unclevlad

Holy cow...Celtics are *romping* to the top seed in the East. 14 games left...their magic number is *5*. And 9, to have the best record in the league. 4 teams eliminated; 2 more are on the doorstep, 2 games away from it. The East is more stratified...Celtics, then Bucks and Cavs, then Knicks and Magic. Sixers, Pacers, and Heat would be the next level, but Sixers without Embeed are fading fast. Then it's big gaps to the 9, 10, and 11 teams. The West? T'wolves, Nuggets, and Thunder are neck and neck. Then it's Clippers with 25 losses, Pelicans 26, Kings 28, Mavs and Suns 29, Lakers and Warriors 32. Rockets are 11th with 35 losses...which actually means the Wolves, Thunder, and Nuggets, with 47 wins, are dormie for a playoff berth.

ARGH. Supreme Court does NOT suspend Texas' law to allow purported immigrants to be arrested. Despite the fact that this has been held to be a federal power for YEARS. And they did it by just kicking it back to let the appellate courts rule. The gutless approach.

Throw shouldn't cost there, because it's something you can do immediately after a grab. HSMA page 98. With this move, you don't have the option to hold on. Note that it's +20 STR to throw because that impacts how far you can throw the git that dared insult your mother...and the damage if you throw him into a rock wall.

Early bracketology...UConn is the favorite; 25% so far. Houston, about 13%; UNC, 10%, Purdue 9, Iowa State and Arizona just under 5. That's still leaving 1/3 of the brackets picking someone lower...which is quite a bit. There's always the blind-devotion brackets picking, say, Virginia to go all the way, despite their *severe* offensive woes. (Not only did they get tied on a buzzer beater, losing in OT to NC State...they missed the front end of a 1 and 1 with 6 seconds left. They're only 64% from the line for the season...344th (out of 351!!!!) in DI. They're also 255th in effective FG%. Numbers like that say a deep run is VERY unlikely, but hey, there's no rational basis to pick the winner, so...why not?

BUT doing so would extend the timeline. Trump's lawyers would get time to prepare a defense against the new charges. In that sense, it's at least a partial win for Trump; delay's his first line of counterattack. And poor Donny. https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/18/politics/trump-464-million-dollar-bond/index.html For *some* bizarre reason, bond underwriters are nervous about backing this one...can't imagine why.

The hero in Drew's story did too...but solo. It's a very one-sided interaction; the rest of the game pretty much can't interact with him. Drew's story focused on the downside, of the *lack* of true interaction. And I think it's definitely something that works better in stories than it plays out in a game. Yes. The root is a story by H.G. Wells, and only the character's body was visible. That said...I might still allow Always On, because being naked has physical problems. It's snowing and 25 degrees. It's raining. It's 110 in the shade, and there's no shade...and you want to cross a blacktop road? Sidewalk and/or road debris. There's also the disconnect...if you're not fully covered, then anything that should be showing, but isn't...huh? If you are...this is from the Wikipedia article: That's excerpted from the character intro...which happens in a snowstorm. Well...completely hidden by bandages, yet walking upright...that's a disconnect in itself. But, what about summer? That much clothing is a big disconnect. Always On does mean the character can't turn it off under any circumstances, but that doesn't necessarily imply he can't mitigate the problems per se. It does mean that mitigating it, creates *other* issues.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/us/breyer-supreme-court-interview.html?unlocked_article_code=1.dk0.McCr.tNnyPQOco2RF&smid=url-share

CON comes into play in some other ways. Takes No Stun involves the obvious one, but 6E1 44 points out...at 0 CON, you have to make a CON roll (which is 9-) to spend END. If you buy everything to 0 END? The cost savings they'd get would almost certainly be FAR less than buying everything to 0 END. You only save 18 points. Buying base Running to 0 END is 6, and that's just a bare start. Also note that Takes No Stun triples the cost of defenses...and it's very expensive in the first place. This is increasing the base cost, too...HD says, 4/4 Armor with Hardened is 45, when Takes No Stun has been selected. 36 + 9. And you probably need to focus on resistant defenses. On the flip side, I'd ask...why? Explain the concept to me. Some disembodied energy cloud? Are there *any* biological processes in play?

It's also much more difficult to interact socially with anyone...including the other PCs. How is the character supposed to be involved in the game? I'm always leery about things like this, that might force the entire group to accommodate the situation. Drew Hayes wrote a short story about a hero whose power was that everyone forgot about him...not invisible in the normal sense, but very similar. It was always on, too. He had a difficult life...because he was 100% alone. It was rather melancholy.

Interesting. The First 4 takes the bottom 4 auto qualifiers, they're always 16 seeds by implication. The other 4 are the last 4 at-large teams. They're usually 11 seeds; I've also seen them split between the 11 and 12 lines. This year, they're 10 seeds...which means there's 26 conference champs lower. 4 bid stealers crashed the party late. Mr. P's Mountain West got teams in, but...not great seeds.

https://apnews.com/article/maine-shooting-report-takeaways-8a0ced34568bcca551b5a61fe1baa676

Houston falls in the Big 10 finals. Not that surprising, they had injury issues, and nothing to play for, really. They might lose the #1 overall seed, but I'd be just as happy NOT to. They're not dropping to a 2 seed. OTOH...NC State beats UNC, and UNC *did* want the game. So, 3 of the 4 likely #1s fall today. It also means UConn finishes as the only 3-loss team. Houston and Purdue, 4 losses. Then I think we blow up all the way to *7* losses...until #18 (in last week's poll) Utah State with 6. The #1 seeds failed to win their conference tournaments at an amazing rate. EDIT: from this morning's first game, the Ivy League championship game. 17 conference #1 seeds failed to advance to their conference championship game...most in 25 years. That's a wrap because the 5 games today are all championship games, obviously enough. Bracket release is less than 6 hours away.

Steelers pick up Justin Fields, and only send back a 6th round pick...in other words, basically nothing. NFL.com counts this as a win for Fields, but I'm not so sure. It's complex; if Wilson plays decently, then Fields spends his 4th year...his pre-option year...on the bench. And it's a clear statement that no one wants Fields as a clear starter. OTOH, it also suggests that Wilson had better not take his starting role as a given. Both Wilson and Fields are essentially playing on 1 year contracts, and it's wildly unlikely they'll both get big money in '25. The losers for sure are the Bears, and all 3 of the current Steeler QBs. NFL.com also notes the Jets are losers, as...if Fields can only deliver a 6th round pick, then Zach Wilson's value as a backup is.............a 6th round pick in 2027? Steelers fans still have to be really nervous, as it's not at all hard to imagine BOTH of their new QBs failing miserably.

You can increase the font size on startup. Create a text file in your folder where the HD jar lives; I use RunHeroJar.bat. Then paste this line: javaw -Xmx1024m -cp .\HD6.jar com.hero.HeroDesigner 14 -Xmx1024m gives the Java machine more memory...a gig. I've got 16 gig, so I go big. If you've got less system memory, you can do less, like 128m. The last number there is the font size; you can make it what you want, but going too big may cause problems with labels and fields overwriting each other. I think 16 is fine, tho. If you're using a desktop shortcut, edit the shortcut; its execution line should look quite similar.

https://awfulannouncing.com/college-football/5-takeaways-college-football-playoff-agreement-espn-deal.html

ESPN is going to add a live Win Probability to their baseball graphics. One story here: https://awfulannouncing.com/gambling/espn-mlb-win-probability-sports-betting.html I agree. WP is meaningless most of the time, especially as a static number. Its transitions can be interesting...runner on 2nd, down a run, tries to steal third, gets thrown out. But generally, it's not needed or useful. And I also agree, it's pandering to the gamblers...if not with WP, then with follow-ons like live money line. Remember: ESPN has a branded sports book now.

Found an amusing poll over on Awful Announcing. "Would you vote for a presidential candidate whose VP candidate is Aaron Rodgers?" 90% NO...and over 1500 votes.

OH MY...MAJOR upset in the Big 10. Wisconsin trips up Purdue...#3, and an absolute lock to get a #1 seed...in OT. Something like 15 or 16 conference title games are today; saw a graphic showing there were still 18 AQs left earlier. Not sure how many games are tomorrow, tho.

Yep. Of course, and no offense...the fact that it's a Mr. P trivia question tends to narrow down the answer pool considerably........

And now Virginia has probably played themselves out. Coming into tonight's game with NC State, they were the 3rd of the Last 4 In...the Dayton-bound teams. So...extremely tenuous position to start with. NC State finished 10th in the ACC, 69th in the NET rankings. Virginia was 50th...and sinking badly late. Game tied at half, 29-29. Virginia had a 3 point lead with 6 seconds left...but NC State nailed the buzzer-beater 3 to tie, then scrapped to a small lead and watched Virginia miss multiple shots. NC State scores the last 9 points in the OT, to go from 1 down to an 8 point win. NC State has a shot at the automatic berth, but UNC stands in their way...and they've been solid for the last several weeks. And Kentucky's *very* erratic season continued, as they lost to Texas A&M. Kentucky was #9; A&M's NET ranking was 46. Wall to wall hoops still going on at this hour. Big Wes, Mountain West, Pac 12, and WAC.

And NYT had a story that only about 30% of Americans want TikTok restricted. They also mentioned, it's become an alternative to reach people...including by several in Congress. The TL;DR was, yes indeed, Republicans trying to do things Americans DON'T want, rather than what they do. Every day, in every way, I'm getting more and more confirmed...I will not vote Republican. Period. Not all Republican candidates are bad, but it doesn't matter to me now. And...yeah, VPNs are trivial. I've used BitDefender for anti-virus for...good lord, 10 years now? How time flies. Got it because it was a top-tier AV at that time, by the 3 big AV review sites. A VPN's built in. And it's not exactly expensive; just looking at NordVPN? Less than $5/month would throw in a password manager. So, not exactly expensive. And *Forbes*...that radical liberal institution!!!!...has a review of VPN packages! But hey, we know the farther-right Reps don't care about achieving anything substantive, they just want a crowing point.

The Minnesota game was only 3 games into the next season, so...not a big difference. IIRC, I've heard both. MVP season then a very poor SB after 3 dominating halves in the playoffs...then 18/41. And it's probably worth noting, talking about the strip sack...Newton was sacked 185 times in those first 5 years, plus however many hits he had to absorb while running the ball...600 rushes in those 5 years. Then the 6 sacks in SB 50, and 8 in week 3? You can't dismiss the notion that he took permanent damage. If he hadn't flaked out as much as he did, tho...even after those last 3, bad seasons, I suspect he might've gotten backup jobs...if he'd accept them. The comment you highlighted suggests he wouldn't, tho, and put the two together? Bet his agent heard numerous variants of "don't call us, we'll call you."

That's pretty seismic...Donald's only 32. But 10 years of double teams is reason enough.

I can actually see his points. He's certainly not the only one thinking it's too much. Not making waves is *not* a bad thing...being reliable to do your job is a very good thing. But yeah, he's definitely in denial about where he fits in. Hey, dude, you were on top of the football universe...but you lost your mojo in that game 3 against the Vikes in '16...and were never the same afterward. The flake act usually wears thin fairly quickly when the performance isn't there...unless you're Aaron Rodgers.

That's true across the field. The CBS studio folks like to go with upset alerts? This year...that applies to everyone. And if they drop to #6, well, 11 beats 6 about 3 times in 8. The 5-12, 6-11, and 7-10 matchups are all fairly close to the same...12 wins 33%, 11 wins 37%, 10 wins 39%. By comparison? 13 beats 4 only 21% of the time. EDIT: yet another datum? Mississippi State's listed on the Last 4 Byes by Lunardi...so, 11 seed. In the SEC quarters, they're playing potential #1 Tennessee. MSU 38-19 at halftime. They've wrapped around Tennessee's offense like an anaconda for the entire half. Sure, there's an entire 2nd half. but wow. EDIT 2: separately, after turmoil that led to a suspension, more turmoil and issues as reported in The Athletic this morning, and a season to forget, Michigan has fired Juwan Howard. EDIT 3: Mississippi State never lets Tennessee get close; the second half lead was never less than 12. They win by 17. So they're in...and if UNC can win their ACC semi, that likely locks Tennessee out of a #1.