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Maithanet

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Everything posted by Maithanet

  1. While I'm sure he had plenty of other roles, the only thing I know Stephen Baldwin for is The Usual Suspects, and he was awesome in that.
  2. I read somewhere that in the 90s she/her agent was very aggressive in salary negotiations, and that as a result many parts went to other (cheaper) actresses.
  3. Sam Darnold had a defensive impact that Watt, Lewis, or even Lawrence Taylor could not match.
  4. All those guys are good, but none impacted the defense the way that top 3 did. To some extent that is just the nature of the position that pass rusher can influence the run and the pass in a way that a standout corner cannot. Nnamdi Asomogha had so few passes thrown his way for two seasons in Oakland that you basically couldn't even assess how good he was. And in both those years the Raiders defense was below average, because completely shutting off one receiver is only a modest setback for the offense. (Not that Asomogha is an all time great.)
  5. Aaron Donald is retiring. Good for him, no need to hang on as your play declines. He's got a ring and is without a doubt amongst the best ever. The list of guys with comparable defensive careers this century is basically just JJ Watt and Ray Lewis.
  6. Worked out well except for the part about Universal not making a ton of money on Oppenheimer. It grossed nearly a billion dollars, which is a pretty astonishing feat given the subject matter, and I'm not at all sure any other director could have pulled it off.
  7. Bo's time is very unoffical. Here's an article about it. He didn't run at the NFL combine, so there is no official time. He ran at Auburn in front of some NFL scouts. According to Bo, he ran an electronic time of 4.13, but the author of the piece couldn't find anyone to corroborate that. A executive named Ron Wolf was there and said it was a hand-timed 4.16, which is REALLY different. Any hand timed record is basically worthless because hand timing has an uncertainty of 0.15-0.2 seconds, and for a 40 yard dash that is massive. So....if Bo is telling the truth AND remembering correctly, then he may have the fastest 40 time in NFL history, but I personally doubt it. Everyone loves a good Bo Jackson story, but if this were true it seems like it wouldn't be that hard to find guys to corroborate it.
  8. Xavier Worthy set a new record 40 time of 4.21 seconds. In comparing 40 times, people have used tape of Usain bolt on his wr 100 meter dash to estimate that he ran the first 40 in something like 4.10. It's a little tricky because the NFL doesn't use a starting gun, the clock starts when you start. And Bolt obviously had starting blocks, so there's a little uncertainty in the time, could be off by a few hundredths. It's also interesting that bolt isn't a particularly good starter as sprinters go, he was usually with the pack after 20 meters, it was just his massive stride that allowed him to pull away after that. I've heard that argument that what is truly elite about Bolt is his coordination. Most sprinters are average height, like 5-8 to 6-0. Bolt is nearly 6-6, and obviously that is an advantage. But most guys that size lack the coordination to run really fast. It is an argument for why Bolt might actually not be doping, because PEDs don't improve coordination. I'm not sure I totally buy it, but I would like to think it's true.
  9. Hope Henry has gas left in the tank. If he does, the Ravens should be fun next year.
  10. Jaedong was also a pretty good SC2 player, although he was never able to replicate the success he had in SC1. He stuck around a bit longer than Flash did. Tanks are definitely less central to terran strategy in SC2. They are still viable units, but they do less damage and are not the ultimate weapon of terran groundgame. Often pros facing a mass tank/marine strategy can just outmaneuver them, either by ambushing them from multiple angles, attacking them with air units or base trading. Broodlords and tempests both hard counter tanks pretty hard.
  11. I'm not really sure Rain or Soulkey really qualify as SC2 transplants at this point, they haven't played pro SC2 since 2015 and 2016 respectively. That's more than half the time the game has been out. TY on the other hand was active through 2021 (then went to military) and is one of the top 8 or so SC2 players ever.
  12. Kirk Cousins to the Falcons. I had expected Minnesota to resign him. Atlanta has invested a lot of draft capital (Kyle Pitts, Bijan Robinson, Drake London) in their offensive skill positions, so I guess this year we'll get to find out if they have talent or just "talent".
  13. I was surprised too! I imagine he's still a pretty big draw just on name recognition, even though it looks like he's no longer a top zerg. TY and Byun are my favorite terrans in SC2, I was disappointed when TY moved to SC1. TY has a gift for playing what seems like standard play in a slightly different way, which is always fun to watch.
  14. I'm fairly sure polishgenius is being sarcastic, and is mocking the idea that we can be cavalier about invading Russian cities.
  15. I watched a bit of ASL over the weekend. I want to add the big caveat that I'm not trying to criticize anyone here, but I feel like SC2 games are just much more interesting than SC1. I obviously am working on a limited sample, but I checked out four groups of the r24 in the current ASL. I felt like nearly half the games were basically build order wins, which is the least interesting thing to watch and is over super fast. This is made worse because ASL is best of one, so if someone picks a build that counters what you were doing, that's it. No chance to show what you can do or maybe outplay them, it's just over. Pretty underwhelming fan experience. In the games that did go longer, it just wasn't nearly as action packed. I know unit control is harder in SC1, so I'm not complaining about player ability. The players are incredibly good. But if a SC2 game goes past the 6 minute mark, much of the time there are battles going on constantly (or with very brief breaks) for the rest of the game. Often there are 2 or 3 battles happening at once, with ling/zealot runbys to backstab when the enemy moves out, terrans dropping the main while besieging the front, etc. I'm sure if I knew the strategies better I could appreciate how hard it is to move a big army across the map without getting caught out of position. But that is not, in and of itself, very interesting to watch. By far the best games that I saw were the TY games, because he was playing SC2 strats! He bamboozled Jaedong, which was awesome, even if he couldn't quite grind it out against Shuttle.
  16. I would check out Shattered Sea, it's worth a read if you're a fan of Abercrombie's work. It is probably a bit more teen angsty than his other works, but then his other works don't really feature any teenagers, so that makes sense. It's still Abercrombie - it isn't particularly thick with melodrama or will-they-won't-they nonsense.
  17. Gas prices averaged $3.21 in Feb 2024, cheaper than they were 10 years ago ($3.35 in Feb 2014). The argument that gas prices are abnormally high is simply a Fox News narrative, rather than actually fact based.
  18. Put more simply, I think that Biden shouldn't run that the economy is good, but that the economy is improving. While some people are definitely still grumpy about inflation we saw in 21-22, it is under control. Wages are rising, unemployment is low. People can be a lot more forgiving if they think things are getting better. The US economy was still kinda shit in 2012, but it was unquestionably improving and that was enough.
  19. I feel like that's a mischaracterization of what sanctions are trying to accomplish. They are seeking to reduce Russian energy profits (ideally to zero, but everyone knows that will never actually happen). They also want to make selling goods to Russia, particularly hard to manufacture things like microchips and specialized parts. On both these fronts the sanctions have been imperfect, like always, but they pretty clearly have been at least somewhat successful. The struggles of the domestic Russian aircraft industry is one example, crappy consumer electronics showing up in Russian missiles is another. Anyone who expected the Russian economy or war effort to simply collapse as a result of sanctions is either engaging in wishful thinking or doesn't know much about sanctions. North Korea and Cuba have been able to manage for 60+ years under sanctions, and the Russian economy is far more robust than either of them.
  20. The madness is not any less from the war being smaller, but let's try and keep a little perspective before we start breaking out Stalingrad comparisons. All of the KIA on both sides in 2+ years of this war are basically equal to that of the Second Battle of Kharkiv, itself only a medium sized two week battle on the Eastern Front.
  21. There's only one place that hasn't been corrupted by wokeism. SPAAAACE!!
  22. You're welcome to hope, but I really doubt it. Tyson is turning 58 the week after the fight, his last heavyweight win was 2003. He's like a full generation past the point where he should be boxing. Jake Paul is nothing special, but he's working hard to maximize what limited talent he has, and he's in his 20s. Like basically all Jake Paul fights, it's a little embarrassing for both fighters to be doing this. But the money is good, and apparently Tyson needs money.
  23. I don't play SC2 all that much, and when I do it's just casual games not grinding the latter. Getting your skills to the point where you can really make a decent account for yourself is just really hard and takes a ton of time. I could read several good books instead, and frankly that seems like a better use of my hours. But I still watch SC2, because it is relaxing and enjoyable. Playing starcraft is vastly more stressful than watching it.
  24. Starcraft and SC2 are both extremely difficult games to play well. Even watching pro players at times it's obvious that things are falling apart and they can't keep up with everything happening. Managing complex compositions of different units plus spellcasters is something that does not come easily for casual players. I played zerg, but it was just really hard to manage things well enough to even get to late game. Most games one side gets an army, pushes across and either wins or fails and gets killed on the counterattack. Have you considered watching any more recent games? The level of play has increased dramatically since 2012. Games are just action packed in a way that no one could manage 12 years ago. This is a TVZ from the quarterfinals of last year's world championship and it's a pretty good series between 2021 world champ Reynor and scrappy underdog Olivera.
  25. I have no idea. I'm not sure it makes much of a difference though, as either way it is The Company deciding whether the employees have been sufficiently obedient to get any money at all for years of work. I no longer own the novelisation, so I don't know if I got that notion from the book or not. And I agree, that is probably just Alan Dean Foster's opinion rather than anything else. Although the very concept of "canon" doesn't mean much with the Alien universe with the twisted timeline and crazy Predator tie-ins.
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