So, I’m my latest game, I’ve reached a point where realistically, conquering the world is pretty easy. It’s just a matter of winning the various wars with smaller realms. And my army outnumbers theirs so hugely that the only strategy involved is managing supply.
Maybe for other people, this micromanagement of my army to make sure they don’t starve to death is fun, but for me, I have no interest. War and combat, in general, is something I don’t have much interest in. I’m fairly content to ignore the battle mechanics entirely, and just based strategy on “bigger number wins”.
What I play this game for is the roleplay, so as I was dividing my army into smaller and smaller chunks, it made me realise: I’d be perfectly happy to just let the AI control my army and do all this supply management while I focused on activities. And from a roleplay perspective, it made total sense. Why was my character, who was at home planning a tournament, making decisions for an army on the literal other side of the world?
Making armies you aren’t commanding AI controlled would simultaneously provide opportunities for roleplaying characters who have no interest in being personally involved in war, and would also make martial education and lifestyle more valuable. Personally, for my playstyle, those traits are basically useless, because I don’t want to risk my character fighting in an army. But if the game required me to personally command my army for optimal strategy, then I would probably train my heirs in martial a lot more often.
Obviously, with how bad AI armies are at the moment, this would be pretty frustrating. But a couple of mechanics could fix that. For one, you could bring back the ability to give commands to AI armies: stuff like “siege this holding” or “follow this army” or “chase down this commander”. And you could make how the AI follows these objectives match their personality: a Brave character might choose to fight a battle they expect to lose, while a craven character might refuse to join a battle an ally is in until victory is assured. A patient character might wait for a holding to surrender, while an impatient one might assault. A vengeful character may ignore the bulk of an army to seek out a rival commander. This would make choosing the best commander for each objective a much more interesting choice from a roleplay perspective.

Item Name Set Number: Pac Man 10323
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The 2012 Election is taking shape in the Confederacy. The Conventions of the Dixiecrats and the Populists have wrapped up. Vincent K. McMahon will represent the Dixiecrats with Jeff Sessions as his running mate. On the Populist end, John McCain rides a surprising wave of popular support with Bill Nelson to try and redeem the image of the Populists.
It now comes down to the Farmers, and everyone attending the Convention believes this is the election where the Farmers finalize their decade-plus long comeback. The economic recession and shaky situation abroad has, to the Farmers, created the perfect storm to not only enter the Presidency again but also to push through other reforms. Even the last few years' controversies surrounding former Farmers Presidential candidate John Edwards can't seem to stop the Farmers' hype train.
And so the Farmers National Convention begins in New Orleans, Louisiana. Who do the delegates choose to carry the Farmers to the White House?

Senator Al Gore of Tennessee

The son of a prominent Confederate political family and current frontrunner in the election is the Senator Al Gore. A long-time environmentalist, Gore was actually on the shortlist for a cabinet position in the Clinton administration. It's believed that this is the reason Gore declined to run in 2006, out of respect for Edwin Edwards who was running as the Populist candidate. Gore has been a strong and stabilizing hand for the Farmers since the 80s, and has drawn comparisons with the legendary Confederate President Huey Long. Gore has been running on a plan of repealing the Israel embargo, strengthening the Confederate Social Security program, infrastructure spending, and environmentalist reforms to protect Confederate nature such as the Florida Everglades and Ozarks.
Some, however, see this as promising too much and shooting too high, and claim these ideals contradict each-other. Gore is also a known ally of former President Bill Clinton, which could hurt him somewhat if he isn't careful.

Senator James Webb of Virginia

Back from is Vice Presidential loss in 2006 is James Webb. As former Secretary of the Navy under President Jimmy Carter, and a current sitting Senator, and with a wealth of foreign policy experience, Webb is trailing only slightly behind Gore, and even coming ahead of him in the Deep South. Like Gore, Webb wants to repeal the Israeli embargo, but wants to pair this with pushing European allies to sanction Israel as well. He supports reforms to national veteran support systems, and his nature as a fighter makes him appeal to even the hawks across the Confederacy.
However, Webb walks the fine line between a fighter and a strongman. As well, his controversial statements about women, especially women in military service, could cost the Farmers the female vote. There's also a number of accusations from more conservative individuals across the Confederacy that he'll increase rights for black Confederates, but that affects all Farmers. It just affects him more than others.

Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana

The only woman in the Confederate race so far is Mary Landrieu, Senator from Louisiana. Unlike Gore or Webb, who are firmly on the Farmers' left-wing side, Landrieu is much more moderate, and willing to cross party lines, as evidenced by her work in the Common Ground Coalition in Congress. She adopts a few of Gore's environmental positions, endearing her to the Deep South, but also supports the current embargo and sanctions on Israel, instead proposing new trade agreements with India and Taiwan to make up the difference. Even her Internet sales tax proposals have gained significant ground. Not to mention that if she won the general election, she would be the first female Confederate President!
But Landrieu has been the target of a few criticisms. In particular, her record on environmentalism is mixed, and some believe she's adopting some of Gore's positions to simply gain votes, which she denies. She's also accused of being more socially conservative than either Gore or Webb, personally supporting same-sex marriage but also defending her own State's ban, which just leaves people confused.
And so it's turned over to the delegates. Who do the Farmers nominate for the Presidency?
View Poll

Hi.
Hope you’re doing well.
I’ll probably get downvoted a lot for this and I don’t mean to offend anyone and I’m not saying everyone who says they’re tired of superhero movies is wrong about over saturation of comic book movies because the number of movies and shows have increased exponentially since the MCU, but that’s not the point I’m making.
However, I genuinely believe, as stated in my title, that “superhero fatigue,” in my view, is a crutch used by people who either cannot/don’t want to have an intellectual discussion of why a movie underperforms.
I cannot speak for everyone and their circumstances, but I personally firmly believe if a movie - comic book or not - is well-made enough and of the highest standards that people will watch it regardless and that comic-book-movie saturation is a surface-level or even lame observation from people who don’t want to dig deeper. I’m sorry if I offend anyone with this view, but I’m just being honest.
Some MCU movies recently have been terrible by their standards and everyone got off the high of Phase 1-3 MCU which was so well mostly meticulously orchestrated years in advance. Many of the DCEU movies recently including Batman v Superman have undelivered and James Gunn has been brought in to rebuild it, but I don’t believe “superhero fatigue” is fundamentally the reason for that or even a major factor worth considering for that long. Sure, it could be fair to say for some people that they are fatigued, but if the movies were hot and extremely well-made, I don’t think most people would let “superhero fatigue” stop them from watching a masterpiece or just an awesome movie.
Basically, I believe quality will always win out and people will see a popular movie if it’s hot and their family and friends are gushing with praise and “superhero fatigue” only exists when a movie or consecutive movies are underwhelming.
Again, sorry if I’ve offended anyone who firmly believes in “superhero fatigue” but I invite you to share your views..
What are your thoughts on “superhero fatigue”?

I've been sitting on this for a little while now and I've hit the point where any questions I have about it I can't fully answer on my own. To make a long story short for a while I've wanted to simulate random bullet spread in this game to figure out how much of a difference it makes. Doing that in TF2 would be slow and have a ton of errors but if I could figure out how to simulate it externally, that would allow me to create extremely large amounts of data and test a lot of scenarios. The problem is I didn't understand how random bullet spread works, specifically what makes it random.
How does random spread work?
To figure that out first I looked at the code. Searching about this topic always lead me back to the same /truetf2 thread and this comment which links to TF2-Base and has this chunk of code:

 // Get circular gaussian spread. float x, y; x = RandomFloat( -0.5, 0.5 ) + RandomFloat( -0.5, 0.5 ); y = RandomFloat( -0.5, 0.5 ) + RandomFloat( -0.5, 0.5 ); 

This seemed useful because it at least implies they are handling the angles in x and y rather than using some other coordinates but it also raised some questions. If I assumed the function RandomFloat was gaussian, why are two calls being added together? I also wasn't sure if the arguments passed were limits being placed on it or something else. Digging further I got to this file with another relevant code block.

 //----------------------------------------------------------------------------- // A couple of convenience functions to access the library's global uniform stream //----------------------------------------------------------------------------- VSTDLIB_INTERFACE void RandomSeed( int iSeed ); VSTDLIB_INTERFACE float RandomFloat( float flMinVal = 0.0f, float flMaxVal = 1.0f ); VSTDLIB_INTERFACE float RandomFloatExp( float flMinVal = 0.0f, float flMaxVal = 1.0f, float flExponent = 1.0f ); VSTDLIB_INTERFACE int RandomInt( int iMinVal, int iMaxVal ); VSTDLIB_INTERFACE float RandomGaussianFloat( float flMean = 0.0f, float flStdDev = 1.0f ); 

Those two calls are to the uniform random variable function, not the gaussian function. From a quick google search I did find that this is a way to approximate gaussian distributions but with only two it should like basically like a triangle instead of a smooth gaussian. There are a few reasons I could think of why they did it this way but the important thing is they return values between -1 and 1, which implies the variables scale some other value.
Every tf2 weapon has a ctx file that holds variables about it and the shotgun has four, one for each class and they are basically identical. In each of those there is a variable named Spread with a value of 0.0675. That's far too small to be degrees but for radians it seems about right and implies that the random pellets from a shotgun can take a maximum angle of 0.0675 radians from center in x and y.
All of this would be relatively simple to simulate but I couldn't find hard numbers on the fixed spread pattern and wasn't sure the values even meant what I thought they did. TF2-Base as far as I'm aware isn't the actual code as well, so maybe whatever Valve has internally is different. So I decided to test it.
Experiment setup
I created a map that contained a single room with one wall textured with the solid blue dev texture. The bullet decals were all replaced with a small gradient so they were identical and easier to see compared to the default. On accident I also discovered that setting decals to 9 removes the single perfectly accurate shot, which is lucky because it simplified processing later.
To run the test I selected engineer and bound a single key that would shoot and call impulse 101 to reload. A python script would automatically send a keypress, wait for the recoil to settle, then take a screenshot (which was also cropped to just a small region the bullets could land in). I let this run for a couple hours and generated about 3,800 screenshots. I could have also toyed with the host timescale to speed up this process but I was worried it could possibly have other effects that might invalidate all of this.
Data Processing
Making the wall solid blue made processing the data very simple. At first I intended to make the decal red, but alpha weirdness I don't understand made them black. That meant all I had to do was select the blue channel and then invert the image so that all the decals went to the max value and the wall texture went to zero. This was passed to a function that can find local maxima and it would return the location of each pellet. I had also taken a single screenshot of the fixed spread pattern and another where I used the measure texture. These gave me a perfect center and a conversion to hammer units from pixels. From this data I converted back until I could determine the angles in x and y. Some shots did overlap and were lost but they shouldn't dramatically effect the end result.
An example of the screenshot, with the processed version next to it, and all of the bullet decals automatically is below.
https://i.redd.it/z3r2wcfmt83b1.png
Results
As expected, the maximum magnitude for the angles was about 0.065. Getting exactly 0.0675 would be unexpected because it is the least common value and there is going to be some error. A histogram below shows all of the angles I found:
https://i.redd.it/zwa01nqnu83b1.png
Unexpected Findings
This is where things started to get weird. I had created a scatter plot of each shot and after a while realized it didn't have enough points.
https://i.redd.it/u8utncwpv83b1.png
3,800 shots times 9 (with some losses) should be over 30,000 individual points easily. There should be overlap in the middle where they are closer to max probability but even then the center should be nearly colored in. As it turns out a lot pellets were landing in the same spots. Even stranger is that I was getting exactly repeated shots. The example shot from the first image occurred 23 times. I didn't test for any symmetries so it's possible those also occurred.
I've come up with a few theories on what is going on:

1. TF2 is using a table based random number generator. This is how Doom handled random numbers, at least partially for demo compatibility and it did have effects in game. Some weapons couldn't deal the maximum damage the gamecode implied elsewhere but can in sourceports that change how this work. Of the theories this one is the least likely, but it's not impossible.
   
2. The RNG used is bad. There are a bunch of ways to create bad RNG but unless it was a mistake I can't think of a reason why they would stick with it. A good RNG shouldn't have significantly more performance overhead.
   
3. New seeds are frequently generated from player input. Of the options this seems the most likely because if it is the case I created the worst possible scenario. There is only one player input occurring and since it is automated it should be almost exactly the same. There isn't mouse input that should be a good source for seeding, no real inconsistency in key press time, and there is nothing else that should be calling the RNG to help advance it. The other related possibility is that maybe calling impulse 101 or any of the other tweaks I made are causing an issue.
   
4. I screwed up in some other way I haven't thought of. This one I view as the second most likely explanation.
   

One of my reasons for sharing this now is that I am not sure how to figure out the correct results. I can think of some ways to test out option 3 but they would significantly complicate scripting and possibly require active input which would be tedious. If that is the reason I got weird repeats, the data would be useful in implying that the code is working the way I'm assuming it does.
The other reason for sharing is if it does turn out to be issue 2 or 1, that could imply other effects that I haven't tested. These things are unlikely to be noticed in game, but if we for example knew shotguns with random spread almost always put more pellets to the left of the crosshair that may be significant. Or it's option 4 and I can't find the problem on my own.
Below is a google drive folder that contains basically everything I used and another write up I need to edit. There are a lot of pictures you can view and a zip of them to download. There's also a spreadsheet containing all the shot locations that gives slightly different min and max values, probably due to differences in float precision and tangent calculations compared to how I actually did the analysis.
https://drive.google.com/drive1/folders/1vFadC98NJKTdTYBPiJVP2uDY7OOtt7_5
TLDR
I tested the random bullet spread in TF2. If I'm right random pellets can be a maximum of about 3.9 degrees off from a straight line down the crosshair. There was some weird stuff that could be a mistake that makes this all pointless, but it might be nothing or it might imply this game is even more broken than most of us assumed. If there are any source engine wizards out there I would love to get some feedback on what they think is going on.

I like Commander because I like to build for my Commander. That's the point, I imagine, but I have a deck or two that has multiple win cons. So they aren't 100% about the commander. I have this deck that I made while high, and I realized it doesn't need to use the commander at all. I chose it just to have my color combo. The whole deck works flawless (in theory) without ever even looking at the commander. I would never play this commander. Is that against some kind of rule?¹ I imagine there are plenty, plenty, of games where people don't throw their commander out for any number of reasons, but to just not have a single thing need your commander, never use it, on purpose?
¹oh- I don't mean official rule. I meant others, (tournaments?) is it weird? because obviously the only real rule about having your commander is all your colors must match it.

Been involved seriously on iRacing since November. After over 150 oval races, 3 wins, 42 top 5s and 6 poles I have a problem. When I'm on the verge to reack 2k iRating I start to getting involved in countless wrecks every race, mostly when I'm on to contend for the win or a top 5 result, and I go downhill to 1.3k. And I have to do all over again, it's like the third or fourth time that it happens. Lost countless wins because I get caught in wrecks and so on.
Should I have to quit ovals and accept the fact that I'm just not good enough to improve and is not meant to be? I'm quite annoyed about it.

I'm making this post by examining the Halo games as a whole and some of the EU as well but wanna make it brief since all of my posts are on mobile and I got no way of citing books/links unlike other brilliant posters here..
To me it sorta feels like the Halo Universe is in a time loop in some way. It always shows humans being the underdogs before slowly becoming technolgically superior to the other factions before getting MASSIVELY downgraded before doing it again. Examples?
Forerunners being the dominant species before Ancient Humanity slowly rises up and is cast down by the Flood and the Forerunners (I get that this is literally a plot element of the Forerunner trilogy and nothing more but still felt the need to mention it nonetheless)
Humanity becoming a spacefaring race and colonizing planets and systems before the Insurrection and the Covenant War bringing their efforts crashing down. (Again this is simply setting up the Universe and doesn't support my main point)
Now those two points are simply to help expand the universe that we all know and love. My main gripe with the Halo Universe is post Halo 3. We see an isolated story in Halo: CE with a lone UNSC ship attempting to hold their own against a Covenant armada. In Halo 2 and Halo 3, the universe is expanded upon and we see that humanity ain't exactly winning and is clearly on its last legs.
Halo 3 ends with the Covenant and Flood destroyed and humanity free to rebuild. Of course real-life empires don't break so cleanly that way and Halo is no exception but the various Covenant splinter cells posed no true threat to humanity unlike the original Covenant.
In Halo 4, we see humanitt becoming more superior and arrogant. Spartan IV's are becoming as mass produced as Spartan III's but the main difference between the two is superior armor that the IV's carry that is even better than what the Spartan II's had. The UNSC's new ship; the Infinity can literally tank head on collisions with Covenant ships, and the UNSC's weapons are becoming more and more advanced. We see that with factions like the Prometheans and the Didact still around, humanity still has a long way to go before they are "the giants" of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Halo 5 also expands on the idea of a more powerful humanity. With help from their new allies, the Swords of Sangheilios, humanity is beginning to apply Covenant tech to their weapons and vehicles, simple weapons like the Battle Rifle look far more sophisticated, and more vehicles are beginning to have energy shielding like the Mantis.
However, humanity's hubris is ultimately what kicks it down as the UNSC was never a match for the Forerunner's true might as while they were able to defeat the most powerful Foreunner twice, it doesn't mean it can defeat a whole faction of them (aka The Created)
Now there's always a lot of debate as to what Halo 5's original story was. Theories ranging from the main villains being the Didact or even ONI, I believe the end result is still the same. Humanity being shattered due to its fatal flaw of having too much pride. I believe the concept of having humanity crippling themselves this way is a good plot idea but only if applied right and here's where the problems begin.
Infinite has humanity defeating Cortana offscreen, and once again battling aliens in the form of The Banished. To me this feels annoying. While it does continue the broken humanity trope that Halo 5 introduced, it doesn't feel right. Rather than making Halo Infinite seem like the "Halo 3" of the Reclaimer Saga, it instead feels like the "Halo: CE" of the Reclaimer Saga due to throwing away any tropes that Halo 4 and 5 simply for the reason of making this game accessible for a new casual audience who's never played a Halo game before.
Any memory of humanity's former might? Gone. Instead introducing another isolated story in which humanity must fight against aliens simply due to the sole fact that "aliens bad, humans good". This really feels like a slap in the face and makes it feel like 343 doesn't really care about progressing the franchise's story at all. Halo will always have humanity fighting against some alien threat. Whether it be fallen gods who are zombies, or robot demigods, it's all the same thing. But this feels like 343 simply wants to please the section of the fanbase who only wants an epic story of humanity losing against aliens but slowly managing to win.
A comment I saw years ago highlights my point. You'd think that after seeing and suffering so much, humanity would be entitled to some type of reward. That reward could've come in the way of the Janus Key and the Absolute Record. What better way than to finally have humanity accend into the stars and become their former selves once more. But nope. Some people believe that this would make humanity too OP and the whole "aliens vs humans" trope would be meaningless if humanity is too strong now. With bad writing maybe those fans are right, but with good writing they're not. A story of seeing humanity cracking itself due to either shadowy groups like ONI or due their own Created AI's but finally ascend and become the top dog again would be amazing but most fans are content with seeing the same thing done over and over again.
The way the Banished are seen in Halo Infinite, they're almost like a red version of the Covenant. This might be me just nitpicking but the way the BR is designed in Infinite like the old games sorta proves my point. Sure you could blame that on in-universe lore but we all know the real reason the BR is designed that way. It's too appeal to a certain sector of fans.
From an out of universe perspective it does indeed feel like we're in a time loop. Everything from human vehicles like the Warthog using Covenant tech and Swords of Sangheilios allies is forgotten about in Halo Infinite. You can't tell me that getting Cortana killed offscreen was always the original idea of Infinite. 343 simply listened to fans' complaints and went back to basics. I simply decided to make this post in order to see what everyone else thinks.

This is an ongoing drama, one that won't stop until probably next year or even longer. But before I get into the details of the drama, let's talk about the background, and the important information to know...
TW: Sexual assault discussion mentioned about halfway.

Hockey? NHL? What the fuck are those?

Ice hockey is a sport where 6 very large, burly men put swords on their feet and glide around on ice against 6 other very large, burly men who also have sword-shoes. They carry a stick to whack around a hard little circle of rubber and each other (most often each other) with the goal of hitting that little rubber past another large burly man into a 6'x4' net. A game takes place over 3 periods of 20 minutes each, and whoever hits the rubber circle most often in the opponent's Warhammer gaming table sized net is the winner of the game. There are 82 games during the 'regular season', and then they compete in the 'playoffs' for the Stanley Cup, which is worth at least $5.
The National Hockey League, or the Ligue Nationale de Hockey if you hate everyone else in North America, is effectively the world's highest level of ice hockey. People all over the world spend their entire youth lives training to have a shot at being drafted by an NHL team, from Belarus to England, from Canada to Australia. There are other leagues in the world, but they are more or less for people who are shunned in the NHL for whatever reason, people who have retired from the NHL but still play hockey for whatever reason (Jaromir Jagr, I'm looking at you), or people who aren't good enough to play in the NHL but still good enough to be paid to play.
There are 32 teams in the NHL at the moment, but the most important teams for this story are:
1) Chicago Blackhawks: I'm going to go over the Blackhawks later in this post. It's...a lot.
2) Anaheim Ducks: A team that was originally owned by Disney based on the movie The Mighty Ducks. No, I'm not joking. They were founded in 1993 and have had some close calls with the Stanley Cup, but has never won it. They finished the 22-23 season with the worst record possible, and one of the worst records in NHL history.
3) Columbus Blue Jackets: They're young, having only existed since 2000. They've never been in the Stanley Cup finals, and have never really had a good season during their existence. They finished second to last.
4) Seattle Kraken: They're the newest team, being founded in 2021. They're actually not relevant at all to this post; they're my team and therefore am obligated to mention them.

Okay, so sword-feet and stick hitting rubber circle. What is this about 'draft'?

In order to make it to the NHL, you have to be drafted by an NHL team. Being drafted is similar to how people used to pick each other for teams during recess. You know, where you kept getting picked last. Except if you get drafted, you get a contract worth potentially millions of dollars.
The draft takes place over a series of rounds, where each team picks one person each (unless they traded their draft pick, but this isn't relevant). In the first round, the teams with the worst record draft first, all the way up to the team that won the Stanley Cup. Then in the second round, it counts down from Stanley Cup winner down to the worst, third round is from worst to best again, and so on until the draft is completed (Usually 7 rounds).
HOWEVER, there is a twist...

The Lottery

So in order to prevent teams from 'tanking', aka losing on purpose in order to get the best draft pick, the league came up with the Draft Lottery. After the season has ended, every team that didn't make the playoffs participates in the lottery. Whoever wins the lottery will jump up 10 spots in the draft. Teams who were worse during the season get higher odds. This year, the team with the best odds are the Anaheim Ducks, at 18.5% chance of winning, since they sucked hard and it wasn't even on purpose.

Okay, enough. Why is the 2023 draft important?

This year is one of the most important drafts in recent NHL history. The current highest-rated prospect is Connor Bedard. Bedard is...good. Like, really good. Like, really, REALLY good. Top NHL players are saying that Bedard already has the best shot release in hockey right now at least...and he's only like 17 years old. I won't go into it much further, but Connor Bedard is the type of player that can lead teams to the Stanley Cup by just being on the team. People are comparing him to Wayne Gretzky; if you need context for who that is, he's considered one of the best sports-people of all time out of all sports.

Side Show -- The Chicago Blackhawks, and Why Everyone Hates Them

The Blackhawks, which I'm going to call the Hawks, are an old team. They've been around since the 40s as one of the 'original six', teams that have been around since the modern NHL was a thing (well, not really, but it's not relevant). Yes, the NHL only had 6 teams until the 1960s, which is when they finally expanded into more markets, which then snowballed into what we have now (32 teams).
The Hawks have had...a rough recent history. They effectively had a dynasty for most of the 2010s, winning the Stanley Cup 3 times, and a lot of it had to do with their talent. Before the 2010s, the Hawks sucked. That is, until they drafted amazing players like Jonathan Toews (pronounced "taves", not "toes") and Patrick Kane, who helped boost them to the Stanley Cup in the 10's (They have since retired. This is important context.) These picks were already controversial; people like to claim that the NHL favors original six teams because they're massive markets, which means more butts-in-seats, which means more money. So the Blackhawks getting so many first round, top-3 picks was...suspicious to most.
But all of this is overshadowed by the sexual assault and subsequent cover up.
During the 2010 season, one of their cup-winning seasons, a player named Kyle Beach, was sexually assaulted by a member of the coaching staff. He brought it forward to the organization who did their best to make sure that the coaching staff was safe and sound. Kyle Beach never broke into the NHL aside from the 2010 season -- take that information for what it is. In 2021, Kyle Beach sued the Blackhawks for their mishandling. An independent investigation found that the Blackhawks knew about the sexual assault, and did nothing to the perpetrator. The perpetrator went on to commit more acts of sexual assault against young players.
The punishment that the Blackhawks faced? Nothing major. They were fined $2 million. Which...is basically nothing, considering they made $222 million that year. So, like...1%.
This punishment was a slap in the face to teams like the Arizona Coyotes, who lost draft picks (which means losing players that could turn their organization around) because of a much, MUCH less severe violation (In their case, the Coyotes were performing physicals on potential draftees before they were drafted, which is a violation of the NHL constitution). Other teams have lost players because of similar circumstances -- the first one that comes to mind is the Boston Bruins, who dropped a (potential) top player because it came to light he had hazed, abused, and hurled racial slurs at a black autistic player in the junior leagues.
Needless to say, this further fueled conspiracies that the Blackhawks were getting special treatment because of their status as an original six team, and how big the Chicago market is.
From the /hockey subreddit:

Didn't the NHL originally fine the Devils $3 million for the Kovalchuk stuff a decade ago? What a joke. [Context: Kovalchuk was a high-level player, and the Devils tried to do some sneaky-shady stuff in order to keep him.]
Coyotes lost high picks for getting extra physical data, Devils got fined $3m and two picks for cap circumvention, and we got fined $250k for calling out George Parros for being the joke he is. And all the Blackhawks get for covering up rape is a $2m fine?? What a fucking joke [Context: This is a Rangers fan, and the Rangers called out George Parros, leader of the Department of Player Safety, for doing nothing about player safety. They were fined $250k for making mean comments.]

It doesn't really help that Chicago fans have a poor reputation. In the NHL, Chicago fans have a reputation for being drunk fair-weather fans. Before 2010 Chicago had a rough time filling up their arena to half-way. During the 2010s? Sellout arena, every game. Going into the 2020s, when their team started sucking again, they're back to struggling filling seats.
So the hockey fandom in general doesn't really like Chicago, but how does this all tie into the 2023 Draft?

The Lottery (for real this time)

As mentioned before, the 2023 season was potentially a huge season for struggling teams like the Columbus Blue Jackets or the Anaheim Ducks. Getting Connor Bedard would turn around entire franchises, overnight.
Going into the draft, the heavy favorites to win the lottery were the Ducks at 18.5%, the Blue Jackets at 13.5%, and the Chicago Blackhawks at 11.5%. The other 13 teams had basically less than 10% odds.
The draft lottery was televised, and millions of people watched ESPN and TSN to see the results from all over the league. Top teams in the west were praying that the lottery winner would go to the Blue Jackets so they wouldn't have to face Bedard, and top teams in the east were praying the lottery pick would go to the west for the same reason. Everyone universally had the same sentiment though:

Anyone but Chicago.

The hosts go down the line to show the new draft lineup, starting from 16 and going down. Nothing seemed to change in the lineup; teams hoping for ajump up were sadly disappointed but knew they never really had a chance anyways.
The hosts get to the top 5. The reveal the 5th pick is...Montreal. Montreal fans speak French-Canadian sadly, or whatever it is Quebecois folk do.
The fourth pick is revealed. The San Jose Sharks. Sharks fans chomp sadly. Or drink their Starbucks sadly. Idk, I'm not rich enough to live in San Jose.
Then something curious happens. They cut to a commercial break, but the ESPN broadcasters say something very curious. "An upset for Columbus! It's down to Anaheim or Chicago!" Suspicion arises. The card for 3rd place wasn't revealed, how could they have known that Columbus was the 3rd pick? Conspiracy talk bumps up in the live Reddit thread. People were already saying that Chicago won the lottery. They just knew.

Nice of ESPN to state Columbus will pick 3rd before Daley ever even showed it and they went to commercials “It will be either Chicago or Anaheim”….
Elliotte Friedman tweeted out who got pick 1 and 2 during the commercial break. Said tweets have now been deleted.

The NHL lottery comes back on after commercials and reveal that CBJ wins the 3rd pick to no one's surprise. All that's left is two envelopes, one with a '2' the other with a '1'. They begin to open the '2' envelope. The hockey world goes silent, as whoever gets the 2 spot means that the other won the lottery...

The Worst Timeline

The worst-case-scenario happens. Chicago, universally hated in the hockey world, wins the draft lottery. Duck fans are outraged. Blue Jacket fans are outraged. Literally every fanbase is outraged.

hockey 9/11
why has god abandoned us
If you didn't think Chicago was getting Bedard here is your lesson of how fucked up the world is
Fuck this
Can't lose that media market now that Kane and Toews are gone!
Never forget that the Coyotes had to forfeit a first round pick for talking to a prospect before it was permitted, while Chicago protected a fucking rapist and got no reprecussions.
Coyotes: asks prospects what they ate and to wear shorts? Forfeit draft picks Blackhawks: cover up sexual assault and lie your asses off? Have a Bedard
Draft HoF talent 1st overall -> Go on a dynasty and win 3 cups -> Trade HoF 1st overall -> Draft another HoF talent 1st overall.
He went to the least deserving team.

Individual team subreddits were no better. Every fan from every team, aside from Chicago, were seething and chomping at the bit. There is an ongoing conspiracy about the NHL favoring Chicago now, and people are actively calling for the NHL commissioner's resignation.

Living in a Post-Apocalypse Wasteland

It's been barely a month since the bomb dropped. Food is hard to come by. Hope is lost. People fight each other for the barest scraps of undamaged cloth to keep warm at night since the sun was blacked out.
We don't know what will happen. Life is moving on, but is it really life if there's no will to live?
In seriousness, no one wanted this outcome. Even some Hawks fans hated this. It's hard to say what will happen to the NHL now. Some people are saying that Connor Bedard will get drafted and refuse to play for the Blackhawks, demanding to be traded. Some say he'll disappear to Europe and play in the Swedish league or the KHL to avoid the Blackhawks contract. Others say he'll be a fool to avoid the NHL and just take what he's got, and demand a trade later.
No one knows what Connor Bedard is thinking. He's not really said anything. But we do know that the world of hockey has been shaken to its core. If Bedard plays, Chicago will be a force to be reckoned with for years. If he avoids Chicago, it'll be a legendary act of defiance that will 100% cause the NHL to invent a rule to prevent that from happen again.
But for now, I must return to my fallout shelter. It's not healthy to stand in the radiation for too long.

People are going to be very quick to blame the offense for the Mariner's mishaps, but the pitching has also been somewhat of an issue.
I have many times posted about the magic number being 4 for the Mariners. Allow 4 or more runs they lose 87% of games. Less than that they win around 75%. Asking your starting pitching and bullpen to hold teams to 3 runs is a tall order.
3 runs or you lose sounds like an offensive issue but in games where they allow more than 4 runs the Mariners on average allow 7.5 runs. That is sounds to me more like a pitching problem than hitting.
This is not to excuse the mariners dreadful offense that needs to get better, but they are not solely to blame for how bad we look.
For those wondering in games allowing 3 or less the average runs allowed is 1.6 and the offense as a whole scores about 4.5.

hello to every one of you, Hello, my name is Noam, and I am hoping that you might be able to help me locate an old game that I used to play around four years ago. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please let me know. On a daily basis, up until the point that the game was taken off of Origin, I played it. During that short period, it could still be purchased through Origin. I do not remember what the name of the game was, but I do remember that it was a strategic game in which two teams competed against one another to see who could take control of the other base first. I am unable to recall the precise number of maps that were available, but based on my best guess, there could have been anywhere from one to three of them. There was a points meter at the very top of my screen; the winning team would be the one with the most percentage. In the middle of the map, there was a powerful dinosaur or miniboss that, if you defeated it, would award you with additional points. If you did this, you would have an advantage over the competition. There were no skins, but there were characters that you could switch between. however, I cannot recall whether or not each of these characters had a unique set of abilities. The area that you needed to capture was shaped like a circle. The longer you stayed on the enemy point, the bigger your percentage of success. I seem to recall that it was a rather tiny area. robots that spawned in my base always walked in a line towards the enemy base, and they were not very powerful because whenever they came across an enemy on their way or rather an enemy base they would stop and start shooting with no so much impact. I will be grateful if you can recreate it. Please think of any game and thank you.

Now that we know the contenders for the Ninth Round, I'll try to give my prediction on the final result of this match, immediately realizing that it wasn't easy to choose at all, indeed it was really difficult...
​
So, let's start immediately with a premise: this is the most difficult match ever to predict so far.
Even more than the Seventh Round in my opinion, given that we still had the last Chinese on the field there and, with the first one having lost, it was unthinkable that they would have also made the second one lose by playing for the Chinese market, given that the Chinese see these things…
Here instead, in addition to a situation in perfect equality where you can go in both directions without problems, we have two Greeks, which means that however it goes, one Greek will lose and another will win…
And no, this time no draw: the Greeks have only one victory, let's give them this too come on.
But now I analyze both contenders, trying to say which are the points that go in their favor for the victory of this Round.
Starting with the God, Apollo is the last Greek God to take the field, and therefore the last chance of the pantheon to have a victory, and he fights in a situation where the Gods must regain the lead of the score, something they haven't since the Fifth Rounds in practice. In addition to this, Brunhilde defined Leonidas as a "certain victory", and when they say so the contender is destined to lose, furthermore there is also the precedent of the Sixth Round where those who wanted revenge lost the challenge in the end... finally one of his victory would mean that one of Anubis or Susano'o will lose, and I'm not a little interested…
Moving on to the Human, Leonidas is probably the most anticipated warrior after Simo Hayha in general, and it was certainly a surprise to find him fighting immediately in the Ninth Round rather than towards the end as we thought. Apart from this though, on his side we have that Brunhilde has seriously considered him to face Poseidon (who technically should be stronger than Apollo), that we don't know his Volundr yet (and the only precedent is with Jack, and we all know how that match ended), that he is carrying on Tesla's concept of moving forward (since he has evolved his military tactics with modern ones), that if he wins it means that both Anubis and Susano'o they will win their matches, and being respectively the only African and the only Shinto on the roster it would make sense… and finally that when Brunhilde chooses a counter for a specific God that Human wins (three out of four Human wins are counters).
As you have seen, both have excellent arguments to win this match, where he is the only one on which I count on one of the two to win 100% to give at least one last satisfaction to the Greeks, the problem is only who I choose since I have to go on my stomach…
But I've been thinking about it these days, and in the end I've decided that, if I have to go on my stomach, then I might as well bet on the warrior I was waiting for most in Ragnarok, namely Leonidas!!!
Accordingly here is my bet for the outcome of Round Ninth:
​
Round Ninth: King Leonidas vs Apollo = King Leonidas
​
I say that Leonidas will win at this point, but if Apollo were to win in the end I wouldn't complain about it, on the contrary if Apollo had an excellent character development I would accept it with open arms... thus, among other things, the chances of victory for Simo and of defeat for one between Anubis and Susano'o they would increase.
I know very well that if Leonidas wins and the Humans take the lead again with points, the chances that the Gods win Ragnarok increase by 95%, but okay, just to see Leonidas win his match I can accept to see the Gods win Ragnarok... as long as Simo wins the other victorious match missing from the Humans, of course.
​
So ok, the only thing I can do is go on my stomach, and consequently come on Leonidas!!!
​
https://preview.redd.it/xfur4ea3cv3b1.png?width=1338&format=png&auto=webp&s=12060d9b015f517e87030ad6f9c8943b5cf6d531

hello to every one of you, Hello, my name is Noam, and I am hoping that you might be able to help me locate an old game that I used to play around four years ago. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please let me know. On a daily basis, up until the point that the game was taken off of Origin, I played it. During that short period, it could still be purchased through Origin. I do not remember what the name of the game was, but I do remember that it was a strategic game in which two teams competed against one another to see who could take control of the other base first. I am unable to recall the precise number of maps that were available, but based on my best guess, there could have been anywhere from one to three of them. There was a points meter at the very top of my screen; the winning team would be the one with the most percentage. In the middle of the map, there was a powerful dinosaur or miniboss that, if you defeated it, would award you with additional points. If you did this, you would have an advantage over the competition. There were no kinns, but there were characters that you could switch between. however, I cannot recall whether or not each of these characters had a unique set of abilities. The area that you needed to capture was shaped like a circle. The longer you stayed on the enemy point, the bigger your percentage of success. I seem to recall that it was a rather tiny area. robots that spawned in my base always walked in a line towards the enemy base,and they were not very powerful because whenever thay came across an enemy on their way or rather an enemy base robots they would stop and start shooting with no so much impact. I will be grateful if you can recreate it.
Please think of any game and thank you.

So I know some halfway similar ideas are out there, but hear me out! Gist : A platform that allows dealers to bid on cars, from the PUBLIC. Business Model: Convince dealerships in a local area to pay 2k a month (give or take) to be on the platform to bid on said cars (say 10 or so dealerships). They are guaranteed to bid on at least 50 vehicles + or - every month. I said bid, not buy. + possibly a buy fee per vehicle, which I will explain later on. The dealership would get a refund if we don't hit the quota for number of cars to bid on that month. Keep in mind this model is for the public, not a auction. What's in it for the seller? They (everyday people) take pictures of car, vin, brief description and status of car. The system (based on KBB or whatever) gives them a instant general quote range to expect. Once inputted the company would then submit the car to the private bidding page (with our paying dealers) and bid eachother out for (x) hours. Then, within x business days and or hours you call / text the guaranteed quote to the consumer (assuming the car is what they said it was) and they have x hours to accept before having to re submit. If they purchase, a person from the businesses team will meet to pick up the car, complete a short inspection / drive, and hand the seller cash. Thats It! The seller wins (not having to deal with people, as well as getting a check delivered to them) as well as the dealer. All they have to do is bid. The car company deals with finding people to input there cars, dealing with all paperwork, and delivers it straight to the dealer. The buy fee per vehicle I stated earlier would be for the software company to pick up the cars. Something along the lines of $300 fee on top of purchase to cover towing? Problems I haven't worked out / thought of 1. The status of the car. How do you cover each end if the car is not what the seller said it is once the dealer receives it? (as simple as dents to a bad tranny?) 2. How the company with the software pays the seller. Pick up a check from the winning bid dealer? Any ideas there? 3. If the car isn't paid off. Quick math: 10 dealers @ 2k/ month = 20k/ month or 240k / year revenue. + buy fee of $100-800? per car Company Costs: Website / software startup Sourcing everyday people to post on the website for the dealers (30-100 a month?) Picking up / paying customer / delivering to dealership. Another backend cost I could see picking up on is for wholesalers. They pay (x) per month to run there cars through the site. Would have to be careful who we let through with that and vet very well though. This would help guarantee the 50 cars a month they can bid on, but I could see this becoming a problem for 1 reason. Wholesalers would start posting cars they don't own yet to bid them out before buying to know what they can get out of it ahead of time (smart on there end), but on the backend you will have dealers bidding hundreds of cars and possibly winning not enough to be worthwhile. I AM STILL IN THE BRAINSTORMING STAGE PLEASE GIVE ANY INFORMATION (WHICH IS A LOT) THAT I HAVE NOT THOUGHT OF THAT COULD BE GOOD / A PROBLEM. TIA!

So I know some halfway similar ideas are out there, but hear me out! Gist : A platform that allows dealers to bid on cars, from the PUBLIC. Business Model: Convince dealerships in a local area to pay 2k a month (give or take) to be on the platform to bid on said cars (say 10 or so dealerships). They are guaranteed to bid on at least 50 vehicles + or - every month. I said bid, not buy. + possibly a buy fee per vehicle, which I will explain later on. The dealership would get a refund if we don't hit the quota for number of cars to bid on that month. Keep in mind this model is for the public, not a auction. What's in it for the seller? They (everyday people) take pictures of car, vin, brief description and status of car. The system (based on KBB or whatever) gives them a instant general quote range to expect. Once inputted the company would then submit the car to the private bidding page (with our paying dealers) and bid eachother out for (x) hours. Then, within x business days and or hours you call / text the guaranteed quote to the consumer (assuming the car is what they said it was) and they have x hours to accept before having to re submit. If they purchase, a person from the businesses team will meet to pick up the car, complete a short inspection / drive, and hand the seller cash. Thats It! The seller wins (not having to deal with people, as well as getting a check delivered to them) as well as the dealer. All they have to do is bid. The car company deals with finding people to input there cars, dealing with all paperwork, and delivers it straight to the dealer. The buy fee per vehicle I stated earlier would be for the software company to pick up the cars. Something along the lines of $300 fee on top of purchase to cover towing? Problems I haven't worked out / thought of 1. The status of the car. How do you cover each end if the car is not what the seller said it is once the dealer receives it? (as simple as dents to a bad tranny?) 2. How the company with the software pays the seller. Pick up a check from the winning bid dealer? Any ideas there? 3. If the car isn't paid off. Quick math: 10 dealers @ 2k/ month = 20k/ month or 240k / year revenue. + buy fee of $100-800? per car Company Costs: Website / software startup Sourcing everyday people to post on the website for the dealers (30-100 a month?) Picking up / paying customer / delivering to dealership. Another backend cost I could see picking up on is for wholesalers. They pay (x) per month to run there cars through the site. Would have to be careful who we let through with that and vet very well though. This would help guarantee the 50 cars a month they can bid on, but I could see this becoming a problem for 1 reason. Wholesalers would start posting cars they don't own yet to bid them out before buying to know what they can get out of it ahead of time (smart on there end), but on the backend you will have dealers bidding hundreds of cars and possibly winning not enough to be worthwhile. I AM STILL IN THE BRAINSTORMING STAGE PLEASE GIVE ANY INFORMATION (WHICH IS A LOT) THAT I HAVE NOT THOUGHT OF THAT COULD BE GOOD / A PROBLEM. TIA!

So I know some halfway similar ideas are out there, but hear me out!
Gist : A platform that allows dealers to bid on cars, from the PUBLIC.
Business Model:
Convince dealerships in a local area to pay 2k a month (give or take) to be on the platform to bid on said cars (say 10 or so dealerships). They are guaranteed to bid on at least 50 vehicles + or - every month. I said bid, not buy. + possibly a buy fee per vehicle, which I will explain later on. The dealership would get a refund if we don't hit the quota for number of cars to bid on that month.
Keep in mind this model is for the public, not a auction. What's in it for the seller? They (everyday people) take pictures of car, vin, brief description and status of car. The system (based on KBB or whatever) gives them a instant general quote range to expect. Once inputted the company would then submit the car to the private bidding page (with our paying dealers) and bid eachother out for (x) hours. Then, within x business days and or hours you call / text the guaranteed quote to the consumer (assuming the car is what they said it was) and they have x hours to accept before having to re submit. If they purchase, a person from the businesses team will meet to pick up the car, complete a short inspection / drive, and hand the seller cash. Thats It! The seller wins (not having to deal with people, as well as getting a check delivered to them) as well as the dealer. All they have to do is bid. The car company deals with finding people to input there cars, dealing with all paperwork, and delivers it straight to the dealer. The buy fee per vehicle I stated earlier would be for the software company to pick up the cars. Something along the lines of $300 fee on top of purchase to cover towing?
Problems I haven't worked out / thought of

1. The status of the car. How do you cover each end if the car is not what the seller said it is once the dealer receives it? (as simple as dents to a bad tranny?)
2. How the company with the software pays the seller. Pick up a check from the winning bid dealer? Any ideas there?
3. If the car isn't paid off.

Quick math:
10 dealers @ 2k/ month = 20k/ month or 240k / year revenue.
+ buy fee of $100-800? per car
Company Costs:
Website / software startup
Sourcing everyday people to post on the website for the dealers (30-100 a month?)
Picking up / paying customer / delivering to dealership.
​
Another backend cost I could see picking up on is for wholesalers. They pay (x) per month to run there cars through the site. Would have to be careful who we let through with that and vet very well though. This would help guarantee the 50 cars a month they can bid on, but I could see this becoming a problem for 1 reason. Wholesalers would start posting cars they don't own yet to bid them out before buying to know what they can get out of it ahead of time (smart on there end), but on the backend you will have dealers bidding hundreds of cars and possibly winning not enough to be worthwhile.
​
I AM STILL IN THE BRAINSTORMING STAGE PLEASE GIVE ANY INFORMATION (WHICH IS A LOT) THAT I HAVE NOT THOUGHT OF THAT COULD BE GOOD / A PROBLEM. TIA!

For context, I'm a 5 UTNTRP 3.5-4.0 (computer rated 3.5 but play 4.0 every now and again — hopefully getting bumped in December). I haven't lost a match against any 4 UTRs or lower in over a year and win about 50% of my matches against 5 UTRs. I win about 80% of 3.5 singles matches and about 50% at 4.0. However, I still have a problem with playing to my opponent's level. For example, I played a 2 UTR earlier today and only won by 6-3 6-4 because I could not motivate myself to play at the same intensity I play against players closer to my level. As a result, my footwork suffers and I make UEs I don't make against higher-level players.
How do y'all handle this? I think it's holding me back from getting to that 6 UTR level. I also don't want it to come across like I'm disrespecting my opponent and am just playing how I actually play.