shockeychap

Prohibiting the use of the hand check also took the teeth out of defense and made it a more offensive game. I think that’s a big part of why Michael and Larry and Magic were so much more exciting to watch even though the team scoring was much lower than today.

While I don’t disagree about the grandstanding and theatrics ruining the NBA, I take issue with those who complain that better players are just getting away with fouls and cheating. Basketball, despite the rules around fouls and illegal contact, is a very physical and tough game. Being tough enough to work through some of the contact (both legal and illegal) is very important to being a high level player. I think it’s reductive and petty to effectively say that they’re just better because they hit more and harder. Even Michael Jordan had to work hard at toughening up to get past Detroit in the late 80s and early 90s.

I can't read this because of the paywall. ("Free registration" is just paying with my email and information.)

Is it me, or does it seem like "invasive pear tree" has become a big story this spring, seemingly out of nowhere. Maybe I just don't follow news around this, but this spring there have been both local and national stories about municipalities dealing with these trees. I'm not saying it's not a story, just that I wasn't aware of it before and am wondering if it reached some kind of critical mass as a problem just this year.

As one who has watched loved ones zombie-scroll through Reels on Facebook, this is not a victory of any kind for the world at large. It's just another step in the ongoing march toward widespread dysfunction.

I don't know why, but this pseudo-argument made me chuckle.

It works reliably and predictably in all weather conditions. It is able to produce enough energy to meet all of our needs.

None of the other options satisfies both of these things. Some satisfy neither.

This feels a bit like arguing over the arrangement of the furniture as the house burns. The web is a hot mess of garbage SEO, ads, incendiary clickbait, and political echochambers. THIS is the thing that warrants fixing first?

I believe it's supposed to be "U.S. Democrats", not "us Democrats".

That's fair to say, and I don't deny being a little hostile toward snobbery and pretension. I always have been. However, I also don't think [its primary audience] is quite right. I think [its primary audience's self image] is a little more correct.

I have to question how "surprising" the significance of dirt composition is. The characteristics of dirt and mud (and the tires themselves) will affect all aspects of how the truck behaves and handles. How is it surprising that one who enjoys the activity would be deeply invested in the very ground on which everything happens?

If the article actually was trying to spread any kind of real appreciation for monster trucking or why they're so much fun, I would be all for it. However, it reads like some outsider describing observations of an untouched tribe in the jungles of South America. No matter how much they write of their interesting findings, they're not trying to convince any of us to give up modern life and join the tribe.

"isn't just brainless amusement for inbred yokels"

The article never made reference to "inbred yokels". It didn't have to. It can couch its descriptions in the language of coastal elites who supposedly know more of wine and polo than they do of simple things like truck rallies. And while it's ostensibly explaining how "sophisticated" the sport is, the readers will fully understand the "isn't just brainless amusement for inbred yokels" part.

I wouldn't characterize my response as one of outrage. But I do find it off-putting and pretentious.

"Monster truckers obsess over distinctions among types of dirt the way vintners obsess over terroir."

Are the author and publication trying to sound as condescending and uppity as possible? Honestly, this reads like the kind of thing that "Frasier" mocked so perfectly about upscale sophisticates living in a bubble.

I was never a big fan of monster truck rallies, but it's easy to understand what was so fun about them. Articles like this that deign to explain the finer points of monster truck rallies (while using esoteric references to wine sampling) for their audience of sophisticates tell me just how useless publications like the "The New Yorker" really are anymore.

I love this list, but there was one that seemed odd.

"Time passes at the same speed on top of a mountain and at the bottom of a valley"

Unless you're writing software used to track very intense scientific measurements requiring information about time down to the sub-nanosecond, I don't see how the effects of time dilation between a mountain and valley would ever have an effect on program logic.

Everything else about time can and will bite you at one time or another.