Sports Thought from a casual sports fan...

 Are NBA franchises getting smarter- and NFL franchises getting stupider?

Let me explain.

The history of the NBA is that there have always been at least a quarter of the NBA franchises that made foolish, short-sighted moves that crippled their franchises.  It wasn't enough to not be one of those franchises; you had to do a better job taking advantages of those franchises than anyone else.

The perfect example:  In 1976, the New Orleans Jazz wanted to sign Gail Goodrich.  Now in his prime Goodrich was an excellent NBA player.  But in 1976 he was 32 years old and on the downside of his career.  To sign him, the Jazz relenquished their rights to Moses Malone.  And, because of the NBA compensation laws at the time, the Jazz owed the Los Angeles Lakers their 1979 first round pick- who turned out to be Magic Johnson.

The NBA is littered with examples like that- teams making bad decisions that hurt them in the long run.  Portland picking an injured Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan.  The Knicks passing up a chance to get Julius Erving.  The Cleveland Cavaliers traded so many 1st round draft picks the NBA had to step in and create The Stepien Rule to prevent an owner from sabotaging his team too badly.

But right now... most of the NBA franchises are in decent shape.  The teams with poor records have young players and are stockpiling draft picks.  The teams that have traded their draft picks are either contenders or recent contenders.  There are still one or two franchises that make some questionable moves (Minnesota Timberwolves, anyone?).  But they are the exceptions.  Maybe with all of the money going around, the owners of the NBA are getting smarter.

But that doesn't seem to be applying to the NFL.  The NFL seems to be growing in franchises that are making foolish moves that are not good in the short term and horrific in the long term.  The obsession with getting a quarterback has led them to making stupid reckless trades.  It's one thing to go all in, try to win the Super Bowl, and then suffer the long term consequences; I'm sure fans of the Los Angeles Rams accept the poor year and lack of a draft pick in exchage for the Super Bowl Victory.  But what's the point of going all in and not even making the playoffs?

Most of the moves I see in the NBA, even if I don't agree with them, I understand them.  That's not so true with the NFL.

Well, this sucks...

My plans at the start of the week:  "I'll go visit my parents, and practice the guitar, and work out, and see about cleaning up the tool room, and..."

Reality:  I don't think so.

I've got COVID.  

Lovely.

It's my second time catching it.  I've gotten the vaccines and two boosters, so I'm not worried about long-term issues.  Thanks to modern science, for all practical purposes COVID isn't any worse for me than the flu.  

But it's still annoying.  And has knocked me on my ass for the past couple of days.

A couple brief thoughts:

* One of the main symptoms of this strain of COVID is a sore throat.  I hate having a sore throat, because it keeps waking me up all night.  I can sleep fine- for an hour at a time.  

* Honestly, the speed at the development of the COVID vaccine was impressive to the point of being scary.  The potential for the mRNA to solve not only viruses, but genetic disorders and even cancer... 

* Well... I needed something to write about this week

Dungeons and Dragons and Licenses and Players and...

For those who play Tabletop Roleplaying Games (TTRPG), the past couple of weeks have been as exciting as watching a dragon flying in to destroy your village.

The quick and dirty explanation; Dungeons & Dragons (run by the company Wizards of the Coast; owned by Hasbro) is the most well known TTRPG, and is often the first version of the TTRPG that people learn to play.  For many years it has had an Open-Game License (OGL); anyone could produce content using the Dungeons & Dragons system and sell it without worrying about being stopped by Wizards of the Coast.

This worked for years; people would play Dungeons & Dragons, and there was such a wide variety of worlds created under the system that it became the go-to system.  Even if Wizards of the Coast didn't make money from every piece of content, just about every player of TTRPG would eventually buy products from Wizards of the Coast.

But Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast felt that Dungeons & Dragons was "Under-Monetized", and wanted to increase the revenue stream.  They plan on releasing a new version of Dungeons & Dragons called One D&D... and part of the changes included changes to the OGL.  

The changes to the OGL would require third-party content providers to pay Hasbro (including 20% from Kickstarter campaigns) and give Hasbro rights over content created by third party.  This would, in effect, damage (if not kill) all third party content providers going forward.

And the fans of Dungeons & Dragons revolted.

People dropped subscriptions to D&D Beyond, the official website of Dungeons & Dragons.  They had a petition protesting the changes signed by over 60,000 people.  The players and GMs who actually run the games shouted very loudly.  

Wizards of the Coast has been backtracking, and it sounds like they changes won't be happening.  People are still angry (One of my groups is already changing systems).

This was a foolish move by Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast; I understand the desire to make more profit, but the OGL created a brand for Dungeons & Dragons that made it the behemoth of the TTRPG market.  You don't see the kids on Stranger Things playing 7th Sea, or Call of Cthulu, or Champions.

The problem with goodwill is that, once it's lost, it's very difficult to regain.  I think Wizards of the Coast is finding that out in real time.

In the meantime, let me tell you about my character...

Starting from scratch

 A good news/bad news situation.

The good news is that while I feel I've been in a artistic rut, I think I'm getting out of it.  I've been on a music kick, and it's made me want to pick up the guitar again.  When Jeff Beck passed away I started listening to his playing on videos, and they are incredible.    

I've been trying to teach myself the guitar on and off for thirty years- once taking lessons, but usually trying to teach myself by books and youtube.  It's good that I want to learn

The bad news is that I've realized I have so much to unlearn first.  I've taught myself bad habits, to the point that I have to relearn how to position my left hand to play the frets clearly.

And it's tough.  I have to not bend my wrist, but keep my left thumb straight up down and right behind my middle finger, creating a gap so I'm not bearing any weight on the guitar on my left hand.  Meanwhile, I have to position it so I can't see the frets, and need to figure out where to place my fingers so they are on the right string without dampening the other strings and doing it by feel, and...

This is requiring muscle memory and manual dexterity... two things I'm not known for.

I want to learn, so I'll put in the work (stubborness is something that I am known for).  It's worth the effort.  It's just frustrating to feel like I'm starting from level 1.

2022-2023 NFL Playoffs Support Rankings

The NFL Regular Season is over.  Super Bowl LVII is in a few weeks, and there are 14 teams left in the playoffs.  

I'm ranking them in two methods:  Which teams I want most to win, and which teams I think are most likely to win.

This past offseason, I stopped rooting for the hometown Cleveland Browns, and asked my friends to pick another team for me to root for.  They picked the Buffalo Bills, who have been excellent this year and have never won the Super Bowl (having lost four times in a row).  Combined with the injury to Damar Hamlin, and they are easily the team I most want to win this year.

Most likely to win

1. Buffalo Bills
2. Kansas City Chiefs
3. Cincinnati Bengals
4. Philadelphia Eagles
5. San Francisco 49ers
6. Los Angeles Chargers
7. Dallas Cowboys
8. Minnesota Vikings
9. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
10. Jacksonville Jaguars
11. New York Giants
12. Baltimore Ravens
13. Miami Dolphins
14. Seattle Seahawks

Rooting to win:

1. Buffalo Bills
2. Cincinnati Bengals
3. Minnesota Vikings  (I like rooting for teams that never won it before)
4. Kansas City Chiefs
5. Philadelphia Eagles
6. San Francisco 49ers
7. Los Angeles Chargers
8. Jacksonville Jaguars
9. New York Giants
10. Miami Dolphins 
11. Seattle Seahawks
12. Dallas Cowboys
13. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
14. Baltimore Ravens (yes, I'm still bitter)

Actions have consequences

Supposedly, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission is considering banning gas stoves.  The argument is that these stoves cause indoor pollution that lead to childhood asthma.  I don't know how strong the evidence is, or what improvements they expect if gas stoves are banned.

I use a gas stove in my kitchen- and so does about 35% of the country.  That's about 40 million US households.  A number of people prefer using gas instead of electricity because it controls the heat better.  Induction heat stoves work well, but are expensive and not all pots and pans can use them. Banning gas stoves would be a significant- and expensive- change.

Here are some questions that I have:

1)  If gas stoves should be banned because of indoor pollution, shouldn't gas heating also be banned for the same reason?

2)  Not only will gas stoves require buying new stoves, but also paying an electrician to install the electrical outlets required for these stove.  If this expense something the government who is banning the stove should pay for, or will they expense be passed on to the homeowner or landlord?

3)  Most electric stoves require 220VAC outlet.  Many kitchens using gas stoves do not have that outlet, and it will require an electrician to install a 220VAC outlet.  This is another expense, as well as a time sink.  

4)  The additional electric load from having people switching from gas to electrical will put additional burdens on the grid.  Is the intention to build more power plants to handle the additional burden?

5)  Many areas of the country deal with power outages (from storms or brownouts), and being able to cook food without relying on electricity is a lifesaver.  Banning gas stoves is an additional risk.

Do I think the US will actually ban gas stoves?  No.  I think they are floating this as a test balloon to test the reaction of the voters.  I don't think they are serious (though I've been proven wrong before)

Do I think it's a good idea?  I think it's a huge burden for a large part of the country, and something that will backfire badly if imposed without thinking through the consequences.  The US Consumer Product Safety Commission is going to need quite a bit of hard evidence before they will convince the voters this is a good idea.

I'm biased- I like my gas stove, and don't want to go through the expense of changing it.  but I could also handle the expense if it was required, and I suspect many people could not.  If you're going to make a move that affects this much of the country, you'd better be sure it's necessary.  

Three cheers for the optimists

Last night, the TV show "60 Minutes" had an article about the planet being in the middle of an extinction crisis.  And they interviewed, in the article... Paul Ehrlich

Paul Ehrlich is famous, in 1968, for writing 'The Population Bomb', a book famous for predicting mass starvation in the 1970s.  Which turned out to be wrong.  He also predicted that the United Kingdom would not exist by the year 2000, that all important sea life would be extinct by 1980... Pretty much every prediction Ehrlich made in his book was wrong.  Hell, Economist Julian Simon made a wager with Ehrlich about resources getting scarcer... and won the bet.

8,000,000,000 strong... and growing.

Basically, Ehrlich is a doomsayer who predicted the end of mankind over 50 years ago, was proven wrong time and again... and is still considered an expert who gets interviewed on tv.  Maybe this time, the Apocalypse will really happen.  

But... here's the thing.  The world's getting better.  Starvation-level poverty is dropping.  We are taking steps to creating a carbon-free energy resource that is nearly limitless.  We're even using gene editing tools to treat leukaemia.  

Are there still problems and concerns?  Absolutely... there always are.  But looking objectively, there's no reason for this 'The World is Coming to an End' bullshit panic that 60 minutes seems to be embracing.  I can't believe anyone takes Ehrlich seriously.  I'd have thought people would ignore him, and I would have been wrong.

But not as wrong as Ehrlich.