links — Page 44

→ May 24, 2014
→ By keith

Saturday five, 5/24/14.

My ESPN content from the past seven days:

* My 2004 redraft, going back to that year and redoing the draft with the benefit of hindsight.
* And a companion piece looking at the 2004 first-rounders who didn’t work out.
* How the Rangers should respond to Fielder’s injury.
* My SEC tournament wrapup.
* Friday’s Klawchat.

My next mock draft goes up Tuesday, and I’ll have a pro prospect ranking update later in the week as well, because I don’t have enough going on right now.

I left Alabama a little earlier than expected, since the 3 pm game on Friday didn’t include anyone I needed to see, but I did stop by Octane in Homewood for an espresso and a bag of beans (Rwandan, since I enjoyed the Four Barrel beans from that country). The space is bigger and brighter than the Octane I visited in Atlanta, too.

And now, this week’s links, with two extra today since I went a little heavy on the vaccine topic.

Vaccines are not associated with autism. A meta-study covering over a million kids found, once again, that water is wet and vaccines don’t cause autism. Link goes to an abstract for a subscriber-only journal article.
Delaying the MMR vaccine may increase seizure risk. Granted, this is small potatoes compared to, you know, getting the actual measles, but it’s just another reason to vaccinate fully and on schedule.
Antivaccine activists attack and bully high school filmmakers. Just in case you didn’t realize vaccinutters were dangerous, evil zealots.
And one more on vaccines – why showing someone their belief is false doesn’t work. It’s more complicated than just disproving a dumb idea.
From the NY Times, a long column on why counting reducing calories won’t help you lose weight. The authors have hypothesized that it’s a combination of factors behind our national weight gain: We eat too many refined carbohydrates that drive up insulin levels, and storage of excess glycogen as fat actually reduces the amount of energy available for the body to use – so we eat more.
Chef Dan Barber talked to NPR about his new book, The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food, which continues Barber’s long-running interest in food security and sustainability. His main message is still the same, though: Our choices at the market and the table have consequences for everyone.
Haverford commencement speaker lambasts students. They mounted a protest against the original speaker, former Cal-Berkeley chancellor Robert Birgeneau, causing his withdrawal. Some of this stuff happened when I was in college, although it was more likely students would refuse to stand or would turn their backs to the speaker. The idea of petitioning to cause a speaker’s removal has the whiff of sport, not political activism, and the actual speaker, former Princeton president William Bowen, makes several excellent points on the imbroglio.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: coffee, links, saturday five

→ May 17, 2014
→ By keith

Saturday five, 5/17/14.

My first mock draft for 2014 – that is, my projection of how the 27 picks of the first round will go – went up on Thursday, and I held my regular Klawchat that day as well. The next mock will go up after next week’s college conference tournaments; I’ll be at the SEC tournament in Hoover from Wednesday to Friday, if any of you choose to make that trip.

A friend of mine in the baseball world recommended the KettlePizza, a kit that sits on top of a kettle-style charcoal grill to turn it into a wood-burning pizza oven. He swears by it, saying he can get the internal temperature up to 800 degrees, which is enough for traditional Neapolitan-style pizza (my favorite kind). Have any of you given tried one of these? I’ve mentioned it to my wife in the context of my upcoming birthday … so any comments would be great.

And now, the weekly links…

Did Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” rip off another song? If so, it wouldn’t be the first such accusation to succeed against the band.
Melting of Antarctic Ice Sheet Might Be Unstoppable. Okay, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
A new contender for “biggest dinosaur ever” has been discovered in Argentina. This would be my daughter’s pick for best link of the week.
Incredible close-up footage of the 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption. I’ve always been fascinated by that eruption for two reasons: It’s one of my earliest memories of a major news event, and volcanoes are awesome.
Jackfruit: A fruit to feed the world? I first saw one of these monsters in Hawai’i, and I imagine you could feed a family of twelve on one of these.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: links, saturday five

→ May 11, 2014
→ By keith

Saturday five, 5/10/14.

Sorry this is a day late – I daytripped Indiana at Penn State yesterday, which was almost 11 hours door-to-stadium-to-door. IU’s Sam Travis is a better player than I’d realized; this was my first look and he reminded me of some very good big leaguers.

My ESPN content from the past week:

* My ranking of the top 100 draft prospects for 2014. Of course, we’ve had more injury news since then, so Fedde and Finnegan would move down.
* This week’s Klawchat.

My first projection of this year’s first round will go up on Thursday, May 15th. I’ll chat that afternoon, and I’ll be on Baseball Tonight on Wednesday and Thursday this week.

I didn’t have time to do a five-of-something segment, but I’ll make it up to you with eight links, culled from five different sources:

Chemist Turns Software Developer After Son’s Diagnosis. When his infant son lost an eye to cancer due to late detection, this scientist decided to find a better way to catch the disease.
A wonderful longform piece from New York on how a bad Benghazi scoop may have spelled the end of Lara Logan’s career.
I met George Will once, and found him both personable and intelligent. I didn’t love the hagiography aspects of Men at Work, but that’s nothing compared to his outright denialism of science – not just climate change, but the whole shebang. He has gone full crackpot.
Speaking of climate change: Less Nutritious Grains May Be in Our Future, also from NPR. Since grains are probably a key element in feeding a growing global population, this is especially bad news.
Time is short to address antibiotic resistance. Unless you’re cool with the days when a prick from a rosebush meant a hospital stay and possibly death, that is.
High-tech push has board games rolling again, from the New York Times. Most interesting: The rising role of crowdfunding in game development, which makes sense given how many good games are still fundamentally niche products.
Taking notes by hand beats taking them on a laptop. You might write a lot less, but you’ll retain more.
ESPN’s Top Draft Analysts Workshop Your Short Story. It was an honor just to lead this roundtable.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: links, saturday five

→ May 3, 2014
→ By keith

Saturday five, 5/3/14.

My two bits of content from ESPN.com this week:

* The mishandling of Bryce Harper
* Klawchat

I’ll have an updated top 100 ranking for this year’s rule 4 draft up on Thursday, May 8th, followed by a projected first round (aka a “mock”) on the 15th.

—

Now, in keeping with the original idea for the Saturday five posts, here are five songs I’ve been listening to lately, outside of the albums I’ve been reviewing:

* The War on Drugs – “Red Eyes.” Everyone seems to love their latest album, Lost In The Dream, but after multiple listens no song has grabbed me like “Red Eyes,” which is the only track on the album that doesn’t sound like a band trying to imitate Bob Dylan. “Red Eyes” reminds me more of Lord Huron or the Head & the Heart, bands that also draw inspiration from Dylan and other folk-rock artists but without coming off as in any way derivative of their influences.

* Thumpers – “Unkinder (A Tougher Love).” Yet another heavily New Wave-inspired English synth/rock act … but the offbeat rhythm of all of the vocals, both verses and chorus, sets the song apart from the dozens of similar tracks that have been coming out of the UK over the last few years. Their debut album, Galore, came out in February.

* Broods – “Bridges.” My daughter loves this song, so here’s her review: “I like the way she sings, and the words sort of, but I mostly like the way she sings.” Works for me. For all the raves Grimes got for her 2012 album Visions, Broods mines similar high-pitched territory but with a far more pleasant vocal style. Their debut EP Broods came out in January.

* Gap Dream – “Fantastic Sam.” The song reminds me of Django Django’s last album, but with a more melancholy, hypnotic tone, and less interesting lyrics (which even my daughter picked up on). Their debut album, Shine Your Light, came out in November.

* La Sera – “Losing to the Dark.” The solo project from former Vivian Girls member Katy Goodman, La Sera put out this lead single earlier this spring, and it’s a near-perfect tranche of bright punk-pop to contrast with its downtrodden lyrics. Her third album, Hour Of The Dawn, comes out on the 13th, and it’s probably my most-anticipated album of the month.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/137953039″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

—

And now, this week’s five links, heavier on science this week…

The Big U, a ring of parks designed to help protect Manhattan’s coastline from storm surges and rising sea levels.
On the same front, the Supreme Court may be leaning toward more power for the EPA to fight greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, it would really help if developing countries stopped clear-cutting forests, but this isn’t a bad thing either.
A German exchange student at a Montana high school was murdered by a 29-year-old man claiming self-defense, even though the student, who was trespassing, was unarmed and posed no threat.
Those BPA-free plastics may actually be more dangerous than the ones they replaced.
Why is pork suddenly so expensive? Because a virus is killing American pigs.

Also, two bonus links this week that may be relevant to your interests, since you’re here… My ESPN colleague Ramona Shelburne wrote an amazing, thorough story on the Donald Sterling imbroglio from inside the Clippers’ organization. Also, fellow Parks and Recreation fans will enjoy Alan Sepinwall’s post-season-six interview with Michael Schur, covering everything from the changes ahead for season seven to the evolution of the running Cones of Dunshire gag. I’m convinced part of Parks & Rec‘s success came from embracing the show’s essential nerdiness, both the eccentricity of its central characters and the writers’ willingness to make references (like Settlers of Catan) that wouldn’t normally appear in a network series aimed at a mass audience. Or maybe it’s just that they let Chris Pratt do more dead falls. Those work too.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2014 in music, links, Music, saturday five

→ April 26, 2014
→ By keith

Saturday five, 4/26/14.

The weekly roundup of my ESPN content from the past seven days:

* The top 25 MLB players under age 25. The comments are a cesspool of no-one-ever-reads-the-intro ignorance, too.
* Scouting notes on Lakewood and Charleston prospects, including Aaron Judge and J.P. Crawford.
* Draft blog post on Virginia prep RHP Jake Bukauskus, who is graduating a year early and will likely go in the first round.
* This week’s Klawchat.

The original purpose of the Saturday five post was to include a list of five somethings that had caught my eye or ear recently, like songs, but eventually I just stripped it down to five links per week so that I could post more regularly with a little less pressure on myself. I’m bringing that old format back this week to talk about one of my newest obsessions – coffee. Here are five small roasters, some pretty well-known, whose coffees I’ve enjoyed both at home (with one exception) and on the road.

* Four Barrel. A San Francisco-based roaster focused on single-origins from around the world, and whose coffees I first tried at Phoenix’s wonderful Giant Coffee bar on First Street, not far from Matt’s Big Breakfast (owned by the same guy). A reader who works at Four Barrel was kind enough to send me some of their offerings from this spring, and the Rwandan Musabiymana beans made the best espresso shot I’ve ever pulled at home, with blackberry and blood orange notes and just the right amount of acidity for my particular tastes. I also recommend their Friendo Blendo blend.

* Intelligentsia. One of the biggest of the small guys, Intelligentsia has made huge inroads into the restaurant side of the business as well as opening a handful of high-end artisan shops where the coffee is just part of a larger experience. Their roasts are very light, at least relative to what I think American coffee drinkers expect (Starbucks, Peet’s), and like Four Barrel they specialize in single-origins, engaging in direct trade with farmers around the world. Their Ljulu Lipati beans from Zambia are the only ones from that country I’ve ever tried, and they have a little less acidity and citrus notes than other East African beans I’ve had, with cherry and honey notes making a more balanced cup. Their Black Cat espresso makes a well-rounded shot with great body and the sweetness you’d expect from a blend of South American beans. Intelligentsia has multiple coffee bars in LA and Chicago, plus a new one in the High Line Hotel in New York City.

* heart coffee. A friend of mine at Intelligentsia first introduced me to heart as well, and I’ve since found their beans at Crepe Bar in Tempe and at Culture Espresso in Manhattan. They’re smaller than the preceding two roasters so their options are fewer, but they seem to always have choices from Central/South America as well as Africa, along with a seasonal blend. I particularly liked the Colombian La Pradera beans, which had enough vanilla notes to give it a sweet veneer over richer fruit notes – their website suggests cantaloupe, which I didn’t pick up at all, as well as “nougat,” which I can’t even imagine what that means in a coffee.

* Counter Culture. This is the one on the list I haven’t tried at home yet, but I’ve had them all over the south, including at Joule in Raleigh last month. Hugh Acheson also swears by these guys, and that’s a pretty good recommendation as he’s become a dedicated coffeehound recently. (He’s a good follow on Twitter/Instagram for his coffee meanderings, along with snark and the occasional baseball and hockey commentary.) My favorite so far is La Golondrina, sourced direct from the farm in Colombia, with cocoa, caramel, and bourbon (the drink, not the coffee cultivar) notes.

* Downtown Coffee. This Honolulu micro-roaster and cafe offers a rare opportunity to buy American, if you’re so inclined – Hawai’i is the only U.S. state with the proper climate for coffee cultivation, and Downtown Coffee roasts beans from four of the islands in the chain, both as single-origins and in blends. We visited the shop on our family vacation to Hawai’i in 2012, and loved their coffee and the homemade Japanese pastries they sell, including a fantastic matcha torte that I’ve never had anywhere else. I just ordered beans from them a few weeks ago and have been tearing through their Spring Blend, a medium roast offering with beans from Maui and Waialua (Oahu); its espresso shots have great body and more of the cocoa notes I love in espresso. If you visit the shop, ask for Fred or Fumiko to give you a “tour” of all of the local beans they offer – they’re very knowledgeable, since everything is roasted on-site, and walked me through the differences between beans from each island.

And now, for the Saturday links…

A new Tennessee law favors Jack Daniels over craft distillers. Color me shocked that big business got a law passed to stick it to smaller competitors.
NPR looks at – no joke – artisanal toast. This link brought to you by the Toast Marketing Board.
BP would like you to not read this link about how the Deepwater Horizon disaster decimated the bluefin tuna population, and they certainly don’t want to pay for it.
I admit I’m not quite sure how I feel about net neutrality, but I do get a queasy feeling reading that the FCC wants to destroy it. And that’s under what should ostensibly be a more pro-consumer, less pro-business Adminstration.
A fun read as professional bartenders give tips for the home mixologist, although the current lime shortage may make some of those suggestions difficult.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: coffee, links, saturday five

→ April 19, 2014
→ By keith

Saturday five, 4/19/14.

My ESPN content from the past week:

* Scouting reports on prep RHP Tyler Kolek and JC righty Heath Fillmyer.
* My report on this week’s Sally League matchup between Hunter Harvey (Baltimore) and Lucas Giolito (Washington).
* Scouting notes from my Georgia trip last week, including a rant on NC State overusing Carlos Rodon.

There was no Klawchat this week because my flight to Houston didn’t have wifi, and the “Top 25 under 25” ranking has been pushed back to April 24th. Also, as I mentioned here last week, if you want new Behind the Dish episodes any time soon, let ESPN know.

* If you missed my review of Thinking, Fast and Slow, it’s worth checking it out – the book is popular among the more analytically-minded front offices in MLB.

* The wonderful Agricola iOS app is on sale right now, $4 (down from $7), and the two IAPs are on sale as well. I own the whole set, and it’s the best complex boardgame app available.

And now, to the Saturday links….

An epic NY Times piece on the Jameis Winston “investigation.” In reality, false rape claims appear to be pretty rare, so why is there still so much comfort in letting a star athlete skate without properly vetting the charges?
That incredibly detailed (and very long) LA Magazine piece on Yasiel Puig’s journey from Cuba to MLB.
A Birmingham pastor was forbidden to share food with the homeless … because his church vehicle doesn’t have a food-truck permit.
A little scary: A Johns Hopkins study of 966 mother-child pairs found a link between prenatal SSRI use by the mother and autism-spectrum disorders in the baby … but only for boys. I don’t pretend to know if that sample size is sufficiently large.
A Japanese company says it won’t charge the US fees to use its maglev technology, hoping we’ll use it for a high-speed rail line from Washington to Baltimore. We lag behind the rest of the developed world in consumer rail transportation, although our urban centers are more spread out than those of Europe or east Asia.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: apps, boardgames, links, saturday five

→ April 12, 2014
→ By keith

Saturday five, 4/12/14.

Just two ESPN.com posts from me this week, although there’s more coming up next week:

* A long post on Wilmington (Kansas City) and Myrtle Beach (Texas) prospects.
* This week’s Klawchat transcript.

Many of you are asking about Behind the Dish. I don’t have an answer for you yet. I’m sorry. Feel free to let ESPN know you want the show back soon.

And now, for this week’s five links of interest:

The new whooping cough vaccine isn’t as good as the old one. Good job, good effort, guys. Meanwhile, the disease is spreading in countries where it had been mostly wiped out.
Also from Science News, the tetraquark, a particle comprising four quarks – a charm, an anticharm, a down, and an anti-up. Got that?
A reader suggestion: a NY Times piece on when journalists get too close to sources. I’m certainly friends with a lot of my sources in the industry, so this is something I grapple with regularly.
The FDA might be backing off its latest anti-microbrewery regulation. The FDA wanted to effectively kill off the centuries-old process of breweries selling their spent grains to animal husbandry operations for feed. Craft breweries have fought back, and they might have won enough of a change in the regulation to matter. Two salient points: Spent grains apparently make great bread, and the FDA is a horrible waste of taxpayer money that should be overhauled or killed off entirely.
Injectable oxygen particles? The discovery appears to be over a year old, but the impact would be enormous. I for one welcome our new anaerobic overlords.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: links, saturday five

→ April 5, 2014
→ By keith

Saturday five, 4/5/14.

My content from ESPN.com this week:

Trenton-New Hampshire notes, including Aaron Sanchez and Bryan Mitchell.
My list of the six most prospect-laden minor league teams this year.
Opening Day assignments for all 300 prospects the organizational top ten rankings, compiled by Chris Crawford.
This week’s Klawchat.
My post from last week on Carlos Rodon and other draft prospects.

And the links … by the way, feel free to post or otherwise send (Twitter, FB, etc) links you think might be candidates for this section in a future week. I’m always looking for good reading material.

* From the BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal), a study on how certain anti-anxiety drugs, including benzodiazepines, increase the risk of patient death, uncovered when researchers examined those patients over long periods.

* Cornmeal waffles with bourbon-banana syrup. Haven’t tried these yet, but, I mean, waffles and bananas and booze? I’m in.

* From the LA Times, Michael Hiltzik on why Brendan Eich’s ouster from Mozilla was justified – or, at least, why his First Amendment rights are irrelevant to this discussion.

* “Libertarian” is probably the best one-word description of my political beliefs, but the satirical piece Libertarian Police Department hits the mark square-on.

* And one you may already have seen, but if not, and you have the stomach for it, read Sports on Earth’s profile of Chad Curtis, convicted sexual predator. Is he a sociopath? A narcissist? I found his victim-blaming, right on through his attempts to manipulate the jury and then the writer here, terrifying.

I’ll be at Wilmington’s home opener on Tuesday, and probably the 10:30 am game (full of screaming kids) on Wednesday as well, so I hope to see many of you there.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: links, saturday five

→ March 29, 2014
→ By keith

Saturday five, 3/29/14.

My ESPN content from this past week:

My predictions column for 2014.
On Mike Trout’s contract.
On Miguel Cabrera’s contract.
On prep arms Touki Toussaint and Foster Griffin.
On “divisive” fantasy players for 2014.
My last spring training dispatch, on Matt Wisler and Neftali Feliz.

There will be a Carlos Rodon blog post at some point on Saturday as well. EDIT: Here’s the Rodon post, plus notes on Trea Turner and more prep bats from the NHSI.

This week’s five links of note…

* Intestinal flora are why dark chocolate is good for you. Not why it’s delicious, though.

* Big Brother is watching you eat. I don’t want the government in my kitchen any more than I want it in my bedroom.

* There’s a polio outbreak in Syria, and it might spread. By the way, you know who else hates vaccines, along with the ignorati here who think they cause autism? The Taliban and and Boko Haram. I’m sure they’d welcome Jay Cutler with open arms.

* Italy angered by foreigners’ mafia-themed food. It sounds funny, but it’s not, really. It’s a lot like my arguments about Native American-themed team nicknames – you’re playing on negative stereotypes that offend the people in question.

* From last July, how Detroit’s bankruptcy might impact its housing market, which I came across while writing the Cabrera reaction piece.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: links, saturday five

→ March 23, 2014
→ By keith

Saturday five, 3/22/14.

My ESPN content this week:

And now, five interesting links from my non-sports meanderings on the Internet this week:

* Doctors use 3-D printing to help a baby breathe. I’m not sure science fiction ever quite foresaw what 3-D printing allows us to do.

* Using Bayes’ Theorem to locate missing planes. Mostly linked because Bayes’ Theorem is awesome and not that well understood.

* 100 serial rapists identified after Detroit finally processes untested rape kits. How many victims could have been spared? Detroit isn’t alone in this problem, but it certainly doesn’t help its reputation as a third-world city within a first-world country.

* Is Whole Foods America’s Temple of Pseudoscience, as this piece claims? I think the author is trying to make a broader point about which anti-science views we lambast and which we ignore, but he kind of glosses over how that section of the typical Whole Foods store takes up maybe 10% of the square footage. Linked within that piece: An actual “paleo” diet would be vegetarian. Eat what you want, as long as it’s good food, just don’t pretend this is somehow the “right” diet for our bodies.

* The Risk of Autism Is Not Increased by “Too Many Vaccines Too Soon”. Bookmark it the next time some idiot trots out this stupid anti-vaccine claim. It’s time to end non-medical exemptions for vaccination of schoolchildren, before we get a fresh measles or pertussis epidemic here.

Finally, I appreciate those of you who saw fit to smack down some whiners on the Cub prospect piece’s comment thread.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: links, saturday five

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