We all know that the book industry is moving increasingly more toward a digital model everyday. Ereader and tablet sales are increasing by tens of millions of units each year, and eBooks just outsold print books for the first time.
This year's South By Southwest featured some of the greatest musical performances in the history of the festival. In case you think I'm exaggerating, I'm here to say I'm not, I assure you.
Last week thousands of digital pioneers made their way to Austin, Texas as part of the pilgrimage that South by Southwest (SXSW) has become. I did not go, relegated instead to watching from afar and listening to as many podcasts and videos as I could and reading live-tweeting summaries with #hashtags when I could find them. Yes, I was using social media to follow a group of real people gathered in a real city to discuss, well, social media and related online innovations.
King of the Hill had its origins in a sort of running "LOLREDNECKS" joke in Beavis & Butthead, but it became so much more. Hank Hill was the aggressive redneck neighbor who was often frustrated at Beavis and Butthead's idiocy. Can you blame him? The show meant for the audience to laugh at Hank, but I think a lot of people could probably see where he was coming from.
We sat on rocks enjoying the cool summer air outside the Park Service cabin. It was remote and more than 50 miles north of Sitka. Earlier that afternoon, our rented float plane landed on a small lake behind the White Sulphur Hot Springs site. Soon a pile of supplies sat between ferns and rock. We carried our week's rations and a fold-boat kayak along a short forest trail and into a rough-hewn cabin that could sleep eight. It was more than enough room for the two of us.
Out for a neighborhood stroll, a yarn covered stop sign made me halt in my tracks and launched me into the secretive and rebellious world of “yarn bombing.” Most yarn projects in my life have sadly been ill-fitting Christmas sweaters from Grandma or potholder craft projects. This was another thing altogether - a startling wonder.
February is usually not my favorite month for new music or movies. It's kind of a wasteland, really. However, two huge bands are giving us a taste of great things to come this week. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs released a teaser for their forthcoming album, Mosquito, and The Strokes dropped a brand new single. I'd say that's a good week, wouldn't you?
In the 9th tonight, Dr. D couldn't see himself pulling back up to the platform with his 15-18 record intact.
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=== SrFrBoi43 ===
Walked the leadoff hitter, Austin Jackson.
Please ponder this a moment. It's a 2-1 game, your second ace has gone nutsoid, you bring in your closer and .... he walks the tying run on with nobody out. Let me know the next time the Angels or Rangers cut you that break.
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It so happened that the next man, Boesch, hit a screaming meemie that tore Brendan Ryan's glove off. Now, read this next sentence a little slower than you did the last one: standing 120 feet away, Brendan Ryan couldn't catch the ball. (Supposing that he dropped it on purpose, which we doubt, he certainly was helter-skelter on it.)
Let's stop and think about that for a second. Suppose Stephen Strasburg threw a pitch from second base, and the pitch was too hot for the catcher to handle? How hard would the pitch have to be?
And of course it was a patterened Brandon League "sinker" that was high and away. Our 97 MPH, super-splitter closer pitching like a groundballer. Nobody was killed on the play, which is good. It's also good that the line drive missed its 90% chance to go through the infield, which would have left 2 on, 0 out, and Miguel Cabrera - Prince Fielder coming to the plate against a wild closer telegraphing his pitches.
Fangraphs has "certified" the collective intelligence of fans, to a certain extent, by including fan defensive ratings on their player cards.
I approve of this. I don't think that fans are infallible, but I do take collective intelligence seriously. Baseball-fan CI is a very crude form of it :- ) but it's one source of data to exploit, and one that comes from a welcome-ly different paradigm.
Roto champ Justynius has a "secret weapon" during trade season ... he scrambles over to the hometown fans' boards and absorbs everything they have to say about the players they watch every day. ... you do this and you think MUCH more of Casper Wells and Charlie Furbush than you did previously.
=== Chris Gimenez, 3b/1b/Bedard Scourge ===
First off: Gimenez advances to 3-and-9 (.250) and his SP is not knocked out of the box. The M's gave up only 2 runs to a lineup that was 15-and-4 vs LHP's. There's our nod to equity in cyber-journo-shtick.
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