leviramsey

On 3/24/2016 at 09:26, Wainy316 said:

This is the year all the best people die.

All good men are dying and I don't feel so good myself.

I dread the day Wayland supplants X.

Needed a new phone in a hurry last June, so ordered a 2014 Moto X online.  Go to the kiosk to pick it up and the rep points out that (almost certainly in order to clear out two models approaching a year old) AT&T is offering the 360 for $0.99 with the Moto X with free shipping, so I canceled my online order and bought the phone I was going to pick up with the watch.

(For the record: paying $22.80/month for 24 months (cash price of the phone was $546.99, so just under a penny per month of interest), technically not on contract (have to pay off the phone if I cancel service), $65/month (after a $15/month discount for not taking a subsidized phone on a 2-year contract) for unlimited voice, texts, and 3 gigs (though a few months ago they threw in an extra 3 gigs), with unused data each month rolling over to the next (so I'm currently sitting on 10.87 gigs as I start a new billing period)).

My 1st gen Moto 360 is the probably best $0.99 I've ever spent.  Nice to get quick notifications of messages or Google Now traffic while driving without doing anything more than twisting my wrist.

On 1/4/2016 at 09:26, Stevo985 said:

That's not true. Well I suppose it might be true in how they marketed it, but I don't think that's how/why they came up with it.

Diet Coke is zero (more or less) calorie cola, but it tastes significantly different.

Coke Zero is the same thing but it attempts to taste the same as full fat cola.

(same with diet pepsi/pepsi max)

First was Diet Pepsi (well, it was Pepsi Free...).  Diet Coke was Coca Cola's clone of Diet Pepsi.  "New Coke", in turn, was basically Diet Coke with HFCS.  Coke Zero is, more or less, Coca Cola with artificial sweeteners (in the US, it's a mix of aspartame and ace-K, as each tends to cover up the less-pleasant tastes in the other) replacing the sugar.

On 3/17/2016 at 17:23, NurembergVillan said:

Mustangs are driven high school girls in North America these days...

The 'stangs have always been the girliest of the pony/muscle cars... especially the V6 convertibles.

The Dolphins finally seem to be putting their backroom chaos that's enveloped them for the 17 years since Jimmy Johnson left town*.  It's been a general manager leaning one direction and a coach leaning the other, often with a situation at quarterback that both inherited from their predecessors.  GMs hiring coaches, who outlast the GM, who get sacked by the next GM.  Consultants brought into situations where nobody knows who makes what decisions.

* For Brumerican, the game that sent Jimmy Johnson out of town:

Peyton would be insane not to retire, but I could see him coming back next year, though not with the Broncos: the only motivation for Peyton would be to show that he's got "it" without Kubiak handcuffs and with a healed foot.  By the same token, Peyton's cap number means the Broncos will only bring him back at a big discount, as they need the money to keep that defense together.

That brings up the question of whether there are any teams that would be viable Super Bowl teams if they got a good performance out of Peyton and be improved by a decent performance out of a 40-year-old Manning.  I'd put the Texans in that category (the defense and the division give the first part and a look at their quarterbacking last season gives the second).  Beyond that, maybe the Rams.  Of those, the Texans should be much more appealing: Bill O'Brien could come up with an offense with a lot of pistol and shotgun to cater to Peyton's strengths.  Also: playing for the Titans, Jaguars, or Texans is from a tax perspective the best signing decision a player can make.

Related: if the Vikings don't want to pick up Peterson's cap number, I don't see anyone being interested at $10 million or so in Peterson.  But he might be willing to take $5-7 million from the Cowboys or Texans (he's from basically between Dallas and Houston) and stay in Texas... Watt, Manning, Peterson, and Hopkins should be able to win the AFC South and could put together a playoff run.

(though be able to actually see it kind of ruins that post)

Well, I can guess who's voted so far...

I've long said that "offense sells tickets, defense wins games, and special teams wins championships", and Super Bowl 50 bore that out

DVOA assessment (negative is better for defense, positive is better for offense and special teams):

1. Broncos defense / Panthers defense: -58% (tie)
2. Broncos special teams: +21%
3. Panthers special teams: -17%
4. Panthers offense: -30%
5. Broncos offense: -50%
Yes, the Broncos offense was almost as bad as the defenses were good.

That's right: according to DVOA, as great as Denver's defense was in Super Bowl 50, Carolina's defense was just as great. And that's after opponent adjustments. Before opponent adjustments, our system actually rated Carolina with an even better game than Denver. After all, Carolina gained more yards per play (4.2 vs. 3.5) and converted more often on third down (3-of-15 vs. 1-of-14).




No, the real difference here came on special teams. Denver was above-average in all five phases of special teams that we measure, while Carolina had a missed field goal from Graham Gano and was poor on punt coverage and punt returns. Britton Colquitt and Brad Nortman both had excellent nights with similar gross averages: 45.9 yards for Colquitt, 45.0 yards for Nortman. However, that weird 61-yard punt return from Jordan Norwood was a huge change in field position, while Ted Ginn's three returns went for a combined 2 yards. Also, Nortman's gross average wasn't quite as valuable as Colquitt's because Nortman's longest punt, 61 yards, ended up netting only 41 because of a touchback.

Ten Worst Super Bowl QBs by DYAR (since 1989, minimum 10 pass plays; WINNER):
10. Neil O'Donnell (1995 Steelers vs. Cowboys): -30 DYAR from 28/49, 239 yds, 1 TD, 3 INT, 4 sacks/32 yds, 1 rush/0 yds, 0 fumbles
9. Rex Grossman (2006 Bears vs. Colts): -42 DYAR from 20/28, 165 yds, 1 TD, 2 INT, 1 sack/11 yds, 2 rushes/0 yds, 2 fumbles/1 lost
8. Cam Newton (2015 vs. Broncos): -51 DYAR from 18/41, 265 yds, 0 TD, 1 INT, 6 sacks/64 yds, 6 rushes/45 yds, 2 fumbles/2 lost
7. Ben Roethlisberger (2005 vs. Seahawks): -58 DYAR from 9/21, 123 yds, 0 TD, 2 INT, 1 sack/8 yds, 7 rushes/25 yds/1 TD, 0 fumbles
6. Rich Gannon (2002 vs. Bucs): -61 DYAR from 24/44, 272 yds, 2 TD, 5 INT, 5 sacks/22 yds, 2 rushes/3 yds, 1 fumble
5. Chris Chandler (1998 vs. Broncos): -65 DYAR from 19/35, 219 yds, 1 TD, 3 INT, 2 sacks/13 yds, 4 rushes/30 yds, 0 fumbles
4. Frank Reich (backup, 1992 vs. Cowboys): -75 DYAR from 18/31, 194 yds, 1 TD, 2 INT, 2 sacks/12 yds, 2 rushes/0 yds, 3 fumbles/2 lost
3. Peyton Manning (2015 vs. Panthers): -115 DYAR from 13/23, 141 yds, 0 TD, 1 INT, 5 sacks/37 yds, 0 rushes, 2 fumbles/1 lost
2. John Elway (1989 vs. 49ers): -118 DYAR from 10/26, 108 yds, 0 TD, 2 INT, 4 sacks/30 yds, 4 rushes/8 yds/1 TD, 2 fumbles
1. Kerry Collins (2000 vs. Ravens): -294 DYAR from 15/39, 112 yds, 0 TD, 4 INT, 4 sacks/26 yds, 3 rushes/12 yds, 1 fumble

It's not the best show, but partly because my wife grew up in Maine, I've grown to like North Woods Law

On 2/10/2016 at 15:47, Heretic said:

 

In an era where 'Establishment' candidates are finding such labels as anchors rather than buoys, I suspect the name 'Bush' is not a preferred choice amongst the candidates.

Christie is now gone. Fiorina must go sooner or later, she's got zero traction. Carson is doing worse than I thought. Rubio had a terrible New Hampshire debate (mullered by Christie, ironically) so he has work to do.

Fiorina may well be next to go. Bush might continue because his name might attract more SuperPAC donations in the long run but he's still way off the pace. Even Kasich has done more than him.

If Bush gets trounced in Florida (where he was governor) that will be pretty humiliating.

Bush is running a great campaign for 2004 (hey, it's really the last campaign his team won).

On 2/10/2016 at 23:50, maqroll said:

Pretty accurate indicator of opposing political views in New England. Solidly left wing, progressive, anti-war social justice candidate vs unreligious, sloganeering, jingoistic racist.

Around 1 in 20 Bernie voters in the primary only decided to vote for Bernie in the Democrat primary vs. for Trump in the GOP primary at the polling place.  Around 1 in 10 Trump voters likewise decided in the reverse way.

There's a block of about 20% of the electorate for whom Trump and Bernie are their top 2 preferences.  That's the 20% or so of the electorate that went for Perot 20 years ago; a lot of them supported Ron Paul and Buchanan.  It's largely older, white, working class men angry that white American male privilege ain't what it used to be.

Which isn't that surprising.  To the extent Trump has made actual policy proposals, he's running on strikingly similar proposals as Bernie, but with jingoism and explicit xenophobia thrown into the mix.  They're the two candidates who are making the strongest promises to increase Social Security and Medicare, Trump has stopped saying he wants single-payer healthcare (now all he says is repeal Obamacare and replace it with an unspecified improvement, which would still be consistent with single-payer).  They're the two candidates promising to rip up free trade deals.  They're the two candidates who like to imply that immigrants are "taking our jobs" (although Sanders, after decades of saying so explicitly, now leaves it between the lines: he supports stepped up (though more humane) border enforcement and using NAFTA renegotiation to cap the number of Mexicans coming over).  Trump is to the left (to the extent that's meaningful) on guns, notwithstanding Bernie's recent turns in response to Hillary's attacks on that front.

I would like to see Trump vs. Bernie, if only because it would be a chaotic election.  Bloomberg has apparently set aside a billion dollars (unlike Trump, Bloomberg's an actual billionaire) to mount a third-party run if it looks likely that it would be Trump vs. Bernie.  Bloomberg could win enough states to move the election to the House, and considering the extent to which neither Bernie nor Trump is particularly liked by their parties' leadership, Bloomberg could end up elected by the House.

39 minutes ago, maqroll said:

If betting like that was available to us over here, I'd probably be broke

It is, in some manner of speaking...

Next car will probably be

And to go with it, for family hauling, etc.:

And then, with any luck:

(the plug-in hybrid should be available by then)

Into (on Turbo):

Into (on Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Radio):

Into (on 80s on 8):

Into (on Soul Town):

Into (on Rockbar):

Into (on BB King's Bluesville):

Into (on 90s on 9):

Into (on Lithium):

Into (on Deep Tracks):

Into (on Classic Rewind):

Into (on 60s on 6):

Into (on Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Radio):

Into (on Outlaw Country):

Into (on Ozzy's Boneyard):

Into (on Turbo):

On Sirius XM Limited Edition, which is currently The Billy Joel Channel:

Into (on 80s on 8):

Into (on Underground Garage):

On 1/24/2016 at 06:14, Kingman said:

 

The main feature and long term aim i imagine will be UHD content,

Its apparently got 12 tuners so should be able to record 4/5 channels at the same time whilst watching another rather than the usual 2. 

Multiroom supposedly will become wireless and without the need of another box and available on several devices.

Will probably be a few other bells and whistles but TBH I'm only interested in the UHD Aspects. 

Have to say the extra tuners will be a bonus, Not for me personally but i do get **** off with the mrs's program clashes popping up every hour or two.

DirecTV's Genie has had all those features (including the ability to stream recordings to devices outside the home) for years.... just saying...

For comparison: Brady after going 18-1