5 Thoughts for October 29, 2015

1. The Chinese say that they're not frightened by a US destroyer traveling near the disputed island(s) in the South China Sea. Of course everyone knows the only people who make public claims of bravado, are those who are scared; silence is the true voice of courage. It's a bit weird, then, that the Chinese want in on the Trans-Pacific Trade Pact, don't you think? On the one hand they're warning the US that the Chinese aren't afraid of war, but on the other hand they want in on the US-led TPP deal. All for show, people.
2. So who won the third GOP debate? It's hard to say, because facts and truth were evasive in this debate, and instead the most popular points scored were based on criticizing the media. Rubio, Trump, Kasich, Cruz and Fiorina seemed to be the most shrill and upset, and that aggressiveness is often popular with viewers, even if it's manufactured outrage. The way I see it, no one won as no one seized the debate's topics and made it about their ideas.
3. By now, it's clear to everyone except Republicans, that so long as Trump, Carson, Fiorina and Cruz vie for the presidential nomination, there's no way the GOP will take the White House in 2016. The only way the GOP fields a competitive race, is if a dark horse moderate enters late in the game, or a surging Rubio or Kasich can seize the spotlight and hold onto it. Jeb Bush's campaign is nearly dead, and it seems mostly because everyone sees Mitt Romney in him, including the art of the gaffe, and nobody wants another Mitt Romney. In the mean time, Hillary Clinton's numbers are surging, and you can probably thank House Republicans for that.
4. Over four hours later and Oregon, as improbable as it was, despite screwing up big time on multiple snaps, pulled out the win in triple overtime, and kept their slim hopes to make it to the PAC-12 Championship alive. So what did we learn? Well, Oregon's defense is really bad, for one. They gave up nearly 750 yards and it didn't matter if it was on the ground or in the air. Second, we learned that Vernon Adams is really the only reason why there is still hope that the Ducks will make it to a bowl game this season -- they are one game away from being bowl-eligible but have Cal, Stanford, USC and Oregon State left on their schedule, and the only sure win is OSU (given how bad OSU is this year, not yet ).
5. That third overtime TD score by Braylon Addison may seem controversial, but the thing is, the focus was on the wrong foot. ESPN's commentators were staring at the front foot; yes, it was out of bounds when Braylon put it down on the ground, but Addison was trailing his rear toe on the ground. Normally you're used to seeing the trailing toe as the second foot in bound for a catch in the NFL, but in this case where you only need one foot in bound, the trailing toe, as improbable as it may be, counts.

5 Thoughts for October 28, 2015

1. Why do I love football so much? Those Xs and Os are chess pieces and what those pieces do, matter as much as how you lay them out; much like chess, your choices (both as the coach and as players) are improvisational moves based on what you think your opponent is planning to do. To a much lesser extent, other sports do these same things, but a football playbook is a thick binder whereas any other sport is roughly a couple dozen concepts and a few added kinks to a known strategy. It is such a complex game, that even if you had the team's playbook there are audible and visual cues on the field that change the play and the formation.
2. See if you can pick out the image of Jupiter's moon, Europa, from photos of frying pans. It was easy for me, because I already knew what Europa looked like, but for other people it might not be so easy as the other 8 look a lot like planets from science fiction. Knowing the basic composition of Europa helps a great deal, too.
3. German privacy officials have decided that they will not entertain any Safe Harbor alternatives, and will immediately act on local subsidiaries of foreign companies who host user data offshore. Their privacy concerns ought to be weighed against the very fact that the EU's own website has neither a digital certificate (to ensure visitors are visiting their website) nor enables HTTPS (to ensure no one is watching your activities while on the EU's website). Furthermore, the EU does not protect foreigners' privacy rights, which means that France can and most certainly does surveil foreigners on their soil. The EU is seemingly rife with hypocrisy, but as I've most often said, this is not about privacy; it is about protection of domestic companies against the dominance of American ones; privacy is a convenient excuse when the EU won't protect foreigners' privacy on its soil. In practice, it is mostly American companies who're ahead of the privacy curve by building in layers of end-to-end encryption that prevents any data access by governments -- how ironic of the EU.
4. Oh boy, I listened in to the GOP debate and it was pure laughs. Chris Christie demonstrated that he knew nothing about how social security worked; Ted Cruz refused to answer a question he didn't want to answer until time ran out and he demanded to answer it; Marco Rubio, apparently unaware that he was seizing on liberal ideas, demanded that US companies hire Americans first, and when they hired from abroad, to pay prevailing wages; Carly Fiorina demanded accountability for job losses, except of course, when she was at HP. The folks at Fox News were apoplectic at the "liberal media bias", which is pretty rich considering that their own deba avoided serious issues and confrontations of the truth; in this closed bubble, hard questions are signs of "liberal bias".
5. I'm getting caught up with Lillehammer on Netflix. I enjoyed season 1 a while back, but forgot about the show until I saw it on Netflix's site, and started streaming. It's entertainingly humorous, some of it dark but mostly just laugh out loud funny.

Follow up on that homeless person encounter.

Guess who I had a second encounter with, tonight?

Yep, three nights after that strange encounter where a homeless man came right up into my face and started demanding that I get out of his space and accusing me of stealing his things, I saw him again. I knew that the odds were high that I would eventually see him again, and there was no way I was going to change my routine to avoid it.

As I was crossing the street by Lovejoy Bakers, I saw him, in the same clothes, carrying two reusable grocery bags -- one in each hand -- walking perpendicular to my direction. It was surreal, as he never looked sideways in my direction. After he passed me, I stopped and decided I should take some photos and video of him, just in case.

At this point, I think most people would have turned and walked away; I decided to turn around the block in his direction and see where he was headed. After turning the block I saw him across the street and stopped to take his photo. He turned, saw me then started walking towards me. Thinking that he'd recognized me, I made a quick decision that this time, I was going to walk straight at him with the intent of confronting him.

I got right up into his face and asked him, "Do you remember me from the other night?"

He had a puzzled look as he meekly replied that he didn't.

Just a foot away from his face I glared at him and asked, "Do you remember yelling at me to get out of your space?"

He was confused and mumbled about having to get out of the street to keep his defense strong.

At that point it was clear that he wasn't in the same state of mind as he was three nights ago, and didn't understand what he'd done; at that point, I was glad that I didn't overreact and crush his trachea and break his neck for shoving me, three nights ago.

As I started walking away I told him he should stay safe.

And that was that.

I still think he's a danger to people. I've seen many mentally ill homeless people, and several shouting obscenities to an invisible person, but none have ever stopped and physically confronted me. That this guy did so, reflects his dangerous nature. But we live in a f'ed up society where his civil rights are protected until he seriously harms someone, even though everyone knows that he's a danger to society.

5 Thoughts for October 26, 2015

1. With Sark completely out of the process, USC seemed to do a lot of things differently, and it led to the blowout of the Utes. Under Sark, the fullbacks practically disappeared from the offense; against the Utes, it was common to see on and two fullbacks in the formation, and of course we saw the fullback dive (Soma Vainuku) for a touchdown. On defense, ESPN's Greg Katz notes that the defense under Helton is now working more on technique than under Sark -- which begs the question of why technique wasn't emphasized under Sark.
2. The risk of cancer due to eating processed meat, as linked by the WHO, was vastly exaggerated by the media today. Of course you would expect processed meat to cause cancer -- it's got all sorts of chemicals to preserve it, after all -- but your risk only goes up from 5% to 6% if you routinely (daily) eat an excess amount of processed meat. Put it this way: There were only 34,000 deaths globally, linked to eating processed meat, but more than twice as many Americans die annually from diabetes.
3. I really thought that I would get the Nexus 5X, but then I let the deadline to get the $50 Play Store credit pass by, which was my personal deadline for getting this phone. Here are my two issues: the phone's USB-C charger is only compatible with Google's Nexus 5X charger and they do not have an auto adapter; the opposite end of the USB is 2.0, which means max 480 mbps transfer rates. They did not embrace the widely-adopted Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0 system, so your only means of buying an additional charger is to go through the Google Play Store. That's worse than being stuck with an iPhone. Plus, I really like my phone, especially now that I've received the Marshmallow update. The 5X just isn't quite the balance I was looking for, so I might end up getting the Moto X Pure, instead, or whatever comes along in the next year that strikes my fancy. Right now I'm in no rush to replace my durable Nexus 5.
4. That the two leading candidates at the moment are Carson and Trump, shows just how superficial conservative Americans are. Trump ironically calls himself the grand uniter, which requires no explanation. Carson, without serious understanding of the issues, has become the poster boy (not just a token) of the conservative narrative, that Carson's biography shows that Black Americans have only themselves to blame for their situation. This is made apparent when you look at Reuters-Ipsos' breakdown of Republican-affiliated voters: White-only Republicans are twice as likely to pick Carson than Black-only Republicans, though technically Black Republicans represent less than 1% of RI's polling and as such, is an insufficient sample size. If that doesn't convince you of the superficiality of conservatives, compare the GOP and Democratic debates. For some reason, on the national level conservatives can't find credible candidates -- perhaps it is the foul effect of rich money pouring into campaigns as a result of Citizens United. Consider that, long before Ben Carson announced he would run, there was a Super PAC created to encourage him to run.
5. Seattle's Paul Richardson looks to be coming back either this week or in the next few. Last year he was the speedster; this year, there's Tyler Lockett. What happens when you've got two speedsters at X and Z and the giant tight end in Jimmy Graham clearing out the linebacker? One can only hope for more wheel routes to Marshawn Lynch, eh?

5 Thoughts for October 24, 2015

1. Rubbing alcohol is good for a lot of stuff, but I realized today that being a degreaser, it should function extremely well as a kitchen grease cleaner -- and it did! When using, the fumes are overwhelming if you're not careful, but just cuts right through the grease and paper towels suck it all up. So simple, cheap and instantaneous, it's better than any of those commercial cleaners at the store. Of course, I haven't tried it on every surface, but in my short experience plastic, metal, or glass seems to work well -- just don't use it on lacquered wood. It even cleaned up the permanent ink marks someone once left in the elevator several months ago, which I cleaned up on my own.
2. One by one, each politically-driven witch hunt led by Republicans has failed. This week we saw the Benghazi "investigations" reach an anticlimactic 11 hour grilling of Hillary Clinton; and now we have confirmation that nothing nefarious occurred at the IRS, with Lois Lerner having been exonerated. It's not fake outrage, so much as it is biased thinking that leads people to eliminate natural skepticism.
3. At this moment, there are three hurricanes / typhoons in the Pacific at the same time, one for each region of the Pacific: Eastern (hurricane Patricia at one point had gusts in excess of 200 mph), Central (hurricane Olaf with wind gusts of 110 mph) and Western (typhoon Champi with wind gusts of 132 mph). Earlier this year there were three tropical depressions / hurricanes within 1000 miles of Hawaii at the same time. If climate change means that in 20 years, we'll see concurrent storms in the Pacific as a regular feature of the warmer climate, I'm not so sure that I'd want to retire in Hawaii.
4. Seattle Seahawks' defense showed off their old ways, by preventing SF from scoring a touchdown, and holding the 49ers to just 142 offensive yards. The communication in the secondary was vastly improved, preventing wide open receivers, deep. On offense, it felt like a mixed bag yet again. Russell Wilson threw two deep interceptions, neither of which should have been thrown, and while it shows that the offensive line has improved enough to allow him to throw the deep ball, he was still sacked 5 times. Rawls looked tough as usual, but Lynch, coming off injuries, showed why even Rawls can't yet replace Beast Mode.
5. KIC 8462852. It's what's driving scientists around the world to scramble and answer definitively, "Where's the Flux?" As with life, you don't know what you don't know, so people are searching to find out what it is that they don't know. At some 1500 light years away, unless someone's figured out wormhole travel, we're sort of stuck with observations with telescopes, imagining what happened at KIC 8462852, some 1500 years ago.

5 Thoughts on being confronted by a homeless person.

Here's the background: 

I was walking the dog in the early morning (1 am) to the post office to drop off a DVD and pick up my mail. On my way back, a seemingly homeless, mentally ill man confronted me, and wouldn't let me pass, jumping into my path every time I tried to navigate around him. At first he demanded that I explain why I was in his place, then later accusing me of stealing something from him. On my final try to pass him, he shoved me back, and so I pulled my phone out and asked him if I should call the police, to which he agreed, but then immediately began to walk away. I followed him for two blocks as I was on the phone with 911, but then stopped and waited for police to arrive.

Five thoughts:

1. Clearly he was mentally ill, yet as soon as he saw that I was calling the police, he backed off -- that showed rational thinking, knowing that he was in jeopardy of being arrested for simple assault. Even as I followed him, he never once walked back towards me; he stopped to yell at me to stop following him, but he never came back at me again. If I were called in to testify in a trial against him, I would clearly note that he made a rational decision to drop the issue and walk away, knowing that I was calling the police.
2. At the start of the confrontation, the very first thought that crossed my mind was confusion about why a seemingly homeless guy would confront me and block me from walking. I had my headphones on so I didn't actually hear what he was saying until he moved aggressively to block my path.
3. In the span of a minute, my mind then ran through four scenarios: (1) If he threw a punch or pulled out a weapon, I would crush his trachea then break his neck; (2) I could walk backwards, but if I turned my back he might attack my blind side, and walking backwards might backfire and trigger an attack anyway; I should just kick his ass; (3) I really want to kick his ass and send him to the hospital if he keeps trying to block me from walking around him; (4) If he pushes me, I'll call the police and let them handle it; if he tries to escalate, I'll kick his ass.
4. Twice in the past, when my dog had been physically assaulted by another dog, I have physically hurt that other dog to get it off mine; in one case, the dog ran away. You know how Bruce Banner -- the fictional character who turns into the Hulk -- tries to avoid confrontations? I do the same thing. When I get angry, and I mean really angry, I lose rational thought and feel no pain. I have only gotten really angry, twice in my life: Those two times my dog was attacked. The second attack on my dog resulted in trading punches with three homeless guys and while I was punched at least three times, I didn't feel a single blow. Also, both times these dogs were owned were homeless people.
5. I think this may be the new norm in the Pearl District and Downtown Portland. If this is so, there will be a lot more of these types of confrontations, and innocent people may be harmed. It seems that this agglomeration is at least partly the result of about a half-dozen (or more) concentrated services and housing for the homeless, all within 8 blocks of each other, in my neighborhood. There is one nearby sidewalk that has been completely taken over and impassable, by encampments and a dozen stolen bicycles, and it's a place where Grimm has filmed multiple times. Do you want to know where?

5 Thoughts for October 20, 2015

1. I remember a handful of years ago, cable companies lying about attrition, aka cord-cutting. Well, it's clear as day that cord-cutting is real, and the trend shows no signs of slowing down. I cut the cord some 12 years ago; glad to see others have figured it out, too. I would expect that the downward trend has been fueled by the plethora of plug-in devices, such as Chromecast, which has sold 10M units in two years.
2. Speaking of cord-cutting, ESPN is going to cut 4.3% of its workforce, due to subscriber losses and lower revenue, which apparently has shaken the media world up quite a bit. Not that you needed this piece of news to realize what was going on; I've written about it before, that the media and ESPN in particular has obfuscated its viewing numbers. The most-viewed sporting events in the US, has always been on broadcast TV -- the most watched sporting event in the US, in the history of television, was this past year's Super Bowl, where nearly half of the US population tuned in, at one point in the game; the most-watched college football game, ever, was USC-Texas in the 2005 Rose Bowl. With services such as Sling TV, sports fans can, at-will, subscribe during the season and unsubscribe during the off-season, without penalties you would normally incur with cable. This will only hurt ESPN further.
3. Hurricane Olaf doesn't appear to be headed towards Hawaii. Nonetheless, if you add up all of the hurricanes and tropical storms that have originated from the Central Pacific and Eastern Pacific which have affected in some way, the Hawaiian Islands, Olaf makes 14 this season, with one more month to go. On a related note: If you look at the strongest El Nino season on record (1997), compared to the current one, you'll notice that 1997's was stronger, but the surface temperature this year is warmer over a much wider area off the west coast of US; even the Indian Ocean is much warmer this year than it was in 1997, but don't tell that to climate skeptics.
4. Climate change is real. It's not just that the tropical whitefly -- a pest I researched in elementary school for a paper! (yes, we wrote research papers in elementary school!) -- has spread throughout Portland, or that the pine beetle I took a photo of, seven years ago, is now all the way north, just short of the Yukon territories, or that the small sandy beach in I once used to lie down on in Honolulu is no longer visible except at low tide, or that my research turned up the fact that half a century ago a typical winter season in Portland included several feet of snow whereas now, it's a good year if we have several inches of snow. None of that really matters. What really matters, is that there is raw data showing the anomaly of surface temperatures around the world getting worse, and far too many people just don't give a damn. That's what bothers me.
5. The only words I can find to describe Lucas Padgett -- the brother of Jared Padgett, a student who brought a bag of guns and ammo to Reynolds High School last year and killed a student and injured a teacher, who wanted that bag, the unused ammo and the weapon used to murder a kid -- are deeply profane ones...but here goes: BDITU. If that wasn't enough outrage, the judge, Michael Greenlick, whose ruling inferred that he would return these items associated with a child's murder, isn't up for re-election until 2021: BDITU honorable mention.

5 Thoughts for October 18, 2015 (60% about football)

1. USC looked good against Notre Dame, before they looked bad, before they looked good again, before they looked bad again and lost. This team has tremendous talent, but simply cannot sustain a high level of concentration and performance through an entire game against a tough opponent. This we know: USC's players and staff, no matter what they say, can neither conduct a 2-minute offense nor do they have a sense of urgency to pick up their level of output.
2. USC opened as a 3-point favorite against Utah, at the Coliseum this upcoming weekend. How'd that happen? Utah is 6-0 while USC is 3-3. Utah is consistently tough, while USC isn't. If USC loses and drops to 3-4, it'll be the worst in-season record since 2001, when USC started off 2-5.
3. Seattle Seahawks won't make the playoffs this year unless they win out. It's obvious now, that like USC, they might have talent all around, but there's a mental toughness missing. The difference is a razor thin edge: Last year their offense was able to overcome lulls in games, to come back to win in the fourth quarter; this year they can't figure out how to do it.
4. It used to be that if you bought something from Woot.com, it'd take a few weeks before they shipped it out to you; my last order was split into two, and both were sent off within 2 days. That's a good sign, and something I think most people expected would eventually happen, when Amazon bought out Woot. Now, if they'd simply get rid of the $5 shipping for orders above $35.
5. The Benghazi investigation -- what is the point of it? Was it supposed to see if anyone committed errors that led to 4 American deaths, or is it a political witchhunt? I believe it is the latter, following the admission of two Republicans in the House. But the real kicker is that the man leading the 7th investigation into the matter, Representative Trey Gowdy, told the media that it was an impartial investigation, while at the same time, it turns out he leaked information that was both partisan and patently false. And this wasn't even on the topic of Benghazi. Perhaps this is the reason why Hillary Clinton received a boost in her poll numbers, just a week after a top House Republican admitted that the investigation was partisan, and just before the first Democratic presidential debate.

5 Thoughts for October 16, 2015

1. Betcha didn't know that there were dozens of varieties of avocados, eh? I love this chart showing all of the varieties from around the world and those developed in Hawai'i. It came up in my head while I was putting together my grocery list, and I recalled how an uncle of mine had a couple of avocado trees with fruit that was not like the kind you normally buy at the store -- Hass avocados.
2. Two things about coffee: (1) Even if you have a cheap bean grinder, the flavor that comes out of grinding your beans is dramatically better than pre-ground coffee -- it's something I keep running into as I go back and forth between buying ground coffee and grinding beans; (2) In the long run paper filters cost more than fabric / steel washable filters, but paper blocks fines, and so you'll never have sludge at the bottom of your cup.
3. I've transitioned to Netflix streaming, sort of. I moved from 2-discs-at-a-time plan to 1-disc-at-a-time, and added 1-device streaming. Netflix used to try to slow my DVD rentals down, and now they're in for a doozy as I've streamed hundreds of hours in just one month.
4. Android Marshmallow is incredible! With the new Doze mode, overnight the charge barely drained; when I woke up and looked at my phone I was shocked to see it at about where it was when I fell asleep; usually I'd wake up and have barely anything left. Additionally, Marshmallow brought the ability to individually turn off any app's permissions -- a long-wished-for feature -- which I put it to use, immediately.  Some apps really shouldn't be accessing your Contacts, after all.
5. That New Yorker article on the Cascadian Fault quake, has really shaken up Oregon. OPB's Oregon Field Guide had a special presentation (and a dedicated site) that was actually in the making long before that article came out, and it's really worth watching, to understand what the risks are, and how different jurisdictions have reacted. The bottom line is, that Oregon disasters are so extremely rare, that few can justify the cost to prepare for what amounts to an extremely rare cataclysm; in Japan, they routinely get large earthquakes and big typhoons; Oregon not so much. I just can't see taxpayers paying up for an event that may happen tomorrow or 50 years from now. Instead, it's much easier to visualize households preparing themselves to survive and recover from such cataclysmic events.

5 Tips for the updated Fallout Shelter

Eleven days ago, Fallout Shelter failed to load. At that point I was a week into the max 200 occupants in my third vault. Ten days ago, I decided to uninstall and reinstall Fallout Shelter, which resulted in the loss of my vault, so naturally, I started a new one to see how well I could replicate my earlier success. I'm not at 200 yet, but I've very close (at 159) and it seems that I'll hit it in two weeks from the start of the vault, which shatters the three weeks it took to build the previous one up to 200.

Yesterday, Bethesda updated Fallout Shelter. If you watch the trailer, it more or less tells you everything you need to know about the changes. Additionally, there's a ceiling on the number of explorers allowed at any given time, unless you currently exceed that number (10), at which point I haven't had any trouble keeping the number of explorers above the ceiling. Apparently there's a Survival Mode which does not allow you to bring back the dead, but to get to this option you need to start a new vault.

With my current new vault and with these new changes to the game, here's five tips:

1. My ultimate Deathclaw strategy requires time to create the system, but no matter how you do it, you must have it in place by the time you reach 60 occupants. I use one elevator on the first level, and the rest of the level is a dead end. Assign the highest level and the highest SPECIAL rated occupants to that first level. Give them the best weapons, starting with the Entry room first. The reason why you're giving the Entry room greater importance, is because these are the occupants who'll deliver the first, biggest blow to all invaders (in my case, no raider gets past the vault Entry room), and when the invaders move on to the next room, you'll be able to replenish them with Stimpacks, then throw them back into the fight in the next rooms to the right (which is why you want a dead end on the first level). In a lower level, I've built two 3-room connected Med Labs, upgraded it to the max, to produce 12 Stimpacks at a time, in each lab, allowing for a total storage of 60 Stimpacks at a time. I call the first level of my Vault, "The Kill Zone." Nothing gets past it. Don't keep any Barracks on the first level.
2. I mentioned this before: Equip all of your occupants with clothes and weapons, and upgrade their clothes and weapons as you collect more, selling off the rest. Let me explain the importance of this. You will find that you don't need more than a couple of fully-upgraded storage rooms, which saves you on Caps, but also help you avoid unmanned rooms that can result in a spreading of Radroach and Molerat invasions, as well as fires.
3. With the updated game, the mystery stranger randomly appears. There is a mysterious 3-note sound to signal his appearance somewhere in your vault. When he disappears there's a bull-horn sound. It's a very short appearance of about 5~10 seconds, and he'll appear all over the place; my experience is that I rarely find him. Sometimes I get a few hundred Caps, and other times I've grabbed two thousand Caps. The sounds will drive you mad.
4. When you defeat the raiders, you can claim their dead bodies and one piece of clothing or weapon; in return you get Caps. To redeem them, you need to select their bodies. A pop-up will ask if you want to keep that article of clothing or weapon, or if you wish to sell it.
5. The indicators at the top of the screen indicate Power, Food and Water. The line indicates the minimum required level for the number of rooms (in the case of Power) or people (in the case of Food and Water), at which point when you drop below that level, you go critical and the indicators for your occupants start to show red, which reduces their ability to function and live. At that point you'll have to hand out Radaways left and right. I try to maintain these minimum level lines at roughly the 1/4 mark from the left. People who keep their levels at the center or right of center, are playing with fire and will run into major issues with low mood levels. In my current vault, I'm averaging 93% approval, so I'm collecting ~130 Caps daily, just for keeping the occupants happy.

Badass weapons at the Entry (via Lunchboxes) make up the front end of my Kill Zone.

Mystery person! 3-note tune signals arrival; bullhorn indicates his disappearance.

5 Thoughts on the first Democratic Presidential Candidate Debate.

1. CNN's Anderson Cooper did the exact opposite of what those Fox News folks did in the first GOP debate, namely, he directly challenged every candidate's previous statements on issues, and forced the candidates to answer the question if they failed to. There were no stupid questions posed, here. The folks at Fox News were mostly interested in becoming the news, by participating in some form of Reality TV, I think.
2. The amount of civility in the Democratic debate, stood apart from the ridiculousness of the GOP debates. Even as the Democratic candidates directly and vigorously challenged each other at times, there was no hostility involved; the candidates showed complete respect for each other. It took the Democratic debate to remind most people that debates can be rigorous but without the personal hostility we've seen lately. It's also notable for the quality of candidates on the stage, negating the need for anyone else to enter it -- see #5.
3. Poor Jim Webb. Anderson Cooper just wasn't interested in getting Webb involved in the discussion, so Webb retaliated by complaining repeatedly that Anderson hadn't allowed him to speak for 10 minutes -- a specific point he repeated twice. Then, finally Anderson asked of each candidate, to name the enemy they were most proud of, and Webb blew it, by citing the enemy who'd shot him in Vietnam, which he then explained that the enemy died. Crickets followed.
4. Bernie Sanders' and Hillary Clinton's supporters will each state unequivocally that their candidate won the debate. The other three (Martin O'Malley, Jim Webb, Lincoln Chafee) will all explain that they accomplished what they set out to do. Here's the reality: Clinton won. She was able to answer all of the rough questions without breaking a sweat or pausing for a second, and while her foes will suggest that it shows that she's too polished, I can't imagine why anyone would vote for a candidate who isn't polished and prepared for the most important job in the country, if not the world. Her demeanor in the face of obvious adversity given the GOP interference, was that of a leader. Nonetheless, this merely reinforces the belief that it is a two-person (Sanders and Clinton) race, with Clinton as the front-runner.
5. The person who wasn't there -- Joe Biden -- will surely stay out of the race, now that Hillary Clinton has shown to be a very strong candidate. You can bet that he was waiting to see how she fared in answering the tough questions; had the field of candidates come out roughly even, Biden would have likely entered the race on the belief that Clinton was weak enough to defeat, with no apparent challenger who could step up and take the flag. It's clear that either Sanders or Clinton can win the White House.

The way-too-early, top-5 USC coaching candidate list.

In 2001 I was thrilled that Pete Carroll landed the job at USC, despite all of the complaints. In 2009 and again in 2013 I pleaded for little-known Gus Malzahn to take over for Pete Carroll. Both guys have shown to be solid winners, but for whatever reason, most everyone else simply overlooked them at the time.

Sure, it's unlikely that anyone of influence will bother reading this post, but I thought I should put out a top-five, way-too-early list of potential candidates for the USC Trojans head coaching job, just in case.

In no particular order:

1. Clay Helton -- In his sole game as interim HC in the 2013 Las Vegas Bowl, the Trojans looked potent on offense and solid on defense. If this were December 2014, I would have said that, aside from keeping Ed Orgeron as head coach, Helton plus Clancy Pendergast made for the best possible outcome. Fast-forward to 2015 and Pendergast is still out of a job while Helton is now auditioning for a permanent HC job at USC, which means that we could still see this combo (Helton + Pendergast) come to fruition.
2. Bruce Barnum -- Did you know that Barnum's Portland State Vikings beat WSU, who beat Oregon, who has just two wins against FBS opponents -- the same number of wins against FBS opponents as Portland State, an FCS team, has? This is the first time since 2007 that an FCS team has had two wins against FBS opponents in a season, and at 4-1 the Vikings have excited the alumni and distracted many from the woes of Oregon Ducks. Here's a cool little tidbit: Vikings OC, Steve Morton, was an assistant coach at USC for a couple of years. This weekend at Providence Park, Bruce Barnum will have a huge opportunity to show that he's legit, when Montana State visits. It seems obvious that PSU will lose Barnum sooner or later, and while he's a very long shot at one of the top coaching jobs (or rather, most stressful) in college, I think he's shown to be a very solid coach so far.
3. Chip Kelly -- From the start, Chip has run into problems getting NFL players on board with his scheme in Philadelphia, but without a doubt he was solid gold in Eugene. What stopped Chip from getting a national championship at Oregon -- talent -- is something he'll never have to worry about in Los Angeles. Plus, between then and now, USC's facilities have been upgraded to outshine that in Eugene -- ask JJ Watts why he spent his summer at USC. Of course, the only way this happens, is if the Eagles have a bad season and fire CK, given CK's $6.5~7M annual salary.
4. Tom Herman -- Houston Cougars are 5-0 under Herman, but more than that, everyone is impressed with how he handled the constant changing of quarterbacks at Ohio State last year, due to injuries, on their way to a national championship. Furthermore, in the wake of Herman's departure, Ohio State's total offense has dropped from 9th nationally to 26th, while Houston's has jumped from 55th nationally last year to 6th this year. That's amazing proof that he's a solid coach, at least on offense.
5. Dan Quinn -- At 5-0 with the Atlanta Falcons in his first year as a head coach, it appears that he's tremendously undervalued at $3.5M a year, setting up for a pay raise one way or another. At Seattle his defenses were legendary, as in strongest since Da Bears' storied 1985 squad. Already, the Falcons have gone from 32nd (dead last) in total defense to 21st, and from 8th in total offense to 2nd. He has all the hallmarks of a great coach, and one that USC can immediately afford to buy out. Plus, a link to Pete Carroll.

Of course no one knows whether these coaches will continue down the path they're currently on, but right now they're the brightest options for USC, in my view. And no matter who takes the reins in 2016, it seems that Justin Wilcox will be out of a job, as not only was he Sark's guy, but his defenses have underwhelmed despite overwhelming talent. If I were to guess, Oregon would probably cut Pellum and bring Wilcox home (a Duck returns to his flock).

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Update: An Afterthought

I've been reading other sites with their suggestions, and so let me explain why they're misguided.

Those former USC players who are coaches in the NFL -- Jack Del Rio and Jeff Fisher -- have not shown to be guaranteed winners, so the only reason why these names have been mentioned is their tie to USC, which is an awfully terrible reason to pick them.

Assistant coaches in the NFL, with ties to Pete Carroll -- Kris Richard and Ken Norton Sr. -- who haven't held a head coaching position, have nothing yet to show for themselves, so the only reason, again, why their names have been mentioned, is their tie to USC, and again, is an awful reason to pick them.

Big name coaches who've already shown success at big time programs -- Nick Saban, Brian Kelly, Kevin Sumlin and Urban Meyer -- would no doubt succeed wherever they go, but to pull them away you'd have to put down well over $7M a year just to convince them to switch from one big program to another. Of course, that's assuming their current schools don't counter with a big pay raise, in which case USC would probably have to offer $8M a year and a long-term contract. That's just not going to happen.

The decision facing USC now, is not any different than what it was in the last 30 years. Success is required, it must be immediate, and most of all, you need to find someone who's interested in the job. Look around and the coaches who've so far shown an ability to bring immediate success to their respective programs is extremely rare, and that's where my list of top-5 candidates comes from; whether or not these coaches are interested in the USC job is a separate issue, but this is where you start your search from.

5 Thoughts for October 12, 2015 (all about football)

1. I didn't have to rewatch the USC-UW game to know what went wrong: Steve Sarkisian and his staff were incapable of maintaining consistency and that inconsistency carried over to the way the players carried themselves. Last year we saw it manifest with multiple 4th quarter collapses but this year it seems like you never know what you're going to get at any point in the game, and against any given opponent. When they're clicking, no one can stop them; when they're not focused they're completely discombobulated and make the dumbest decisions; when they get down, their fears just overtake them and their performance collapses like a house of cards. 
2. The second after USC lost to Washington, many people were suggesting that Chip Kelly might be lured away to coach the Trojans, which of course means that just about everyone expected Sark to be out of a job at the end of the season, if not sooner, which brings me to the next item...
3. Steve Sarkisian was placed on an indefinite leave of absence by AD Pat Haden. Apparently he'd shown up at work on Sunday and Haden did not think that he looked healthy. I believe this is what we call alcoholism, and the signs were there long before his crazed rant at a rally. I had wondered why Sark's eyes no longer looked normal (from his years under Pete Carroll); particularly, of late, Sark had glazed eyes and a weird stare while on camera. How he responded following his drunken rally rant, reminded me that the first step of recovering from an addiction, is to admit that you have a problem; Sark could bring himself to admit that he had a problem, instead blaming his actions on mixing meds with alcohol. Now that he's on indefinite leave, we now know when Sark will be fired: At the end of the season.
4. As if to add an exclamation point to the PAC-12's upside-down season, Oregon lost at home to WSU -- it's third loss of the season, and certainly a very low point for Ducks fans. I thought that losing Mariota would be big, but not this huge. While USC's -- correctable -- problem is a lack of consistency, the Ducks seem to have serious problems on defense and a possibly insurmountable issue with a lack of talent at quarterback (aside from Vernon Adams who remains sidelined with a broken finger). Literally, the only two PAC-12 teams worse off than Oregon, are Colorado and Oregon State, and Oregon fans are wondering if their team will even make a bowl game this year. Just a reminder though: Even the best programs and coaches have down years.
5. Seattle, oh my.  How does a team go from 17 points up in the 4th quarter, to losing in overtime? Here are two reason: (1) Offensive line blocking on passing plays remained the worst in the NFL; (2) On defense, it seemed at times that members of the secondary weren't on the same page. The loss was especially disappointing because it took the shine away from Thomas Rawls' spectacular 169 yard rushing performance in the absence of Marshawn Lynch -- it was the second coming of Beast Mode.

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Update:
Well of course that happened: Sark was fired. There is a lot of fault resting on Pat Haden's shoulders right now, as the Sark hire can be seen as the wrong choice at the wrong time for all of the wrong reasons, and given the opportunity to make the correct call, he punted following Sark's outburst at a preseason rally. Both decisions proved fateful, culminating in Sark's meltdown.

Right now Haden needs to focus on what meds Sark was taking. If Sark's meds were meant to treat any sort of depressive issues, Haden needs to immediately pick Sark up and deliver him to a treatment facility on USC's dime. If losing to his former team, Washington, triggered a meltdown, losing his job will be worse, and I don't mean more imbibing.

Design thoughts for October 3, 2015

I saw this listing for a simply laid out home for $175K, and decided to do a quick exploration of what I could do with it to make it better. What do you think...too much?

One Thought for October 2, 2015

STOP IT

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