Posts made by Ganymede

@Arkandel said in The Basketball Thread:

What bugs me is that while the Bucks and the Raptors destroy each other trying to get through to the Finals the Warriors are going to manhandle the Blazers. I don't see that series lasting for more than 5.

Why not? People thought that the Lightning would sweep out the Blue Jackets too.

The Warriors are tired. Curry and Thompson have miles on them after being in deep in the post-season so often, and it shows. Durant will be coming back from a leg injury. No Boogie. I have no reason to believe that the Blazers won't put up a hell of a fight, being supreme underdogs, and that means that they could wear the Warriors down. The Blazers still have a chance with Kanter getting rebounds and CJ McCollum taking over when Lillard has lagged.

@Warma-Sheen said in The Basketball Thread:

If they can't play the 76ers better than that, I think they'll be exposed quickly by the Bucks who will exploit the same weaknesses, only better. If they couldn't handle Embiid better than that, Giannis is gonna tear them apart.

They handled an athletically-superior team with experienced defense, while getting minimal offense outside of Leonard. It looks like Lowry's in a slump and Siakam is still getting used to the playoffs. If those two get going, it is going to be a slugfest.

I still like the Raptors in 6.

If I'm wrong, though? The Bucks are the superior team. Scrapping for victories counts for something in long playoff series, though, as the Bruins and Sharks can testify to. There's no easy buckets, but the Raptors have proven that they can shut down an elite offense.

I'll make a comparison.

I played on Modern Nights, a recent V20 game. It had a lot of options and a lot of potential. But there were no wikis, and the players weren't really talking to one another online. It was hard to find RP most nights, and I did not have the ability to sift through wikis to even see where I might have a tie or two. Yes, there was code available to guide me towards folks that my PC may have known, but that's a far cry from being able to browse at leisure.

Contrast this with Echoes in the Mist. That game had a wiki, but you didn't have to reveal your stats if you didn't want to. Even the most basic information -- Clan, Covenant -- was enough to help me figure it if it would make sense that my PC would bump into another. That made me feel more comfortable reaching out for RP.

Aside from Ares-based games, I don't know of or haven't played on games which allowed all-but-full disclosure of stats. Whether an OOC masquerade is purposeful I think largely depends on the kind of game you want to run, but I prefer games with player wiki pages.

@Testament said in The Basketball Thread:

Part of me wants to say six games, but I also think they'll beat Toronto in six too. Honestly, I think they're the only team with the depth to do it, as I don't think the Raptors or Blazers are deep enough to do it.

The money's on the Bucks, but I'm not so sure if I'm ready to hand the ticket to the Finals to them.

Like, I get it. The Bucks have a lot going for them. Whereas the 76ers had Butler, Simmons, and Embiid, the Bucks have Bledsoe, Middleton, and Giannis, not to mention Lopez. Toronto has a tough test in front of them, but we're talking about the #1 and #2 teams in the league here. Anything can happen.

The stats show a good matchup here, with the experience edge going to the Raptors. Leonard and Green are fire-tested Popovich grads. Lowry and Gasol have a lot of miles on them. In the end, this is what allowed them to play against and beat the 76ers, who had youth and athletic ability on their side. I still think that Gasol and Ibaka are an underrated duo that can defend big men, and Leonard and Green are defensive stalwarts. If the score stays low, the Raptors have a chance to steal a game or two in Milwaukee.

No one wants to play in Toronto. Those fans are rabid beasts for basketball, now that the Leafs are out of the playoffs. I thought they were going to set the Scotiabank Arena on fire yesterday.

No truer description has been made.

Also, Nick Nurse’s player apparently maxed out mental stats, and sacrificed his social stats. He has the mic presence of a soft brick.

@Auspice said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

The media sucks at being inclusive in advertising. We know this. I'm just glad they finally got over, after years and years and years, only celebrating women who pooped out a kid.

It’s not that the media sucks at advertising; it’s that the average American sucks at comprehension. So if the media wants to hock wares, it must do so by broadcasting the most simple message possible.

@surreality said in Good TV:

I have never been impressed by the recent Guardians of the Galaxy animated stuff. Until their last four episodes, apparently shown over the past two weeks.

Which Circle of Hell must I tune into to see this show?

@Auspice

So, the answer is “yes”?

I know everyone means well, but let’s not presume that the people working on the game haven’t already thought of all of these issues.

@Auspice

Asking another adult to stick to a schedule is neither selfish nor unreasonable.

I presume your father is unemployable.

@Auspice said in Songs on a Theme:

What do you listen to when it's raining or storming? What songs remind you of the rain?

Garbage: I'm Only Happy When It Rains.

Beth Orton: I Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine.

The Dark Romantics: Roads.

Suede: The 2 Of Us.

30 Seconds to Mars: Stay.

Scala & Kolacny Brothers: Use Somebody.

Manic Street Preachers: Small Black Flowers That Grow in the Sky.

Dave Chappelle.

I mean, he's a gifted comedian with flaws, but he's a genuinely good guy, it seems. Here's him talking about his current place of residence, and sticking up for the people living there. He's also an intelligent man, who figured out when and why it was best for him to walk away.

But he's still a local celebrity, so when his local NPR affiliate was looking for donations to keep running, he elected instead to put on a show in nearby Dayton, with all of the proceeds going to the station (WYSO). The story is that the station invited him and his wife down, and that's when he told him that he'd rather donate his time.

First, all of the orchestra level seats at the local Schuster Center, where the show will be, sold out. Today, they started to sell the lower and upper balcony seats, and were sold out in under an hour. Naturally, I got my tickets because, well, it helps to work in downtown Dayton.

So, I'm Rick James, bitches. And Dave's a stand-up guy for his joint, Yellow Springs, Ohio.

@Taika said in City of Shadows:

When I can catch @Ganymede I'm going to pick her brain and show her what I've got in my head and what the grid is looking like.

Honestly, you probably just want to message me through here. It's been a busy week at work and in life, so I am only able to respond when I can, from where I can.

@Tyche said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

Are you one of those that suggest that I might not be acting in my own enlightened interest. Is it possible that I might be deplorable?

Whether or not one is deplorable is not dependent upon whether one works against one's own interest. Similarly, working against one's own interest does not make one deplorable.

And have you ever given thought to how Canada and the rest of the world have and still benefits from public and private medical research in the United States because of that business model. You know like half of the entire world's spending. And the reason it IS spent here.

There are lots of reasons why a lot of research is done in the United States, and I see no reason to believe that it is solely due to how the medical industry works in this country.

That aside, where are the results of that research? For all of that spending, the United States isn't within a sling's shot of the top 10 nations for health and wellness. We can draw a lot of conclusions based on anecdotes, but I would like to think that a nation that is spending around $110B on medical research would have comparable results to its birth rate and life expectancy.

What is really said is that, while U.S. investment in medical research is actually dropping, so is its status in overall R&D. While it is #1 in the world for total spending, it is #11 for % GDP. The country ranks behind Israel and Switzerland for % GDP spending, which is sad for a nation whose economic dominance was largely based on its ability to out-research other nations.

All of that aside, it is economically feasible to cover every American with Medicare / Medicaid at the current compensation levels. Despite the proliferation of the cruelty of social medicine, there are still many, many Nobel Prize recipients in the field of medicine or physiology that hail from socialist nations, just as there are Americans.

It is not infeasible to devise a system that works better. The private industry has made some "breakthroughs" that have helped to lower costs, but the industry itself has to be regulated by government if it is to survive. From what I've observed, it is the competition itself that makes the system fail.

@Tyche

I'm aware of Ohio. I live in Ohio. My partner went to the Cleveland Clinic for care.

Yes, they will lose money. Have you ever wondered why? Could it possibly be because they are paying exorbitant costs for other kinds of treatment? Could it be because they built their business model on the same system that is charging the shit out of you for a fucking basic drug?

Caresource is expanding. It primarily uses Medicare/Medicaid and Obamacare to provide insurance to low-to-medium income families. A profit can, has, and will be made where business models can adapt.

Some businesses refuse to do so. Maybe because of the profit they are currently benefiting from.

Why people like you still support the system that so clearly exploits you is beyond me.

@Tyche said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

Are they more influenced by advertising than we are?

It seems almost like, if someone stepped in to standardize and regulate prices, you'd see a fairer distribution system than the one many Americans, like you, face today.

Like, you know, Canada.

@Arkandel said in The Basketball Thread:

Personally I'm going with the Celtics narrowingly defeating the Bucks in a 7 game series, and Raptors pulling a more comfortable 4-2.

One prediction down, and another looks pretty damn close. Looks like I was right predicting that the Ibaka / Gasol combo would hurt offenses. The two of them dominated in Game 4, and Green had a killer game in Game 5 to rout the 76ers. When the Raptors' defensive stalwarts start scoring in double-digits, they are apparently unstoppable.

Not sure about the Warriors' chances without Durant and Boogie.

@Rinel said in Good TV:

I feel like someone injected a combination of sugar and cocaine directly into the pink corners of my eyes after watching that.

You say this as if it were a bad thing.

More meta, Thenomain.

Michael Bolton.

It's always nice when folks don't take themselves too seriously.

@faraday said in City of Shadows:

Well umm... some of us in some of our systems do?

WoD did. They did away with that when they shifted stat development from an exponential spending system to a linear one. I've already exhausted the conversation regarding why that was a stupid idea.

And here we are.