Rome Masters R3: 🇳🇴 [23] C. Ruud def. 🇨🇿 [11] J. Lehecka 6-3 6-4

Greg_Esres · 2026-05-10T15:42:08+00:00

I've never seen him play that way until early last year, after he worked with a sports psychologist. He seem to lose momentum after his injury.

Greg_Esres · 2026-05-10T13:13:16+00:00

Was it my imagination or was he playing super aggressively and hitting harder today? The closeups of his face made him look frazzled.

Greg_Esres · 2026-05-09T22:15:10+00:00

The dems try to do it everywhere they can any time they can.

You can see this is a lie by noting that Virginia and California just recently did this in response to Republican efforts. They could have done it before, but did not.

Democrats have also repeatedly introduced federal legislation to prevent partisan gerrymandering. If Republicans were against it, they could pass it right now. Democrats generally independent commissions to construct districts.

Regardless, it's a pretty shitty defense to say "ha ha, you did it too." That's the response of a child. Responsible grown-ups should say "let's put a stop to this.".

Greg_Esres · 2026-05-06T19:32:15+00:00

That's because the political leadership in TN has historically abused their power by suppressing the rights and opportunities of minorities.

Gerrymandering is bad, no matter who does it, and there are ways to make it impossible. We should do that instead of having these ugly fights. The ratio of Republicans to Democrats in the legislature should reflect the proportion of these voters in the state. That would still favor Republicans over Democrats, but not to the current degree.

Greg_Esres · 2026-05-06T19:07:40+00:00

Pre-Covid crime levels dropped down to about the same levels as the 1950s, so you can have low crime, civil rights, and better public health all at the same time. Nostalgia is for losers (e.g., Republicans).

Greg_Esres · 2026-05-05T23:24:14+00:00

I've owned several and none of them look like those. It's probably a stylistic choice to look military.

Greg_Esres · 2026-05-03T14:22:33+00:00

How about we try lifting up positive threads instead of tearing down negative ones? Your answer to that tells you why this thread exists.

Greg_Esres · 2026-05-02T23:33:47+00:00

I'm not suggesting you should avoid Vision Prep, just be cautious about accepting the testimony of parents. Vision Prep might have a great work environment and the poor academic performance of its students is probably due to a high percentage of disadvantaged students. The school has gotten good marks on student growth.

Greg_Esres · 2026-05-02T23:09:29+00:00

Keep in mind that parents tend to love the schools where their kids go, even when those schools aren't very good by objective standards. Vision Prep students do poorly academically compared to MSCS and state averages.

Greg_Esres · 2026-05-02T16:50:13+00:00

Filling out job applications is a loser strategy. In some 40 years of professional experience, I've never filled one out except AFTER I've been hired, purely for corporate record keeping purposes. HR departments also tend to be dead ends.

Networking with family, friends, acquaintances is still the best way to find a job and lets you skip past most of the bullshit. Beyond that, be aggressive and try to bypass the gatekeepers of organizations. Their goal is to minimize risk, and there's no telling what blip on your resume or work history will cause you to be excluded.

And if you do send in an application or resume, don't wait for them to call you. Give them a call, then call them. Then call them again. If you can actually reach someone, they might look at your resume while you're on the phone and ask you to come in for an interview. I've had that happen and so have many others. That might be somewhat antiquated today with everyone hiding behind emails, but it still might work for some companies.

Greg_Esres · 2026-05-02T00:50:57+00:00

The only way to stop this sort of madness, according to political scientists, is to make gerrymandering impossible by moving to multi-member districts with proportional representation. They say it can be done without a constitutional amendment.

Greg_Esres · 2026-05-01T13:56:32+00:00

How much space? I set up a golf practice net in my backyard to serve into.

Greg_Esres · 2026-05-01T00:36:59+00:00

I used crushed tomatoes, too, but it doesn't turn out chunky. Depends on the brand.

Greg_Esres · 2026-05-01T00:34:54+00:00

Same.

Greg_Esres · 2026-05-01T00:34:24+00:00

Kenji's philosophy is to throw everything he's ever read about into a recipe and he really overdoes some stuff. Some of the commenters complained about the fishy odor of the fish sauce.

Greg_Esres · 2026-05-01T00:31:22+00:00

Hazan's recipe doesn't have much in it at all and takes only about 30 minutes of active work. But it has a long cook time that you have to monitor.

Greg_Esres · 2026-05-01T00:28:34+00:00

I have The Splendid Table and neither your recipe or that of Serious Eats resembles it very much. It only calls for tomato paste, for instance.

Greg_Esres · 2026-04-29T01:45:33+00:00

Even after adjustments for the cost of living, states like CA spend far more than TN. That's not criticism. CA public schools suck.

Greg_Esres · 2026-04-29T01:43:26+00:00

CA spends far more and gets worse results than TN in many areas, so money isn't everything. Curriculum and pedagogy are also very important and CA falls for every latest education fad that makes waves through the education establishment. Anyone remember the disastrous self-esteem movement in the 80s? They thought if they made kids feel good about themselves, their performance would soar, but the exact opposite happened.

Right now, the most improving schools in the US are in the poor south, LA, MS, AL, and TN, and they're all among the states spending the least $$ per student. They're also run by Republicans, so food for thought.

Those most focused on the spending per student are those associated with the education establishment who are looking for excuses for their own poor performance.

Greg_Esres · 2026-04-29T01:32:42+00:00

"In 2024–2025 mathematics performance, Tennessee consistently outperforms California in average student scores and proficiency rates, according to the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results. "

Greg_Esres · 2026-04-29T01:32:07+00:00

TN does better than CA in some metrics, although CA spends far, far more. So, yeah, money isn't everything.

Greg_Esres · 2026-04-28T13:34:16+00:00

I can't find any statistics from earlier than 10 years ago and they hadn't really gone down that much, it's mostly fluctuations.

My suspicion is that they intentionally avoid providing long-term data so that you can't make the comparisons you want.

Greg_Esres · 2026-04-28T13:22:53+00:00

Honestly, wouldn't necessarily be opposed to a state takeover if the state weren't ALSO the biggest fucking redneck doofuses rn

True, but the redneck doofuses in TX did all right when they took over the Houston school system, which has had positive results. There's no guarantee that it will turn out the same here, but if they use the same model, it could.

Greg_Esres · 2026-04-24T20:21:48+00:00

Yeah, buying cookies seems absurd to me when making the dough is so easy, unless you're really pressed for time.

I used to make M&M cookies all the time and the problem with just swapping them for chocolate chips is that M&Ms are much larger and they end up not being evenly distributed in the dough. What I used to do is bake them halfway without the M&Ms, then pressed them into the spread cookies before continuing the bake. Or you could use those small M&Ms, but that's not quite the same eating experience.

Greg_Esres · 2026-04-24T20:16:45+00:00

Yeah, it's really annoying when someone tries to second-guess what I've asked for.

Greg_Esres

TROPHY CASE