James Mirtle: My dear Tom letter… – A hockey journalist’s blog

James Mirtle: My dear Tom letter… – A hockey journalist’s blog:

I promised Tom a response to his very critical portrayal of the hockey media, something he nicely highlighted in a recent comment on his site.

James Mirtle (sports journalist and blogger) and Tom Benjamin (blogger at http://www.canuckscorner.com/ and a very vocal critic of, well, pretty much everything in hockey) have been having a bit of a back and forth. Well worth reading to see both sides of the discussion.

I’ve really come to appreciate Mirtle’s knowledge and middle-of-the-road attitude about things. He’s not a league suck-up, neither is he a players syncophant; he calls them as he sees them, and agree or disagree with him, he’s a fun and informative read.

Tom — Laurie and I have been reading Tom going way back, well before his blog, in places like the Vancouver Canucks mailing lists. He’s an extremely intelligent, well-informed hockey fan. He knows his stuff, and that’s why I read him.

But — jesus. At his best, he’s a suspicious cynic. More normally, he runs between rampant negativism and outright hostility to, it seems everyone and everything in hockey. He comes across as if, as I’ve been known to put it, the entire Canucks organization once slept with his dog and left him with the vet bill — and he’s never gotten over it.

It’s one thing to be critical — but Tom spends his time angry. I long ago got tired of that act, to be honest. It ends up more about Tom, less about the topic — and Tom comes across as that angry, bitter old phart (“I used to have to walk uphill, in the snow, five miles, each way, to go to hockey games, and I was HAPPY!”) that makes him a parody of himself.

Which is too bad. When Tom talks hockey, there’s a lot of interesting stuff that comes out. But these days, and for a while, that’s not what Canucks Corner is about. Instead, it’s about how much smarter Tom is than everyone else in hockey, and how angry and bitter he is that we don’t just all shut up and acknowledge that. And I find that rather hard to enjoy. As — if you read Tom’s stuff — he seems to find hard to enjoy, too.

And as I’ve told Laurie and a few others — if my writing ever gets to be like Tom’s, just have me shot. I’d rather stop writing than turn into the kind of writer Tom is, one for which there seems to be no purpose other than to be angry about something, and use it as a soapbox to export than anger at others.

Makes me wonder what kind of person Tom is in person. Part of me is curious. Most of me is glad I only have to deal with him from the far end of a browser window. One wonders if he’s really aware of how he presents himself on the net — or whether he’s proud of it.

collision detection: The parrot that knows “zero”

collision detection: The parrot that knows “zero”:

A while ago, I blogged about the amazing intelligence of Grey parrots — which one MIT researcher claims have “the sentience of a four- to six-year-old child”. Today, I read about some new evidence: A Grey parrot that has developed — entirely under its own steam — an understanding of the concept of zero.

 

Alex is at it again.

my brain hurts…

It’s business planning time, and so I’m reading project proposals for next year and helping build development plans and budgets. The good news is — they like us, we’re popular, and lots of people want us to do things for them. The bad news is — they like us, we’re popular, and lots of peoploe want us to do things for them. And so there are going to be some interesting and fun challenges ahead. Fortunately, it seems they’re also willing to fund out the projects…

Hey, how many times can you look at your boss and says “30 more xserves” and not have him laugh? Or twitch? I can handle that. My role will change somewhat, recognizing that I simply don’t code any more, but instead, tell other people what to code (and I’m learning how to not tell them HOW, but WHAT…)

A busy time, again/still. We were supposed to ship 2.0 of The Beast end of june. Didn’t happen, for various reasons. July, we had three smaller projets due, so we tabled the Beast. I’m happy to say that two of the projects were done early and going live on time. The third, which of course the one with high management visibility, looks to be slipping, but not because of me (thank god) — or not really because of anyone. It’s one of those projects where you spend most of your time hauling people out of sinkholes, and it doesn’t matter WHAT date you set, you’ll miss it, because you keep finding stuff that nobody thought to schedule or put in the requirements (or in my case, some stuff people added to the requirements and forgot to tell me about, and the requirements changed so often I didn’t notice…). It hasn’t always been a fun project, but it’s been a fascinating learning experience in getting to know how other parts of the company work and what they expect, and the next phases will go much smoother because of it. (I hope. sometimes, chaos wins, no matter how big your whack-a-mole hammer is…)

So we’re busy rebooting 2.0 of the beast, and plan to be coding next week. And trying to get it out the door, because we need it.

Oh, and on July 5, I shut down Apple’s last USENET server. we were down to about six users. So far, two have complained. People who know me probably understand this has more meaing to me than might be obvious — more so because my first real contacts with Apple were when I came over and helped them figure out some problem with their usenet feed…. go figure.

I’m supposed to be packing — but I’m not. Making a quick run down 101 to visit the parents. Nothing serious, just wandering in to do a few things for them, then drive back saturday. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to southern cal in july. Just turn up the airco, okay?

And laurie and I have made the hotel reservations for the august trip. Vancouver, Victoria, Seattle, Portland. I am ready NOW. I’m going to try to do some photography of downtown portland, and laurie is going to show me around Lake union and the fremont district – and in Victoria, we’ll eat well and relax. Vancouver’s getting the short visit, so we have time in Seattle. I am hoping to explore gastown some more and work on my photos, and maybe chinatown. we’ll see.

Unfortunately, the Lions are on a road trip when we hit vancouver. ohwell…

God, it’s midnight. I’ll pack in the morning. sigh.

some GM’s unhappy with NHL committee

TSN.ca – NHL – Canada’s Sports Leader:

A number of GMs told TSN said they’re “frustrated” and even “angry” at effectively being replaced as the body that recommends rule changes to the NHL board of governors.

Gee, some GMs are upset because the players have been given a voice in rule definition in hockey, and they aren’t being allowed to, well, filter those recommendations before being voted on. I can guess some of the GMs that are unhappy — and I think this is great for the sport. wow. imagine that — not being able to rewrite the recommendations before passing them on. horrors.

If you read the article, it describes some of the rumored rule changes. Most of them I support strongly (I’m unconvinced about removing the red line — I think that’s a much more minor thing in practice than in theory, and I hate shoot-outs, but if it’s after 8 minutes of OT, I’ll take it) — but one that’s in there as kind of a throwaway is that if a team ices the puck, it won’t be allowed a line change. Combined iwth fast faceoffs — this is a huge strategy change, since a major reason to ice the puck is because your line got caught on and is exhausted, so you throw it for the whistle to get fresh legs on.

Now, instead of fresh legs, your tired legs stay on and THEY get fresh legs. That’s HUGE. of course, I can see defensemen practicing accidentally clearing pucks into the crowd already instead… So next year, let’s extend the goalie delay-of-game rule to ANY puck that leaves the surface without touching anything…

Make ‘em tick the glass, or you’ll see zillions of pucks in the stands and the safety netting….

Marginal Revolution: Auto scalping??

Marginal Revolution: Auto scalping??:

Attention baseball fans and vertical integration researchers: The Chicago Cubs scalp their own tickets. I was recently pointed to the web page of a disgruntled fan (click here) who found out that a ticket re-seller is owned by the same company that owns Wrigley Field, the Tribune Company. And of course, the ticket reseller charges much more than the face value.

Me, I’m all for this. Even better, let’s standardize it — why should scalpers benefit from excess demand instead of the promoters and artists, anyway?

Auction software’s well-understood now. Take blocks of tickets that are similar, and dutch auction the silly things. Let people put a value on them, and see what happens. And let the revenue fall to those involved in the event, not those taking advantage of an inefficient market.