HardyBoy

Well said, though I disagree on the point that I think the protest is about much, much more than police shootings. Here's more what I view the protest as being about: So, I live in Fort Lauderdale, FL, and in Broward county, nearly 80% of children get free or subsidized lunches in school. That is insane, especially when you think about the fact that I don't know anyone directly in my life who would get their lunch subsidized, and I can tell you it is extremely segragated here between poor and doing alright (forget rich, that's a whole other group). I'm originally from a suburb of Rochester, went to University of Rochester and had a chance to work as a mentor for kindergarteners in a city school teaching early literacy and social skills for at risk kids. I saw it first hand, really amazing, curious, eager to learn kids that statistically had a ton stacked against them, and that really sucks, because they genuienly were amazing kids, the same as you would find in any suburb (worked at a day camp in a Rochester suburb and they are the same cute, hungry for knowledge kids in both places). Throughout cities like Rochester, Buffalo and urban and rural communities across this country there are children facing similar outcomes. The schools are funded by property taxes, so they suck, employers set up offices in locations that are not those communities so parents are forced to take jobs below their skill set, or be faced with really long commutes, which try renting in south florida right now, cost of living is insane, and you can get affordable housing in bad neighborhoods here still, but it's gentrifying quick, and you routinely hear about people commuting hours a day for a job because they cannot afford to live closer. Again, that is 80% of the kids that live in Broward county, largely people of color. That is systemic. Period. That has nothing (certainly not directly) to do with police brutality. Recent examples of police brutality are a flash point that lit the fuel, they are a spark, the fuel is so much more, including again, 80% of children in one of country's most densely populated and affluent counties needing help to eat. Genuinely think about that, and how much harder you would have to work, with how much less margin for error, if you had the luck of drawing that situation in the life lottery.

What are the collusion requirements in football? I know baseball had a big collision case a while back (isn't that what brought about free agency and got rid of the salary cap?). Also, barry bonds cheated, and that is a very different thing, especially in that sport...of course Sosa corked his bat and still had a contract. Also, honest question: is this whole flag/anthem thing similar to what was going on in the 60s when protesters would wear the flag as clothing as a form of protest (thinking Easy Rider). Basically, saying the actions of the USA in initiating what they perceived to be an unjust war was hypocritical to the values the flag stood for, therefore the actions of the leadership of the nation directly caused the flag to no longer command the level of respect it had previously? This led to half the country being up in arms because of the disrespect of the flag, and missing the whole point of that protest, which was saying that the actions of the nation were diminishing the flag to a piece of clothing.

The Wiz, I like the sub group idea a lot and you raise a great point of duplicate conversations, aside from possibly isolating people. To add to what The Wiz mentioned, what if instead of grouping people, we grouped topics in a hierarchy. Example, there is a Bills Offense discussion, with a main thread, but then you would have sub threads below that hiearchy, where people could start individual discussions that are more targeted towards a specific nuance of the offense. Maybe have tags associated with the threads so it would all post to the main thread, but you could follow the specific conversation much more easily if you are interested in a specific aspect of the offense in the sub thread associated with that tag. Would be especially helpful since there are often several sub conversations going on in each large thread at any one time.

Agree. I like the idea, but I think it's overly utopian, and the way it would play out is people isolating themselves, or worse isolating others...I haven't read the article yet though, so this is my baseline opinion...let me read it later and chime back in. That said...if there is a way to run some machine learning algorithms to cluster people into clubs, and give a badge or something based on posting style, that would be really, really cool and I would be very much down to help implement something like that here (know me some R and have been trying to learn some text analytic sentiment analysis).

It's gotten better each game, and this game it seemed like there were open receivers all day. It's just a matter of tightening up the timing just a bit, and receivers will be running under the spot the balls are falling in stride. Also, guessing they aren't showing the full playbook yet, still early and need to be able to surprise teams later in the year or you're the'03 Bills with Bledsoe.

Alright, last week proved my point, gave up more points than in Carolina and won. Let's hope the d doesn't hold the falcons under 10, and we got a shot!

So if I search the board, I will not find you saying the Washington team's name should stay the same? Not rooting for either outcome in my search, for what it's worth **update, boyst62 is actually fairly consistent with his Washington team name stance, not 100% behind either side from what I found, which I respect, it's a nuanced issue***. Alright, as far as research, hoping to have an intelligent convo if you are interested, I'll start with this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2016/09/27/yale-study-suggests-racial-bias-among-preschool-teachers/?utm_term=.401b496d7d95 Forbes article describing below study: http://fortune.com/2014/11/04/hiring-racial-bias/ Pdf of a research study on resumes: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://cla.auburn.edu/econwp/archives/2014/2014-06.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwjsxZeRtsbWAhXEwiYKHfkCBwAQFggkMAA&usg=AFQjCNHzVsVOTMNzGFSu1ZiXRoa3zMb3dQ

The point of this argument is not opinion, it is a fact. It is about racial injustice. Do you agree? Also, what are your thoughts on the Washington team's name? There are native Americans saying they are offended...by your logic you have to be supporting the name change, no? So do you?

Does the endowing a piece of cloth with personified values and bowing before it remind anyone else of the false idols Moses smashed and caused people to wander in a desert for 40 years until all the guilty grew old and died? Also, standing at attention for 2 minutes while a song plays and a flag waves once a week does not absolve any sins or remove the fact that a person acted in an un-American way (stepping on other's inalienable rights, by somehow thinking theirs are more important than any other American's, for example). I love this country, my family escaped the soviet union in the 60s and 70s, having lost basically everyone in WWII. My grandfather served 9 years in a siberian labor camp for saying communism couldn't work because of human nature, to the wrong person. As they dreamed of a place to see their children raise their grandchildren in freedom, they did not dream of a flag. They dreamed of ideals. That is America, ideals of the highest order. Not a piece of cloth that we endow as an idol. I understand everyone might not share my opinion, and the flag might be how they express those ideals, but to those people I challenge that American ideals are so much larger than even a flag that covers an entire football field. I just ask that you take some time to reflect that potentially you may be limited in your ability to honor those ideals with a symbol incapable of holding all of them.

Yeah, it almost looked like, and reminded me of a basketball pick and roll...cool play design.

They finished first in rushing last year and tenth in scoring offense: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/buf/2016.htm

Correct, I am not saying the defense sucked, I'm saying the offense was very conservative, and if the defense sucks, then it would have forced them to get more aggressive. This essentially same offensive personnel finished in the top 10 last year in large part because they were aggressive and playing from behind/knew they couldn't stop anyone.

Haha, I know, was going to put that in the OP, and I was aware of the similarity as I was starting the thread! That said, there are times when a defense will allow a team to score on purpose to get the ball back, or a team intentionally gives up a safety. I guess my question is more, does a close game with poor field position lead to more conservative play calling, where if you get behind schedule, you play safe and are ok with punting until you get scored on and then get aggressive to flip the field?

By not allowing points, it kept the offense in bad field position without the urgency to play less conservatively. Hope the d plays like this every week, but could they have played a part in the offense's approach?

Here is some info on the 'free' internet and what it truly costs...they even mention how much 'free' costs at the end of the video...I'll give you one guess (this really is an interesting video, highly recommend): https://youtu.be/5pFX2P7JLwA

^ this and this

538 shares their data for a lot of their stories on GitHub. That specific one isn't there yet, but if it doesn't show up in the next few weeks, can't hurt to send an email or tweat, bet they would share. https://github.com/fivethirtyeight/data Plenty of youtube vids on how to use github, and you can load datasets directly into R (theoretically, I guess I need to watch more youtube!).

Piper, Piper, the red, red worm woke last night to the sound of the storm her words were words I sailed upon

Sending positive vibes, hopefully the time over Cuba turned this more into a storm surge threat and less of a wide scale house damaging storm due to near cat 5 wind. A lot of tornado warnings though in the ft lauderdale area...stay safe. The 11am update just said it's moving straight north, which is putting it directly over Marco Island.

Getting to watch the bills had to be a motivator for a lot of people as they evacuated (definitely was for me), so let's open some doors, couches, bar seats for those of us in the community displaced by Irma. Anything in Huntsville, AL? Also, guessing a bunch of people would want to know about groups in Atlanta.

I've never gone to OTW in my life, so it was basically hidden from me...that one person it could have helped, but missed the thread...it was me ...thank you though for pinning there, but still think it should have been in a much more prominent place as well.

Apparently my response to the first thread that got merged wasn't strong enough, so hopefully this gets some attention. Seriously, way to allow the main board to help the community. I don't want to be part of a community that treats one another this way. And before you say I'm overreacting, this is what I did in the last 21 hours after pulling an all nighter to board up my house, rescue my 3 cats and dog, all while leaving my wife and 5 month old at the airport, not knowing if I could find gas, or if the roads would be packed beyond belief and I would be stuck in a house that likely isn't making it through this, and I'm pretty sure I got step throat along the way. There was some very helpful information in that thread and if one person on this board could have been helped by this thread and wasn't because of your small rule governed moral mind, that is on you you small hearted loser. I sent my wife this text around 9 tonight after having super spotty cell service going through back road Georgia and Alabama on no sleep...what did you do today !@#$?: Got here about an hour ago...21 hours total, 16 of which was today (started at 4:20 this morning), and only took two breaks today on 5 hours of sleep, 7 total in the last 48 hours, two of which were on the plane, and the rest in the hotel with a dog that barked at every sound and extra barked at anyone walking by. https://forums.twobillsdrive.com/topic/196099-a-place-for-those-directly-in-irmas-path/

Tell us when/if you're safe. Let's support those in our community directly impacted. I'm evacuating to Huntsville, AL. Live in Ft. Lauderdale, house built in 1956, but got a new roof last year. Depending on the path, thinking minor damage or total loss. Wife and 5 month old are in Rochester (we were visiting family), I flew back Wed, pulled all nighter and jumped in car Thursday at 9am, made it to Orlando by 3pm and grabbed a hotel to wait out traffic (36 hours no sleep). Jumping back in car in a few and hoping at this time of day I zoom through leaving Orlando and Atlanta, and it's an easy 10 hour drive. Stay safe everyone, my love and thoughts are with you all, and let's stay connected here once we get back if anyone needs help cleaning up...go bills

Got about 4 hours of sleep, dog keeps barking at people walking by in the hotel, going to try and get 2 more hours, but traffic looks decent and I have 10 more hours to drive, so might take off.

Can someone explain how a roll call evacuation solidarity thread got fing consolidated into this geneneric trash thread?!?! I've been up 36 hours straight, my house literally might not be standing monday, and one of the few bright spots for me and a number of people on this board is tge buffalo bills. Whoever consolidated this thread is an fing dick, who should go bannon himself. You lack empathy sir, whoever you are.