Posts Tagged ‘Coach K’
Easter Links! Find Them All!
* The 2015 Hugo nominees have been announced, and they’re a mess. The Hugo Awards Were Always Political. But Now They’re Only Political. A Note About the Hugo Nominations This Year. The Puppy-Free Hugo Award Voter’s Guide. The Biggest Little SF Publisher you never heard of declares war. “Why I Declined a Hugo Award Nomination.”
* And in response to the question “Well, what should have been nominated for a Hugo?”: “Andromache and the Dragon,” by my brilliant Marquette colleague Brittany Pladek!
* “The Many Faces of Tatiana Maslany”: In portraying a horde of clones on ‘Orphan Black,’ the actress has created TV’s strangest — and most sophisticated — meditation on femininity. And a special bonus companion piece: Meet The Woman (Besides Tatiana Maslany) Who Plays Every Single “Orphan Black” Clone.
* Reddit’s Bizarre, Surreal, Maddening, Hypnotic, Divisive, and Possibly Evil April Fools’ Joke. I’ve become obsessed with this.
* CFP: Ephemeral Television. CFP: Into the Pensieve: The Harry Potter Generation in Retrospect.
* Watching them turn off the Rothkos.
* Somali Militants Kill 147 at Kenyan University.
* Iran’s Been Two Years Away From a Nuclear Weapon for Three Decades. The Iran deal. What if the Iranians are people too?
* So how much money is the NCAA making? In 2010, CBS and Turner Broadcasting gave the NCAA $10.8 billion for a fourteen-year broadcast monopoly on March Madness games. Estimated ad revenue for the 2013 tournament reached $1.15 billion, while ticket revenue brought in another $71.7 million. Last year no less than thirty-five coaches pulled down salaries higher than $1 million before bonuses; Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski topped the list with an income of more than $9.6 million.
* Guarding against the errant, suicidal murderous pilot belongs to a category called “wicked problems” — the complexity of the system and the conflicting incentives mean that every solution introduces another set of problems, so the only way forward is always going to be an imperfect one. Second, and perhaps more importantly, is that this once again reveals how, as humans, we are lousy at risk assessment, and also lousy of accepting this weakness. The problem is wicked, but its occurrence is so rare that it is almost unheard of — partly why it terrifies us so. Our imagination, biases and fears are terrible guides to what should actually be done to keep us safer, and this has significant consequences in a whole host of fields, ranging from terrorism to childcare to health-care.
* So you see, people like Tim Cook are selective in their moral universalism; morality, it turns out, is universal only insofar as extends to the particular desires of a Western bourgeoisie; deny a gay couple a wedding bouquet that they could get at the florist down the street anyway, and that is a cause for outrage and concern; extract minerals using indentured Congolese servants, well, look, we’ve got marginal cost to consider! The moral argument, it turns out, curdles when exposed to the profit motive, and the universality of justice actually does end at certain borders, one way or another.
* How the Slave Trade Built America.
* But unlike its predecessor, the show has no obvious narrative progression. Nacho’s important, or he’s not; the Kettlemans are half the show, or maybe we should care about Sandpiper. There are flashbacks to Jimmy’s past where Bob Odenkirk is playing either 25 or 57—a savvy criminal or a neophyte screw-up. In the lead-up to Better Call Saul, there were theories that the show would be funnier than Breaking Bad (maybe a sitcom?) or more procedural than Breaking Bad (maybe The Good Wife for bad boys?) or more episodic (like X-Files with lawyers!). None of that is true, and all of that is true. It’s interesting, but not the way great TV is interesting. Better Call Saul reminds me more of Treme or John From Cincinnati: post-masterpiece meanders.
* In TV’s Silver Age, a logjam of shows that are ‘pretty good,’ but not great.
* Here’s A Map That Shows All The Future Megacities From Science Fiction.
* Can science fiction be a form of social activism? Walidah Imarisha thinks so, and she’s recruited everyone from LeVar Burton to Mumia Abu-Jamal to help her prove it.
* Johns Hopkins Faces $1-Billion Lawsuit Over U.S. Experiments in Guatemala.
* sirens.io, blogging from seven years in the future.
* Are Aliens Behind Mysterious Radio Bursts? Scientists Weigh In.
* Calif. Governor Orders Mandatory Water Restrictions For 1st Time In History. It’s up to us to singlehandedly save california from drought by turning off the tap when we brush our teeth! California is pumping water that fell to Earth 20,000 years ago. California Drought Tests History of Endless Growth. R.I.P. California (1850-2016): What We’ll Lose And Learn From The World’s First Major Water Collapse. Children of the Drought.
* Starting this week, 25,000 households in Baltimore will suddenly lose their access to water for owing bills of $250 or more, with very little notice given and no public hearings.
* Oceans might take 1,000 years to recover from climate change, study suggests.
* Drug field tests used by cops are so bad they react positively to air, soap, candy.
* Trolley Problem: The Game. Advanced Trolley Problems.
* Scott Walker’s budget cuts $5.7 million from pollution control efforts.
* The Most Popular Antidepressants Are Based On A Theory We Know Is Wrong. Most antidepressant users have never had depression.
* 12 New Science Fiction Comics You Absolutely Need to be Reading.
* Hero Price Is Right model begins the revolution by just giving away a car.
* First as an unexpectedly great show, then as I don’t know it doesn’t sound like a very good idea to me.
* New report says manned Mars mission could reach orbit by 2033, land by 2039.
* Clarke makes her point not with stirring courtroom rhetoric or devastating legal arguments but by a process of relentless accretion, case by case, win by win. This is her cause. Because if the state cannot put these defendants to death, then how can it put anyone to death? Thirty-five executions took place in the United States in 2014 for crimes that form an inventory of human cruelty—and yet few were as willful and egregious as those committed by Judy Clarke’s clients.
* Here is an example of the priorities in New York state’s budget: There is no increase in the minimum wage, but purchasers of yachts that cost more than $230,000 are exempt from the sales tax.
* U.S. Court Officially Rules that Friendship Is Worthless.
* Tales from the Trenches: I was SWATed.
* Texas Just Does Not Care How Hot Its Prisons Get.
* Duke tries throwing polio at cancer, as you do.
* Interesting article on design: The Secret History of the Apple Watch.
* Senate Republicans say the current system is unfair because rural residents are effectively supporting urban counties’ schools and services when they shop there. Yes, that’s literally how the system is intended to function.
* The dystopian lake filled by the world’s tech lust.
* So you want to resurrect a college.
* These Slow-Motion Videos of Fluids Vibrating on Speakers Are Wonderful.
* Now Full House, and the Muppets too.
* These Photos Of Melanie Griffith And Her Pet Lion In The 1970s Are Everything. (UPDATE: Here’s the article that seems to be the original source, plus a little bit on Roar’s rerelease. Noteworthy lines from Wikipedia: “Over 70 of the cast and crew were injured during the production of this film.”)
* Landlord Sends Man $1,200 Bill To Cleanup His Roommate’s Blood, Who Was Shot Dead By Police.
* Stan VHS, A Tumblr Blog Featuring 1980s-Style VHS Cover Art for Modern Television Shows and Movies.
* SF Short of the Weekend: “Burnt Grass.”
* …and your short short of the weekend: “No One Is Thirsty.”
* I finally found enough time to be annoyed by Obama interviewing David Simon about The Wire.
* And because you demanded it: An oral history of Max Headroom.
Fourth of July America Links USA USA
* How to Spot a Communist Using Literary Criticism: A 1955 Manual from the U.S. Military. And they say literary criticism is useless.
* DHS immediately begins implementing green cards to gay couples, without stalling or dragging its feet or needing to be sued. Amazing. I’d have never predicted it.
* Heat maps of poverty in US cities, 1980-2010. At right: Milwaukee in 2010. “Whites are in blue; blacks yellow; Hispanics green; and Asians red.”
So far this offseason, around 450 Division I basketball players have announced they’re changing schools. This turnover has imperiled the sport, says Marshall University basketball coach Tom Herrion, who calls it a “transfer epidemic.” Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski says that “[k]ids don’t stick to the school that they pick and they want instant gratification.” South Carolina’s Frank Martin agrees: “Kids are not being taught to stay the course, be patient, to learn how to work and improve.” Adds Alabama’s Anthony Grant, “I don’t think it’s something any coach will tell you is good for the game.”
GREEDY NCAA PLAYERS DEMANDING RIGHT TO CHOOSE WHICH GROUP OF MILLIONAIRES WON’T PAY THEM FOR THEIR LABOR PLEASE CALL POLICE
* India has officially recognized dolphins as non-human persons, whose rights to life and liberty must be respected. Dolphin parks that were being built across the country will instead be shut down.
* An Open Letter to New Teach for America Recruits.
Many of you no doubt believe you are joining a progressive education justice movement, that is the message TFA sells so well. But I want you to understand clearly, TFA is not progressive. The kind of limited data-driven pedagogy, the fast-track preparation, the union-busting, the forced exploitation of your labor, the deep-pocketed affiliation with corporate education reform are all very conservative, very anti-progressive ideas. Look no further than TFA’s list of supporters/donors. The largest donations are from groups like the Walton Foundation, of Walmart fortune, which has a vested interest in the status quo of inequality, breaking unions, and keeping wages low and workers oppressed. Or notice the many partnerships with JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America, the very institutions which caused the financial collapse and threw millions of Americans-including your future students’ families-into foreclosure, bankruptcy, and deeper poverty. These organizations choose to donate to TFA because TFA supports their agendas. If TFA was truly pushing back on the status quo of educational inequality, these types of donors would not only refuse financial support, they would be attacking a group which threatens their earning potential.
* Meanwhile, making the rounds again: Gates Foundation Funding Wrist Bracelets to Monitor Teaching Effectiveness. How to Write a Conservative Article about Education.
* The Humanities, Declining? Not According to the Numbers. Well, you know, you can prove anything using facts.
* “This is text from an actual email from an actual coursera professor to actual coursera students.”
* More than 260 colleges and universities in 40 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have students who are more likely to default on their loans than full-time freshmen are to graduate, an analysis of federal data shows.
* Bummer Watch Lightning Round: Fox News adopts George Zimmerman. Kevin Clash’s (One) Day in Court. Gitmo Detainees to Be Force-Fed at Night Out of Respect for Ramadan. The street value of black market ivory in China — up to $1,300 a pound — rivals that of cocaine or gold. And, of course, North Carolina. Oh, North Carolina.
* In New York, Blasi said, his security personnel did not have the police’s powers of arrest and don’t have the power to arrest and shoot lawbreakers, and the city police did not believe they had the power to enter this private space. During the Zuccotti crisis, Blasi said he dreamed of turning on fire hydrants, letting loose German shepherds and deploying blow torches. Ralph Blasi is a director of security for a real estate company. Fire hydrants, German shepherds, blow torches.
* The marshmallow test became an important part of psychology canon. But a study in 2012 suggests that the children in the experiment did not necessarily differ in their ability to resist temptation. Instead, it was their trust in the researcher to return with the promised marshmallow that differed.
* And the headline reads: Human head transplants? Neurosurgeon says ‘we have the technology.’ All right, damnit, I’m in.
Duke in the News!
Coach K and Obama get into it—what are you going to do now, Su?—while The New Republic traces the relationship between Duke hatred and homophobia.
Duke is probably the most despised team in college basketball. And proud Duke haters–like my colleague Jason Zengerle and Will Blythe, author of To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever: A Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting, and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the Duke-North Carolina Basketball Rivalry–have often imbued their dislike of the Blue Devils with a political subtext. To many of its staunchest enemies, Duke is a malevolent Goliath–an elitist, corporate, conservative force out to crush more virtuous, liberal Davids. In the UNC-Duke rivalry, Blythe explains, “[i]ssues of identity–whether you see yourself as a populist or an elitist, as a local or an outsider, as public-minded or individually striving–get played out.” He also notes that UNC’s long-time coach Dean Smith, who retired in 1997, was a vocal Democrat while Duke’s coach Mike Krzyzewski is an active Republican. This has only added to the sense that there is something fundamentally liberal about loathing the Blue Devils.
But there’s one major problem with the neat morality play that left-leaning Duke haters have constructed for themselves: the jarring and disproportionate level of homophobia that routinely gets directed at the basketball players. There’s the classic “This is Why Duke Sucks” YouTube video that has received more than 1.6 million hits–and boasts lyrics about one Duke player being a “bitch” and another having a “dude’s face all on [his] balls.” Or the more recent (and explicit) video, “Greg Paulus–‘I Kissed a Boy,'” which mocks Duke’s senior guard for, among other things, enjoying the taste of men’s sweat. Or another video about Paulus (“Tea Bag: A Greg Paulus Tribute”), posted by user TarHeel32Blue, which shows several clips of the guard near or between the legs of other players.
Exhibit A, however, is the cascade of homophobia directed at superstar three-point shooter J.J. Redick during his years in Durham. In 2004, N.C. State guard Scooter Sherrill said publicly that, after Redick shot threes, he had “his hand up like he’s gay or something.” A quick perusal of Redick’s Wikipedia history reveals dozens of now-deleted comments like, “J.J. Redick is a confirmed homo sexual” with whom it’s rumored “coach K made sexual arrangements.” A notorious photo snapped during a game shows a Duke fan with a “JJ is Redickulous” sign standing unsuspectingly next to a Maryland supporter who adds “-ly gay” with his own poster. The New York Times wrote about the cheers of “Brokeback Mountain” often shouted at him during games, and you can still find photos on Tarheeltimes.com that show Redick’s face superimposed on images from the movie.
Dollhouse, Duke, Watchmen, Time
Friday morning links.
* Is Dollhouse already canceled? Fox is advertising that Prison Break returns to Fridays on 4/17.
* Mike Krzyzewski gets a tough evaluation on ratemyprofessor.com.
* Alternate-universe Watchmens. Only the Woody Allen hypothesis really sings.
* And this xkcd is quieter than the ones that usually get ricocheted across the Internet, but damn if it didn’t make me laugh.
* And is time really the fire in which we burn? Consider the thermal time hypothesis. More at MetaFilter.
According to Connes and Rovelli, the same applies to the universe at large. There are many more constituents to keep track of: not only do we have particles of matter to deal with, we also have space itself and therefore gravity. When we average over this vast microscopic arrangement, the macroscopic feature that emerges is not temperature, but time. “It is not reality that has a time flow, it is our very approximate knowledge of reality that has a time flow,” says Rovelli. “Time is the effect of our ignorance.”
I think Rovelli just wrote Alan Moore’s next three graphic novels. Grant Morrison’s, too.
Academic Priorities
Academic priorities.
Duke’s a little bit of an outlier here because our football team sort of sucks—our coach makes a paltry $300,000.
And then there’s Coach K.
