Nothing new for ESPN+ subscribers this week, although I’ll have another draft blog post next week, followed by a draft top 50 the week after (I got bumped by some other draft). My last ESPN+ post covered likely first rounders Alek Manoah and Josh Jung, with Manoah looking like a top ten pick when I saw him.
I reviewed the app version of Castles of Burgundy, one of my favorite high strategy games, for Ars Technica. MENSA also gave its Select tag to five games from 2019 and I’ve reviewed two already, Gizmos and Architects of the West Kingdom.
I rarely appear on podcasts due to time constraints, but when Kyle Bandujo asked if I’d come on his show, Trouble with the Script, to review the worst baseball movie I’ve ever seen, I couldn’t possibly decline. I think we properly eviscerated Trouble with the Curve.
My free email newsletter is becoming dangerously close to a weekly thing now. I must be mellowing in my old age.
And now, the links…
- Longreads first: This is from February but I hadn’t seen it until a friend sent it along this week – best-selling novelist Dan Mallory is a serial liar who has made false claims of cancer and bipolar disorder to try to further his career. None of the claims has anything to do with his book, The Woman in the Window, however; it’s just that much of what he says about his life to date is untrue.
- Mariners pitcher Rob Whalen recently retired due in large part to anxiety disorder, and he says the Mariners handled his case extremely poorly.
- WIRED has a long, in-depth look at the chaos inside Facebook in 2018 as the company was called to account for its role in influencing the 2016 election, the way it promulgates hate speech and fake news, and poor data privacy standards.
- Audio link: KQED looks at the Coachella concert-goers and those of us at home don’t see, a community far less affluent than the attendees are, and that is dealing with environmental problems from the warming desert.
- The Writers’ Guild of America has demanded that its members cut ties with their agents to protest conflicts of interest by agencies that also produce shows via “packaging” deals. This past week, the first writer came out to say he wasn’t going to do so, in a letter that is pompous, self-serving, and in at least one instance untrue.
- Fair Harvard, doing me proud: The university’s health services rejected a student proposal to make naxolone, the treatment capable of reversing opioid overdoses, available on campus. The money quote: “They had some skepticism about whether the research actually suggested that naloxone would be effective at Harvard.” If Harvard students have different biology from other humans, I’d love to know about it sooner rather than later.
- The FDA may start cracking down on the use of the Non-GMO Project label.
- A Bangladeshi student who reported sexual harassment by one of her teachers to the police was burned to death by members of her community, sparking large protests in the Muslim nation in south Asia.
- A pair of adults wore Nazi armbands and MAGA shirts in Providence, Rhode Island, and then stood atop the city’s Holocaust memorial where they gave the Nazi salute.
- The Washington Post looks at one possible fix to the “nightmare” job market for academics.
- Brewers reliever Jeremy Jeffress started a food truck with someone from his hometown to re-create a favorite childhood experience of fried seafood. I need reports from those of you in Milwaukee when it starts up on May 5th.
- Apparently there’s a controversy brewing over a Canadian stamp with an inaccurate depiction of something called a Nanaimo Bar, which I’d never heard of it until this happened.
- Board game news: Another Terraforming Mars expansion, Turmoil, is over $600,000 on Kickstarter already.
- The unrelated game On Mars has also cleared the half-million mark on Kickstarter. The BGG listing for the game says playing time is 90-150 minutes, so I may end up giving this one a miss.
- Not a board game, but after reading this review of Falcon Age at Paste, I’m suddenly interested in it despite my general avoidance of video games (because they suck up so much time).
The Rob Whalen story was a tough read. As someone who suffers from depression and anxiety, I saw a lot of similarities in myself. I was struck, however, by the note regarding his decision to eschew anxiety meds. It seems to imply there’s some ambiguity in the policy that makes it difficult for a player to ask/understand if they can take anti-anxiety meds? And, I certainly hope the exemption process isn’t arduous enough to actually deter players who need medicinal assistance.
I’m no fancy foods reviewer, but Challenge Accepted regarding Jeremy Jeffress’ food truck at Miller Park! You might say I’m AmFamished.
The Harvard story makes me irate. My college roommate was addicted to opioids, and on at least two (and possibly three?) occasions naxolone saved his life. Arguments against having it on hand in any public (and, generally, private) setting are a cruel joke.
Inconsequential as it may be the depiction of the Nanaimo bar is way off.
As someone who works at an Ivy League library, I have 2 points:
1) I wasn’t surprised at the Harvard quote; I just assumed they “had some skepticism” about whether Harvard students would be so gauche as to OD from their drug use.
2) I’m afraid that the hard, cold answer to both the brutal academic job market described in the article and the adjunct problem is that this is what markets do with oversupply. I think there are more people who want to be academics – a pleasant lifestyle if you can stomach the politics and a chance to spend your working life pursuing your interests – than there is a real need for in our society.
I am reminded of something our macro econ professor told us 20 years ago about a conversion he’d had with an English professor, which I will quote as best I can remember:
“He complained that they had to guarantee funding for a Ph.D. student’s first 5 fives. I ask why they didn’t guarantee one year and make further funding conditional upon performance. He said they had to offer 5 years to attract the best students. I said this was likely to produce an oversupply of English Ph.D.’s and thus ought to suppress English professor salaries relative to, for example, economics salaries. Which, I observed, seemed to be the case. He said he would think about it.”
San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich loves food, and especially wine. A certain Phoenix pizza master knows Pop well, with a quote in the article.
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26524600/secret-team-dinners-built-spurs-dynasty
Keith, saw this article/video about one of the last people to live in an iron lung, and thought you might be interested in watching/sharing. I’m sure anti-vax people would probably say it’s fake or something. https://laughingsquid.com/paul-alexander-living-in-iron-lung/
Keith…no Klawchat for two weeks? I am suffering withdrawal.
I said at the end of the last chat that I would not be able to do one this week.