Balls and Wheels: 2024

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Sunday, November 10, 2024

List of ambidextrous pitchers/ switch-pitchers

https://switchpitching.blogspot.com/p/list-of-ambidextrous-pitchers.html

Saturday, November 9, 2024

JFK

Lee Harvey Oswald, the CIA, and LSD: New Clues in Newly Declassified Documents

Sunday, November 3, 2024

Teardrop

https://genius.com/Massive-attack-teardrop-lyrics

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/story-of-massive-attack-teardrop/

https://americansongwriter.com/the-story-behind-teardrop-by-massive-attack-and-how-its-connected-to-music-legends-and-a-popular-tv-show/

Search engines

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20241031-how-google-tells-you-what-you-want-to-hear Google results can be skewed based on how you phrase your question.

""That presentation is from 2016, so you have to take it with a pinch of salt, but the underlying concept is still true. Google builds models to try and predict what people like, but the problem is this creates a kind of feedback loop," Williams-Cook says. If confirmation bias pushes people to click on links that reinforce their beliefs, it can teach Google to show people links that lead to confirmation bias. "It's like saying you're going to let your kid pick out their diet based on what they like. They'll just end up with junk food," he says.

Williams-Cook also worries that people may not understand that when you ask something like "is Trump a good candidate", Google may not necessarily interpret that as a question. Instead, it often just pulls up documents that relate to keywords like "Trump" and "good candidate"."

"For a long time, observers have described how Google is transitioning from a search engine to an "answer engine," where the company simply gives you the information, rather than pointing you to outside sources. The clearest example is the introduction of AI Overviews, a feature where Google uses AI to answer search queries for you, rather than pulling up links in response. As the company put it, you can now "Let Google do the searching for you".

Thursday, October 31, 2024

Georgism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Looking at picture books

https://lookingatpicturebooks.substack.com/p/where-the-wild-things-are

https://lookingatpicturebooks.substack.com/p/millions-of-cats

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Genealogy

Michelina Iachetta

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JFLR-B2G Pellegrino accompanied by sister Michela.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2CV-MK1S Daughter, Lucy M. Geresola, born 1897, marries 43-year-old John L.N. Sellitto. 1926-2-11 in Bronx.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6KMN-SYJD Daughter Lucy Marie born 1896-9-12 in Italy. Father = Dominic Geresola.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6KMJ-KHQM Louise Michelina Iachetta - daughter of Pellegrino.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6KMJ-2QTV 2nd daughter, Elvira, born 1905 - Yachetta

Dominic: 1950 census Widowed. Born 1865. 1940 census Married. Born 1864. Michelina is 73. 1930 census Children listed are Anthony, Emily, Mara, Louise, Clara1920 census Wife = Margarette, 52 y.o. (?) Have Louise, Lucy, Alvera, and Clara - all daughters.
Died 1953

Giuseppe Jacchetta
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KD4X-QB1 Born 1869 - tailor - left from Naples, Palermo, & Trieste port. Entered US 1891-9-07. Destination of Philadelphia.

Louisa Iachetta

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M5MR-LS2 Pellegrino living with Finellis - is brother-in-law of Jack Finnelli, head of family.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2CV-QSSD Louise Iacheta - mother of Gerard, born 1908 and married 1936-10-24.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2CF-82G5 Luizia - married to Giocchino Finelli - mother of John Finelli, married 1937-9-18 in Kings.

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GK14-JZM Gioacchino Finelli - born 1879 in San Martino Valle Caudina, Avellino, Campania, Italy

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GF9N-R5X Born 1882.

1910 census

?
Luisa Iachetta

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JNF1-C3X Born 1897 - residence: Celano, Italy. Departure port of Naples. Additional: Giuseppe and Luigi.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2CQ-QVKF Immigrated
Precise date: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G96F-G625?view=index&action=view&cc=2299396 1923-10-06 - date listed on this page and next page - just a little before Luisa listing.

Monday, October 28, 2024

https://web.archive.org/web/20111115194030/https://ccgaction.org/spiritual_life/theologyofdeath

"If the vision of God is the fulfillment of the soul, and the soul the life of the body, then by implication death cannot be Man's end. Moreover, the body really ought not to die. A philosopher would have to conclude that, though the body does die, the soul lives forever and that this is not a natural condition, because the perpetual division of the dead body and the immortally living soul would be like a violent condition. In us, the body and the soul go together. According to Aristotle, anti-natural or violent conditions cannot exist forever. Therefore, the ancient philosophers were brought by these considerations to a box canyon."

" (Adam and Eve did not have the necessity of dying before the Fall.) St. Thomas says about them, "Seneca and the other philosophers considered human nature according to those principles that belong to it (human nature) only from the principles of nature. They did not know about the state of the first condition of original innocence, which is held only by faith. Therefore, they only spoke about death as a natural defect, although this natural defect for us is a punishment in some way.

"Man, in fact was originally created correctly. He had communion and intimacy with God. He had no sin, and therefore he did not suffer from the necessity of dying. In other words, a condition of unity and integrity in the human character was only as permanent as the state of grace. God subjected Man to a beautiful union of love in which God's grace and life permeated all of the powers of Man and gave Man the gift of being able to control his own body. This power was lost when sin entered the world. Sin, which is death of the soul leads to the necessity of the death of the body."

https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2016/11/does-god-damn-you.html

" For inflicting on an unrepentant evildoer a punishment proportionate to his offense is a good thing, and the damned are precisely those who forever keep doing evil and refuse to repent, and thus merit perpetual punishment. Hence God, in his goodness, inflicts that punishment. " (boldface italics added)
   "And that is the essence of punishment: restoring the teleological relationship, ordained by nature, between evil behavior on the one hand and the unpleasantness or pain that is its proper accident on the other. Punishing evil is thus like healing a wound, restoring a damaged painting, or fixing a leak. It is a matter of repairing things, putting things back in order, making them how they are supposed to be. And given the essentialist and teleological metaphysics that underlies the Thomistic natural law conception of morality, that cannot fail to be a good thing."
   "Suppose further, however, that this person perpetually refuses to stop willing to do X. Then the unpleasantness he ought to be made to feel must also be perpetual. But that is the situation of the person whose will is, upon death, fixed on evil, as described in my previous post on the subject of hell. Since such a person perpetually wills evil, God ensures that he perpetually suffers the pain or unpleasantness that ought to be associated with that evil. If, for example, this person perpetually wills X and willing X ought to be associated with shame and contempt, God ensures that the person perpetually suffers shame and contempt."
   "There is also the related liberal tendency to see punishment as in any case essentially a means of preserving social order, and perhaps also as a kind of therapy by which criminals can be made to reform, rather than as a way of making sure people get their just deserts in some metaphysical sense. Retribution, that is to say, tends to drop out of the liberal account of punishment in favor of a focus on protection, deterrence, and rehabilitation alone. Unsurprisingly, then, everlasting punishment seems pointless, given what the liberal regards as the point of punishment. For why punish if there is no hope of rehabilitation nor any need to protect others or deter anyone?"
"Traditional natural law theory... holds that securing retributive justice is not only a legitimate purpose of punishment, but is the primary purpose of punishment."

https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2023/09/aquinas-on-wills-fixity-after-death.html

https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2016/11/can-schadenfreude-be-virtuous.html

"Wherefore in order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned." - TAQ
Excuse me, what??

A comment: "As Aquinas points out, schadenfreude in itself is a form of (illicit) hatred, i.e., a sin." The rejoicing will be in the justice of God.

Sunday, October 27, 2024

Chomsky

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/4/9/qa-noam-chomsky-on-palestine-israel-and-the-state-of-the-world

"I was, by US standards, a very early opponent of the Vietnam War. I became quite active in opposing the war in the early 1960s … but that was too late. Should have been 10 years earlier when the US began to support the French effort to reconquer their former colony and, when the French failed, the US took over, undermined the Geneva Accords, established a client state in the south that killed 60 [thousand] or 70,000 people. That was when protest should have begun."

Israel/Palestine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_War_(2008%E2%80%932009)

"In September 2009, a UN special mission, headed by the South African Justice Richard Goldstone, produced a report accusing both Palestinian militants and the Israeli army of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, and recommended bringing those responsible to justice.[57] In 2011, Goldstone wrote that he does not believe that Israel intentionally targeted civilians in Gaza as a matter of explicit policy.[58] The other authors of the report, Hina Jilani, Christine Chinkin, and Desmond Travers, stated that no new evidence had been gathered that disputed the report's findings.[59][60] The United Nations Human Rights Council ordered Israel to conduct various repairs of the damage. On 21 September 2012, the United Nations Human Rights Council concluded that 75% of civilian homes destroyed in the attack were not rebuilt."

"Between 2005 and 2007, Palestinian groups in Gaza fired about 2,700 locally made Qassam rockets into Israel, killing four Israeli civilians and injuring 75 others. During the same period, Israel fired more than 14,600 155 mm artillery shells into the Gaza Strip, killing 59 Palestinians and injuring 270.

" According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, between 2005 and 2008, 116 Israelis, including civilians and Israeli security forces, which includes Israeli police, Israeli Border Police and members of the armed services, were killed in both Israel and the Palestinian Territories in "direct conflict related incidents" and 1,509 were injured.[90] During this time, 1,735 Palestinians, including civilians and militants from various groups, were killed and 8,308 wounded in "direct conflict related incidents".

"Hamas was careful to maintain the ceasefire.[108][109] Despite Israel's refusal to comply significantly with the truce agreement to end the siege/blockade, Hamas brought rocket and mortar fire from Gaza to a virtual halt during the summer and fall of 2008.[110] Hamas "tried to enforce the terms of the arrangement" on other Palestinian groups, taking "a number of steps against networks which violated the arrangement", including short-term detention and confiscating their weapons, but it could not completely end the rocket and mortar shell attacks by these rogue factions in Gaza. Hamas had sought support in Gazan public opinion for its policy of maintaining the ceasefire.[111] On 2 August there were massive clashes in Gaza City after Hamas had stepped up its campaign to curb Fatah from attacking Israel[112]"

Operation Cast Lead - Amnesty International 2009 - 1.4K Palestinian civilians killed - targeting of civilians and medical forces.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre 1.3K-3.5K Palestinian civilians killed by Lebanese army with support of IDF.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/16/sabra-and-shatila-massacre-40-years-on-explainer

https://www.alhaq.org/cached_uploads/download/alhaq_files/publications/The_Reply_of_Al_Haq_to_the_US_Report_on_Human_Rights_Practices_in_the_Occupied_Territories_by_Israel_for_1982.pdf

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/5/1/how-israels-violent-birth-destroyed-palestine
During the Nakba, nearly 500 villages were destroyed, entire Palestinian towns depopulated and approximately 800,000 Palestinians exiled to make room for Jewish immigrants who arrived from all corners of the globe.

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/4/9/qa-noam-chomsky-on-palestine-israel-and-the-state-of-the-world

https://www.redcross.org/content/dam/redcross/atg/PDF_s/International_Services/International_Humanitarian_Law/IHL_SummaryGenevaConv.pdf

https://newrepublic.com/article/179758/palestinian-christians-suffer-american-churches-dont-care

"Antisemitism is pure evil, and as Christians, we must combat it and denounce it. However, contrary to misconceptions in the church and in the media, the Israel-Palestine struggle is not a religious conflict but a complex political dispute rooted in human rights violations and decades of injustice. I believe in Israel’s right to exist and live securely, and I certainly support our Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and a viable state. But we must reject violence, bloodshed, and acts of terrorism from any quarter.

"For these reasons, it is imperative for Christians to unreservedly speak out against all forms of injustice, including the Israeli occupation. Taking a principled stand against oppression and discrimination is the core of the biblical teachings and the Christian message."
"[Jesus] would comfort the relatives of the victims of the devastating Israeli airstrike in October 2023 that claimed the lives of 16 Christians and severely damaged a historic fifth-century church.

"The death and destruction facing Palestinians have not stopped there. On November 12, 2023, Israeli forces fatally shot 84-year-old music teacher and church pianist Elham Farah, leaving her to bleed to death for two agonizing days in front of her Gaza home. Nahid Khalil Anton and her daughter Samar fell victim to an Israeli sniper’s cold-blooded attack on church grounds on December 16. The Gaza Baptist Church, where my wife grew up, was bombed and burned. The nearly 1,000 Christians seeking refuge within the churches find themselves without access to adequate food, medical care, or even basic sanitation."

https://www.twn.my/title2/resurgence/2019/341-342/human1.htm

There are various estimates on how many Palestinian Christians are still living in Palestine today, compared with the period before 1948 when the state of Israel was established atop Palestinian towns and villages. Regardless of the source of the various studies, there is a near-consensus that the number of Christian inhabitants of Palestine has dropped by nearly 10-fold in the last 70 years.
A population census carried out by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics in 2017 concluded that 47,000 Palestinian Christians are living in Palestine – with reference to the Occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. Ninety-eight percent of Palestine’s Christians live in the West Bank – concentrated mostly in the cities of Ramallah, Bethlehem and Jerusalem – while the remainder, a tiny Christian community of merely 1,100 people, live in the besieged Gaza Strip.

A study conducted by Dar al-Kalima University in the West Bank town of Beit Jala and published in December 2017 interviewed nearly 1,000 Palestinians, half of them Christian and the other half Muslim. One of the main goals of the research was to understand the reason behind the depleting Christian population in Palestine.
The study concluded that ‘the pressure of Israeli occupation, ongoing constraints, discriminatory policies, arbitrary arrests, confiscation of lands added to the general sense of hopelessness among Palestinian Christians’, who are finding themselves in ‘a despairing situation where they can no longer perceive a future for their offspring or for themselves’.

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/12/25/why-does-the-christian-west-ignore-palestinian-christians-plight
"The Christian community in Gaza has lost at least 21 members so far. This may sound like a small number, but given they were only 1,000 before the war, these massacres threaten to eliminate the Christian presence in the strip for the first time in almost 2,000 years. Proportionally speaking, the death rate of Palestinian Christians is double that of the entire Palestinian population in Gaza."

"Incidents of Jewish extremists harassing and intimidating Palestinian Christians, spitting on them and attacking their processions have spiked. Christian properties, including churches and cemeteries, have been targeted.
Just days before Hamas’s October 7 attacks in southern Israel, a group of Jewish men and boys harassed a Christian procession carrying a cross, viciously spitting on them. A video of the incident went viral and caused international outrage, but clearly not among Western leaders. Repeated appeals from Christian church leaders for action on Jewish Israeli violence have fallen on deaf ears for years."

"On October 17, just days after launching its brutal war on Gaza, Israel bombed the courtyard of the Christian-run Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, killing hundreds of people who had sought shelter there from its bombardment. The Israeli propaganda machine tried to blame the attack on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but subsequent investigations confirmed that the “evidence” it had produced was fabricated.
Two days later, the Israeli army bombed the nearby Church of St Porphyrius, the world’s third oldest church, killing at least 18 people.

The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which runs the church, said many of those inside at the time were women and children. “Targeting churches and their institutions, in addition to the shelters they provide to protect innocent citizens … constitutes a war crime that cannot be ignored,” it said in a statement.

A Palestinian Catholic mother published an appeal to Biden, calling on him to base his policies on his moral beliefs. “We are not children of a lesser God, Mr. President, we are the Palestinian Christians of the holy land where the message of love peace, and justice started, and we call upon you to stop this Genocide.”"

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Mysticism

https://biblioklept.org/2024/10/22/simon-critchleys-mysticism-book-acquired-17-oct-2024/

https://harpers.org/archive/2024/11/the-thing-itself-simon-critchley-mysticism/

Friday, October 18, 2024

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iguazu_Falls Largest waterfall system in world, not Victoria Falls
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhanu_jatra] Largest open-air theater in history, not Colisseum

Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Trees

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsay_Creek_Tree

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Sherman_(tree)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree) A quaking aspen tree that appears to be 47,000 different trees but is really one.

https://www.mdvaden.com/redwood_crannell_creek_giant.shtml

Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Fantasy basketball

Athletic Rankings

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/fantasy/basketball/

Friday, October 11, 2024

Fangraphs

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/tarik-skubal-is-a-crafty-flamethrower/
A new stat - Marsh+ - measuring how well a pitcher's pitches go together - how long it takes for a batter to be able to distinguish them.

Thursday, October 10, 2024

Internet Archive hacked

https://www.ynetnews.com/business/article/bkird2rjke

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/internet-archive-hacked-data-breach-impacts-31-million-users/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/1g022zy/internet_archive_security_breach/

https://x.com/Sn_darkmeta/status/1844104165192253945

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

People who have been considered gods

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_have_been_considered_deities

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

TCMA

https://net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=280399 1970 landmark card show
https://sportscollectorsdigest.com/collecting-101/michael-aronstein-tcma-cards

Saturday, October 5, 2024

Steven Wilson XTC remasters

https://www.psaudio.com/blogs/copper/xtc-steven-wilson-remix-remasters-on-cd-and-blu-ray?srsltid=AfmBOopmEoQLYm8edKFIlQp3GliuKLpEAjNo3kJvjkoAWfbqWGPdIS44

https://audiophilereview.com/audiophile-music/black-sea-by-xtc-new-steven-wilson-remixes/

https://www.reddit.com/r/xtc/comments/197kb7h/do_you_prefer_any_of_the_steven_wilson_remixes_to/

Sunday, September 29, 2024

1952 Topps/1953 Bowman

https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/sy-berger-ae9ca467d4bf 2004 interview
https://baseball.fandom.com/wiki/Topps

"One of the features that contributed significantly to Topps's success beginning with the 1952 set was providing player statistics. At the time, complete and reliable baseball statistics for all players were not widely available, so Topps actually compiled the information itself from published box scores."
Yeah, right.

https://sportscollectorsdigest.com/cards/catching-up-with-cardboard-pioneer-sy-berger

One hypothesis I have comes from a vague memory from something I read somewhere years ago. According to my vague memory, Sy Berger tried and failed to license the stats he needed for 1952 Topps from the Elias Sports Bureau or someone like that, and so was forced to compile them himself. (Berger received a degree in accountancy from Bucknell University.) The Topps page on baseball.fandom.wiki says that Berger compiled the stats for 1952 Topps from box scores (presumably only for the 1951 season); to me that sounds implausible, but not impossible.

Friday, September 27, 2024

Name-That-Set

https://web.archive.org/web/20210421210158/https://www.tcdb.com/NameThatSet.cfm?STAGE=Leaderboard&Type=Baseball&Diff=2

2021-4-21. Stage 2 - my top is 128,333

https://web.archive.org/web/20211130155034/https://www.tcdb.com/NameThatSet.cfm?STAGE=Leaderboard&Type=Baseball&Diff=2

2021-11-30 Stage 2- my top is 147,500
https://web.archive.org/web/20231027085607/https://www.tcdb.com/NameThatSet.cfm?STAGE=Leaderboard&Type=Baseball&Diff=2

2023-10-27 I'm barely there

https://web.archive.org/web/20231027085609/https://www.tcdb.com/NameThatSet.cfm?STAGE=Leaderboard&Type=Baseball&Diff=1

2023-10-27 Stage 1 - I'm barely there

2021-12-02 My top is 82,500. I take up the entire top 100.

2021-4-21 My top is 71,667.

2022-1-21 Top of almost every category

Thursday, September 26, 2024

MLBPAA membership

https://www.mlb.com/mlbpaa/membership/fans

50% off MLB.TV?

Oakland Coliseum

‘Worst field in baseball.’ A’s players didn’t hold back in 1973

https://www.espn.com/classic/biography/s/Finley_Charles.html

Oakland A’s attendance at Coliseum plummets amid postseason push

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Noam Chomsky

https://chomsky.info/20040607/ Interview on Reagan

https://variety.com/2016/film/columns/captain-fantastic-viggo-mortensen-1201813570/

(Noam Chomsky day is December 7)

Robert A. Caro

NYT interview

Tuesday, September 24, 2024

Fantasy hockey

https://thewincolumn.ca/2024/09/21/impact-of-the-2024-25-nhl-schedule-on-fantasy-hockey/

Games played on "off days" by team

Athletic cheat sheet w/ necc. commentary

Athletic projections v. Yahoo ADP

Goalie commentary

https://www.espn.com/fantasy/hockey/story/_/id/41152992/fantasy-hockey-breakout-picks-draft-forwards-espn-nhl

https://www.espn.com/fantasy/hockey/story/_/id/41167378/fantasy-hockey-breakout-picks-draft-defensemen-espn-nhl#Breakout

https://www.espn.com/fantasy/hockey/story/_/id/41316779/espn-nhl-fantasy-hockey-draft-picks-sleepers-busts

https://www.espn.com/fantasy/hockey/story/_/id/41287806/espn-nhl-fantasy-hockey-goalie-guide-best-picks-sleepers-strategy-2024-25

https://www.espn.com/fantasy/hockey/story/_/id/41329323/espn-nhl-fantasy-hockey-goalie-tandems-draft-pass-wait

https://www.espn.com/fantasy/hockey/story/_/id/41329930/espn-nhl-fantasy-hockey-draft-rankings-2024-25

https://www.espn.com/fantasy/hockey/story/_/id/41407394/espn-nhl-fantasy-hockey-draft-strategy-forward-tiers-wingers-centers

https://www.reddit.com/r/fantasyhockey/comments/xkypce/the_athletic_rankings/ Opinions are favorable

https://russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2024/09/19/alex-ovechkin-start-training-camp-offseason-injury-capitals/ Ovechkin "a little nicked up"

Friday, September 20, 2024

Sunday, September 15, 2024

Gluyus Williams - cartoonist that Chris Ware really likes

https://www.tcj.com/gluyus-williams-master-of-line-and-shape-and-subject/

Saturday, September 14, 2024

Conlon cards

https://conloncards.blogspot.com/

Friday, September 13, 2024

Basketball site with foreign data

https://basketball.asia-basket.com/team/Ulaanbaatar-TLG/57038

Ulaanbaatar!

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

1943 La Ambrosia Cuba Amateur cards

https://sabrbaseballcards.blog/2019/06/08/heroes-de-carton-when-is-a-card-a-card/

https://prewarcards.com/2016/11/11/1943-la-ambrosia-base-ball-amateur-set-and-checklist/

https://cubanbaseballauctions.com/bids/bidplace?itemid=1671

In 2021, lot of 153 incl. Marrero sold for $295 (argghhh)

https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=83911

Ryan Christoff:

"While rare by American standards, 1943 Ambrosia cards are the most common of all Cuban cards. The set features teams from the Cuban Amateur League, which was nearly as competetive and popular as the professional league during that era. The cards are extremely condition sensitive and are usually found in terrible condition, so there should be a substantial premium for nice examples. I say "should" because I haven't really seen many nice examples come up for sale.

   I should add that this is a unique set in that out of 242 cards, there are about 150 to 160 that are very, very common. If there were a group of 150 of these I could probably tell you exactly which 150 were in it. Then there are about 50-60 cards that are nearly impossible. I would say those ones are literally about 15-20 times as scarce as the others. The remaining 30ish cards are so rare I'm not entirely sure they were even produced.
   I personally have 214 of the 242 theoretical cards in the set. There are probably sets that are more complete, but I have not seen any.
   The set was supposed to be 240 cards: 12 cards each from 20 different teams. Two of the teams, however, have 13 different cards. Each album had a space for each card with the player's name beneath a square where the card was meant to be pasted. There were 6 cards per page. Each time you flipped a page in the album, it would be a new team with 6 cards on the left page and 6 cards on the right. Well, most albums are the same, with the same squares in the same places with the same player names below. But a couple albums turned up that had one different player on two of the teams. My guess is that these were the earliest albums and production stopped fairly soon after they were issued. Perhaps the players left the team and were replaced. No one really knows why. Those "13th player" cards are obviously part of the group of cards that are nearly impossible.
   I hope to find out more about this issue, especially verifying whether or not the remaining 28 cards actually exist. If anyone has any info, please e-mail me.
   Your card features Angel Rodriguez who was a member of the Regla team. Depending on the condition, it is probably worth around $10-$15. I'm sure SGC would grade them, but none have yet been graded as far as I know. The grading fees would cost as much as most of the cards are worth. A few of the cards that feature future Major Leaguers might be worth grading, though, including the key card in the set, Conrado Marrero's rookie card."

Charles Ray

https://silentology.wordpress.com/2021/08/10/charles-ray-americas-country-boy/

A good article about Charles Ray, who I just bought a card of.

Tuesday, September 10, 2024

Ros Serey Sothea

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ros_Serey_Sothea

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/08/17/340647451/the-death-and-uneasy-rebirth-of-cambodias-psychedelic-rock

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/ros-serey-sothea-slain-cambodian-rock-pioneer/

Sunday, September 8, 2024

How OPC cards were cut

https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1083562/the-mystery-of-how-o-pee-chee-cards-were-cut-is-solved

Tuesday, September 3, 2024

Operation Wandering Soul

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wandering_Soul

Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Poetry

https://allpoetry.com/Death-Fugue "Black Milk" by Massive Attack takes from it its title.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Stanford

Sunday, August 25, 2024

Fantasy football

Keon Coleman

https://www.profootballnetwork.com/keon-coleman-fantasy-outlook-2024/ Could be Josh Allen's top target. Silas is high on him.

https://www.pff.com/news/fantasy-football-breakout-quarterbacks-for-2024
Jayden Daniels - big fantasy potential for his scrambling (8.10)

Trevor Lawrence - has had good stretches - offense is improved (10.08)

RB;
Jaylen Warren

Sean Payton's folks
WR:
Rashee Rice (7.08) -
Rome Odunze (8.08)
Brian Thomas Jr. - just 21.
TE:

https://www.pff.com/news/fantasy-football-breakout-tight-ends-for-2024
Kyle Pitts (5.11) - should be utilized better - will have better QB. Has been great last 3 years but not used well for fantasy purposes.

Jake Ferguson (7.08) - looking up

https://www.profootballnetwork.com/breakout-fantasy-players-afc-2024/

Zay Flowers - BAL WR

Khalil Shakir - BUF WR
Zack Moss - CIN RB -Mixon gone, competing with Chase Brown for touches
Jerome Ford - CLE RB
Jaleel McLaughlin - DEN WR
Tank Dell - HOU WR
Anthony Richardson - IND QB - dual threat
Brian Thomas Jr. - JAX WR - rookie
Rashee Rice - KC WR - elite if playing
Brock Bowers - LV TE - very positive
Ladd McConkey - LA WR - room opening up for him
Jaylen Wright - MIA RB - yes, another one
Ja'Lynn Polk- NE WR
Garrett Wilson - NYJ WR
Jaylen Warren - PIT RB - way more efficient than Najee last year - but ADP 25 back
Tyjae Spears - TEN RB - very efficient last year

https://www.rotoballer.com/fantasy-football-breakout-candidates-for-2024/1392387

Tyjae Spears - efficiency - good receiver
Rashid Shaheed - NO WR - probably WR2 - has been good in limited time - Saints got former 49ers offensive coordinator, which bodes well

Saturday, August 24, 2024

Box score transcription - image to text convertor - OCR

https://help.transkribus.org/data-preparation "Transcribe at least 25 pages before training a Text Recognition model: these pages will be the data (Ground Truth) on which the model will train itself and learn to recognise a new script."

https://www.affinda.com/tech-ai/how-to-convert-image-to-text-using-python

https://medium.com/artificialis/how-to-extract-text-from-any-image-with-deep-learning-e834d5a9863e

https://www.docsumo.com/blog/convert-image-to-text

https://www.reddit.com/r/C_Programming/comments/qwamlx/how_would_someone_go_about_creating_ocr_from/ It ain't easy

https://pyimagesearch.com/2017/07/10/using-tesseract-ocr-python/

Friday, August 16, 2024

David Foster Wallace

http://web.archive.org/web/20040606041906/www.andbutso.com/~mark/bookworm96/

https://www.reddit.com/r/InfiniteJest/comments/6vhm2g/whatwho_is_lyle/

https://www.reddit.com/r/InfiniteJest/comments/dpmym7/what_is_the_function_of_dfw_structuring_the_plot/

IJ reading notes

IJ/Sierpinski search

https://thirdtriumvirate.wordpress.com/2019/10/20/david-foster-wallace-was-alive-an-infinite-jest-review/

https://web.archive.org/web/20170323064751/https://www.granadahouse.org/testimonials/an-ex-residents-story/

https://web.archive.org/web/20090505020146/http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23638511/the_lost_years__last_days_of_david_foster_wallace/print Very good

https://mbird.com/literature/david-foster-wallace-went-to-church-constantly/

Okay

https://www.fictionadvocate.com/2012/08/01/the-infinite-jest-liveblog-what-happened-pt-1/

https://www.fictionadvocate.com/2012/09/19/the-infinite-jest-liveblog-what-happened-pt-2/

https://steamthing.com/2008/09/the-great-postm.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20031205010946/http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2003/10/26/approaching_infinity/ interview

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend Ending speculation

https://dfan.org/jest.txt How Hal acquires his speech impediment

https://asupposedlyfunblog.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/infinite-jest-as-infinite-jest/

http://arkbooks.dk/fun-with-teeth-how-dental-imagery-works-in-david-foster-wallaces-infinite-jest/ A bit turgid

#1 - on whether Avril is Luria P.

#2 - on the state of JVD's face

https://www.reddit.com/r/InfiniteJest/comments/17l3gd5/what_happens_in_infinite_jest_my_own_personal/ #4

https://www.reddit.com/r/InfiniteJest/comments/k7bdpy/the_consummation_of_the_levirates/

https://ijustreadaboutthat.com/2011/04/11/david-foster-wallace-three-items-about-what-didnt-make-infinite-jest/

https://thehowlingfantods.com/dfw/the-first-draft-version-of-infinite-jest.html

Thursday, August 15, 2024

cLOUDDEAD

https://www.reddit.com/r/hiphopheads/comments/48ipe3/hiphop_listening_club_of_the_week_206_clouddead/

https://www.reddit.com/r/fantanoforever/comments/xdvhlg/opinions_on_clouddead/

http://web.archive.org/web/20180604053038/http://www.self-titledmag.com/2014/08/25/exclusive-interview-doseone-why-and-odd-nosdam-look-back-on-clouddead/

https://genius.com/Reaching-quiet-on-gummy-worms-on-dental-floss-lyrics opening alludes to "What About Bob?"

https://genius.com/Reaching-quiet-out-of-live-wires-and-twisties-lyrics explicitly references "What About Bob?"

Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Just the punctuation

https://just-the-punctuation.glitch.me/

Interesting players

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hillti01.shtml
Over the last three seasons has struck out 71 batters in 139.1 innings. A side-armer. In 2022 & 2024 has combined for three homers allowed in 95 innings but gave up seven in the middle season.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=raabe-001bri

1990s - mostly AAA. Very low strikeouts.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=griffi001wes
Career arc: p-of-2b-of-c. Never made majors but was hitting .300+ in AA in late 30s.