skoo.bz

Today is St. Patrick’s Day, so I’m writing this as I have a pint of Guinness. I have at least one per my own personal tradition on this day. My estimation is I’m about a quarter Irish, since my grandmother was full blooded and that line has since been diluted twice since. I’ve always taken a bit of pride in that part of my ancestry since it’s by far the most documented.

Anyway, so how am I handling this coronavirus situation? As best as I can, I suppose. I’m not really sure how much solitude I’m supposed to give myself and as someone who can’t sit still sometimes, I just took a quick walk to feed my need to roam and to clear my head.

I work in retail, so the nature of my job doesn’t permit me to work remotely from home. So, I go in when I’m scheduled and cross my fingers I don’t get sick off this thing. In the case that I do, I at least have the peace of mind my butt is covered if disaster does strike. That said, I’m not trying to become too concerned about it, just trying to stay reasonable while trying to follow the advice of my local health officials.

The lack of live sports has been the hardest thing for me so far. ESPN has been playing many of their 30 for 30 documentaries, which has been a bit of a joy for me. But, I was just starting to get amped up for baseball when the word dropped the season would be delayed. At this point, it could be May or June before play resumes. With that in mind, I’m looking forward to getting my copy of MLB The Show for my PS4. Simulation baseball will have to do for now.

So far, for the most part I’m doing ok. I haven’t really had to deal with a weekend of no social interaction yet, so I think that’s when things will hit me. I’ve set myself up to hopefully do some gaming online, so hopefully that’ll help. One of the things I love about sports is it gives me something to look forward to every night. With that gone, I at least have found something else for the time being since one of my favorite musicians Benjamin Gibbard is performing via live stream every night at 6 PM CT for the next two weeks. I watched tonight’s show before my walk tonight and it was really just what I needed after getting home from work.

I have tomorrow off, so my plan is do get laundry done. That’s my time to catch up with my mom and to help her out with things that she needs, usually tech related. Other than that, just trying to make the best of my time.

From the Dropkick Murphys:

For the first time in 24 years, we are not playing on St. Patrick’s Day weekend.
The current world situation is the ONLY thing that would ever stop us from doing so… So we came up with an idea we’re going to pull off this Tuesday – the night of St. Patrick’s Day…
We’re going to bring a DKM LIVESTREAM CONCERT to EVERYONE – ALL OVER THE WORLD!!
You’ll be able to watch it on our YouTube, Instagram and Facebook Live…

If you have a streaming box of any kind, you should be able to put this on your TV. Very cool!

Janice Headley, writing for KEXP:

Yesterday, Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard announced that he’ll be livestreaming daily concerts from his home studio every afternoon at 4:00 PM PST for the next few weeks.

Thank you, Ben!

Jason S Warner, writing on Medium:

One of the current problems with addressing the pandemic is the social pressures of taking action today. It’s awkward, and feels like an over-reaction. The reason it feels like an overreaction is that most people OVERWEIGHT the currently reported cases and inherently UNDERWEIGHT the mathematics of how the virus is spreading and what will happen in about 30 days time. This is because our brains tend to think linearly as opposed to logarithmically. It’s the same reason many people don’t save for retirement or understand compound interest.

Jason further explains the multiplication rate of cases with this virus over 30 days and the differences in if people are practicing social distancing and if they’re not. Long story short, that rate is 2 to the tenth power without social distancing and 2 to the fourth power with social distancing. There’s many other issues which should be considered as well, so do give the article a read.

Andrew Webster, writing for The Verge:

The big question, of course, is what this means for the juggernaut that is EA’s Madden series. From the sounds of it, not much will change. The 2K partnership is specifically for “non-simulation football game experiences,” which suggests arcade-like games to complement EA’s more realistic offering. (If we’re lucky, that means a spiritual revival of NFL Blitz.) “Expanding the NFL’s presence in the world of gaming has become a focus for the league as we look to grow the next generation of our fanbase and reviving our partnership with 2K was a natural step in that effort,” Joe Ruggiero, the NFL’s senior VP of consumer products, said in a statement.

My favorite bar has an old game system with NFL Blitz on it and it’s still fun all these years later, so I can see the potential here. NHL20’s NHL Threes mode or FIFA20’s Volta mode also come to mind as fun non-traditional takes on their respective sports, though those still have simulation qualities.

Developer William Gibson made a infographic generator which uses the common hand washing instructions and sets them to 20 seconds of song lyrics. Entitled Wash Your Lyrics, you fill in the artist and song name you want to use and it creates an infographic with the first 20 second of lyrics. Pretty neat!

🎶 I made a little site in 24h that generates hand washing instructions accompanied by lyrics from a song of your choice instantly - check it out!

🔗 https://t.co/JKAQRYy5Yz pic.twitter.com/S1bDLyKt6C

— William (@neoncloth) March 8, 2020

By Ryan Christoffel, writing for MacStories:

Starting today, Things for Apple Watch depends on Things Cloud for its syncing. With a free Things Cloud account, which most Things users will already have, the Watch client now gets its data directly from the cloud rather than relying on its iPhone companion; you’ll see this in action thanks to a helpful cloud icon that indicates syncing is in progress.

Whether you’re near your iPhone or away from it, Things for Apple Watch will stay up-to-date on changes made across all your devices automatically. This change means that another previous frustration – Things’ complications being inaccurate – has been solved too; complications now update in the background based on the latest Things Cloud data.

What Things just fixed on the Apple Watch is a major pet peeve of Watch apps in general for me and this frankly may drag me back to using Things as my task manager. Take the new Fantastical app as an example. The macOS, iPadOS, and iOS apps are all great and sync perfectly well. But, the WatchOS app usually takes a force quit from me for the information on it to update. This is annoying because if you want to use the complications on the Watch and there just happens to be a change in your schedule, it may not be reflected on the Watch in a timely manner.

So, kudos for Cultured Code for introducing this to the Watch. I’ll be giving this a run in the next few days.

In 1995, the Quebec Nordiques moved to Denver, Colorado and were renamed the Colorado Avalanche. The ended up winning the Stanley Cup that first season in Denver and with players like Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg, and Patrick Roy, I quickly became a fan of the team. This was made easier by, in addition to the nationally televised games, they were shown on our local regional sports network Fox Sports which would switch over to the Rocky Mountain branding whenever the Avs were playing.

I was a fairly hardcore Avs fan until about 2004. This would be the year the contract the team had with Fox Sports expired and Stan Kroenke, the team’s owner, launched his own network Altitude Sports and Entertainment. For whatever reason, my local cable provider Time Warner Cable had no interest in picking up the network. To make matters worse, Nebraska is still deemed at Avalanche territory, meaning Avs games were blacked out on the NHL’s pay-per-view and streaming options. Not being able to watch the games, my interest in the team wained.

15 seasons later, these blackout restrictions still exist and Altitude is still not available in Eastern Nebraska via cable. The only option available is through a satellite provider, where DirectTV is the only one to offer the channel. However, since I live in an apartment, that’s not an option either.

Having availability to watch the games of a team is a big part of building a love affair with that team. It’s how you get to know the players, their strategies, and so on. It makes you want to know more about the organizations from the top down.

I say this to say I totally feel the pain of my fellow Seattle Sounders fans on the east side of the Cascades.

The Sounders have a contract with TV network KZJO, a MyNetworkTV channel otherwise known as JoeTV. This is great for anyone within the JoeTV viewing area. The problem is that viewing area is primarily the Seattle-metro.

There is currently no streaming solution for the Sounders through the rest of Washington. MLS matches are now streamed on ESPN+, but Sounders matches are blacked out within Washington State. Through last season, YouTubeTV had a partnership with the Sounders to stream the games locally, but that was allowed to expire. Since JoeTV is a Seattle based local network, there’s no simulcast through the rest of the state.

This is inexcusable to shudder the ability for a group of fans who love a team to be able to view said team. Blackout restrictions were initially put into place to encourage fans to buy tickets. That said, I’m currently an eight-hour drive from Denver, so that argument seems thin to me. This also doesn’t explain why road games are blacked out. It’s also a bit unreasonable to expect every fan to be able to attend every game.

The Sounders blackouts in Washington hurt the supporter subgroups who gather in bars to watch the games. These viewings help build the supporter community, which is vitally important in soccer more than any other sport. Supporter groups are the lifeblood of a football club as they’re the ones who bring the energy every match with the sole purpose of pushing their team to victory. They’re the ones responsible for tifos, the huge graphical displays which often honor the team itself and often take weeks to design, organize for, and create. A lot of work goes on behind the scenes within a supporter group, so this leaves a bad taste in the mouths of those who look forward to every weekend and travel cross-state to matches. They have a right to feel slighted.

As of last night, the Sounders officially hinted that a deal was coming, but was not ready in time for tonight’s match against Columbus. It’s unknown if alternate methods will be available, even if that means watching the opposing team’s feed via satellite. I certainly do hope my Sounders family in Washington find a solution to this soon.

Bottom line, blackouts kill fandom. This is a multi-league issue that’ll likely take legislation to address nationally. Leagues and teams should be looking to do everything they can to bolster their support and blackouts simply do the opposite.

The Chicago Dogs of the American Association are holding an opening day promotion where they’re letting Mike Ditka manage the game against the Sioux Falls Canaries. Fans will receive a Ditka bobble head wearing a Ditka inspired sweater and the players will wear Ditka inspired jerseys which will be auctioned off after the game. ⚾️

Jay Springett writing on his own site:

Your thread is great! But it is also ephemeral, temporal. It might feel great to see all the shares, likes and comments and follows rolling in. But the reality of twitter the way that the platform is designed. Is that no one is going to be able to find it again in a weeks time. And in a month or so no one is going to remember it all.

This right here is why I’ve favored posting personal posts to my personal site. In the world of social media, your thoughts are quickly forgotten and that’s by design. For small inconsequential things, I’ll post to Twitter or to my Instagram story. But, for anything I value, it comes to my personal site.

This is because I have control over it. I can index it, I can search for it, and I can quickly find it. I can also dictate how I want it shared.