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kelleyish · 6 years

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long overdue

SO! I have been trying to get around to writing a post for several weeks now. God knows what all I was going to say, I’ve probably forgotten half of it. But here we go.

It’s currently raining and thundering outside. I love it. My dog is a little less thrilled.

I turned 41 about 2 1/2 weeks ago. As if that wasn’t shitty enough, the night before I somehow managed to hurt my leg/hip/back. While laying in bed! Doing nothing! I could hardly sleep because laying on either side hurt, and I can’t sleep on my back. I spent a good part of my sleeping time the next couple of days in my living room recliner. When I tried to walk, I had this sideways limp thing going on, looking like Quasimodo, and I couldn’t walk far enough to even go to the store. I was very angry about the whole thing.

Here’s one thing that stupidly hurting yourself for no reason and turning yourself into a cripple overnight is good for - weight loss motivation! I got back on keto that day, and barring a box of Cheez-its I demolished later that very day (oops), I have been on it since. Like I said that was 2 1/2 weeks ago, so I’m firmly in ketosis and my appetite has decreased considerably, which is awesome. I’m currently eating just one big meal a day at dinner, with a small snack at lunchtime if I have to. It’s not strict intermittent fasting but I’m not stressing it because:

My currently philosophy is “good enough.” Eating bread substitutes, and sugar substitutes like erythritol, or even some Coke Zero is ok, if it keeps me on the diet. It’s still 125% better than not being on the diet at all. If I’m hungry, I eat. There will be time for more strictness later. I have to quit focusing my energy on losing as quickly as possible, because that leads to slipping and falling off the wagon and I get nowhere. I’ve made sure to cook keto treats and keep them around for when I need something, like keto peanut butter cookies or keto mini cheesecakes. My father has lost over 60 lbs since I introduced him to keto last September (if only I had stayed on it myself!!) and he’s lost that weight by doing exactly this - making sure he has access to keto-approved carb substitutes instead of trying to eat nothing but meat and vegetables forever.

I don’t know how much I’ve lost because I gave my scale to my parents to keep several months ago. But I can tell my pants are already looser, and my body feels 5X better in general. My body obviously doesn’t like carbs, I just wish I could convince my mouth.

To that end, I’m trying to do this with the mindset of an alcoholic staying sober. No, I cannot reward myself with that sugar-laden drink as a treat, just this once, because it will set off a chemical reaction in my body and brain, ruining my hunger suppression and resistance to cravings, causing me to fall off the wagon. I have to stay 100% dry, for a gooooood long while.

I’ve been jobless (or self-employed) for about six months now. My brother and I are starting a web based business but it’s taking a lot longer than we thought to get it going. In the meantime, I got a wild hair to try writing and selling stories on Amazon. It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme in the slightest, and will probably never make enough to support me, but maybe, if I’m very successful, it could be an extra $1000 bucks in my pocket per month. That goal is a very, very long way off though. I published my first story on my birthday, about 2 1/2 weeks ago. I made what I later realized was a mistake, giving it away for free the first few days. I thought the ‘sales’ numbers would contribute to my ranking after the free period was over, but it didn’t. And likely many of the people who downloaded it for free wouldn’t have paid for it, but I am enrolled in the Kindle Unlimited plan, so people who are subscribed (it’s like Netflix for books) can read it for free, but I get credit for their page reads, so I probably lost out some of those to KU subscribers that just “purchased” it for free rather than reading it through KU. Since then I’ve probably earned about $6 from it. Not big bucks.

I just finished my second story today. My first story was 5 thousand words, this one ended up being three times as long. It still needs some editing and I need to create a cover for it, so maybe I can put it up next week. The general consensus in this game is the faster you write and publish stories, the more you will earn. But I am not the world’s fastest writer, it seems.

Did I mention I’m writing erotica? I’m writing erotica. It’s a low bar, and I only have to construct the barest of plots, and then throw in lots of dirty scenes. The real money is in romance, but I’ve never been a romance reader, and I’m not sure I could write a novel-length story. But who knows, I did triple my word count on my second go-around. I guess I need to start actually reading some romance novels, see what it’s about.

Ok I have actually read at least one romance novel. I was in 5th grade, and I stealth-borrowed it from my friend’s mom. I snuck it out of their house and read it while sitting on top of the monkey bars at the park. I remember it had a scene where the guy lays the girl down in a meadow, and licked her pussy through her sheer underwear. And all off a sudden i started feeling a crazy throbbing between my legs as i was sitting there on those monkey bars, and I was like wtf is happening to me down there?? Lol.

On Monday, I was getting ready to gather my laptop and go sit at Starbucks and write, when I got an email from my former co-worker, asking me to call her. So I did, and she asked if I would want to come back to work. She said things have picked up, and my immediate boss wanted me back. I said I’d have to think about it. So I sat in Starbucks trying to write smut and couldn’t stop thinking about my old work. I ended up deciding the adult thing would be to go back for now, if they need me, because I’m not making any money right now and I’m going to have to pull more from my retirement account in another couple months if that doesn’t change. Even though I told myself I didn’t ever want to go back, I didn’t leave on bad terms, and it would be way easier than interviewing for new jobs and more pay than temp jobs, probably. So I texted her back yes, and she said she’d talk to the big boss.

For the last three days I’ve been dreading going back. It feels like I’m a kid again, dreading the end of summer and having to go back to school. Days were going by without me hearing anything, and I was like when do they even want me to start? I still had questions about salary and insurance, etc. Then my co-worker texted me back today, saying the big boss would look at the budget, and that my immediate boss probably didn’t need me as soon as he thought. Translation - it could be months before they actually call me back. Or it could be two weeks from now, who knows. But man I feel good knowing I’ve gotten another temporary reprieve. “In terms of instant relief, canceling plans is like heroin.” - John Mulaney.

There’s probably more I could say, but this damn thing is long enough.

#about me #weight loss

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ahnsael · 6 years

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Gonna put this Keno post behind a Read More -- because while the last post was a little lengthy, it was more about me and my job. This one is about my job, but more about Keno and something strange that is happening in the game.

We have had a TON of winners in the past week. Most of them playing the same numbers. Three of them employees (and two of which are Keno writers who run the games). The casino has probably lost something like $40,000 in the past three days on Keno (this is probably offset by a profit on slots, where overall payout percentages are programmed in, though a machine can be hot for two months straight, then cold for three).

But the thing is...it would be HARD to cheat at Keno. We inspect the balls every night, as well as any time a ball breaks (which does happen from time to time). And I’ve WATCHED video replays of some of the games with a lot of winners (TEN jackpots in a single game on Wednesday, six in another game that same day -- all people playing variations on the same numbers, some with four numbers selected, some with six, some with eight). There doesn’t seem to be anything untoward going on.

And yet...this morning, on a hunch, I ran a frequency report.

In the past two days, we’ve run 240 games. Most numbers came up 30-50 times during those games (and, with 20 numbers called per game, this seems reasonable, as each number has a 25% chance of being called in any particular game).

But three or four of those numbers? Well over 100 times in those games. In the past 100 games? They still showed the same pattern, some of them coming up over half the time. In the past 50 games, that pattern seems to have subsided somewhat, but not vanished completely from being greater-than-normal compared to other numbers.

It could just be a matter of chance. Those things CAN happen. The odds are against it, but...there IS a statistical chance. Ever seen the movie “Magnolia?” If not, I only recommend it if you’re in for some vulgar language from Tom Cruise, who plays a “dating specialist” of sorts, who convinces men that they can get any woman they want. But it’s several intertwined stories that come together in the end and...I don’t want to spoil the ending, because it’s surreal as heck (and I’ve heard stories about it happening, though I haven’t, even in “fact-check” mode, looked into them), but...I will say that in that moment, there’s a kid that says “this is a thing that happens.”

We’ve even pulled the balls and inspected them during the day, and found nothing odd about them. None feel lighter than the others. But, without a scale that goes down to tiny increments, it would be impossible to tell if there were small differences in weight that may make some come up more than others (we don’t have a computer-generated number system; we have actual Keno balls that bounce around in a hopper from a blower on the bottom and whichever ball ends up in the chute at the top is the called number).

But I’ve started wondering if different ball sets we buy (for about $200 a pop for 80 balls) have different weights. Because when a ball breaks, we replace it with a ball from another set.

I mean, all this is tightly regulated. But there could be minor manufacturing defects leading to the current balls numbered 3, 4, 5, 15, 25, and 33 being called FAR more often than others.

This morning, the Keno manager was my relief. I explained my theories to him to do with as he will. And another manager, who came in the morning to play (not to work), said she’s gotten calls from Audit before asking why one (or more) number(s) get called far more often than others. She said she has no idea (and if you knew this lady as I do, you’d believe her too, even though she IS playing these hot numbers).

But...with it being two Keno writers and a manager who seem to be profiting the most off of this streak, it looks a little shady.

But when one Keno writer bought his tickets on Wednesday and won big, all he asked for was the “hot 4,” (we can write tickets with either the most or least-chosen numbers from the past I-don’t-know-how-many-games), the “hot 5,” the “hot 6,” the “hot 7,” and the “hot 8.” And he hit on every single one of those tickets (obviously, the “hot 8″ included all of the “hot four,” plus four more frequently-selected numbers). And when he came in later that night to check his tickets, he seemed genuinely shocked and excited that he had won almost $5,000 on a couple hundred dollars worth of tickets.

Last night, he cashed out even more. It got to the point where we had to scramble and move money from a couple of cash drawers to another to be able to pay off the bets (generally, Swing/Grave doesn’t have access to the vault where there is more money...but if we don’t have to, we’d rather not call someone at almost 11:00pm when that person has to work at 7:00am if we don’t have to). We COULD have afforded to pay it (using $20s instead of $100s), but...if there had been a jackpot later in the night, we’d have been screwed, and had to call the vault manager at an even more inconvenient time of night. So we just transferred the money around to make things work (”We’ll make it work” has become the calling card of our management team, with only one or two exceptions -- I used the same phrase with my boss yesterday when he told me I was working grave instead of swing). Of the majority of managers there, we “make it work,” sometimes under trying circumstances. We try not to transfer our stress onto the line staff. It doesn’t always work (and it IS hard on us, but that’s why we get those big bucks -- which I made more than 20 years ago [we are not a well-paying company]).

If there are shenanigans going on, I can’t figure out how it’s happening. If there aren’t, I would like to take a day to take a small scale and weigh EVERY BALL, but I don’t know if that’s feasible.

We’re DEFINITELY following gaming regulations. And, again, it could just be the luck of the draw. Maybe 3, 4, 5, 15, 25, and to a lesser extent 33, and 9 are just good numbers somehow right now. Maybe it’s like that one movie that had all these reasons that some particular number was involved in everything (it was on DVD when I worked for Hollywood Video, but I honestly don’t remember which number it was)?

But we’ve been losing our shirts on Keno for MONTHS. And the past several days have been off the charts compared to before.

On the morbid side, I’m hoping we’re being like the drug dealer who gives great value the first time, then milks them for more later (not that I necessarily like that comparison, but it’s what I’m going with), and that people winning now will lose to us later. That’s me as a manager.

Me, as a person? I want them to keep winning. Because casinos ALWAYS win in the end. And I’d like to see some of my coworkers (and almost-friends) win some big cash playing there. As well as some of our non-employee guests who are winning big right now). I mean, it’s not my money.

But, as a manager, if there’s a pattern like this, it’s my JOB to bring my theories forward to the Keno manager. I’ll let him and the higher-ups do (or not do) what they can to mitigate the financial damage to the company.

But, I vividly remember an old manager’s meeting in which one (now former) manager insisted on calling this “gaming” instead of “gambling.” And one of our higher-ups made a point to correct him, especially in regards to Keno, where there is no inherent house advantage other than the overall odds.

“It’s not gaming. It’s GAMBLING. We are in the GAMBLING business. And while the house may have an advantage, there are times where we can lose our shirts.”

Especially when it comes to Keno, where there is no computer chip calculating who wins and loses based on the instant they hit the “spin” button and deciding whether they win or lose, Keno is, as far as I can tell, totally random.

This same higher-up, in our last manager’s meeting, talked about our current losing streak in Keno as “great marketing,” as winners will tell their friends, and eventually these numbers will go south, and we’ll make more in the long run.

But...with live, physical Keno, with balls bouncing around in a hopper in a random fashion, we’re bound to come out ahead in the long run.

All we can control is the number of tickets that we write.

Beyond that, it’s up to chance.

But, even with chance, 60 out of those 80 balls will NOT be chosen. So that gives us a 3/4 chance of each ball NOT being called.

So far, our owner is up to the challenge. He agrees that it’s good marketing -- especially if Keno players play the machines while watching their live games.

But...if our losses keep increasing by the day, as they have lately, who knows?

Our other graveyard manager tried those hot numbers today in a game. One of the five came up. He said he’d jinxed it for everyone else, because whatever numbers he picks, there’s ALWAYS only one that shows up.

So we’ll see if the pattern continues.

We’re supposed to switch out the ball set on the 27th for a fresh one. That may happen sooner, under the circumstances. I’ll be VERY interested to know whether that changes things.

For the record, I won our “free daily 5″ for $5 free play twice in the last week...and my numbers were ALL different from the numbers that everyone seems to be playing (and winning on) right now.

I certainly hope there are no shenanigans involved. Because I like everyone who could be involved. But...if they are, they dug their own grave, and there’s nothing I can do about that. All I can say is that I’ve done everything I can to ensure that the game is on the up-and-up and being run properly and without interference, and at this point, given how HARD it would be to cheat at Keno on video, I think it’s just “chance” running against the company.

But if it’s not, I’ll cooperate with any ensuing investigation. Because I may like these people, but...if they HAVE figured out how to take our casino for $10,000 or more, I want them to be caught.

Again, I don’t think that’s the case. But...this is a very strange streak we’re having.

For the record, I’ve played 200 games in the past week (a penny a game). One ticket, on 100 games, won NOTHING. Another won 35¢ on a total $1 bet. And that ticket expired before I remembered to bring it to work to cash it in. I’m not one of the lucky ones in this scenario.

#work things

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Xbox Series X Review

https://ift.tt/3ka2zwJ

After spending over a week with Microsoft’s top-of-the-line next-gen console, one thing is clear: the Xbox Series X is a powerful machine, and an impressive hardware upgrade for anyone looking for a home console that can run games at 4K resolution and up to 120 frames per second. The Series X is also lightning fast thanks to its custom 1TB NVME SSD and Velocity Architecture, which seriously cuts down on load times, and the console also features many other quality of life improvements that make it the best way to play Xbox games in 2020. But even a console this fast can’t outrun its most glaring issue: a lack of next-gen exclusives at launch to justify making the upgrade on day one, even if its impressive 4K upscaling and Auto HDR technology does enhance the console’s vast library of past-gen experiences.

Before we jump into the games, let’s talk about the hardware itself. I covered the console’s physical attributes more closely in my unboxing article, but the short of it is that the Xbox Series X is a big, hefty piece of hardware. At about 5.9 inches wide and 11.8 inches tall, and weighing in at 9.8 pounds, the Xbox Series X isn’t quite PC tower size but it’s still massive when compared to most other home consoles. While its absolutely dwarfed by the 15.4 inch tall PlayStation 5, you may still have trouble finding a spot for the Series X in your home entertainment center. I certainly had to get creative with the Ikea TV stand in my living room, and ultimately had to lay the console on its side in order for it to (barely) fit in one of the shelves.

And while I find the Xbox Series X’s minimalist, monolith-shaped design to be eye-catching and a refreshingly clean look when compared to its next-gen competition and PC gaming rigs bathed in RGB lighting, Microsoft’s console looks much less cool when in its horizontal position. It’s true that putting the Series X in either its natural vertical or alternate horizontal position takes a lot less effort compared to the PS5’s removable stand, but I think Microsoft might have sacrificed a better horizontal solution for the sake of convenience to the player. When in the horizontal position, the Series X’s round stand sticks out of the left side of the console, a slightly ugly appendage that you can’t remove from the console’s otherwise clean shape. Maybe I’m seriously nitpicking here, but the point is that this console wants to stand in the vertical position, and I’d advise you to figure out how to display the Series X the way it was meant to be shown off.

You can check out the unboxing video below to hear way more of my thoughts on the console’s shape, size, and design:

Once you turn on the Xbox Series X, set up the console with your Xbox Live account, and sync it to the Xbox app on your phone — and I suggest you do so you can enable Remote Play and more Share options, which we’ll get to in a bit — the first thing you’ll notice is how quiet this machine is. Unless you put your ear real close to the vents at the top of the console, you won’t even hear a low hum from the Series X’s single “whisper-quiet” fan. In fact, the only time I was able to actually hear the Series X from the other side of my living room was while installing a game from a disc, the console’s 4K UHD Blu-ray optical drive working quickly to install the 32GB Mad Max. Still, the virtually silent Series X is a major improvement over the mechanical sound of the original Xbox’s hard drive and loud hum of the Xbox 360 and Xbox One’s fans.

Speaking of fans, the powerful airflow solution in the Xbox Series X is very good at keeping the console’s components relatively cool most of the time. Generally, what you’ll feel when putting your hand close to the console’s vents is a gentle breath of cool to tepid air. Things get a little hotter inside the Xbox when you’re playing Optimized for Series X titles like Gears 5 and Forza Horizon 4 at 4K 60fps, but the heat levels never felt all that alarming. I didn’t have a fancy thermal camera to test heat levels in the console, so I’d suggest you check out Digital Foundry’s excellent breakdown of the console’s power efficiency if you want to get into the nitty gritty.

The Xbox Series X’s specs have always been impressive on paper. Back in March, when we finally learned the specs of both consoles, we even speculated the Series X would be slightly more powerful than its next-gen competitor. It’s obviously too early to give a final verdict on the XSX vs. PS5 debate, but it’s not an exaggeration to say that Microsoft’s console has an advantage out the gate, boasting a more powerful CPU and GPU, even if the PS5’s potentially game-changing SSD has commanded much of the technical discussion.

Here are the main Xbox Series X specs you need to know:

Let’s talk about the console’s custom 12 teraflop GPU. While it might not be able to eclipse NVIDIA’s brand new line of GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs in terms of the raw specs, this is still an incredibly powerful graphics card when it comes to the home console market. Ever since it announced the Xbox Series X, Microsoft has had a clear mission: to make 4K 60fps the standard for all next-gen Xbox titles, while looking ahead at an 8K resolution future. After spending a bit of time playing Gears 5, Forza Horizon 4, and Sea of Thieves at 4K 60fps, it’s clear that Microsoft has absolutely knocked it out of the park.

While the Xbox Series X has no first-party next-gen exclusives at launch, which may make some players pause when considering the console’s $499 price tag, this machine does a lot to improve the Xbox experiences you already love. Playing Gears 5 at higher resolution brings the game’s diverse landscapes to life like never before, with improved textures and particle counts, while the inclusion of raytraced shadows and lighting makes all of the environments more immersive than ever before. There is some seriously beautiful lighting in this game to begin with, but the Optimized for Series X version of Gears 5 feels like the most fully realized take on this world. The higher framerate provides a better gameplay experience as well, especially when it comes to shooting mechanics, which feel silky smooth, a major boon when taking on Grubs.

Players can also set the framerate of Gears 5 multiplayer to 120fps, which provides the best look at the Series X’s current graphical ceiling (while the console is 8K-ready, there aren’t any 8K titles out to actually showcase that resolution). While I’m not sure I can tell as much of a difference between 60fps and 120fps when compared to the absolutely massive framerate jump between 30fps and 60fps, the ability to play a game on a home console at framerates that were once considered possible only on PC is no less impressive.

Ultimately, the jump to 60- and 120fps is a much bigger improvement to the home console experience than 1080p vs. 4K resolutions, especially when playing competitive shooters, racing, and fighting games, which demand quick reaction times and low latency. The clearer 4K resolution is certainly an improvement worth commending — just look at how good Forza Horizon 4 and Sea of Thieves look in the 4K screenshots taken from my Xbox Series X — but I’d pay more attention to what games you can turn all the way up to 120fps.

Unfortunately, there weren’t many Optimized for Series X games to actually try during the review period — only the Xbox One version of Yakuza: Like a Dragon was available ahead of the embargo, for example — so it remains to be seen how new titles like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Watch Dogs: Legion, current-gen games that are also Optimized for Series X and will boast 4K 60fps visuals, will perform at launch. What I’ve seen from the three optimized games I tried so far bodes well for the rest of the Xbox Series X’s launch lineup, though.

As I said at the start of this review, the Xbox Series X doesn’t have any first-party next-gen games on its list of launch titles, so it’s impossible to say how the Xbox Series X will perform when true next-gen experiences arrive to push that GPU and SSD to its limits. With Halo Infinite delayed to 2021, and other first-party releases like Obsidian’s Avowed, Ninja Theory’s Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, and Playground’s new Fable game still a way’s away, we may be at least a year out from seeing what the console can really do.

Fortunately, there’s a lot to play on the Xbox Series X until then. In fact, the Series X may be the most backward compatible and most bang-for-your-buck console ever released — as long as you already have a $15 Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription (and you totally should, if you’re an Xbox fan). Boasting a library of hundreds of backward compatible titles from across all generations of Xbox consoles, you can bring all of your physical and digital games from the original Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One with you to the Series X. And with Xbox Game Pass, you also get a selection of over 100 games to download and play right out of the box. When compared to the PS5’s backward compatibility options, which only include PS4 titles and what’s available on PS Now, the Series X’s library of games is absolutely stacked.

I spent some time playing Star Wars: Republic Commando (an absolute banger for the original Xbox), Fable Anniversary for the Xbox 360, and Halo: The Master Chief Collection (which is also getting an Optimized for Series X upgrade later this month) and Mad Max on disc for Xbox One. The Series X emulates the original Xbox and Xbox 360 experiences perfectly, while Xbox One titles run natively on the console, which is a nice touch for those who simply want to pop in a current-gen disc and play without worrying about a middle man.

But even that quality of life feature pales in comparison to the way the Series X is able to upscale 720p and 1080p experiences from the past to next-gen 4K and up to 120fps, while also seriously improving the picture quality of those titles through the console’s Auto HDR technology. While I spent a limited time trying out these backward compatible titles on the console, I can definitely say that Republic Commando looks and plays better than it ever did on the first Xbox, while I noticed a distinct choppiness in the framerate in Fable Anniversary and Mad Max (again, running on a disc). Digital Foundry said in its own detailed breakdown of the Series X’s 4K upscaling and Auto HDR for past-gen titles that this isn’t a “one size fits all solution – but when it works, it really works.” I should also note that Republic Commando did crash on me once at the start of my playthrough, but hasn’t given me any issues since.

Now, you can of course make the argument that people buy next-gen consoles to play next-gen games, and I tend to agree with you on that, but the vast backward compatible library on the Xbox Series X still makes this machine a hell of a deal for people jumping into home consoles for the first time as well as new gamers. The size of the Series X’s games library may very well be the best selling point for parents buying next-gen consoles this holiday season. You simply get way more options on Series X. And that’s before you even factor in the console’s Smart Delivery system, which allows you to upgrade select Xbox One titles to the Optimized for Series X version for free.

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Why PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X Will Drive the Future of Gaming Graphics (and Not PC)

By Matthew Byrd

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Why the PlayStation 5 vs. Xbox Series X War Won’t Be Won With Console Sales

By Matthew Byrd

Microsoft has also made the incredibly consumer-friendly decision to allow Xbox fans to bring their Xbox One accessories over to the Series X. Both the Xbox Wireless Controller for the Xbox One and the Xbox Media Remote will work on the Series X, for example. As a player who doesn’t like the idea of spending $60 a pop on extra controllers, this is a huge deal. Setting up to play a few rounds of Mortal Kombat X on the Series X, it was very easy to sync my white Xbox Wireless Controller with the next-gen console and jump right into the fight. If you already have an Xbox One and are upgrading this holiday, rejoice in the fact that you already have more than one controller for the Series X.

The only Xbox One peripheral I wasn’t able to sync with the Series X was my SteelSeries Arctis 9X wireless headset, which is supposed to be compatible with the next-gen console at launch. It’s possible that third-party peripherals weren’t compatible with the Series X during the review period, or that this is a bug Microsoft will squash at launch with a firmware update, but just a note of warning if you’re trying to bring your fancy headset over to the next generation.

I’ve waited this long to elaborate on the Xbox Series X’s SSD-powered Velocity Architecture and Quick Resume feature for dramatic effect — because this is where the console truly reveals itself to be an absolute showstopper. Not only does the Series X virtually eliminate load times in past-gen games like Republic Commando — no longer must you wait while different sections of a level load in the middle of the action — but seriously cuts down load times in Optimized for Series X titles like Gears 5 and Sea of Thieves. Gears 5, for example, transitions between cutscenes and gameplay almost seamlessly, while jumping into the campaign in the first place takes only a matter of seconds. Comparing load times between the Xbox One version and Series X port resulted in the latter winning every time. An unsurprising result considering the XBO uses an HDD, but a comparison worth making if you want to see the real difference.

Then there’s the Quick Resume feature, which allows you to switch between several games at once without having to stop and restart applications. With Quick Resume, you can play a few hours of Gears 5, switch to the Halo: Reach campaign in Halo: MCC, play a few quarters in Madden 21, and then go back to Gears 5 and pick up exactly where you left off without having to go through the game’s initial startup again. Loading back into Quick Resume-enabled games takes only a matter of seconds — and this goes for back-compat titles like Republic Commando, Mad Max on disc, and Gears 5 through Remote Play on my Google Pixel 3a XL, too.

The only two games I tried that didn’t seem to work with Quick Resume were Forza Horizon 4 and Sea of Thieves, which had to load from scratch again after switching to other games, but that might come down to the console’s pre-launch state or the fact that both of these games require logging into online servers. Every other game I tried seemed to be compatible with Quick Resume, though. Besides one hiccup where, after Quick Resuming, I lost all sound in Madden 21, this quality of life improvement, along with the graphics upgrade, is enough reason for hardcore Xbox fans to make the jump to the next-gen console.

You can see Quick Resume in action in the video below:

Meanwhile, not much has changed with the Series X’s UI, which has made an almost seamless transition from the Xbox One version. Yes, menus on the dashboard load much faster and everything feels much snappier and flows more smoothly, with little buffer between the dashboard and loading into Settings menu for example, but you won’t find a major UI redesign here. As someone who thinks that the current Xbox UI outpaces the competition, I’d say that continuity between generations is a good thing.

I have a few nitpicks regarding the UI, such as the unintuitive way you access recent screenshots and gameplay clips captured through the console’s Share function, but I’d hardly call this a deal breaker. I will say this: for a company so invested in making PC-level resolution and framerates a reality on a home console, Microsoft missed one key aspect of the PC gaming experience — the ability to quickly adjust graphics on the go. At the moment, you have to exit out of games and visit the console’s Settings menu to change resolution and framerates. The exception out of the Optimized for Series X games I tried is Gears 5, which lets you switch between 60- and 120fps multiplayer in its in-game graphics menu. While it’s true that developers themselves decide just how adjustable a game’s graphics are in-game, it wouldn’t have hurt Microsoft to have implemented more robust graphics options in its first-party optimized titles at least.

The above might not be something console-only gamers are really all that concerned about, of course, which would explain why Microsoft hasn’t done much about it. But when you tout 4K and up to 120 fps gaming so often, you should at least create a faster way to access graphics options on the console without forcing gamers to exit out of the game. Maybe some quick toggles in the Guide menu would do the trick?

Like the UI, the Xbox Series X controller brings pretty much everything you loved about its Xbox One predecessor back for the next generation. Microsoft has perfected its gamepad to the point where it’s also become the preferred controller on PC, so there’s no point in fixing what isn’t broken. I went into way more detail about the actual feel of the controller in my unboxing, but the short of it is that the Xbox Series X gamepad is comfortable, responsive, and features some neat improvements.

The first addition is its new D-pad. Microsoft has done away with the traditional cross-shaped design and replaced it with a new facetted dish inspired by the Xbox Elite Controller. While the new, rounder D-pad felt a bit odd at first, I’ve quickly grown accustomed to it, and have even started to prefer it over the Xbox Wireless Controller’s cross, which now feels a bit stiff in comparison.

The other big new feature on the controller is the Share button, which I had an absolute blast using throughout the review period. With one click of the button, you can now easily capture screenshots of your gameplay, while holding down the button allows you to record 30 seconds of 4K gameplay (you can record longer clips at lower resolutions). From there, you can upload the captures to your activity feed, message them to an Xbox friend, post to Twitter, or even save them to your phone through the Xbox app.

All of the images used in this article were taken with the controller’s Share button, and the results look pretty impressive to this very amateur game photographer. As I mentioned above, for the best experience, I’d suggest handling these captures on your phone once they’re uploaded to the cloud, as it’s easier to zoom and switch between them on the Xbox app than in the console’s Guide menu.

There’s no doubt that the Xbox Series X is a powerful console, one worthy of the next-gen label, but what will ultimately decide the console’s success is its games. Unfortunately, and this is absolutely no secret, the console’s launch lineup is a bit of a letdown. Leaning heavily on third-party Optimized for Series X titles like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and first-party next-gen ports like Gears 5 — most of which aren’t exclusive to XSX — as well as its Xbox Game Pass and backwards compatible library, the Xbox Series X doesn’t really have an exclusive next-gen title in its launch lineup to entice gamers who are on the fence. Even timed next-gen console exclusive Yakuza: Like a Dragon will be available on XBO, PS4, and PC at launch.

It does seem at the moment like Microsoft’s console will limp out of the gate when it’s finally toe-to-toe with the PS5. Without something truly new and exciting you can only play on the Xbox Series X, I’m not sure I can recommend you buy this console on day one unless you’re looking for raw power in your next-gen gaming. So who is this console really for at the moment? Hardcore Xbox fans who want the best way to play upcoming Xbox titles as well as Game Pass and backward compatible games.

For everyone else, getting an Xbox Series X right now is really an investment in the console’s future. With so much GPU and SSD power at its disposal, the Xbox Series X should prove to be an excellent canvas on which developers will be able to create great pieces of art. And what’s coming up from within Microsoft — Halo Infinite, Avowed, all upcoming Bethesda titles — certainly has me excited about the types of experiences we’ll eventually be able to play on the console. What I’ve experienced so far in terms of graphics and load times tells me that the future of Xbox is very bright.

But at launch, Microsoft wants you to feel like this is still the Xbox experience you love with some major upgrades to performance. Is this a good strategy when it comes to hooking PlayStation and PC gamers across the aisle? That’s up for debate. But as a celebration of everything Xbox fans love about the brand, the Xbox Series X absolutely succeeds and shows a ton of promise to boot.

The Xbox Series X launches on Nov. 10. The Series S, which wasn’t provided by Microsoft in time for a review, will also release on Nov. 10 for $299.

Stay tuned for more of our ongoing coverage of the Xbox Series X here.

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unexpressedthoughts · 4 years

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The Self-Control Bias of My Teenage Self

I was one of the last people that I knew to finally get a PlayStation 3. I felt as though I has to make up for lost time, so I quickly amassed a large collection of games. When the PlayStation 4 came out just a couple years later, I of course wanted one of them. For Christmas, I did in fact get one. So I bought more games, even some of the old ones that I had for the PS3 but were not compatible with the PS4. I also then had to purchase the annual PlayStation Plus subscription to gain access to the PlayStation Network. By far, however, Grand Theft Auto V was my greatest weakness.

As I did not have all too many friends in high school, I played GTA V almost religiously every single day for most of the day; I was a gamer. The game is ingenious from a corporate perspective, because it releases all of the "downloadable content" (DLC) for free and allows players to buy the content (new cars, new apartments, etc.) with money earned in game. This bucks the tradition of having to pay for each individual DLC pack. However, to amass the millions of in-game money needed to buy all the cool new features, one would have to play nearly constantly. Even then, it's unlikely one can afford to buy everything that they want; therefore, they allow players to buy "Shark Cards"- effectively buying game money with real money. This is what I ended up doing for about a year. I easily spent hundreds of dollars in this manner alone.

I had no self-control because I wanted to join everyone else who had the new, better stuff. If I would have only bought the vehicles that I really wanted and was going to use, I could have easily afforded everything with game currency. If I would have realized that they will keep introducing newer, faster cars as time progresses, then I would have realized that the microtransactions were not worth it.

Moreover, if I had recognized that I was unlikely to always play video games or faced the reality that the PS3 and PS4 are designed with planned obsolescence, eventually becoming outdated and relegated to the annuls of history, I could have saved at least $1,000 over the course of my teenage years.

Thankfully, I eventually grew bored of playing video games, ending my self-control issue. Additionally, in spite of having spent thousands on video games and associated equipment- $60 per game, $60 per annual PSN subscription, $150 for gaming headphones, $60 per additional controller, hundreds of dollars on microtransactions, etc.- I spent very little on everything else. I also started to work part-time afterwards, recovering what I had spent in a single summer, and eventually switched to a bank offering a savings APY of 2.02%, now 1.01% due to the COVID crisis. These actions allowed me to fully realize the time value of money.

The reality is that while I had many great memories playing video games and have good financial standing currently, I could have much more in financial assets today had I not allowed my video game self-control problems to take the drivers seat during my adolescent years.

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yourfavoritexeposofthepop-blog · 7 years

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makin' bacon burgies

Aight guys today imma take you on a little barely literate journey on different ways you can make some sweet dough in a pixelated horse game dominated by bored 40 years old women who have made the decision to swap out yoga, accai berry smoothies and kale for a "realistic simulation focused on horses" well...a highly competitive genetic race with a core audience of 8 year old who think genetic is a pokemon #649.

Now if i am honest i am not a good example of holding equurs but in the last 12 hours my reserve has gone from 600k to 10mil. for me equurs are not something i need as when i do i can easily sell my hordes of shit i have collected over time. so following my "slight dig at 40 year olds intro" today i will be covering 2 topics 1. My financial history and how to abuse it 2. My personal expenses and how to avoid them.

My financial history 1. sale of horses (pretty basic sell horses!) selling horses i one thing but not making long term gain from the sales, its not worth it. if you are wanting to make gain from this remember NEVER SELL A HORSE UNDER 2,501e weather it is a cross or purebred they still cost 2,500e to breed and with public coverings used the minimum for that horse should be 3,001e this of course only goes for horses under 6 months after that they begin to cost (fodder, carrot and equestrian center boarding) for just one day (2 months) that horse can cost you 46e on top of the 3000e already. now the sales can be tough so really the best thing you can do is stalk obsessively, wait for there to be minimal foal sales at low prices go for 2600-3100e for a woken up 6 month old, remember don't board just wake for that sweet sweet aging point. tips: STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM BREEDING ARABIANS seriously there are currently 3x more Arabians than any other horse on the server they are the poor mans horse NO ONE want's or needs them, go for something a bit more exotic hmm Icelandic, Nokota's, Mustang they will all sell better especially if they are purebred (pssss...avoid cross breeding if possible), and check and label the horses i.e c/5%1109GP, labeled horses are just...easier to sell and once you have got an idea of the sales and costs it will come in handy i.e a pure bay TB foal will sell for 3000e but cremello? Up to 100k pretty good aye!

GA, RA, seasonal coat stuff whatever you get me lets start with the easy one "seasonal shit" buy them when they are cheap hold onto them when you get them in an event watch the sales learn the prices then sell in the off season or fuck it CHRISTMAS aaahh yes a beautiful time full of children desperate to spend the pass pack there aunt bought them. sadly this Christmas i may have been saving up for it but sadly i was away, at least i got to sell my flammy flame sleiphnir for 45passes more than i bought it NOOOIICE. golden apples (stuff retired apples those aint shit on aus server legit they are only a colectable but...treat em the same way as GA's i guess) Currently the price is at 250k for a golden apple coat (excluding donkey), i personally aim for anything under 190k then sell for 200-250 depending on species, blup, genetic, training, bmi's and limit. when selling whether it is limited or not is quite important if its not limited dump it (psss..when choosing your own GA coats go for limited always like.... for real), if it is try and hold it as long as possible so when it does retire you can get that extra buck on top or become a collector.

hmmm i dont really have much more to say about gold apples...oh sell just under the sales price with donkeys even less, i sold today 30 ga donkeys for 170k they were all gone with in the hour and my golden apple horses all bought under 160k sold for 200k also with in the hour. go for a tad less but never less then the bought price.

sale of products

ill be quick with this one presenting epos' top 3 shop items 1. Carrots, thats right surprise surpise i am sure you have heard this one a thousand times and well... there is a reason for it ok lets break this down 1 carrot sell for 10e, in a 25acre greenhouse you can plant 25 carrot seeds at 1000e add 25 manure costing 2575e (if bought you should make it yourself though) give it 6 days for your 2503 carrots to be ready total profit without expenses taken off 25'030e and 21'455e if you are paying for manure + seeds. now lets say you have 100 acres of land the all growing carrots each week you will be making a total of 100'120e expenses not included, that pretty good for a once per week 5 minute job. 2. apples, simple let the trees grow no care needed sells for 3e literally a completely useless item all round they are just...easy 3. Manure, its shit (free) + Straw (cheap to grow cheap to buy) = shit in a bag selling for dayyuum good price (52e) now i would go through all the math and shit to help you know all the cost yadda ya but i really can't be fucked IT'S CHEAP BOOM BITCH HOW BOUT DAT.

Misc income, Contest, Coverings, Competitions, Divines, Board, Missions and partner offer thats thats right! i'm smashing it all into one because this is starting to shit me, the first two misc and contest PPPfffrrttt that shits all luck and stuff though in the last 7 days i have made 284,860e out of it so.. thats alright i guess.

coverings, in 7 days i have in the past made over 1.3mil, this just takes time, the right colts and of course a really high gp, if you have the time and patience i would suggest doing so not only that you will need to make sure you are either apart of a high gp team or constantly buy the next top gp release available, this is of course if you are after 7'500e per cover, coverings are a very good idea sadly i only had the patience for 1 week, now heres an easier option if you are just after a little work daily unicorns well...no just 1 unicorn for me that is my Arabian colt "Dancing in space" of course you could put up all sorts of cover for little to no cost but remember putting a lot into an awesome curly colt thinking he will cover so many per day for top dollar no you are wrong in the sense of covering it is best to use what is popular and spread the cancer known as the Arabian horse, when breeding unicorns though go for the uncommon breeds STAY AWAY FROM ARABIANS.

Fuck alright where am i now lets see... competitions= nah like only if your a heavy blupper its good don't go for a "comp horse" as you will make fuck all doing so, though i will suggest entering the Grand Prix daily if you can you'll make something like 2000e just for entering thats like 16'000e daily for 8 horses or something idk lol i don't rank that low.

divines and missions if your not a cash cow with 100+ divines and skillors needing lessons its pretty shit, you could do lessons with your app horses but you won't so don't bother because w..wait for it it's shit.

board only worth something if you get type 1 boxes at lowest price or slightly higher, don't add any bonus and just put them out to the public for there app horses, not at all fancy BUT WE NEED THEM!!!

Huffff finally done the "my financial history guideline shit" alright expenses hmmm epos what do you waste money on cocaine, strippers, emma's sweet sweet EPOS NO well my expenses used to be shameful but they are pretty clean now, my top problems used to be boarding and bonus items but they are taken care of now.

Boarding option 1. buy your own shitty box type 1** stick the app slave in there and forget it for 60 days, pre easy stuff prestige and all that stuff i was told not to do, do whats easy and cheap bleh. Boarding option 2. click 60 days on the board page to display the cheapest center at that period of time aim for 1,200e in the afternoon and night this will be tough for a horse with low skill hint do it after update or close to too get them good cheap boarding.

Bonus items: well..when i started of in high leaping gems it was gospel to buy all the bonus item to put on the horse just to blup it in 15 minutes then never see it again, well that fucking stupid especially when your closest opponent is 50gp behind annnnndddd you fill your own competitions anyway, like don't if you can't afford bonus items dont use them if its a low gp and skill horse just fill it yourself from 0 participants dam easy.

Aight im done now any questions just ask or what ever sorry for the grammar not sorry.

#epos #howrse #howrse_au howrsshit

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actutrends · 4 years

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AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT review — Efficient but not dominant

When it comes to video cards, not much has changed in the last three years for people using 1080p 60Hz monitors. The RX 480 debuted in 2016, and it proved more than enough for just about any game running at that resolution. And since most people run a 1080p60 display, it’s easy to point people to the RX 480 (or the slightly updated RX 500-series). But now AMD and Nvidia are both shaking up this category. And with the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT and the Nvidia GTX 1650 Super, we can begin to leave those older cards in the past.

The Radeon RX 5500 XT is launching this month in $170 4GB and $200 8GB configurations. That puts it head-to-head with Nvidia’s 1650 Super, which you can get starting at $160. And at those prices, these cards are aiming at a mainstream, entry-level market.

But looking specifically at the 5500 XT, it’s an upgrade over recent, comparable cards. That’s thanks in large part to its much more energy-efficient 7nm design process as well as its fast GDDR6 memory. But it’s not necessarily the 1080p gaming king due to its price.

I tested the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 5500 XT 4GB.

What you’ll like

Great for 1080p gaming

To reiterate, it’s tough to go wrong in the 1080p60 space right now when choosing a GPU. An RX 480 and its successors are still going to work great. The 1650 and 1650 Super are also more than powerful enough for almost any game. But the RX 5500 XT is still pushing things forward.

And it’s going to deliver what you are paying for. In my testing, the 5500XT was able to surpass an average of 60 frames per second at 1080p and high/ultra settings in many of the most recent games.

Here’s the rig I tested on:

AsRock X570 Taichi

Ryzen R7 3700X

NZXT Kraken X62 CPU cooler

16GB HyperX Predator CL16 memory at 3600MHz

Samsung 970 Evo 500GB SSD

EVGA 1000W PSU

For this testing, I’m not necessarily looking for the raw capability of the RX 5500 XT 4GB. I’m trying to determine its real-world performance.

Here are the results for the average frames per second in the following games:

Grand Theft Auto V (ultra): 105

Resident Evil 2 (maxed out): 71

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 (high on DX12): 71

The Witcher 3 (high): 73

Red Dead Redemption 2 (high): 61

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (high): 65

Most games are going to run at high or ultra with no issues on the RX 5500 XT. You may need to drop some settings to maintain a smoother framerate in the most demanding games, however. Red Dead Redemption 2 and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey both averaged over 60fps, but they also saw some significant drops. So you may end up playing those games on medium — or pair the card with a FreeSync monitor to smooth out noticeably variable frame rates.

Much more energy efficient than previous 1080p AMD cards

The RX 5500 XT is 30% more energy efficient than the RX 480, according to AMD. And that’s exactly what you would expect from the smaller 7nm manufacturing process. But despite using significantly less wattage, the card is about 12% more powerful than an RX480. That is a massive improvement in the performance-per-watt category.

This makes the RX 5500 XT ideal for energy-conscious gamers. If you play a lot of games and don’t want to see that reflected in your power bill, this is a smart option.

Excellent for quiet builds

That energy efficiency has other benefits. For example, the Sapphire card I tested is extremely quiet. The 7nm process is obviously producing less excess heat, and the GPU’s coolers are easily dealing with that.

For me, this makes the 5500XT an ideal video card for a media PC or a gaming PC to put in your living room next to your TV and where you sit. You can pop it into a small chassis, and you’ll never even hear it.

What you won’t like

It’s slightly too expensive

In my comparison testing, the RX 5500 XT loses some of its luster. Yes, it’s more energy efficient and quieter than previous-generation AMD cards. But the Nvidia 1650 and 1650 Super both use even less energy.

And when it comes to performance, the RX 5500 XT is about on par with the less expensive 1650 Super. In some games, the 5500 XT is slower than an RX 580 or standard 1650. That begins to break down the price comparison for AMD.

It’s not that the RX 5500 XT is a bad deal at $170. But it’s far from a slam dunk. If you are in this section of the market and you want to feel like you’re getting the best bang-for-your-buck, it’s possible that may end up being a 1650 Super or even an overclocked RX 580 (as long as you don’t mind giving up some efficiency).

Conclusion

If you’re in the market for a new, budget-friendly PC, the RX 5500 XT is definitely one of the cards you should consider. But it is not the obvious choice. You’ll want to shop around and get the deal that’s best for you. It’s worth noting, however, that AMD’s card comes with Monster Hunter: World and 3 months of Xbox Game Pass at no additional charge.

I think it’s fair for AMD to argue that anyone gaming at 1080p60 doesn’t need much more power than what the RX 580 already deliver. And as a more energy efficient, quieter version of what we already had, the 5500 XT is wonderful. I just wish it was at least $20 less expensive.

The Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 5500 XT is shipping this month for $170. AMD provided a sample unit for the purpose of this review.

The post AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT review — Efficient but not dominant appeared first on Actu Trends.

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woodleyagnatanjahj70insuran-blog · 5 years

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dodge neon srt 4 insurance rates

BEST ANSWER: Try this site where you can compare free quotes :insurancequotesonline.xyz

SOURCES:

dodge neon srt 4 insurance rates

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dodge neon srt 4 insurance rates

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lee-gavin-blog · 5 years

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Martial Arts Vs Boxing and How Chandlers Ford the Sprinter Uses them to Improve his Speed

A sprinter like Usain Bolt includes high-energy meals containing 60% protein, 30% carbs and 10% fats. Martial Arts within your fitness level and keep our bodies operate more efficiently when we bother to do work!The second item that should be in the area looks, the better off paying a whopping $1489. 00. No one should own and the soccer field.

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3d Health And Fitness Benefits of martial arts and boxing

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#martial arts #boxing #punching bag #everlast omniflex #everlast omniflex punching bag #ufc #conormcgregor

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jodyedgarus · 5 years

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Your Guide To The 2019 NCAA Men’s Tournament

The NCAA tournament is finally here! Will we see another No. 16 seed beat a No. 1 seed? Will Gonzaga finally win its first national championship? Will Zion Williamson’s shoe explode again? We can’t tell you exactly what will happen over the next three weeks, but we can help steer you in the right direction when picking your bracket using our March Madness prediction model. You can read about how the system works here, and read on to learn what the model has to say about the top seeds’ fates, dark horses and Cinderellas to watch, and favorites to avoid. Let the madness begin…

East region

Top seed outlook: According to the FiveThirtyEight model, top seed Duke has the best chance of advancing to the Final Four in the entire field (53 percent probability) as well as the best odds of winning the national title (19 percent).

The Blue Devils are led by four soon-to-be first-round draft picks, including Zion Williamson, one of the greatest talents in recent memory. Duke is a walking highlight reel on the offensive end and far stingier on defense than many may realize. This is among Mike Krzyzewski’s most-balanced teams and projects to be his first since 2010 to rank inside the top six in Ken Pomeroy’s adjusted offense and defense metrics. That team won the national title.1

What this team lacks, however, is touch along the perimeter. Duke shoots a ghastly 30.2 percent from beyond the arc, the worst mark among tournament-qualifying teams. In an offensive era increasingly dominated by space and perimeter scoring, the Blue Devils could buck the trend punishing the rim.

On the other side of the region is the winner of the Big Ten conference tournament, Michigan State. As their reward, the No. 2 Spartans have the honor of a potential matchup against the top overall seed in the Elite Eight. Head coach Tom Izzo was none too pleased. The Spartans have been pummeled by injuries but remain one of the most balanced teams in the country, ranking inside the top eight in Pomeroy’s adjusted offense and defense metrics.

Sneaky Final Four pick: No. 4 Virginia Tech. Led by the star pairing of Kerry Blackshear Jr. and Nickeil Alexander-Walker, the Hokies are a balanced squad that ranks among Pomeroy’s Top 25 teams on both offense and defense. Although they’ve lost eight times, only two of those were by double-digits. Virginia Tech also has a not-altogether-unfriendly draw, with extremely winnable opening games against Saint Louis (87 percent) and the Mississippi State-Liberty winner (63 percent) before most likely running into Duke’s juggernaut. We give the Hokies a respectable 25 percent chance against the Blue Devils — and a 54 percent chance against whoever emerges from the bottom of the region if they do manage to knock off Duke.

Don’t bet on: No. 3 LSU. With coach Will Wade embroiled in a pay-for-play scandal and his team probably overvalued as a 3-seed, the Bayou Bengals could be ripe for an upset in this tournament. They ranked only 18th in Pomeroy’s ratings — roughly the quality of a No. 5 seed — thanks in large part to a defense that didn’t even crack the nation’s top 60 in adjusted efficiency. (This showed up in the 51 second-half points they allowed to Florida while losing their first game of the SEC tournament.) Their NCAA path isn’t very easy, either: Yale is no pushover as a No. 14 seed, nor is potential second-round opponent Maryland, and we give the Tigers a mere 26 percent chance of beating Michigan State if the teams meet in the Sweet Sixteen. This is easily the lowest-rated top-three seed in the field.

Cinderella watch: No. 11 Belmont. The East is top-heavy, with Duke and Michigan State soaking up most of the Final Four odds. But the Bruins are an intriguing lower-seeded team because of an impressive offense led by do-everything swingman Dylan Windler. According to Pomeroy, Belmont ranks 20th in the country in adjusted offensive efficiency (and second nationally in raw points per game behind Gonzaga), while Windler was one of only three players nationally to average 20 points and 10 rebounds per game. Although the Bruins do have to win a play-in game against Temple just to make the field of 64 — we give them a 59 percent chance — they would have a very competitive 39 percent probability of upsetting Maryland in the first round and an even better chance against the LSU/Yale winner.

Player to watch: Cassius Winston, Michigan State

Three years ago, zzo said he thought his 6-foot-1 freshman could be Michigan State’s best passer since Magic Johnson. The Spartans’ do-everything point guard — one of the best facilitators in the country — is validating his coach’s comment. Only Murray State’s Ja Morant, a surefire lottery pick in this year’s draft, has a higher assist rate than Winston (46.0 percent). And behind Winston, the Spartans assist on the highest rate of field goals in the country.

The junior also happens to be Izzo’s leading scorer and one of the country’s top perimeter threats, shooting better than 40 percent from beyond the arc. As injuries have relentlessly sapped the Spartans of their on-court production, Winston has elevated his game to compensate. As he put it to The Athletic, “I have to do a lot for my team to win.”

Likeliest first-round upsets: No. 9 Central Florida over No. 8 VCU (47 percent); No. 11 Belmont* over No. 6 Maryland (39 percent); No. 10 Minnesota over No. 7 Louisville (34 percent)

(* Must win play-in game first.)

West region

Top seed outlook: Gonzaga is the best team in the West by a considerable margin, but the Zags, despite reaching the final two years ago, haven’t always performed well under the bright lights of the tournament. Still, Gonzaga has a 70 percent probability of reaching the Elite Eight, according to our model, and the third-best odds of any team to reach the national championship game (26 percent).

Should Gonzaga face Syracuse in the second round, the zone defense of the Orange could give the Bulldogs trouble. This is the best offense Mark Few has had in Spokane, but it may be tested by any of the terrific defenses in the West: Four of the top 15 can be found in this region, including the top two in Texas Tech and Michigan.

Sneaky Final Four pick: No. 4 Florida State. A fixture in the KenPom Top 20 for most of the season, the Seminoles are hoping to build on last season’s tournament run, which saw them come within a 4-point margin of making the Final Four. FSU has a dominant defense (No. 9 in Pomeroy’s ratings) and a balanced roster that saw four players accumulate at least 2.5 win shares. This draw isn’t terrible, either: Vermont isn’t especially difficult as a first-round foe, and Marquette is very beatable (more on that below). No. 1 seeded Gonzaga probably looms after that, and we give FSU a 24 percent chance against the Zags — but the Seminoles would have a 48 percent chance of making the Final Four if they were to pull off the upset.

Don’t bet on: No. 5 Marquette. Teams seeded fifth aren’t usually good bets to make it past the Sweet 16 anyway, but Marquette might be an especially bad pick. According to the FiveThirtyEight power ratings, the Golden Eagles are by far the worst No. 5 seed in the field, and a first-round date with breakout mid-major superstar Ja Morant didn’t do them any favors. Marquette has some star power of its own in junior guard Markus Howard, who ranks sixth in the nation with an average of 25 points per game, but this team lost five of its last six games and has a tough tournament road ahead of it.

Cinderella watch: No. 10 Florida. The Gators may have been one of the final bubble teams to sneak into the field of 68, but they could be poised to do some damage now that they are here. They drew Nevada, a so-so No. 7 seed, in the first round, and we give Florida a 42 percent chance of pulling the upset there. Last year’s national runner-up, Michigan, likely waits in Round 2, and that is a tough matchup (23 percent odds for Florida) — but if the Gators win, they have a 38 percent chance of making the Elite Eight. In a region with a number of good-but-flawed options, Florida looks better than the typical 10-seed.

Player to watch: Brandon Clarke, Gonzaga

The linchpin of the Zags isn’t the consensus lottery pick, nor the two veteran guards who have together started 87 percent of Gonzaga’s games over the past two seasons. It’s Brandon Clarke, a transfer from San Jose State who is in his first active season with the team. He’s perhaps the most underappreciated player in the country.

On a team that typically features a 7-footer protecting the rim, it’s Clarke, at 6-foot-8, who is tasked with protecting the paint this season. Clarke has responded by setting a single-season blocks record and posting the highest block rate of any team under Few.

“If I feel like if I can get a good, quick jump first, I’ll pretty much jump with anybody,” Clarke told me. “I mean, I’ve seen Zion (Williamson) coming down through the lane before on TV, and if I can’t jump at the right time, I probably wouldn’t jump with him, but … I don’t really see myself not jumping with anybody.”

Likeliest first-round upsets: No. 9 Baylor over No. 8 Syracuse (48 percent); No. 10 Florida over No. 7 Nevada (42 percent); No. 12 Murray State over No. 5 Marquette (32 percent)

South region

Top seed outlook: Can No. 1 Virginia exorcise last year’s demons now that the team is at full strength? Our model thinks so. The Cavaliers have a 49 percent probability of cracking the Final Four and a 31 percent probability of reaching what would be the program’s first national title game.

With De’Andre Hunter, who wasn’t on the court last year during UVA’s historic loss to No. 16 Maryland Baltimore County, the Cavaliers have been dominant on both ends — the only team ranking in the top five in Pomeroy’s adjusted offense and defense metrics. Once again, Tony Bennett’s pack line defense is suffocating most every offensive opportunity and successfully turning games into rock fights. But this year’s team is even better on the offensive end and should breeze into the Elite Eight, where it could meet Tennessee. Thanks to Grant Williams and the wonderfully named Admiral Schofield, the No. 2 Volunteers are playing their best basketball in program history. We give them a 22 percent probability of reaching the Final Four.

Sneaky Final Four pick: No. 6 Villanova. Is it “sneaky” to pick the team that’s won two of the past three national titles? Maybe not. But this hasn’t been the same team that coach Jay Wright guided to those championships. After losing a ton of its best players from last year’s title-winning team, the Wildcats had an up-and-down year and lost five of their final eight regular-season Big East games. But they also got hot over the past week, capping off a season in which they still won the Big East regular-season and conference-tournament titles — and still had one of the 20 best offenses in the country according to KenPom (powered by an absurd number of 3-pointers). Our power ratings think they’re the fourth-best team in the South despite being the No. 6 seed, and they have a 39 percent chance of at least making it back to the Sweet 16 for a fifth time in the past six seasons.

Don’t bet on: No. 4 Kansas State. Coach Bruce Weber’s Wildcats nearly made the Final Four last season, but they might find it tougher this time around. K-State has an elite defense (it ranks fourth in the country according to Pomeroy’s ratings), but its offense is prone to struggles — and could be down its second-leading scorer, forward Dean Wade, who missed the team’s Big 12 tournament loss to Iowa State with a foot injury. A brutal draw that gives the Wildcats tough No. 13 seed UC Irvine in the first round, then places them opposite the Wisconsin-Oregon winner in Round 2, could limit their potential to advance deep into a second consecutive tournament.

Cinderella watch: No. 12 Oregon. According to our model, the Ducks have the best Sweet 16 odds (24 percent) of any double-digit seed in the tournament, more than twice that of any other candidate. Oregon struggled to string together wins for most of the regular season, and its chances seemed sunk after 7-foot-2 phenom Bol Bol was lost for the season with a foot injury in January. But the Ducks have rallied to win eight straight games heading into the tournament, including a convincing victory in Saturday’s Pac-12 championship. Oregon fits a similar mold as K-State — great defense with a suspect offense — but that’s telling, given that the Ducks are a 12-seed and the Wildcats are a No. 4. If they meet in the Round of 32, we give Oregon a 47 percent chance at the upset.

Player to watch: Grant Williams, Tennessee

The junior has come a long way from being “just a fat boy with some skill.” Williams, the de facto leader of Rick Barnes’s Volunteers, has bullied the SEC over the past two seasons, collecting two consecutive conference player of the year honors.

The Vols might just feature the best offense of Barnes’s coaching career — and we’re talking about a guy who coached Kevin Durant! Much of that offensive potency can be traced to Williams, the team’s leading scorer and rebounder, who ranks in the 97th percentile in scoring efficiency, according to data courtesy of Synergy Sports.

Williams possesses an old-man game you might find at a local YMCA, a back-to-the-basket, footwork-proficient offensive assault that manifests primarily in post-ups, where he ranks in the 98th percentile in scoring efficiency and shoots an adjusted field-goal percentage of 56.1. He can get the Volunteers buckets in the waning moments of games, too, as he ranks in the 96th percentile in isolation scoring efficiency.

Likeliest first-round upsets: No. 9 Oklahoma over No. 8 Ole Miss (53 percent); No. 12 Oregon over No. 5 Wisconsin (45 percent); No. 10 Iowa over No. 7 Cincinnati (34 percent)

Midwest region

Top seed outlook: On paper, the Midwest seems to be the most open of the four regions, but we still give No. 1 North Carolina the best odds, with a 35 percent probability of reaching the Final Four and an 18 percent probability of appearing in the national championship game. Those odds are at least 8 percentage points lower than any other No. 1 team in the field, though, and for good reason: North Carolina’s offense depends on turning every play into a fast break. The Tar Heels struggle to get to the free-throw line and give up a ton of shots along the perimeter, which, in a slowed-down, half-court matchup, could be quite problematic.

After getting waxed by Duke to open the season, No. 2 Kentucky has caught fire in recent weeks while finding balance on both ends of the floor and mostly abstaining from the 3-point line. No. 3 Houston, meanwhile, is in the midst of its best season since Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon were revolutionizing college basketball, and they boast a defense that ranks among the very best along and inside the perimeter.

Sneaky Final Four pick: No. 5 Auburn. When the Tigers steamrolled Tennessee 84-64 in Sunday’s SEC title game, it likely got the attention of a lot of bracket-pickers. That wasn’t a one-off — Auburn also beat Tennessee eight days earlier, part of a string of eight straight wins for the Tigers, and 10 in their last 11 games. With an explosive offense (No. 8 in KenPom efficiency) that got more of its points from downtown than any other team in the NCAA field, Auburn can heat up in a hurry. We give the Tigers nearly a coin-flip’s odds of making the Sweet 16 — and a very solid 37 percent chance of beating top-seeded North Carolina if the Tar Heels are waiting for Auburn there. The only kryptonite might be a hypothetical regional-final matchup with No. 2 seed Kentucky, which beat the Tigers by 27 in late February to sweep their season series.

Don’t bet on: No. 4 Kansas. The Jayhawks went into the season ranked No. 1 in the AP’s preseason poll, and they appeared to validate the choice by starting the season 10-0. But a 15-9 record (and some key injuries) since then have cast doubt on Kansas’s NCAA tournament potential. This is a well-balanced team, but to say it doesn’t shoot well from the outside is an understatement — see KU’s 3-for-18 performance from deep in Saturday’s Big 12 ouster against Iowa State. Add an unfavorable draw that puts them on a potential second-round collision course with Auburn (see above), and we give the Jayhawks only an 8 percent chance of making out of the Midwest with their championship hopes intact.

Cinderella watch: No. 11 Ohio State. If a Big Ten team that has made 11 Final Fours can be a Cinderella, then you’re looking at it in these Buckeyes. (Hey, the committee’s increasing tendency to seed underwhelming power-conference schools this way really messes with the definition.) OSU went only 18-13 during the regular season, was defeated in its second Big Ten tournament game and has almost twice as many losses as wins since New Year’s. So why are the Buckeyes a potential Cinderella? Despite the seed, this is still a dangerous team, one that ranks 27th in Pomeroy’s adjusted defensive ratings and has star forward Kaleb Wesson back from suspension. So maybe they’ll give Big 12 champ Iowa State trouble. But mainly this tells you something about the other potential Cinderellas in this region: Seton Hall got a very tough first-round matchup with underseeded Wofford; none of the other low seeds here are world-beaters. That leaves the Buckeyes, a team that did all it could to play its way out of the tournament, but has some upset potential regardless.

Player to watch: Cameron Johnson, UNC

On a team that doesn’t hoist a ton of shots from the perimeter, Johnson is as lethal as they come. Following an injury-riddled campaign in which he barely made more than one-third of his looks from beyond the arc, the grad student is canning 46.5 percent of his attempts, which ranks inside the top 25 nationally.

Johnson has thrived in North Carolina’s every-possession-is-a-transition-opportunity scheme this season. He’s blossomed into one of the best scorers in the ACC, ranking between the 85th and 100th percentiles in scoring efficiency in transition, off screens and on spot-ups.

Johnson has elevated his game in conference play, boasting the ACC’s top offensive rating (132.5) and true shooting percentage (64.6). Suddenly, a player who wasn’t seen as a guaranteed professional now projects to be a second-round pick.

Likeliest first-round upsets: No. 9 Washington over No. 8 Utah State (49 percent); No. 10 Seton Hall over No. 7 Wofford (37 percent); No. 11 Ohio State over No. 6 Iowa State (33 percent)

from News About Sports https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/your-guide-to-the-2019-ncaa-mens-tournament/

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mnranger5 · 5 years

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East Coast Road Trip, Cape May to Atlantic City to Washington DC, 11/10/18 - 11/13/18

It is becoming increasingly obvious Dyan and I do live by the Vacation for Relaxation mantra. Nope, we apparently fell the need to jam pack as much into a trip as we possibly can. On vacay, wake up earlier and go to bed later than most days at home. And every waking minute of our trip is spent doing something other than sitting around and relaxing. Some call it crazy. We call it getting our money’s worth!

This East coast trip has been long in the making. Dyan travels out to the Baltimore/DC area at least 10 times per year, so it has become almost a home away from home for her. She’s seen the sights and knows where to go and what to do. I on the other hand have never been to the DC area, but always wanted to go. So it made sense to parlay a long weekend trip to DC with a work trip Dyan already had scheduled. Once we had the dates, all we needed to do was figure out what we wanted to do. We would have 3 ½ days in DC. Hopefully we could get to the Museum of Natural History, the Air and Space Museum, the Holocaust Museum, the Museum of American History, the White House, the US Capitol, the Supreme Court, Arlington Cemetery, the Pentagon, the Lincoln Memorial, the WWII Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial and the Washington Monument in that short amount of time…. And then plans changed. We decided to throw an 800 mile road trip into the agenda visiting Cape May, NJ as well as Atlantic City, NJ. Now we’d have 1 ½ days to do all the things we wanted to do in Washington DC. No worries. It’s Jake and Dyan. We make it happen!

11/10/18

Our flight out of Minny departed at 10:15. What was scheduled as a 2 ½ hour flight got in early at just under 2 hours! A bit choppy, but I will trade some bumps for 30 minutes. We quickly made our way over to the rental car center. The rental car situation is always a stresser for me. I love having fun cars on vacation, but sometimes the fun car I rent is not the car I receive. Anyway, for this trip, I found a great deal on a “standard V6” sports car, which was advertised as the base Mustang or Charger. Check-in was a breeze. We made out way to the rental lot and handed the attendant our paperwork. He looked it over and mentioned “standard”. We took a walk through the lot and he pointed at a row of Nissan Altimas and Chevrolet Cruzes. I was like, “No, we should get a sports car, right?” He grabbed my paperwork out of my hand and glared at it while grumbling something under his breath. “My mistake,” he said. We turned around and right behind us were two beautifully fast sports cars. A base model, charcoal, Dodge Charger, and a candy apple red Chevrolet Camaro 2SS. He looked at us and said we could pick. Umm, base model V6 Challenger vs Supercharged 6.2L V8 Camaro 2SS.

We quickly loaded our bags into the Camaro before the attendant realized he gave us the premium sports car instead of the standard sports car. And with one little touch press of the supercharged foot pedal, we were burning rubber out of the lot and on our way to visit Dyan’s Grandma in Cape May, NJ!

Fourty-one seconds later we entered the highway and came to a screeching halt. The traffic put a wet blanket on our fast little racecar. We slowly navigated the lunch-hour traffic as we made our way northwest toward Baltimore. For nearly 90 minutes, traffic was at a turtle’s crawl. Once we got through the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel, traffic finally cleared up. But a new problem was brewing…

Clipping along at a supercharged pace, the Camaro had a warning light come on in it. With only 900 miles on this road beast, a warning light was not a good sign. We figured out quickly, we were losing tire pressure in our left rear tire. It was sitting at 20psi while all the other tires were 35-37psi. I pulled into the Gulf gas station off of Buck Road in Clayton. The tire felt rock hard and looked just as full as the others. There didn’t appear to be any visible malfunctions with the tire and I didn’t see anything puncturing it eiter. We filled the tire up for a couple of seconds, to 27psi. I was worried the tire pressure sensor was erroring out and that I was putting way too much air into the tire. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to have this tire blow out in my face. I reluctantly filled it up to 30psi, keeping my back to the tire – just in case it did explode. In 5 minutes, were southbound on the highway again. In another 5 minutes, the tire pressure warning came back on. Dyan called the rental company Alamo. Pressure was down to 25. As Dyan explained the situation to Alamo, we dropped to 22. Alamo wanted us to find a Walmart auto center because the did 24 hour work on tires. 19. After Dyan hung up, we found out there was a Walmart 5 miles behind us. 17. We turned around. Hope we’d make it. 16.

We drove back into the Walmart in Vineland only to find this location did not have an auto center. 14. Dear Lord. Dyan found a tire store a mile away in the middle of town. Thank you Jesus. 13. When we pulled into Mr. Tire, we were at 12psi. It was now 5:00, and the store closed at 7:00.

I approached the counter and there was a nice woman, Mary, who asked what I needed. I told her about our situation. Out of towners. Rental car. Tire pressure like an untied balloon. She said she was quite busy, and wasn’t sure when or if they could get to it today. I told her we would wait patiently. It only took the mechanic 15 minutes to retrieve the car from the lot and take it to the garage. But then the real waiting began.

After about an hour, Mary, emerged from the garage holding a screw over 6” long. It had been lodged in the tire. No bueno!

Mary wan’t sure if it could be fixed. The hole was so big, they thought it needed to be plugged. This store didn't do plugs, they only patched. Mary told us to wait a bit longer and they would patch it up and test whether it would hold. Fingers crossed,

Around 6:30, the mechanic pulled the car our to the garage and Mary emerged from the office and told us the patch was working, for now. She told us to keep an eye on the pressure and enjoy the rest of the trip. She wouldn’t allow us to pay! We pleaded with her telling her the rental car company would reimburse us, but she wouldn’t take a dime. “Enjoy the rest of your trip” she continued to repeat. Wow, what a great little Ttre shop.

The remainder of our drive into Cape May was uneventful and we rolled into Marilyn & Sam’s beautiful beach house around 7:30. After a quick tour of their lovely home (Sam built), they treated us to an insanely delicious homemade lasagna, meatballs, Italian sausage and gravy! Sam is Mr. Italian, and he said the proper term for meat sauce is gravy. Well okay then! Pile up some gravy for me!

After a couple beers and glasses of wine, Dyan and I were pooped and headed to bed around 11.

11/11/18

With the sun shining bright the following morning, we had the chance to see the beautiful ocean view Sam and Marilyn wake up to each morning. The beach is literally out their front door. It is glorious.

Not gonna lie, the camaro went nicely with the front door.

We spent the morning devouring a wonderful breakfast prepared by Sam and Marilyn and then visiting with some of their neighbors. Sam also drove us around to show us many of the beach homes he had built in the area. His craftsmanship and attention to detail is commendable. Each home she showed us was more beautiful than the last. At 11AM, we packed up and hit the rod to our next destination - ATLANTIC CITY, NJ!

Atlantic City is about an hour from Cape May, due north on the NJ coast. You can definitely see the mega hotels for miles prior to actually arriving. To my surprise, the casinos were much more spread out than I had imagined. We had reservations at The Hard Rock Hotel, the former Trump Taj Mahal. Hard Rock spent $500 million renovating over the past year and opened earlier this summer. It is the newest hotel on the boardwalk.

We checked in at noon to our beautiful room perched up up over the Atlantic Ocean. My only complaint was the dirty window.

Around 1PM, we decided to hit the gaming floor! We signed up for the Hard Rock rewards card and both got the chance to spin the “New Membership Prize Wheel.” Dyan’s spin earned her $20 in free slot play. I earned free show tickets. On Dyan’s first machine (Willy Wonka), she used her free slot play and hit a bonus that paid her a cool $60. For the rest of the day, we played off of that winning in numerous casinos.

We took a stroll down the boardwalk hitting up Cesar’s Palace, Bally’s and Bally’s Wild West.

Of all the casinos, our favorites were Hard Rock and Bally’s Wild West. At the end of the day, we had played had gambled for about 6 hours and broken even!

Since we didn’t have any plans that night, we decided to use the free show tickets I had won. The show was called Motor City Live: A Motown Tribute. After getting our free tickets at the box office, we were pleasantly surprised our seats were in the fourth row of the sold out theater. THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!. Dyan and I could not believe how good the show was. it was incredibly entertaining.

The show was like a walk down memory lane. Like being in the car on a long trip with dad and all we listened to were Motown oldies. They had Temptations, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, The Supremes, The Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and the Jackson 5. I sang along to every song except for one. Thanks Dad for burning those songs into my head as a child so I can enjoy them now.

What made the show so enjoyable is that it had a modern twist. It wasn’t older washed up singer doing the covers. It was an attractive younger crowd singing and dancing, with strong vocals and an amazing bad backing them up. The show was phenomenal, and I still can’t believe it was free. The people next to us paid $50/seat! What a steal!

11/12/18

The wake up call came in early. Three-thirty-AM-early. Although today was another adventure, it was also a race against time. Dyan had to work in Washington DC at 11AM. We made quick work of the morning routine and were on the road by 4AM. This gave us 7 hours to make the 192 mile journey to our hotel in Washington, DC. Seems like plenty of time until you factor in rush hour traffic on a journey that took us through three of the largest cities on the east coast: Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington DC. Thankfully, the traffic was never all that bad. We hit Philly at 5AM which was early enough to miss the congestion. Baltimore had it’s share of slowdowns, but wasn’t nearly as bad as what we had expected. And Washington DC was a breeze! With it being Veteran’s Day, the government was closed, so traffic was super light coming into town. We rolled into the hotel around 8AM.

The Residence Inn, Capitol Hill, allowed us to check in very early which was nice. We had a place to park the Camaro and a complimentary breakfast. We then walked over to the Georgetown Law School (Dyan’s client), passing directly in front of the US Capitol.

We camped out as a Starbucks for a couple of hours until Dyan’s work engagement. I hung out in the Georgetown Law School with all the law school students. For a fleeting moment, I felt like a law student as I eavesdropped on the fascinating legal conversations going on around me. At 1:00, I rendezvoused with Dyan and we began an afternoon of intense/speed sightseeing.

But first, our hunger needed satisfying. Parked just outside of the Museum of Natural History, was a row of colorful food trucks, but all seemed to be specializing in the same thing. Philly Cheese-steaks. We approached the Phillies Phamous Steaks food truck, and ordered a cheese-steak and fries.

It took about 10 minutes to prepare, but it blew both of our socks off. It was SO good. The hoagie was so fresh and meat incredibly flavorful. Winner.

The Museum of Natural History was awesome.

Animals everywhere.

They had every animal you could think of on display.

Even a narwhal!

They also had some cool exhibit on great white shark. Who knew their mouth was that big?

And of course there was a scaryT-Rex!

Our next stop was the Museum of American History. Most notably, this museum houses Dorothy’s ruby red slippers from The Wizard of Oz.

There are also some very cool exhibits highlighting the US Military and the wars we have fought in. Like Vietnam...

and the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan.

The third museum of the day was the Holocaust Memorial Museum. This museum is unlike any of the other museums. There was no people talking. No kids yelling and screaming. No tv’s blasting in the exhibits. Nope, you could hear a pin drop in this museum. All the exhibits have signs for reading silently. The mood was incredibly somber. It’s almost like going to a funeral. Tears were being shed by some. Others shaking their heads in disbelief. The museum is basically a start to finish series of events to led up to the Holocaust. One of the most powerful displays was a giant model of an gas/execution chamber. But the most moving display was the thousands of prisoner shoes piled in a room. The smell was almost nauseating, like smoldering rubber. Men’s shoes, children’s shoes and women’s heels are heaped into the pile. These are the precise shoes the prisoners wore on the trains. These are the shoes toddlers wore as they were carried by their mothers to a safer place. These are the shoes that would end up being removed from each and every one of them just before their execution.

After that Holocaust Museum, we were physically and emotionally exhausted. Not to mention, famished from all the walking. Off a tip from one of my co-workers, we took a taxi to Gerogia Brown’s, an upscale southern cooking kitchen. The fried chicken was as good as I had hoped!

After dinner we took a quick walk over to The White House in the pouring down rain.

Neither of us had rain coats or an umbrella, so we ended up pretty squishy shoes and waterlogged jackets. We opted for a taxi to get back to the hotel which was an adventure all on it’s own. The driver could not figure out his fogged up windshield and kept having to stick his head out of the side window just to see what was ahead of him. This picture was snapped $5 into our fare. Yikes!

11/13/18

Do you think we slept in? Nope! Our flight home was at 5PM, and we had a lot to still see and do. Therefore, we were out of the hotel around 7AM heading over to the US Capitol. This time, from the other side.

The museums didn’t open until 9AM, so we wanted to get in some of our site-seeing in ahead of time. After the Capitol, we made our way to the US Supreme Court.

While taking a picture in front of the courthouse, a police officer approached us. He informed us that Supreme Court was meeting today in a non-argumentative session. He said it would be quick, but it would give us the chance to see the supreme court justices. This was completely unexpected! SWEET!

We made our way into the courthouse. Dyan and I were guests 34 & 35. After waiting in line for about 30 minutes, the Secret Service escorted us upstairs to the supreme court lobby area. We had to empty EVERYTHING into lockers. No phones, purses, hats or coats. Everything must be left at the locker. After going through a security screening, we were ushered into the Supreme Court Chamber. The room is magnificent. Stately white columns surround the room, starkly contrasted by flaming red curtains which serve as their backdrop. Old wooden benches line the room. More police and secret service watching every move. Nine leather chairs, for the nice justices, sit perched up above the courtroom. It is a sight to see. While talking is not expressly forbidden, you get the sense it’s like talking during the sermon a mass. At precisely 9AM, the gavel was struck and instantaneously the justices appeared from behind the red curtains and took their seats. It was shock and awe! I had no idea what to expect, but I certainly thought their entrance would be much more elaborate. Nope, in a matter of .5 seconds, I had Justice Kavanaugh sitting directly ahead of me! Chief Justice John Roberts sat in the middle flanked by Clarence Thomas and Justice Alito. Also present were Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Gorsuch. Missing were Justices Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who was recover in the hospital from broken ribs. The only justice who spoke was John Roberts. Today’s hearing was for the sole purpose of swearing in new attorney’s to the DC Bar. Within 10 minutes, all of the attorneys had been sworn in. And as quick as the Justices had entered the chamber, all the Justices disappeared behind the red curtain when the gavel was slapped again. It was such a cool experience!

Our next stop of the day was the National Air and Space Museum, which was a highlight for me. The mix of old a new planes was right up my alley.

My favorite was this Northrop Alpha TWA mail and cargo transport which topped out at 177mph. Built in 1930, this plane made coast to coast flights which would take about 23 hours. Other than carry mail, this plane also transported freshly cut gardenias, silk worms, medical serums and auto parts. The plane was retired from the fleet just 4 years later in 1934. Very cool reading about the history of these old planes.

There was also a really cool NASA exhibit that had a virtual reality experience where you could look at your own street using the satellite control imagery.

My only disappointment was that there wan’t a more robust exhibit on the space shuttle crashes. The crashes had very small displays with not much info.

After Air and Space, we took a chilly walk over to The White House and had lunch nearby.

With full tummies, we embarked on a national monument and memorial walking tour. First was the Washington Monument, which was being renovated so we could not get up close or go to the top.

The WWII National Memorial was next. Being that it was the day after Veteran’s Day, there were dozens of wreaths setup all over the memorial. Very moving. But by this point, all the walking was taking a toll on our feet.

Next was the Lincoln Memorial.

With our feet still feeling the burn, we decided to rent a couple of scooters. Now, anybody who has seen our garage knows that scooters are a BIG DEAL at our house. The kids LOVE them. Me? Not so much. We have five that always seem to find strategic places on the garage floor which catch me by surprise. I have threatened to toss them in the garbage on more days than I can count. But here we found ourselves in the middle of DC, and we were going to rent scooters. How ironic.

The cool thing about these motorized scooters is that they are everywhere across DC. When you find one vacant, you activate it with your phone. The app in your phone connects with your credit card and within seconds, you are whizzing around the sites at 15mph. The difficult time was finding two open scooters near each other we could both rent. Luckily, the app tells you exactly where open scooters are. While at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, the app pinged two open scooters a short ways away at the FDR Memorial. The race was on. We virtually broke out into a run to get to the scooters before anybody else. And as we approached the vacant scooters, we were stoked. There isn’t an orientation for how these scooters work, nor any training wheels. As you step on the scooter for the first time, the first 5 seconds are actually pretty terrifying. The wobbling from trying to catch your balance coupled with the embarrassment of people around watching you is enough to probably make some people hop off and continue their journey by foot. But, after that initial shock and finding your balance, these road beasts are a piece of cake. Dyan and I cruised around the Tidal Basin to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. This was the final memorial!

We hopped back on the scooters and buzzed them a couple of miles back to the hotel. For the 6 miles total we road the scooters, the cost was $7. The entertainment value of seeing Dyan hit bumps in the pavement, priceless.

We checked out of the hotel and headed over the Arlington National Cemetery, which I can confirm, does not allow scooters to buzz through the historic grave site.

For us, the highlights were the resting places of the Kennedy’s, The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the deceased of the space shuttle disasters.

Our final stop on the trip was the Pentagon, which was very underwhelming. First off, the 9/11 Memorial is very difficult to find. We had to drive around the Pentagon twice in order to find it. In addition, there is no public parking. So Dyan and I parked in Military Reserved Parking and hoped we would not have a problem with GI-Joe. The memorial is a series of park benches. There wasn’t much of anything to read nor did it seem the Pentagon was catering to visitors. It would have been very easy to have overlooked the park benches as the memorial. A bit disappointing, although, not enough to leave even a blemish on this amazing trip.

We headed back over to Ronald Reagan National Airport and settled in for the 3 hour flight home.

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mitchkiper · 6 years

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KIPREVIEW: Week 04

THE KIPREVIEW: WEEK FOUR

Greetings gents. Mitch Kiper here, with another visual delight for your nerd eyeballs to scan. This week won’t carry the controversy of Week Three, but the Kipe won’t let that stop him from providing fun and questionably valuable metrics as we head in to the fourth week of fantasy. It’s hard to believe we’re almost a quarter of the way through the season. Not only that, we’re officially entering bye weeks! Ç'est Magnifique! That’s right—Mitch Kiper speaks French.

NOTABLE TRANSACTION:

Gakusei Kai Nickelsnatchers – Trade SASWW for Buck Allen: Was it a great long term dynasty trade? Probably not. However, that trade saved the Nickelsnatchers week 3, and probably benefitted the league as a whole. Buck Allen was the key contributor to the Nickelsnatcher upset of the Brooklyn Yeshivas. Without him, KAI would have played Marcus Murphy (if you’re asking “who?!”, you’re right) and lost by just a few points.

According to KiperMetrics, Allen also adds to the overall strength of the Nickelsnatchers team. Adding Allen shifted the Nickelsnatchers from 11th to 10th overall, and more importantly closer in score to the middle tier than the bottom (see league overview for this). Here is what the Nickelsnatchers team looks like right now.

Honorable mentions go to…

Gakusei Kai Nickelsnatchers – Week 03 Tyler Eifert trade: For the simple fact that the moment they traded him away, he posted up a double digit scoring game. Eifert needs one more for the Nickelsnatchers to level up and earn at least one of the Boxtable’s 2nd round picks.

Dishonorable mention goes to…

Bergen Boxtables – Starting Deshaun Watson AGAIN: While not a transaction, per se, this needs to be noted. Bergen has a good team. Mitch Kiper stands by this statement, as well as his pre-season rankings. Alas, a good team means nothing if you’re starting the absolute wrong player. Watch Deshaun Watson for five minutes and you see a quarterback going through a sophomore slump. Teams have scouting on him now, and know how to make him struggle with his progressions. Here is a comparison between the Boxtables’ two best QBs:

Ben has started Watson for three straight weeks. For three straight weeks, Drew Brees—a perennially good fantasy QB, as proven by the fact that he is #1 all time among all NFL players in composite rating—has outperformed Watson. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!

And for once, a neutral mention goes to…

Brooklyn Yeshivas & Bergen Boxtables – Ito Smith to BOX, John Brown to YESH: There’s no arguing that this trade is mutually beneficial. The Yeshivas get a young promising WR to replace a lagging Brandon Marshall as their WR3, and Ben Buccigross gets a promising young Falcon RB who is primed to possibly take a bigger role next year once Tevin Coleman is gone. Yet as far as the KiperRatings go, this move does not make much of a dent in their overall roster composition.

The Yeshivas gain slightly by adding Brown, at least according to C-PPG, which is a more long term measure. John Brown carries a 10.62 c-ppg, while Brandon Marshall is at 9.86. For how far ahead of the pack the Yeshivas are, this does not make enough of a dent to be considered anything more than a minor move. Perhaps it will pay off come playoff time, but for now it makes next to no difference in his overall ranking. Here’s how the Yeshivas looked before and after this trade:

TOP FREE AGENTS:

It’s a sad, lonely world in free agency. But if you want to brave it, here are the top free agents according to cppg, and the rostered players closest to them in the ranks:

Notable tidbits:

- People are hanging on to kickers that are well below the leaders in the league. In particular, Jason Myers should be signed by someone, as he’s currently in the top 10% of all kickers currently in the NFL according to C-PPG. If you look at the current K rankings by FPG, the top 5 are taken and then there’s a wide gap before we hit other owned players. Sure, the difference is miniscule, but every point counts.

- According to C-PPG, Deshaun Watson is not far off from Joe Flacco and Andrew Luck. This should be a signal to the owners who insist on playing these QBs in lieu of alternatives (or, owners who insist on holding even worse QBs—cough cough Dak Prescott—in lieu of Flacco).

- D/ST pickings are not bad. As this article was written, HAMM dropped the Jets for the Dolphins. That means there is one D/ST available that is still better than 80% of the D/STs currently on Dynosteve rosters. For those who have been paying attention the last few weeks, 75th percentile seems to be the mark you want to stay above to win points in positional battles.

- RB free agents are virtually non-existent. Alfred Blue is the best option available, and he puts up fewer points than fellow FA WR Terrelle Pryor. Terrelle Pryor.

- Same goes for TEs. But hey, if anyone wants someone who puts up points, Garrett Celek is there.

- There are certain players that, according to C-PPG, are due for a regression: Dolphins WRs Jakeem GGrant and Albert Wilson are the main suspects. To a lesser extent, Chris Godwin and Keelan Cole are outperforming their history. On the flip side, Mitch Kiper expects to see slightly more from Duke Johnson and Tavon Austin.

TAXI WATCH:

Here is the taxi squad as it currently stands, followed by relevant updates and changes:

- Dante Pettis: With Garoppolo out for the season, Pettis has seemingly gotten comfy in his taxi seat. He is currently in the lower half of Dyno WRs as far as points scored goes. There’s no reason to bring him up. Antonio Callaway is ranked similar to Pettis, and for now is in the same boat.

- Nyheim Hines: Hines remains our best taxi player, and yet due to the strength of the Falls, his promotion seems far off. He’s performing better than 60% of the Dynosteve RBs. This would qualify him as a worthwhile sub on most squads. The fact that the Falls can afford to keep Hines off the active roster is a slap in the face to us all.

- Mark Andrews: A newbie to the taxi watch, Mark Andrews is currently performing better than 60+% of the TEs on Dynosteve rosters. Considering how many teams have been scrounging for TE talent, Andrews is a valuable stash, and possible trade bait.

- Ito Smith: The trade of Ito Smith is, I believe, our first ever taxi-squad only trade. Because the Boxtables had to drop Dalton Schultz to make room for Ito, the total taxi pool has dropped by one player this week.

LEAGUE OVERVIEW:

Finally, the league overview.

- ZIMBAB and YESH remain in a league of their own, while the Fenoms amazingly lead the pack for the last two spots in the championship tier.

- Without Lev Bell to buoy them, the Juneboshers have fallen to merely above average. They’re in the thick of things, barely separated in score from WALL and BOX.

- Mitch Kiper still predicts that BOX will rise and ONED will fall in the standings by season end, mainly due to bench strength and lack thereof, respectively. He believes that the coming bye weeks, not to mention injuries, will more directly hurt the Syndrome, while the Boxtables have enough bench strength to weather the storm. This is also why he predicts KAI to suck eventually. There’s very little depth in the Gakusei Kai household.

And that’s it! Tune in next week—maybe I’ll find more controversy to dig up. We can only hope!

#Dynosteve #Dynosteve2018 #dynosteveweekfour #MitchKiper

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pkgam · 6 years

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The Evil Of Video Game Microtransactions And Patches

Yep, this is the post that the Zelda Season Pass inspired me to finish. It’s like the one about pay-to-download games, which is similar, but not the exact kind of topic. Also, my posts about Microtransactions on Nintendo’s Miitomo and Konami’s bologna and talk about Cow Clicker. aren’t super detailed or anything. So it’s truly time I finish this one because it’s more important than ever. In fact, if there’s anything that I utterly detect about the game industry right now it’s this.

Let’s paint a picture. Let’s go back... back to the past... *holds flashlight in front of face* OoooOoOoOOOOoOooooooo... Gaming once did not have DLC. When you got a game, you got it as-is with no DLC, patches, etc... So companies had to put everything they wanted or could get in it in that one cart’s release and polish it to boot. So they could not release a game unless it was actually finished-finished. Occasionally devs will knock off a few bugs in revisions, but that just meant there were two or more versions of games (the first version, then tweaked copies) on the market and not a game with intended content another one didn’t have. However, the thing about it was that the first version was still perfectly playable. Ocarina Of Time on the N64 had three for instance if you want a notable example. Heck, Pokemon Red/Blue/Green/Yellow were some of the glitchiest games ever but they are well loved. It’s not glitches that make a game bad, it’s gameplay-hindering glitches and bad design that make a game bad.

This of course led to a lot of notable delays in the production of the best titles of their time. Games that were rushed out to meet a deadline such as games based on a movie being released or something were often sucky, buggy or even completely broken because it was less about the quality as it was trying to meet demand. So a game that was released bad, stayed bad with no fixes or whatnot. While the concept of not fixing up a bad game may seem archaic to many modern day gamers, there were still great games to be played. See, you’d think that there would be better quality games on the market now than there were back then because if you released a stinker, you could at least patch it to a semi-good quality. But that sure isn’t the case is it? In fact, it’s not unheard of for a patch to break a solid game, lol! In those cases they’re usually rectified by a simple rollback or re-issuing a fixed patch fast of course, but what I’m saying is that patches aren’t really making the overall gaming experiences you can have better than just releasing them in a good state to begin with. Unless the game is broke to begin with of course. But that brings me to my next point...

Both Microtransactions and patches have been quite the sneaky little moneymakers. What a lot of people aren’t realizing is that they are often paying a lot more for less. Which is astounding since game price has gone up in itself from $50 to $60 (Not all games of course, but I mean the general price of console games) AND in order to get all you could for a game, you have to pay for their online and downloadable extras. Some do online for free like Nintendo, but that of course is about to change not because they can’t do online for free of course since they have been for years, but likely because it’s just more profitable. So what game publishers are doing when they pull that is selling incomplete games at a full price (often just to release games as fast as possible for maximum profits) and charging you more to get them complete and/or playable through online. Some “retail” games are actually not even physical in that they only contain a game code or only a small part of a game so you have to download the rest to play it too. So what’s even the point of retail in those cases other than to sucker in people who don’t otherwise buy digital that just so happened to not read the box?... That trick won’t work forever. Mind you that there are still games made out there that are great on their own without downloadables, but the thing about it is that game companies know that these sorts of things are highly profitable because people are oblivious to how much more they’re spending overall. Even just $5 per game, if you got just 12 DLC packs, that’s $60 or the price of another whole game (again, it varies. :P). They aren’t only $5 either as DLC varies greatly in price. Online services alone are usually START at $10. PS4′s is at $9.99/month, but you of course get discounts at longer terms. :P

The patch thing also has a funny way of making more “versions” of games than ever before as well because there are games that people have never patched or did any microtransactions for, there are games people have fully patched and paid for all the DLC. Plus everything in between and every combination. So there can be an awkward division of sorts as well in that people rating a game better with a patch and someone not being able to get a patch for some reason (no net connectivity, online patch services canceled/shut down, etc...) that will end up creating forever bad games in the process because they put out junk and games not patched get shut out. There’s also the inevitable end of online patch support for a game to tangle with in the future. Meaning if people get a game that is no longer supported and it’s a stinker that could be patched into something better, they are stuck with the stinker unless they sell it to someone who is not in the know of the need for a patch or they locate or create some sort of fan-made hack-patch out there.

This also has a way of making it so that games are becoming less and less your’s. See, certain sections of the game industry hate stuff like the used game market and game sharing because they don’t get sales from after-market stuff. If a retail disc is just a key to get a game’s full download that you can only use once, you basically can’t resell or let someone borrow a game. The Xbox One back in development was going to be just like that until massive backlash hit them over it. As a matter of fact, that happens with a lot of publishers who try to pull that because people of course don’t like the idea of not owning what they buy, for good reason. So instead they got a bit... sneakier with it. Games that you buy digital for instance are locked to that system and if your system goes, so does the game, well, when they stop supporting it online. Think DLC/patches are any different? Think again.

I’ve seen people argue that the microtransactions are only to extend the life of a game engine and whatnot, but that’s what SEQUELS are for! Instead though a great increase in patches and paid downloadables on the very first day of release happened. Star Wars Battlefront was probably one of the most notorious examples of this in that the game was made to be small and to get everything you’ve gotta pay upwards of $100 total. Compare it to a fully complete game such as Ocarina Of Time and you can tell that there’s issues. Speaking of Battlefront... EA did it again with the next Battlefront, only FAR worse than before as you need to play 4,528 hours to unlock everything or $2,100 to “conveniently” speed things up ON TOP of the retail price of the game. That’s ludicrous! Then there was a whole debacle after that they they were going to fix it and semi-did, but this has happened with so many of their games in the past that you can basically see it as a cycle by now. They release a game > people point out how much of a ripoff it is > they “apologize” and “fix” it > they do it again with the next game. Why people even buy into it after all these years of them doing it I have no idea as it’s illogical. Maybe it’s like... an addiction or masochistic tendency. But they take advantage of that sickness like predators. Even a good chunk of those who aren’t addicted to it may not make much of it because it never seems like a lot to pay few bucks for some DLC but when so many do it, it adds up for their profits gained on basically lies.

Talking addiction of course means it’s time to cover these bad boys: LOOT BOXES! They can be cleverly disguised as anything from Pinata Llamas to Trash Cans. But when I say “loot box”, I mean “you pay for something and you don’t know what you’ll get”. They have been largely equated to gambling which I couldn’t agree more with because it’s like rolling a slot machine’s wheels: The adrenaline of whether you win or lose is what is addicting but most of the time you will lose as the items you are going for in these monstrosities often only have less than a 1% chance of showing. So people who get addicted like with gambling addiction often open up hundreds and hundreds of these boxes to no avail. People who do this, even if it’s just over a bunch of DLC and whatnot, game publishers have called “whales”. Yes, they actually have a term for it. Not only that, but they also have a “science” to getting people to pay for such things. Behold! The hold grail of all things bad in the industry. The original video I linked to was removed, but you can still see it at 3:42-4:37 of this video, though you may want to watch it all anyway as it’s pretty good:

youtube

“Turning players into payers” huh?... They aren’t the only ones to do it either. Activision actually patented their own little scheme in 2015 (which amazingly they claim they never used) and you can bet that many others also have sneaky little plans of their own.

There are some extra tricks I haven’t went over yet that may still sucker people. Like remember the extra levels/stages/areas/gear/etc... that could have been added to a game before release by just delaying the game like they used to do? They could just put it on multiple discs/cards like they used to as it wasn’t uncommon for games to have 2 or more discs. But they don’t. Why? Well at this point you can guess there’s something extra sneaky about this one because the extra data doesn’t go on the disc, it goes on the game system’s hard drive or some other storage space. As the MBs add up, you need to buy more space. Who then gets in the market to sell more space? Game makers of course. While people can get stuff like external /hard drives and SD cards from other sources, you can bet that game publishers will partner up with someone that makes them (I have a Sandisk SD Card for my Wii with “Nintendo Wii” on it for instance. :P But for game data backup, not downloads.) or make em’ themselves.

Even if the DLC or online service is free, chances are it’s not entirely “free” anyway as you often have to see a bunch of advertisements to tempt you to spend money on other stuff. For instance, Call Of Duty WWII has a mission where you watch others open loot crates... But if you have the willpower and time to sit through that junk, it’s officially free I spose’. Again though for all of this they know not everyone can resist the temptation. It all keeps rolling back to tempting people in these ways really:

How badly do you want to fix your game?

How quick do you want to make progress?

How much more content do you want for the game?

How unique do you want your character to look?

How much do you want to play with others online?

How much do you want to play the same game as others?

How close do you want to be to your friends progress-wise?

etc... to make games cost far more than ever by having you pay for it.

But free online gaming even though companies clearly can do it and free DLC is not how the industry has shaped has it? Instead they have you pay for it with a grin basically saying “see you there because we know you won’t resist!”. The temptation thing ended up screwing everyone over, even people who resisted, because they are losing out on the content. All at virtually no extra development cost because it’s often already made and they just held it back.

Yes, I know some is genuinely made after a game if they feel there is more they can add, but it’s such a common “business model” that you just never know who is doing it. Though some slip up like Capcom, lol! But in any case, why not at the very least release extra stuff for free? Not make you pay for the online on top of the DLC. I mean logically they “should” be getting profits from online service sales to support further development of games as it was proven they are able to do online for free. If not, they are doing a pretty bad job.

I don’t see those unethical business practices changing any time soon either because they have been remarkably successful. It’s giving companies a lot of bad PR, but they don’t care as long as they get more money than ever. Which is a really sad state because it means that you no longer have to make a good game to profit off of it, you just have to make something that hooks people enough to get them to pay into it. Many indy devs are guilty of this too of course (especially the shovelware makers that put their crappy ((often copied)) games with paid DLC on every platform they can), so don’t think I’m ignoring them. I’m just using some of the most prominent examples here.

Now for some common rebuttals I hear:

-“But you don’t have to pay for it! It’s optional!” You also don’t have to pay for the game. Companies should be honored and humbled that you are interested in buying a game so they should offer you the full package, not a watered-down version of something and taking you for granted.

-”It’s only appearance DLC like clothing. It doesn’t affect the game!” Oh, but it does. Not having them is actually taking away a whole section of a game that people find fun: Character customization. Maybe it’s not gameplay-related, but it’s certainly something that people love to do and thus affects their experience. Games used to have stuff like that hidden in them as unlocks (See Bomberman 64 Custom Parts as an example), not as paid DLC.

-”They NEED to make more money because games nowadays are more costly to make!” How do you know? Games like Cave Story and An Untitled Story (6th from the bottom) are free and extremely well designed. But I’m also seeing a ton of asset-flipped games in that companies are basically re-using engines and whatnot. In any case, assuming they are pricier, then it should be in the initial cost of the COMPLETE game, NOT made up in DLC. You tell me that all of Battlefront 2′s content is worth $2,100 and I’ll call you a liar or blind because there’s no way they put that much work into it and there’s no way anyone should have to pay that much for a SINGLE game.

-“But there’s just so much content they didn’t have time to put it in at release so they offer you the service!” Yet they are able to magically churn out other games at the same time along with said DLC. Funny how that works right? Again talking EA as an example because they are just do good at providing them, they create a “new” sports game yearly (Madden, FIFA, NBA, PGA Tour, NHL, etc...) with the usual DLC, oftentimes of stuff that was in past installments of the game with the same engine.

-”They are companies, so of course they are trying to make money.” Nothing wrong with making money, it’s “how” you make it that’s the issue. When there’s a whole “business” model built around lies and deceit, I’d argue it starts to lean towards the scam side of things.

Your thoughts? Thanks for reading and have a good one!

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thrashermaxey · 6 years

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Ramblings: EK Fallout, Nylander’s Contract, Avs’ Crease, Tolvanen, Simmonds, & Zetterberg (Sept. 15th)

Photo Courtesy: @S7Dsn

The Dobber Fantasy Guide has been updated after all the recent moves (apparently there was a substantial one yesterday?). It will continue to be updated throughout camps, preseason and as we move through the early portion of the year. Buy it and never look back.

While you're at it, grab the Prospect Report as well. This is a young man's game and you can never know too much about what's coming down the pike.

Michael Clifford broke down the Karlsson to San Jose trade yesterday. I’d like to echo his sentiments that it seems nearly unfathomable that Peter DeBoer would leave Burns or Karlsson on the bench when the first power play unit steps onto the ice.

Sure, we can look at Nashville and see how splitting Subban and Josi onto two units has been successful for the team and both players. However, with no disrespect to Roman Josi, he is not Brent Burns.

{source}<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Possible. More likely is he becomes Ovechkin and just hammers bombs from the left circle off passes from Jumbo and EK for 2 straight minutes every PP. <a href="https://t.co/1bF4JSeg3G">https://t.co/1bF4JSeg3G</a></p>— /Cam Robinson/ (@Hockey_Robinson) <a href="https://twitter.com/Hockey_Robinson/status/1040319104215707648?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 13, 2018</a></blockquote>

Having Burns blast away from that left circle will be insane. Evander Kane might be considered the best goal scorer on the team by many, but for my money it’s Burns. Being able to receive passes into his wheelhouse from Thornton and Karlsson may lead to him flirting with 30 goals again. He almost got there (29) in 2016-17.

My lifetime (32 years) has only seen three defenders break 30-goals. Kevin Hatcher (34 in 1992-93), Mike Green (31 in 2008-09), and Paul Coffee (30 in 1988-89). I’d like to see another.

I also share the viewpoint that Timo Meier is a great beneficiary of this deal. I expected him to continue to elevate his play, but his place beside Logan Couture should now be solidified. He’s a volume shooter with a high-end pedigree and a nose for finding the back of the net. Plus, now he has EK creating magic during five-on-five. Which is never a bad thing.

For more coverage on the trade, I broke down the prospects involved on DobberProspects.

It was announced on Friday morning that Henrik Zetterberg has played his final NHL contest. We had heard the rumours that his back had prohibited him from training this offseason and he was in danger of missing significant time.

It’s a shame that a player of his ilk was denied a farewell tour or at least a lasting standing ovation. While he didn’t hit the 500-goal or 1000-point benchmarks, his Conn Smythe Trophy, Triple Gold Club membership and King Clancy Award should be enough to send him into the Hall in the future.

Enjoy retirement, Hank.

As training camps opened around the league, there are a handful of familiar faces missing. Elliotte Friedman reported on several restricted free agents who have yet to put pen to paper and as such are MIA from camp.

The most fantasy-relevant being William Nylander. By the sound of it, Nylander and his camp want no part in a bridge-deal and are seeking something in the Leon Draisaitl 8-plus million dollar range.

As Freidman mentioned, Draisaitl had accumulated 128 points in the two seasons leading up to that monster eight-year, 68 million dollar (8.5 per) deal. Nylander has racked up 122. Most can agree that Draisaitl is overpaid, but with inflation coming into play, it’s not outrageous to ask for such a number. That’s what agents are for; asking.

We’ll see how this shakes out but I’m guessing Nylander isn’t overly interested in missing out on the offensive gravy train that's bubbling in Toronto these days.

I’ll put my best guess at a long-term deal worth 7.5 per.

So, who gets the lion share of the starts in Colorado this season? It’s a question every poolie with a pulse has been muttering to themselves this summer. After trading for the long-time Caps’ backup, the Avalanch have put another question mark next to Varlamov’s name. The Russian netminder has refused to stay healthy and/or consistent. He’s a volatile fantasy asset that few chase.

At this point, they probably give Varly the opening night gig if both play reasonably well in preseason. Then it’ll be all about the hot hand. If one goes on a long enough roll, they’ll build up some goodwill with the coaching staff and likely gain a longer leash.

Graubauer is my pick to finish with more starts, but nothing is certain in the world of goaltenders – especially ones who haven’t ever been given the ball on a long-term basis.

I released my Top 315 Skater Point Projections earlier this week. It’s two bucks for the whole shebang. Cheap Cheap.

Once a multicategory darling, Wayne Simmonds’ stock has fallen significantly. 2017-18 was a down season for the 30-year-old. Normally Simmonds is a near-lock for 25-plus goals, 50-60 points, triple-digit penalty minutes and over 200 shots on goal. However, last season saw his totals drop precipitously across the spectrum.

Five-year lows in goals (24), points (46), and shots on goal (176). His 57 penalty minutes were the lowest of his career – including the lockout-shortened 2012-13 campaign. A good chunk of this can be chalked up to his playing the season with a torn pelvis. That would not have been a fun challenge. He’s had the surgery and is ready to begin training camp.

There are a few more looming questions around the Flyers winger though. The first is contractual. He’s heading in into the final season of a six-year contract that paid him 3.975 million per. That’s turned out to be a sweetheart deal for the Flyers. And it's without question that Simmonds will be looking to cash in on what is likely his last big contract.

Second is the infusion of JVR into the lineup. The two play incredibly similar styles and there Is really only room for one net-front presence on the top power play. `Philly is paying van Riemsdyk a hefty salary and they won’t be paying him to see secondary minutes.

So, what comes next? Well, Simmonds' value will likely plummet in drafts this year. The concerns are justifiable. It’s unlikely that he sees three-plus minutes of power play deployment on the top unit next season as per usual. However, his overall game should rebound. Expect a return to the pugilistic and hardnosed player he’s always been. Rejuvenated shot metrics and around 50 blocks.

At his best, he was a 60-point player who needed top man-advantage deployment to contribute 30-plus percent of that production. Without the deployment, expect something in the 40-45-point range.

The wild card is if the Flyers decide to move the asset before seeing it walk for nothing in the offseason if they’re not prepared to pay him his ask. If a contender buys him, he will see a nice uptick in value. Something to watch as the season unfolds.

A popular pick to be in the Calder contention as Rookie of the Year this season is Eeli Tolvanen. We’ve all heard about his exploits last season in the KHL. Hell, I dedicated a weekly space at the end of my DobberProspects’ Ramblings to shine a light on the bushel of goals he’d racked up over that stretch.

However, his place in the Predators’ roster remains unclear.

No one is going to be pushing Filip Forsberg out of the top left-wing spot. He, Ryan Johansen and Viktor Arvidsson are a package until something fundamentally stops working.

That leaves Tolvanen to battle it out with Kevin Fiala for the right to slide in beside Kyle Turris on the second line. Turris and Fiala formed a nice secondary wave of offense in Nashville last season. They both provide the strong two-way ability that Tolvanen still lacks. Fiala has been building the long way and his 23-goals a year ago could be just the tip of the iceberg.

If Tolvanen is unable to secure a spot in the top six, his outlook from the third line and second power-play unit should be muted. As mentioned earlier, the Preds have enough talent to spread between two man-advantage units. The 2017 first rounder's release will be the focal point on the left circle, while Ryan Ellis’ blast will work the right side. That should be able to bump his numbers up, but expecting much more than 40 points may be asking for trouble.

That’s all for now. Feel free to follow me on Twitter @Hockey_Robinson

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-ek-fallout-nylanders-contract-avs-crease-tolvanen-simmonds-zetterberg-sept-15th/

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vancityriotcriminals · 6 years

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5 Businesses That You Can Start Right From Your Laptop

Gone are the days when you required spending thousands and thousands of dollars just to get a business name registered only to get started with your business.

You don’t need a brick-and-mortar shop or a commercial office to get started with making money for your own self by being your own boss.

With the kick-in of 21st century and mass adaptation of internet all around the world, starting a business became as easy as cooking a meal on your own and serving it to other as well.

Just at the comfort of your home and a laptop with active internet connection, you can get started with a legit business as quickly as possible.

Not only that, some businesses don’t even require you to spend a single penny to get you started with making money.

Most people get a swanking new laptop for watching Netflix, gaming or just daily browsing but with your existing laptop and an active internet connection you get started with making money.

However there are some prerequisites to start making money from your laptop; otherwise anyone and everyone would get started with it leaving their 9-to-5 jobs.

Prerequisites for Starting an Online Business

1. Having a Skill: This has always been an important factor since the starting of any business or even getting a job. You need to have some kind of skill to make you money, even if you don’t, there are multiple courses available online (even free ones) that can teach you about the topic you’re interested in. If you want to learn coding, go to Youtube and learn coding about the language you’re interested it. Resources like Khan Academy and theNewBoston have been providing free coding lessons for many years. Want to learn cooking? Youtube is your best bet, tons and tons of cooking recipes in visual format are available on Youtube. Moreover for $90, you can learn personalized cooking from the Master Cook Gordon Ramsey himself on Masterclass.com

2. At least $100 Investment: As I said earlier there are multiple businesses that you can start using your laptop with $0, I’ve personally started few business myself with ‘0’ investment. However to get a proper head start you need some sort of initial investment to get you started on the right foot. Hence a $100 investment will provide a buffer to spend money where it is actually required: like buying website hosting, getting a course or even advertising your business to get that initial stream of customers.

3. You won’t make money from 1st day itself: A lot of people have misunderstanding that starting an online business using a laptop means you will start making money from 1st day itself. Though that may be true for some people but for most, perseverance is the keyword. If you get started with any business, you need spend atleast 6-months or 1-year of time sticking to the business you started. Brands like HP, Google or Apple weren’t successful from the get go. It took them several years to reach out to consumers and start selling products. Hence people don’t give a second thought when buying from a reputed brand.

Now that you’ve understood few things about starting an online business using your laptop, here are the 5 Businesses that you can start Right from your Laptop.

#1: Blogging

Before the onset of Facebook and Twitter, celebrities and famous personalities stick to blogging to share their personal life with their fans and their fans also got a glimpse of where their idols where they were going, what they were eating, what clothes they wore and what products they used.

Nowadays anyone can start a blog and write about topics that interest them and there thousands of other people who are searching about those topics.

To get started with Blogging, you need to buy a domain ($10/year) and website hosting ($30-60/year) to setup up a legit website and start blogging about topics that interest you.

However Blogging is a very deep topic and you can search on Youtube to know about basics of blogging.

To make money from blogging, you can either apply for Amazon Affiliate program or Google’s Adsense program or start making money from there.

Wirecutter.com is an example of Amazon Affiliate based website that makes money by suggesting various products to different groups of consumers.

#2: Online Tutoring

Nowadays to become a teacher, you don’t need to an expensive college degree. Just one skill and proper use of Laptop and Internet, you can get started with online tutoring and make money on your own terms while you’re at it.

There are multiple websites on the internet that provide means to get you started with online tutoring.

Each website have their own terms and operate differently from each other, hence check website that suits you best and get started with it.

Most of the websites Pay Per Hour and the payout can be between $4-25+/Hour depending on the task and your expertise as well

#3: Publish Online Courses

Publishing Online Courses is just like Online Tutoring; however you create one course and make money off of it for a lifetime.

My own brother creates online courses related to Android App Development, Robotics, VR, AR and sells them on Udemy.com.

It takes around 1 month for him to create a high quality course consisting of 7-8 hours of content and once he publishes it on Udemy, he starts making money immediately and this generates a passive income stream for him for the next few years to come.

For eg: a course he published about making a basic Android App 2 years ago, still makes him close to $200-300/month.

So in a period of 24 months, he must have made between $5000-7000 with just that one course.

And since he has multiple courses, some that make him over $500/month, you can do the math.

#4: Online Translator

With Mass Globalization, businesses need to reach out to masses to promote their products and services or just to provide basic information.

With only 20% of World Population speaking English, businesses need Translators to translate their content from English to other language and vice-a-versa.

Though there are free and paid online translator tools available, however they aren’t as efficient when it comes to comparing to an actual person translating.

Most of us have a second language during our schooling years, if you’re affluent with it you can easily get started with online tutoring, if not just brush up on your language.

Take a look at this article, where 30 websites are listed that provide online translation jobs, register to the Top 5 websites, and you can make close to $500/month with translation services.

Though, not all language translation jobs pay the same. Translating to-and-from Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean and French pays more, whereas languages like Russian, Slovak, Hebrew and Serbian pays the least.

#5: Fiverr.com

Fiverr.com is a service based website where you can sell simple services for $5 and more.

Earlier the limit to sell any service was only $5, however now they’ve lifted this limit and hence you can easily make $10-$15 for simple task.

The popular services on Fiverr.com are Logo Designing, Graphic Designing, Article Writing, Voiceovers, Building Websites and more.

These tasks are very simple to learn on your own via Youtube and make quick bucks.

However new gigs on Fiverr.com don’t get sales easily. Hence once you post a gig on Fiverr, you can set the price to $5 and pay your friends to buy your gig and give 5-star rating, and once you have over 10-15 reviews and enough exposure, you can raise your gig’s price and get legit sales.

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