Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Boeing defense HQ leaving VA to return to St. Louis. Every day it seems at least one company flees high tax blue states. You'd think at some point they'd learn the cause and effect at play here.

- From the archives: Pat Riley on the remarkable power of getting 1% better.

- Many a truth is said in jest.

- Grandson of Reese's Peanut Butter Cup inventor accuses Hersey of quietly relacing ingredients. Is there a patent on combining milk chocolate and peanut butter? If so Hersey's may be in violation of patent otherwise there may be a business opportunity to make original recipe peanut butter cups. 

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- What some bands cost in England in 1969.

- Pat Riley on the remarkable power of getting 1% better.

- Ichiro was my favorite non-Red Sox player

- Jonathan Turley on the Democrats weaponization of the justice system in NYC. One has to wonder if the ruling by Judge Engoron should now be an automatic appeal for any client he's ruled against in the past as proof of his bias.

More Linky Links

More stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Laughed too much at this. Perhaps it hit too close to home. (Via)

- Sports Illustrated announces layoffs and pivot to AI generated content. Really? ChatGPT give me 1,000 words on the Chiefs Super Bowl win in the style of Frank Deford. Hard pass.

- James Clear: Pat Riley on the remarkable power of getting 1% better.

- 10 of the most influential science photographs of all-time 

Showtime

Recently finished the book Showtime by Jeff Pearlman. Bought and read the book because of all the hype around the HBO show Winning Time which I will not watch because of the way they portray and treat Jerry West.

A short synopsis of the book would go something like this; Magic Johnson is drafted, is very good at basketball but then he "attains" the AIDS virus. In between Pat Riley is a coach who was good at first but then just went too far (and yes the dictator joke was intentional).

I was a huge NBA fan during the 1980's, so it was fun to relive those series and that period of time. There was one thing that I read that made me slightly change my perception of the NBA though.

I used to firmly believe that Red Auerbach's trade of basically Joe Barry Carrol for Robert Parrish and Kevin McHale was perhaps the best in NBA history but the Lakers' trade of aging Gail Goodrich to the New Orleans Jazz (they hadn't moved to Utah yet) for the Jazz's first round picks in 1977 and 1979 now seems a close second. The 1979 pick was used to draft Magic Johnson.

Still say Red's trade was better because the draft picks were a matter of luck. The Lakers didn't know they were getting Magic. They easily could have been getting another Kenny Carr (who they drafted with the 1977 pick from the Jazz). 

Quotes for Today

Some quotes I hope may resonate with you.

"The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom." - James Clear

"Men desire novelty to such an extent that those who are doing well wish for change as much as those who are doing badly." - Machiavelli

 "Sustaining an effort is the most important thing for any enterprise. The way to be successful is to learn how to do things right, then do them the same way every time." - Pat Riley

"Envy was once considered to be one of the seven deadly sins before it became one of the most admired virtues under its new name 'social justice.'" - Thomas Sowell

Pat Riley on the Remarkable Power of Getting 1% Better

James Clear with an except from Atomic Habits on Pat Riley and his CBE (Career Best Effort) program. 

Reading that I kept wondering if CBE is now kept somewhere as an advanced performance metric? If not - why not? It would seem to be as useful a tool to basketball as WAR (Wins Above Replacement) was to baseball. 

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Surprised the nickname "Canadian Beto" never stuck for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau... "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." - Marcus Aurelius... Jack Dempsey said the only man he ducked fighting when he was heavyweight champion of the world was Ernest Hemingway. Dempsey didn't want to hurt the great writer who was insistent on proving his manhood... Nick Saban on the 5 choices we all have in life... Can you imagine how different the history of the Knicks and the entire NBA would have been if Pat Riley was given full control of the franchise instead of being allowed to bolt for Miami all those years ago?... "It's only physics if it comes from the Physique region of France. Otherwise it's just sparkling math." - Anna Hughes...

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Just saying but you may find more Aaron Hernandez than Kyrie Irving jerseys in Boston next year... There should have been an episode of Magnum PI where Magnum witnesses Higgins murder his ex-wife and a waiter but decides to keep silent about it for years... Can you imagine how different the history of the Knicks would have been if Pat Riley was given full control of the franchise instead of being allowed to bolt for Miami all those years ago... Still firmly believe that "sticktum" should be a word. It is more pleasing to the ear than either "anus" or sphincter". Make it so... Jack Dempsey said the only man he ducked fighting when he was heavyweight champion of the world was Ernest Hemingway. He didn't want to hurt the great writer who was insistent on proving his manhood... When did we start calling 70's soft rock Yacht Rock? Did I miss the memo?... MMA Jesus would be a good name for a Christian rock band...

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- It will be tough to convince me that Pat Riley didn't want Dwayne Wade to leave Miami.

- With peace, Columbia is poised for greater prosperity

- Heh heh

- 2002 as the exact year Robert DeNiro gave up? Then how do you explain The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle in 2000?

- Wow - paralyzed man walks after stem cells from his nose transplanted into his spinal cord

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting and thought I'd share.

- Scary wasp's nest with over a million wasps. I can't help but think that when people ask "What happened to all the bees?" - the answer might be "Guys like this killed them!"

- Good point - imagine how the history of the Knicks would have been different if they had kept Pat Riley all those years ago.

- Cool - what the planets would look like to us if they were the same distance away as the moon

- Heh heh - Paula Deen is an easy target