10 Thoughts for September 30, 2015

Wake me up when September ends.

1. Incredible, but a Republican just admitted what most of us already knew: The House Subcommittee on Benghazi was used to bring Hillary Clinton's poll numbers down, and Republicans are bragging about it. Ask yourself: Have they found anything criminal? Nope. And yet, they trolled the news media with fake stories and lies for just one purpose: Politics.
2. Elon Musk -- the *true* modern-day Tony Stark -- unveiled the Tesla Model X. While his presentation skills are lacking, his engineering ideas are spectacular. Two of the most noteworthy facets of the X: (1) It has a bioweapon defense button, which triggers a high-end HEPA filter on the scale of a clean room; (2) Its doors, described as falcon wings, are double-hinged and utilize ultrasonic sensors to clear obstacles as it opens. Bonus: Pay extra for the (no kidding) Ludicrous Speed Upgrade and the X goes 0-60 in 3.2 seconds. Sure, it costs over $130K, but if you're a millionaire how can you resist?
3. Oregon Ducks' Byron Marshall (who moved to receiver this year) probably has a serious injury that will sideline him for a significant amount of time, but Charles Nelson (the other receiver) is also apparently injured, which is to say that the Ducks were kicked around when the Utes came to town. With Vernon Adams clearly still unable to throw accurately with a fractured finger, I would suggest going back to the bread and butter of the Ducks offense: RUNNING.
4. Google used to make big product announcements at the annual developer's conference, IO, but lately they've separated out these announcements from the conference -- yesterday they revealed  (you can rewatch it, here) a bunch of new hardware: Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, a redesigned Chromecast 2015, Chromecast Audio, and a preview of a new Android tablet, the Pixel C. Of course I'm going to get the Nexus 5X (eventually). The main selling points of the 5X: (1) That it is compatible with Google's Project Fi; (2) has the new USB-C connector that allows for 3 amp fast charging; (3) contains a finger-sensor to make unlocking for NFC payments easier; (4) has a vastly better camera sensor from Sony. By comparison, it is slightly wider and a centimeter taller, but half a millimeter thinner, and is 6 grams heavier though it boasts a 17% larger battery capacity. Seems like a winner to me, for $429 (32 GB).
5. Watch this video of Kilauea's lava flows. It's primordial surrealism.

10+10 Tips for Fallout Shelter

I've been playing for roughly 3 weeks now, and on my third vault I've figured everything out. In just under two weeks I'm at 84 occupants in my third vault, and roughly a day from reaching 100, which will grant me access to built the Nuka-Cola Bottler, the highest level space in Fallout Shelter. At that point there's little incentive to continue. I'm just left with writing down my strategy tips for the game.

So here are my 10 long tips:

1. When your population reaches certain milestones, the game is rigged to screw with you and destroy your population back down with an improbable event; if you try to rebuild it rapidly, it'll crush you again. It's happened to me three times in two vaults. I figured out how to stop these issues -- see #9. If you hate these sorts of cynical setbacks, don't start playing -- see #2.
2. When you get past 60 occupants, the Deathclaws start raiding your vault, and are extremely difficult to eradicate. They will descend upon multiple levels and several rooms, before you can kill them off. Before you hit the 60 occupant level, make sure that you've built enough labs to store 40+ stimpacks. Three times now, the game has tried to screw with me and send two packs of Deathclaws in 15 minutes, making it practically impossible to survive unless you've stocked up on Stimpacks. You can sort of cheat the storage limits, by first maximizing the number of Stimpacks you've got in storage, then holding off on redeeming the newly produced Stimpacks -- a 2-room merged lab fully upgraded will produce 9 Stimpacks at a time.
3. There is a way to rapidly build up your Caps, fuel, food and water: flip to the game and collect your rewards, then quickly turn your device off, wait a minute, turn it back on to the game, and collect your rewards, etc. This is useful when you're in the red in any given resource. When you run low, it's easier to "Rush" the production of a resource, if you've raised the level of a room's occupant's Luck. Game rooms build Luck abilities of your occupants.
4. Don't send people out to explore the wasteland until you have two guns and two sets of wasteland gear or some sort of armor. You will always want to keep at least one gun and armor in the vault at all times, in the beginning.
5. If your explorer dies out in the wasteland, you can restore them, but it costs a bit, so make sure you have caps on hand -- budget for 500 caps if your explorer is at a high level; just 150 if they're on the lower levels. The stimpacks and radaways are used so that your explorer can stay out in the wasteland for longer periods of time. You need roughly 5 Stimpacks for every 1 Radaway, allowing you to stay out for 8-10 hours at a time (in real time). The longer they're out, the more stuff they collect -- I send them out with 10 Stimpacks and 2 Radaways, allow them to die, then revive them and recall them, thus maximizing their collection of stuff. The higher the Endurance (the "E" in SPECIAL attributes), the longer they'll last.
6. Vault door upgrades buy you extra time to react to the warning that raiders or Deathclaws are coming your way. Ridiculously, the raiders somehow still steal your resources even though you successfully kill them. The warning time for Deathclaws, even when your door is fully upgraded, is very short, so I use a nearby room to stock it with two occupants with the strongest weapons and armor.
7. There is an ideal configuration for elevators: Space them apart by 3 rooms in-between -- anything less is inconvenient and anything more limits the number of rooms per level. You will destroy many rooms as you move up, but you can minimize this by making sure that you keep the portion of your structure that isn't between the two elevators, planned for two of the same types of rooms -- upgrading merged rooms is cheaper than multiple individual rooms. For instance, if two single rooms cost you 9,000 Caps each to upgrade, when they're merged they cost you just 13,500 Caps to upgrade.
8. For safety reasons, you will want to keep most living quarters as single units, upgraded to the hilt, one on each level, in between the elevators. This is the room where pregnant occupants will flee to, when the raiders come or a Radroach invasion, etc. If you place them on a dead-end section, the pregnant women will endure some damage before they're able to flee.
9. Ideally you should keep one man in each room that is used to replenish water, power, food, Stimpacks and Radaways. All pregnant occupants run away to the living quarters when there's an invasion or a fire; this makes it tough to defeat a fire if you have to enlist a next door occupant. If you take too much time trying to get another occupant to the room that is affected, the invasion or fire will spread.
10. In the beginning, keep the closest room to the vault's entrance stocked with one occupant wearing armor and carrying a weapon. As you gain more weapons and armor, arm and clothe more of your occupants. When all of your occupants are armed and clothed in specialty clothing, don't stop; you want to keep sending out people to the wasteland to collect better clothes and weapons. Once you've armed everyone, you can start selling the least powerful weapons to try to keep your storage size requirements in check.

+10 short tips:

1. Aim for those Lunchboxes, which contain Cards with lots of goodies.
2. Select a group of occupants to raise a particular attribute (SPECIAL), then rotate them in and out of the training rooms to raise that attribute.
3. Don't forget to check your Daily Report -- it has Caps to collect.
4. Your Missions are how you achieve big chunks of Caps and collect Lunchboxes (other than buying them); you can dismiss one, per day, if they're too difficult.
5. When resources (water, food) go into the red, your occupants show red in their stats (a reduction in capacity of vitals) -- Radaways reduce this.
6. All new occupants / new adults have 50% Happiness levels; assigning them to a room raises it, but the ceiling is 75% Happiness; to reach 100% requires sex via assigning them to living rooms.
7. If pregnant women seem to take too long to get to births, check the capacity of your living areas; when you don't have enough living capacity, it prevents births from occurring.
8. Don't expand your structure faster than the number of occupants can support it -- patience is a virtue.
9. If you add two people who are related, into a living room to mate, they will let you know by saying, "It's nice to hang out with family".
10. The number on the gear shaped icon is the number of occupants; click on it and all your occupants show up; sort them by clicking on the top of each aisle.

---

Update: It took just a day to jump from 84 to 102, via baby boom, and I got to that Nuka-Cola Bottler -- I built three rooms connected together. As a result of reaching the end point (I've decided to continue a bit to see how I can maximize efficiency and organization), I've got 5 more tips:

1. When you reach the upper levels of the game, as you build new rooms, the price goes up.
2. Locate your best weapons and the occupants with the highest levels and highest Endurance, at the top levels -- these are the folks who'll face the Deathclaws first.
3. A handful of times now, Deathclaw raids have come when I had just provisioned an occupant with a bunch of Stimpacks on their way to the wasteland. I've already written about how to maximize your Stimpacks beyond storage capacity, and this is just one more reason why.
4. The Nuka-Cola Bottler requires occupants with high Endurance, and coproduces food and water resources, making them extremely efficient.
5. The importance of SPECIAL attributes changes as you move up in the game. In the beginning, Strength, Perception and Agility matter most; in the middle stages Charisma, Intelligence and Luck matter more; in the upper stages, you've already built up attributes for all the spaces you need, making Endurance the only attribute to matter, as it serves to displace Perception and Agility when you build Nuka-Cola Bottler rooms.

Reached 100 occupants and built my Nuka-Cola Bottler rooms (3) in the middle.

5 Thoughts for September 27, 2015 (all about football)

1. What USC did last weekend against Stanford, was not nearly as bad as what Oregon did against Utah, for two reasons: (1) This was Oregon's second loss making it practically impossible to make it back to the playoffs; (2) The Ducks were blown out of the water by 42 points -- more than the total number of points scored by Stanford against USC. The loss was so bad, they were dropped out of the AP Poll and dropped to 24th in the Coaches Poll. Sagarin's Rating has them at 43 -- a predictor of future outcomes. Conversely, Utah's scary good, especially on the defensive line.
2. Speaking of USC, you could not wish for a better outcome! They didn't just whip the Sun Devils, but they did it in style on all sides of the ball, whether on offense, defense or special teams. Even though Cody Kessler threw his first interception of the season, he's now rocking a 15 TD to 1 INT ratio! This just goes to show that the team and the coaches were capable of dominating Stanford, but fell far short of what they were capable of. Everyone else seems to acknowledge this, by pushing USC back up a couple of spots (16th in the AP, 17th in the Coaches), and the second-highest 1-loss team behind Alabama. Jeff Sagarin has USC 4th. 
3. UCLA, with losses of Eddie Vanderdoes, Fabien Moreau and Myles Jack for the season, showed that they haven't skipped a beat, manhandling Arizona in Tuscon. Why write about the Bruins? Because the fight for the PAC-12 South and potentially for a playoff spot appears to be a tight one between UCLA, USC and Utah. All three of these teams have shown explosive scoring and good defense against decent PAC-12 teams.
4. PAC-12 power rankings from top to bottom: UCLA, Utah, Stanford, USC, Cal, Oregon, Arizona, ASU, Washington, OSU, Colorado, WSU. Sorry Cougars, but until you beat a PAC-12 team, you're in my cellar, as the memory of your loss to Portland State remains.
5. Saturday afternoon, Kam Chancellor was officially added back to the roster and Dion Bailey was waived. On Sunday, the Seahawks shut out Chicago Bears, but the reason for the shutout is the play of the linebackers, not the return of Chancellor. In the first two games, the safeties / secondary made 13 / 21 and 14 / 24 tackles, respectively, against St. Louis and Green Bay; against the Bears they made just 4 / 13 tackles. The game was won near the line, and Jimmy Clausen is a lousy quarterback. On offense, Darrell Bevell figured it out: Jimmy Graham was targeted 8 times, with Graham making 7 catches and a touchdown. Dropping Christine Michael in favor of Thomas Rawls paid off against the Bears, when Marshawn Lynch was pulled from the game due to a hamstring injury, as Rawls assumed the role of Beast Mode 2.0.

5 Thoughts for September 23, 2015

1. Kam Chancellor ended his holdout, and it looks like he'll be playing on Sunday against Chicago at Centurylink Field. That's only half the problem on defense, as the cornerback position opposite Richard Sherman has thus far underwhelmed. Also, offensive play-calling has to step it up a couple of notches and get the ball into Graham's hands. How about a backside chip block (and release) from Graham while Wilson does a rollout with Lynch in front?
2. Staying with football, this is USC's sack differential (sacks gained - sacks given up) / total sacks, for the last 5 seasons (red = before Steve Sarkisian): 2010 = +10 / 28; 2011 = +23 / 31; 2012 = +28 / 45; 2013 = +1 / 35; 2014 = +1 / 33; 2015 = -1 / 5 (so far). There are two components to consider: Offensive line and defensive line. With Ed Orgeron in charge of defensive line and James Cregg on offensive line (2010, 2011, 2012) there were double-digit sack differentials. With the revolving offensive line (Mike Summers - 2013, Tim Drevno - 2014 and now Bob Connelly - 2015) and Chris Wilson (2014, 2015) in charge of defensive line, the sack differential has all but disappeared. Now go read this article about how Ed Orgeron is influencing LSU's defensive line. 
3. VW has shown that "clean diesel" is an oxymoron, now that they've admitted (once presented with the evidence, that is) to rigging their diesel vehicles to pass pollution control inspections. While there are roughly 500K vehicles in the US affected by this, globally there are 11M vehicles affected, meaning that the vast majority of these polluting vehicles are in the EU. Furthermore, it appears VW is just a portion of the problem. NOx, the pollutant that was being released at (up to) 40x allowed levels, mixes in the atmosphere to destroy the ozone layer -- VW, the great ozone killer corporation.
4. Kim Davis is now a 6x loser and counting. With the current ACLU court challenge and her current legal team's strategy, she may become a 10x loser before the end of October. The cognitive bias is strong with this one, surrounded by her fans who reinforce her belief of righteousness -- this despite the courts up and down the system telling her that she's wrong.
5. Kindly remember this story about how and why Microsoft ditched Bing in favor of Baidu's search engine, for Windows 10 in China, when Microsoft asserts that Google's search and mobile phone dominance is a product of illegal monopolization.

+5 Quick Links

1. Texas is complex. The state with the largest wind-generated electricity capacity has a closed market, so prices went negative.
2. Seattle Seahawks followed through and reacquired George Farmer and put him on the practice squad.
3. That moment when Cable realized that people really, really, REALLY hate Cable.
4. Bill Gross says it's okay for short-term pain to gain long-term stability -- forgets he has money while average Americans not so much.
5. September 29 will be a busy day. In the morning, Google reveals new products, at night Tesla follows.

5 Thoughts for September 21, 2015 (all about football)

This is a rant against USC and Seattle.

1. I had to rewatch the USC - Stanford game to double-check what went wrong. It's fair to say that both the coaches and the players failed in their respective duties. If the players aren't in the right position to make plays, that's as much on the coaching staff as it is on the players, but many times players (even their super stars) were missing tackles or failing to keep the edge. The most frustrating error was when the linebackers made the wrong read and hit the wrong gap; not only do you hit the wrong gap but then the pulling guard / tackle is free to block down (to the other inside linebacker or the safety) and pave a lane for the runner. The second-most frustrating error was the lack of communication on the field on both sides of the ball.
2. The USC defensive scheme did not work. Stanford was lining up 6 and 7 offensive linemen -- I'm not talking about the tight end lining up, but extra guards and / or tackles -- and yet the free safety was 10 yards deep or there were just 4 or 5 defensive guys on the line. Here's the problem: Stanford was using 6-7 offensive linemen weighing 300# against USC's 3 defensive linemen at 300# and two other guys at around 240# -- so guess who wins that battle most of the time. If USC ran a 5-2 or a 4-3, the Trojans would have more heft against the power run like Stanford, but Wilcox's defense is instead stuck at the 3-4 to attack the spread offense.
3. The USC defensive play calling was also atrocious. On 3rd and 8 the Trojans went to zone defense. On 1st and 10 they went to zone defense. I understand the zone defense on 2nd and 15 or 3rd and 15, but 10 yards and under, you're practically giving away the soft zone below the corner and safeties, in between the slower linebackers -- the fastest linebacker, Su'a Cravens was playing the hybrid, so he wasn't usually in the zone defense. And when they went with cover-2, the safeties were so deep as to completely disappear off the TV screen -- it was as though USC were playing defense with 9 players. When they blitzed -- comically, they rarely blitzed -- they only sent linebackers and half the time they were delayed blitzes; they hardly ever changed from presnap formations, either.
4. Next weekend's game (September 26) is at Arizona State, at night, just as it was nearly two years ago (September 28, 2013). Similarly, the head coach was on a hot seat. After a dismal 41-62 loss, Lane Kiffin lost his job shortly after the plane touched down in Los Angeles. I think the odds are very high, given how Sarkisian and Wilcox played it safe on defense last year and practically handed the Sun Devils the game in the fourth quarter, that were the Trojans to lose in Tempe, the alumni will demand the heads of Wilcox and Sarkisian. I have some patience left for Steve Sarkisian (because he willingly gave up offensive play-calling this year), but absolutely zero patience left for Justin Wilcox. In his one year (2013) as DC, Clancy Pendergast removed the ghosts of Monte Kiffin's Tampa-2 (similar to cover-2) with a 5-2 base and an aggressive style, to boost USC's defense to 13th nationally (335 yards per game) -- back to the Pete Carroll years. Under Wilcox, the Trojans have sunk to 74th last year (408 yards per game) and 80th this year (395.3 ypg) -- and given that two of those teams were from the Sun Belt, I'd say Wilcox isn't yet fit to be a DC at a major program.
5. The Seahawks are in trouble on offense. Look, you know your offensive line stinks, so why don't you do more rollouts -- you know, like how you used to do two seasons ago when you won the Super Bowl? Worse still, you go out and get the second-best tight end receiver in the NFL in Jimmy Graham, and in two games, he's only been targeted 10 times (of those 10, just twice against Green Bay)? Last year with New Orleans, he'd had 10 or more targets in 7 games. I'm willing to give offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell the benefit of the rest of the season to turn around the play-calling, as the defensive secondary also stinks. However, it's hard to ignore the fact that most people considered the offense upgraded during the off-season, though it has clearly fallen far short of expectations -- that comes down to the OC.

I couldn't wait until tomorrow.

FIRE JUSTIN WILCOX

AND FIRE SARKISIAN IF HE WON'T FIRE WILCOX

5 Thoughts for September 19, 2015 (all about football)

1. I'm not saying that Oregon could possibly lose at home to Georgia State, which will likely occupy the basement of the Sun Belt along with Idaho, but were they to have a tight game against Georgia State, the luster would be off the Ducks. People will carefully compare the Ducks' performance against a team that has only won two games since becoming an FBS member in 2013, to that of USC's game against Idaho. If they do not measure up, then all eyes will be squarely focused on the PAC-12 South battles between UA, UCLA, USC and Utah. Oregon 45 GSU 30.
2. Stanford's defense has been stripped bare (4 returning starters on defense) and exposed as a vulnerable group. Were the Trojans to go full throttle on offense using some 9 receivers and 6 runners as they have been in their last two games, they could wear down the Cardinals and make it ugly. Sarkisian already mentioned that he wanted to turn up the throttle on offense, and assuming that Stanford plays zone or cover-2, USC will have the opportunity to throw underneath the coverage all day long, moving the ball 5-8 yards at a time. USC 31 - Stanford 17.
3. I don't know why anyone would pick Colorado over Colorado State, but the betting line is -3 in favor of Colorado, and that's crazy. We already saw that Colorado couldn't even handle Hawaii, so why should they win against CSU, when CSU is expected to fare much better than Hawaii in the Mountain West Conference? Colorado State 41 Colorado 35.
4. Were Kam Chancellor to sit out the entire season, he would lose all of his salary this season as well as his prorated bonus. Any adjustments to his contract thereafter, would be outweighed by the money lost, as no team would make up the shortfall. Chancellor loses big by his poorly informed gamble, and is forced to sit at home watching the game instead of playing it. As much as people make of the gap between Dion Bailey and Chancellor, the real problems are the glaring hole opposite of Richard Sherman and the woeful state of the offensive line. By the way, people made way too much out of the loss to St. Louis, considering that Seattle has only won 2 out of the previous 5 meetings in St. Louis. Plus, last year they lost to a team that had Austin Davis as the starting quarterback, while this year they've got Nick Foles.
5. I wouldn't pick Green Bay against Seattle -- have you seen the two teams play? GB is jinxed against the Seahawks, like you couldn't believe. The odd thing here, is that GB loses their #1 receiver for the season -- Jordy Nelson -- and their game against Chicago exposed their lack of a go-to receiver, yet somehow pundits are picking GB to win. Their next-best receiver, Davante Adams, hasn't stepped up, catching just 4 passes out of 8 targets against the Bears. In RB Eddie Lacy's two games against Seattle, he's averaged just 53.5 yards per game. Seattle 27 Green Bay 24.

5 Thoughts for September 15, 2015 (all about football)

I've been missing lately, trying to recover from a cold. I've still got it, but it's at the tail end, now.

1. If you read this blog, it is a requirement that you watch this video from ESPN's Shelley Smith and her connection to Jake Olson. Then you should read about how much USC wanted to make Jake Olson's dreams come true, starting six years ago and once again in 2015. If you watch this weekend's USC-Stanford game, keep an eye out for #61 on the sidelines. At some point in his time at USC, he will get put into a game, at which point you can bet on it that the whole stadium will be cheering on both sides.
2. Two weeks ago when USC smashed Arkansas State, the national media didn't take notice. This past weekend when Missouri nearly lost to Arkansas State, the national media could only offer relief that Missouri escaped an embarrassing loss. If you look at teams that have played significantly weaker opponents, not many have performed well on both sides of the ball. Eastern Washington scored 42 on Oregon, Auburn escaped Jacksonville State, Oklahoma State had to rally in the fourth quarter to beat Central Michigan, Arizona had a tough game against UT-San Antonio, and Arizona State had to rally in the fourth quarter to beat Cal-Poly.
3. Keep an eye on this: USC returned 15 starters (4th most in the PAC-12) but have played 14 true freshman -- more than anyone else in the PAC-12 -- and those true freshman aren't just subbing in, late in games. For a defense that is prolific with stars, not a single member of the USC defense ranks in the top 158 in the FBS in total tackles. I can't tell you if this is genius or not, but were USC to dial up the tempo on offense, the Trojans may steamroll over opponents this year. Not only will they be fresh at the end of the season, but should any player get injured, there's an able body replacement to step into his place.
4. Dion Bailey made one bad play -- slipping on turf -- but the Seahawks were in cover-1, and with Bailey's lack of experience in cover-1, the deep safety -- Earl Thomas -- should have been leaning to the isolation side. Throughout the game, Bailey was always in the right place, but was a step late from making blowup plays, instead settling for solid tackles. That does not mean that he played poorly, but that late step is what separates Bailey from Kam Chancellor. But, if the Seahawks defense is one player's late step behind from winning games, then the defense has greater issues than just Chancellor's absence.
5. Marcus Mariota looked even better than when he played at Oregon, while Jameis Winston looked about as bad as he did in his worst games at FSU. Mariota completed passes on inside slants in tight windows, while making defenders look slow when he scrambled. When I think back to the comments of many pundits who said that Winston was ready to play on day 1 while Mariota would have to develop his skills in the NFL, I laugh.

+5 Quick Links

1. Marshawn Lynch's mom says Seattle should fire OC Darrell Bevell; I said that years ago.
2. You can understand why Jason Pierre-Paul tried to hide his fireworks-related injury.
3. Everyone outside of Boston hates the Patriots. Everyone.
4. Raiders lost big at home in many ways -- maybe those calls of resurgence were premature.
5. Oregon's Vernon Adams broke his finger while playing EWU; why didn't Lockie play MSU?

5 Thoughts for September 11, 2015

1. Do you remember the clusterf--- known as the Star Wars prequel? The big picture of the trio of movies, was that the galactic government and the separatist movement were both orchestrated by a mastermind, in order to eliminate the Jedi and create his new order. It seems to me that the Middle East is that same clusterf--- minus the mastermind. Russia, backing Syria, is moving personnel and equipment to support Syria's Bashar al-Assad under the guise of defeating ISIS and Al Qaeda, while the west is actively opposed to Russia's involvement, even as it provides lukewarm assistance to questionable Syrian rebels. Meanwhile at the border of Syria and Iraq, where Kurds have aligned with the west (since roughly 1990s) and attacked ISIS, our NATO partner Turkey is attacking the Kurds. And because Republicans are all over the map, on both sides of every issue in the ME, it's impossible to build support for any meaningful strategy in the ME. It does not matter what President Obama does, because at least half of the GOP will always be opposed to it.
2. A couple of months following my disgust that Best Buy carried just a handful of Chromebooks and none with touch screens I went back there this week and saw that they were carrying several Chromebooks with various screen sizes, and two of them with touch screens. Progress! It's funny though, when I bring someone to look at the Chromebooks, that they're unaware of what these devices are. On another BB note: In-store price for the Nexus Player is $75, but their online order / in-store pickup price is $70 -- how does that work exactly?
3. Is Android Pay, Google's answer to Apple Pay? Well that depends on whether or not you enjoy the limitations of Apple Pay. If so, then Android Pay is right up your alley. You see, Android Pay is the result of splitting up Google Wallet into two. If you, like me, enjoyed and extensively used the all-in-one capabilities of Google Wallet, you'll likely despise having to use two separate apps for what used to only require one. One step forward, two steps back.
4. Thursday was the first day of the NFL season. I had the game on, but I wasn't really watching it -- I had a hard time watching the Patriots after all that had happened. As if on cue, the Steelers had trouble with their headsets -- getting the Patriots signal instead of their own -- making it impossible to communicate between box and field. They filed a complaint (as if that would have an effect, considering it was NFL officials who controlled the system.) The NFL is starting to feel like a fixed league, don't you think?
5. The Netflix ordeal continues. After removing all of the DVDs in my queue that didn't have any waiting time associated with it, it turns out Netflix won't ship me any DVDs. I called to ask them to convince me why I shouldn't quit Netflix, and the guy apologized profusely, explaining that all of their DVDs are out right now -- I explained to him that they've obviously lowered the number of DVDs they buy, with demand far outstripping supply, and that there was an obvious solution: Get more DVDs. In the end there was no deal to be made except to get a 30-day trial of streaming, which is probably worse for them, because it's like taking me to an all-you-can-eat buffet, only to see me several plates of the most expensive items on the table. I will binge on your movies and because it's free, you will lose money on me. I've already gone through 3/4 of the House of Cards Season 3 on the first day. 

+5 Quick Links

1. GOP Senate filibustered; no Iran vote coming.
2. Carly gets invited to the grownup table...after the rules were bent.
3. Kam's definitely ruled out of Game 1 -- we all knew it was coming -- against Rams.
4. Seattle's Turbin, previously on IR, became free agent; signed with Cleveland.
5. US inflation remains low; if NAIRU then no Fed rate hike; if VSP then Fed rate hike.

5 Thoughts for September 8, 2015

1. Kim Davis is appealing her contempt jailing. This is how easy the ruling will be: DENIED. She willingly signaled her contempt for the court, then said that she would not let her subordinates sign off on same-sex marriage licenses. There is only one means to force her to stop blocking same-sex marriages: Jail. Her lawyers claim there was a lack of due process, which is rich, considering that her case went up the ladder to SCOTUS and was rejected. She's also asking the governor to release her from jail, which seems improbable as most jails are usually controlled by courts not by the executive branch -- doing so would trigger a constitutional crisis. If that wasn't enough, Mike Huckabee -- or as I like to call him, The Huckster -- has decided to go all in with his Evangelical Populism and visit Davis. All of this of course shows just how dangerous The Huckster would be, if President: The Executive Branch could ignore SCOTUS.
2. The two opposite means of resolving the refugee crisis in Europe: Put boots on the ground in Syria and crush both ISIS and Assad, or take in the refugees, allocated to each country by wealth. Building a wall is stupid, as in Republicans-gone-mad stupid. While we live in the 21st century, the thinking of men in charge remains deeply rooted in the 19th.
3. Is Google Fiber coming to Portland soon? This ad for a Network Deployment and Operations Lead for Google Fiber seems like the brightest signal yet that Google is getting ready to deploy in Portland! :D
4. An interesting thing happened yesterday: There was a moderate geomagnetic storm that hit Earth, but rather than triggered by a coronal mass ejection, it was a coronal hole with a fast solar wind. I'd noticed that the Kp Index was at 6 for half the day yesterday, but there was no recent CME.
5. IKEA Portland's got the Bekant sit-stand computer desks widely in stock now, a year after they were introduced. I've tried it at the store, and it works well. But the high cost of a motorized desk would probably turn off a lot of people, so IKEA recently released the Skarsta manual-crank sit-stand computer desk. The problem is, being brand new, it's not in stock. Sigh.

+5 Quick Links

1. Dion Bailey high school highlights and college highlights -- for those who doubt.
2. A&M's excuse, from two years ago, on canceling series with USC -- just saying.
3. Long read: The full history of Patriots cheating -- for you, Beth.
4. The only thing to stop fighting in Syria: Dust storm -- someone's angry.
5. Ron Wyden did the right thing and backed the US-Iran Nuclear Deal -- filibuster now available.

10 Thoughts for September 7 2015 (All about football)

Extra thoughts for lots of teams.

1. Seattle Seahawks: What we know for sure, is that Frank Clark and Tyler Lockett are two draft picks that will play a big part in the Seahawks team. Lockett and Wilson connected on a 63 yard TD reception on the first play of the final preseason game, and Clark stripped the quarterback in the end zone, resulting in a defensive touchdown. Also Thomas Rawls and BJ Daniels looked really good in the final preseason game -- good enough to be kept by the team while others were dropped. I could not see why pundits expected Christine Michael to remain on the team while they thought that Rawls would be dropped -- what I saw in the preseason was Rawls always running hard and knocking down opponents, while Christine Michael was inconsistent -- and in the end the Seahawks traded Michael while keeping Rawls. 
2. Philadelphia Eagles: Mark it down, that the Eagles will be playing in the NFC Championship -- the final preseason game has shown that Sam Bradford is a keeper and will make this offense a prolific scorer. Most people thought that by trading away Matt Barkley, Chip Kelly was making room to keep Tim Tebow (like this ESPN reporter), but even though Tebow did well in the final preseason game, the fact of the matter is that he hasn't been able to exorcise his bad throwing motion -- when under pressure he'd revert. I thought that Tebow had changed his throwing motion, but alas, I was wrong and he hadn't yet gotten rid of his lifelong bad habits. Speaking of bad throwing habits...
3. Stanford Cardinals: Senior QB Kevin Hogan really does have an ugly throwing motion. If you go back and watch the Cardinal loss to Northwestern, every throw required a windup with the ball behind his body, low and away. It gave the corner and safety the time to reach Hogan's target, either to grab the interception or to stop the play for zero yards after catch. On defense, the front three (plus the hybrid linebacker-end) were terrible, and got pushed around. When people picked Oregon to win the North, it was because they had very little confidence in Stanford.
4. Hawaii Rainbow Warriors: As I suspected, having a higher caliber quarterback like Max Wittek made a huge difference for coach Norm Chow. Note however, that Wittek obviously hasn't learned to quit throwing the bullet even when his target is just 10 yards away, and he still has a tendency to throw high, especially early. Colorado's Sefo Liufao hasn't gotten any better from last year, which pretty much condemns Colorado to the bottom of the PAC-12.
5. Utah Utes: Boy did their defense look good, flying around. The defense provided the margin of Utah's win over Michigan, while Michigan more or less shut down Utah's Devonte Booker. While Utah doesn't look like it'll end up in the basement of the PAC-12, it certainly doesn't look like it'll be able to compete for the top of the conference either.
6. USC Trojans: Playing against Arkansas State's option game was an excellent preparation game for USC's late season game against Oregon -- and it looks extremely promising. USC ended up playing 67 players (including nearly half the freshman class) but more importantly they were regularly rotating 2-deep from the start of the game, and there was no drop-off. Yes the Trojans gave up 484 yards on defense, but the Red Wolves could only muster one score, a touchdown. Put it this way: No one else in the PAC-12 held their opponents to fewer points, including games against FCS schools. The offensive line looked shaky in the first half, but his throw to Whitney while going down, showed just how strong his arm is. This is a true team and one that looks like it really does have a chance to make it to the playoffs. As across the board except for the offensive line, which gets just a C. Because of the starting time (11 pm east), I expect most media writers will dismiss this game, rather than consider how well USC's four-deep, played.
7. Oregon Ducks: Oregon's offense hasn't lost a beat with Vernon Adams coming in and late at that! When he absorbs the rest of the offensive playbook, their offense will be downright impossible to stop, except of course, other teams with sufficient 2-deep talent (ahem, Ohio State, USC, Alabama). The defense is a whole other matter, however. Against an FCS team, Oregon gave up 42 points, and that's a possible sign that Oregon will have a difficult time against the PAC-12 South teams, while its game against Cal will be a wild affair. An aside: EWU's LB John Kriefels should be forced to sit out at least four games for his illegal hit on Adams, which resulted in his getting tossed from the game, as that sort of dangerous hit is not just poor sportsmanship but could have cost Adams his career.
8. Washington State Cougars: Dude, why are you stepping backwards? You don't lose to Portland State at home, when they're debuting with a new head coach and a quarterback who last played football (at BYU) in 2012. That's embarrassing for you and the rest of the PAC-12!
9. UCLA Bruins: It is difficult for me to say this, but Josh Rosen, a true freshman, looked really good in his debut -- averaged 10.0 yards per pass which is tops in the PAC-12; in fact, their team looked good all-around, against Virginia. Too bad though that the Bruins lost a key member of their D-Line, Eddie Vanderdoes, for the season. Nevertheless, it looks like the Bruins are in the top tier of the PAC-12 -- we'll know a lot more in two weeks, when they play BYU, an often overlooked but tough team to beat (just ask Nebraska).
10. My ranking of the PAC-12, from best to worst, after week 1: UCLA, USC, Oregon, Utah, Cal, Arizona, Oregon State, Arizona State, Washington, Stanford, Colorado, Washington State. If there was a way to rank WSU lower, I would. I cannot reiterate how bad it was for WSU to lose to an FCS team that was debuting a new head coach and quarterback, and a team that they had paid to fly up to Pullman. F-minus for WSU.

5 Thoughts for September 3, 2015 (All about football)

1. Today is the official start of college football. Even though FCS played last weekend, we all know that the FBS is the main course that everyone pays attention to (sorry, FCS).
2. From a west coast perspective, the most important games today are (1) Michigan at Utah and (2) Colorado at Hawaii. Will Harbaugh's return to the NCAA and his alma mater be a successful one, or will the Utes and their solid running back Devontae Booker dominate? Will USC transfer Max Wittek provide the boost that Norm Chow needs to resurrect the Rainbow Warriors' program, or does Colorado's Sefo Liufau connect with Nelson Spruce and put on a spectacular offensive showing? I think Utah and the Warriors win at home. I don't think Harbaugh's team has a quarterback worth talking about, yet, and I don't think Colorado's prepared for the stifling heat, humidity and the stiff rain that successive hurricane fly-bys have created. You think playing in the cold is bad, try playing when it's hot, humid and raining cats and dogs. Of course, the game might be postponed if there's lighting and thunder as there is, today on O'ahu.
3. Another reason why today is all about football, is because today happens to be the day when all 32 NFL teams play their final preseason game. If you care about players on the fence of making the 53-man regular season roster, you'll care about tonight's games. Philly's got a tough choice to make between Tebow and Barkley as 3rd quarterback, while Seattle still hasn't settled in on cornerback opposite of Sherman, and backup running back is open, now that Turbin appears injured. Will RG III make the roster?
4. NFL lost its case against Tom Brady, and yet it didn't. The judge never decided on the merits of whether Tom Brady was culpable for participating in ball deflation; the judge said that the Commish didn't have the broad authority to punish Brady with a 4-game suspension. Oddly enough, Patriots owner Robert Kraft said that he would not appeal the $1M fine. If you leave the judgement up to sports writers, they'll tell you that Tom Brady was exonerated, even though he was not. Interestingly, the judge seems to have made a case for overturning USC's penalties stemming from Reggie Bush.
5. Cheers erupted from USC's fan base, when head coach Steve Sarkisian said that he would be giving up play-calling duties to his offensive coordinator Clay Helton, and instead focus on being the head coach. Helton proved to be exceptionally good at play calling, when he stepped in as interim head coach, for the former interim head coach Ed Orgeron, who'd replaced Lane Kiffin as head coach, all before Steve Sarkisian was hired to be head coach -- all within a span of 4 months. But don't mistake Arkansas State as a weak patsy! Last year they beat Utah State and USU was 10-4 in the Mountain West Conference last year.

+5 Quick Links

1. ESPN's PAC-12 bloggers' picks for this weekend.
2. With Wilson signing a long-term contract, it's now safe to buy his number.
3. ESPN FPI rankings for NFL: Green Bay #1. What?!? Don't they know Jordi's injured?
4. Fox Sports power rankings for NFL: Seattle #1. Ah, much better.
5. Seattle not interested in trading Kam? Seattle loses hand, I guess.