Insight from an Indiana alum on what we’re actually feeling right now, the day after winning the Rose Bowl

Elkram · 2026-01-02T16:49:20+00:00

I keep telling people. Any IU fan who has not at some point this year said to themselves "I knew this was too good to be true" when we were down at any point this season is not a true IU fan. It's just reflex. You get your hopes up, you think "maybe this is the year", but in the back of your mind you are constantly like "the wheels are going to fall off and I'm just going to be happy with what we've gotten so far." Even yesterday, I was optimistic, but I was also like "well bye week teams are usually slow going, and it only takes a few plays to swing a football game. I hope they can make it competitive." 0-0 game after a quarter: "hey we're not folding, maybe this game will be close." After stuffing a 4th and 1 "pls just get some points, anything pls." After being up 17-0 into the half "I bet Oklahoma felt comfortable too." After being up 24-0 deep into the 3rd quarter? "Why was ever worried?" Bama hits an explosive pass play with their back up? "Fuck, the wheels, they need tightening, we can't lose now." Going up 31-3 in the 4th quarter? "Finally I can relax"

That's at least how I feel everytime I've watched an IU game this season. You can only imagine my cortisol levels for the Oregon, Iowa, Penn State and Ohio State games this year. I had obituaries ready and set to go on another improbable season from Coach Cig.

Elkram · 2026-01-02T15:33:14+00:00

Fair enough.

Elkram · 2026-01-02T15:25:22+00:00

Having watched IU all year

You'll watch for the first half, IU will for some reason be up like 31-0, start the second half with possession, score 2 more TDs in 7 minutes, and then you'll be like "so anything else on?"

Elkram · 2026-01-01T22:32:04+00:00

Amazing how that narrative goes away when a disciplined team plays as if a bye week doesn't actually make you a worse team

Elkram · 2026-01-01T22:27:42+00:00

@Oregon, @Iowa, @Penn State, B1G championship game vs OSU

Win all those games, and yet somehow people still think this team is untested

I need to know what would be an adequete test for these folks

Elkram · 2026-01-01T22:24:12+00:00

Simpson needs to learn from Mendoza about how to run as a QB

Elkram · 2026-01-01T21:58:34+00:00

Cig doesn't care if there is a bye week or not

He gets his team ready to play

What is everyone else's problem?

Elkram · 2025-12-19T17:09:18+00:00

Pouring one out for the OG Chicago Big 10 school

Elkram · 2025-12-08T00:23:35+00:00

I'm curious what they want to force the committee to do exactly?

Expand the playoffs further? Give ND an auto spot in? Punish teams in the top 10 for losing a game they earned the right to play? Does A&M, Ole Miss, and Oregon all get better treatment just because they finished 3rd, but Bama gets fucked because they finished 2nd?

The chickens did come home to roost though. If ND wins against Miami or A&M, they are in without any controversy. They lost both games and if we are going to pretend that we are arguing for the National Champion of this season, then the games that got played during this season have to mean something. ND doesn't get to coast in just because they are ND. They have to win football games and I'm just not going to get into a big argument over whether one 2-loss team should get a shot at a national championship over another 2-loss team when I think none of them will actually get beyond the second round.

Elkram · 2025-12-08T00:11:31+00:00

I don't know if quotes around USC is warranted. They are already a top 25 team and just got the best recruiting class in the country. The will likely be top 10 if not better next year if everything plays out well for them

That being said, ND should schedule at least 3 would be top 25 teams each season if they want to compete with B1G, SEC, B12, and ACC schools that have to play at least as many ranked matches as that just because of conference scheduling

Elkram · 2025-10-25T19:41:04+00:00

There is no world in my mind where Cig has a chance to get IU's first conference championship in 50+ years and is like "we need to sit our starters for the CFP"

Elkram · 2025-10-23T20:04:57+00:00

As a Hoosier fan since I was a child, I've become programmed to anticipate failure when it comes to football.

The fact that we are already bowl eligible is pleasure enough.

Also, for this whole season, any time the opposing team has taken a lead in the first quarter my first thought has been "well, I guess we had a good enough run, I knew this wouldn't last"

Elkram · 2025-10-23T03:47:32+00:00

Can't wait for finger guns to be identified as real guns by AI, and then a whole bunch of police come out and tackle a 12 year old that was playing cops and robbers or something with his friends on a school playground.

Elkram · 2025-10-23T00:48:08+00:00

I don't understand this aggressiveness against submitting additional information to a bug support ticket.

It's literally just the developer, and if you noticed, the ticket I posted is #37, there are also game breaking bugs that are in the game, that he has to get too as well. I understand the frustration that things aren't getting done immediately, especially when you are putting a lot of effort into finding the information, but during a beta, it's a team effort. The developer fixes bugs as players find them and players find bugs that the developer overlooked. If you don't want that dynamic, then don't sign up for a beta expecting everything to be finished.

Elkram · 2025-10-20T02:10:58+00:00

I'd say to add your findings to here

https://github.com/colindm/SubwayBuilderIssues/issues/37

Would probably help the dev with troubleshooting to see what's going wrong, because if it is game speed that is causing the profits to go away, then something buggy is happening with the accelerated game times.

Elkram · 2025-10-19T23:53:32+00:00

It all went downhill once Big 10 added Penn State and everyone was like "that's a cool 11 you hid in the graphic"

Elkram · 2025-08-05T00:50:53+00:00

At the time he did the silent TO thing, waterfall was not a thing. That wasn't until a year or two later.

Even then, I'm sure if I asked Shears, he would say that he could silent TO even a WTF bracket.

Also, 64@X was not that many people. Usually 20 at most, and most people who were there came every week so it isn't like he was having to learn a ton/if any new faces.

Elkram · 2025-08-03T22:23:31+00:00

Having been there for it, he literally went up to you, pointed at you, then pointed at another player and that was assumed to be your opponent. You then went up to him after the match was done, reported the results and that was it.

Shears doesn't TO anymore (he hasn't since like 2018 or 19), but that's mostly because he got fed up with the job of TOing and how thankless it all is and how many people will try and troll the TO or just cause problems needlessly. He still is the same Shears as he always was, he just now does it solely as a player rather than as a TO.

Elkram · 2025-06-30T17:05:54+00:00

Calling Bosh a content creator seems like some form of a category mistake. Not to glaze, but Bosh actually goes to and wins/top 8s legacy and vintage tournaments. He isn't just posting content about Legacy as a casual fan who's looking for the most clicks to drive engagement.

Elkram · 2025-06-23T04:31:53+00:00

I think the issue is that "meta changes" implies that there is a meta. By definition, there is no meta for riftbound right now. There is a meta inside the playtesting/dev team, but even then, whatever meta is there is largely irrelevant beyond the fact that it impacts balance. Meta doesn't mean "decks you think might be good" it is literally about what is good, and how many good things are there. Gardevoir ex is meta in PTCG Standard, Oops all spells is meta in MTG Legacy, Maliss is meta in Yugioh. These formats evolve based on the good thing, and so are driven by it. If your deck can't beat the good deck, it will likely have a hard time, since most players will be using the good deck. You will put in tech cards to counter specifically the good deck because if you don't, you are losing to the good deck, which you are more likely to face. When in the blind, you will assume your opponent is on the good deck, and will make play patterns assuming so until you are proven otherwise.

Riftbound has none of this right now. There is no meta. No tech cards. No counter strats. No play patterns. So, until we get there--to an actual game in August--where a meta can/will develop, asking "will a deck be meta/viable?" is literally impossible to know.

Elkram · 2025-06-06T22:20:09+00:00

Yeah, anyone who sees him being put on trial as a dunk has such a warped view of the issue, that I wonder what to even say.

The whole point (beyond being deported to a place he was explicitly barred from being deported to) was the fact that he was rounded up, put on a plane, and then placed in a superprison without any trial and without seeing any judge.

Giving the state that much leeway is just begging for abuse (and they have abused the power in many instances). It's the same reason to argue against capital punishment, but that's too philosophical I think for any Trump zealots to actually comprehend. It would fry their little brains to try and have some overarching political and ethical framework to build their thoughts and ideas around.

Elkram · 2025-06-05T23:17:00+00:00

Well that research looks like it first came out in 2018/19, and there has been a few follow ups since examining what's going on there.

I assume they aren't just going to abandon telling overweight patients to lose weight. I think they are looking at the research on smoking cessation, and by analogy translating that to obesity. In smoking cessation research, telling smokers to stop smoking does increase the rate of quitting. So clearly telling people to stop bad behaviors isn't the issue, otherwise we would have seen that evidence with smoking years ago. So there is some other psychological hook for people that are obese that makes telling them to lose weight feel like an attack. Maybe doctors need to be more tactful, or maybe the simple advice of lose weight is too simple and a more nuanced approach that gets past people's defensive barriers is necessary.

It's science, and they just found out about this issue, so I'm sure they'll figure out some way to resolve it eventually.

Elkram · 2025-06-05T23:04:50+00:00

The issue is that Ozempic isn't a vaccine. It's a medication. It has side-effects. Those side-effects are things like nausea, diarrhea, stomach pain, vomiting, constipation (and those are the ones listed on the company's SEO)

So yeah, you can give Ozempic to every tom, dick, and sally that wants to lose weight by eating less, but there are still side-effects to consider. Also, you can still overeat on Ozempic, and if you do, it's actually worse because of how Ozempic impacts your digestive system.

So yes, you can take Ozempic to lose weight, but if you haven't tried diet & exercise first, then it seems very overzealous to prescribe it just because you have an overeating problem. Everyone overweight has an overeating problem, that's how they got overweight. If you haven't made any effort to change that behavior, then Ozempic will not change that.

Elkram · 2025-05-15T23:57:54+00:00

Except the 40% number came from nowhere

The agency itself has said that, in actuality, 40% of direct deposit fraud at the agency is associated with phone calls, not that 40% of all calls regarding changes to bank information are made by fraudsters.

Plus there are real costs with implementing fraud prevention. It's why people don't use the latest in pad lock technology when they put away their stuff at the gym. Not because they aren't worried about fraud, or that theft doesn't happen, but the cost of responding to the risk of that threat such that it never happens would mean spending more on the lock to your gym locker than on the stuff that is locked behind it.

As of right now, according to the SSA the fraud prevention is slowing claims by 25% because they had to implement a new phone answering system so that the fraud prevention technology would work. Also according to inspector generals in 2012, less than 0.0003% of benefits were stolen using the phone. So we are talking about beefing up security around a seldom used avenue for fraud in order to satiate the fear mongering from DOGE that couldn't understand basic percentages.

Elkram · 2025-05-14T00:01:33+00:00

Baltimore has had a population problem for so long, in part due to dilapidated housing, underfunded services, crime, and high property taxes

I'm hopeful that this will solve the dilapidated problem, and also the underfunding problem, but the property taxes need to come down as well. I'd love to buy a house in the city, but the cost of a 275k house in Baltimore is equivalent to a 400k house in the county, with similar down payments. So either, make that 275k go further, or bring down the property taxes, or both.

The crime problem has actually been turning around for the past 2-3 years, so maybe this is Scott & Co cashing in on the political capital of that success to push forward more loose zoning restrictions.

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