ICanSleepWhenI'mDead

I had to watch yesterday on my MacBook Air laptop, because the NFL App for XBox was not working. I tried it again just now - - still no joy. I'm cautiously optimistic that they will get it fixed before the regular season starts, because that's what happened last year.

I am not in WNY. I used NFL Game Pass last year to watch the Bills game full replays on my large screen TV connected to my XBox. Replays were available as soon as the game ended, and it's pretty easy to avoid the sports news for a mere 3 hours. Supposedly, I will be able to do that again this year, because the NFL automatically "upgraded" my old NFL GAME Pass subscription (which is no longer offered), to the new NFL+ premium streaming service, all while lowering the annual price from $99 to $79. Sounded good to me, but when I tried to fire up the NFL app on my XBox to watch the Indy preseason game yesterday, I got a screen message informing me that the NFL is working on fixing bugs in the NFL for XBox app and to check back later. FWIW, the NFL app for XBox that I used last year also had issues for the first preseason game or 2, but worked just fine during the regular season. It's supposed to work just fine this year - - but we'll see. From https://www.whattowatch.com/watching-guides/nfl-plus-price-available-games-devices-and-everything-we-know-about-the-streaming-service "NFL Plus Premium provides its subscribers with full and condensed game replays from every NFL game each week (as well as condensed game replays going as far back as 2009). These replays are available to watch on all devices and are ad-free." (emphasis added) The above link has additional details that anyone interested in this topic may want to read.

I have never used this website, and it seems expensive, but if you're out of options . . . https://www.neighbor.com/garages-near-me/california/los-angeles Haven't used this site either, but maybe you can hire somebody to move the car every few days cheaper than you can rent a parking space: https://www.taskrabbit.com/locations/la-oc

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=los+angeles+metro+rail+from+hollywood+to+LAX

https://www.quantamagazine.org/two-weeks-in-the-webb-space-telescope-is-reshaping-astronomy-20220725/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

The team decision about how much of a player's total compensation should be a signing bonus depends on a lot of factors, but from the player's perspective, it would be good to establish residency in a state with low or no income taxes, and get as much of the total compensation as possible in a signing bonus, if the team plays its home games in a high tax state like NY or CA. From http://entertainment-tax-advisors.com/signing-bonus-evaluation/ "Signing bonuses are generally allocated to an athlete’s state of residency, rather than the states in which games and practices are held. As many athletes reside in states with low income tax rates or no income tax rates, proper allocation to a state of residency can reduce overall taxes by hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. For example, an athlete residing in Florida (0 percent income tax rate) but playing for a New York team (8.82 percent income tax rate) would incur unnecessary income taxes of over $1.75 million if a $20 million signing bonus is incorrectly allocated to New York instead of Florida."

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/1ef1579c-e67b-48c1-ad9a-6a6232857013

From https://getpocket.com/explore/item/intelligent-life-really-can-t-exist-anywhere-else?utm_source=pocket-newtab "There’s an iconic scene in the 2001 movie Ocean’s Eleven where George Clooney explains the series of escalating improbabilities of his planned crime. After several hugely unlikely outcomes, he says, “Then it’s a piece of cake: just three more guards with Uzis, and the most elaborate vault door conceived by man.” In a way, the unlikely hurdles to the rapid flourishing of complex life on Earth are the same way." Here's the actual Oxford University study described in the above, dumbed-down November 24, 2020 Popular Mechanics article: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2019.2149

Point of order - - don't you have to be drafted to be the "steal of the draft?" - - just sayin'

Looks like 2 years, per details in this article: From https://www.livescience.com/remission-in-small-rectal-cancer-trial : "The trial participants received 500 milligrams of dostarlimab every three weeks for six months. The initial expectation was that, following this treatment, most of the patients would still need to undergo the standard combination of chemotherapy, radiation therapy and potentially surgery. But instead, all 12 patients' cancers completely cleared on dostarlimab alone. Their tumors were undetectable on physical exam, endoscopy, PET and MRI scans. About a year later, none of the patients required further treatment and none of their cancers had grown back, the team wrote in their report. Even now, more than two years later, "no patients have required chemoradiation or surgery, and no cases of progression or recurrence have been noted during follow-up," according to a statement (opens in new tab) from MSK."

Fan opinions about the salary cap are like noses (PG-rated version of the idea) - - everybody has one. The actual salary cap rules are publicly available, because they are part of the union contract between the players union and the league. That union contract runs over 400 pages, and the NFLPA publishes it here: https://nflpaweb.blob.core.windows.net/website/PDFs/CBA/March-15-2020-NFL-NFLPA-Collective-Bargaining-Agreement-Final-Executed-Copy.pdf The financial literacy of most Americans is dismal. I have no reason to think that the financial literacy of the Bills fans who post here is significantly different than that of most Americans. For example, most people have the idiotic idea that they are somehow better off by giving the government an interest-free loan to use their money and then getting a big income tax refund every year, rather than using available options to match income tax withholding to their expected income tax liability. That's pretty dumb. If you want to understand the salary cap, you can read the admittedly complicated rules for yourself at the above link, or you can read the uninformed postings of people who are passionate Bills fans but are typically (with a few exceptions) totally uninformed about what the salary cap rules are and how they work. If enough Bills fans post that the owners are rich guys who can spend whatever they want on player salaries so long as they are rich enough to make sure that the salary checks don't bounce, that must be true, right?

Driving alone for hours and pushed beyond my endurance limits to save a few bucks on a hotel because I was almost to my destination. Woke up when I sideswiped a guard rail. Wound up unhurt but with about $1,000 auto body damage. Could easily have been MUCH worse. Lesson learned.

The author admits his paper has "limitations." Yeah, also known as - - Garbage in, garbage out.

My top 5 acting performances of all time? 1. The Lakers' Vlade Divac flopping to draw an offensive foul pretty much any game he ever played in (lifetime achievement award); 2. The South American soccer team players who grab their face, fall to the ground, roll over in agony a few times, and get carted off on a stretcher, only to bounce back on the field about 2 seconds later (with video review showing they never got touched and started reacting well after the whistle); 3. Stefon Diggs acting like he's gonna run a post route and then breaking it off to the sideline (surprise!); 4. My dog acting like he had absolutely no idea how the stuffing came out of that couch pillow; and 5. An ex-girlfriend a long time ago - - "It's not you, it's me." The acting was so good, and I was so naive at the time, that it took a while to realize she didn't really believe it was her.

Well, maybe not - - the truth is down there: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/what-u-s-submariners-actually-say-about-detection-of-so-called-unidentified-submerged-objects?utm_source=pocket-newtab

By this logic, the chances that the Bills have 4 guys on their board with 6th round grades are slim, so they will likely drop down to round 7 when that is "dried up." Does that actually sound logical to you?

Thanks for the explanation. I'm not going to try to talk you out of what you believe is coming, or criticize you. Wouldn't it be nice, though, if there was a way to have people stop calling you a conspiracy theorist because of your views and STILL get wealthy? If your vision of the future turns out to be correct, there's actually a way to do that. It sounds like you have some gains from what you've already bought. If I'm right about that, why not sell just enough to match what you originally invested, and put that in the bank? Leave the rest in your existing investments. If the gains on your existing investments turn out to be as spectacular as you expect, you will still wind up being very wealthy. But if there's even a tiny chance that the future does not unfold as you expect, you'll have something to fall back on. And you can explain what you're doing to the people who criticize you, which will likely cause them to cut you some slack even though they don't share your view of the future. Wouldn't that be nice? Besides, you can only drive one Chevelle at a time. At least think about it.

You talk about the "big event" and "what is coming" in pretty vague terms. Why be vague about it? I'd appreciate it if you would explain exactly what you think the "big event" will be that is "coming." Educate me about what you've learned about the forthcoming quantum financial system ("QFS"). Doing that would help your own investments, right? The more people who see the light and invest in the same way you have, the more demand there will be for what you already own, which should make your own investments more valuable and accelerate your path to wealth. So how about it? Don't just leave me clueless about what's coming - - please explain to me specifically what's coming. Thanks.

<<My net worth is pretty low, about $100K, I guess. . . . I expect to have millions of dollars by the end of the year.>> Does this sound reasonable to you? I'm just some random poster on the internet, but if there is anyone in your life whose judgment you respect, you might want to ask them the same question. I hope the "big event" isn't the resurrection of JFK in Dallas: https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5qwb3/jfk-qanon-dallas-cult-growing

We're not in their boat yet, but over the long term, all teams have the same maximum amount of money that they are allowed to spend. The labor contract with the players also establishes a floor as well as a cap. The floor is only a few percent less than the maximum allowable amount - - the idea being that if all teams spend approximately the same amount of money over the long term the league will have better competitive balance and attract more fans (which means more money for the owners to share). Teams can use accounting "tricks" like pro-rating up-front signing bonuses over the term of a contract to bring future allowable spending forward so that they can try to have the best possible player talent this year, but doing that means they will have less money than other teams to spend in future years. Unless there are structural changes to the salary cap imposed by future negotiated changes to the collective bargaining agreement with the players' union (which nobody expects), that's unavoidable. Year-to-year increases in the salary cap don't change the fact that if you use accounting "tricks" to bring future spending forward into this year, you can't spend that same money later. Those accounting tricks don't change the total amount a team can spend over the long term. With a talented team that has a good chance to win a championship, bringing some future spending forward to maximize team talent this year is a logical strategy, because those opportunities aren't always available. But don't kid yourself into thinking that using accounting "tricks" to increase your odds of winning a championship this year doesn't give you less money to spend in future years, which puts you at a competitive disadvantage in the future. Go Bills !!

Surprised nobody offered this one yet - - Locals pronounce New Orleans, LA as Naw-lins, which is about as far away as possible from the non-Cajun way I pronounced it growing up in WNY.

If you were an alien society, and your distant robotic scouts used a wormhole to bring home recordings of earth's TV broadcasts of Star Trek, would you send humans a peace signal by giving the Hubble telescope a view of something that looked like the Star Ship Enterprise? Sort of a way of letting mankind know that they intended to follow the "Prime Directive?" https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/hubble-spots-a-starship-shaped-galactic-pair

Logic does not suggest that whales create billiard balls in their gills and do anything with them, simply because whales don't have gills. Which would not change the entertainment value of responses from those who might not have appreciated that fact without reading this. None of the above should be interpreted as indicating that I think you are wrong about why we have no evidence of other intelligent life in the universe. Where you and I differ, however, is that I acknowledge that my opinion, that it is extremely unlikely that there is other intelligent life in the universe, could turn out to be wrong. I also think that many people's opinions that intelligent life does exist elsewhere in the universe are the product of wishful thinking. If you're an astronomer, and therefore at least appear to have some indicia of credibility about such matters, it gives you more reason to believe that you are devoting your life's work to trying to discover something particularly important. To the extent we have evidence about whether or not intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe, I think that evidence supports the conclusion that no such intelligent life exists. I view that as an opinion rather than fact, however, because there is still a great deal that we do not know about not only the distant parts of the universe, but even our own planet. For example, I recently came across an interesting discussion of the "faint sun paradox" - - you can read about it here: https://futurism.com/faint-young-sun-paradox-early-earth Humans are often sure about what they supposedly "know," right up until they aren't. Just ask my significant other. Or invent a time machine, visit my younger self, and ask me if the lyric in the Beatles song everybody else apparently knew as "Paperback Writer" was actually, as I thought for an embarrassingly long time, "pay for that Chrysler." We all have blind spots, including me.

WWGOWGA? Just curious.

So where are all the customer's yachts?