Jake

Way too much Hinrich on the court right now as we need to score

Derrick, what the f***? Why take it down court, pass to nobody, and take a contested leaner at the free throw line before your post guys get to the post to rebound?

Big Shot Butler

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Nov 6, 2013 -> 08:16 PM) Bulls need to make a trade. There's just not enough offensive talent here. There's more of it there than when they went 62-20 and 50-16 in back to back seasons

Jesus guys, run an offense. It's like we have Lovie Smith for a coach

QUOTE (ZoomSlowik @ Nov 6, 2013 -> 06:31 PM) Those guys definitely had issues. I was blinded by Beasley's dominance in college, but the other two I didn't really like. You can throw in a bunch of 6'9" "athletes" that people take for potential too like Tyrus Thomas or Stromile Swift. It's tricky though because guys with legit SF talent frequently play PF in college (Durant, Melo, Granger, Deng are a few off the top of my head). It just doesn't seem like they are many elite wing players right now, most of the top shot-creators end up at the point right now. Every team would rather have a Lebron/Durant/Harden/George (and probably Melo, though he doesn't always play smart), but if you don't have one of them you probably want a 3-and-D type that blends in. The Knicks could have cap space depending on how things shake out over the next two years. Chandler and Amare both expire after 14/15 (Amare's is technically a player option, but he's not turning down $23 million) and they only have $13 mil committed outside of a potential Melo extension. Who knows what they'll do between now and then though. Someone will definitely pay Bledsoe a ton. On the other hand, the college 4 is quite often really just 3b. So many teams go out there with 3 guards, a small forward type, plus a PF/C (not really many true C's in college, or anywhere)

As opposed to offering insurance

Someone should explain to Marshall about how important it is that black folks took ownership of that word. It's a big part of overcoming oppression. I think it is best if it dies out eventually, but it is a significant piece of taking back your own identity.

I became a highly sought after umpire in my Little League because I was willing to eject the coaches. Sad.

If Martin has indeed tried to kill himself before, it is unreasonable to expect him to start being a tough guy and self-advocating against one of the biggest douchebags in the world. Martin may not have the best psyche in the world to handle the rigor of the NFL, but nobody should have to deal with what he was getting and I'd imagine he would have been fine without antagonists like Incognito and whoever else was involved.

The article I posted in SLaM can provide some insight. There is a lot of good nature ribbing that goes on and reflect genuine affection between teammates. Unfortunately, the line isn't always clear and the "out" player will continue to lower his standard of what is acceptable abuse just to try to impress his teammates. The system puts immense pressures on guys to get along, which can obviously result in great comaraderie, but can also push a guy to take this kind of abuse and empower a huge dickhead to dole it out, unchecked

I wish people who are mentally ill would just get over that s***!

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Nov 5, 2013 -> 10:10 PM) Help Soxtalk. I'm considering getting a smart phone (or normal phone as it is now) and getting rid of my dumb flip phone. Besides the obvious iphone, which everyone knows about and my wife has, I don't know the first thing about different phones available. I don't need the fanciest one out there. I'd be using it for texting, checking sports scores (and twitter for sports), maybe watching games?, some email. I'm sure there are apps I don't know about that I could take advantage of, but I'll be more or less pretty basic with the phone, just having internet capability etc. I'm open to any opinions on which direction I should look to go here, ones to avoid, etc. I know I can do research on this as well, but getting first-hand knowledge instead of reading specs on a website is a lot easier. TIA. Edit: Not looking for this to bring out the iphone vs other pissing match...just want honest opinions/reviews. I only know some about the iphone from my wife, and know nothing about other ones. I have zero brand loyalty, so it doesn't matter to me either way. If it matters any to this, I'll likely still be using ATT for service. Here are some questions to answer that will probably lead us towards consensus: Budget: If you're willing to buy on contract, your willingness to spend "hundreds" will do fine. All the major carriers now have plans that give you the chance to upgrade on a yearly basis as well, though each one has different specifics. And now...your priorities. iOS vs Android vs other: You may or may not have an opinion on this, we can hash out some pros and cons, but if you do have an opinion that will obviously be helpful. Perhaps some of the other priorities will lead you back to this one. Screen size: Is this a big deal? If so, do you have a preference for smaller or larger screens? Must they be in the middle somewhere? I'd suggest heading to Best Buy or the ATT store to physically handle some of the phones. My experience tells me that phones that have bigger screens than you have ever used before will invariably feel really big at first. The trick is figuring out which ones will always feel big or always feel small. Build: There are a few different things to think about here, but to some extent it comes down to how you want the phone to feel. You have phones with a plastic body, like Samsung phones. You have Apple, which have a nice feel with glass front and back in the 4s, plastic on the 5c, and a metal-ish backing on the 5s. The HTC One is the main phone with an aluminum design. There are other things that might factor in here, like weight or shape. Thickness, for instance. Or, a few phones have a giant camera lens on them like an actual camera. Camera: Does camera quality matter? How do you anticipate using your camera? You have megapixel monsters like the Nokia Lumia. You have solid all-around cameras like the Nexus 5, Samsung Galaxy, iPhone 5s. You have ones whose best features are in their software or other non-hardware aspects, like the One and it's Zoe feature and great low-light performance at the expense of distance shooting. For me, I tend to think a lot about the camera when buying and think little about it when owning. Battery: At this point, there isn't a ton of variation in terms of battery life. They all require a daily charge, for the most part. There aren't any obvious duds. The Moto RAZR MAXX (only available on Verizon, I think) might get you over 24 hours and is pretty much the sole exception. There are a couple of phones still out there that have removable batteries, if that feature matters to you. Screen tech: You're pretty much looking at LCD vs AMOLED and whether you care that much about resolution. LCD performs better in daylight but generally has poorer contrast and uses less battery. AMOLED typically looks best in low lighting and performs poorly in sunlight. The higher the PPI, the better - but it reaches dubious value at a certain point and all of the high end phones are pretty similar in general in this regard. The processors on all of these phones are all so high end that I don't feel like it is worth distinguishing. Of the high end phones (the ones that cost 100-200 w/ contract right now), the performance differences will be based on software rather than processing power. Other hardware features... NFC: Near Field Communication is a technology that does "stuff" when your phone gets near it. This will lead to widespread payment by Google Wallet with cell phones and has some other capabilities as well. For instance, you can buy a little thing to put on your desk at work and it will automatically switch your (Android) phone into "work mode," whatever that is for you. Might just be a volume adjustment. Fingerprint reader: This was the new innovation for the iPhone 5s and seems to be well-implemented. I know the HTC One Max has this as well, but I don't know of any other Androids or others that do. Bluetooth 4.0: This is the Bluetooth you know and love, but uses a lot less battery and pairs up with more devices. Sound: Different phones perform much differently in this regard. It is one of the selling points of the HTC One, that it has loud and clear speakers. Some phones have crap for speakers, but many more people don't care. SD Card Reader: This allows you to cheaply expand storage if you need. It is becoming an anachronism as well, as it apparently makes the phone harder to design and wasn't oft-utilized. Be warned that sometimes it doesn't work as smoothly as it looks. There's a bunch of software features to look out for too, especially when it comes to different flavors of Android. Generally speaking, each OEM has a different take on Android. Samsung has a really feature-rich version, but some find it frustrating and slow. Others are more hands off. HTC has a distinctive graphical difference, but fewer feature interventions other than the Blinkfeed feature, which can now be turned off. The new Moto X is pretty bare bones, with a few potentially neat features. LG is incredibly bloated. The Nexus phones will have the speediest software with the least asinine or cumbersome features, but also fewer features in general. iOS is uniform across the phones and its key features are less notable. With that said, iOS is not so much about features as it is about stability, speed, and ease of use so this doesn't have to be a bad thing. I might be leaving something really good out since I haven't used iOS7. Windows and Blackberry have a bunch of features of dubious and varied value. The live tiles of Windows Phone certainly have some potential. There's much more to be said about software, of course, but I'll leave that for another post. I'll leave you with some resources to evaluate the market. http://www.t3.com/features/best-android-phones http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/the-iphon...ite-smartphone/ http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/the-best-...hone-fall-2013/ http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/29/engadge...de-summer-2013/ http://gizmodo.com/iphone-5s-review-its-an...d-fu-1405289089 http://gizmodo.com/at-t-next-or-t-mobile-j...uld-y-800949834 http://www.theverge.com/reviews/categories...hones/3/1/score http://www.androidcentral.com/best-android...buy-august-2013 A few different kinds of info there, about Androids, about iPhones, about carriers. Tried to give a range of opinions

It's stupid to play the "what if" game. We had our own way with that Packers defense. Even with McCown in, we could replay the game there next week and put up points in the high 30s. You're a defensive TD (which keep happening, even with them playing badly the rest of the time) away from almost certainly winning. I'm not convinced they win. As bad as the run defense was, we had a pass rush. We would have thrown the ball around even more and pushed the envelope to get in the endzone. No use in prognosticating

QUOTE (chw42 @ Nov 5, 2013 -> 09:13 PM) He has 4.4 on his G2? I'm dubious

My leagues: 1/12, 1st in points 7/12, 2nd in points

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Nov 5, 2013 -> 09:05 PM) Guess we're the tough luck message board this year, everyone seems real high in points and low in the standings. On a side note, I have to bench Jordy this week, right? I saw nothing to make me think Seneca can get him the ball and I can play Chris Johnson against the Jags. I HATE to bench Jordy but this seems like a fairly simple decision. I can't believe Jordy would be so bad as to be the 5th best option for you

QUOTE (chw42 @ Nov 5, 2013 -> 07:51 PM) Yeah, that U310 has WiFi issues. My friend has one of those, he said the WiFi issues were pretty awful. We'll see. In the worst case, I'll just get a USB adapter methinks There are a few suggested fixes out there: driver update, turning off the card's power saver settings, reinstallation of Windows (this actually works for some reason), and it seems there is one that has worked for everyone who has claimed to have tried it...something with adjusting some foil within the laptop. I haven't looked into that one too much.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Nov 5, 2013 -> 07:37 PM) A lot of those runs dont even require guys to keep logs, they can drive as much as they want within 100 air miles of their starting spot. No having to keep logs = no hours of service regs. So yea, theyre more than loose... they barely even exist, But thats the point, DOT has pretty much established that they want to kill off nearly all long haul trucking and at the very least put an end to independent operators. They basically want trucks going from intermodal yard to distribution center then from distribution center to store and/or customer. The market still likes trucking, its flexible, its fast, it minimizes warehousing needs and its generally just as reliable as rail. Hence, HOS. Seems like they need different regs for long haul guys

Also, I replaced my Macbook Pro about 18 months ago. My MBP's charger fried its battery and the very expensive AppleCare I bought didn't cover it...they said it was my fault. To some extent, the fact that my laptop had cosmetic issues (it was dirty and had a noticeable dent on one corner) probably biased the technician against me. On the other, it has dissuaded me from buying Apple products. I still love that OS, but I can't really afford even the low-end stuff and I can no longer justify making a reach like that by telling myself that they'll take care of me if something goes wrong. So, with some advice from folks on here, I bought a barely used laptop via eBay. It's an HP Pavilion dv6 and it has been mostly good to me. Buying used (the unit had no signs of wear, I spoke to seller on the phone and he said that he decided he needed a lighter, smaller laptop for travel after his return period ended) saved me a lot of money, paying about $600 for a laptop that would have cost about $850 from HP. It still had factory warranty, as is now standard with many PCs; the warranty is tied to the unit, not the buyer. It has 6GB DDR3 RAM, i5 2520 @ 2.5 GHz (Sandy Bridge), Radeon HD 7690M XT GPU, a 625GB HDD, Blu-Ray player, and the 15" 1920x1080 HD display. Over time, I've started to fall out of love with it. First of all, one of the first things I loved about it was how cool it ran. It had this HP CoolSense app that seemed to do a great job of regulating the fans and processor to keep it running really coolly. It now gets very warm and the fans run constantly. I think the fans are probably dirty, but I can't dismantle it to get to them. I actually think the CoolSense is still throttling the processor to try to reduce the heat, but is now just dragging down performance. The battery has also gone completely to s***. It was never rated to perform very well by current standards, I think their optimistic guess was going to be 3 hours. I was happy with the battery at first, but it now needs to be constantly plugged in. The battery from HP costs 130 bucks and I have personally experienced aftermarket batteries f***ing up a laptop. So...I had to think about whether I'd rather put that 130 towards another device. This means whenever I go somewhere other than my place to study or work for any amount of time I also have to lug around its charger. It is generally getting a big sluggish and I'm needing to do the trusty 'ol "restart it because it works and I don't know why" every day or so. Beyond that, I'm not sure if this is really the size I want. It's big and relatively heavy compared to the 13" MBP I moved from. With that said, it's been a good machine and I'm going to use it for some other things - mainly, to stream sports, movies, and things like that to my TV. The monitor quality is something I'll miss. It has a matte finish, looks beautiful, and has excellent viewing angles. So I didn't want to spend much money on this replacement at all since I have a very small budget and this is, to some extent, a convenience buy. I could certainly make it with this HP. I actually thought very hard about getting the HP Chromebook 14. It is cheap (300), portable, works fast, great battery life, etc. I think I can do almost every single thing I normally do on a Chromebook except for one. I do academic writing and use Zotero as a citation manager. While I can record citations on a Chromebook via the Zotero webapp, the greatest use of Zotero for me is its Microsoft Word/LibreOffice plug-in. I can just hit a keyboard shortcut which pulls up a dialogue where I can search for my source, find it, press enter, and it renders my citations. Beyond creating a bibliography and saving me some typing and thinking, this also allows me to reformat my documents to a different citation style with just a click. That's something I must have on my primary computer. Beyond that, I basically only use Chrome and Chrome Apps at this point. I use Outlook, but I could easily use Outlook Web App for emailing. Anyway, no Chromebook for me. I focused on 13" Ultrabooks and hoped to find another used deal. I was about to pull the trigger on a 14" Asus Vivobook Touch that had great reviews, but I realized at the last minute that this wonderful $399 price was getting me a version with a Pentium processor. No thanks. Not sure why they thought it would be a good idea to release a legit series of budget-oriented Ultrabooks and release one with a sub-standard processor under the same name. Anyway, I settled on a Lenovo Ideapad U310 Touch. I bought it on eBay for 300 bucks from a seller who seems to have hardly used it. I got the feeling from talking to him/her that they just didn't like Windows 8, lol. I'll deal. I'll be reverting to the screen quality of my old MBP, which is the main drawback of this thing. It has a 3rd gen i5, 4GB RAM, 10-point touchscreen, their typically excellent keyboard and trackpad. No dedicated GPU and a little less RAM along with the screen are the sacrifices I make here. It weighs less than half of this HP, has a metal body, and has 4-5 hours of battery life with regular use according to reviews. Some folks have had issues with WiFi, for some reason, but Lenovo has released a driver update which seems to have fixed it for the vast majority of people. That's my main fear at this point. Here's hoping it arrives in one piece and gets WiFi reception because I'm really fond of the working version of this thing!

First gen Nexus 7 was going for 139.99 at Staples yesterday. If she doesn't need the latest and greatest, you should be able to find that on the cheap and it'll be just fine for almost all uses.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 5, 2013 -> 06:41 PM) I think the more interesting thought is how many pro baseball players are actually playing their favorite sport or if they were just really good at baseball? Yeah. Thinking about the article I posted in the sports section...I wonder if one of the advantages enjoyed by the guys who stuck it out is that they loved baseball less?

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Nov 5, 2013 -> 01:58 PM) Except a competing private conpany, in a perfect world without state endorsed oligopolies, will keep them honest by offering identical services at lower prices. Government just tells us how much something costs then forces us at gunpoint to buy it. You actually have something to do with government. You can vote, you can call your representatives, you can lobby, you can donate to candidates, you can run for office, you can become a political pundit, etc.... It isn't "the government" pointing a gun at you to make you do the things "it" wants. It is actual people, freely choosing other people they think are more capable of governance than they are who go on to make up our government. If you don't like the people, try to do something about it. If your vote isn't working, try to tell people what's wrong with their votes. Don't pretend the government is some singular entity, operating independently of all of us. It is anything but that, as you can see right now as our legilsative arms interact with one another and the other branches. QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 5, 2013 -> 02:02 PM) This isn't really true anymore...because the second you get dubbed a monopoly, you are shattered into tiny pieces now. Laws changed this view pretty drastically. Yes, we have changed them into oligopolies. Not much has changed.

My dad owns a trucking company, so I think his insight might be helpful for this discussion. He has no problems with the regulations and says from his end, they appear pretty loose and most of his drivers agree. He also said that a pretty significant chunk of the industry disregards them, by and large, especially at the small business level like he is. The key difference here is that my dad's company operates in a small area compared to what Duke is doing. He pretty much runs things between our area in Central IL and Chicago, Gary, Peoria, Bloomington, St. Louis, and an odd place here and there. I think the restrictions were made with his kind of business in mind, where guys drive all day and go home. How many 11 hour days should they work in a row? If I understand Duke's situation right, his issue is different. A single load may entail several days. Sometimes, my dad's drivers will do multiple deliveries back and forth in a day. The nature of what Duke is doing would make him feel inclined to cluster more work in a shorter time followed by (I assume) more time at home. He will work through the weekend on a regular basis, I would think, whereas my dad's drivers do not normally do so because their clients usually aren't taking delivers (and it doesn't take multiple days to reach them).

It's interesting how many of you guys love baseball so much despite never having played it. Just shows how great the game is. My girlfriend has really started to get into baseball, and I always wondered if playing it was a requisite for really getting it. Clearly not so. Perhaps another interesting question would be, especially to the folks that didn't gravitate to MLB because they were playing youth baseball, what got you into following pro baseball?