45 thoughts on “February 19, 2018: Gathering Resources”

  2. When you get far enough along, don't forget to loop in codefox. He's very into board games.

    1. Ouch. The wife says the worst pain has to be childbearing, but women who have done both say kidney stones can be worse.

      1. I remember the day of this last summer, where the pain kept getting worse and worse and you wondered if it would ever get better. And then the point in time where you are unable to go.

  4. So I haven't been following too closely (I don't know that there's been much news to follow), but I'm curious how others here react... When the story first dropped against Sano, I kind of expected there would be several other claims that would come out too. I haven't heard of any yet? I don't suggest this in any way exonerates him or means we shouldn't believe the accuser - in fact, the level of detail in her story, and the other reactions at the time lead me to believe there's not much question about her story being true.

    I'm just... I'm surprised? I'm not really sure how I feel. I'm still disgusted with Sano, but maybe I'm more hopeful that a proper punishment will lead to correction? Do I feel like this was an error, not a pattern, like I initially assumed? Does that make me feel differently? The individual circumstances were bad enough that maybe I don't feel differently; we're talking about a level of violence and harm that goes beyond many of the stories that have come out from MeToo. But I honestly felt like it was going to be the first of many horror stories, so... I'm just... not really sure. But it's a thing that occurred to me. And I'd like to hear more from others.

    1. I would imagine a young, famous athlete like Sano doesn't get turned down too often, especially in the Dominican Republic and I would imagine stuff is more easily swept under the rug for MLB players in the DR.

      1. I'm also assuming there has been activity instigated by the FO and not necessary that it be heavily publisized...at least until they have an indication that he's showing signs of changing. They're in serious trouble if they just blew it off, and I don't see these guys as ones who'd do that.

  5. Yeah, I'm similarly surprised nothing else has come out, especially given May's and Plouffe's reaction to it. I honestly am going to have a hard time rooting for him this year unless something convincing comes out exonerating him. Either two things happened: the woman completely made every detail of the story up, or Sano is a lying liar. He's innocent in a court of law for now, but outside of court I just believe her. She would really have to have a serious, serious personality disorder to completely fabricate this.

    1. I'm curious as to why it's taking MLB so long to come down with a ruling. It doesn't seem like there are that many people to talk to or like there's that much to investigate. I suppose, though, that there could be more to it than I realize.

      1. Right? Maybe they just want to time their announcement a certain way or something?

        I'm also surprised at the complete lack of leaks going on. This just seems to be quiet.

  6. Women's Curling.
    With Japan besting Sweden last night, Korea is alone in first at 5-1.
    They have yet to play USA*, OAR, and DEN**.

    Japan and Sweden are tied for second at 5-2.
    Japan has yet to play GBR* and SUI**,
    Sweden has yet to play CHN and USA** (no game tonight).

    Scotland and the United States are tied for fourth at 4-3.
    Scotland has yet to play JPN* and CAN.
    The US has yet to play KOR* and SWE**.
    Neither team can feel comfortable with those remaining draws.

    Canada is a half-game back at 3-3, in 6th.
    They have yet to play CHN*, GBR, and OAR**.

    China is alone in 7th at 3-4.
    They have yet to play CAN* and SWE.

    SUI and OAR are tied for 8th at 2-5.
    The Swiss have yet to play DEN* and JPN**
    The Athletes have yet to play KOR* and CAN**. Ooof. While I don't think they're eliminated yet, it doesn't look good for Moiseeva and her crazy eyebrows.

    Denmark is in last. 1-6, their only win against Canada.
    They have yet to play SUI* and KOR**.

    *Games tonight at 11pm central.
    **Final Draw of Round-Robin at 5am on Weds morning.
    I have no idea what tiebreaker rules are.

    1. The Tiebreaker rules:

      After the round-robin, the teams will be ranked according to their win/loss record. If two or more teams are tied for a qualifying position, one session of tie-breakers will be played to decide the qualifiers.
      Ties among qualified teams (for example, with the same win/loss record) as well as non-qualified teams will be broken according to World Curling Federation (WCF) rules.
      Event rankings fifth to 10th mirror the teams' position at the end of the round-robin and any tie-breakers.
      ...
      CHANGES SINCE THE SOCHI 2014 OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES
      The number of the tie-breaker sessions has changed. There is only one round of tie-breakers at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games.
      ...
      For handling ties (same win/loss record) at the end of the round-robin
      When teams are tied for a playoff position, a maximum of one session of tie-breakers will be played to determine which team(s) advances to the playoffs. Team(s) can be eliminated, without playing an extra game, if more than one session of tie-breakers would be required.
      [If] Teams ... are tied but must participate in tie-breaker games to determine who qualifies (e.g., three teams are tied for third place or two teams tied for fourth place)... a maximum of one session of tie-breakers will be played. [Then these] tie-breaker rules are applied to determine the tie-breaker game pairings and number of games:
      •If two teams are tied, the team that won their round-robin game will be ranked higher
      •If three or more teams are tied, the record of the games between them will decide
      •If the tie still cannot be broken, ranking will be determined using the draw shot challenge (DSC). The team with the lesser DSC will be ranked higher.
      •If the tie still exists, the best non-equal last stone draw (LSD) will decide
      •If the tie still exists, the higher WCF world ranking will decide
      If more than one tie-breaker game is played, the relative ranking of the teams that have won or lost is determined according to the same criteria as above.

      The draw shot challenge (DSC) is the average distance of all the individual last stone draw (LSD) stones delivered by a team during the round-robin. The two least favourable results will be eliminated before calculating the average distance. The team with the lower DSC receives the higher ranking.

      1. If I read this right, there are 4 (or more) teams tied for the last two spots, they could play two tiebreaker matches. But if there's a multi-team tie for 4th (with the top 3 teams determined), they'd determine which teams were the top two without playing anything, and then those teams would play a tiebreaker match.

        So beating the teams you tied with is important. There's nothing like "strength of victory" for beating the good teams.
        I don't see a simple way to find the LSD numbers... I see it on each match's stats on the official site, but clicking through each would take a while. I might do that sometime tomorrow after tonight's matches tell me which teams that might be.

        1. I decided to do it tonight, through the current games ("draw 10").
          (Excluding DEN, OAR, and SUI).

          First tiebreaker (if, say, 3 tied teams are all 1-1 in matches between them.)
          DSC current tiebreaker standings (with one or two matches to go)
          1. USA 59.9
          2. CAN 65.8
          3. GBR 66.8
          4. SWE 70.3
          5. JPN 81.0
          6. KOR 81.8
          7. CHN 115.0

          Current Best LSD (tiebreaker if DSC is tied):
          1. GBR 23.4
          2. JPN 23.6
          3. USA 27.6
          4. KOR 27.7
          5. SWE 30.5
          6. CAN 30.9
          7. CHN 40.5

          1. 3-way "rings" in the seven teams still contending. Bold-italics currently comes in first in the tiebreaker. Italics-only second.
            CAN beat JPN beat KOR beat CAN
            JPN beat KOR beat CHN beat JPN
            USA beat CHN beat JPN beat USA
            CAN beat JPN beat SWE beat CAN

  7. LBR wanted to watch some couples skating (she's called all figure skating "Ice Dancing" from the start of this year's Olympics), so I pulled up some videos on the websites of both of the continent's broadcasters.

    I noticed a big announcing difference between the CBC and NBC: The Canadians didn't talk at all during Virture & Moir's skating, only once it was over. I think that NBC's figure skating coverage would be a lot more palatable that way. (Or just have Scott Hamilton enthuse "Triple Sow Cow!" whenever appropriate.)

    Continuing with what I noticed about the CBC's curling coverage... I do know the CBC announcers called her "Tessa" at least once... maybe there's few enough Canadians where they assume first-name basis. Is their Prime Minister generally referred to as "Justin"? (I know I'd refer to him as "PMJT", but that has more to do with "GMAB", "GMDM", "GMTR", "GMBS", and "GMKW". I don't think I've talked much about any team's General Manager that way since GMKW became EVPKW and GMRH took over.)

    1. Salchow! (Named for Swedish skater Ulrich Salchow.)

      I was talking with a woman at church yesterday who is a big skating fan, and she made similar comments about too much commentary. She said she much preferred what Scott Hamilton and Tanith Belbin are doing in their coverage.

      1. I know it's "Salchow" but it sounds like "Sow Cow"...
        But I've always pictured it's a female manatee... a Sow [Sea] Cow.

        But I now see that female manatees are "cows". 🙁

  8. Fantasy baseball is starting up again. What are people's thoughts on renewing the league from years past?

      1. The league is renewing, so you should have the invites in your inboxes. I'll get to work getting the eligible keepers sorted out.

  11. Big weekend in college hockey for the alma mater. SCSU tied and beat Western Michigan on the road, Denver U split with Colorado College, and MIchigan swept Notre Dame. Saint Cloud is #1 in all the polls today, but still has to host Denver next weekend and finish the season at UND. Going to the game on Saturday, should be a good time.

  12. Fighting a crappy cold, but women's curling on the telly, I just filed CSS Profile/IDOC for the very last time, and I got me a Moscow Mule (for medicinal purposes).

      1. Just finished with the women vs China. Now caught up to broadcast time. Nothing of interest on....

        1. GBR vs NOR and JPN vs CAN are the four teams with three losses. Most likely, the 3rd and 4th teams out of the Round Robin are from these four.

  13. In the few ends I've watched this morning, Shuster's look pretty good.
    If they win out, that'd put them into a 3-way tie for 4th. Or a broader tie, for as high as 3rd.
    And if they do win out, they've got wins against these teams that would be tied with them: GBR and SUI, maybe CAN.
    But they've lost to JPN and NOR, who could also be tied with them (but they'd have to win out as well).

        1. I just finished watching. They really did actually play well and Shuster made pretty much every shot. More importantly, though, he didn't let the other guys try to call the damn game for him and was much more decisive because of it. It was refreshing to not be frustrated while watching.

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