Bryce Harper flips out on Angel Hernandez, the absolute worst major league umpire, for calling a ball a strike. As usual, Jomboy has some fun with it. Rich Eisen chimes in as well.

At some point, Hernandez has to be relieved of his duties, right?

Here’s a trip down memory lane. Top 10 Arcades Games Every Year From 1980-1989 (100 Games)

Jennifer Maas, writing in Variety, has the scoop on the writer’s strike.

On the 148th day of the work stoppage, the board of the WGA West and council of the WGA East voted unanimously on Tuesday to lift the strike order as of 12:01 a.m. PT on Wednesday. following a tentative agreement on a new minimum basic agreement (MBA) contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). That means writers can go back to work as of Wednesday even before the final ratification vote on the contract.

I wonder, in the long run, who wins. I’m betting not the writers.

The Overview Effect YouTube channel has an interesting video focusing on the scientifically accurate depiction of where a select few sci-fi star systems are in our galaxy.

The Dune ones were interesting, as I don’t know where they got the stars for those planets.

According to a rumor from World of Reel, Christopher Nolan is allegedly in talks to write and direct the next two James Bond movies for EON. The outlet notes the company plans to present a “full reboot” of the franchise, adapting remakes of the Ian Fleming novels in period settings, sticking “close to the original source material.”

Doing period-piece spy movies is the only way to differentiate James Bond from modern action spy movies like the Mission Impossible franchise.

Jason Koebler, writing for 404 Media, looks into the shady world of Ticketmaster.

Olivia Rodrigo is using a system very similar to the one used by Taylor Swift, which Ticketmaster calls “Verified Fan.” This is essentially a weighted lottery in which people have to pre-register for a chance to buy tickets. Ticketmaster then uses an algorithm that is nominally tied to previous buying history, the age of an account, and the account’s geographic location to determine whether that account can have a chance to buy tickets for specific shows.

The problem with this is that normal people have one Ticketmaster account tied to one email address and can therefore enter this lottery one time for one specific show. Serious ticket scalpers have many accounts (hundreds or thousands) tied to many different email addresses, with credit cards all over the country and can enter the lottery as many times as they want. As Joseph and I showed earlier this year, there is a black market for “aged” Ticketmaster accounts that are years old and might have a better chance of winning the Verified Fan lottery. Scalpers can buy “100 Phone Verified Ticketmaster Accounts” for $500 from a scalper-focused website, or they can buy “1,000 Phone Verified Ticketmaster Accounts.”

This, obviously, should be illegal.

Ashley Belanger, writing for Ars Technica, has the story of popular authors joining together to sue OpenAI, alleging the company trained its large language models by pirating their books.

Yesterday, popular authors including John Grisham, Jonathan Franzen, George R.R. Martin, Jodi Picoult, and George Saunders joined the Authors Guild in suing OpenAI, alleging that training the company’s large language models (LLMs) used to power AI tools like ChatGPT on pirated versions of their books violates copyright laws and is “systematic theft on a mass scale.”

“Generative AI is a vast new field for Silicon Valley’s longstanding exploitation of content providers," Franzen said in a statement provided to Ars. “Authors should have the right to decide when their works are used to ‘train’ AI. If they choose to opt in, they should be appropriately compensated.”

OpenAI has previously argued against two lawsuits filed earlier this year by authors making similar claims that authors suing “misconceive the scope of copyright, failing to take into account the limitations and exceptions (including fair use) that properly leave room for innovations like the large language models now at the forefront of artificial intelligence.”

This latest complaint argued that OpenAI’s “LLMs endanger fiction writers’ ability to make a living, in that the LLMs allow anyone to generate—automatically and freely (or very cheaply)—texts that they would otherwise pay writers to create.”

I bet OpenAI uses ChatGPT to answer the suit.

It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get my hands on some fucking gourds and arrange them in a horn-shaped basket…

This evergreen McSweeney’s piece always makes me laugh.

Late-night hosts Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver have joined forces for a new joint podcast called Strike Force Five. It’s their simple way of earning money for their striking staffs without crossing the picket lines.

You should listen, it’s funny.

Jordan Ritter Conn, writing for The Ringer, has the scoop on Deion Sanders and Colorado football.

For a brief moment, on Saturday afternoon in Boulder, Deion Sanders is invisible. Hard to believe, I know. Since he took over as head coach at the University of Colorado, Sanders has become college football’s centrifugal force, the planet around which attentions circle on loop after thirsty loop. The Buffaloes were on Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff the past two weeks, and will host ESPN’s College GameDay this coming weekend. Sanders’s every word—whether spoken in press conferences or in private locker-room meetings—seems to not only get filmed, but to go instantly viral.

He’s still a douchebag.

AP News –

The leading decongestant used by millions of Americans looking for relief from a stuffy nose is likely no better than a dummy pill, according to government experts who reviewed the latest research on the long-questioned drug ingredient.

This is like a bit on SNL or something. Unbelievable.

Joseph Salvador, writing for Sports Illustrated, has the story on Aaron Rodgers and his torn Achilles.

The 39-year-old played just four snaps before the catastrophic injury when he was sacked by Buffalo’s Leonard Floyd. The hit itself didn’t seem like much, but a pop can be seen in Rodgers’s left calf and the signal-caller proceeded to just sit on the ground before getting helped off the field as if he already knew of its severity.

It’s sad and funny, but mostly funny.

This is a link.

This is another link

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, et has odio adversarium, cu cum omnes insolens voluptatum. His in quis recusabo reprimique, modus dignissim eum in. Nonumes tibique adipiscing sea in. Te ferri iisque consequat pro, qui in eros dictas meliore. Eu oporteat postulant sadipscing quo, no est corrumpit intellegam concludaturque, vis ne tempor altera scribentur. Ponderum verterem ea eum, id nam incorrupte complectitur contentiones, no partem quodsi abhorreant mea. Ea doming molestie ius. Nibh omnis mnesarchum mei ex. Mea lorem eligendi te.

Cu nusquam fastidii cotidieque qui, ex qui enim euismod antiopam. Id usu ignota pertinacia.

Quo mazim commune phaedrum at, sit ea error sanctus vocibus, usu tempor electram eu. Atqui platonem persecuti eam id, mei erat liber quodsi cu. Nam at graece salutandi repudiare, mei in sapientem erroribus.

Verear admodum at sea. Inani salutandi posidonium ex pro, ex sit legere neglegentur. Id vim laudem putent, quo nonumes alienum no. Ad cum vide vocent, has delenit labores percipitur at. Ne dicat tollit sapientem sit. Ei solet dolore suscipiantur vim, nullam oblique placerat ex duo.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, et has odio adversarium, cu cum omnes insolens voluptatum. His in quis recusabo reprimique, modus dignissim eum in. Nonumes tibique adipiscing sea in. Te ferri iisque consequat pro, qui in eros dictas meliore. Eu oporteat postulant sadipscing quo, no est corrumpit intellegam concludaturque, vis ne tempor altera scribentur. Ponderum verterem ea eum, id nam incorrupte complectitur contentiones, no partem quodsi abhorreant mea. Ea doming molestie ius. Nibh omnis mnesarchum mei ex. Mea lorem eligendi te.

Cu nusquam fastidii cotidieque qui, ex qui enim euismod antiopam. Id usu ignota pertinacia.

Quo mazim commune phaedrum at, sit ea error sanctus vocibus, usu tempor electram eu. Atqui platonem persecuti eam id, mei erat liber quodsi cu. Nam at graece salutandi repudiare, mei in sapientem erroribus.

Verear admodum at sea. Inani salutandi posidonium ex pro, ex sit legere neglegentur. Id vim laudem putent, quo nonumes alienum no. Ad cum vide vocent, has delenit labores percipitur at. Ne dicat tollit sapientem sit. Ei solet dolore suscipiantur vim, nullam oblique placerat ex duo.

Short line right here below?

AP News –

A judge sentenced ‘That ’70s Show’ show star Danny Masterson to 30 years to life in prison Thursday for raping two women, giving them some relief after they spoke in court about the decades of damage he inflicted.

What a horrible human being.

Lane Brown, writing for Vulture, outlines the overrated metric of Rotten Tomatoes.

Another problem — and where the trickery often begins — is that Rotten Tomatoes scores are posted after a movie receives only a handful of reviews, sometimes as few as five, even if those reviews may be an unrepresentative sample. This is sort of like a cable-news network declaring an Election Night winner after a single county reports its results. But studios see it as a feature, since, with a little elbow grease, they can sometimes fool people into believing a movie is better than it is.

I haven’t looked at a Rotten Tomatoes review in years.

The Stones just released their first new song in 18 years.

In The Atlantic, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt cover the state of American democracy.

Since 2016, America has experienced what political scientists call ‘democratic backsliding.’ The country has seen a surge in political violence; threats against election workers; efforts to make voting harder; and a campaign by the then-president to overturn the results of an election—hallmarks of a democracy in distress. Organizations that track the health of democracies around the world have captured this problem in numerical terms. Freedom House’s Global Freedom Index gives countries a score from 0 to 100 each year; 100 indicates the most democratic. In 2015, the United States received a score of 90, roughly in line with countries such as Canada, France, Germany, and Japan. But since then, America’s score has declined steadily, reaching 83 in 2021. Not only was that score lower than every established democracy in Western Europe; it was lower than new or historically troubled democracies such as Argentina, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, and Taiwan.

Obviously, our problems are all homegrown.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, et has odio adversarium, cu cum omnes insolens voluptatum. His in quis recusabo reprimique, modus dignissim eum in. Nonumes tibique adipiscing sea in. Te ferri iisque consequat pro, qui in eros dictas meliore. Eu oporteat postulant sadipscing quo, no est corrumpit intellegam concludaturque, vis ne tempor altera scribentur. Ponderum verterem ea eum, id nam incorrupte complectitur contentiones, no partem quodsi abhorreant mea. Ea doming molestie ius. Nibh omnis mnesarchum mei ex. Mea lorem eligendi te.

Cu nusquam fastidii cotidieque qui, ex qui enim euismod antiopam. Id usu ignota pertinacia.

Augue concludaturque nam cu, his eu iudico legendos expetenda. Dicat cotidieque sit no. Est laboramus delicatissimi an, facer nonumes hendrerit ea ius. Eam in expetenda deterruisset conclusionemque. Justo laoreet vix ut. Eruditi ceteros offendit pro an, ut eirmod neglegentur eos.

Quo mazim commune phaedrum at, sit ea error sanctus vocibus, usu tempor electram eu. Atqui platonem persecuti eam id, mei erat liber quodsi cu. Nam at graece salutandi repudiare, mei in sapientem erroribus.

Verear admodum at sea. Inani salutandi posidonium ex pro, ex sit legere neglegentur. Id vim laudem putent, quo nonumes alienum no. Ad cum vide vocent, has delenit labores percipitur at. Ne dicat tollit sapientem sit. Ei solet dolore suscipiantur vim, nullam oblique placerat ex duo.