Category: whatever

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.

Populist Left Vs. Socialist Left

Here’s a thread on the differences between the populist left and socialist left. Off the top of my head, here’s a summary of each. The populist left opposes high concentrations of wealth, while the social populists want to create a utopian society where…I guess production of goods, services and wealth are shared by everyone. (Sorry if these are bad definitions.) How do you guys feel about these categories? Where do your politics line up, including if they fall outside of these two categories?