28 Jul
Via the Mountain Goats’ website, Mountain Goats new album, Life of the World to Come, will be out 6 October. The tracks are named after verses from the Holy Bible. The debut track is Genesis 3:23 (”So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.”)
Genesis 3:23 by Mountain Goats
Also new (to me, at least), is Chad VanGaalen who, unlike Mountain Goats, is a total stranger. This song, Willow Tree, however, has my attention (h/t to StG for this):
Willow Tree by Chad VanGaalen
Until next time, babies.
28 Jul
Phuture Phillies is hosting a regular column written by Clearwater Threshers closer Michael Schwimer. His latest entry talks about evaluating performance using new technologies:
Sabermetrics is the first piece of baseballs statistical revolution, but most of its new stats (FIP, OPS, BsR etc) are simply a combination of old stats. My vision is to move one step closer by creating brand new stats based on the results that technology and innovative cameras can provide.
Schwimer is correct, largely, and what stats exist from new technology remain somewhat esoteric (what it means to be +20 in Dewan’s system is a mystery to me). What I’d like to see, as far as new stuff, is Distance Traveled. Using cameras and whatever else, calculate how far the fielder had to travel to field the ball, and how quickly he had to do it. The stat would have several pieces of information:
- Starting location of fielder (point A)
- End location (location the catch was made/grounder picked up) (point B)
- Distance from point A to B (on a straight line)
- Distance traveled (since it’s unlikely the fielder traveled in a straight path)
- Time elapsed
With some bonus information about the fielder traveling, say, 30 feet, then camping in one spot and catching a popup. Basically, I want to see some numbers about how good a player’s jump is, how good their routes to the balls are, and how much their speed is helping them.
27 Jul
When my fiance, Katie, was in college, and I had a numbing office job, she would send me her papers which I would happily edit because her efforts to gain a Bachelor’s in political science out-gained my interest in the mortgage industry. Katie was a rigorous researcher, and her distended papers reflected the growth of her education within the confines of page or word limits. Her sentences, especially in the opening paragraphs, wound long and twisted through multiple clauses and ideas. My primary job was to edit for clarity and consistency, because I did not possess the education to edit for facts. The first five pages of a 15 page essay bled red, and the 10 pages to follow displayed somewhat more monochromatically.
The editors at Vanity Fair chose to have some fun with Sarah Palin’s resignation speech, and took their red, blue, and green pens to the black&white transcript. The color nearly equals the text upon which it comments. Some of their edits are so thorough that it seems amazing they found the ball amidst such thick rough.
Behold this line from the speech:
Seward withstood such disdain as he chose the uncomfortable, unconventional but right path to secure Alaska so that Alaska could help secure the United States.
And now the same sentence after Vanity Fair gets through with it:
Seward, however, secured Alaska realizing that Alaska could secure the United States.
The whole speech is edited harshly enough to render its eight pages a tough slog. It’s clear the editors took a heavy hand to the speech, altering lines that did not require such slashing. The research editor took things even further, arguing against the speech within the comments. The gimmick is fun to look at from a distance–look at all that red!–but up close, the edits are taxing and overly severe.
(Hat tip to Motivated Grammar)
25 Jul
An important element of the young traditions of blogs is to give credit where credit is due. Instead, however, of simply laying off upon you a seemingly inexhaustible reference of what I am reading or have read, I will attempt to introduce each and every link that I provide in the sidebar. The inaugural class will be documented here, and each update will be, similarly, recieve a short, summary post in its honor.
Bad Astronomy- Former NASA scientist Phil Plait shares and explains space, while advocating for reason and skepticism. NSFPeople-who-think-the-Earth-is-6000-years-old.
Bitten- Mark Bittman’s easy and wonderful recipes in the NY Times.
Gary, Landlord of the Flies- Documentation of the landlord you’re glad you never had to deal with.
Chocolate and Zucchini- Clotilde Dusolier’s discovery of food, made simple. Also with a French version.
The Criterion Contraption- Matthew Dessens is going through the Criterion collection very, very slowly. But whenever he advances, he leaves one of the most comprehensive reviews to be found written by anyone on any film on the internet.
Democracy in America- Economist columnists blog on American politics.
The dish- Sportswriter Keith Law’s blog on literature and food.
Farm to Table- Food made from local, fresh ingredients.
The Genius in All of Us- David Shenk’s blog on genes and talent.
Glenn Greenwald- Salon columnist whose tone is over-the-top but whose point–accountability in government–is invaluable.
Joe Posnanski- Columnist for the Kansas City Star and Sports Illustrated. Baseball guy, lover of Skyline Chili, and in equal parts eternally optimistic and totally baffled.
Jonah Keri- Canadian baseball writer and Expos fan on baseball and society.
Last Plane to Jakarta- John Darnielle’s ravings about death metal, and sometimes, other music.
Lexington- Economist’s Lexington columnist’s take on American political news.
Malcolm Gladwell- Gladwell writes about, seemingly, whatever he wants, and it’s always interesting.
On Language- A longtime NY Times columnist’s weekly take on usage.
Philebrity- Philly area gossip, concerts, and drink specials.
Said the Gramophone- Blog with mp3s and the weird essays that accompany them.
ShysterBall- Lawyer from Columbus, OH ignores judges, lawsuits and paralegals in an effort to sustain an already admirable baseball obsession.
Smitten Kitchen- New Yorker with tiny kitchen (like NYC has any other kind) makes hearty comfort food into foodie porn.
Wordpress.org- this is the hosting service for this blog. Essentially, they make everything on this site possible, even though the content is all mine, and the design is mostly BOB’s.
xkcd- Stick figures! Jokes about math and sex, quite obviously written by a nerd.
24 Jul
This blog is authored by TC Shillingford, a white male, who does not use dots when spelling his initials. He is getting married in October. The author is virtually blind, and coping with it poorly. He is also going quite bald at a young age, and is delighting in that. He dropped out of college at least once, depending on how one chooses to count, and will return to higher academia in the fall with specific designs of getting a piece of thick paper with signatures and fancy typeface.
He has broad interests, which will be reflected in the content of this space. Mostly, a reader should expect posts on baseball, outer space, music, fiction, cinema, religion, skepticism, politics, food, drink, and language. And probably not in that order.
The author cooks for a living, and blogs not for fun but out of habit. He lives in Philadelphia. He lies about his birthday. He has an enormous family, an adopted cat, and a very rare dog. He gets dizzy in hot weather.
Blog posts will occur almost everyday, he hopes, but the reader should interruptions for vacations, weddings, balky internet access, and other shiny things.
