Author: Reid

General Thread on Artists and Art

I’ve been watching several documentaries about art and artists, and instead of writing a review for these films, I wanted to start a thread for general thoughts and reaction these artists and art in general; basically a repository of notes on these topics.

Football Question: How Should a Team’s Offense Play If Their Defense is Weak?

I feel like I’ve asked this question before, but after a cursory search, I couldn’t find any thread. I apologize if this I’m repeating myself. This question often comes up when I’m interacting with Seahawk fans in the last two years–primarily because their defense hasn’t been good. A lot of people seem to think that, with a weak defense, a team should be more aggressive about scoring, which usually means passing the ball more in a way that maximizes scoring opportunities, rather than controlling the ball. Intuitively, this seems correct. A more conservative offense makes sense on a team with a great defense. That is, don’t take chances on offense, and don’t worry about scoring a lot because the defense can win the game.

However, I think one can make a conservative offensive approach when the team’s defense is weak. A conservative approach will minimize the defense’s snaps and time on the field, minimizing their exposure and also enabling them to play at their best by resting them. This second point is crucial if the defense the problem main problem with the defense is that they hit their breaking point relatively quickly.

Actually, I think a balanced offensive approach is the ideal. With a weak defense, scoring is critical–more critical than if the defense were dominant. So the offense should be good at ball control and scoring. Indeed, I think this is only viable path to a serious playoff run. An offense that’s too conservative is not going to cut it, and an offense that is aggressive will have to be fantastic at scoring TDs to make up for the defensive deficiency. That’s type of offense is difficult–you need the personnel, OC, and it puts tremendous pressure on the offense.

Where do you guys stand on this?

Could Tower Records Resurrect Itself Today?

I’m sure exactly when the coining of “third places” occurred, but I do believe it’s real–the idea that people have a need for a cozy, appealing space where they can be next to people they don’t necessarily know or interact with. After college, Tower Records was definitely such a place for me, and watching this reminded me of this.

Based on what I gather from the film, Tower Records did not need to go out of business. For one thing, if they had made a transition to online music streaming, thinking they could still be here seems reasonable. On the other hand, I believe they filed bankruptcy in the mid-2000s, and this was before a lot of music streaming sites like itunes. Made going to a music streaming wasn’t viable at the time. But even if you put that aside, there are other, perhaps more critical reasons they went out of business…con’t.

NFL 2010s All-Decade Team

You can read about it here.

OFFENSE

QB Tom Brady*
QB Aaron Rodgers
RB Frank Gore
RB Marshawn Lynch
RB LeSean McCoy
RB Adrian Peterson*
WR Antonio Brown
WR Larry Fitzgerald
WR Calvin Johnson
WR Julio Jones
FLEX Darren Sproles
TE Rob Gronkowski
TE Travis Kelce
OT Jason Peters
OT Tyron Smith
OT Joe Staley
OT Joe Thomas*
OG Jahri Evans
OG Logan Mankins
OG Zack Martin
OG Marshal Yanda*
C Alex Mack
C Maurkice Pouncey

DEFENSE

DE Calais Campbell
DE Cameron Jordan
DE Julius Peppers
DE J.J. Watt*
DT Geno Atkins
DT Fletcher Cox
DT Aaron Donald*
DT Ndamukong Suh
LB Chandler Jones
LB Luke Kuechly
LB Khalil Mack
LB Von Miller*
LB Bobby Wagner
LB Patrick Willis
CB Patrick Peterson
CB Darrelle Revis
CB Richard Sherman
S Eric Berry
S Earl Thomas
S Eric Weddle
DB Chris Harris Jr.
DB Tyrann Mathieu

SPECIALISTS

P Johnny Hekker
P Shane Lechler
K Stephen Gostkowski
K Justin Tucker*
PR Tyreek Hill
PR Darren Sproles
KR Devin Hester
KR Cordarrelle Patterson

COACHES

Bill Belichick
Pete Carroll

Math Corner: Solving for One Variable

From the another thread:

Do you guys know if anyone has written down rules for solving equations with variables? Here’s what I’m getting at: When you solve an equation with a variable, the sequence of actions you will take to isolate a variable. It seems like the first action you choose can be crucial, too. For example, look at this equation:

7(2e−1)−11=6+6e

What should you do first? I saw this at Khan Academy, and they used the distributive property first–getting “rid of” the 7 outside of the parenthesis. That does seem like the best move, but I didn’t realize that initially. I think I might have tried to add 11 to both sides first. And then my instinct might have been to divide by 7 on both sides, but I think that would have been a mistake. In working on several of these type of problems prior to this one, one of the important early moves involved “getting rid of” the number being multiplied by an operation with a parenthesis. For example,

200 = 20(4c+2)

I guess you could use the distributive property first, too.

In any event, I’m trying to find a list of rules or principles that will guide a student on the sequence of operations they should choose. What should be the first step, and then the second, third, etc. I did a quick search for something like this, but didn’t see anything.