- 01:00 PM
- 04/18/24
OK, I'm going. In response to the earlier question -- I can't really tell anything about link quality without checking all of the 1000+ links by hand, and most of them don't exist any more. My point was that we shouldn't make blanket statements about ESPN or Yahoo links when we all do it. Others have said the same thing here a few times.
posted by Amateur at 08:51 PM on April 24, 2007
More than a year ago I ran an analysis of the links provided within FPP's on SpoFi. (I do plan to share it but I did this as part of another project which has yet to be completed.) Relevant to this discussion: for the sample I considered, the most popular source was ESPN (867 links, 19% of the total) and the second most popular source was Yahoo! (328 links). So I don't think that we should get all down on ESPN and Yahoo! Those two sources together make up more than 25% of the links on the front page.
posted by Amateur at 01:33 PM on April 23, 2007
Thanks for sharing, everybody. A few more one-offs from Slate.com: How Do You Cheat at NASCAR? The Death of the Bracketmaster Do Mormon athletes wear the temple garment under their uniforms?
posted by Amateur at 07:35 AM on March 24, 2007
I'm especially interested in finding podcasts that are, well, hard to find. My offerings: Deck Pass: Swimming news and views, published weekly. Unpolished production. Quiet Please: a single-episode contribution from the BBC. "Chris Mitchell talks to the experts who explain that sound in sport is fundamental to the delivery of excellence, performance and skill."
posted by Amateur at 02:36 PM on March 14, 2007
Would also have been a great tool for our prototype Winter Olympics experiment. Can you support group Wordpress blogs?
posted by Amateur at 07:04 PM on February 25, 2007
I'm special You should add that to the "Praise for Yukon" section of your profile.
posted by Amateur at 05:12 PM on February 22, 2007
Texan, I don't know if you are already an expert coach just looking for advice on coaching kids ... but here are two web sites you may find useful: SoccerClinics.com (There is a link on the home page for 'coaching 9 to 12 years' that offers a complete season manual.) FlashDrills.com
posted by Amateur at 08:09 PM on February 18, 2007
Some of our younger viewers might never have seen this infamous brawl from the 1987 World Junior Hockey Championships. Both teams were disqualified and sent home.
posted by Amateur at 01:34 PM on January 23, 2007
I'd forgotten about that psychotic incident. I enjoyed this ad the first time I saw it. Now I'm off to my old-timer's hockey game.
posted by Amateur at 06:33 PM on January 22, 2007
At 4:33 I believe (I am not certain) that this is the famous "Punch" Line: Maurice "Rocket" Richard, Elmer Lach, and Hector "Toe" Blake.
posted by Amateur at 08:42 AM on January 17, 2007
From the uniforms I'd say that clip of the Cardinals fooling around at 0:03 is from the 20's or 30's, maybe the "gashouse gang" team. I've seen that clip before but I can't name the players.
posted by Amateur at 08:19 AM on January 17, 2007
At 0:04 that is definitely Beamon and from the bib number it looks like the 1968 Olympics. Whether that is the actual world-record jump or not, I can't say.
posted by Amateur at 07:38 AM on January 17, 2007
Similar, deleted locker room posts (one by me, one not): 1050: lilnemo vs budpatient 1005: amateur vs blogzilla
posted by Amateur at 10:17 PM on January 16, 2007
Well, the guy caused a bit of a train wreck in that one thread, violated the guidelines, and he's posting too much ... but I'm with those who suggest giving him some more time. Other than that one thread he's been coherent and constructive. On the other issue ... Not too long ago I had a locker room thread deleted that was making a similar complaint about an even bigger idiot. As far as I know the warning at the top of the locker room (don't discuss member behaviour) is still in force.
posted by Amateur at 10:03 PM on January 16, 2007
Well, thanks for the thought. Pissy weather we're having this week, eh?
posted by Amateur at 10:20 PM on January 08, 2007
So what's the prize for being top Canadian, then?
posted by Amateur at 06:43 AM on January 07, 2007
What I want to know is why nobody here told me that Lance Armstrong has confessed to being not gay? I had to hear about it from my wife. Happy Holidays anyway, Sportfilter.
posted by Amateur at 10:17 AM on December 22, 2006
DrJohn, I don't disagree with your forecasts of the future, but I am not sure I agree with your assessment of this goal. He took a pretty good whack from each of the defensemen (the second took a bad line to the goal -- clearly fooled by Cole's speed). And I remember Cole from the Hurricanes-Habs series in the pre-lockout season. He can play with that kind of dominance at times, under anybody's rules.
posted by Amateur at 02:23 PM on December 04, 2006
No way, Dr. John. Cole humiliated a team, by himself; not with fancy moves but with raw guts, power, and speed. How do you defend against that?
posted by Amateur at 11:43 AM on December 04, 2006
That is Cole at his best -- he made two NHL defensemen look like children. Wow.
posted by Amateur at 07:30 AM on December 04, 2006
Stanford (graduate school): 92
posted by Amateur at 08:08 PM on December 03, 2006
skydivemom, lbb didn't say that you had to get "your" and "you're" right all the time to stick around here. She was taking a well-aimed shot at a commenter who can't get it right to save his life, and yet still visited this thread to criticize the english of others. I assumed FillyFan was making a bad joke, but maybe not.
posted by Amateur at 10:41 PM on September 27, 2006
Well I didn't get it either, but google saved me.
posted by Amateur at 11:19 AM on September 26, 2006
I like grum's idea, if it's not too much work for the admins. If people are unwilling to modify their behaviour, then they'll just go away anyway. If they think it's worth the effort, then we'll see if they have anything to say that's worth reading.
posted by Amateur at 11:51 AM on September 25, 2006
So we seem to be back to threads 1000+. Will older ones come back some day, or are they gone forever? I'd like to do a little bit of benign data mining.
posted by Amateur at 12:14 PM on August 31, 2006
The obvious answer to the jersey-number problem is to represent them in hex. That would keep us in four-digit territory until 65,535 (0xFFFF) I would even get a three-digit number (0x856).
posted by Amateur at 10:13 PM on August 14, 2006
lbb, Mr. 10K is our own beloved JJ. He is also Mr. 10K-1. That may have happened during your vacation. Somewhere in the mists of (temporarily unavailable, it seems) locker room chatter I think I predicted that we would reach 15,000 users by January 1 2007. Am I eligible for an entry in yerfatma's "great predictions?" [by the way, yerfatma, sir, you have a small typo there, if you look carefully at the heading ...]
posted by Amateur at 10:07 PM on August 14, 2006
Very nice job. I would only strengthen the point about posting to your own site. Saying it is "particularly uncool" doesn't capture it. My understanding is that such FPPs would be immediately removed. The guidelines should say so.
posted by Amateur at 09:55 PM on August 14, 2006
The link seems to be broken for me -- just a blank USA Today page. So I'd say, no.
posted by Amateur at 11:11 AM on July 25, 2006
Crazy Prince Philip speaks truth for all sports fans.
posted by Amateur at 09:25 PM on July 24, 2006
Geez thanks smithers! Oh, wait, insufficient for FPPs? Now just for that I'm not going to post my four-thousand-word column on the Tour de France...
posted by Amateur at 09:01 PM on July 24, 2006
Oh no, I liked that part, although I wish somebody would explain to me what all the big words mean, and why JJ has a Maple Leaf on his travelling bag.
posted by Amateur at 09:36 AM on July 07, 2006
It's so nice to see Mr. Rooney upholding that strong English tradition of good sportsmanship. Is this any more than a rumour, grum?
posted by Amateur at 01:00 PM on July 04, 2006
Like Weedy, I am not that knowledgeable about soccer. Like Weedy, I dislike that C. Ronaldo character intensely. Like Texan, I did not perceive that the crotch-stomp was intentional. The referee may be claiming that the red card was unrelated to the shove, but that's not how I read his body language when it happened. Whether the shove + unintentional foul warranted a red card I will leave to other experts to judge. But that shove was a stupid, stupid thing to do. I am a bit stunned that people are blaming the jackass Ronaldo for the ejection. Either Rooney deserved to be thrown out, in which case we can blame Rooney; or he didn't, in which case we can blame the ref. Whether Ronaldo deserved to be shoved or not has nothing to do with it.
posted by Amateur at 11:56 AM on July 04, 2006
Friday before a long weekend here in the US. Canada, too.
posted by Amateur at 10:17 AM on June 30, 2006
I was at home taking care of the puking Mrs. Amateur and entertaining the two Amateur angels. Happy Father's Day to me!
posted by Amateur at 09:48 AM on June 19, 2006
The only problem with drowning trolls in awesomeness is this exchange between Amateur and tommytrump. bperk, are you saying that sometimes I write things that are not awesome? Fair enough, I do. In light of lilnemo's call to action, I probably should resist that kind of snark in the future. In this case, though, I think calling out tommytrump was a calculated risk. That thread was not yet overrun, and my assessment of tommytrump is that he actually might care enough to change. I wouldn't have said those things to just anybody. Tommytrump, although he says lots of things I disagree with, is not a troll (IMO). And I would point out that my barb did have an effect. For the rest of the thread, at least, he did locate the 'shift' key.
posted by Amateur at 10:20 PM on June 12, 2006
I've bitched quite a bit on this particular subject, and come to the conclusion that we must drown the trolls in our SHEER AWESOMENESS. I'm with lilnemo, and I believe. Let us unleash a veritable FLOOD of awesomeness, smiting our enemies (and their firstborn). Dude, we're totally outnumbered on this one. That's defeatist! Awesomeness begets more awesomeness. Let the awesome "we" of SportFilter inspire the dormant awesomeness in others!
posted by Amateur at 06:27 PM on June 07, 2006
secretly enjoys reading the Bonds thread Pervert.
posted by Amateur at 09:12 PM on May 30, 2006
So when lbb is horribly injured in a mountaineering accident, let's everybody remember that — no mawkish sentiment allowed around here.
posted by Amateur at 08:19 PM on May 25, 2006
Agreed it was a very good day. And I was worried that it was getting a bit all-detroit around here. also it was my birthday today
posted by Amateur at 09:15 PM on April 18, 2006
qbert, I agree. And for those of us who don't follow F1 it could be a nice recap, if the writing was easier to follow.
posted by Amateur at 11:18 AM on April 06, 2006
I think a little more direct communication would be good. What he's doing doesn't seem all that bad to me. It might just be somebody practicing his English, and not comfortable enough to participate in the conversation. jennifer's sin was a bit different since she looked like she was shilling for another, external site.
posted by Amateur at 09:42 AM on April 06, 2006
I don't use Gmail! I mean, I don't use Gmail. qbert got me a little excited there. I had not been back to the site since the FPP.
posted by Amateur at 12:03 PM on March 28, 2006
What!? I thought I was special! My profile got "noticed" too.
posted by Amateur at 07:39 AM on March 28, 2006
Well, I didn't read that thread yesterday ('cuz cheerleading's not really a sport). But seriously, I think this is a good policy.
posted by Amateur at 08:59 AM on March 07, 2006
I'm in favour, rcade. I don't know how you'll do it, though.
posted by Amateur at 07:46 AM on March 07, 2006
Ach, me too. And I had a good ripper all ready to go on the Bode Miller thing. Ah well, nothing that hasn't been said a hundred times already.
posted by Amateur at 11:59 PM on February 25, 2006
One other clue, which erkno pointed out. For a while, I would get the error page if I pushed the "post" button, but if I went back and used the return key instead, my comment would be accepted. Then that stopped working, too.
posted by Amateur at 07:29 AM on February 24, 2006
Women's curling wrapup, then: SWE defeats NOR 5-4 SUI defeats CAN 7-5 CAN will play NOR for the bronze medal tomorrow. Hockey updates, that's what you guys are here for...
posted by Amateur at 09:52 AM on February 22, 2006
they stole three in the third end Nope, that wasn't a steal. Anyway, Canada loses 7-5. OK, no more curling talk. We're like those annoying guests at the Super Bowl party who want to switch the channel to see the score in the hockey game.
posted by Amateur at 09:45 AM on February 22, 2006
DrJE, the official Torino web site says down by 2 in the 10th, but SUI with the hammer. Doesn't look good.
posted by Amateur at 09:39 AM on February 22, 2006
goddam it (pun intended)! that's the second time that's happened to me!
posted by Amateur at 09:30 AM on February 22, 2006
Agreed, skydivedad, there is no way for me to win this thing either... I can get ahead of NoMich, if things go badly for him, but I can't pass all 21 people ahead of me. If everything went perfectly I think I could get to 11th place.
posted by Amateur at 09:25 AM on February 22, 2006
For people who want to noodle, here is a MS Excel spreadsheet. Just change the value of 'Wins' in the first row to see different hypothetical scenarios; you can re-sort rows 3-34 to see your new ranking. I changed the order of the teams so that those no longer in play are on the right-hand side, and the teams that are matched up today are paired side-by-side.
posted by Amateur at 08:21 AM on February 22, 2006
Actually, gspm, if you just consider NoMich, you can gain five points on him if your best-case scenario doesn't come true. CAN-USA-CZE-SWE 40 for gspm 35 for NoMich Also, at that point NoMich will have 12-9-8-6 going forward into the next round, and you will have 12-11-10-7. I don't know how the matchups will go but there's the potential for another big swing in the last two rounds. I don't think the battle for supremacy is over yet. Me, on the other hand, I'm another five points back, which is hopeless.
posted by Amateur at 08:22 PM on February 21, 2006
Everybody picked SWE for more points than SUI, but: the person most hoping for a SUI upset should be Ufez. Everybody picked CZE for more points than SVK, but: the people most hoping for a SVK win should be NoMich and skydivedad. (This doesn't consider what it will mean going forward; only at the end of the day tomorrow.)
posted by Amateur at 08:13 PM on February 21, 2006
Video delights:
A couple of weekends ago I took a team from work into the local dragon boat race. In the "IT Cup" final, our competitors in the next lane rigged their drummer up with a head-mounted camera. Here is the video that he took. My team is in the red shirts, briefly visible before the start. This team nipped us at the finish.