A lot of the Lakers luck has nothing to do with league tampering and everything to do with the fact that players’ licensing income does not count against the salary cap. Do you think a guy would rather make $1,000 shooting an ad for Big Bill’s Discount BBQ or get $5,000 to make an appearance on opening night in Dr. Dre’s new club? Do you think a player prefers to spend his day off shoveling snow from his driveway or go swimming on Venice Beach in the morning and then film a fight scene in the next Fast and Furious? Do you think his wife would rather shop at the mall or Rodeo Drive?

The Lakers don’t get players gifted to them, they sign big name free agents at a discount and trade for expiring contracts knowing that the player will take an extension. They get traded so many players because they are on every players’ preferred list of destinations because every agent makes sure it is there because the agent wants a cut of any Hollywood cameos and rap album features their player gets.

The Pau Gasol trade is a perfect example of this. He did not get traded for nothing. He got traded for his brother, Marc. Pau wanted to get out of Memphis, so the teams made a deal with him: if he could nag his baby brother into moving from the Euroleague to the NBA, Pau would get to win a ring with Kobe.

I like the idea of allowing more teams to be draft eligible, since it gives hope to teams stuck in purgatory, not good enough to seriously contend for a title but too good to draft guaranteed talent in the draft.

I don’t like the idea of limiting the lottery eligibility of a team that finishes at the bottom for consecutive seasons (if they are not already ineligible for getting a high pick). It seems like unnecessary cruelty for a team to finish in the basement (because their best players all got old or left in free agency or something), then they lose the lottery despite good odds, and get told that next year they won’t get a good pick either. At that point, the team would have to spend 2 years with a roster of bench warmers.

Hopefully, if there are more strict anti-tank rules, they can get rid of the rules against resting star players. The restrictions are arbitrary and enforcement is random and unpredictable.

The FAQ makes no mention of Pokemon Home integration (though by saying that there is no online play, they might be implying that there will not be integration).

Also, to maximize nostalgia, I wish they ported the original Red/Green/Blue, not the remakes. I realize that I am probably in the minority on this.

Overall, I am just a bit disappointed that the FAQ all but says that none of the mainline Pokemon games will ever be released on Switch Online. I was planning to get NSO the day they start adding the Pokemon games, which I assumed was just around the corner. Too bad, so sad. One less subscription to pay for.

This was already widely known. If a Waymo taxi does not know what to do, it stops in the middle of the road and calls a support center where a human plots a route for it. The tech media has been reporting on it for years. The only fact in that article that I have not heard is that they are outsourcing the jobs to the Philippines.

It is rated as water resistant, capable of withstanding a jet of water.

Repairability depends on what breaks. If water getting into the phone fries the CPU, it does not seem fixable. Glancing at the site, I could not find a part on sale, probably because the cost of a replacement part would cost almost as much as replacing the phone.

In the US, libel requires you to prove that the writer knew that what they were writing is not true and that they did it to hurt you. Doing lazy research and trusting an AI is not going to meet that standard.

I would hope, but I would want to check reviews to be sure.

I have, but decided against it. I am clumsy and my hands are big enough to barely use my phone one handed (but not hold it securely when I do).

I will have to consider Fairphone when I am looking for my next phone. Looking at their site, my only hesitation is about water resistance. I understand that repairability comes at the cost of making everything glued and sealed shut, but I drop my phone in water once every couple of years. If that risks killing it, it is not going to be a phone that will last long in my hands.

The issue with that phone (and seemingly everything coming from HMD) is that it only gets 2 major OS upgrades. Also, it launches a major version behind, so it is actually only a single upgrade.

I am quite upset about it. I had a Nokia 6 (made by HMD) and loved the well made, durable hardware and very clean no-bloat software. I have been saddened to see that while most phone brands have been extending their OS support window, HMD has been shortening it.

Yes, actually. Michael Phelps (American swimmer) was rumored to smoke weed so he could get the munchies and consume more food, giving him extra calories to burn training.

It could also be that they were using marijuana as an illicit pain reliever.

I don’t understand the Warriors trading for Porzingis. Curry and Draymond (and Butler) are on the wrong side of 35, so their time in the league is coming to an end and injuries are going to keep increasing in frequency. A sensible move would be to build a consistent core that can go on win streaks when the veterans are able to suit up and keep the ship afloat when they cannot. Porzingis is a very gifted and skilled player, but the only thing consistent about him is his ability to find his way onto the injury report.

The DS, like the Wii, had a lot of games that drew in people who were not “core gamers”, such as Brain Age and Nintendogs.

The fragile hinge between the two screens also reduced the number of cheap used systems on the market.

1. I assumed that Nintendo was trying to distance itself from Miis. I am aware that you can create and import Miis on the Switch and they are still used in a couple games, for historical reasons, but they are not nearly as prominent as they were on the Wii, Wii U, and 3DS. I wish Nintendo kept using them more. It is always fun to look back at all the Miis of friends and family I collected playing Wii Sports and whatnot.
2. The gameplay seems to be the socialization and customization of Animal Crossing turned up a notch with all the resource collection removed. Like Animal Crossing, you will have to fiddle with your system clock to access the shops you want.
3. Unlike Animal Crossing, your Islanders are not human/animal hybrids, but real people that you model as Miis. That means every time you want a new NPC, you have to find an actual person to base them on, which is discriminatory of people like me who have no friends. Also, it allows the game to create a love triangle between you, your cousin, and your grandma.

If the Celtics decide to go all in on winning a banner or two and then blowing it up, Giannis for Tatum could work, salary wise. The Celtics don’t have to wait for Tatum to fully recover and avoid the risk of Tatum losing a step due to the injury. Beyond that, Giannis has always been better than Tatum. The big downside is that Giannis is a few years older and has played a lot more professional games.

I haven’t tried Compile, but your description reminds me of Sorcerer from Wise Wizard Games. It is similar to what you described. As part of setup, each player picks a character, domain, and lineage deck and shuffles the three together to get a deck to play a tactical card game.

The game itself is fun. You always have options for what to do on your turn but never enough actions to do everything. The deck modules each have a distinct identity and abilities, creating satisfying asymmetry.

My favorite part is the Switch lifetime stats they included at the end of the page as a reward for scrolling all the way through the wrap up.

I have played 209 hours of Pokemon Arceus and 138 hours of Ring Fit. I am nowhere close to 100% completion on either.

Therapy, seriously. I am not a mental health professional, but from what I have read, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can be just as good as chemical antidepressants.

If you are struggling with depression, please do yourself a favor and see if your health insurance covers therapists. If not, at least read up on therapy techniques to deal with depression. I have been recommended Feeling Good by David D. Burns as a book to follow.

They did not have other sizes at launch. If you read the article, the game publisher let slip that Nintendo has started offering smaller, cheaper carts.

My theory is that the Switch 2 launch was rushed. Nintendo had been delaying the system for years, saying that Switch 1 sales where still over performing expectations. Last year, Switch 1 sales fell faster than the Nintendo expected and suddenly they had a system ready to release in a couple months. I would have expected the pre-release hype cycle to be longer but I suspect Nintendo expected the death of the Switch 1 to be much slower.

I am not expecting it to give me the perfect workout for a given day. I was hoping for guidance like “Try this workout for a week. if you are handling the exercise, increase the weight. If you are failing on the last set, keep trying for another week. If you are not completing the first set or are plateauing, decrease the weight and increase your reps.”