A place to make brief observations of the moments in your life that speak to you.
#1
I don't know their names these
birds at my window singing
some thing joyful
For focus.
There are many things about the Catholic Church, that did not bring me to her, but that I'm only now perceiving and appreciating about her, now that I'm mentally on board. One of those things is how she handles death.
It's comforting, and beautiful, how the Church handles this most grave of topics. You really get the feeling like, when it comes times for me to die, that I'm in good hands, that my family will be in good hands.
It's something that most other Christian church traditions do not have, and cannot approach. Most non-Catholic churches began far more recently than the Catholic Church, and one of the most significant things about that, is the sheer number of deceased Catholics that there have been, necessarily. It makes sense that an organization as old and large as the Church would have a lot of time to consider death, and to address it in an intelligent, merciful, and loving manner.
I realized that this fits into the spirit of the OP in this thread, which is why I share it here. Again, this wasn't one of the things that brought me to Catholicism, to the theological school of the Catholic Church, it's only one of the many things I've been able to now appreciate about her, since I've mentally 'crossed the Tiber.'
:chuckle: I prefered games where I could use math to make my gamble less dependent.
There's a lot of math in poker. The best players are mathematicians, some of them even credentialed mathematicians, but they are all mathematicians, to win at the biggest stakes reliably.
Poker boils down to betting, folding, and raising. The only thing that matters is betting, folding, and raising. When to best bet, fold, or raise, for successful players, is determined by math. It's about odds.
There's pot odds, which is the size of the pot, compared with the size of your bet. There are the odds of drawing out and making a hand on a future street, which depends upon how many 'outs' you have in the deck, and how many cards are left. There are 'implied odds,' which attempts to take into account the future size of the pot, comparing it also to the required bets to stay in the hand to win that larger pot. There are also things like the rake, and tipping on winning hands, that all go into successfully determining odds that guides successful betting, folding, and raising.
There's also the notion of 'tropes' that appear in poker, but also irl, where instead of a card game and chips, the situations and currency is substituted for other things. In betting on sports and racing, there is really only betting, which is similar to stock picking, but is only applicable in limited areas irl.
There are obvious poker tropes like 'bluffing,' 'betting,' 'folding,' but also more nuanced ones like 'slow-playing,' 'check-raising,' and 're-raising-over-the-top-all-in.' But the one that I'm going to mention now is 'pot-committed.' It's when a player has already put most of their stack of chips into the pot, and other players therefore can perceive that they aren't going to fold, but will push the rest of their stack into the pot rather than leave all the chips they've already put into it out there for someone else. Pot commitment is a tell, a telegraph, that can be seen by other players. The other players in the pot with a pot-committed player need to figure on there being a 'show down,' which means that the pot-committed player will not fold to a big raise, but will call all the rest of their chips, forcing a show down of all the players' hands to determine who wins.
And that is a problem that has been identified by psychologists as a 'cognitive error,' like the Fundamental Attribution Error that we are all susceptible to. It's related to the 'sunken cost fallacy,' which is a cognitive error that falsely believes that currency that has already been spent or 'sunk,' is actually still in your possession. When we make choices according to these errors, we make poor choices, and wind up costing ourselves more dearly than if we remain rational.
Deception is of course part of poker. Many of the poker tropes involve deception, and poker helps us to characterize deception according to real patterns that play out in poker, but also, again, irl. Most people deceive with standard poker bluffs, making a bet that requires others to 'fold' to win. If they are called, then their deception is revealed, just like in poker. But 'slow-playing,' 'playing fast,' and 'check-raising' are also poker tropes, patterns of deception, that appear irl. 'Slow playing,' for example, is when a player has a strong hand, and wants to get as many chips into the pot from other players as possible, so as not to scare them away with aggressive betting, and instead they place smaller bets, to entice players with medium strong hands, or those on draws, to remain in the hand, but to pay a price for it. A price that the slow-player, with a strong hand, hopes to win at the end of the hand.
It started with dog racing for me. I realized that if I bought a book in advance and wasn't greedy I could routinely have a night out with excellent food and drink for free, that it wasn't all that hard to win modestly at the track if you were serious and prepared. Then I decided to expand the observation and the larger realization came to me.
It's like stock picking, or just general investment. You examine the situation, gather the facts, and assign something like pot odds, the cost/benefit analysis, and place your bets accordingly.
I don't see making the SB as being decisive. I mean, only one qb in the history of the game has led a team to 4 consecutively and no one begins to put him into the conversation.
Well, Kelly and Montana only reached the championship game four times each. Results were stunningly different, but the fact remains. And it also remains that Brady's reached eight.
And who argues Bill Russell is the NBA GOAT? No one, really, though he has more rings than anyone in the history of his sport or any other.
Apples and oranges, really. No position in all sports is parallel to football's quarterback. You can make an argument that soccer's and hockey's goalie, and if starting pitchers in baseball could pitch each game then them, are close, but there's nothing like football's quarterback position in basketball. No other single position influences the wins and losses like the QB. Confer Joe Montana.
The value of the SB for me is what you do when you get there. Montana is untouched in that regard. Brady, let's be honest. The first ring he wasn't really good in the game and the first three were delivered by his future HOF kicker.
Vinitieri's biggest impact was in the AFC championship game against Oakland in the 2001 season. He had to kick it off a snowy, sloppy field, from far enough away to make it interesting. His other kicks were clutch, but that's not entirely unusual in the NFL. There've been far tougher kicks made by other kickers in the intervening years, ones that were far longer than any of Vinitieri's clutch kicks.
And we all know that kickers don't get the line of scrimmage to within their range. That takes an offense, run by a QB.
We've seen him go into SBs and lose while fielding history making offenses in terms of production.
Once.
He lost with Randy Moss on board. So let's stop the does more with less at that point.
I'm not arguing that point.
And he won a couple of those rings with head scratchers. An errant pass by Seattle, a historic second half collapse by Atlanta.
Games are 60 minutes long.
I'd argue that at least three different qbs from his era are better and would have, with the level of coaching and stability within the organization done better by New England fans.
Brady himself said that Rodgers could have done more than him in NE. :thumb:
Brady goes down for a season and the back up wins almost as many games
Didn't win the AFC East, and didn't qualify for the playoffs too.
before getting a big contract with KC that his play never justified again. Bill and company have a system. It's a bit like moneyball. A few flashpoints and a qb who can do just about anything you need done. It works. And more, Tom turned out to be legitimately great at the position. But Tom isn't Rodgers. He isn't Manning in his prime (no, not Eli, even though the lesser Manning has his number) and he arguably isn't Brees.
I suspect history will approach the current given a bit differently. And it should.
Joe Cool. Undefeated AND won half of his rings without Rice (people forget that).
That Brady's got national broadcast announcers talking about him as the GOAT ain't hay. He's forced the argument, even if the right answer is Montana. That ain't hay.
Then I'm content.
I suspect we understand the thrust of the thing, all of us, which is our reconciliation to God in Christ and through his sacrifice, by which men receive grace and should live out their lives in love and gratitude, taking their pleasure where He finds it and being mindful of our failure to find it alone.
I'm mostly color blind, but I love sunsets. Some may feel that I'm cheated of a larger thing, but I never have.
And you'd think if it that was an advantage you wouldn't be so in the hole between us, rep giving unto others wise. :shocked: Okay, no, but you have to admit it's funny though.
Are you talking about TOL rep giving? :idunno:
And who could fault that? (no, squeaky, it's rhetorical)
You know the squeak, I hope.
You think people see an empty cross and think, "Plus what?"
No, just that Protestants protesting Catholics displaying the crucifix are protesting the Bible.
And there's always a crowd at supper.
Well, that has gravity (either).
I'm sucking on a wad of tobacco compost right now.
