GeekNights 070628 - Sports, Steroids, and Spectators

Rym

Tonight on GeekNights, we talk about a number of issues related to competition and sport.  In the news, the US is having a power struggle in government, and Led Zeppelin is not reuniting.

Scott's Thing - GT-R Spyshot
Rym's Thing - The Plastic Duck Armada

Josh Bytes

Scott's Thing link doesn't appear to be working.

Zeehat

Led Zeppelin is not reuniting.

Link not functioning.

Corbin

On the front page, the link for Led Zeppelin goes to the GT-R site.

Zeehat

Wow, they must've been in a rush.

Hitman Hart

if this is, as I assume, partially brought on by the Chris Benoit story, I will be posting quite a bit and talk about the whole thing.

Dr. Timo

You guys probably know The Straight Dope, and if you don't then you should. Anywho, regarding impeachment and arresting the president, this might enlighten Scott (I'm sure Rym already knows this )

Apreche

You guys probably know The Straight Dope, and if you don't then you should. Anywho, regarding impeachment and arresting the president,thismight enlighten Scott (I'm sure Rym already knows this )

That article didn't give a final answer, it said there was no answer. It basically laid out my argument against Rym's only with a lot more evidence. The bit at the end about international crimes was very interesting though. I never thought about extraditing the President before. I guess it might be hard for him to commit a non-political international crime, though. Diplomatic immunity exists for a reason.

Dr. Timo

That article didn't give a final answer, it said there was no answer. It basically laid out my argument against Rym's only with a lot more evidence.

Yeah, the reason I brought it up was because the article has very good references and is thorough. I think it is kind of a given that, since there is no precedent, no one knows how the situation will play out.

CrimsonGenesis

The GTR link isn't working for me, sirs. (EDIT: thanks for the fixing the GTR link)

I also wanted to get your opinion on the fastest growing sport in the states, UFC. It's new, it's so in the moment that every one of your moves and reactions that provide the tactical aspect you discuss, and it hasn't been maxed out yet.

brianm

Wow, why the hate of fatties? I'm normally not one to take offense about my weight.  However, I think your anger should be [directed] at inconsiderate fat people.

Kiey

Scrym - what was the name of the company you were getting/got the messenger bag from?

Apreche

Scrym - what was the name of the company you were getting/got the messenger bag from?

Timbuk2. Talk about off-topic!

Hitman Hart

The GTR link isn't working for me, sirs. (EDIT: thanks for the fixing the GTR link)

I also wanted to get your opinion on the fastest growing sport in the states, UFC. It's new, it's so in the moment that every one of your moves and reactions that provide the tactical aspect you discuss, and it hasn't been maxed out yet.

There was a short lived MMA thread here and it seems that people are still paranoid about the ground game looking "gay"

Jason

W00T! Back-to-back Jason Diggs make the newses!

Apreche

The GTR link isn't working for me, sirs. (EDIT: thanks for the fixing the GTR link)

I also wanted to get your opinion on the fastest growing sport in the states, UFC. It's new, it's so in the moment that every one of your moves and reactions that provide the tactical aspect you discuss, and it hasn't been maxed out yet.

There was a short lived MMA thread here and it seems that people are still paranoid about the ground game looking "gay"

I respect MMA as a sport and an excellent competition of physical prowess. However, it is not entertaining to watch at all. If you want entertainment you have to watch some Tae Kwon Do, kickboxing, or normal boxing.

Kiey

Scrym - what was the name of the company you were getting/got the messenger bag from?

Timbuk2. Talk about off-topic!

I know, but when you mentioned your bag at the top of the show I was reminded that I had been looking for those bags and didn't feel like going through all the episodes again.

Back on topic, I definitely agree with what you guys were saying. What you said about baseball makes complete sense to me (about how its basically completely figured out already,) and that is probably why I don't really enjoy it like I used to.

I think the advantage of college sports is that there are so many people in the player pool, and the player pool is always changing. So even though a lot of schools typically use the same basic tactics (Princeton basketball's motion/back-door offense, Syracuse football's option offense, etc,) college sports really comes down to what kinds of players the team has, and how good the coach is at tweaking their tactics to better maximize the team's potential. It seems only when you don't have a coach who can do that in college does a team become worse and stagnant.

Apreche

I think the advantage of college sports is that there are so many people in the player pool, and the player pool is always changing. So even though a lot of schools typically use the same basic tactics (Princeton basketball's motion/back-door offense, Syracuse football's option offense, etc,) college sports really comes down to what kinds of players the team has, and how good the coach is at tweaking their tactics to better maximize the team's potential. It seems only when you don't have a coach who can do that in college does a team become worse and stagnant.

It is interesting to point out that in college sports the coach makes the biggest difference, and in pro sports the star players matter the most. This actually fits perfectly with what we were saying in the show. Imagine college players like rough diamonds. A college coach can cut and polish his diamonds enough to out-shine all the other teams even if the other team has larger diamonds. In pro sports, all the diamonds are already cut and polished to perfection, so it mostly comes down to who has more karats and if anyone breaks any of their gems.

Rym

Wow, why the hate of fatties?Said "fatties" block the narrow staircase, and take their sweet time huffing up.  I could be at my bike and then down the street before the first of them even reaches the top.  They're too large to pass, so I'm basically stuck.
On a larger scale, I feel a twinge of distaste at anyone who can not or will not maintain their body to at least a reasonable degree.  It speaks of laziness, apathy, and lack of will. I think your anger should be at inconsiderate fat people.In this case, we were saying "fat people" in a pejorative and broad sense.  The vast majority of the people that are generally slow and/or in my way in life happen to be overweight and middle-aged.  Their weight may not be true obesity, but it speaks of the volumes of small accumulated flaws that a lazy, apathetic, or unwillful person will draw upon himself over the course of  his life.  I could just as easily have noted their shuffling gaits, bent postures, weak body language, or general slowness of action.  I arbitrarily chose the "Fat" attribute.
In general, you can learn a lot about a person by their physical appearance and manner.  I'm not talking about race, but about everything else.  A person's weight, posture, gait, presence, clothes, stare, perfume, et al. will give you a great deal of information with which to make snap judgements and predictive models.  Are they overweight generally, or with a beer gut?  Do they wear clothes in order to minimize the effect, or do they obviously not care?  If weight is being neglected, what other items might be suffering similarly?  Clean shave?  Clean fingernails?  Unwrinkled clothes?  While it is true that these clues are not in all cases infallible, they are a good starting point for many people.
Now, note that each and every one of these items is a fact.  It is an observable trait or quality.  While it may mean more or less in a given circimstance, it remains an observed fact: a truth.  If someone takes offense to a truth being observed openly by another, they are engaged in any number of intellectual shortcuts or cognitive incongruities.
In sum, they were all fat.

Jason

Rym... would you say that they were... SEDENTARY?

Rym

Rym... would you say that they were... SEDENTARY?
Ok, I actually laughed out loud at that.  Now I have to explain to the heads poking over my cubicle...

Kiey

It is interesting to point out that in college sports the coach makes the biggest difference, and in pro sports the star players matter the most. This actually fits perfectly with what we were saying in the show. Imagine college players like rough diamonds. A college coach can cut and polish his diamonds enough to out-shine all the other teams even if the other team has larger diamonds. In pro sports, all the diamonds are already cut and polished to perfection, so it mostly comes down to who has more karats and if anyone breaks any of their gems.

I think this is why you don't see many college level coaches make the jump to the pro level, and if they do they tend to do extremely poorly, because they are used to being able to mold their players, which you can't on a pro level since by then they developed to their potential, so then its just left to tactics. But in most pro sports (especially basketball,) tactics aren't really all that important. What seems to be important is acquiring players that compliment each other, since one start player doesn't really guarantee anything in the pros, but in college that one player could easily be enough to win you a championship.

Apreche

I think this is why you don't see many college level coaches make the jump to the pro level, and if they do they tend to do extremely poorly, because they are used to being able to mold their players, which you can't on a pro level since by then they developed to their potential, so then its just left to tactics. But in most pro sports (especially basketball,) tactics aren't really all that important. What seems to be important is acquiring players that compliment each other, since one start player doesn't really guarantee anything in the pros, but in college that one player could easily be enough to win you a championship.

And this in turn is why so many pro coaches want to be the GM and the coach at the same time. Also GMs are taking a lot more heat now than coaches are. When your team sucks, you usually blame the GM and the owner instead of the coach.

Erwin

I will say the soccer is an awesome sport and it does not suffer any of the thing you guys were talking about during the podcast. It is an awesome expectador sport, and a great sport overall. I believe that the only thing that would damage soccer is to reduce its play time to put commercials in the middle, like american football. Not for anything soccer or the real football is the most played sport all over the world. The World Cup is a symbol of my last statement, many people complain why it takes four years to get there, where there are only one year the is a "vacation year" the other three years most of the countires have a bunch of games to decide which ones from each continent would go to the World Cup. I believe if the whole American continent would unite USA would really enjoy it better, come one USA's biggest rivals are Canada and Mexico, while is South America teams have to go agaisnt Argentina, Brazil , Paraguay, Uruguay, countries that have won the World cup before. Steroids would not work in soccer since it would increase the muscular mass but the player would become slower, and angry and in soccer those two factors lead to bad games.
Also Scott you are wrong Chess is a sport and it is considered a sport for most countries around the world.

Kiey

Yeah football is great, I love watching the world cup. Any game, all the games are great.

I think what keeps football from suffering from a lot of the problems of other pro sports, is that its a lot like college sports since it has a huge base of players to pull from. But also I think it helps that there isn't an ideal number of players on the field, therefore there are a lot of extra room on the field, and thus a lot of extra variables and options in regards to play.

Kilarney

I will say the soccer is an awesome sport and it does not suffer any of the thing you guys were talking about during the podcast. It is an awesome expectador sport, and a great sport overall.

The biggest problems with soccer is that too few goals are scored, and way too many games are decided by a shootout.

MrRoboto

Well, the fact that there are so few goals, makes it even more exciting when they actually do score a goal.

Also, players get to do all sorts of crazy stuff all the time, specially the "super" players, like Ronaldinho or Beckham (in his prime).

I've noticed that people from the US don't really like low scoring games, thats why they change hockey and baseball that much, so its easier to score I guess.

Hitman Hart

I respect MMA as a sport and an excellent competition of physical prowess. However, it is not entertaining to watch at all. If you want entertainment you have to watch some Tae Kwon Do, kickboxing, or normal boxing.

I'm sorry, I much prefer MMA to boxing, I have no idea where I could see Tae Kwon Do, not to mention I'd have to get over TKD being a running gag among MMA fans as something guaranteed to get you KO'ed. Boxing is only entertaining to watch when you have lighter weight classes and not major names. Kick boxing is usually ok, but also hard to find much of. MMA is abundant and easily found, even without television. You can Netflix DVDs of it without a problem. Again, I ask you, Scott, what MMA have you seen? Sometimes you do get a bad match or show, I can recommend you some things to Netflix and see if you like that.

Cramit

Here is flickr gallery of another Nissan GTR

Apreche

Again, I ask you, Scott, what MMA have you seen? Sometimes you do get a bad match or show, I can recommend you some things to Netflix and see if you like that.

I've seen some random stuff on the YouTube, and it's not so exciting. Meanwhile I watch some Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson on YouTube, and it is the awesome.

Hitman Hart

UFC is pulled instantly from Youtube because they have an agreement worked out. You're looking at top level super boxers and probably amateur level MMA. Netflix this:
UFC 47 and watch it and see if you still think MMA is boring.