Jump to content

boilerhorn

Certifiably Surly
  • Posts

    745
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by boilerhorn

  1. What @South Austin said... Some of the NIL providers are being set up as charities. As we know, properly formed charities can result in significant tax benefits for the donors. If it is done correctly, the monies a charity grants can also avoid taxation. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/private-foundations/grants-to-individuals https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/private-foundations/advance-approval-of-grant-making-procedures So, there is a process. However, it seems risky... Disclaimer: not a tax attorney or tax expert, for that matter... If Aggy or others are dropping bags of cash on folks (5-6 figures), the FBI will eventually say something. Enough reasonably sized cash withdrawals (even if under $10k CTR limit) will get flagged by the bank's anti-money laundering protocols. Even if they had 1000 folks drop $5000 for the "pool," flags would be raised eventually. How do they store/protect the money? (Walter White might know.). Even if it is well orchestrated (multiple pools), there will still be issues. Previously lower income, lower wealth folks with pockets full of cash will eventually raise eyebrows. Do you give a guy $100k and ask that he only spend $600 per day - to keep a low profile? The IRS and FBI want to eliminate all cash transactions. It makes their jobs/lives easier - they can track everything. I see them going after the bag-men operations before properly established NIL entities.
  2. https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/beijing-winter-olympics-02-16-22-spt/h_d65d9e45e8171fb272b3c7d39b7d73b8 "The picture it paints is, you've got a 15-year-old. Does she have the wherewithal and the knowledge and the financial resources to find two drugs ... to use to increase endurance reduce fatigue? It's clear there was an effort to use substances and drugs to increase performance," Tygart added. "I don't think for a second this young athlete had the financial resources or knowledge to take these three substances to increase performance, or where to even get these three substances." That's an insult to 15 year olds everywhere. A short (not really) while back, when I was that age, 15 year olds seeking a various assortment of performance enhancing drugs (mostly booze and sometimes pot) had absolutely no problem procuring said items. They had the knowledge and the financial resources. The attorney who said that shit above is a moron. A simple google search yields the following: Hypoxen - 30 ct: $34.15 (coincidence or irony that the box has russian labeling?) https://pillbuys.com/shop/hypoxen L-carnitine - same site ~$30 for 10 pack trimetazidine - again, same site as above: 60 ct. for $22 Perhaps the entire "pillbuys" site was set up as a joke. OR - the shit is easy to find if you want it. Perhaps Valieva really is the victim here. Or, perhaps she started taking these drugs and her performance skyrocketed and she said, "sign me up." 15 year olds find booze fascinating and say, "sign me up!"
  3. If Billy Gillespie had been that loyal to his driver at Kentucky, he'd still be the coach there. Maybe.
  4. I think everyone is overthinking this. If you look at the team Durant had already drafted, there really was no need to add Harden. Hell, I'd draft Gobert over Harden, as I know Gobert will pass up a 1-on-3 shot for an open pass. If nothing else, it reunites Harden with Chris Paul - the unintentional comedy level is very high. Shit, I am looking at the All-Star roster that Durant created. I am hard-pressed to find anyone who I would trade for Harden to "start my team from scratch." Durant's team: Embiid, morant, Tatum, Young, Wiggins, Booker, Towns, LaVine, Murray, Middleton, LaMelo Ball, Gobert.
  5. excerpt summary: he is older, fatter, slower and his signature move doesn't work any more. Well, the same could apply for almost all of us. Welcome to the club, James. Give that fat old guy a break
  6. Hard to disagree with those, but that does include the luxury of hindsight. Mayock's pre-draft rankings had Watt at 35 and Charlton at 49. https://www.nfl.com/news/mike-mayock-s-2017-nfl-draft-top-100-prospect-rankings-0ap3000000802568 PFF had Watt at 41 and Charlton at28 https://www.pff.com/news/draft-final-pff-draft-board-top-250-prospects-of-2017 Sporting News had Watt at 68 and Charlton at 32. https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/news/nfl-draft-2017-big-board-top-100-players-prospects-mock/2tcp8ji48gg11lqoicxk25kdb Watt was not ranked above 32 in any pre-draft review I can find. No one projected Watt as a DPOY-level prospect. Zeke over Ramsey was a bad choice. Mayock had Ramsey at 2. ESPN had him at 3. BR's Miller: 1. SBNation: 3. PFF: 3. It may have existed, but I could not find a site that claimed Zeke > Ramsey. Rule of thumb is that you always take the shutdown corner over a just about anything, esp. an RB. Selecting Ramsey in Round 1 would have availed Dallas the possibility of grabbing Henry in the 2nd round. Can you imagine a draft of Ramsey, Henry, and Dak?
  7. Congrats, sir! This is quite awesome and you should be proud (as I suspect you are)!
  8. Collective intelligence increased at both USC and FAU.
  9. Fwiw - that is one of the real ones @EastTexan
  10. Most of my complaints about it have been mentioned before, but I'll reiterate... Poor casting Poor directing Poor character development So-so writing I considered the possibility of doing it as a series. I might have worked if someone like Jon Favreau was the writer and/or director. It would have pushed them into a different dimension relative to funding of talent, too. Rather than a ton of recognizable actors, they cast with talented lesser-knowns. In the same vein, when considering a series, I lamented, "Holy crap, I cannot imagine dragging this out to 10 episodes." However, different writers, directors, and actors would have made it more consumable. Moreover, you only have to suffer through 45-50 minutes on a "weak" episode. The worst of the Mandolorian or Boba Fett episodes provided character development value, context value, etc. Each Eternals episode could have had a standalone thought/idea as needed. At some point, someone inside Disney gave the green light to a 2+ hour theatrical release. At that point, they established an acting budget and target cast that would appeal to darn near every demographic. Gemma Chan is an attractive person and has performed well in other roles, but she was stiff and uninspiring here. Jolie is an overrated actress and just did not seem to fit. As noted, Madden as Ikarus - meh. Nanjiani - with each smile/smirk I saw Silicon Valley. (BTW - he is cast in the upcoming Obi Wan Kenobi seris). I do believe it opens up another door in MCU and could be the springboard for some new/different storylines. Let's hope they clean it up a bit and do a better job at casting and directing.
  11. Understood. I was focusing more on the idea of CS + Cyber focus/certificate at Purdue versus a Cybersecurity degree from the Polytech college at Purdue. Fwiw, the certificates in the CS department are really just confirmation that the student took 3-4 CS classes with specific focus.
  12. Purdue has a really strong CS department, but be 100% sure you understand what degree is being sought in cyber security. Similar to UT, Purdue CS has a CS degree with a security track. My oldest did CS at UT and got the security certificate. Purdue offers a cybersecurity degree through its Polytechnic Institute. Purdue has a "T" counterpart to just about every engineering major they offer - in the Polytech Institute (which was not called that when I attended many years ago). I studied EE (ECE) while at Purdue and there was also an EET major. There was almost zero crossover or interaction between EE and EET majors. EE was far more theoretical and far more mathematically and fundamentally rigorous than EET. Moreover, EET was far more application oriented. In some ways the EE is to EET what CS is to MIS. It's as close a comparison as I can easily muster. Here is a link to a Cyber Security major offered in the Polytech side: https://polytechnic.purdue.edu/degrees/cybersecurity The ranking reference is a little misleading, IMO, as I cannot see how this specific degree (from the "T" school) would rank above a Michigan CS degree in anything. A security certificate from the Purdue CS department? Yes. If your student was planning CS at a top school like UT or Purdue and is interested in cyber security, I'd be cautious about the above path. It will be far more of an applied role. Most security oriented courses in a CS department will focus more on the mathematics, algorithms, crypto, etc. There will be classes where you will need to use C or assembly code to hack weak operating systems (via buffer overflows, etc.). The "T" option would not have that. Another interesting note: both Purdue's and Texas's CS departments are part of the Science Colleges and were initially offshoots of the Math departments. As for West Lafayette, it's not the most cosmopolitan place in the world, but it has come a long way in the past 30+ years. Plus it's 60 miles from Indianapolis and 120 miles from Chicago. Not that you want your kid driving to Chicago every weekend
  13. Pete Rose says, "Hi. Don't change the channel." "Set to graduate in May" is not exactly a ringing endorsement. I may be reading too much into it, but he could be an academic risk.
  14. And part of what makes Belichick and Saban great is their willingness to take swift corrective action. They are performance and results driven. BoB, Valai, etc. did not produce the requisite results - bye!
  15. If I were king (I will not be), it's an 8-team playoff with the following constraints: P5 conference winners are in 3 top ranked "other" teams are in. 2 teams per conference max From that, we'd see 1: SEC: Bama 2: B1G: Michigan 3: Big12: Ok St 4: Pac: Utah 5: ACC: Pitt 6: At large 1: UGA 7: At large 2: Cincy 8: At Large 3: Notre Dame You only augment the seedings to make sure that 2 teams from same conference do not meet in round 1. IMO, the only reason for the 4 team playoff is to manage ire if/when BCS selects 2 teams from same conference. Oh, and money.
  16. Agree with @Murfdogg21 that NIL will not bring parity. It will enable teams meeting the following criteria to enter the arms race: huge alumni base wealthy alumni base - with money "sitting on the sidelines" administrations willing to follow/enforce the rules In general, NIL benefits Texas, Notre Dame, Michigan - and there may be others. To a lesser extent, it benefits Oregon and USC; they've violated the spirit and the letter of the law for some time, but have enough resources to accelerate their payment game. The reason UGA and Bama want NIL to be constrained and/or managed is that they realize their alumni bases do not have infinite funds - and the proud donor base has already been paying. We are in the early days of NIL and the largest funds are coming from money that has been sitting on the sidelines. At what point do donors start to assess the ROI of these investments? At what point does NIL impact a donor's willingness to fund football/athletics operations? Capital projects and coach salaries could be impacted. What could blow up NIL and college football as we know it? Bezos dropping $1B to make Princeton a D1 power or Musk dropping the same at Penn. Because they are in the Ivy league, it is unlikely. However, what if Jerry Jones, Rob Walton, and Jim Walton decided to endow the Arkansas football program? In total, they are worth $130B (Jerry's the poor one at $10B net worth). Again, it is unlikely, but Jerry might be willing to do it for his ego. @WBT said, "It's almost like ESPN's drive to make college football a regional sport (in a low population, low income region at that) is bad for business." When you look at the present outcome, that model is mind-boggling. I think they were following the NASCAR model. Also regional and in similar regions, (at one time) fans spent more of their disposable income on NASCAR than any other sport. However, NASCAR has parity.
  17. Poor guy's dick has a toenail.
  18. He is talking so much that it has almost become white noise for me.
  19. In 1987, auto-admit was 1100 or top-quarter. If you were willing to take 2 summer school classes and get Bs, you were also in. SAT and ACT have become big business these days. They want you to take the test multiple times, buy their review materials, buy tutorials, etc. The SAT has been redesigned many times over the years. Aside from the 1600 -> 2400 -> 1600 scoring changes, the most profound change occurred in 2017, which resulted in average scores rising by about 40-50 points. Now, Johnny Average feels smarter than his also average older sibling. This is a good article charting the data: https://blog.prepscholar.com/average-sat-scores-over-time
  20. Of the drive-thru burger places we've mentioned, I think PTerry's is near the top. @Harvdog did a really good assessment of Hop Doddy. For what it's worth, Larry Foles (Nick Foles's father) was one of the "innovators" behind Hop Doddy. Larry is one of the principals in "Guy And Larry Restaurants" and their portfolio includes Salty Sow and Roaring Fork (among others). The burgers at Roaring Fork are quite good...
  21. I'll add to the fray here. I will not drop a burger place if the fries are shit. I'll just not order them again. Mighty Fine is well above average and consistent at that. Not exactly "fast food" though. I like Phil's, especially the Jollyville burger - french toast bun Dan's (or Fran's) is a great burger. HopDoddy is asymptotically approaching mediocre. The first few times was good and it has gotten less compelling each time. One of my kids ordered a burger "plain" from them. It was extremely unimpressive. And - premium pricing... In the 80s and early 90s, Fuddruckers and Chilis had high quality (and quantity) burgers. The ingredient quality fell off a cliff about 10-15 years ago. Fuddruckers had VERY good buns - and of course the pump jalapeno cheese. Whataburger has fallen off lately. The food quality has dropped. The service has suffered. I no longer seek it out. I liked Jewboy, but I do not view it as the transcendent burger that others do. First had In N Out in SoCal. First visit was OK. Second visit sucked. Will not give them my business again. If I recall correctly, PTerry's was modeled after In N Out after the Terry's tried to get In N Out to franchise in Texas. It's better than In N Out. Large nationals like Burger King, McDonalds, Hardees, Jack, etc. are typically at the bottom of the list for me. Their only advantage: reasonably predictable floor. They'll be mediocre to poor, but seldom worse than expected. Seldom better, too.
  22. Carriker's take is interesting: cautiously optimistic. "Thompson chose Nebraska over [lists all the names Charles floated to the media]." "It's a QB competition. Gotta be open." Coming from Texas, son of OU QB - "Am I the only that feels like we might getting kamikze'd here? ... Let's take Barry Switzer's son..." Hilarious. Recurring comments about "waiting his turn to play" are interesting. Seniority should not be a criterion [or only one of many, many more] for whether he should play. We'd scrutinized Brown for years when he used that approach. Casey was waiting because Ehlinger was better. He was QB2 (or 1b) to start this year because - heading out of camp - Card was better. "Politics" to Charles Thompson is really him disliking Sark's merit approach vs. a seniority approach. I appreciate what he did while he was here and wish him no ill will - not that he would give a darn anyway Hook Em
  23. Are there any specific concrete examples you can share w/o violating confidences, etc? I've heard comments about arrogance, poor effort, and lack of background study. There were reasons Card was named the starter at the beginning of the season and I have to believe they were more meaningful and sophisticated than, "everything being equal, start the young guy."
  24. FIFY. Imagine one of Eddie Reese's swimmers pulling any of the crap AB pulled. Goodbye! [edited for clarity]
×
×
  • Create New...