I’m no longer damaging my body. Maybe I will adapt to eating 80% as much as before and it will feel equally satisfying, be almost as much fun, but will also serve my body rather than be at odds with it.

And… wait a minute… why is eating a lot of food fun anyway? Is it really fun? When I think back to good meals I’ve had, it’s always the quality of the food that was enjoyable, not the quantity. Even when I’d eat 16 lobster tails on a cruise, I didn’t actually enjoy the last few.

I decide that I will eat only 80% of what I would have otherwise eaten, and I’ll stick with it until Christmas. I want to make sure it has time to have an effect, but I don’t want to feel trapped forever if I hate it. I think about the most difficult meals and decide in advance how I will adjust. I’m heading from China to Japan, where there’s a lot of food I like, so I plan those meals.

I love Tonkatsu from Katsukura Shinjuku and I always get the biggest one. That’s easy, I’ll just get the one that’s around 20% fewer grams. I’m not going to worry about the cabbage or miso soup. Sushi and Gyoza are easy, I’ll just eat fewer. I love Japanese ice creams from convenient stores, and I used to eat one or two per day. I’ll eat a maximum of one and make sure I eat none some days. At Savoy I’ll eat one little pizza instead of one and a half.

Then I have another realization. Over 80 percent of Americans are overweight, obese, or severely obese. Restaurants serve us all the same portions. Sure I don’t eat breakfast or lunch, but still… why am I accepting this standard portion as the correct amount of food when it’s making everyone fat? This makes me decide that when appropriate, I will leave behind extra food rather than accept this default portion size and avoid “wasting” food.

Also, some part of me thinks that it’s cool to eat a lot. I think it comes from when I was a kid and couldn’t gain weight so it was a novelty that I would eat a lot of food and still not gain weight. My parents fed us healthy food in appropriate portions, so maybe it was some small act of rebellion. But IS it cool to eat a lot? Have I ever once thought it was cool when someone ate a lot? In this moment I realize that eating a lot of food is sad, not cool.

Our first dinner after my realizations comes, and I eat a lot less. I’m shooting for 80%, but Chinese food is communal and I want to err on the side of less food. It’s hard to know for sure. Everyone notices and tries to give me more food, but I just say I’m full. I’m actually a little bit hungry, but the satisfaction of enacting this change makes me feel good anyway.

The next meal I eat the same amount and it’s even easier. After a few meals the amount I’m eating feels totally normal. I adapted much faster than I expected, though I’m wary of it just being wishful thinking.

I’m known for liking ice cream, so someone brings me one. I’m at a hotel with no freezer, so the options are to eat it or to let it melt. I have never once turned down an ice cream that was handed to me, but I let it melt. The weird thing is that I don’t even want it. I’ve brainwashed myself.

In between China and Japan I have a one day layover in Hong Kong. I’m craving non Asian food and I pass by a Shake Shack. Normally I would order a double cheeseburger, fries, and a milkshake. I resolve to throw away 20% of whatever fries I get, and not get a milkshake. I waver between a double burger and a single, but it’s my only meal of the day so I get a double.

When the burger comes, I take a generous 20% of the fries and put them on the tray. I won’t eat those. The burger is great. This is the first time I’ve really had unhealthy food since deciding to eat less, so I’m anticipating being very tempted by those extra fries, but I know I’ll resist. Something strange happens, though. As I eat the fries, I end up putting more and more of them on the tray. I eat one, put two on the tray. Eat one, put another on the tray. I left half of them.

Japan is easy. I eat the smaller Tonkatsu and feel just as satisfied. I eat about half the gyoza I would have eaten. At every meal I think about which part of the meal I care the least about and I don’t eat it. Normally I’d eat some of the rice that comes with gyoza, but I don’t eat any. One day I cut an ice cream sandwich in half and split it with a friend. Another time I just eat 80% and throw the remaining 20% away. One day I eat the whole thing, but another day I ate none. In the past when eating sushi I’d feel compelled to eat a huge amount because it’s so good and such a good value. I go two or three times and probably average 60% of what I used to eat.

I get home and weigh myself. In just under three weeks I’ve gone from 165lb and 19.5% bodyfat to 157lb and 17.7% bodyfat. The weird thing is that I don’t feel deprived at all. The meals in the second half of the China trip are as memorable as those in the first. My memories of the great food I ate in Japan are the same as any other trip. I don’t feel like I missed out on anything.

I intend to eat the same amount of warm and brown as before, but I can’t finish it. I put some away for the next day, anticipating being really hungry, but I feel the same as usual. For future warm and browns I eat a third of the batch instead of my usual half. I reduce my luxury nuts by 10-15% as well.

I was hesitant to write this post, because I think if I read it I might think, “yeah you ate less for a few weeks… who cares?”, but I’m posting it because a simple line of logic has had a profound effect on me. I think the amounts I’m eating now may be too little and I will have to carefully adjust up, but I predict that I will never go back to eating as much as I did before.

Something I’ve learned about myself, and maybe about other people, is that lasting change often comes from a new perspective. Usually it’s from a book, in my experience. Live Long Enough to Live Forever, Difficult Conversations, and Die With Zero, instantly created long lasting effects in my life. Sometimes that change can come from within, though, taking time to think about things from a different point of view and digging to find a more accurate perspective on something.

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The boat is finally fixed and has been running great. We had a little cookout on the lake the other day and I made 1/3lb burgers instead of 1/2lb and had salad on the side instead of chips. I wanted to post a picture of the food, but I didn’t have any in landscape mode.

The post How I Changed My Mind and Ate Less appeared first on Tynan.com.

Anyone who’s lived in Massachusetts knows that hockey isn’t just a sport—it’s almost a religion. With that level of commitment, why leave your bets to luck? The focus here is on how statistics are reshaping the betting game, especially for hockey fans in Massachusetts who want to place wagers based on more than just gut feelings.

Understanding Basic Hockey Stats

Before getting into the specifics, it’s important to understand the basics of hockey stats and what they signify. There are several key statistics that every hockey fan should be familiar with:

• Goals For/Against: This measures the number of goals a team has scored versus the number they’ve allowed. A positive differential is a good indicator of a team’s offensive strength.
• Corsi and Fenwick: These advanced metrics calculate shot attempts to gauge a team’s ability to control puck possession.
• Save Percentage (Sv%): This stat offers insight into a goalie’s performance by calculating the percentage of shots saved against the shots faced.
• Power Play and Penalty Kill Percentages: These stats measure a team’s proficiency when they have a one-player advantage or disadvantage.

Understanding these statistics provides a strong foundation for making educated bets.

The Role of Analytics

The incorporation of analytics in sports has redefined the way fans view games. In Massachusetts, the incorporation of data-driven approaches is becoming increasingly common in the betting scene. This is significant given the state’s longstanding passion for hockey and the widespread practice of sports betting. People are moving beyond gut feelings and superstitions, relying more on empirical data to inform their wagers. In fact, Massachusetts sports betting has seen a rise in data-driven wagers, especially in hockey.

Tools at Your Disposal

In this new era, a variety of tools and platforms offer insights grounded in statistics:

1. Sportsbooks: Many sportsbooks now offer not just odds but also detailed stats on team performance, player health, and recent form.
2. Analytics Websites: Websites like Corsica Hockey provide in-depth metrics and analytics that go beyond traditional stats.
3. Social Media: Analysts often share insights and statistical breakdowns on platforms like Twitter, offering an easy way to stay updated.
4. Mobile Apps: There are apps specifically designed to offer real-time stats and predictive analytics, which can be highly valuable when making last-minute bets.

Case Studies: Intelligent Wagering

Let’s take some real scenarios where statistics played a significant role in making smart bets:

1. Game 7 Situations: Statistics show that home teams have a distinct advantage in Game 7 situations. The heightened atmosphere and local support often tilt the odds in favor of the home team.
2. Goalie Rotations: When a team is on a back-to-back game schedule, they often rest their starting goalie. Knowing this can offer bettors a significant edge.
3. Injuries: By tracking player injuries and knowing who is likely to replace a key player, one can get an edge when placing bets.

Mitigating Risks

While betting always involves some level of risk, using statistics can help mitigate potential losses. Before placing a bet, it’s important to:

1. Analyze: Look at both traditional and advanced metrics.
2. Compare: Always compare the stats from multiple reliable sources for a balanced view.
3. Watch: Follow the games closely, as the eye-test can sometimes offer insights that numbers might miss.

Smart Strategies for Data-Driven Betting

When it comes to making informed bets, there are some best practices that stand out:

1. Season vs. Playoffs: The dynamics of regular-season games differ vastly from playoff matches. The stress and stakes of the playoffs often bring out the best or worst in teams, so adjusting your stats-based approach according to the setting is vital.
2. Player Hot Streaks: It’s worth paying attention to individual players who are on hot streaks. Such patterns can often be more significant than a player’s average performance stats over a season.
3. Weather Conditions: Believe it or not, the weather can impact an indoor game like hockey. For example, humid conditions can affect ice quality, which in turn can affect gameplay.
4. Focus on Reliable Sources: Data quality varies, and betting based on unreliable statistics can be risky. Make sure to rely on trusted databases and verified insights.

By integrating these nuanced approaches, bettors can refine their strategies, making their bets more precise and potentially more rewarding.

The Ethical Dimensions of Betting and Statistics

While the focus here is on using statistics for intelligent wagering, it’s worth mentioning the ethical considerations. Ensure you’re following all laws and regulations, especially if you’re using software tools to gather your statistics. Betting should be an activity that adds an additional aspect to the enjoyment of sports, not a cause for concern or unethical behavior.

The Future of Statistical Betting in Hockey

Looking forward, the utilization of statistics in sports betting is only expected to grow. More complex metrics and machine learning models are being developed to predict game outcomes with higher accuracy. This is a trend that shows no signs of slowing down. As a bettor, staying updated with these advancements will be instrumental in maintaining an edge in the ever-evolving betting market.

Final Thoughts

Hockey enthusiasts in Massachusetts who enjoy betting should consider the critical role that statistics play. The numbers offer an objective look at how teams and players are performing, making it easier to predict outcomes more accurately. A statistical approach to betting elevates the activity from pure speculation to a more reasoned, strategic process.

The post How Massachusetts Hockey Fans Use Stats to Bet Smart appeared first on Puck Drunk Love.

Life is unfair, as a Democratic president once put it. That was John F. Kennedy, at a press conference early in his term.

Jimmy Carter did not go through as extreme a range of the blessings and cruelties of fate as did Kennedy and his family. But I think Carter’s long years in the public eye highlighted a theme of most lives, public and private: the tension between what we plan and what happens. Between the luck that people can make for themselves and the blind chance they cannot foresee or control.

In the decades of weekly Bible classes he led in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, Jimmy Carter must have covered Proverbs 19:21. One contemporary translation of that verse renders it as: “Man proposes, God disposes.”

Not everything in his life happened the way Jimmy Carter proposed or preferred. But he made the very most of the years that God and the Fates granted him.

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Americans generally know Jimmy Carter as the gray-haired retiree who came into the news when building houses or fighting diseases or monitoring elections, and whose political past became shorthand for the threadbare America of the 1970s. Most of today’s Americans had not been born by the time Carter left office in 1981. Only about one-fifth are old enough to have voted when he won and then lost the presidency. It is hard for Americans to imagine Jimmy Carter as young—almost as hard as it is to imagine John F. Kennedy as old.

But there are consistent accounts of Carter’s personality throughout his long life: as a Depression-era child in rural Georgia, as a hotshot Naval Academy graduate working in Hyman Rickover’s then-futuristic-seeming nuclear-powered submarine force, as a small businessman who entered politics but eventually was forced out of it, as the inventor of the modern post-presidency.

What these accounts all stress is that, old or young, powerful or diminished, Jimmy Carter has always been the same person. That is the message that comes through from Carter’s own prepresidential campaign autobiography, Why Not the Best?, and his many postpresidential books, of which the most charming and revealing is An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood. It is a theme of Jonathan Alter’s insightful biography, His Very Best. It is what I learned in two and a half years of working directly with Carter as a speechwriter during the 1976 campaign and on the White House staff, and in my connections with the Carter diaspora since then.

Whatever his role, whatever the outside assessment of him, whether luck was running with him or against, Carter was the same. He was self-controlled and disciplined. He liked mordant, edgy humor. He was enormously intelligent—and aware of it—politically crafty, and deeply spiritual. And he was intelligent, crafty, and spiritual enough to recognize inevitable trade-offs between his ambitions and his ideals. People who knew him at one stage of his life would recognize him at another.

Jimmy Carter didn’t change. Luck and circumstances did.

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Jimmy Carter made his luck, and benefited from luck, when he ran for president. He couldn’t have done it without his own discipline and commitment, and his strategy. He seemed to shake every hand in Iowa—but his team was also the first to recognize that the new Iowa caucus system opened the chance for an outsider to leap into the presidency. At a time when his national name recognition was 1 percent, he spent all day walking up to strangers and saying, “My name is Jimmy Carter, and I’m running for president.” Stop and imagine doing that yourself, even once. Carter was easier to admire—when delivering his stump speech to a rapt crowd, when introducing himself at a PTA meeting or in a diner—than he was to work for. But that is probably true of most public figures with such a drive to succeed.

Because he was so engaging in person, and made such a connection in countless small-group meetings across Iowa, he won the caucuses and went on to win the nomination and the presidency. No other candidate has gone from near-invisibility to the White House in so short a time. (Barack Obama became a Democratic Party star with his famous convention speech in 2004, four years before he won the presidency. Donald Trump had been a celebrity for decades.)

This is how Carter and his team helped themselves. Other developments they hadn’t planned affected the race—mainly to their benefit.

By early 1976, Carter had become the new thing. He embraced rock music and quoted Bob Dylan. He was as powerful and exciting a fusion of cultures as any candidate who came after him. He was a Naval Academy graduate and an Allman Brothers fan. He was deeply of the South and of the Church. He also spoke about Vietnam as a racist war. He quoted poems by Dylan Thomas. He was, yes, cool. He appeared at a Law Day meeting at the University of Georgia’s law school and upbraided the audience about the injustice of America’s legal system. Here’s just one sample of the speech, which would now be considered part of the Sanders-Warren platform:

I grew up as a landowner’s son. But I don’t think I ever realized the proper interrelationship between the landowner and those who worked on a farm until I heard Dylan’s record … ”Maggie’s Farm.”

It’s worth reading the whole thing.

But what if Hunter S. Thompson had not noticed this speech and announced that he “liked Jimmy Carter” in an influential article in Rolling Stone? What if Time and Newsweek, also very influential then, had not certified him as a serious potential leader with their coverage? What if the civil-rights figures Martin Luther King Sr. and Andrew Young had not endorsed Carter to Black audiences around the country, and reassured white liberals that he was the southern voice an inclusive America needed? (As governor of Georgia, Carter had placed a portrait of MLK Jr. in the state capitol.) What if Jerry Brown had not waited so long to enter the primaries? What if Teddy Kennedy had dared to run? What if Mo Udall had figured out the Iowa-caucus angle before Carter did? What if Scoop Jackson had not been so dull? Or George Wallace so extreme?

And for the general election, what if Gerald Ford had not pardoned Richard Nixon, turning Watergate into Ford’s own problem? (The Carter team knew that this was a campaign plus. But in the first sentence of his inaugural address, Carter thanked Ford for all he had done “to heal our land.”) What if Saturday Night Live, then in its first season and itself hugely influential, had not made Ford the butt of ongoing jokes? What if Ford had not blundered in a crucial presidential debate? What if Carter’s trademark lines on the stump—I’ll never lie to you and We need a government as good as its people—had not been so tuned to the battered spirit of that moment, and had been received with sneers rather than support?

What if, what if. There are a thousand more possibilities. In the end the race was very close. Luck ran his way.

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Then he was in office. Intelligent, disciplined, self-contained, spiritual. President Carter made some of his own luck, good and bad—as I described in this magazine 44 years ago. There is little I would change in that assessment, highly controversial at the time, except to say that in 1979 Carter still had nearly half of his time in office ahead of him, and most of his adult life. I argued then that his was a “passionless” presidency. He revealed his passions—his ideals, his commitments—in the long years to come.

In office he also had the challenge of trying to govern a nearly ungovernable America: less than two years after its humiliating withdrawal from Saigon, in its first years of energy crisis and energy shortage, on the cusp of the “stagflation” that has made his era a symbol of economic dysfunction. It seems hard to believe now, but it’s true: The prime interest rate in 1980, the year Carter ran for reelection, exceeded 20 percent. You never hear, “Let’s go back to the late ’70s.”

Probably only a country as near-impossible to lead as the United States of that time could have given someone like Jimmy Carter a chance to lead it.

Despite it all, Carter had broader support during his first year in office than almost any of his successors, except briefly the two Bushes in wartime emergencies. Despite it all, most reckonings have suggested that Carter might well have beaten Ronald Reagan, and held on for a second term, if one more helicopter had been sent on the “Desert One” rescue mission in Iran, or if fewer of the helicopters that were sent had failed. Or if, before that, Teddy Kennedy had not challenged Carter in the Democratic primary. Or if John Anderson had not run as an independent in the general election. What if the ayatollah’s Iranian government had not stonewalled on negotiations to free its U.S. hostages until after Carter had been defeated? What if, what if.

Carter claimed for years that he came within one broken helicopter of reelection. It’s plausible. We’ll never know.

Because we do know, in retrospect, that Reagan had two landslide victories, over Carter and then Walter Mondale, and that the 1980 election broke heavily in Reagan’s favor in its final weeks, it’s natural to believe that Carter never had a chance. But it looked so different at the time. History changed, through effort and luck, when Carter arrived on the national stage in 1976. And it changed, through effort and luck, when he departed four years later.

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Effort and luck combined for Jimmy Carter’s first two acts: becoming president, and serving in office.

Luck played a profoundly important role in his third act, allowing him to live mostly vigorously until age 98, and to celebrate his 76th wedding anniversary with his beloved wife, Rosalynn. He had 42 full years in the postpresidential role—10 times longer than his term in office, by far the most of any former president.

This extended span mattered for reasons within Carter’s control, and beyond it. Good fortune, medical science, and a lifetime history as a trim, fit athlete (he was a good tennis player, a runner, and a skillful softball pitcher), helped Carter survive several bouts of cancer and other tolls of aging. But his faith, will, idealism, and purpose allowed him to invent and exemplify a new role for former presidents, and to see his own years in office reconsidered.

Suppose that, like Lyndon B. Johnson, he had died of a literal and figurative broken heart at age 64. His record and achievements would have concluded with Ronald Reagan still in office, and his story would have been summarized as ending on a loss. Carter could never have received the Nobel Peace Prize, which he won while nearing age 80, in 2002. (Nobel Prizes cannot be given posthumously.)

With health like Lyndon Johnson’s, Jimmy Carter would not have had a chance to establish his new identity—and to see prevailing assessments of his role as president change as profoundly as those of Harry Truman did. As with Truman, the passing years have made it easier to see what Carter achieved, and to recognize what he was trying to do even when unsuccessful. But Truman was no longer alive to see that happen. For Carter I think the process of reassessment will go on.

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It is hard for most Americans to imagine the Jimmy Carter of those days. It is hard even for me to recognize how different the country is as a whole.

Just to talk about politics: The South was then the Democrats’ base, and the West Coast was hostile territory. Jimmy Carter swept all states of the old Confederacy except Virginia, and lost every state west of the Rockies except Hawaii. In Electoral College calculations, the GOP started by counting on California.

The Democrats held enormous majorities in both the Senate and the House. Carter griped about dealing with Congress, as all presidents do. But under Majority Leader Robert Byrd, the Democrats held 61 seats in the Senate through Carter’s time. In the House, under Speaker Tip O’Neill, they had a margin of nearly 150 seats (not a typo). The serious legislative dealmaking was among the Democrats.

In culture and economics—well, you just need to watch some movies from the 1970s, Rocky, Taxi Driver, The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon (or, if you prefer, Saturday Night Fever and Star Wars). The United States was a country fraying on all its edges, just beginning to absorb the shock of the Vietnam years, in its first wave of grappling with globalization and environmental constraints.

Prevailing memories reached back far beyond Vietnam to the Korean War, World War II, and the Great Depression. In campaign speeches, Carter talked about the difference it made to him, as a boy, when Franklin Roosevelt’s Rural Electrification Administration brought electric power to small communities like his. We on the speechwriting staff could rely on the story for applause. Enough people remembered.

There were no cellphones then, nor even bulky “portable” phones. Computers meant behemoths at major data centers.

And in civic life, Richard Nixon’s downfall seemed to have reinforced the idea that there was such a thing as public shame. It was construed as embarrassing for Jimmy Carter that his hard-luck brother, Billy, was in a penny-ante way cashing on the family fame by promoting six packs of his own “Billy Beer.” Carter, from a small-town business-owning background, felt that he had to sell the family peanut mill to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. After Nixon’s scandals and Spiro Agnew’s resignation, “doing the right thing” mattered, and Carter did so.

Jimmy Carter took office in the “before” times. We live in an unrecognizable “after.” He did his best, in office and out, to promote the values he cared about through it all.

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What did he do in office? He did a lot. He was visionary about climate and the environment. He changed the composition of the federal courts. For better and worse he deregulated countless industries, from craft brewing to the airlines. I direct you to Stuart Eizenstat’s detailed and authoritative President Carter: The White House Years for specifics. I’ll just add:

• Jimmy Carter did more than anyone else, before or since, to bring peace to the Middle East, with his Camp David accords. The agreement between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat could not possibly have been reached without Carter’s all-in, round-the-clock involvement. I was there and saw it. Any other witness would agree. (This was also the theme of Lawrence Wright’s excellent Thirteen Days in September.)

• Jimmy Carter saved the United States decades of woe with his Panama Canal Treaty.

• Jimmy Carter bought the United States several generations’ worth of respect with his human-rights policy. Can such an approach be no-exceptions or absolute? Of course not. Carter recognized as clearly as anyone the tension between ideals and reality. But does even imperfect idealism make a difference? That is the case Carter made in a speech at Notre Dame in 1977. I think it stands up well. Its essence:

We have reaffirmed America's commitment to human rights as a fundamental tenet of our foreign policy …

This does not mean that we can conduct our foreign policy by rigid moral maxims. We live in a world that is imperfect and which will always be imperfect—a world that is complex and confused and which will always be complex and confused.

I understand fully the limits of moral suasion. We have no illusion that changes will come easily or soon. But I also believe that it is a mistake to undervalue the power of words and of the ideas that words embody. In our own history, that power has ranged from Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream.”

In the life of the human spirit, words are action.

• Jimmy Carter spoke to the “values” and “engagement” crises decades before demagogues like Trump or healers like Obama. In the summer of 1979, he gave an unusually sober and sermonlike address on the national “crisis of confidence.” This is generally known as the “malaise” speech, and is widely considered a downbeat marker of a down era. But as Kevin Mattson points out in his entertaining What the Heck Are You Up to, Mr. President?, the speech was well received at the time. Carter’s popularity rating went up nearly 10 points in its wake. (Also, the speech didn’t include the word malaise.) Things again started going wrong for Carter soon after that—he made mistakes, and was unlucky—but the speech deserves respect. It was a leader’s attempt to express the fears and hard truths many people felt, and to find a way forward.

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Jimmy Carter survived to see many of his ambitions realized, including near eradication of the dreaded Guinea worm, which, unglamorous as it sounds, represents an increase in human well-being greater than most leaders have achieved. He survived to see his character, vision, and sincerity recognized, and to know that other ex-presidents will be judged by the standard he has set.

He was an unlucky president, and a lucky man.

We are lucky to have had him. Blessed.

December 22, 2022

LOTS OF MEMORABLE THINGS happened in Decembers past. The final flight of Pan Am, for instance, took place in December of 1991. Three years before that, just a few days before Christmas, was the Lockerbie bombing.

But let’s talk instead about the Clash — yes, the British punk rock band led by guitarists and co-vocalists Joe Strummer and Mick Jones. A number of anniversaries mark December as “Clash month.”

We’ll start with December 14th, which was the 43rd anniversary of the release of London Calling, the band’s most famous album and arguably — argues me — one of the greatest rock records of all time.

This was a double LP (back when there were such things) clocking in with 19 songs, almost all of them outstanding. If there’s a singular highlight, it’s probably “Death or Glory,” which to me is the finest song in the entire Clash canon. But on the whole its best songs are the more freewheeling and divergent: “Jimmy Jazz,” “Rudie Can’t Fail,” “Wrong Em Boyo,” and the ska-powered “Revolution Rock…”

Careful how you move, Mac, you dig me in me back, And I’m so pilled up that I rattle. I have got the sharpest knife, so I cut the biggest slice But I have no time to do battle. Hey!

What’s all that about? Who knows, who cares. It’s just fun, dammit. And, at the other extreme, a few songs prior, here’s Mick Jones getting all historical on “The Card Cheat”…

From the Hundred Years War to the Crimea, With a lance and a musket and a Roman spear, To all of the men who have stood with no fear, In the service of the King.

I mean, wow. What rock band would dream of writing a song that today? Do they even have rock bands anymore?

Only two days earlier, December 12th, was the 42nd anniversary of the release of Sandinista!  Not to be outdone, this was a triple album (three pizzas, count ‘em, in the box) loaded with 36 songs.

Trying to describe Sandinista! is like trying to describe New York City — where a portion of it was recorded, along with London and Jamaica. Where do you start? It’s a staggering — and, for its time, quite brave — melange of punk, reggae, calypso, gospel, funk, dub. And lest we forget, the record’s opener, “The Magnificent Seven,” was punk rock’s first-ever foray into rap.

The title’s reference to the ’80s-era conflict in Central America will clue in the novice to the Clash’s idealistic underpinnings, and Joe Strummer spent his career singing and speaking on behalf of social justice, the politics of Nic-a-rag-you-ah, certainly, among them.

I’d had Sandinista! hanging around for years, but had never really given it a listen beyond the obvious, like “Charlie Don’t Surf” (taken from a line in the movie Apocalypse Now) or the sweet chimes of “Washington Bullets.” All that wax, all those songs; it seemed so daunting. How does one even approach a triple album? But for no special reason I threw it onto the turntable in the winter of 1991 — already it was more than a decade old — and started paying attention.

The first things to hook you might be the steel drums of “Let’s Go Crazy,” or the oddly beautiful “Silicone on Sapphire,” which is the skeleton of “Washington Bullets” set to a host of electronic effects, xylophone, and mysteriously alternating, left channel/right channel voices. Or take a loud listen to “The Sound of the Sinners,” with Strummer as a valiumed preacher singing in desperate euphoria to his congregation. My favorite cut, though, is probably “Living in Fame,” sung the by reggae star Mikey Dread.

Three discs, 36 songs, and a lot of stylistic zig-zagging. But it never feels pretentious or over-extended. On the contrary, Sandinista! is an elegant work of art.

Where were we? Oh yes, Clash bassist Paul Simonon also celebrated his 67th birthday this month.

But most poignant of all, December 22nd marks the 20th anniversary of the death of Joe Strummer. Joe died from a heart attack in 2002. He was only fifty.

Several of my music heroes have left us over the last several years: Grant Hart, Pat Fish, Lou Reed. The deaths of Hart and Fish hit me on a particularly sentimental, even personal level. But from a less subjective, purely artistic point of view, I suppose the loss of Joe Strummer has been the most tragic of all.

While it’s from neither of the aforementioned albums, here’s something to clear your head. This was, you might notice, before Strummer got his teeth fixed. And behold the mullet on Mick Jones.

 

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THE GREATEST ALBUM OF ALL TIME. THE (SECOND) GREATEST ALBUM OF ALL TIME.

The post Remembering the Clash appeared first on AskThePilot.com.

November 29, 2022

IS IT JUST ME, or is the entire air travel experience broken right now?

Security lines are endless, terminals are noisier and more crowded than ever, airport lounges have become overcrowded feeding troughs, onboard service isn’t half of what it was pre-pandemic, delays and cancellations are rampant. And so on; it’s across the board.

Initially, as the COVID-19 fiasco wound down, most of the trouble could be blamed on a lack of staffing. Passengers came back faster than expected, and the industry wasn’t ready. The resulting chaos was unpleasant, but was expected to be temporary. Yet here we are on the cusp of 2023, and although things aren’t as dysfunctional as they were six or eight months ago, they still feel badly off-kilter.

What troubles me most is that we seem to be resigning ourselves to it. I fear that we’re plateauing at a sort of “new normal.” Much as I hate that expression, it’s worryingly apropos in this case. The traveling public seems to be shrugging its shoulders and adapting.

It reminds me of what happened in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Initially there were howls of outrage over the establishment of the TSA and the excesses of its policies: the agonizing lines, the illogical rules and hostile enforcement. It simply wasn’t sustainable, people declared. Things would mellow out in time, they said. They would have to.

Except that’s not what happened, really. Instead, we got accustomed to it all. Two decades later, security theater, with all of its extravagant waste, and despite the millions of hours it steals from us each year, is simply taken for granted. We endure it.

Is the same sort of thing happening again? Most people have always hated flying. Now they’ll just hate it a little more?

Where and how things are wrong is easy to see. But let me cherry-pick one example: onboard service. Food, wine, amenities. If you ask me, service hit its nadir somewhere around 2004, in the thick of the post-9/11 industry downturn. The airlines were going bankrupt, one after the other, and inflight offerings were scarce. But then it got better. It was a long, slow climb, but by 2019, in the premium cabins of the US legacy carriers, the levels of luxury and pampering at long last rivaled the better Asian and European carriers.

In fact, air travel by that point had entered a whole new golden age. Service, safety and convenience had reached unprecedented levels, and tickets were as affordable as they’d ever been — an achievement I celebrated in this New York Times article in 2017.

Then came COVID-19, and now the whole bar seems to have been re-set. Today, even on long-haul flights, a first class meal is often slung at you hurriedly on a tray, and they’re giving out champagne in plastic cups. At fares that aren’t any cheaper.

Will it get better this time, as the industry regains its footing? I’m not so sure. I’m sensing this is more of a paradigm shift — a change of expectations — than a simple correlation between profitability and service levels. Customers are more or less happy with things they are, I’m told. At least it’s not 2020, the thinking goes, when they got nothing at all.

Thus the benchmark, it seems, is the pandemic-panic realm of two years ago, rather than the golden age of 2019. By this logic, even the crappiest experience is a win. The bar has been re-set because expectations have been re-set.

We can look at this situation more broadly, too. It’s a decline, I think, that extends beyond flying.

This is a nitpicky example, but why do so many hotels, even five-star places, still not stock their rooms with cups or drinking glasses? Apparently guests are supposed to stick their faces under the faucet when brushing their teeth? I was in a Hyatt recently. No glasses, anywhere. So I call the front desk. “Would you like us to bring you some glasses?”

Hell, why not skip the pillows and sheets as well. If guests want them, they can always call.

I’d also like my Uber drivers to stop canceling at the last minute, and otherwise charging me double the normal fare. And don’t get me started with the hellishness of QR menus in restaurants.

And we should probably stop there. This is trending in a rather whiny direction.

These are, I realize, first-world complaints of a selfish, perhaps even gluttonous order. The world is spinning into ecological collapse, the specter of war looms large, and so on. I understand that. But everything has its context. And it’s possible that my gripes are symptoms, warning signs, of something more consequential gone rotten.

Welcome to post-pandemic America, 2022. The land where everything seems to be settling into a half-assed, slightly shittier, and more expensive version of what we had before.

Or, I’m just impatient. I’m known to be, and you’re free to judge my dooming and glooming as unfair.

Hopefully it is, and, at the risk of sounding manic, I’ll close with something more positive, and maybe more rational:

Flying remains, if nothing else, affordable and astonishingly safe. The business just went through the most traumatic two years of its existence, racking up tens of billions in debt. Recovery, which was never a sure thing in the first place, remains a long-term work in progress.

I, indeed all of us, should probably be thrilled with things as they are. It could’ve turned out a lot, lot worse.

And so, give it time.

 

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Airline cabin photo: Hanson Lu/Unsplash. Hotel room photo by the author.

The post Flying in 2022 appeared first on AskThePilot.com.

Over the years, the NHL has seen some absolutely incredibly forwards, and ranking them is an extremely hard process. But, we’ve taken on the challenge of attempting to place our top 10 most notable NHL forwards of all time down below. 

Maurice Richard:

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Maurice Richard is one of the most legendary figures in the history of the NHL, and was known for his highly prolific goal-scoring record, leading the league’s top goal scorers table five times throughout his time in the NHL, but only ever earnt one MVP award in his entire career. However, he solidified his position in NHL history, ending as a top-three finisher another five times in his career whilst also being a 13-time All-Star. 

Phil Esposito:

Between 1969 and 1975, there was only one man that led the league in goals scored: Phil Esposito. This 6-year span that saw him dominate the goal-scoring charts saw him score a total of 369 goals, which was 149 more than any other player in the NHL throughout this period. In fact, the gap that was between him and the second-placed goal scored was the same as the gap between the second-placed goal scored and the 100th-placed goal-scorer. Legendary. 

Jean Beliveau:

Notorious forward Jean Beliveau was the embodiment of a champion, featuring as the centerpiece to 10 Stanley Cup winning teams during his time at the Montreal Canadiens, and is certainly rated by most fans as one of the most prolific forwards in NHL history, and certainly one of the best Canadiens of all time, which is what has earnt him the number eight spot on our list.

Alex Ovechkin:

After finally winning a Stanley Cup, there is little than can be held against Alex Ovechkin or in his way of standing as one of the most prominent players in the NHL’s history. Having been one of the stars of the NHL for over 15 years now, seeing his name in this top 10 list should be absolutely no surprise. But if he ends up breaking Wayne Gretzky’s record, then there is no doubt his position in this list changes dramatically. 

Sidney Crosby:

As a three-time Stanley Cup winner, with two MVP awards, as well as two scoring titles, and numerous other awards, we think it’s only fair that Sidney Crosby takes his place here in our top 10 list, the man has been a prolific star of the NHL for well over a decade now, so it is absolutely not too early or too risky to begin holding him in such high esteem. 

If you’re not a fan of risks either, then take a look at some of the best NHL betting lines available.

Jaromir Jagr:

Condemned to the shadows of Mario Lemieux during his time in Pittsburgh, there is still very little doubt about the ability that Jaromir Jagr has. Whilst he is ranked incredibly highly in his productivity as a result of longevity, the numbers he managed to produce throughout the dead puck era, which is when he was in his prime, were incredibly admirable. There is no reason not to include Jagr in this list, and deserves to comfortably sit this high up. 

Mike Bossy:

Whilst highly regarded, we feel like Bossy’s positioning on these lists suffers as a result of the lack of longevity he had in the NHL and his recognition as a legend falters because of this too, which is why we’ve put him in at number 4 spot in our list. 

Despite only spending a decade in the NHL, he’s first for goals per game and is comfortably in the top-five for points per game in the league. Plus, his goal tally for nine out of ten seasons for his career was ridiculous, scoring at least 50 goals a season, which likely would’ve continued into his final season too had he played more games. 

Gordie Howe:

There is a lot to be said about this man, statistically, it’s understandable why he has this spot on the list. Bet he is someone that goes far beyond comprehension, with his mythical style of play alongside a sheer dominance of the NHL, he is truly one of the most notable forwards of all time. Furthermore, this is a man that played in the NHL until he was 51 and STILL produced quality numbers, so it’s no wonder as to why he is heralded as one of the greatest to ever do it. 

Mario Lemieux:

With Mario placed here, it’s pretty clear who is going to be number 1 on our list. However, it was certainly close, and whilst there are a lot of ifs and buts about what could’ve been for Mario Lemieux, a man who manages to save an organization twice as both player and owner and in accompaniment with his many, many achievements on and off the ice, he very deservedly comes in at the number 2 spot. 

Wayne Gretzky:

Forwards score goals, and that’s exactly what Wayne Gretzky did, his NHL record of 894 still stands to this day, and it doesn’t get more notable for a forward than that.

Conclusion:

What do you think, do you agree with our top 10? Who would you change? Is there anyone we missed? Leave a comment and let us know!

The post 10 Notable NHL Forwards Of All Time appeared first on Puck Drunk Love.

Guess which media organization was working overtime on the production line?

It was clear why Chris Wallace left Fox News late last year. Now he speaks.

Listening to Joe Biden give his first official State of the Union address on Tuesday night, I thought: This is strong. It is clear; it’s the right message in the right language. It reflects the speaker in an honest way. And it also brings something new to this tired form.

But each of those judgments rests on assumptions about speeches in general and State of the Union addresses in particular. So let me lay out my reasoning and then get to the details of the speech.

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What makes a speech “good”? Or “effective”? Or viewed as “eloquent”? Or perhaps eventually as “memorable” or “historic”?

These are trickier assessments than they might seem, and can take time to settle in. The value and effect of a speech depend on some circumstances that a speaker can control, or at least be aware of: the message, the audience, the expected length of the speech, the expected tone, from jokey to statesmanlike. But they also depend on aspects of timing and fortune beyond anyone’s control. Winston Churchill’s “we shall fight on the beaches” pledge to Parliament in 1940 is remembered in a particular way because of how the next five years of combat turned out. As are Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “date which will live in infamy,” John F. Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner,” and Ronald Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

By contrast, George W. Bush’s “mission accomplished” declaration one month into the invasion of Iraq in 2003 is remembered in a different way, because of what happened afterward.

(I know how it feels to be involved in a statement that history has made look foolish. While working for Jimmy Carter in the White House, I was the writer on the trip where he gave a New Year’s Eve toast, in Tehran, to the shah of Iran as an “island of stability” in the turbulent sea of the Middle East. That was the official U.S. outlook at the time, which I did my best to express. Within little more than a year, the shah was out, and the Iranian revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini was under way.)

Why many different kinds of speeches can be “good,” and what makes them that way

Some speeches are meant to excite or inspire. Political-rally speeches are in this category, the more so the closer they come to Election Day. Speeches to inspire the whole nation should obviously not be partisan. For instance, JFK in 1962: “We choose to go to the moon … not because [it is] easy, but because [it is] hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skill.” Speeches to energize the base can be partisan as hell, because voters are about to choose one side or the other. For instance, FDR just before Election Day in 1936: “[My opponents] are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.”

[Read: What Biden’s State of the Union speech was for]

Some speeches are meant to console or commemorate. Robert F . Kennedy’s most moving speech may have been his unscripted statement of grief and resolve, at a street corner rally before a largely Black crowd in Indianapolis, when sharing the news that Martin Luther King Jr. had just been assassinated, in April 1968. This was two months before Kennedy himself was shot dead. Ronald Reagan gave his State of the Union address in 1986 a few days after the space shuttle Challenger exploded, and he began with a tribute to the seven dead astronauts. I believe that Barack Obama’s most powerful address was his eulogy in 2015 for the slain parishioners at the Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Some speeches are meant to explain. The example all aspire to is FDR’s first Fireside Chat in 1933, on the reasons behind the banking crisis. (He began, “My friends, I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking.”)

Some speeches are meant to motivate, organize, and instruct in the short run. After the “Bloody Sunday” marches in Selma, Alabama, Lyndon B. Johnson gave his most powerful speech, in urging Congress to pass what became the Voting Rights Act of 1965: “There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem.”

Some speeches are meant for reflection and guidance in the long term. Lincoln’s second inaugural in 1865. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. George Washington’s farewell address in 1796, and Dwight Eisenhower’s in 1961. The commencement address by George Marshall at Harvard in 1947, the Nobel Prize lecture by William Faulkner in 1950, the “Moral Equivalent of War” speech by William James at Stanford in 1906. Having told my embarrassing “island of stability” story, I’ll add that I think a different speech I was involved in, Jimmy Carter’s commencement address at Notre Dame in 1977, on the role of human rights in U.S. foreign policy, stands up well: “I understand fully the limits of moral suasion … But I also believe that it is a mistake to undervalue the power of words and of the ideas that words embody … In the life of the human spirit, words are action, much more so than many of us may realize who live in countries where freedom of expression is taken for granted.”

Some speeches are meant to get the speaker out of an immediate bind. Bill Clinton’s career is packed with examples, from the town meetings in New Hampshire that made him the “comeback kid” in 1992; to his State of the Union address in 1995 after his party had lost 54 House seats in the midterms, delivered with Newt Gingrich seated behind him as speaker; to his State of the Union in 1999, while being impeached. This last speech was about economics and domestic-reform measures and it did not mention his legal problems. After introductory formalities it began, “Tonight, I stand before you to report that America has created the longest peacetime economic expansion in our history”, and it never looked back.

Some speeches are meant to be enjoyed purely in the moment, like a play or concert. Some are meant to be reread or studied on the page. Some are dignified by quotations and fancy language. Some are best when plainspoken and spare. Some fall into categories even beyond the ones I’ve named.

Here is the point of this long setup. It is as hard to define a “good” or “bad” speech as a good or bad song. It all depends—on who the speaker is, what the circumstances are, and what is the register in which the speaker sounds most convincing and authentic. Let’s apply those standards to this speech.

What Biden was trying to do, and how he did it

The questions about a speech like this are: Does it sound natural to the speaker? (A speechwriter’s skill is not so much the ability to “write” as the ear for the way the speaker would like to put things.) Does it make use of the times and circumstances? And does it tell us anything new?

By those standards I thought Biden’s speech was a real success, and one that might have been underappreciated because of the plainness that was in fact its main virtue.

The language. Some speakers sound natural when uttering phrases that seem headed straight for the Famous Quote books. Churchill. FDR. John Kennedy. A handful of others.

But most people seem puffed-up and strained when reaching for a fancy phrase. They can sound like high-school actors, overemoting, “To be, or not to be.” Nearly all of us are better in the mode Harry Truman or Dwight Eisenhower brought to the presidency, at their best: eloquence through plainness.

Early in his career, Biden favored fancy speechmaking. In his maturity he has embraced, as he should, his simpler and authentic-sounding “listen, folks” style.

In this speech, as I’ll note below, Biden sounded like himself, rather than like a person intent on Speaking for the Ages. Even his cadence showed it. He gave the whole speech at a rapid clip, even when this meant talking over applause lines. Perhaps in part this was to deal with the lifelong stuttering challenge that John Hendrickson has so powerfully and beautifully described. But to me it came across as a person intent on delivering a message, rather than hoping to be admired while delivering it.

Even the fit-and-finish details of the speech suggested a man on a mission. State of the Union addresses are notorious for their unsubtle, groaning-hinges transitions. “Turning now to affairs overseas,” or “We cannot be strong abroad unless we are strong at home.” The transitions in this speech are notable for not existing. Biden just made a point, then made the next one.

The substance. Joe Biden sat through dozens of State of the Union addresses as a senator, and sat on-camera through eight of them as vice president. Everything about this ritual is familiar to him.

So were the three main topics of his discourse: dealing with the Ukraine emergency, dealing with the economy, and dealing with the pandemic. Coordinating with other countries was part of his experience on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as vice president, and comes naturally to his dealmaking nature. Ordinary-American economic issues were part of his identity as Scranton Joe. And the pandemic was the emergency he inherited on arrival. His treatment of them sounded like a briefing from a person in the middle of running multiple response teams, conveying which emergencies they were dealing with on which fronts. I’m always thinking of aviation-world analogies, and this reminded me of an experienced controller giving a rundown on where a skyful of airplanes were headed, and what his team needed to focus on next.

The backstage view. Being president is impossible. John Dickerson made the case in this cover story four years ago. I have written about it as well. To “succeed” in the job, a person needs a broader range of skills than any real human being has ever possessed. Public eloquence. Private persuasive power. IQ. EQ. Stamina. Luck. A generous imagination, but also cold-bloodedness. A thousand traits more. The question is not whether any president will “fail.” It is in which particular way, and how the world will judge the over/under.

Joe Biden was not explicitly making the case for himself, in handling the complexities of his role. (Although of course every speech, by every president, is implicitly an advertisement for the incumbent’s fitness.) But having heard nearly as many of these State of the Union speeches as Biden himself has, I thought this one amounted to a look at what a president’s job is. State of the Union speeches have rightly been mocked, including by me, as to-do lists. To me, this speech came across as a realistic view into the to-do urgency that makes up a president’s day.

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What follows is an abbreviated version of an approach I’ve tried before, of annotating the SOTU transcript. You can read the whole official speech from the White House if you prefer. I’ve used the version that was on Biden’s TelePrompter, and I’m leaving out more than half of it, indicated by an ellipsis (…) in interests of space. Comments are in bold, with the words or lines they’re referring to in italics. Here we go.

Madam Speaker, Madam Vice President, our First Lady and Second Gentleman. Members of Congress and the Cabinet. Justices of the Supreme Court. My fellow Americans. Of course, this is the first time that a president has begun with this salutation. As was true throughout the speech, Biden under- rather than oversold the moment. … Six days ago, Russia’s Vladimir Putin sought to shake the foundations of the free world, thinking he could make it bend to his menacing ways. But he badly miscalculated.

[Read: Vladimir Putin united America]

He thought he could roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead he met a wall of strength he never imagined. An attempted “line,” which Biden sensibly moved right past rather than waiting for a response. He met the Ukrainian people. What I am referring to as plain-style eloquence. From President Zelenskyy to every Ukrainian, their fearlessness, their courage, their determination, inspires the world. Groups of citizens blocking tanks with their bodies. Everyone from students to retirees, teachers turned soldiers, defending their homeland. This will not be studied for rhyme, or emphasis in delivery. But it is very powerful. In this struggle, as President Zelenskyy said in his speech to the European Parliament, “Light will win over darkness.” The Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States is here tonight. Let each of us here tonight in this Chamber send an unmistakable signal to Ukraine and to the world. Please rise if you are able and show that, Yes, we the United States of America stand with the Ukrainian people. One of the performance-art aspects of SOTUs is which part of the chamber will cheer which lines. This was a graceful and appropriate way for Biden to induce a standing ovation from all. Throughout our history we’ve learned this lesson: When dictators do not pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos. As a matter of sentence rhythm, this is not the way Churchill, Kennedy, et al. would have phrased it. But, once more, powerful in its intent. They keep moving.    … American diplomacy matters. American resolve matters. This could not be plainer. Nor truer, at the moment. … [Putin] thought the West and NATO wouldn’t respond. And he thought he could divide us at home. Putin was wrong. We were ready. Here is what we did. See above.

We prepared extensively and carefully… I spent countless hours unifying our European allies. We shared with the world in advance what we knew Putin was planning and precisely how he would try to falsely justify his aggression. “I am going to tell you about the actual work of being president.”

We countered Russia’s lies with truth.    And now that he has acted, the free world is holding him accountable. Along with twenty-seven members of the European Union including France, Germany, Italy, as well as countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and many others, even Switzerland. Even Switzerland!!!! We are inflicting pain on Russia and supporting the people of Ukraine. Putin is now isolated from the world more than ever. I do not think we have heard these words before in a SOTU … Tonight I say to the Russian oligarchs and corrupt leaders who have bilked billions of dollars off this violent regime: No more. Nor this word. The U.S. Department of Justice is assembling a dedicated task force to go after the crimes of Russian oligarchs. I believe the camera panned to Merrick Garland at this point. Many people thinking, with me, Get busy with these task forces! We are joining with our European allies to find and seize your yachts, your luxury apartments, your private jets. We are coming for your ill-begotten gains. Nor these words. Nice emphasis on your. … And tonight I am announcing that we will join our allies in closing off American air space to all Russian flights—further isolating Russia—and adding an additional squeeze on their economy.

The Ruble has lost 30% of its value. The Russian stock market has lost 40% of its value and trading remains suspended. Russia’s economy is reeling and Putin alone is to blame. Powerful to keep calling him just “Putin.” And around this time Biden ad libs, “He has no idea what is coming,” emphasized that way.

… And we remain clear-eyed. The Ukrainians are fighting back with pure courage. But the next few days weeks, months, will be hard on them. Preparing for grim news in these coming days …

I know the news about what’s happening can seem alarming. But I want you to know that we are going to be okay. Not fancy, but an important part of the duties of the job. A president’s mission, in a time of crisis, always boils down to recognizing the fear, hardship, and sorrow of today; expressing confidence about tomorrow; and offering a plan to get from now to then. Biden’s whole speech is a demonstration of that formula. This line is the summary version of Step 2.

When the history of this era is written Putin’s war on Ukraine will have left Russia weaker and the rest of the world stronger. First part undeniably true. Let’s hope the second part is also … … In the battle between democracy and autocracy, democracies are rising to the moment, and the world is clearly choosing the side of peace and security. Notable because so many have assumed the opposite. This is a real test. It’s going to take time. So let us continue to draw inspiration from the iron will of the Ukrainian people. One more time, then I’ll give this theme a rest: This may not count as a Ringing Phrase, but it’s an important concept, and plainly true.

… He will never extinguish their love of freedom. He will never weaken the resolve of the free world. We meet tonight in an America that has lived through two of the hardest years this nation has ever faced. This would have been the start of the speech, if not for the news from Ukraine. Again, note that he’s not even pretending to make a transition. The pandemic has been punishing. And so many families are living paycheck to paycheck, struggling to keep up with the rising cost of food, gas, housing, and so much more. I understand. The essence of Biden’s pitch, in times of economic distress. Skipping past the next few paragraphs, which are the pitch for his economic plan … … And as my Dad used to say, it [economic legislation] gave people a little breathing room. And unlike the $2 Trillion tax cut passed in the previous administration that benefitted the top 1% of Americans, the American Rescue Plan helped working people—and left no one behind. The “partisan” part of Biden’s argument is: We are trying to help you. The other side wants to enrich them. And it worked. It created jobs. Lots of jobs. In fact—our economy created over 6.5 Million new jobs just last year, more jobs created in one year than ever before in the history of America. The New York Times did a pettifogging “fact check” for this claim, saying it was “partially true” because employment figures go back only to 1939. Oh, come on. Our economy grew at a rate of 5.7% last year, the strongest growth in nearly 40 years, the first step in bringing fundamental change to an economy that hasn’t worked for the working people of this nation for too long. A “phrase,” but Biden rolls right through it.The effect, again, is that he is concentrating on the contents, not the packaging. For the past 40 years we were told that if we gave tax breaks to those at the very top, the benefits would trickle down to everyone else. But that trickle-down theory led to weaker economic growth, lower wages, bigger deficits, and the widest gap between those at the top and everyone else in nearly a century. Over the past generation, the Republicans have been careful to use phrases like “death tax” (for “estate tax”) in all of their statements. “Trickle-down” is the one phrase on which Democrats have shown similar consistency and “message discipline.” Vice President Harris and I ran for office with a new economic vision for America. Invest in America. Educate Americans. Grow the workforce. Build the economy from the bottom up and the middle out, not from the top down. We will keep hearing this, too. Because we know that when the middle class grows, the poor have a ladder up and the wealthy do very well … I’m condensing the infrastructure section that follows … This was a bipartisan effort, and I want to thank the members of both parties who worked to make it happen. We’re done talking about infrastructure weeks. We’re going to have an infrastructure decade. Write your own caption. Condensing the next part about competing with China … And we’ll do it all to withstand the devastating effects of the climate crisis and promote environmental justice. We’ll build a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations, begin to replace poisonous lead pipes—so every child—and every American—has clean water to drink at home and at school, provide affordable high-speed internet for every American—urban, suburban, rural, and tribal communities. Internet access is a huge problem in much of America. Meta-point: Bill Clinton’s 1995 SOTU address, after the Democrats had been nearly wiped out in the midterms, was enormously long, and mostly made of nitty-gritty specifics like this. Pundits made fun of it for its length and boringness. Polls later suggested that the national audience paid attention and cared about these details. I went into this in my book Breaking the News and in this magazine. 4,000 projects have already been announced. And tonight, I’m announcing that this year we will start fixing over 65,000 miles of highway and 1,500 bridges in disrepair. When we use taxpayer dollars to rebuild America—we are going to Buy American: buy American products to support American jobs Condensing the “Buy American” and Intel-investment parts …

— And Intel is not alone. A “transition”! There’s something happening in America. Just look around and you’ll see an amazing story. The rebirth of the pride that comes from stamping products “Made In America.” The revitalization of American manufacturing. I agree. For more, see this. 

[David Frum: This is no time for protectionism]

Companies are choosing to build new factories here, when just a few years ago, they would have built them overseas. That’s what is happening. Ford is investing $11 billion to build electric vehicles, creating 11,000 jobs across the country. GM is making the largest investment in its history—$7 billion to build electric vehicles, creating 4,000 jobs in Michigan. All told, we created 369,000 new manufacturing jobs in America just last year. My proposal: Every story about “our inflation-racked economy” needs to have a counterpart story on “our record-fast job growth.” They’re both part of the same reality. More here. Powered by people I’ve met like JoJo Burgess, from generations of union steelworkers from Pittsburgh, who’s here with us tonight. Ever since Ronald Reagan kicked off this tradition, “guests in the first family’s box” has become the great cliché of SOTU addresses. Biden went lighter on it than usual. As Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown says, “It’s time to bury the label “Rust Belt.” It’s time. Yes. And the line we are waiting for here is “This revived part of America is the Chrome Belt.” Or “It’s America’s Newest Frontier.” “It’s the Freshwater Belt.” “It’s the Real America and the Next America.” Or something to complete the thought. Counterargument: proposing any specific name might start a little argument on whether the new name is silly—see: “Washington Commanders”—and Biden is better off just moving straight ahead. But with all the bright spots in our economy, record job growth and higher wages, too many families are struggling to keep up with the bills. Transition! Inflation is robbing them of the gains they might otherwise feel. I get it. That’s why my top priority is getting prices under control. Going to condense this next part … One way to fight inflation is to drive down wages and make Americans poorer.   I have a better plan to fight inflation. Lower your costs, not your wages … Instead of relying on foreign supply chains, let’s make it in America … Economists call it “increasing the productive capacity of our economy.” I call it building a better America. Replacing the “Build Back Better” of his currently stalled legislation. My plan to fight inflation will lower your costs and lower the deficit. One person’s opinion (mine): It is politically necessary for him to mention the deficit, but Biden kept the discussion relatively under control. More on this theme below. — First—cut the cost of prescription drugs. Just look at insulin. One in ten Americans has diabetes. In Virginia, I met a 13-year-old boy named Joshua Davis. This young man is the instant national favorite as guest-in-the-first-family’s-box …  

Imagine what it’s like to look at your child who needs insulin and have no idea how you’re going to pay for it.   What it does to your dignity, your ability to look your child in the eye, to be the parent you expect to be. This is the kind of line that would sound fake from many politicians but that Biden has made authentic to him. Joshua is here with us tonight. Yesterday was his birthday. Happy birthday, buddy …Similar point about this different phrase. The one in the previous paragraph sounds Biden-esque because we all know the stories about his father being laid off. This one has an average-person approachability that would seem faux-chummy from, say, Ted Cruz, but fits the impression we already have of Biden..

Drug companies will still do very well. And while we’re at it, let Medicare negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs, like the VA already does. Editorial note: Amen! … Second—cut energy costs for families an average of $500 a year by combatting climate change.   Let’s provide investments and tax credits to weatherize your homes and businesses to be energy efficient and you get a tax credit; double America’s clean energy production in solar, wind, and so much more; lower the price of electric vehicles, saving you another $80 a month because you’ll never have to pay at the gas pump again. The kind of detail, again, that could be called “boring” on pundit panels but that Bill Clinton built his reelection campaign on. Same for the following few paragraphs. Third—cut the cost of child care. Many families pay up to $14,000 a year for child care per child … My plan doesn’t stop there. It also includes home and long-term care. More affordable housing. And Pre-K for every 3- and 4-year-old …   So that’s my plan. It will grow the economy and lower costs for families. So what are we waiting for? Let’s get this done. And while you’re at it, confirm my nominees to the Federal Reserve, which plays a critical role in fighting inflation.   My plan will not only lower costs to give families a fair shot, it will lower the deficit. The previous Administration not only ballooned the deficit with tax cuts for the very wealthy and corporations, it undermined the watchdogs whose job was to keep pandemic relief funds from being wasted. See previous remarks on mentioning-but-not-belaboring the deficit. But in my administration, the watchdogs have been welcomed back. We’re going after the criminals who stole billions in relief money meant for small businesses and millions of Americans. See FDR on blunt language against well-heeled crooks. And tonight, I’m announcing that the Justice Department will name a chief prosecutor for pandemic fraud. By the end of this year, the deficit will be down to less than half what it was before I took office.   The only president ever to cut the deficit by more than one trillion dollars in a single year. For decades, Democrats have pointed out that deficit trends have been much lower under their administrations than under the GOP. But they have been abashed about making that argument. Maybe Biden, who has seen it all, is going to try.

Lowering your costs also means demanding more competition. Shorthand introduction follows to “modern anti-trust theory.” In my view this is really important; glad it is getting some airtime in the speech. For more, see Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, Tim Wu, Lina Khan, and others. I’m a capitalist, but capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism. It’s exploitation—and it drives up prices.

[David A. Graham: Biden seizes the center]

When corporations don’t have to compete, their profits go up, your prices go up, and small businesses and family farmers and ranchers go under … And as Wall Street firms take over more nursing homes, quality in those homes has gone down and costs have gone up. The kind of specific that Bill Clinton used to effect. That ends on my watch. Medicare is going to set higher standards for nursing homes and make sure your loved ones get the care they deserve and expect. We’ll also cut costs and keep the economy going strong by giving workers a fair shot, provide more training and apprenticeships, hire them based on their skills not degrees. Shorthand reference to another very important reform and concept. Let’s pass the Paycheck Fairness Act and paid leave.   Raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and extend the Child Tax Credit, so no one has to raise a family in poverty. Let’s increase Pell Grants and increase our historic support of HBCUs, and invest in what Jill—our First Lady, who teaches full-time—calls America’s best-kept secret: community colleges. Amen to all of this. See more here. And let’s pass the PRO Act when a majority of workers want to form a union—they shouldn’t be stopped.   When we invest in our workers, when we build the economy from the bottom up and the middle out together, we can do something we haven’t done in a long time: build a better America. For more than two years, COVID-19 has impacted every decision in our lives and the life of the nation. This is what I mean about not even pretending to have a transition. And that’s fine—the organizing theme of this speech is Let’s keep moving. And I know you’re tired, frustrated, and exhausted. But I also know this. Because of the progress we’ve made, because of your resilience and the tools we have, tonight, I can say we are moving forward safely, back to more normal routines. Condensing what follows. We’re all tired, frustrated, and exhausted … Here are four common sense steps as we move forward safely. Condensing this, too, but it has the virtue of specificity. …

And we’re launching the “Test to Treat” initiative so people can get tested at a pharmacy, and if they’re positive, receive antiviral pills on the spot at no cost. Leaving this in, because it is specific and will be new to most people …

Even if you already ordered free tests tonight, I am announcing that you can order more from covidtests.gov starting next week. Personal note: We ordered, received, and have used these tests. … We have lost so much to COVID-19. Time with one another. And worst of all, so much loss of life. Let’s use this moment to reset. Let’s stop looking at COVID-19 as a partisan dividing line and see it for what it is: A God-awful disease. Doing his best to deflect the culture war on vaccines, masks, disease itself. There’s no point in trying to rebut the opposing views; the best strategy, on the politics and the substance, is to move on like this. Let’s stop seeing each other as enemies, and start seeing each other for who we really are: Fellow Americans.   We can’t change how divided we’ve been. But we can change how we move forward—on COVID-19 and other issues we must face together. Another “transition.” I recently visited the New York City Police Department days after the funerals of Officer Wilbert Mora and his partner, Officer Jason Rivera…. Condensing “fund the police” argument to skip to its conclusion … We should all agree: The answer is not to Defund the police. The answer is to FUND the police with the resources and training they need to protect our communities. I ask Democrats and Republicans alike: Pass my budget and keep our neighborhoods safe. Condensing gun-violence section that follows … Repeal the liability shield that makes gun manufacturers the only industry in America that can’t be sued. These laws don’t infringe on the Second Amendment. They save lives. The most fundamental right in America is the right to vote—and to have it counted. And it’s under assault. “Transition.” The sentence that follows is of great democratic importance, and in a way is what Biden is talking about rather than talking about the January 6 attacks. (To which he devoted a whole, powerful speech on January 6 of this year.) In state after state, new laws have been passed, not only to suppress the vote, but to subvert entire elections. We cannot let this happen. Tonight, I call on the Senate to: Pass the Freedom to Vote Act. Pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. And while you’re at it, pass the Disclose Act so Americans can know who is funding our elections. Tonight, I’d like to honor someone who has dedicated his life to serve this country: Justice Stephen Breyer—an Army veteran, Constitutional scholar, and retiring Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Justice Breyer, thank you for your service. Anyone who saw the speech saw Breyer’s gracious response here. SCOTUS justices are supposed to sit stone-faced during the speech, the one notorious exception being Samuel Alito shaking his head No, no when Barack Obama criticized the Citizens United ruling. Breyer set a more becoming example. One of the most serious constitutional responsibilities a President has is nominating someone to serve on the United States Supreme Court. And I did that 4 days ago, when I nominated Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. One of our nation’s top legal minds, who will continue Justice Breyer’s legacy of excellence. A former top litigator in private practice. A former federal public defender. And from a family of public school educators and police officers. A consensus builder. Since she’s been nominated, she’s received a broad range of support—from the Fraternal Order of Police to former judges appointed by Democrats and Republicans. And if we are to advance liberty and justice, we need to secure the Border and fix the immigration system. Transition? We don’t need no stinking transitions! Condensing what follows, so I don’t need to mention the attempted chant by Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert of “Build the wall” …

That’s why immigration reform is supported by everyone from labor unions to religious leaders to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Let’s get it done once and for all. Advancing liberty and justice also requires protecting the rights of women. Saving time by skipping transitions. And, of course, a powerful statement in the line that follows. The TV we were watching panned to Amy Coney Barrett on the “under attack” line. The constitutional right affirmed in Roe v. Wade—standing precedent for half a century—is under attack as never before. Condensing what follows … While it often appears that we never agree, that isn’t true. I signed 80 bipartisan bills into law last year. From preventing government shutdowns to protecting Asian Americans from still-too-common hate crimes to reforming military justice. Biden’s election-year argument on issues from the economy (jobs versus inflation), controlling the pandemic, managing the alliance (unified against Putin), to managing domestic politics will necessarily be: Actually, we’re doing a good job. This section is part of his presenting that argument. And soon, we’ll strengthen the Violence Against Women Act that I first wrote three decades ago. It is important for us to show the nation that we can come together and do big things. So tonight I’m offering a Unity Agenda for the Nation. Four big things we can do together. They are: opioids, mental-health programs—including attention to social media—care for veterans, and a new campaign to “end cancer as we know it.” The detailed description was full of the kinds of specifics that historically voters have cared about. Condensing …

As Frances Haugen, who is here with us tonight, has shown, we must hold social media platforms accountable for the national experiment they’re conducting on our children for profit. A Facebook whistleblower. This is a big callout by Biden. … Our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan faced many dangers. Won’t mention the odious Boebert outburst around this part. I know.

One of those soldiers was my son Major Beau Biden. The decent members in the chamber were respectful through this part. We don’t know for sure if a burn pit was the cause of his brain cancer, or the diseases of so many of our troops. Skipping to anti-cancer program. … To get there, I call on Congress to fund ARPA-H, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. It’s based on DARPA—the Defense Department project that led to the Internet, GPS, and so much more.   ARPA-H will have a singular purpose—to drive breakthroughs in cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and more. So far, none of these diseases is politicized, the way COVID has become. And virtually every family in America is affected by one or more of them. This is the kind of big-tent appeal Biden would like to make. Or, as he put it in the following line: A unity agenda for the nation. We can do this. My fellow Americans—tonight , we have gathered in a sacred space—the citadel of our democracy. Biden briefly paused before starting this paragraph, one of the few such punctuation-points in his delivery. This is clearly the “and now we come to the end of the speech” transition. In this Capitol, generation after generation, Americans have debated great questions amid great strife, and have done great things. Everyone in the chamber knows what else has happened in the Capitol, 14 months ago, and Biden’s pitch is stronger with this audience for not needing to spell that out.

For the record, I’m leaving in the whole rest of the “in conclusion” section: We have fought for freedom, expanded liberty, defeated totalitarianism and terror. And built the strongest, freest, and most prosperous nation the world has ever known. Now is the hour. Our moment of responsibility. Our test of resolve and conscience, of history itself. It is in this moment that our character is formed. Our purpose is found. Our future is forged. Well, I know this nation.   We will meet the test. To protect freedom and liberty, to expand fairness and opportunity. We will save democracy. As hard as these times have been, I am more optimistic about America today than I have been my whole life. Because I see the future that is within our grasp. Because I know there is simply nothing beyond our capacity. We are the only nation on Earth that has always turned every crisis we have faced into an opportunity. The only nation that can be defined by a single word: possibilities. So on this night, in our 245th year as a nation, I have come to report on the State of the Union. And my report is this: The State of the Union is strong—because you, the American people, are strong. There it is! Back in Japan I loved the phrase matte mashita from the audience at kabuki performances. It means “We’ve been waiting for it!” and it greets the appearance of familiar characters or scenes. A State of the Union address traditionally requires a sentence saying “The State of the Union is …” Matte mashita! Biden is one of the few to save the big reveal for the very end of the speech. I think this is a nice touch. We are stronger today than we were a year ago. And we will be stronger a year from now than we are today. Now is our moment to meet and overcome the challenges of our time. And we will, as one people. One America. The United States of America. May God bless you all. May God protect our troops.

This is Biden’s trademark ending for all of his speeches, and it is gracious and heartfelt.

In this speech he told us what his work involves, in his own words. Some people will agree, many others will disagree, and most Americans won’t have registered the speech at all. But I think he used the opportunity as well as he could have.

Wyoming—the first US state to grant a charter to a crypto bank—has approved legal status for a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), the American CryptoFed DAO, according to an announcement on Sunday. The organization, which has a mission to introduce a new monetary system, now becomes the first legally recognized DAO in the U.S.

It comes after Wyoming lawmakers voted in March to pass a bill allowing DAOs to be officially registered in the state. The law affords these entities—which are governed by smart contracts and dispense with the hierarchical control structure seen in traditional companies—the same rights as a limited liability company. The bill came into effect on July 1, 2021.

Just think — limited liability for “a company managed by nobody”!  And:

The DAO law also solidifies Wyoming’s reputation as the most crypto-friendly U.S. state. Last year, it was the first in the US to issue a state charter for crypto banks and has already licensed two: Kraken and Avanti.

Here is the full story, via Shaffin Shariff.

The post Wyoming fact of the day appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

The single biggest new media habit to be formed during the pandemic appears to be gaming. The extra hour per week that people spent gaming last year represented the largest percentage increase of any media category. And unlike other lockdown hobbies, it is showing no sign of falling away as life gets back to normal. It has become “a sticky habit”, says Craig Chapple of Sensor Tower. He finds that last year people installed 56.2bn gaming apps, a third more than in 2019 (and three times the rate of increase the previous year). The easing of lockdowns is not denting the habit: the first quarter of 2021 saw more installations than any quarter of 2020. Roblox, a sprawling platform on which people make and share their own basic games, reported that in the first quarter of this year players spent nearly 10bn hours on the platform, nearly twice as much time as they spent in the same period in 2020.

And:

…whereas all other generations of Americans named television and films as their favourite form of home entertainment, Generation Z ranked them last, after video games, music, web browsing and social media.

Here is more from The Economist.

The post Which media have proven sticky as pandemic has diminished? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

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A post shared by Trevor Carmick & Rob Reinders (@beerlabelsinmotion) on Apr 18, 2019 at 4:16pm PDT

Dragon’s Milk White is a bourbon barrel-aged white stout brewed by @newhollandbrew in Michigan. • • • #Beerlabelsinmotion #blim #instabeer #brewstagram #craftbeer #beerlabel #beergeek #ilovebeer #beerporn #aftereffects #dragon #dragonsmilk #stout #michigan #whitestout https://www.instagram.com/p/Bwajj8VFd17/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=jwulm8ugtppt

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A post shared by Trevor Carmick & Rob Reinders (@beerlabelsinmotion) on Mar 8, 2019 at 11:39am PST

It doesn’t get much more Boston than this! Where else can you see a plane over a car over a train over a boat? A quadruple IPA by @trilliumbrewing • • • #Beerlabelsinmotion #blim #instabeer #brewstagram #craftbeer #beerlabel #beergeek #ilovebeer #beerporn #aftereffects #quadrupleipa #ipa #trilliumbrewing #animation

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I always know how long I’ve been away because I get a little backup time machine notification popup on my laptop, this time around is was 140 days! Time flies, wild right? It’s also my Maddie needs a bath notification….road dog finally gets a bath

Share a taco with someone you love day 😊

My mom just called me and was like, “I JUST SAW YOU ON TV!” and I considered that she’d lost her mind or accidentally called me instead of my sister but she insisted that she’d just seen me on a … Continue reading →

14 years ago today I made a person, like some kinda wizard or something.   Victor says it’s not really “magic” as much as “science” and also is accusing me of dumbing down his part in this, as “millions of … Continue reading →

I've used the phrase time is of the essence all my life without realising that it has a quite precise legal meaning. I just thought that it meant something like get your skates on or show a leg or hurry up. But it is much stronger than that. Time is of the essence because it's essential to the contract.Contracts usually have a deadline in them, but it's not that important. If I have a contract to write a book and I hand it in a month late nobody particularly cares. The world remains quite extraordinarily calm.Some contracts, like building ones have a deadline where the supplier is penalised a bit if they're late. But the contract itself still stands (and has usually taken all this into account).But sometimes the whole contract is based on the deadline, and if the deadlines is missed the contract is null and void. If I'm delivering perishable goods, like milk, to you, and it arrives three weeks late and very sour: then the goods are worthless. The deadline is broken and with it the whole contract. You pay me nothing.A wedding cake that arrives too late is no longer a wedding cake. It is mere cake. The essence of the task, the central part of it, has been destroyed.In cases like this the contract stipulates that time is of the essence, which means that failure to meet the deadline renders the contract defunct.The opposite of time is of the essence is the much rarer, but rather beautiful time at large. Time at large, in a contract, means that the task must be done, but it really doesn't matter when. Take your time. Have cup of tea. Go for a stroll. Wander around like a lazy outlaw who is at large.You can find out more from these two articles on construction contracts.A grand tip of the hat to the Antipodean for pointing this out to me. And for those who like a little light swearing: P.S. For anybody interested. My book A Short History of Drunkenness is now out in Polish, Italian, Estonian, Romanian and Portuguese (for the Brazilian market).

I've found something beautiful. The British television regulator, Ofcom, whose job it is to see that we are shocked politely, commissioned a study of exactly how rude rude words were. The poll was carried out by Ipsos Mori who went off and quite earnestly asked a representative sample of the Great British public what they thought about the word tits.This is therefore the official British list of naughty words.The results, in all their muddied glory, are available online here. They're rather fascinating, and very usefully arranged by subject. So if you were trying to mildly insult an old man, but couldn't think of anything to say, you could consult the survey and find:Coffin Dodger: Mild language, generally of little concern. Seen as humorous, including by older participants. Some said that more aggression or specific intent to hurt would heighten impact, but not common enough for this to be based on experience.Some of the words in the survey were previously unknown to me. I had never in my life heard of a bloodclaat or a chi-chi man, which shows that I am an essentially innocent person. I'd also not heard the term Iberian Salute, although a quick check on the Internet shows what it is (bend your right elbow, clench your right fist with the knuckles facing away from you, put your left hand on your right bicep. The French call it the bras d'honneur).Anyhow, it's a fascinating read, and you can measure your opinion of a word's rudeness against that of the general public. My favourite line in it, though, came under Discriminatory Language, subsection Race and Ethnicity.Taff: Medium language, potentially unacceptable. Some uncertainty outside Wales about how offensive it is to Welsh people.It is time to end this uncertainty. I'm off on a research trip to Offa's Dyke with a megaphone and a pair of binoculars.

Donald Trump is in the U.K. at the moment, honoring our mother nation by doing his best impression of its favorite son, international traveler Mr. Bean. But even as he bumbles his way across the country, wandering into unflattering interviews about Theresa May and shoving his head definitively up the uncooked turkey …

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South Park—still Comedy Central’s flagship comedy program, 22 seasons in—has set its next premiere date, with Deadline reporting that the show will be back on the airwaves for new episodes on September 26.

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Sometimes we are not aware when something happens for the last time. Circumstances change without our intervention; we take leave of someone quite casually and we don’t know that we will never see them again;  decisions are made over which we have no power which have  sudden and deep consequences in  our lives. But a few times  only  there is a conscious choice to end something of major importance.  Last night when I was sitting with my sunset cocktail over- looking the mosque, I knew that this daily ritual was happening for the very last time. I was regaled with a blue cloudless sky and a clear  sunset and I hung on to the very last dying ember of light as it descended on the horizon to the right of the Great Mosque. Then I had dinner on the roof alone under a clear bejewelled Malian sky. The night before was the final party: a ‘family affair’ for those that have served at the hotel: a lovely evening complete  with Diao, our faithful Fulani  milkman who arrived  with his son; our griots came and sang mine and Keita’s praises. They  sang of those that have gone, of Beigna and Pudiogou and of Fatou, but also of Papa, Baba and Maman, and of course of the lovely Elisabet, my film-making cousin.   We feasted on the goat that we bought in Madiama market a few days ago, and Papa was respendent in his white hatted chef outfit. For days the contents of the hotel have been quietly leaving.  Mattress by mattress, air conditioner by air conditioner, the hotel has trickled away until it stood quite bare, and only Maman, Baba and Papa were left this morning, dividing the last spoils between themselves. There has been a change of state: this hotel which I created no longer exists. December 12, 2006: “Tomorrow it will be just a week before Hotel Djenné Djenno is officially open. In two weeks time my Christmas guests will already be leaving. But today the site was still just as usual, full of workmen, and full of wheel barrows and mud. But the clearing up has begun. Something major is about to happen- a change of state. In just over a week I will no longer be building a hotel, it will actually exist, and I will be running a hotel. My reality is about to change. Today I looked at all the space of the hotel which is about to be born. I thought of all the unknown things which will happen in this space, and which are now resting here like embryos. It is all about to begin to unfold. I thought of all the people who will one day come here, and laugh, have fun and make love here, although today they don’t even know it. And yet, by some mysterious workings they will come here ... So Maestro, soon soon, let the play begin..” And it did, and the players were many. And last night they all finally left the stage, sweeping the floor with their feathered  hats as they took  their final bow...

The Swedish hostage Johan Gustavsson has been released. He was taken hostage in November 2011 in Timbuktu  together with a Dutch national and a South African National. That event marked the beginning of the end for the happy Mali I had known during the first years of my life here. The Dutchman has been released some time ago: the Barkane forces (the French military contingent still present in the Sahel) stumbled across him by accident when they were "cleaning up" a terrorist encampment in the northern desert. It appears that he had been severely brainwashed, had converted to Islam and his reunion with his wife was not a success. Let us hope that Gustavsson has fared better. The circumstances of Gustavson's release are still unknown. I am about to call Eva to see if she has some news...he has apparently just landed at Arlanda in Stockholm. More later... And apart from this joyful news, there has of course been Eid Al-Fitr. I went with Elisabet and Henri to the place of communal prayer behind the hospital. This is where the Djennenké men pray twice a year- now and at Tabaski- because the place in front of the Great Mosque is too small to hold them all. Yelpha officiated for the first time.  Towards sunset I had a visitor on the terrace: Babou Touré from the library, resplendent  in Grand Boubou wishing me 'Sambe Sambe', the traditional greeting both now and at Tabaski.

everythingthatgoespop:

Breaking News:

George and Amal Clooney are expecting twins!❤👶🏻

2017 taketh away (civil liberties), but 2017 also giveth (celebrity twins).

(Just popping back in to say AAAAAAAAAAAMAL. And BEYONCE.) 

After nine years and 2,810 posts, a blog seeking a sustainable path for humans on a finite planet comes to an end.

Intensifying Indian protests prompted the Obama administration to block a pipeline's path in North Dakota.

Seriously, though. If I go away, who’s going to tell Blue Ivy that she DOESN’T NEED TO HANG OUT WITH APPLE MARTIN JUST TO BE NICE? Because come on. You are better than that.

January 26 2015: The first reported US drone strike of the year killed three people travelling in a vehicle in central-southern Yemen. This was the first attack since Houthi insurgents forced the country’s president Abdu Rabbu al Mansour Hadi, his prime minister and cabinet to resign. #drone #drones #yemen (at Hareeb, Shabwa-Mareb border)

January 19 2015: CIA drones targeted a house in Shawal area of North Waziristan killing five, six or seven people. The identities of the dead was not immediately known however a senior Pakistani official said “non-Pakistani, foreign fighters” were among the dead and Taliban sources said the attack also killed local fighters associated with Taliban commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur. This was the third of four strikes to reportedly target Bahadur himself, or men loyal to him. The Pakistani government condemned the strike as a breach of sovereignty – a reiteration of its official position on the drone attacks. #drone #drones #pakistan (at Shahi Khel, Shawal, North Waziristan)