Freshwater Spartan

Just finished. A couple thoughts. Overall liked it. Second best season after the magical first season. Appreciated the setting and creepy vibes. Solid acting and characters. Not thrilled with the reveal on who killed scientists or rather our "true" detectives not pursuing THAT case. A real true detective would put those murderers away and not back down to mob justice. Of course our two detectives were revealed to be quite comprised so no real heroes in this one. Virtue noir is very clever term. I see a lot of similarities between this and the stupid morality we see in most recent Quentin Tarantino movies. Hope we get a season 5. (Seems likely). Really do love the anthology big budget crime series as an idea. Alan Moore is cool. Watchman show was cool too. Jerusalem was a great book. Remember if a tv show does everything you hope it would do there isnt much point in watching it.

I think the critics are right and you guys are wrong on this one. This is great crime drama, well shot, well written and well acted. Like all things in art and entertainment not everything is meant for everyone. If this one is not to your taste check out Monsieur Spade on AMC. Another great crime drama that started about the same time as Night Country. For myself I'm tickled pink that there are two great tv shows already and its only January. And Fargo just finished up which was fantastic as well. I am TV heaven right now.

Another great season. Right up there with season 2. So much fun to watch this being a Midwesterner. Hopefully we get a 6th season but I have a feeling this is it. One of my top ten shows for sure.

Hopefully they can beat Louisville without Brown. Would love to see them get to the playoffs. Edit: Overlooked Florida. That's two games they gotta adjust. Looks like the backup did ok against the cupcake so there's that.

Rumor its Urban to TA&M

There are a few Texas and Florida schools that are AAU members, not sure if any are itching to leave . Miami U is most likely perhaps.

From what I understand the Big Ten will not have divisions next year. The will be scrapped in favor of a nine game conference schedule that rotates so that everyone plays each other at least once ever three(?) years. More details here https://bigten.org/news/2023/10/4/big-ten-conference-announces-future-football-schedule-formats-for-2024-28.aspx

This is funny Iowa Northwestern scored fewer points than 6 Cubs games In other news it looks like two of the Big-Tens strongest teams USC and Washington have a good one cooking.

I think the ultimatum placed on Brian Ferentz that he must score 25 points a game this year or be fired has made for the best must see NCAA football this year.

They hired private investigators to prove we are cheating therefore it doesn't count as cheating!!!!!

The best thing about mass paperbacks is that they would spawn used book stores that had huge stacks of ....you guessed it..... Mass Paperbacks! Take your cheap mass paperbacks and go to the local used book store. Sell them for a couple of bucks and walk out with an armload of MOARR paperbacks!!!!! Pure 1990s grooviness.

I think the real issue is that they had all signals for all opponents (probably not TCU) in the last three years. It's a clear violation of fair play. It's the equivalent of playing poker where Michigan gets to keep their cards secret while everyone else is playing open hand. You can't say it didn't help. Look at Harbaugh's middling record prior to 2021 before the sign stealing began. The rule exists for two reasons equity and player safety. 1. While all Big Ten and SEC schools could afford to pay scouts, many of the have-not schools cannot. 2. If the defense knows exactly where the ball goes they can hit the player with greater force increasing the chance of injury. Privately most head coaches (especially big schools) would want to adopt NFL style helmet communications. This was considered cost prohibitive for most schools back in 1994 when the no scouting or recording of signs rule was implemented. No idea if that is still true.

Trouble in Ann Arbor https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/38727023/u-m-staffer-bought-tickets-11-schools

Easy there cowboy. Just some light hearted banter. You're right early in the season blah blah blah. Still think Big Tenn blows and has for a few years now. Just thought it was kinda cool that the PAC 12 was doing well in their swan song season. Wish the Big ten was better at winning national champions in football and basketball than they were at decimating other conferences for money. Go blue huh? CMU grad or Eastern? Or perhaps Macomb CC?

BIG Ten is awful this year. If OSU is the best team yikes. Indiana earns a 4OT win over Akron!!!!. My Spartans are braving new frontiers of bad. Iowa's O.C is back below 25pts per game. Lethargic performances all around. in the Big Ten. PSU looks good but Franklin is good for a loss or two. PAC12 looks great. In a more just world where winning mattered and not money, they would be raiding the BIG for teams to forge super conference.

Brenda Tracy expressed a desire to remain anonymous as long as possible. Reporters began picking up the story. It was going to be published with or without her participating. She chose to give USA today verification and documents so that her story would get out first coherently rather than have many news outlets publish different accounts. It was her going public that allowed Haller to suspend Tucker. It was not her preferred course of action. She's pretty pissed and probably feels some shame, which isn't what you want to happen. He gone. Make no mistake about it. (ok technically you're right he is not fired.) But really he's fired. He's a scumbag for sure. MSU paid out some of the largest settlements in history for not taking victims and accusations seriously enough. This process is all about taking victims seriously and yes avoiding liability in the future. Again Haller did not know Tracy's allegations until her hand was forced to publish. Once the hearing happens my understanding is that it will probably be a few more weeks before the decision is published. In a different world, Tucker may have managed to coach most of the season before being shit-canned. Its one the silver lining in the yet another awful embarrassment for my school. We got rid of him quicker. Did better but some of my comments still got mixed I think

Sure but if you make it difficult for victims to come forward in the future and make it more likely that harassment continues in the future have you really accomplished anything? Looks cool though. Yep love my school. Glad Tucker is gone. Doesn't change the fact that Haller handled the situation by the book according MSU's trauma informed title IX process developed after the Nassar case. I have tried to explain the reasoning why this process is set up the way it is. Won't claim its perfect. A self righteous approach feels good but doesn't prevent sexual harassment, minimize liability or protect the privacy of individuals involved. Edit....sorry tech dumb. Didn't multi quote correctly. Some of my comments got mixed with yours. Also apologies if I came off flippant and terse. You're mad. I'm mad. Everyone's mad at Tucker and wants justice.

You CAN suspend him but it doesn't mean you SHOULD. Pros of suspending him in December.... You get to feel self righteous. Cons .....you now have opened yourself to wrongful termination lawsuits from the accused. And you have opened your organization to a plethora of lawsuits when the accuser inevitably gets uncovered. The whole point of the title IX process is to protect the accuser to make them feel safe to come forward with any harassment allegations. This is how the process is supposed to work. Unlike many businesses and schools there is no world in which Tucker is suspended for breaking team rules and reporters not finding out why. MSU is one of the world's largest public universities and research institutions. MSU is high visibility. National and local press love a good MSU scandal. You suspend him Tracy absolutely gets uncovered in much quicker time than the almost 10 months it took. You send the message to future women that if they come forward protecting their identities is not a concern or high priority. Can't do that in post Nassar world. As far as the other people in danger point...a couple of thoughts. This was not a criminal complaint. There is no evidence that police were ever contacted and involved. The independent investigator has to look into into the complaint. If the investigator uncovers evidence that others are in danger I am sure they are supposed to contact the appropriate authorities. Again the athletic director has none of this information in December. Only the investigator does. All he knows is a complaint has been filed. He learned all the details the same time everyone else did. No question he has listened to the lawyers through this whole process. My only criticism is that they suspended him without pay. Seems a little premature before the October hearing and might open MSU to some future liability. It seems they wanted to send a message Tucker is gone. A self righteous move if you will.

As I understand it.. Only three people are supposed know the details of a ongoing title ix investigation. The accused, the accuser and the investigator. The athletic director Alan Haller was informed that an investigation was happening in December. He was not informed of the details. This is how the process is supposed to work. You can't suspend the Tucker in December because he might be innocent. Again you don't know any details. You also can't suspend because the accuser Brenda Tracy wanted to remain anonymous. Suspending Tucker would also raise inevitable questions that would lead to her identity being revealed. You let the investigator do their job. In July Haller was informed that a hearing was set in October during State's bye week. You still can't suspend because you still don't know any details and you can't risk doxing the accuser. This opens the University up to a lawsuit from that end. Only when Tracy confirmed details to the USA story can the University act to suspend Tucker because many of the details are now public knowledge. As I see so far the administration has handled the case correctly. Suspending Tucker is the right call and they waited for the right time to do it. Glad he is gone. He will never coach MSU again. The only variable left is how much of his 70 million plus contract he gets.

Never read the books other than the first 50 pages of the first book. But I got to say I am digging this series. Season 2 episode 3 was about as good as you can hope for in a fantasy television show or any show for that matter. Favorite fantasy show currently. No clue on how well they are staying true to the books but they have made a compelling show so far. Their best bet is to use the source material to inspire the best eight episodes possible and not worry about retelling a blow by blow report on a thousand page book (or books?). Distill it and reframe it if necessary. Someone above complained about the time Rosmand Pike was getting. Make her the center. She's excellent. Novels be damned. The books always had a reputation of being too bloated but at the same time not progressing the story. The show should strive to be leaner than that.

To me audiobooks count as reading. I often pick up more details from the audio book because the narrator forces me to slow down. I have a real tendency to speed read at the cost of losing minute information. I do have to be mindful to focus though. If my mind wanders too much its time to turn off the audio book and turn on the music. I suppose sight reading is more difficult and there is more of a sense of accomplishment when finishing a book that way. But that is no big deal. Most audio books I read tend to be lightweight stuff anyway. Still hate to say audio is not reading though. Who knows? Someday I might go blind. If that happens audio might be the only kind of reading I do. Will I cease to be a reader then?

Good answer. Florida might be an example for the other side. Most elections it is going Republican but a lot money and sweat has to be spent to make that a guarantee.

I wonder if we invested more money in carbon capture technology we could make improvements. Perhaps a billion or more might help. Again I maintain climate change is a big problem that requires many tools to solve. It's illogical to be against a technology that a lot of informed people think is doable. Don't kid yourself transferring to an all renewable energy is going to be a lot more difficult than you think and is probably not going to deliver as much and cost more than what you currently get. Good to see the summary speak highly of nuclear. We need more nuke plants. And if we figure this climate change thing with more energy sources from nuclear and renewables we can tear down all of our dams and hydroelectric plants for better fishing.

Not an engineer so I couldn't pretend to address all of these. A good friend of mine is an engineer for one of the region's energy company and he's very bullish on the technology. Conversations with him did a lot to change my perspective which was initially sceptical. I think with carbon capture the goal is to capture all (most) of the emissions. Yes you certainly have to spend more energy to do this. But renewables also cost more. I don't believe we will ever totally eliminate fossil fuels and it would be foolish to try. We are nowhere close to a point where green energy is able to produce all of the energy we need. We probably lack the real estate needed for solar and wind farms to do so. Doing so would probably destroy all nature for our critters and much of our farm land. All of these green technologies have faults and limitations just like carbon capture. This is why if your serious about the problem you have to be willing embrace multiple approaches for a problem as big and serious as climate change In the end Tywin is probably right. We won't be able to solve it but in my estimation carbon capture has a good chance of improving the health of the planet because very powerful companies can get invested in achieving that goal.

There is no one solution for climate change. To solve the problem will take dozens of approaches. I think technology based approaches are far more likely to succeed than incentive based approaches. Solar and wind won't do it alone. No one wants nuclear (which is probably our best weapon against climate change). I think the billion dollar funding for carbon capture is a good idea.