Capco

I still use Madden 2005 on the original Xbox because I love the franchise mode and how they did player progression. This is my 3rd 30-year franchise and at this point I don't even care about the wins. It's all about developing players and creating an excellent roster year after year.

Dumb AI can't even count syllables.

In my current Madden franchise, I drafted 2 WRs with picks 5 (Travis Green) and 11 (Reuben Parkman) in the second round. Green: 6'2", 214lbs, 89 SPD, 91 ACC, 89 AGI, 89 JMP, 58 STR, 67 BTK Parkman: 6'1, 205lbs, 96 SPD, 78 ACC, 92 AGI, 87 JMP, 57 STR, 55 BTK Green started his rookie year and has held the WR2 position since being drafted. Parkman took longer to develop, but after three years of training camp drills I was able to get his ACC to 96 and his JMP to 90. He's set to take the WR1 position next year. Both were abysmal blockers coming out of college but have really progressed in that area. Green is probably the more complete receiver and uses his size extremely well on deep balls in particular, but Parkman is incredibly smooth in his routes and electric after the catch. Both have been re-signed to 4-year extensions. I'll probably look to trade Green once he's on the wrong side of 30, but Parkman will likely retire a Bill. tl;dr: drafting WRs back-to-back might seem excessive, but it can really pan out in the right organization.

Time to go Fishing And let Ed do some squishing To keep them wishing

150%. Maybe even 200%.

Cowboys are the only team in all 3 categories.

The analogy that comes to mind is a simple one. Consider cleaning one's home. The very moment we are "finished" with the cleaning, the place immediately starts getting dirty again. The fact is one is never truly "finished" cleaning because it is a never-ending task. When it comes to our country and our democracy, the same idea holds true. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." -Thomas Jefferson While I am progressive in most areas, I also realize that perfection is unattainable. You can clean up all of the graft and bloat and corruption in the military-industrial complex, but the very mechanisms that initially created it will immediately start working in the opposite direction. Does that mean we should just throw up our hands and give up? Of course not. We should constantly be working towards a more perfect union. But unfortunately there are tradeoffs with everything, including striving for progressive ideals. Here's another analogy from my chemical engineering days that will help explain what I mean by that; it is somewhat similar to the law of diminishing returns. Distillation is the separation of two compounds based on differences in boiling points. In the distillation of ethanol (alcohol), ethanol is boiled off from an ethanol-water solution by keeping the boiling point of the system above ethanol's BP but below water's BP. However, mixtures of ethanol and water form an azeotrope at just under 90% purity. You can distill that 90% solution again and hit just under 99% purity, and again to hit 99.9%. But you can never get 100% purity. Each distillation costs roughly the same to perform, but the effect of the cost diminishes by 90% each time. At some point, it becomes silly to go for 99.999999999%, especially since you will never, ever get to 100% no matter how many times you do it. I'm cool with a "90% democracy", if that makes sense, because I realize the tradeoffs of going further than that.

Exactly!

Tbh, I already had some of these exact things in mind when I wrote my other post. But I was speaking in very broad terms on a global/macro scale. My belief that US hegemony is not only best for Americans but also best for the stability of the world does not mean I have no criticisms to levy against our foreign and domestic policy blunders. I'm all for reducing graft in the defense budget, and not starting unnecessary wars that hurt our standing and image abroad. But I'm still all for maintaining the strongest military in the world by several orders of magnitude. Both can be done and are not mutually exclusive. I am a strong believer in what JFK once said, despite my belief that the Vietnam War was a mistake: Only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed. Even with a corruption free military-industrial complex (lol), maintaining this kind of might is an expensive endeavor. But in the long run it is far cheaper and more beneficial to be the biggest kid on the block for as long as we can do so while also lending a helping hand to our allies and not squandering our diplomatic capital on blunders like Iraq. It's also far cheaper in the long run to have universal healthcare than the sh!tshow we have now, which is why I support it. There's more than enough money and human capital in this country to do all of this and more if we started correcting ourselves in the areas where we are off-course. The alternative to US hegemony is a power vacuum that is likely filled by our adversaries, or a situation where the balance of power becomes so unstable that regional wars become the norm again. Our unquestioned primacy on the world stage requires the projection of power outside our borders, and is simply not something we should ever walk away from. I strongly, strongly believe it is cheaper and better for everyone in the long run. Like you said, we have multiple forms of power we can project, both hard and soft, and I agree that we need to be more ethical and mindful of how we wield that power.

For real though! P-chem was such a PITA.

0 = 0 4 - 4 = 6 - 6 4 = 2 x 2 || 6 = 3 x 2 2^2 - 2^2 = 2 x 3 - 2 x 3 (2-2)(2+2) = 3(2-2) 2 + 2 = 3 It's been a while since I've done proofs, but if the original is valid then it would seem the proof I just wrote is also valid. Fwiw, higher level math gets really abstract really quickly, and you almost have to be a little detached from reality in order to make advances in it. I wouldn't put too much stock into this as a direct caricature of the left. But hey, that's the world we live in today so I'm not surprised that's how it's being sold.

The US reaps far more in benefits from being the world hegemon than it costs to maintain it. As mentioned earlier, the position of the dollar as the world's reserve currency gives us an enormous advantage when it comes to borrowing money. It's highly unlikely that this status would remain as such if we retreated from the world stage and our obligation as the primary pillar that supports the current post-WWII world order. That factor alone is probably enough to justify our role as world policeman. PS - I actually liked it when Trump called out our allies for not meeting their military spending requirements in accordance with our treaties. Even if we are the primary beneficiaries, we aren't the only beneficiaries and we shouldn't be the only ones supporting the status quo.

Ahh I wasn't aware of the baseball reference. That makes sense. Thanks!

Interesting use of the word "battery". Does he basically mean "connection"?

I've never heard this before. So players have to fill out state tax returns for every state they play a game in? And what about the London game?

Bumping this back to page 1 in case anyone missed it.

I totally missed the memo that the plural of stadium is stadia and suddenly feel very dumb lol.

Remember when Long Snapper was one of our few "elite" positions?

Aka when your dealer is late 😄

Sorry if this has already been posted. It's a bit of a slow buildup but I really enjoyed watching it. GO BILLS!

Haha no worries. You're welcome.

It's the second stat listed lol.

Amen buddy.

With unemployment so low and real wages for the average earners finally starting to increase (albeit still nowhere near where they should be), there's only so many places left to point to in order to explain the homelessness issue. From 1979 to 2020, productivity of the typical worker increased 61.8%, but wages for the typical worker only increased by 17.5% adjusted for inflation. If compensation had risen at the same level as productivity, the median hourly worker would be earning $9 more per hour today, or an additional $18,000 per year. But the monetary value of those productivity gains didn't just disappear; it went up the ladder. Since 2001, 83% of the subsequent federal tax relief went to the top 1% of earners. The remaining 99% only received 17% of the tax relief. This combination has put enormous amounts of cash into the hands of a very small group of investors, and a large portion of this has been invested in residential real estate. Over the last two decades, this has artificially lowered the proportion of the supply of houses for sale on the market, but demand for home ownership by individual families doesn't decrease every time an investor buys a new rental property. Naturally, less supply without a change in demand drives up the price of houses. The situation is further compounded by the sheer amount of capital that these investors have at their disposal. This means these investors can actually buy houses at a lower cost than the average worker would have to pay, because the investors can either pay in cash or use the property they already own for collateral to negotiate lower interest rates. The end result is that fewer and fewer families can afford mortgages and are forced to rent. The fundamental problem of this whole paradigm we are currently in is that if the renters were given the same mortgages and rates that the investors get, they'd be able to afford the mortgage payments lol. That's literally how my family became millionaires. Their renters paid for their mortgages and then some. Landlords are certainly nothing new and I'm not saying we need the proletariat to revolt against the kulaks. But the current situation in the housing market is greatly out of balance because of the concentration of wealth and the subsequent speculation.

Good.