Friday Links!
[Update: certainly, I made an entertaining link-combining mistake last night, and if the orphanage story wasn't so horrific, I would have just left it alone. ]
I'm just going to warn you that the lead story this week is horrifying to read. It's a brilliant piece of writing, but it took me several sittings to even get through it all, because it's so painful. Having said that, it's important, so here you go:
We Saw Nuns Kill Children: The Ghosts of St. Joseph's Catholic Orphanage.
Palate cleanser, because you'll need one. Watch for as long as needed:
JUST WATCH These Cute Baby Animals.
From Wally, and it's everywhere, once you start looking:
Medieval gaming board clue to lost monastery. Move over, Spruce Goose:
385 Feet Of Crazy: The Most Audacious Flying Machine Ever. I had no idea this existed:
J.R.R. Tolkien’s Final Posthumous Book Is Published. This is fascinating:
The Day Jobs of 10 Famous Writers.
From C. Lee, and this is an absolutely incredible story:
Their Racing Pigeons Caught a Bullet Train. Then the Authorities Caught Up. This is just a wonderful, charming story:
The girl who gets gifts from birds. I had no idea:
Yes, Antarctica has a fire department. This is an excellent read:
The Duke Who Loved Tunnels So Much He Was Immortalized As A Literary Badger. Filthy, filthy people:
Big Tobacco’s Global Reach on Social Media.
From Brian Witte, and this is one of the most remarkable stories I've ever read (hint: it's puppets):
Why Czechs Don't Speak German.
Come On, Bugles, That's Weak
All Right, I'm Just Going to Plant This Flag (NFL)
Tom Brady will play well against division opponents because the AFC East is full of dogs. But he's going to look progressively worse against good teams as the season goes on, and by the end, the Patriots will be looking to release him before next season.
He'll try to play one more season and his performance will decline further, and he'll retire.
Brady somehow thinks his quack nutritionist/trainer is turning back time. He isn't. And once that veil is pierced, Brady will realize that he has substantially decreased arm strength and is, in fact, very human.
Once he realizes that, it's going to get ugly.
The problem with believing in things that aren't true (in Brady's case, all kinds of bizarre pseudo-science) is that in a performance-based environment, those beliefs will eventually get sledgehammered into reality.
This is the year.
Also, I'm consistently surprised at the outcry over the new helmet rules. It's just not that complicated: don't use your helmet to initiate contact. The rule should have been changed twenty years ago, but better late than never.
Will officials make mistakes? Sure, just like there's a mistake calling pass interference almost every single game. But we're talking about people's lives here, and it's just too bad that Joe Flaghumper feels like the NFL is less of a bloodsport now. Really sorry, man, maybe you can drink another six and swear at the TV and get through the tragedy.
The Golf Club 2019 (Mouse)
I can confirm that that mouse issue has been fixed. Played a few holes this morning with the mouse and it works fine now. Very, very impressed.
What Would Tennis Look Like If it Was Broadcast From Outer Space?
Oh, okay.
Crime and Punishment, And More Punishment
"I've hit a lull," Eli 17.0 says. "There's a conversation that's been going on for three chapters. About five pages ago, someone got up, and I thought 'Here we go!', but nope, they just kept on talking."
Update (Golf Club 2019, PC)
Okay, it appears that mouse swing is definitely borked right now. I started using a controller and immediately hit the ball much straighter.
As far as I can tell, there's a bounding box for input which is tuned to controllers. So, for example, if you pull the controller stick back as far as it will go, it corresponds to the bottom of the box, as it should. However, if you're using a mouse, you can pull the mouse back (on the backswing) to the edge of the box and more. The mouse input doesn't extend beyond the box, but it will slide to the left or right (instead of continuing straight back).
Well, that screws up your swing, big-time, and ruins any chance you have of hitting it straight.
To be able to play this way, you have to have the mouse in just the right position when you start your swing, and end your mouse move (independently of feedback from your golfer) at just the right time. This is well-nigh impossible, and everyone is having the same problem, so it's something they need to fix.
With a controller, though, it's very, very impressive. And I assume they'll fix the mouse issues in the first patch. Shouldn't have gone out this way, though.
The Golf Club 2019 (PC, also available for PS4 and Xbox One)
Wow. Different, but wow.
The new installment of The Golf Club released today (one of the most poorly handled and inept launches I've ever seen, actually), and I managed to play for about an hour earlier today.
Positives: the new menu system looks absolutely fantastic, Speedtree is put to very good use, it's fantastic to be able to play in career mode with PGA licensing and courses, and the animation seems to be solidly improved. Oh, and on the green, the ball actually feels like it's rolling, with a more silky rhythm than before. Very nice.
Negatives? None to speak of, yet.
However, the swing mechanic feels substantially different, and it's a significant adjustment. There's no 1-1 correspondence between your mouse movement and the golfer's swing. Instead, there's momentum modeling at work, where the golfer's backswing will continue after you've stopped moving the mouse (until you start the forward swing).
As I read that description, I'd hate it as described, but in actuality, I don't. It feels like a more complex and rhythm-based way to model the golf swing, and since (to me) the most important part of a golf swing is rhythm and tempo, I find the change to be pretty intriguing.
Having said that, my handicap was -6 with The Golf Club 2, and it's probably +10 with this new swing, so while interesting, it's not necessarily intuitive. I do think that it will feel more like real golf once I spend some time on he virtual driving range, though.
It's $49.99, which is a $10 increase from The Golf Club 2, but it seems like a fair price, given the addition of PGA licensing. Here's a link:
The Golf Club 2019.
A Smart Move
New York, NY – August 27, 2018 – 2K today announced that the Company is partnering with HB Studios to publish The Golf Club 2019 Featuring PGA TOUR®, the latest entry in the award-winning golf simulation series. Developed by HB Studios, The Golf Club 2019 Featuring PGA TOUR marks the franchise’s first release featuring the official PGA TOUR license and presents an opportunity, through the new partnership, to deliver the most comprehensive and engaging virtual golf experience to date for the series. The Golf Club 2019 Featuring PGA TOUR is available beginning today for digital download on the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system and the Xbox One family of devices including the Xbox One X and Windows PC.
"Today" is a little misleading, because it depends on your time zone, but tomorrow, certainly.
This was an easy move, and I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. This is a much, much better game than EAs product, and 2K doesn't have a golf game, so it seems like a perfect fit. And with the exception of a few rough edges (chipping/flop shots, in particular), The Golf Club 2 is a tremendous golf simulation.
And fun. Very, very fun.
Relevant
I've been thinking about this Hannah Arendt quote quite a lot lately:
In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. ... Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow.
That's from
The Origins of Totalitarianism, and unfortunately, in 1973, it predicted 2018 with a startling degree of clarity.
Photographs
I don't know how I missed this, or maybe I didn't miss it and already wrote about it.
Luca Redwood, creator of both
10000000 and
You Must Build A Boat, announced a new game--seven months ago.
It's called
Photographs, and there's a Polygon preview
here, including a trailer. It's more narrative driven, with multiple puzzle types, and it looks fantastic.
Back in January, it was supposedly releasing this year, but there have been no updates, so it's anyone's guess. Day one for me, certainly, because both of his previous games were incredibly fun and quite memorable.
A Long Week
I really wanted to write about Urban Meyer and what a pathetic, mewling, coward he is, but I'm so tired I can't muster the outrage.
Man, camp has been long this year. In a good way, but for some reason, I'm so much more tired than I've ever been during camp week before.
It's been hard for Eli 17.0, too. This is the highest level camp his goalie school offers, and almost all the shooters are either NHL, D-1, or play in the USHL or NAHL.
In short, it would be easy to be embarrassed. That did not happen.
This morning, at the pre-ice workout (at Barwis), he won a run by a ridiculous margin (against juniors and college goalies), and his trainer said, "Man, I know you're skinny, but you are a UNIT!"
Yes, that's a good description. The kid who worked out on Thanksgiving and Christmas is indeed a unit.
On ice, he's never looked anything less than in control. It's been his best week, by far, at a goalie camp, and it's because his game scales so well, even at this level of competition. It scales up as far as anyone wants it to go.
I've seen him make saves this week that I've never seen him make consistently before, but it's all come together, and man, it's powerful. I've really enjoyed watching him.
It's a grind, though. An hour off-ice workout, then two two-hour ice sessions each day. Intense ice sessions, with lots of drill reps because only ten goalies were invited to this camp.
We go home tomorrow, and next week, I'm going to try to write something thoughtful for you guys instead of scrambling to come up with something when I can't even think straight.
Innovation
We're in Detroit for Pro Elite Goalie Camp, which I have video and words about next week. Suffice to say that there were four NHL players shooting on Eli 17.0 in a single drill on Monday.
In the meantime, let me describe a moment of brilliance I witnessed earlier today. There was an old man hockey game on the other sheet, and I was in the parking lot as a crew of 65+ guys pulled into the parking lot and started unloading their gear.
One guy, who had to be 70, at least, was carrying his bag, but he also had a "mobile stick holder." It was a big cardboard tube (about five feet long), and there were skateboard wheels masking taped to the bottom. He put his sticks in the tube and hauled it into the rink.
Pure genius, and I only wish I could have gotten a picture.
The Moment
Eli 17.0 had a senior retreat last weekend.
The school wanted us to write these gushingly sentimental letters that the kids would read while they were at the retreat.
I'm not good with manufactured moments.
To me, real moments are made out of hundreds of smaller moments. It's a building process, not a lightning strike. Trying to generate these moments seems a bit phony to me.
I thought about it for a while, though, and came up with an idea. This was the letter.
Ahoy, matey! Greetings from your old sea dog.
It's been quite a voyage, my boy. You've grown from the littlest landlubber into the fiercest pirate on the high seas, and you still have the same gleam in your eyes as the day you saw your first doubloon. I still remember our first treasure hunt like it was yesterday, and you'll have many more. It's all gold out there, if you know where to look.
The first day I saw you with a cutlass, just moving about, I thought "Shiver me timbers! He's a swashbuckler!" Then, long days learning your skills with the blade. Heavy seas, the black spot, skullduggery, hornswagglers--it's all come to naught against you, and those sea legs just get stronger.
Now you're about to haul wind, and you need to bring a spring upon her cable. Ye can do it, my lad, I know ye can.
You're no blasted crimper, and you've never found glory in another man's pain. You give no quarter in combat, but once it's done, you've never made even the scurviest of dogs walk the plank. Rare qualities, my boy, enough to put a tear in my eye.
You'll be weighing anchor for your own galleon soon. I'll be proud to call you Cap'n someday, and no lily-livered son of a biscuit eater will stand in your way. You can count on this drivelswigger to always be a heartie, my boy.
Here's to an island where we only have coconuts and the deep blue sea to keep us company, and Davy Jones' locker is far, far away. Heave ho, my lad! Heave ho!
Love,
Dad
A Perplexing Costco Purchase, Observed
Canon 35mm camera
2 quart-sized bottles of Listerine
Seems Relevant
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
War is peace.
Truth is not truth.
Clearly, the Greatest Name in Sports History
If your name is "Jazz Janewattananond", I feel like you must know what you're doing.
Overheatd
A woman in her sixties: "Just turn that motor home around and get over here. "
Friday Links!
We are incredibly light this week, because you guys were nice enough to lower the email volume in response to my broken finger. Some good reads in here, though.
This is a long read, and it's spectacular:
Axes of Evil: four days, two murders, and one poplar tree that almost ignited WWIII.
From Wally, and this is worth reading:
17 Remarkable (and Scary) Things We Saw at Black Hat 2018. Yeah, this is strange:
Pigeon protecting it's 'baby'.
From Roger Robar, and it's a cookie war:
Oreo and Hydrox's 100-Year-Old Blood Feud Is Heating Up Over Claims of Hidden Cookies.
From C. Lee, and this is an incredibly bizarre story:
Escape from the Mayo Clinic: Teen accuses world-famous hospital of 'medical kidnapping'
(part two)
A very touching farewell:
Before and After Aretha. 'Heartbreaking' is the right word:
Heartbreaking documentary on London's North Korean enclave. This guy is amazing:
This guy takes coin carving to the next level. This is fantastic:
The Girls Who Slay at Chess.
Okay, finishing off, and this is absolutely the most 'Florida Man' headline ever:
(yes, it says "Florida Man Stabs Tourist Despite Having No Arms")
I Implore You To Play The Banner Saga (part two)
Okay, assuming you followed my recommendation and started playing
The Banner Saga, here are a few useful tips.
First off, if you read the text thoroughly and come to an understanding of the world, you will make decisions that make sense. Characters have very different alignments and goals, and you play multiple characters over the course of the game. The second time through, I realized yesterday that I'm actually role-playing now, instead of trying to be "good" with every character. Some of these characters aren't good, and playing them closer to their true nature is much, much more fun.
It's important to understand "renown" and how it works, because it's a central component of the world. Renown is gained both by fighting battles. by the decisions you make, and by completing training scenarios (which are available when you camp).
Renown is critically important, because renown points are needed to level up your character once they've gained enough experience. Don't expect to have enough renown to level up all your characters all the time--you'll be making hard choices about which characters are most critical to your success. At the same time, having a deep roster of fighters is important, because characters will be injured in battle and won't always be available.
Here's how injuries work. If, during a battle, a character's strength goes to zero, that character is injured, and will take anywhere from one to three days to return to full health.
Additionally, strength also represents the offensive damage possible. So when you are hit and take damage, it also reduces the damage you can do. This creates some interesting and unique decisions when you're in combat, and makes it absolutely critical that you preserve as much of your strength as possible.
This is a rich, very deep world, and if you engage with the world instead of relying on RPG reflex (where you do everything automatically based on how you've done it in other games), you will be rewarded with a magnificent experience.
I Implore You To Play The Banner Saga
I finished
The Banner Saga 3 yesterday, which completes the story.
Then I did something I've almost never done: I reinstalled the original, and I'm playing through the trilogy again.
Why? Because this is one of the greatest RPG's ever made.
There is real beauty and real pain. Agency and helplessness. Decisions feel like real choices with real consequences. Characters that you care about, some of whom you will miss deeply.
Relationships that feel as real as words can make them.
The trilogy defines characters to an arresting, gripping degree, your leadership swirling around all of them, visible but somehow incomplete, no matter your greatness. I felt genuine conflict, and genuine emotions.
And the text? In the Banner Saga, you savor it, feeling the heartache, the moral dilemmas, the hard choices you will have to make.
I will give you one piece of advice when you start playing this game: pay attention. Characters have motivations, and rivalries, and feel love and hatred and everything else in their relationships. These relationships are what define the game, and will define your leadership. There is no text skipping, or half-reading.
You're a leader. Act like one.
Here's a link to
part one, and you can also buy the
full trilogy, if you prefer.
I'm in the Healing Business and Business is Good
"Well, I see a break on this x-ray from last week," said the hand surgeon. "But this new x-ray looks excellent. I think you can take the splint off and resume activity, based on pain level. How's your pain threshold?"
"High," I said.
And so a 4-8 week recovery turns into a 6-day recovery. That is very, very solid.
I'm going to keep doing a few things, like hitting golf balls with one hand, because I think it can really improve my regular swing, but other than that, it's back to normal.
I can also type again without that stupid splint, which was driving me crazy.
It's too bad that there will still be a delay in the Head-to-Head Olympics, because Eli 17.0 has senior retreat this weekend and goalie camp next week, but the flag came in yesterday and looks outstanding.
Seems Like the Only Thing To Do
I'm leaning into this nine-fingered situation as hard as I can.
We hit range balls today. I hit about 60 balls with my left hand, along with some chipping. It's hard, as you would expect, and I had to tee the ball up on everything but chips.
"You hit a better wedge with one hand than I do with two," Eli 17.0 said. I didn't, but with a full swing, when I did it right, I could still hit my wedge about 60 yards. And I even hit a few drivers 130+ yards.
I fouled up quite a few--it's hard to have any clubhead control with one hand--but it was still fun, and it was better than sitting in the house missing the stuff I can't do.
We came back and played table tennis, and Eli played with his left hand, too. So every time he hit a topspin forehand, he was making a glove save. Heh.
I should be back to almost normal posting tomorrow.
And Here's the Problem With Every-Time Verification
Thanks, EA, really appreciate my license being invalid for a game I downloaded through your store and launched using your launcher application. Kudos!
Olympics, Delayed
We sat in silence in the emergency room for a few minutes.
"Victimized," I said. Gloria burst out laughing.
I was referring to this:
That's what your finger looks like after your boy's girlfriend accidentally slams her car door on your finger while you're pumping up her nearly flat tire.
So the Head-to-Head Olympics will be delayed 4-8 weeks while a broken finger heels, along with a deep cut that bled for a long time.
The worst part? The way this worked out, and where my finger was positioned, I couldn't open the door myself and had to shout at her to open the door. Which took at least five seconds, because the whole situation made her freeze.
It was a long five seconds.
Eli 17.0, as usual, had the right thing to say. "Don't worry about the Olympics," he said. "Just more time to build up the hype."
It's On
"Here's the proposed list of events," I said. "Tennis. Mini-golf. Pickeball. Table Tennis. Golf. Running--400 meters. Basketball--horse. Bowling. Darts. Paper football. Baseball--batting. Did I miss anything?"
"I'm in," Eli said.
"All right, let's move on to scoring."
"This is important," Eli 17.0 said.
"200 points for the event winner, plus a 50 point bonus. The loser gets the percentage of the winner's score out of 200."
"Explain that." he said.
"Let's say you win table tennis 20-10," I said. "You get 200 points for winning, plus a 50 point bonus. I get 100 points, because it's half the 200 base, and I scored half your points."
"Okay, I get it," he said. "That sounds good."
"Events take place over two days, like the decathlon. Winner will be crowned the Head-to-Head Family Olympics Champion."
"There will be a trophy," he said.
"Oh, yes. There will always be a trophy, passed from family member to family member over generations."
What he doesn't know: I have a flag.
Coming on Tuesday (Olympics start on Wednesday). Cost me $12, plus shipping. Boom.
Runaway
Clearly, this is fertile soil for metaphors, but this post is 100% metaphor free. Starting now.
We were on our way to Eastern Pennsylvania, about twenty minutes from our hotel. I saw a sign at the edge of the road.
"Wait, what did that say?" I asked.
"Runaway something," Eli 16.11 said.
It was a sign just like this:
This particular section of Eastern Pennsylvania had some very steep road grades, and in particular, a long stretch of curving, steep sections. We saw at least half a dozen of these on our way into town.
We'd never seen one before, and it's particularly scary to think about trucks needing to use this as a bailout. That ramp is incredibly steep, and it's also sand, just to slow down a vehicle even more.
The ramp in the picture is a gravity arrest ramp. There are multiple types, and here's a good explanation:
Runaway Truck Ramp.
Innovation
Gloria went to a Farmer's Market on Saturday and bought some fresh fruit. I pulled some out of the refrigerator on Sunday.
"These blueberries are a little soggy," I said.
"Yeah, after I washed them I tried to dry them as well as I could," she said, "but it's hard to get all the water out."
"There has to be a way," I said. "What we need--is a fruit fan."
"Okay, before you go any further, I am not putting a 'fruit fan' in the kitchen."
"Are you sure? I think the Lasko Fruit Vortex could definitely be a thing."
Friday Links!
Leading off this week, from Bryan, and it's a staggeringly good read:
How an Ex-Cop Rigged McDonald’s Monopoly Game and Stole Millions.
This is an incredible story:
Marine Biologist Melissa Cristina Márquez Was Bitten and Dragged by a Crocodile...and Lived to Tell Her Story.
From Marc Klein, and it's really refreshing to see an athlete who genuinely cares about other people:
How LeBron James’ new public school really is the first of its kind.
From Wally, and I did not quite belong to this group:
Every Parent at Disney.
From Michael M., and this is good motivation for hockey goalies and everyone else:
Jocko Motivation "GOOD".
From C. Lee, and this is a fascinating approach:
Hunting for fossils in the quirks of language. Yeah, this is going to be a thing (dammit, people):
A $225 GPS spoofer can send sat-nav-guided vehicles into oncoming traffic. This seems like an excellent idea:
Don’t Throw It Away—Take It to the Repair Cafe. Ah, this explains it:
Study: Elderly drivers more easily angered by red stop lights.
More from C. Lee. This seems like a good point, and it's a terrific read:
Don't fear robots, fear robotic humans, says Japan's AI auntie. Both of the films they mention are masterpieces:
Shinobu Hashimoto obituary: Japanese screenwriter best known for the the film classics Rashomon and Seven Samurai. This seems like the kind of thing people should go to prison for:
Tokyo Medical University discriminated against female applicants by lowering entrance exam scores: sources.
The "Eastern Pennsylvania" Camp
There's a story with this one, but all the stories blend together after a long summer.
Eli 17.0 had has best camp. No ups and downs, all quality performances. Very proud of him. He really looked in control of the ice for all three games.
The goalie coach was very young (maybe mid twenties?), spoke Russian, and called him in after the last game. "Play the puck more" and "you have good control of your body" were his two comments.
Cut.
The good news is that he learned a ton from these camps and has some experience that most other kids in his birth year don't have heading into next summer.
The bad news is that we understand now that just because you get into a camp, it doesn't mean that a team is seriously looking at you, or even looking at you at all. You may just be a camp body to support the number of skaters they invited.
The challenge will be to understand how to get into the seriously considered group, because no goalie is going in blind and making a team. It just isn't going to happen.
A few notes on where we were. A Harvard University study found this area to be the most unhappy in the country, as well as having one of the highest heroin fatality rates and general rates of addiction. We found it to be very, very bleak.
This was an excellent picture taken at the rink. The team was heading into the playoffs last year, and a grade school made a good luck poster. Parker was too lazy to write. Come on, Parker, get it together!
At the strangest little Barnes and Nobles I've ever seen, an escalator into the underworld.
It wasn't running at the time, but then I guess it's only active when they need to harvest souls.
Madden 19 (PC)
I joined Origin Access Premier earlier this week for $99.99 for the year. Having access to all of EA's PC titles on release for just north of $8 a month is a compelling deal, and with Madden on the PC this year, it was too much to pass up.
Bonus: I'm playing Madden six days before the official release because of my subscription. That's a win.
Madden was on the PC platform back during the zeppelin era, then had a multi-decade absence for no apparent reason. It's back this year, though, which shocked just about everyone.
I've played for about an hour.
First off, holy cow this looks amazing. With a 1080ti, I've got every setting maxed out and it's running at a steady 60FPS at 2560x1440. Stunning.
Plus, some of the details that Madden often neglects seem solid this year. In particular, player speed (set at "normal") is very impressive. With only minor tinkering, players are running at the speed they run in real life. Yes, that's the first thing I do, and yes, I'm insane.
I'm not going to say there aren't some odd Madden annoyances here, because that's a given, but for once, I'm impressed.
It's only been an hour. Don't count your chickens.
