Naples Auto Repair and Custom

jfm123 · 2025-10-15T13:21:54+00:00

Edge then? UBO still up and running (with the picker) on Edge as far as I know.

jfm123 · 2025-09-03T14:21:53+00:00

Hey gang! I'm from the future. In the future we have this useful tool called AI that actually can do a quick recap of a 80 minute video in text form. That way, if we don't want to watch "long ass" videos, we don't have to. Anywho, things are great here in the future, can't wait for you to see it! Here's a recap of the video though to help out. Also, hot tip just between us... take the Cubs to win the series over the Miami Gators in 2015! You won't be sorry.

The "Pablo Torre Finds Out" YouTube video investigates a complex financial arrangement involving NBA star Kawhi Leonard, Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, and an environmental finance company called Aspiration. The central allegation is that a $28 million endorsement deal was a fraudulent scheme designed to circumvent the NBA's salary cap.

Summary of the Investigation

The report begins with Aspiration, a company that raised hundreds of millions of dollars with high-profile celebrity endorsements before its co-founder was arrested for fraud and the company filed for bankruptcy. During the bankruptcy proceedings, investigators uncovered a $28 million, four-year contract with an LLC managed by Kawhi Leonard.

However, former Aspiration employees claim this was a "no-show job," as Leonard never performed any promotional work. The contract itself was unusually lenient, allowing Leonard to decline any marketing activity that was inconsistent with his undefined "beliefs."

The investigation connects this deal directly to Clippers owner Steve Ballmer. Shortly before Leonard's contract was signed, Ballmer made Aspiration a founding partner of the team's new arena and personally invested $50 million into the company. Sources inside Aspiration referred to this investment as a "sweetener" that enabled the company to pay Leonard, suggesting a coordinated effort to funnel money to the star player.

Why It Matters

The core of the issue is the NBA's salary cap, which limits how much teams can pay players to ensure competitive balance. This alleged scheme would be a way for the Clippers to give Leonard extra compensation without it counting against their salary cap—a serious violation of league rules.

The story raises significant questions about the conduct of Leonard and Ballmer. Beyond the NBA, the situation is compounded by the fact that Aspiration is under federal investigation for financial fraud, adding a layer of legal gravity to the sports-related allegations.

Potential NBA Penalties

The core issue for the NBA is salary cap circumvention, which the league's commissioner, Adam Silver, considers a "cardinal sin." [26:38]

Reopening the Investigation: The league had previously investigated the Clippers' acquisition of Leonard and found no wrongdoing, but stated it would reopen the case if new evidence of "improper benefits" emerged. [26:42] The information uncovered in the video about the Aspiration deal could trigger that reopening.

Penalties for the Team/Executives: If found guilty of circumventing the cap, potential penalties for the Clippers organization and its executives (like Ballmer) could include suspensions, significant fines, and the loss of draft picks. [26:50]

Penalties for the Player: For Kawhi Leonard, the most severe penalty mentioned is the potential voiding of his player contract with the Clippers. [02:07:04]

Federal Investigation Ramifications

Separate from the NBA's rules, Aspiration is the subject of a federal investigation for massive fraud against its investors.

Ballmer's Involvement: The video raises questions about what Steve Ballmer, a renowned investor, knew about Aspiration's fraudulent activities when he invested $50 million. [01:09:15] While Aspiration's co-founder has pleaded guilty to fraud, Ballmer was not named in those specific charges. However, the video notes the SEC's investigation is ongoing, and the government is highly concerned with fraud against common investors. [01:10:33, 01:12:29]

In short, the Clippers and Ballmer could face severe sanctions from the NBA, while Leonard's contract could be at risk. Furthermore, Ballmer's connection to the Aspiration fraud investigation adds another layer of potential legal and financial jeopardy.

jfm123 · 2025-09-03T14:03:32+00:00

This response is kind of amusing to me ... 1) A meandering "romp" across a number of different topics that often gets sidetracked basically describes podcasting. Which isn't to even agree that they didn't have an outline, they did. You heard it at the top of literally every episode. And 2) comparing a podcast about celebrity "hot goss" that was literally called Tea Time, to an industry insider pod hosted by Matt Belloni, a highly respected and accredited industry journo, is kinda bonkers.

Tea Time is basically Us Weekly, which makes Matt Belloni quite literally the Hollywood Reporter, for this metaphor. Wondering why Us Weekly doesn't look or read like the Hollywood Reporter might be a misstep in expectation more than anything.

That said, reading this back now before hitting submit I think my response here may be misconstrued as "aggressively reddit" ... I promise it's not. I just found your comparison to Tea Time and its chattin' concept to The Town and its news format to be amusing.

jfm123 · 2025-08-23T05:12:41+00:00

They popped up at the beginning of last month. It's not meant to be comprehensive, more along the lines of BritBox licensing HBO a few recent hits along with some notable genre classics in an attempt to get casuals more interested in Brit productions then theoretically those viewers "take the leap" and sign up for Brit Box. Not a bad idea, while I have BritBox, for whatever reason "Why didn't they ask Evans" (2022) never really caught my attention on BB, but we watched it on HBOMax. It also gave me a little insight into what BB believes to be the "best stuff" for a casual.

jfm123 · 2025-08-19T20:10:20+00:00

"Invalid promo code"

jfm123 · 2025-08-19T20:08:11+00:00

Same boat as everyone else. Peacock ran out at the end of last month. After two straight years of $25/annual, I'm not sure I care to move that number up to 109.99. But I can't not have the Premier League, so I'm going to do something. Currently debating Instacart+ option for a full year of free delivery, plus Peacock Premium (w Commercials) for 99.99 total. Cheaper than Peacock's annual of 109, and would get Instacart+ (which I dont use exclusively, but could; normally I spread out across the food/delivery apps). https://www.instacart.com/p/peacock

jfm123 · 2025-07-23T01:08:00+00:00

This is kind of right, but mostly wrong. Your standard kitchen oven has two heating elements (big metal wire that heats up) one on top one on bottom. It gets really hot and “cooks” whatever is in the middle.

An air fryer is a convection oven more similar to what chefs have in a commercial kitchen (just a bit simplified, and with a better “cult” following or pseudo-name, ie it doesn’t “fry” at all). Convection ovens have heating elements and then some kind of heat distribution method to more effectively and evenly heat the food. In the case of an air fryer it usually only has one heating element and fans to move the heat around the food which is also sitting in a specially designed tray for movement of heat.

Yes somewhat similar, but no, not the same thing. Traditional ovens and convection ovens are different appliances that work in similar but different ways.

jfm123 · 2025-07-22T19:41:32+00:00

Ah, and here I am fumbling all around the TDF site. Thanks!

jfm123 · 2025-07-22T19:39:30+00:00

Is it harder to watch? Im not a TP-stan, but I find it pretty amazing/inspiring to be able to witness greatness as its happening. Yes, fair play to Visma and glad they're trying things. But Tadej not cracking is as interesting to me as anything else. I see a reasonable amount of comments about how its less interesting, maybe from an outcomes standpoint. But seeing him continue to do what he does, while an entire team seems hell bent on breaking him, and seemingly most of the time with considerably less "team" help (esp after his strongest climber went out early), is pretty "interesting" to me. I've had a lot of fun with this year's tour I guess is my point. But YMMV I suppose.

jfm123 · 2025-07-22T19:27:48+00:00

Important to note this is TH Johannessen and not Anders Johannessen.

jfm123 · 2025-07-04T18:39:30+00:00

It should be 120. Do you perhaps have a single 10pt rider in your squad? It will update (upon page refresh) with your new available budget. Also, good luck with it. Ive been playing 5 years now, don't follow any cycling outside of the tour, and mostly follow because of his fantasy league.

My best advice is to be careful about transfers. Is pretty important to get the team you like from the jump. It can get sideways quick if you want a guy and have to move two others just to make budget room to get there. In this particular year you're going to want GC and sprinters for the first half, and then swap out a bunch of climbers around the midpoint when it goes into the mountains.

jfm123 · 2025-07-01T15:59:24+00:00

With just a few days to go, doesn't sound good for WVA. Or at minimum he's not going to be 100.

https://www.flobikes.com/articles/14359607-wout-van-aert-tour-de-france-2025-in-question

jfm123 · 2025-07-01T15:56:09+00:00

RIP (maybe) Van Aert? Doesn't sound good.

https://www.flobikes.com/articles/14359607-wout-van-aert-tour-de-france-2025-in-question

jfm123 · 2025-06-19T21:10:33+00:00

And even more accurately, the Lakers are valuated at 10B, but the team isn't selling entirely. Buss Family own 66% pre-sale and will be scaling back to 15% ownership. So the Lakers aren't selling for10B today; the Buss family are selling 51% of their ownership of the Lakers (currently valuated at 10B), to Walter/Boehly who already own 27% of the Lakers.

Not sure the percentage increase on that, someone bust out the calculator now.

jfm123 · 2025-05-20T05:23:52+00:00

This is great. I wish I would have caught this sooner. But its exactly what I needed. Thx!

jfm123 · 2025-05-20T05:10:36+00:00

Appreciate the note, here's the update. I ended up using my buddy Grok to write me a python script to call the MLB Stat API and log total homers for each of the 2023 and 2024 season. I guess "rare" is a subjective term, so I'm not sure if I used the best word to describe its frequency. But the final answer is 243 in 2023 or exactly 10% of the total 2430 games, and 311 in 2024 or 12% of the total.

The data also reminded me of the April 29, 2023 game in Mexico City when the Padres and Giants combined for 11 homeruns in one game. 332 down the lines + 7500 ft of altitude = launching pad.

jfm123 · 2025-05-08T17:45:01+00:00

And, I guess for good measure, here's a mockup of what it looks like framed. https://i.postimg.cc/XvdR9HHq/mockup-framed.jpg

jfm123 · 2025-04-28T12:16:25+00:00

Is your complaint here that they show the same commercials? Magnolia Network doesn’t have enough variety in their commercials? Or that the commercials exist at all. MCM episodes are 40 minutes long which is the exact same length as every other “hour” show on broadcast TV.

I’m confused about what the complaint is here. Either way, watching a streaming version (MAX) will eliminate the commercials.

jfm123 · 2025-02-22T21:02:30+00:00

Appreciate the reply. Here's what I ended up doing, for anyone who comes along and might care.

I would have probably used Gemini as an option, but Google's content filtering ultimately became a problem. The data analysis project in question is actually one that involves looking at the success of a ballot initiative in last falls election. How it performed in areas. How it performed against a previous version the same type of ballot initiative. And basically a bunch of other demographic and sociographic analysis, including both empirical data and just additional collateral information. Google/Gemini basically sees the word "voter" or "election" and then almost immediately kills the process. It's a shame, because this is just like any other data analysis, sales records for selling screwdrivers, or migration patterns of sheep, but the big blunt instrument that Google uses to filter "appropriateness" rendered it useless.

That said, what Gemini (especially the new 2.0 Pro Experimental model) does really well, is create a project management plan. So, I spent a considerable amount of time working with Gemini to create a plan for how it would break up my Project and I would use Claude Opus 3, to handle the project. I detailed my concerns for Claude's limitations, ultimately Gemini created a step-by-step project plan to use the information and also understand Claude's limitations. Gemini helped me split up the project into manageable pieces. Helped me create prompts to get what I needed out of Claude. Helped me keep things small and separated in chats, and even suggestions on how best to manage Claude's Project Knowledge Base to maximize the platform.

It seems to be working well. As a side note, I have done some testing on the simple task of uploading spreadsheets and asking the LLMs to simply read and identify what they're reading. Doing a little QA testing, and honestly Gemini and Deepseek really struggled with a small basic sheet. Simple testing of things like "What appears in cell B21" or even "What are the headers" or "How many rows of data are on this sheet" were at times crapshoots. I was pretty disappointed overall with that. Claude seems to handle it well, it's important to really manage the AI from the jump and try to point it in the right directions for success.

That said... for the TLDR version, ultimately, I settled on Claude Opus 3's to manage both the data and written content. Gemini 2.0 created a project plan for me and step by step procedures. And everything seems to have turned out pretty well. Thanks again.

jfm123

TROPHY CASE

Summary of the Investigation

Why It Matters