Popular game Goat Simulator has been named Apple's App of the Week, and as a result, it's available for free for the next seven days. This is the first time Goat Simulator has been available at no cost since it was introduced in September of 2014.
In Goat Simulator, you take control of a goat, and the idea is to lay waste to the environment around you, doing as much damage and causing as much chaos as you can.
Goat Simulator is the latest in goat simulation technology, bringing next-gen goat simulation to YOU. You no longer have to fantasize about being a goat, your mobile dreams have finally come true!
It has been compared to an old-school skating game, except instead of being a skater, you're a goat, and instead of doing tricks, you wreck stuff. more! When it comes to goats, not even the sky is the limit, as you can probably just bug through it and crash the game.
Berinsky was suggesting this as an investment strategy. Wait for Trump to crash some company stock and buy it low. Assuming it will bounce back.
Lockheed Martin lost as much as four percent of its total value in the moments after US president-elect Donald Trump tweeted that the cost of the military jet maker's project to build advanced F-35 Lightning II fighters was "out of control."
Panicked investors dumping stock initially shaved off around $3.5 billion (£2.75 billion) from the company's value, though the share price had recovered somewhat by the close of trading on Monday, leaving it nearly 2.5 percent down on the previous day, or a dip of around $2 billion (£1.57 billion).
The F-35 program and cost is out of control. Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20th.
LightMasonry by Jason Bruges Studio recently paid homage to the work of the highly skilled masons and carvers using beams of choreographed light.
The beams seek out and outline the vaults of the huge space using a custom system of 48 computer-controlled lights. Designer Adam Heslop, who helped visualize the performance, said it required the studio to develop a whole range of new techniques.
This would be something to see and/or rave to in person. (thx, peter)
Remember the story last week in The New York Times, showing an alarming drop in support for democracy by young people around the world? I described the accompanying chart as “terrifying”. There’s good news — the Times’s chart was deliberately misleading, to greatly exaggerate the survey result. Erik Voeten, writing for The Washington Post, explains:
The data for the graph are from the fifth wave of the World Values
Survey (WVS), which asked people to place themselves on a 10-point
scale where 1 meant that living in a democracy is “not at all
important” and 10 “absolutely important.”
So where does this graph go wrong? It plots the percentage of
people who answer 10, and it treats everyone else the same. The
graph treats the people who place themselves at 1 as having the
same commitment to democracy as those who answer 9. In reality,
almost no one (less than 1 percent) said that democracy is “not at
all important.”
The graph below uses the exact same data, but it plots the average
scores rather than the percentages who place themselves at the top
end of the scale.
Voeten’s accurate chart does show a decline in the average support for democracy by age, but it’s subtle, not dramatic, and shows that young people still believe democracy is important. The New York Times should be ashamed of itself for its original chart.
Russian illustrators Alexei Lyapunov and Lena Ehrlich use the notes, staffs, and other musical notation marks on vintage sheet music as a framework to create theseinventiveillustrations of everyday life and nature. Prints are available. (via colossal)
Call Me Baby is a call centre for cybercriminals who need a human voice as part of a scam. They charge $10 for each call in English, and $12 for calls in German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish. [Brian Krebs]
Twitter has enough money in the bank to run for 412 years with current losses. [Matt Krantz]
Intervision, the 70s Soviet answer to the Eurovision Song Contest, was judge by electricity grid voting: “those watching at home had to turn their lights on when they liked a song and off when they didn’t, with data from the electricity network then being used to allocate points.” [Nick Heady]
It was hard to whittle the list down to just three, so a bonus one:
Instead of batteries, the ARES project in Nevada uses a network of train tracks, a hillside and electric trains loaded with rocks to store wind and solar power. When there is a surplus of energy, the trains drive up the tracks. When output falls, the cars roll back down the hill, their electric motors acting as generators. [Robson Fletcher]
The Economist did a piece — “Sisyphus’s train set” — on ARES this summer.
I didn't know that he was under Urban Meyer so recently. If coaching lineage actually means anything I'm pretty happy about this.
The former Longhorns graduate assistant picked up a tough streak under Urban Meyer.
“I was the fun guy.”
Once upon a time, new Texas Longhorns head coach Tom Herman just wanted everyone to like him.
No more.
In addition to learning how to align the entire message of the program from Ohio State Buckeyes head coach Urban Meyer, under whom Herman worked from 2012 to 2014, Herman received some important lessons on the psychology of motivation.
“One thing that not enough coaches know how to do — but the thing I learned from Urban that is fantastic — is how to use public praise and criticism,” Herman wrote for Sports Illustrated in 2015. “By public, I mean within the team, where you can say to one of your best players, ‘You stunk today,’ or, ‘What you're doing is unacceptable.’”
Herman also recounted a story from his first offseason at Houston.
Having already challenged the cornerbacks to step up, one showed up 45 minutes late for a summer workout. Herman tore into the whole position group, including the position coach and star cornerback William Jackson. There was no leadership in the group, Herman told them. He said he didn’t trust Jackson.
Based on his psychoanalysis of Jackson, Herman knew that his star defender wanted to be a strong leader.
“When you call him out in front of his team and his peers, William Jackson has two ways to go,” Herman wrote. “Either he goes in the tank or he responds. Later that day I had a meeting with him and built him up and told him how much I love him.”
That season, Brandon Wilson stepped up at cornerback with one interception, eight pass break ups, and two forced fumbles, while Jackson led the nation in pass break ups and recorded five interceptions.
Now Herman has to turn his understanding of the psychology of motivation on to a Longhorns team deeply connected to former head coach Charlie Strong. He’s not particularly worried about the underclassmen, but he is worried about potential pushback from the upperclassmen.
“I think we've got to attack them first -- by attack, we've got to make sure that we have the upperclassmen believing in our plan and our way of doing things, but I don't think it's any easier,” Herman said on Sunday. “In fact, I think, for a lot of reasons, it can be more challenging in a transition such as this.”
The first step was meeting with the team prior to his introductory press conference.
“I met with our team, again, at 4:15 and told them this program is going to be really hard. Winning is hard. They don't give and hand out championship trophies.”
The fun guy wasn’t present, with one report calling Herman “very stand-offish.”
Herman is known for kissing his players before games — love wins every time over fear, Herman believes — but it appears that he’ll be taking a tough-love approach to quickly shape the Texas culture in his own image.
There’s a precedence for all of this, as Herman did the same thing at Houston. Workout turned into competitions and the losers ate watered down eggs and burnt biscuits instead of an omelet bar and chicken and waffles.
Herman would also pointedly ignore players who didn’t live up to his expectations on and off the field, according to former safety Trevon Stewart:
Stewart said Herman would walk past players in the hall without even a nod if they failed in any of those areas. If the player performed in all three aspects, Herman would have a hug for him and a question about his family.
Most significantly, the players will have to earn that affection from their new head coach.
“It's not going to be Camp Texas around here, I can tell you that,” he said. “This is going to be a very difficult program, especially at first. And you're going to have to earn the respect and trust and love of our coaching staff and of myself.”
For the first few months, there will be a lot of proving, according to Herman. The players have to prove themselves to their new coaches and to each other.
“Once you've proven yourself to us as a bona fide dude, a real guy, a guy that we could trust and count on, then the love is limitless.”
Even if the love is limitless, though, the fun guy isn’t coming back.
by Shep McAllister on Deals, shared by Shep McAllister to Kotaku
SONOS speakers go on sale maybe a couple times per year, but even then, a full 25% discount on the PLAY:1 is unheard of. The PLAY:1 is the smallest member of the SONOS family, but it still sounds fantastic, and you can even link two of them together as a stereo pair.
It’s 2016, and your headphones don’t need wires anymore. Luckily, Amazon’s offering up Sony’s popular and well-reviewed MDRXB950BT Bluetooth over-ears for $88 today. Not only is that an all-time low and roughly $60-$110 off its usual price, it’s actually $2 better than Best Buy’s promised Black Friday deal, so there’s…
I'll be interested to see the bezel free designs, but I mean how are you supposed to hold it? I already have a tough time with my mini.
Apple will launch a trio of new iPad Pro models in March, including refreshed 9.7-inch and 12.9-inch versions and an all-new bezel-free 10.9-inch model, according to Barclays Research analysts Blayne Curtis, Christopher Hemmelgarn, Thomas O'Malley, and Jerry Zhang, citing sources within the company's Asian supply chain.
In a research note obtained by MacRumors, the analysts said the 10.9-inch model's borderless design will allow for it to be the same physical size as the current-generation 9.7-inch iPad Pro. That means the display itself will need to have an edge-to-edge design, possibly signaling the removal of the Home button.
Barclays, like Kuo, expects the new 9.7-inch iPad Pro to be a "low-cost" model alongside the 7.9-inch iPad mini, which the analysts do not believe will be refreshed alongside the larger tablets. Instead, the research note said Apple will continue to produce and sell the iPad mini 4, released in September 2015.
Mac Otakara previously said the 12.9-inch iPad Pro will feature a True Tone display like its current 9.7-inch counterpart, using advanced four-channel ambient light sensors to automatically adapt the color and intensity of the display to match the light in the surrounding environment.
That report said all three new iPad Pro models will gain quad microphones, compared to the current dual setup, and retain 3.5mm headphone jacks.
The 12.9-inch iPad Pro is also said to gain the 9.7-inch model's same 12-megapixel rear-facing iSight camera and True Tone flash.
More "revolutionary" changes to iPads, including a switch to OLED displays, are expected in 2018, according to Kuo's earlier report.
Enlarge / A weak La Niña has arrived. (credit: NOAA)
A relatively weak La Niña has developed, scientists with NOAA say, with lower than normal temperatures persisting across most of the eastern and central equatorial Pacific Ocean. This should eventually bring some cooler weather to parts of the United States, which just experienced its third warmest October on record.
Climate officials declared La Niña conditions this week after sea surface temperatures in the Niño3.4 region of the Pacific Ocean were about -0.7 degrees Celsius below average during October, and associated atmospheric conditions aligned with a La Niña pattern. Scientists say this slight La Niña has a 55 percent chance of persisting through January or February, but almost all of the forecast model guidance suggests it will end no later than the spring.
In contrast to El Niño, which increases the potential for severe weather across parts of the United States, La Niña's effects are typically more mild. It could mean drier weather and warmer than normal temperatures for the southern United States and wetter, cooler-than-normal weather for the northern plains through New England. These conditions are reflected in NOAA's official forecast for winter. There's no clear consensus on whether La Niña will benefit drought-stricken areas of California based upon past rainfall totals during analog winters.
The preseason Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year admitted that he got “too high on myself” after the season opener.
“Welcome back,” Texas Longhorns head coach Charlie Strong told his would-be star linebacker, sophomore Malik Jefferson.
The face of the program and the conference’s supposed top defender in 2016 had finally returned after spending weeks astray.
“Ever since that Notre Dame game, I was too high on myself,” Jefferson said on Monday.
In the double-overtime thriller, Jefferson led the team in tackles with eight, including a sack, but never humbled himself afterwards.
“Never brought myself down to that phase where you continue to try to get better. I wasn’t trying to get better. I thought everything would be handed to me, and I had to realize you have to work for things.”
The big-headedness from a player always known for his humility and grace was surprising, but it was clear from Jefferson’s effort and results on the field that he was merely going through the motions.
His stunts into the line of scrimmage lacked desire, he allowed quarterbacks to get through his grasp on would-be sacks at a rate of about one per game, and he showed little interest in taking on blocks in the running game.
While clearly miscast in the middle linebacker position, Jefferson nonetheless demonstrated no apparent want-to in games like the Kansas State loss, in which the number of times he was totally blocked stood at 12, along with four missed tackles.
So the Texas coaches were left little else to do other than what the state’s No. 1 prospect in 2015 had come to believe was unthinkable — bench him.
And it wasn’t even Strong who delivered the news. Instead, it was linebackers coach Brian Jean-Mary.
And, as the saying goes, “the film don’t lie,” so there was no room to hide when Jean-Mary and Jefferson sat down to watch film together. The former five-star prospect recognized that he needed to change his attitude and start producing on the field.
“He sat down and watched the tape and it was obvious,” Strong said.
Normally hard on himself, Jefferson also got some tough talk from his family, who are harder on him than he ever is, a conversation that he said “brought a lot of darkness to light” in the effort to get him re-centered.
As a motivational tactic, the subtle little jab by Strong not to deliver the news of Jefferson’s demotion directly also worked as intended — the newly-minted second-string middle linebacker said it surprised him a bit, “but it got me going.”
However, since every player faces a crossroads in those moments, as Strong noted on Monday, there were no guarantees that Jefferson was going to take the right path, even though it’s hardly surprising that he quickly opted to fix things.
With the sophomore finally set to earn his spot on the field again, he had to wait a few plays before he replaced senior Tim Cole against Baylor. The performance was far from perfect, including more missed tackles, including on another potential sack, but also much more effort.
The effort paid off — against the Bears, Jefferson recorded 2.5 tackles for loss, two sacks, a quarterback hurry, and nearly matched his career high with 10 tackles.
Jefferson also had a would-be touchdown on a fumble recovery called back at the end of the game on an extremely questionable call of a forward pass on Baylor quarterback Seth Russell’s ill-advised pitch.
Erich Schlegel-USA TODAY Sports
Last week, Strong credited his lack of ego for helping him respond.
“The good thing you have with him is he's not a guy who's headstrong, he's not a guy that has an ego, and you can talk to him,” said the Texas head coach. “You can sit him down and show him what he's not doing and how much better he can be, and so him coming back, bouncing back the other night just shows his character and just really -- he wanted to prove, ‘Hey, Coach, I'm going to show you what I can really do,’ and he went out there the other night and played a really good football game.”
As happy as Strong was with Jefferson’s performance, he still had to set some expectations to keep him locked in after watching game film that Sunday.
“That's what I expect from you all the time, and he understands that, because of who he is, and he knows how important he is to this football team and how important he is to the defense that he needs to play well each and every week,” Strong said.
Just to make sure that Jefferson continued to receive the message from the coaching staff, it was Cole who once again jogged out with the ones at Jones Stadium.
For Jefferson’s second game as the second-string middle linebacker, he held a new role — the player primary responsible for spying on Texas Tech’s star quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who came into the game with six first-down scrambles on 3rd and long and 30 first-down completions in those situations on 60 attempts, an incredible 50-percent conversion rate.
Jefferson’s efforts helped rattle Mahomes, as the continued benching and well-suited role led to perhaps his best game of the season — at the least, he looked like the Predator again.
No other play showcased Jeffereson’s elite athleticism better than one play spent spying on Mahomes that included a full 25-yard sprint to catch the athletic Red Raiders quarterback:
In some of the key moments of the game, Jefferson came up big.
Early in the fourth quarter, Tech opted to go for a 4th and 10 at the Texas 29-yard line down 15 points. In a pure effort play, Jefferson and defensive end Bryce Cottrell tracked down the spinning Red Raiders passer for a 21-yard loss.
With the game in jeopardy, Jefferson responded again — on 3rd and 6 in the middle of the fourth quarter with Texas clinging to the 45-37 lead, Jefferson fought through a hold to sack Mahomes for an 11-yard loss due to intentional grounding. Anther effort play.
By the end of the game, Mahomes had run for negative yardage with a long run of only eight yards. For the most part, Jefferson had him on personal lockdown.
Only TCU had held Mahomes below 6.2 yards per attempt and West Virginia below a passer rating of 126.66, as did Texas.
Mahomes admitted he’d had a rough time.
“Malik (Jefferson) spotted me the entire game,” he said. “He's a great athlete, so they were just trying to make me throw from the pocket, and throughout the entire game I didn't do a good enough job.”
Most of all, Jefferson looked like he wanted to be out there and play every snap with pride.
The overall results?
Eight tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, and 1.5 sacks, and four quarterback hurries.
“Now you’re looking like the guy you should be looking like,” Strong told his resurgent star on Saturday.
Glad to hear they've addressed this "... all your other hotword capable devices hive mind together to intelligently pick a single device to respond to you."
Fresh off the launch of the Google Pixel, the new Google Hardware division is back with its second product: Google Home, a voice command appliance and Google Cast-enabled speaker. There is basically no interface at all to this product—it's all voice commands, all the time. I hope you like speaking to your electronics.
Google started its voice recognition journey all the way back in 2007 with "Goog-411," a completely automated phone number lookup service run over a 1-800 number. The human-powered 411 services offered by carriers would apply extra charges to your phone bill, but Google 411 was completely free. Google's goal wasn't to make money on the project, it just wanted to gather as much human speech as possible to build its speech recognition algorithms. Almost 10 years later, the company is finally ready to build a product that completely revolves around voice commands. Google Home is the "Star Trek Computer" the company has always talks about building—at least, it's version 0.1.
Shared for that multiple timeline theory video. Not sure if that will be good for the show or not, but it's certainly interesting to see all the pieces support the theory.
I haven’t quite figured out if HBO’s new show Westworld is any good or not,1 but I’m sticking with it at least through the first season. One of the fun things about the show — ok, maybe the only fun thing, Westworld takes itself pretty seriously — is the western-style covers of rock songs by the likes of Radiohead, Soundgarden, and The Rolling Stones. There’s a mini playlist of the main theme and some of the covers — Paint It Black by the Stones and Radiohead’s No Surprises — up on Spotify.
The show is giving off some serious Lost vibes. Lost, if you’ll remember, started off very strong and then the people running the show got lost themselves and had no idea how to keep the whole thing from being an incoherent wreck. Thinking they’d turn it around somehow, I watched until the very end, and, disgusted by the ending, have never thought about it again, except in a context like this. Westworld, don’t play me like that!↩
Wirecutter was founded in 2012 as a modern-day answer to Consumer Reports with a focus on consumer electronics. Ars has syndicated numerous Wirecutter reviews, and a number of Ars alumni have gone on to write for the site, notably Casey Johnston and Jacqui Cheng, who now serves as its editor-in-chief.
Wirecutter’s business model primarily relies on making money through affiliates, getting a cut of any sales generation that comes as a result of their review.
"Kansas State outscored Texas Tech in a Manhattan shootout and lost to West Virginia by just a single point on the road. And, of course, the Longhorns have won in Manhattan only one time since I enrolled at Texas in 2002." This is basically my prediction because I have no faith in Texas on the road.
Can the ‘Horns defeat the Purple Merlin and his ‘Cats?
Another weekend, another must-win game for head coach Charlie Strong and the Texas Longhorns. This week, the ‘Horns attempt to secure the first road victory of the season against the Kansas State Wildcats in Manhattan.
On to the predictions!
Wescott Eberts — editor
History doesn't provide much optimism for the Texas contingent as the 'Horns travel to Manhattan this weekend, but the improvement of the defense last week and an extremely poor Kansas State passing game do provide cause to believe in a rare road victory for head coach Charlie Strong.
Making opponents one dimensional on offense is a constant talking point for Strong and that shouldn't be difficult against the Wildcats.
On offense, the concern is that the Wildcats create turnovers with consistency and rank No. 20 nationally in rush defense S&P+. Piling up 274 rushing yards on more than five yards per carry, as the Longhorns did last season in Austin, won't be an easy task in the Flint Hills.
Still, I think that the quarterback play is the difference and Texas is able to come out with a close victory, as the S&P projections predict.
Texas 31, Kansas State 27
Cody Daniel — co-editor
It feels almost sacrilegious to say Texas — a 3-3 Texas, at that — will escape Manhattan with a victory on Saturday morning, but I think that will be the case. Kansas State’s strength is its defense and in particular, its run defense, which ranks No. 4 in the nation after allowing only 90.3 yards per game on the ground to this point.
That will probably be enough to prevent D’Onta Foreman from setting a new career high again this week, but not enough to make the ‘Horns one-dimensional, which should result in a few big plays through play action.
But even more so, I don’t trust Kansas State’s offense — one that will be led by a banged up Jesse Ertz — considering Texas’ weakness has been its secondary and the Wildcats aerial attack has been sub-par, to say the least, ranking 112th in the nation with only 167 yards per game.
Texas 34, Kansas State 17
Robert Larkin — staff writer
I don’t necessarily believe the Iowa State win was indicative that Charlie Strong has righted all the problems on defense, but there were a lot of good signs on that side of the ball last week.
On top of the unit’s improvement, Strong and company will be going against one of the worst offenses in the Big 12, including a Kansas State passing attack that ranks 118th in the nation according to the S&P+ offensive ratings.
I predict Sterlin Gilbert will get his offense off to a stronger start than last week, and the ‘Horns offense will build some confidence in the first half.
Look for another big game from D’Onta Foreman on the ground, a guy who is slowly creeping up as the most productive running back in the entire country.
Simply put, I think talent wins out Saturday morning. The Longhorns will capture an elusive win in the Little Apple and return to above .500 before its contest against Baylor.
Texas 31, Kansas State 21
Abram Orlansky — staff writer
The old standard assumption is that Vegas gives a team three points for being at home, so Vegas basically thinks this one is a wash.
I largely agree — K-State's defense should allow Texas to run roughshod if the game plan is executed, but the Wildcat offensive line is scary good. The Iowa State performance was encouraging on the defensive side of the ball, but I'm not ready to say that unit has turned a corner until they show they can do it on the road against a team with more than one win.
Kansas State outscored Texas Tech in a Manhattan shootout and lost to West Virginia by just a single point on the road. And, of course, the Longhorns have won in Manhattan only one time since I enrolled at Texas in 2002.
I want very badly to be wrong, as a win here could indicate a good finish for Strong and propel us into a great 2017 — but I don't see Texas putting together a complete enough game to get the victory.
I fear the offense will pull its patented disappearing act for a long stretch in the second half, the defense will not be able to play four quarters of the kind of cohesive football we saw last week, and the 'Cats will score on three or four straight drives in the third quarter to put Texas behind the 8 ball.
Kansas State 38, Texas 30
Michael Pelech — staff writer
If Kansas State was rolling out an offense led by Collin Klein or Jake Waters again, I'd be concerned about Texas maintaining the defensive momentum it started against Iowa State.
But the combo Jesse Hertz and Joe Hubener is closer to ISU's Jacob Park and Joel Lanning combo than Klein or Waters. Don't be surprised if defensive tackle Chris Nelson has another big game controlling the middle of the defense.
On offense, I'll keep predicting D'Onta Foreman 100-yard performances until he's on an NFL roster. I also like the match up of the large Texas wide receiver group against a small set of Kansas State defensive backs.
Special teams and sound defensive scheming will keep the Wildcats in this, but I think Texas does enough on both sides of the ball to win a low-scoring affair.
Texas 20, Kansas State 14
Jeff Asher — staff member
Texas is now undefeated in weeks where I offer a prediction in this column so I'm gonna do it again. The ‘Horns build off their strong second half against Iowa State for a 31-20 victory on the road against Kansas State. Marcus Tubbs blocks a field goal with two minutes left that would cut the lead down to one score sealing a victory for Texas.
Texas 31, Kansas State 20
Wes Crochet — staff writer
I’ll be honest, I’ve flipped flopped back and forth on this game. Texas is the more talented team while Kansas State is the more disciplined. Texas Puts up more points on average and has a two-dimensional offense while Kansas State averages over one turnover a game and leads the Big 12 in turnover margin (+1.17).
Both teams are 3-3, and each have their own strength’s and flaws. The key here is which Texas team will show up?
We know what Kansas State is. The Wildcats are a tough team, coached to play smart football, create turnovers, and try to win on the ground by winning in the trenches.
As for the Longhorns, the best case scenario is the team has success running behind D’Onta Foreman while passing over the top and to the outside with Buechele and his receivers while the defense plays well enough to keep the score in favor of the ‘Horns.
The issue is we’ve seen different Texas teams throughout this entire season. And when we add that this game is on the road, the question marks grow even more.
But if there’s one weakness Kansas State has right now, it’s passing. The Wildcats’ offense struggles to make plays through the air and the defense has ranked the worst in the Big 12 during the month of October in conference play.
If Texas protects the football, avoids stupid penalties, plays well on kick and punt coverage, and makes plays through the air, the ‘Horns will get their first road win.
This makes me feel better about this history of this series, but still makes me think we will lose. K-State just doesn't make mistakes at home.
Jon Morse of SB Nation’s Bring On The Cats reveals a disturbing truth about the struggles of the ‘Horns against the ‘Cats.
Burnt Orange Nation: Texas has a 1-6 record in Manhattan in the history of the series. What is it about Bill Snyder Family Football Stadium that makes it so hard to win there? Longhorns head coach Charlie Strong cited the discipline of Snyder's teams and noted how well coached they are, but is there something else going on? What type of spells is Purple Merlin weaving on Texas?
Bring On The Cats: Obviously, everyone's better at home. But the real answer to this question is one Texas fans probably don't want to hear. Let's look at this:
1926: Both teams were mediocre, finishing a game over .500, so we can chalk that up to home field.
1998: 5th-ranked K-State, on their way to almost making it to the BCS title game, beats unranked Texas.
2002: 17th-ranked K-State "upsets" 8th-ranked Texas by a field goal, but their final rankings tell the real story; they were about even that year. So, home field again.
2010: Man, Garrett Gilbert is still the greatest quarterback in K-State history.
2012: Again, Texas happened to come to Manhattan during a season in which K-State would grab a No. 1 ranking for a week. Texas was decent, but K-State was just better.
2014: 11th-ranked K-State beat unranked Texas, destined for a losing season.
There's one K-State home win missing from that list, and I think we'd all prefer to just not talk about that one for wildly disparate reasons. With that one exception, the answer is pretty obvious even though Texas fans may not like it: K-State has simply been the better team in the years in which they've played in Manhattan. No real mystery at all.
BON: Relatedly, Texas safety Dylan Haines — along with a beat writer — said that they didn't think the environment is particularly hostile there. Where do you think the Kansas State fans rank in the hierarchy of the Big 12 in that regard?
BOTC: Art Briles may be a disgrace, but that shouldn't take away from his one-liners. So, my answer is real simple: "You want to stand next to someone and not be able to hear them, walk your ass into Manhattan, Kansas."
And considering Dylan Haines hasn't exactly covered himself in glory against K-State the last two years (torched by Lockett and Sexton in 2014, dropped what should have been a pick-six last year), maybe he should worry more about playing and less about yapping.
BON: The 'Cats are 3-3 after finishing 6-7 last year. Is that a sign of diminishing returns under Snyder? Is he slipping a bit as he approaches retirement or are those results just a blip as he gets things closer to the historical levels at which he's achieved for so long?
BOTC: Bill Snyder is entirely too loyal, entirely too resistant to the unexpected, and entirely too attached to the guys who have experience. There is a pretty vocal portion of the K-State fan base who just can't understand why some guys aren't playing while others are.
BON: Kansas State quarterback Jesse Ertz may be limited this weekend with the apparent shoulder injury that he suffered against Oklahoma last weekend. What's the difference, if any, between the two quarterbacks, and how much, if at all, are those two players limiting the nation's No. 118 passing attack in S&P+?
BOTC: Look, Joe Hubener's a great guy, but he's clearly not an FBS quarterback. He lost his job to a wide receiver last year, after all. As for Ertz, we have a suspicion he's still favoring the knee injury he suffered 14 months ago.
His passes have been inaccurate, and it seems like it's because he's been throwing off his back foot a lot. It's definitely the weak link, especially since we've seen that the receivers who seemed to have problems catching the ball last year are doing a much better job of it, and the running game is fine.
BON: Kansas State ranks near the bottom of the country in producing plays of 10 or more yards and 30 or more yards offensively. Are there any threats in the passing game or running game that Texas needs to worry about on Saturday?
BOTC: Taking sacks out of the equation, K-State ran for almost five yards a pop against Oklahoma. (Why they chose to throw the ball 37 times is a mystery.) All of K-State's running backs get in on the action, so none really stand out individually.
The Cats have three running backs picking up over five yards a carry, plus Ertz picks up 5.4 per. Texas is going to have to make that a priority, especially since all four tailbacks have wildly different skill sets.
Charles Jones is a muscle guy, Dalvin Warmack is sort of like Darren Sproles, Justin Silmon is just a crafty hole-picker who can hit tacklers hard, and Alex Barnes is a bit of all three. If Ertz plays, and runs the ball, that adds yet another dimension: a dude who's actually pretty damned quick hitting tucking the ball and hitting open space. As a runner, Ertz is the closest K-State has had to Michael Bishop since, well, Michael Bishop.
As far as the receivers, much depends on which quarterback is in the game. Ertz and Hubener have different favorite targets. That said, what K-State has this year rather than a couple of serious threats like they usually have is an entire pack of guys who are currently good, but not great. There's a lot of talent, but it'll be the next time Texas is in Manhattan where you'll really see it in action.
BON: In terms of creating sack and tackles for loss, the Wildcats haven't made a lot of plays. However, the defense has forced a lot of turnovers. Is that more a result of luck or does this group just have a knack for creating game-changing moments?
BOTC: Well, as you know, fumbles are luck anyway — at least the recovering of them. K-State's done a good job of forcing interceptions, but probably not any more than usual. You're correct that the Wildcats don't have a ton of sacks or tackles for loss, but defensively the concept is less about accomplishing that than simply preventing positive plays via pressure. Sometimes, that works pretty well and you have Patrick Mahomes throwing the ball to nobody. Other times, Baker Mayfield goes 25-31.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
BON: What aspect of the Texas offense do you think could give Kansas State the most trouble and where do you think the Wildcats could succeed defensively?
BOTC: If Shane Buechele has time to throw, that could be bad. But the Wildcat defense does tend to control the line of scrimmage, and I don't think Texas will find running the ball to be super effective. If the defensive line can roam around the Texas backfield, it could be a long afternoon for the Longhorns.
BON: The historical trends point to the Wildcats, while recent results probably favor the 'Horns. How do you see this game going down?
BOTC: I can't really bring myself to even suggest that Texas will win. After all, it's only happened once in Manhattan in my lifetime. But if Ertz is unable to go, or is limited, and if Buechele is able to hit some big plays to a pretty talented pack of Longhorn receivers, K-State may actually have to rely on some wizardry to get out with a win. This may — should, really — be the closest game up north between the two teams since 2002.
Excited for a new version. Sucks that it's a year away.
After two days of teasing the internet with images, Rockstar has now come right out with it: Red Dead Redemption 2 is a real thing that is happening, and we can expect a trailer for it on Thursday, October 20th, at 11am.
ISU began their season horribly, with losses at home to Northern Iowa and a blowout loss to Iowa 42-3 in Iowa City, but the last three weeks have showed a different Cyclone football team. Or the Big 12 is just that bad.
Iowa State is coming off of two very competitive, but ultimately emotionally crushing losses to Baylor and Oklahoma State, while the Texas defense seems to be in a tailspin worthy of a kamikaze pilot.
Iowa State led Baylor 42-28 going into the 4th and lost 45-42. They also led Oklahoma State in Stillwater 31-21 going into the 4th, before tapping out at 38-31. Two double digit 4th quarter leads, both outscored 17-0 down the stretch in both games.
The match-ups don't favor the Cyclones on paper (they have inconsistent QB and OL play, defense can't stop the run - they surrendered 469 yards rushing to Baylor) but Texas has exhibited a knack for surprising us in terrible, terrible ways.
I'm not sure precedent matters, but the last three Texas-Iowa State contests:
From silly children’s song to animated classic, The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” has been sparking imaginations since its 1966 debut. What better inspiration for the next official Lego Ideas set?
Anything to not have to think about the football team for a while.
11 Basketball events line the Longhorn Network schedule
The Longhorn Network announced their TV schedule for UT basketball events today, headlined by the announcement that the October 20th Gregory Gym scrimmage will be televised. This is great news for people who don’t live in Austin and/or prefer not to have to torrent cell phone videos of the event.
All in all, there are 9 regular season games (6 non-conference, 3 conference) and 2 exhibitions/scrimmages slated for TV time. Given how the football team has been playing, this could be a nice distraction for aggrieved Longhorns faithful.
If you’d like to know more about the team, Jeff Haley and I have created a season preview eBook that’s available for preorder now. The release date is October 24th, which gives you plenty of time to read up on the 2016 squad before the season opens on November 11th. It’s available on iTunes and Amazon for $4.99.
The hot recruiting start for Texas Longhorns baseball coach David Pierce continued on Friday with the pledge of Galveston College left-handed pitcher Blake Pflughaupt:
A member of the 2015 class at Columbus High School, Pflughaupt should be eligible to play for the Longhorns this spring, assuming that he was a full qualifier out of high school.
Pflughaupt received 4A All-State honorable mention honors as a senior outfielder for Columbus before pitching at Galveston College as a freshman.
Working mostly out of the bullpen, Pflughaupt was exceptional, posting an ERA of 2.65 in 71.1 innings pitched and 66 strikeouts. Just as remarkable was the fact that few opponents squared the ball up against him — the left hander only gave up one double, one triple, and home run.
If the Columbus product stays on the same track, he could quickly emerge as a late-inning option for the Longhorns in 2017, but he may have some upside as a starter because he’s left handed, can get strikeouts, and doesn’t give up extra-base hits.
In a worst-case scenario, he’s a match-up option out of the bullpen against left-handed hitters. In a best-case scenario, he’s a guy who could potentially emerge as a weekend starter if he can translate his game to the college level.
Amazon has unveiled yet another add-on for its paying Prime subscribers, and it represents the company's biggest tie-in yet with Twitch, the game-streaming service that Amazon acquired in 2014 for nearly $1 billion.
The new add-on, Twitch Prime, will dole out monthly gaming-related goodies to any Amazon Prime subscriber who links their shopping account with a Twitch user ID. Upon doing so, Twitch users will get a few Twitch-specific bonuses. The first is a series of free game downloads, which change every month and can range from full-game unlocks to DLC add-ons for games you already own (much like PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live Gold). Twitch Prime's first month includes a full download of the Twitch-enabled multiplayer game Streamline and add-on bonuses for free-to-play games Hearthstone and Smite.
Twitch Prime appears to be enabled for Prime subscribers in the US, UK, Spain, Germany, France, Canada, and Italy.
The stream of racist, sexist, and economically illiterate memes appearing in support of Donald Trump during this years' interminable American presidential election are being bankrolled in part by the 24-year-old inventor of Oculus Rift.
Palmer Luckey, who came into a personal fortune worth $700 million (£535 million) when his VR headset firm was bought out by Facebook, has admitted to resourcing an unofficial pro-Trump political non-profit called Nimble America that's powering the tsunami of unsavoury Pepes and white supremacist image macros that have plagued Reddit.
I will not be trying to make this anytime soon, but it definitely looks delicious and made me hungry.
That, my friends, is a photo of Kenji López-Alt’s homemade McRib sandwich. The McDonald’s version is beloved but has been on and off the menu with maddening irregularity, so Kenji spent weeks/months creating a McRib recipe for the home cook.
The problem is that, while the McRib might be inspired by real barbecue, it’s ultimately a lie. Despite its corrugated appearance, it has little to do with actual ribs. (McDonald’s doesn’t even indicate that the product contains actual rib meat.) It’s not smoked, as one would expect of barbecue ribs. Indeed, it’s not even grilled — it’s cooked on a griddle. We can do better.
My goal? Take everything we love about the McRib sandwich and turn it up to 11, by starting from scratch with a few high-quality ingredients and a lot of good technique (including honest-to-goodness smoking). I wanted to maximize flavor and texture, unlocking the sandwich’s full potential and allowing it to evolve, Pokémon-style, into something so much better.
This game should be good experience for and play similar to Tech.
The ‘Horns head to Berkeley for a business trip against Davis Webb’s Golden Bears
For the first time this season, the Texas will take to the road and for the first time this season, California will enjoy home field advantage when the Longhorns roll into Berkeley Saturday night. The meeting between the ‘Horns and Golden Bears will be the second in as many years after Cal escaped Austin with a 45-44 victory last season following a missed Texas extra point to tie the game.
This time around, each of the two programs have many similarities and even more differences from their respective 2015 squads. No. 11 Texas is finally ranked again, largely due to a massive youth contingent from 2015 having matured, found some continuity and taken a step forward. Cal, on the other hand, lost talent across the board, including No. 1 NFL Draft pick in quarterback Jared Goff and a bevy of his top receivers, along with a tremendous amount of defensive depth; primarily in the front seven.
Much like last season, Cal’s defense hasn’t been very good; to say the least, and that’s even more noticeable for a rushing defense that’s given up 582 yards in two games. That could be a recipe for disaster against a Texas offense that has more than enough quality talent in the backfield, which can all be hitched to Tyrone Swoopes 18-Wheeler package if Shane Buechele isn’t looking to torch Cal over the top. But in any case, with a Cal connection between quarterback Davis Webb and receiver Chad Hansen that’s proving to be the most lethal in the nation early on, and one of the most accurate kickers in the country, the Golden Bears will have no shortage of quality offense to keep up with the ‘Horns if a shootout ensues.
Can Cal right the ship after a crucial game-ending interception dropped the Golden Bears to 1-1 on the season? Will Buechele’s poise and calm confidence carry over to a late-night road game after he enjoyed the comfort of DKR for his first two starts?
We’ll find out Saturday night.
Series History
· Texas leads 5-1.
· The Longhorns are 3-0 on the road in Berkeley.
· Texas’ largest margin of victory was 56-15 in 1970.
· Cal’s largest margin of victory was 45-44 in 2015.
· This will be Texas’ first game on the road in Berkeley since 1969.
What to know about Cal
· The Golden Bears are 1-1 after last weeks 45-40 loss to San Diego State.
· Saturday night’s meeting with Texas will be Cal’s home opener.
· Cal has won 12 of its last 14 home openers dating back to 2002.
· Cal is currently 2nd in the nation in passing yards per game (481.5) and tied for 3rd in total offense per game (617).
Cal Players to Watch
· Davis Webb – tied for 1st in NCAA in passing touchdowns with Texas Tech’s Patrick Mahomes; 2nd in passing yards (963) behind Mahomes.
· Chad Hansen – leads nation in receptions (28) and receiving yards (350) through two games.
· Entire wide receiver corps – Webb spreads the ball around the he has the playmakers to do so.
· Matt Anderson – the junior kicker has hit all five field goal attempts this season and 15-straight dating back to last season, including 20 of his last 21.
Texas Tidbits
· Through two games, Shane Buechele’s six passing touchdown already matches the Texas true freshman record. Bobby Layne passed for six in 1944.
· Buechele has eclipsed the 200-yards passing mark in each of his first two games. The only other true freshman in Texas’ 124-year football history to record a 200-yard passing game was Rick McIvor, who did so against Baylor in 1979.
· Texas has scored 91 points in the first two games of the season; the most for a Texas team since scoring 100 (59, 41) in the first two games of the 2009 season against Louisiana-Monroe and Wyoming.
· 14 true freshmen have seen the field in Texas’ first two games.
· Texas .682 road winning percentage over the past 10 seasons is good for second-best in the nation.
Yesterday, John Gruber at Daring Fireball highlighted just how well Apple's A10 Fusion chip found in its iPhone 7 stands up to the competition in terms of raw speed.
(Image taken from Daring Fireball.)
Looking at Geekbench results for single and multi-core performance across a range of smartphones, Gruber noted that the iPhone 7 series beats all newcomers on every score, including Samsung's new Galaxy S7 and Note 7 Android phones.
More impressively perhaps, the A10 Fusion processor scores faster overall results than every MacBook Air Apple has ever made, only once falling behind a multi-core score recorded for the early 2015 MacBook Air, which is powered by an Intel Core i7 and scores 5650, just edging the iPhone 7's result of 5630. Still, the laptop can't keep up with the A10 chip's raw single-core performance (2989 compared to 3261). Apple's latest flagship phone also performs comparably to an early 2013 MacBook Pro, powered by an Intel Core i5.
Apple has invested heavily in its Ax-series of processors, with some commentators and rumors suggesting it could eventually transition an ARM-based processor to future MacBooks. You can learn more about the technology behind Apple's A10 Fusion chip in MacRumors' dedicated article on the subject.
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