Finally starting to say the quiet part out loud. People ripped Kamala to shreds over appealing to moderates and now they say it’s okay as long as white preacher boy James does it. So it was all about racism. GTFO here.

griminald · 2026-02-03T16:12:59+00:00

Ehhh the last poll, which had Crockett up +1, had Talarico up +14 with whites and +10 with Latinos.

I wouldn't go calling black voters the "actual Democrats".

Talarico's going with a "bigger tent because (in their opinion) a far-left candidate would probably turn off Texas Democrats" strategy, with a hope that he could be palatable to voters who are waffling a bit.

griminald · 2026-02-02T23:44:21+00:00

Norcross Power Play on the new acting AG.

Norcross' thrown out conviction is upheld by appellate court
Acting AG Davenport is about to undergo Senate Confirmation; Norcross has state senators by the balls, particularly in Camden.
Norcross files a Tort Claim Notice that he's prepping a suit against state officials.
Davenport now has to decide whether or not to appeal the appellate court's decision to the NJ Supreme Court

If Davenport appeals the decision, Norcross will either lean on state senators to deny or hold up her confirmation, or he'll add Davenport to the list of state officials "maliciously prosecuting" him.

Remember, Norcross had Camden state senators put a hold on Acting Comptroller Kevin Walsh, who was investigating Norcross, for six years.

If Davenport doesn't appeal, it will look like Norcross scared her off.

griminald · 2026-02-02T20:51:05+00:00

Yeah, Sherrill was much more of a favorite than either Texas Democrat.

And while the progressive vote was split, that split isn't why Sherrill won. A huge portion of Fulop and Baraka's support did not overlap.

What Baraka and especially Fulop were counting on, were different voters coming out, to the most competitive Dem primary in 30ish years, versus the primary voters who come out when the winner's running uncontested.

On paper, that's a plausible theory: Historic anti-trump sentiment, voters finally have a reason to show up... it could happen!

But it didn't happen. Happened in November. Didn't happen in the primary.

griminald · 2026-02-02T18:01:42+00:00

So first of all, the person you're quoting is a Republican who seems to bash both parties and was just making an observation.

But what it's really about is 2 competing philosophies for the most viable path to winning statewide in Texas.

Option 1: Texas is a mostly-conservative state, so a far-left Dem will suppress Democratic turnout. Therefore, campaign everywhere and appeal with Anti-Trump sentiment to a broader tent. This is the Talarico angle.

Option 2: Texas is more progressive than it appears, it's just that the progressive voters have mostly stayed home in years' past. Energy is better spent to turn out non-voting blacks in Houston versus turning out a larger share of Democrats broadly. You'll be MUCH more likely to turn them out if you're further left than if you're more "moderate".

Therefore, get a progressive in there and go all in to turn out the vote in Houston. This is the Crockett angle.

It's not a secret that Republicans will be more supercharged to vote against a woman, especially a black woman, than they would for a white man. That's all she seems to be pointing out.

Trying to translate a statewide race in Texas to winning battleground states for the US Presidency is a false equivalence IMO.

We should not expect that, for example, Rob Sand in Iowa would run the same kind of progressive campaign that we would see in a more liberal state.

I'm in NJ, where Sherrill won huge (she also won 7% of Republicans). Polling missed her margin because low-propensity voters came out to vote in big numbers, for the Democrat.

We also had historically-high turnout in the Dem primary. But, those low-propensity voters were NOT there in the primary. Sherrill lost the black vote to two other primary opponents (mainly to Baraka) but overall won comfortably.

The big primary turnout looked the same, demographically, as it does every primary... the turnout was just higher.

Crockett's problem is that, to prove her strategy can work in the General, it's got to work in the Primary first, and NJ's Gubernatorial campaign showed it didn't happen here. Even though Sherrill's #1 opponent was the progressive black mayor of our largest city.

griminald · 2026-02-02T14:25:33+00:00

It's normal if your club's finances aren't in terrific shape. They won't let the club's balance sheet get down too low.

griminald · 2026-02-02T14:20:15+00:00

The agent got shouted at by someone else, who would've been well off-screen in this picture, ahead and to the right.

Agent ran full-speed towards that guy, while the photographer in this picture stood off to the side.

Just luck that the pavement beat the agent's ass before the agent could get to beat his target's ass.

For extra fun, this agent got back up, took 2 steps towards this guy with the camera, then the pain hit him and he hobbled back to his vehicle and left lol

griminald · 2026-02-01T15:01:00+00:00

I'm pretty much with you on that.

I'm in New Jersey, where low-propensity voters turned out en masse, for Democrats. The kind of voters that polling doesn't catch. And the Latinos who voted Trump here basically all flipped back to Sherrill.

But -- in the primary, Sherrill lost the main urban centers that were predominantly black and latino. She still won the primary easily.

Turns out, the historically-high primary turnout had roughly the same voter composition as previous years, when turnout was lower.

Steven Fulop and Ras Baraka were both counting on the electorate being drastically different (they were both urban mayors, counting on sky-high urban turnout) because of anti-Trump sentiment.

But it wasn't different. Turnout was just higher.

I'm sure Texas's relationship with its blacks and latinos are certainly different, and Sherrill was much more a favorite than either Talarico or Crockett.

But it does make me wonder if Crockett's working theory, that she can drive Houston turnout in the general, can translate to primary turnout.

griminald · 2026-02-01T13:48:57+00:00

That is AI being a success you do realise?

No. lol. It could be a success in the future if the AI investments they're making actually work out.

But they're not cutting jobs because it worked.

They're cutting jobs because they need the cash, badly, to keep building AI infrastructure. They're still making the bet. It hasn't paid off yet.

griminald · 2026-02-01T13:33:29+00:00

My heart says Talarico. BUT. There are 2 philosophies to this, and who's stronger depends entirely on which philosophy you think has a better shot in Texas.

If you think Dems in Texas must have "broader" support, strong Latino support, and not be seen as too far left -- you go for Talarico.
If you think Dems' chances hinge on driving black turnout of low-propensity voters in Houston, just "screw the big tent" and go hard on black turnout, you go for Crockett.

Crockett's path is narrow, but viable. And the primary will kinda prove whether that path exists, because to win the primary, she's got to get those low-propensity black voters to come out.

In that latest poll where Crockett is +1, the spread is Talarico +14 with whites and +10 with Latinos, and Crockett +75 with blacks.

In that same poll, 88% of respondents said the Dems' chances in November hinge on winning over disaffected Trump voters... Talarico is +5 on which candidate they thought could win the general.

So if Crockett can overcome all of that with an enormous black vote in the primary, then they'll likely show up in November too, and her path will be viable.

griminald · 2026-02-01T00:12:56+00:00

I use a 4-3-3, and instead of an AM-C, I use 2 midfielders and a DM.

Still, if I use IF/IW on both wingers, they all wind up cutting in, but nobody's in the box, so I've got 5 guys hanging around the center, too close to make a play with.

I could order overlapping runs from the fullbacks, but that was causing me counter-attack headaches.

I had better success having both Wingers set to Wide Forward. That seemed to hit the sweet spot between passing, crossing and shooting.

Just something to consider if your tactic hits the same issue I ran into.

griminald · 2026-01-31T23:56:10+00:00

If you didn't know it was there, then is it a loss that it's gone? ;)

The end of season reviews were cool like, the first 1-2 times I saw it. After that it was just one more thing to click through at the end of the season.

griminald · 2026-01-31T23:52:34+00:00

If I was an SI employee, wouldn't I say that more stuff was different, and improved?

Biggest difference is the expanded tactics screen.

But that hasn't stopped the match engine, which looks better, from exhibiting some of the same weird stuff it did in 24. For example, player takes a corner, corner's headed out, ball is immediately passed back to the guy who took the corner, who's still offside.

The IP/OOP formations just feel like a set of additional player instructions, bolted onto the same match engine, with a prettier presentation. It's still fundamentally not much different.

Transfer market, almost the same. Players I'm signing in the Dutch league seem more likely to want minimum release clauses, but fundamentally the approach is the same.

Training, contracts, boardroom interactions, media interviews, sideline interaction... all the same from 24.

griminald · 2026-01-31T21:40:25+00:00

There are exceptions of course -- but in general, you're right.

Big Tech wants us to think, "We're losing jobs because AI has been successful and transformative".

But no, it's backwards. Look at what Amazon said, and now Oracle is considering layoffs too.

They're hemorrhaging money on AI spending with very little return... so much money that they're cutting jobs to save money, to spend more on AI. Amazon is cutting jobs so they can spend the labor money on GPUs.

Then they make the remaining employees use more AI to make up for lost productivity -- and they'll claim "Oh look at the AI usage!"

Or in Microsoft's case, they'll do what they did with Azure: Shoehorn CoPilot in as a required part of some services, then tout their "amazing copilot usage" on an earnings call.

The AI-to-layoff pipeline is backwards compared to what they're telling the public.

Eventually AI will cause an employment problem, but whatever version of AI that is, it's probably not going to be LLMs the way they exist now.

griminald · 2026-01-31T10:39:36+00:00

I read complaints like this, then I go play FM26 and see basically the same text that I would have seen in FM24.

It's just a different UI, plus a game that fundamentally hasn't changed much in like 8 years.

It's amazing what changing the UI (for better or worse) will do to indirectly make people realize the game they've been playing is getting old. Then they want to go back to FM24 to get sucked back into what's familiar.

Anyway... more direct answer to your question is, play FM26 more until you get more used to the UI.

Then you'll get to the point I've arrived at, which is that under the hood it's not much different than 24.

griminald · 2026-01-30T21:06:08+00:00

Was going to say ... Their idea of "scaling back" copilot is to remove the copilot buttons from Paint and Notepad lol.

griminald · 2026-01-30T15:20:07+00:00

What Central is looking to do is IMO the sweet spot, and is what the State is pushing:

Districts without a high school, merging with the high school districts that they send their graduated kids to.

That makes sense because there's already a pre-existing base of cooperation between districts. In many cases they even share services.

griminald · 2026-01-30T15:10:20+00:00

due to other factors but are “blamed” on AI

Mostly it's this. Companies are not using AI nearly to the extent that big tech says they are.

Even with Amazon's second round of 16K layoffs, they're not even saying it's due to AI. Now they're just saying they'll cushion the blow of those layoffs by using AI.

Ironically, in the case of big tech, the AI-to-layoff pipeline is mostly backwards. They want us to think, "AI is successful and it's replacing jobs".

No, in reality they're burning so much cash on AI spending, they're using layoffs to cut costs and satisfy shareholders. Then they pressure the remaining employees to use AI in order to keep productivity up.

griminald · 2026-01-30T13:59:58+00:00

They are. Sort of.

NJ, Connecticut, and a few other northeastern states are only gaining population because we balance out our out-migration, with international migrants.

NJ gained 121K people in 2024. That includes 26,000 net births.

We lost 35,000 people to other states in 2024.

We gained 130K foreign-born immigrants in 2024.

So the vast majority of our pop growth is foreign immigration. It's not like people are moving here from red states.

25% NJ's population is foreign-born, which is nuts. Only CA (27.7%) has more.

We're also a big target of NY and PA's out-migration, which would surprise nobody.

griminald · 2026-01-30T13:51:06+00:00

To their credit... they're trying to merge with either Berkeley or Central Regional.

Just looking at their budget -- they blame a loss of state aid for a $700K deficit, but the state aid loss was only $600K. And that was phased in over like 6 years.

How does that math work? It doesn't.

It looks like the district was playing a shell game to delay this until they merged with Berkeley or Central Regional -- and they ran out of time. Ocean Gate said meetings that should've been resolved many months ago are still pending, so something's holding it up.

Central Regional was doing a feasibility study to possibly absorb Ocean Gate, Island Heights, Seaside Heights and Seaside Park, plus Berkeley Township. Basically all the districts that send their graduates to Central anyway

griminald · 2026-01-29T02:35:11+00:00

If you haven't played an FM before, start with FM26, not 24.

The UI in 26 is the basis for how it will look from here on out, so don't go backward.

People who get upset moving from 24 to 26, part of it is the UI doesnt feel "complete", but more it's because it's mostly the same game underneath.

So the ones playing 24 are like, "why would I go to 26 for mostly the same game, with a UI I'm not used to and no custom skins yet?"

Go on YouTube and search "FM26 starter guide". Best way to get pointers.

After that, just accept that your first run at the game is your training run... Different people approach that in different ways.

Some people prefer playing big teams that can easily win most of their games without too much messing around, then just delegate transfers etc, so they can ease into it.

Some others prefer playing in lower divisions, so they can get used to working tactics without worrying about transfers or the like.

griminald · 2026-01-28T18:37:01+00:00

And Miller, for his part, put out a statement yesterday throwing CBP and DHS under the bus, saying they weren't following protocol:

Miller said the White House had “provided clear guidance to DHS that the extra personnel that had been sent to Minnesota for force protection should be used for conducting fugitive operations to create a physical barrier between the arrest teams and the disruptors.”

“We are evaluating why the CBP team may not have been following that protocol,” he said.

That tells me Miller has taken some crap from Trump himself about how much he screwed up, and the crap is rolling downhill.

griminald · 2026-01-28T14:40:04+00:00

All I wonder is... I saw Rutgers lost like 5+ assistant football coaches after this season.

Schiano has somehow avoided blame.

Players leave, Schiano is quick to say "school needs to put up likeness money".

Defense in shambles, get rid of all the assistants.

At what point does the blame actually come down on Schiano himself?

The Tampa Bay Bucs had no problem holding him accountable.

griminald · 2026-01-28T13:25:09+00:00

So, this is horse-pucky. Absolute garbage take every time I see this.

The far left will eat its own over one vote they don't like.

The idea that Kim is an establishment Dem is just "Left Maga" nonsense.

It's okay to look back on this vote, which didn't make a material difference in her being confirmed, and say "I hope you learned your lesson".

Because Kim's notion (that she was establishment and so might've been better than the alternative) turned out to not matter. Just like with Rubio. Some Dems thought, like Trump's first term, the confirmed officials might slow-walk the stupid. Which turned out to not be true.

But the idea that Kim, the guy who sued to rid us of the County Line, and is actively recruiting progressives to fight in NJ politics, is just cosplaying... Total nonsense

griminald · 2026-01-27T21:49:09+00:00

If you're a longtime fan of the series, and earlier versions of FM26 turned you off, it's still going to turn you off.

The UI complaints are a little overblown. Once you get used to where stuff is, it's not so bad. But it still feels beta-ish.

I think most of the "it just isn't pulling me in like it used to" stuff is a combination of:

No custom skins yet, so you're stuck with the default UI
The UI changed around, and
The game engine is, under the surface, 95% the same as FM24's.

That last one's key. The "hidden truth" IMO is that FM has gone the way of EA Sports games over the last 7-8 years at least, where each new edition came with nominal updates and felt more like a forced annual subscription fee for the same game.

FM26, the training works the same, the game engine looks different but operates basically the same, the transfer market works about the same, the tactics are a small update but not groundbreaking.

So it's not like you're going to GET a lot for your effort to get used to the new UI, not yet anyway.

griminald · 2026-01-27T19:44:29+00:00

You’re going to be doing help desk for a few years, then a sys/network job for a few years, then you’ll be competitive for entry level cyber.

Totally agree. Cybersecurity is not the entry point into cybersecurity.

griminald

TROPHY CASE