{"id":4652,"date":"2016-02-06T08:00:33","date_gmt":"2016-02-06T13:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=4652"},"modified":"2016-02-05T22:05:13","modified_gmt":"2016-02-06T03:05:13","slug":"stick-to-baseball-2616","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2016\/02\/06\/stick-to-baseball-2616\/","title":{"rendered":"Stick to baseball, 2\/6\/16."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I held my usual <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/1Ksg2x0\" target=\"_blank\">Klawchat<\/a> yesterday. The top 100 prospects package starts to roll out on Wednesday with the organizational rankings; the top 100 list itself follows on Thursday, with the org reports (including top tens) posting the following week.<\/p>\n<p>And now, the links&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I actually didn&#8217;t know that cleaning the outside of your ears \u2013 where cerumen (a.k.a., &#8220;ear wax&#8221;) builds up \u2013 was actually bad for you, but this piece on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/wonk\/wp\/2016\/01\/20\/we-have-a-q-tips-problem\/\" target=\"_blank\">the weird history of Q-tips<\/a> explains why it is. I&#8217;ve cleaned my ears for ages, because my mom always cleaned mine when I was a kid. I also use Q-tips for cleaning lots of odd items in the kitchen that you can&#8217;t get to with a paper towel, like the gasket above my espresso machine&#8217;s portafilter.\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/fivethirtyeight.com\/features\/zikas-not-a-global-health-emergency-its-potential-consequences-are\/\" target=\"_blank\">Zika virus is not a global health emergency<\/a>, people. You know, no one gives a shit about dengue fever, another mosquito-borne illness that kills 25,000 people a year, but show pictures of babies with tiny heads (which, by the way, might not even be because of the zika virus) and suddenly the media starts talking global pandemic.<\/li>\n<li>Oh, hi, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/end-california-execution-moratorium-raises-controversial-death-penalty-case-n507866\" target=\"_blank\">California&#8217;s about to execute an innocent man<\/a>. Does Netflix have to make another series to get anyone to care?<\/li>\n<li>No, Marco Rubio, Sweden <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thelocal.se\/20160129\/fury-in-sweden-over-marco-rubios-king-blunder\" target=\"_blank\">does not have a President<\/a>, and I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s too much to ask of a Presidential candidate to know such a thing.<\/li>\n<li>Are we seeing <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/tech\/elements\/the-end-of-twitter\" target=\"_blank\">the end of Twitter<\/a>? I doubt it, but there&#8217;s no question that audience engagement via Twitter is more fleeting than engagement on other social media platforms. Of course, Twitter is about to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.buzzfeed.com\/alexkantrowitz\/twitter-to-introduce-algorithmic-timeline-as-soon-as-next-we?utm_term=.xlmnbxNA1#.mor4Q7VDJ\" target=\"_blank\">totally screw with what tweets you see<\/a>, so maybe it is dying after all.<\/li>\n<li>The Useless Department of Agriculture is at it again, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rodalesorganiclife.com\/food\/feds-revoke-grass-fed-label\" target=\"_blank\">revoking the (weak) labeling standards behind calling beef &#8220;grass-fed&#8221;<\/a>. <\/li>\n<li>School of Seven Bells&#8217; final album comes out on February 26th, featuring the last recorded works of late co-founder Ben Curtis, and the 405 has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thefourohfive.com\/music\/article\/with-me-your-love-is-safe-an-interview-with-school-of-seven-bells-145\" target=\"_blank\">the best interview with surviving member Alejandra Deheza<\/a> that I&#8217;ve seen. She&#8217;s also going to appear on NPR Weekend Edition some time today.<\/li>\n<li>Luxembourg has jumped into the fray in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/science-environment-35482427\" target=\"_blank\">support of space mining<\/a>, which seems inevitable as our demand for rare metals like iridium increases. I think the fuel expense of hauling that kind of weight gets underestimated in this kind of mainstream media coverage, though.<\/li>\n<li>Two Arizona State scientists have argued that silica formations on Mars <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/science-nature\/mysterious-martian-cauliflower-may-be-latest-hint-alien-life-180957981\/?no-ist\" target=\"_blank\">might be evidence of earlier microbe life<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Look at Cam Newton&#8217;s father <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/the-house-that-built-cam\" target=\"_blank\">talking sense about why college athletes should be paid<\/a>. <\/li>\n<li>Boardgamegeek polled its readers on the &#8220;most anticipated games of 2016,&#8221; and <a href=\"https:\/\/boardgamegeek.com\/geeklist\/204134\/final-results-20-most-anticipated-games-2016\" target=\"_blank\">the resulting list is high comedy<\/a>, because these games are almost all extremely heavy strategy games, the kind you need two hours minimum to play and that only hardcore gamers like. If there&#8217;s a Splendor on the horizon, this poll missed it in favor of the next four-hour marathon game with a rulebook the size of a Russian novel.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I held my usual Klawchat yesterday. The top 100 prospects package starts to roll out on Wednesday with the organizational rankings; the top 100 list itself follows on Thursday, with the org reports (including top tens) posting the following week. And now, the links&#8230; I actually didn&#8217;t know that cleaning the outside of your ears [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4652"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4656,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4652\/revisions\/4656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}