{"id":8695,"date":"2020-10-17T12:47:41","date_gmt":"2020-10-17T16:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=8695"},"modified":"2020-10-17T21:13:28","modified_gmt":"2020-10-18T01:13:28","slug":"stick-to-baseball-10-17-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2020\/10\/17\/stick-to-baseball-10-17-20\/","title":{"rendered":"Stick to baseball, 10\/17\/20."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Just one piece this week for subscribers to the Athletic as I work on the top 40 free agents ranking, which will run a few days after the World Series ends: Nick Groke, our Rockies beat writer, asked me a <a href=\"https:\/\/klaw.me\/2ItoKR5\">bunch of questions about Colorado&#8217;s farm system<\/a>, and I dutifully answered them. Klawchat, board game reviews, and dish posts should return next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My guest on <a href=\"https:\/\/theathletic.com\/podcast\/168-the-keith-law-show\/?episode=35\">this week&#8217;s episode of The Keith Law Show<\/a> was my old partner-in-crime Eric Karabell, although Bias Cat did not make an appearance. My podcast is <a href=\"https:\/\/music.amazon.com\/podcasts\/3327d6c3-f1c7-4aaf-8ea6-72a04cdcb78d\/The-Keith-Law-Show\">now available on Amazon podcasts<\/a> as well as <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-keith-law-show\/id1499877854\">iTunes<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/5ZWZfudyuL6YKsTkUV9yXS\">Spotify<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m due to send out a fresh edition of <a href=\"https:\/\/tinyletter.com\/keithlaw\">my free email newsletter<\/a> this weekend as well. We&#8217;ll see how that works out for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the holiday season approaches, I&#8217;ll remind you every week that my books <a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/2960\/9780062942722\"><em>The Inside Game<\/em><\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2EfiwT9\"><em>Smart Baseball<\/em><\/a> make excellent gifts for the baseball fan or avid reader in your life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And now, the links\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The <em>New England Journal of Medicine<\/em> has just weighed in on the election, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nejm.org\/doi\/full\/10.1056\/NEJMe2029812\">urging Americans to vote Trump out of office<\/a>, the first time it&#8217;s done so in its 208-year history. This comes on the heels of <em>Scientific American <\/em>and <em>Nature<\/em> doing the same. <em>The Lancet<\/em> published an editorial <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/lancet\/article\/PIIS0140-6736(20)32153-X\/fulltext\">calling on governments to act now in accordance with the science<\/a>, attacking the so-called herd immunity approach and supporting continued attempts to control the virus&#8217;s spread.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Now some longreads: ProPublica details <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/inside-the-fall-of-the-cdc\">the fall of the CDC<\/a>, undermined from above by the anti-science Trump Administration and from within by craven, spineless leadership.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>David Wallace-Wells writes for <em>New York<\/em> that <a href=\"https:\/\/nymag.com\/intelligencer\/2020\/10\/the-third-wave-of-covid-19-is-here.html\">there&#8217;s still no plan to stop the pandemic, a third crest is approaching, and we&#8217;re basically waiting until January<\/a> \u2013 and hoping that brings a functional government \u2013 to do anything about it. Imagine how quickly this Administration would have committed a few billion dollars to responding if 200,000 Americans died from terror attacks rather than a virus.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The President and his children have turned the government into a sort of personal ATM, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2020\/10\/10\/us\/trump-properties-swamp.html?campaign_id=9&amp;emc=edit_nn_20201011&amp;instance_id=23037&amp;nl=the-morning&amp;regi_id=57373553&amp;section_index=1&amp;section_name=big_story&amp;segment_id=40585&amp;te=1&amp;user_id=fba1944ab2cc5524d257c7cc0843572e\">as exposed by this <em>New York Times<\/em> investigative piece<\/a>, which you&#8217;d think would be the sort of thing to turn off the very voters who said they wanted him to drain the swamp.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Sara Benincasa&#8217;s essay &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/humanparts.medium.com\/fred-and-me-b43f63164792\">Fred and Me<\/a>&#8221; is just wonderful and I won&#8217;t spoil it in the least.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/health-54512034\">Scientists confirmed that a Nevada man caught COVID-19 twice<\/a>, requiring assistance breathing the second time around, which has some unpleasant connotations for the future of the pandemic and should end any discussion of a strategy based solely around herd immunity.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Why has Germany handled COVID-19 better than its neighbors? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/21495327\/covid-19-germany-coronavirus-cases-deaths\">By following the science<\/a>, including implementing widescale, frequent testing.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Earlier in October, a group of people who&#8217;ve lost loved ones to the pandemic <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/local\/memorial-held-outside-white-house-in-solemn-reminder-of-more-than-200000-americans-killed-by-covid-19\/2020\/10\/04\/d6914098-0671-11eb-859b-f9c27abe638d_story.html\">set up 200,000 chairs on a lawn facing the White House<\/a> to protest the government&#8217;s inaction.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>One of those who&#8217;ve died from COVID-19 was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.northjersey.com\/story\/news\/bergen\/2020\/05\/28\/martin-addison-waldwick-nj-died-covid-19-age-44\/5274447002\/\">a 44-year-old husband and father of two young children<\/a> in northern New Jersey. He leaves behind a two-year-old daughter and a six-month-old son.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>QAnon, the batshit-crazy hoax embraced by multiple alt-right figures and now our sitting President, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2020\/09\/14\/qanon-families-support-group\/\">is tearing families apart<\/a> as people become sucked into this utterly false conspiracy theory and alienate family members with their nonsense.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>A new complaint alleges that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.splcenter.org\/presscenter\/ice-using-torture-against-cameroonian-immigrants-coerce-deportation-according-new\">ICE is torturing Cameroonian immigrants<\/a> to try to coerce them into signing deportation documents.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>A six-year period of horrendous weather <a href=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2020\/10\/study-offers-clues-to-how-climate-affected-1918-pandemic\/\">may have exacerbated the 1918-19 Spanish flu pandemic<\/a>.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Lauren Witzke, the Delaware GOP candidate for the Senate seat currently held by Democrat Chris Coons, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediamatters.org\/vdare\/gop-backed-senate-candidate-lauren-witzke-appeared-video-white-nationalist-website-push\">appeared on white-nationalist, anti-immigrant hate site VDare<\/a> last month, not long before saying the Proud Boys provide security at her events. She has no chance to win, but still, Delaware Republicans should revoke their endorsement of her.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Neal Karlen was a close friend of Prince and interviewed him many times over a period of about a dozen years earlier in the musician&#8217;s career. He&#8217;s written a biography of Prince called <em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/2960\/9781250135247\">This Thing Called Life<\/a><\/em> (natch) and this excerpt tells how <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/prince-was-one-of-the-loneliest-souls-ive-ever-met\/\">Prince was the loneliest person he&#8217;d ever met<\/a>.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Draining the swamp update: A former patent litigator became a federal judge and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techdirt.com\/articles\/20200927\/01044945391\/former-patent-litigator-becomes-federal-judge-begins-advertising-patent-trolls-to-come-to-his-court-they-have-droves.shtml\">is openly advising patent trolls to come to his court<\/a>. This lets those trolls abuse the patent system (which has its own problems, but still) for their own profit, and ultimately American consumers will end up paying the cost.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Project Veritas, the grift run by so-called journalist James O&#8217;Keefe, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox9.com\/news\/subject-of-project-veritas-voter-fraud-story-says-he-was-offered-bribe\">bribed the brother of a Minneapolis councilman<\/a> to say he was harvesting ballots for Rep. Ilhan Omar, a popular target of Islamophobes.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>There may be a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.quantamagazine.org\/computer-scientists-break-traveling-salesperson-record-20201008\/\">new, more efficient method of answering the traveling salesperson problem<\/a>, which makes use of the geometry of polynomials to improve the results. A truly efficient solution probably can&#8217;t be found in polynomial time, which refers to the P vs. NP problem described in the book <em><a href=\"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2015\/06\/15\/the-golden-ticket\/\">The Golden Ticket<\/a><\/em>.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>HBO Max has a new series called <em>Patria<\/em>, based on the bestselling novel by Fernando Aramburu. The <em>Guardian<\/em> explains <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/sep\/25\/how-spanish-writers-novel-patria-about-eta-terror-campaign-became-global-phenomenon?CMP=share_btn_tw\">how a novel about Basque separatists&#8217; decades-long terror campaign<\/a> became a global success.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Paul Heaton, former lead singer for the Housemartins and the Beautiful South, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/entertainment-arts-54485919\">made a large donation to help the staff of the shuttered music magazine <em>Q<\/em><\/a>.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Several people sent me this story from the <em>New York Times<\/em> on how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/10\/15\/books\/independent-bookstores-economy.html\">local bookstores are struggling to survive in the pandemic and lockdowns<\/a>.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Irina Slavina, a Russian journalist who reported on excesses of the government&#8217;s security apparatus, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-europe-54478319\">killed herself via self-immolation in front of the Interior Ministry headquarters<\/a> earlier this month.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>This 2018 piece from <em>Smithsonian<\/em> magazine details some of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/science-nature\/science-good-chocolate-180970658\/\">the science behind the flavors of chocolate<\/a>.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Board game news: The Princess Bride Adventure Book Game is out and <a href=\"https:\/\/goto.target.com\/xB9Jk\">exclusively on sale at Target<\/a>.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The Kickstarter for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/bonfiregames\/flora-1\">Flora, a &#8220;semi-cooperative&#8221; game based on the Voynich manuscript<\/a>, launched this week.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Greenbrier Games&#8217; cooperative story-based game Lost Ones <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/gbg\/lost-ones\">funded its Kickstarter in the first day<\/a>.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Cascadia, from the publisher and artist behind the game Calico (which I haven&#8217;t played but hear is quite good), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/flatoutgames\/cascadia?ref=4v7c0s\">has already blown past its tiny funding goal<\/a>.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The role-playing game designer outfit Roll20 is holding <a href=\"https:\/\/roll20con.net\/\">a 3-day virtual gaming con<\/a> with proceeds to benefit a charity focused on racial justice.<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just one piece this week for subscribers to the Athletic as I work on the top 40 free agents ranking, which will run a few days after the World Series ends: Nick Groke, our Rockies beat writer, asked me a bunch of questions about Colorado&#8217;s farm system, and I dutifully answered them. Klawchat, board game [&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":[1083,1050,341,1162,742,618,190,961,553,852,388,1037,870,940],"class_list":["post-8695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-board-game-news","tag-bookstores","tag-chocolate","tag-coronavirus","tag-delaware","tag-hoaxes","tag-links","tag-longreads","tag-math","tag-music","tag-prince","tag-russia","tag-stick-to-baseball","tag-the-swamp","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8695","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=8695"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8697,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8695\/revisions\/8697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}