NFL study links concussions, depression – Yahoo! News

NFL study links concussions, depression – Yahoo! News:

- A study of more than 2,500 retired NFL players found that those who had at least three concussions during their careers had triple the risk of clinical depression as those who had no concussions.

Of course, you don’t have to be an athlete for this to be relevant. It’s important to realize that there seems a strong and straightforward correlation between concussions (and numbers and severity) and depression (and intensity and the likelihood of having it)

Another reason for sports people at all levels to get very serious about head injuries.

Kuklas Korner: Is gary bettman afraid of the leafs?

Kuklas Korner:

“Frankly, I live in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area and it’s tough for all the clubs to get media attention, particularly when they’re having tough years on the ice. There’s some real downside to having multiple teams in one market,” Bettman said Monday in his state-of-the-union address.

My spin: Is Gary Bettman that afraid of the Toronto Maple Leafs? Do the Leafs have that much power that they can veto a second team coming to Southern Ontario?

Hey, Maybe he’s just speaking reality. Look at the challenges that go in in various sports where there are two teams in a market. One team ends up dominant over the others, whether it’s in TV ratings (and access), newspaper coverage, fan mindset. Look at the challenges of, say, TV in Los Angeles, where there are two baseball, two basketball and two hockey teams (and no football!), all trying to get onto two cable stations and the same sports pages. Here in the Bay area, the Giants outdraw and out-TV the A’s by a wide margin, have access to a much more powerful radio station, and generally take priority on the sports pages (despite, of course, looking at which team’s won more world series and pennants in the last 20 years).

Look at how the Devils and the Islanders play second and third fiddle to the Rangers, even when the Rangers suck.

It’s not JUST about fans. It’s about corporate money, it’s about sponsors, it’s about media. And if you look at multi-team markets in all sports, all around the continent, there are challenges. If you were to, say, move a team into Kitchener or some place outside of the Leaf’s no-go zone, you still have to deal with getting them on cable and CBC (and let’s not forget, it’s the Toronto Sports Network for a reason, and the CBC in the new TV contract had to actually and formally admit that Ottawa existed and ought to be on TV once in a while. Imagine if you added a third team to the mix!).

Now, in reality, the demand for hockey — and NHL hockey — in Ontario is amazing. the prices that the Leafs can charge are abusive, well beyond insane. But putting another team in there, as opposed to putting a team back in, say, Winnipeg?

You KNOW the entire region is going to support a team in Winnipeg. You can bet that fans will support another team in Ontario, but will the media? TV? sponsors and corporate? And at what price tickets? Guess right, and the new Winnipeg Jets succeeds wildly. Guess wrong? and you have hockey’s LA Clippers.

Now, I think a team in Ontario could work. but I don’t think it’s a no-brainer, and I don’t think people reacting to all of this are thinking through all of the business complications, just looking at being able to buy tickets that don’t cost as much as they do for the Leafs games. If only it were that simple…

HockeyNation

HockeyNation:

Game one was one for the birds; the Anaheim Ducks recovered from an early Ottawa start and wore down their dance partners during Monday nights opening game of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

You know, I’m not willing to say that. Ottawa played better early. Anaheim played better later. Emery looked shakey at times. Anaheim took too many penalties. And it, minus one missed check and a heads-up play, was going to Overtime. So as bad as Ottawa played — they almost took this to overtime. No reason to think Anaheim got any real advantage.

Besides, game one just doesn’t do much more than set the table for games 2 and 3. What Ottawa needs is a split in Anaheim. If Anaheim win’s both at home, then Ottawa has a problem. But to me, all game 1 did was make game two MORE important for Ottawa. But it’s game 2 and game 3 that will likely decide this series.

On the Forecheck: NHLPA spying details come out

On the Forecheck: NHLPA spying details come out:

There are so many bombshells here it’s hard to tell where to start – obviously monitoring the player reps email activities within their NHLPA accounts is suspect, but accessing Trent Klatt’s outside, personal email clearly crosses the line. Note also how Saskin and Kim were aware of the snooping scandal that brought down Hewlett-Packard chairwoman Patricia Dunn – they halted their activities for a while, but resumed when the heat started rising again.

What interests me here is how the NHLPA’s IT group seems to have helped this “Big Brother” program along. According to the report Kim used Klatt’s NHLPA password to access the outside personal account – presumably Kim got that password through shoddy security policies, or someone in IT provided it to him (unless of course it was “pass”, in which case, shame on you Trent Klatt). Then there’s the point about providing the details of what was supposedly a “secret ballot” to end the 2004-5 lockout and ratify the new CBA. It would appear that there’s at least one bad apple within the NHLPA IT department…

When not blogging here as the Forechecker, my mild-mannered alter ego works in IT. I sure as heck know I’m not going to look favorably on any resumes coming across my desk that list network security for the NHLPA as working experience!

I spent a decade in IT, too — and to be honest? It’s not necessarily that simple. First, I’m sure the union’s IT world is pretty small, because it’s a fairly small organization. they probably don’t HAVE a network security guy. And ultimately, IT reports up to management, and if management says to do something; you either do it, or you get out.

And no, I’m not defending the IT people there, merely pointing out this can be a really rough situation if you get a lot of pressure from above. Let’s keep the focus on who was CALLING the shots here. The involvement of IT speaks more to the abuse of the power of Saskin and his team than failings within the IT organization.

But this sucks. If it wasn’t clear before that Saskin had to be put down, it is now. I hope Saskin isn’t stupid enough to force a big fight over the compensation issue (reports like this will hopefully scare him off from that) — because what the NHLPA needs to do is focus on rebuilding and moving forward, not on this.

And that would, I hope, include looking at how to enable IT to not feel it has to get involved in things it knows is wrong.

easier said than done, of course. Espoecially in small shops.

San Jose Mercury News – Ron Wilson to be back with Sharks

San Jose Mercury News – Ron Wilson to be back with Sharks:

Ron Wilson will return as Sharks coach, General Manager Doug Wilson said Tuesday.

“This coaching staff will be back and we look forward to the work they’re going to do,” the G.M. said in a conference call with reporters.

okay, we can mark this crisis as done…

(not surprised, not disappointed…)

Prediction: stanley cup final

Two for Elbowing: Third round predictions…:

So, I’m 9 for 12 for the playoffs, my best run in years.

The two conference finals:

Anaheim/Detroit: Anaheim in 5.

Ottawa/Buffalo: I’ll pick Buffalo in 7. (now, watch Ottawa sweep…)

And, because I didn’t believe in Ottawa quite enough, I went 1 for 2, and 10 for 14 so far in the playoffs (too bad I didn’t have money down this year…)

In the final?

Ottawa in 5. I think they’re playing better right now. but there are so many wildcards, you could flip coins and get it right. Guigere outplaying Emery? Or will Emery start getting recognition for how well he’s played? Wlll Pronger be the good witch or the bad witch? will he focus his game or go *pop* again? The ducks are doing a “win it for Teemu”, which, if Teemu plays well, could make this interesting.

I think it’s going to be a fun series, no matter what. Either team could win it in five, but I think it’s Ottawa’s year.

My conn-smyth candidates: Alfreddson if Ottawa wins, Guigiere if Anaheim wins.

La Brea Tar Pits: A New Bubbling Discovery – Gadling

La Brea Tar Pits: A New Bubbling Discovery – Gadling:

One of the more interesting sites of the modern world meeting up with the prehistoric one that I’ve ever seen is in the section of Los Angeles where the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits are within walking distance of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and high rise buildings. The prehistoric dates back to 40,000 years according to the oldest bone fragment found in the pits.

This is a great place to spend some time if you’re in the area and looking for something to do…

And in the “life is never as simple as we expect it to be…” department:

Turns out the bubbling is caused by bacteria and not oil production that was thought to be happening 1,000 feet below the sticky, black goo. The bacteria feeds on the petroleum of this natural asphalt at the site and burp methane gas.

Sharks debate their options / Team tired of playoff letdowns

Sharks debate their options / Team tired of playoff letdowns:

“It’s very disappointing, in one sense discouraging,” Jamison said. “We felt we could have been there (the Cup Finals). When you’re up 2-1 (in games) and you win most of Game 4, I feel we still should have gone on and won it from that point.”

Jamison added that he was expecting this season to be a breakthrough considering in the last three postseasons, the Sharks have been to Game 6 of the West finals and Game 6 of the semis the last two tries with talent-laden rosters.

“Our makeup is to never give up and we’ll go after it again next season,” he added.

Chelios explains why he didn’t shake hands with Ducks

Chelios explains why he didn’t shake hands with Ducks:

DETROIT – Chris Chelios said he didn’t shake hands with the Anaheim Ducks players following the Detroit Red Wings’ loss Tuesday in the Western Conference final because he was so overcome with emotion he thought he was going to blackout and throw up.

The veteran defenceman initially went straight to the dressing room, but composed himself enough to come out and shake the hands of Ducks coaches before once again being overwhelmed by the feelings of illness.

“I’m the biggest believer in tradition, in having honour and showing class,” Chelios said. “I’m not going to lie and say it’s an apology, it’s an explanation.

“In all sincerity, I couldn’t keep it together the last 20 seconds of the game realizing we were going to get knocked out.

And, for all the people out there ripping Chelios for not going through the hand-shake line, an explanation.

And perhaps it’s time for folks to shut up and remember that these people are human…

Digital Web Magazine – News – Wonder Why Women Don’t Feel Welcome?

Digital Web Magazine – News – Wonder Why Women Don’t Feel Welcome?:

I think the subject of women in the web world is a complex one, not some easy blame-it-on-the-men, blame-it-on-society situation. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I find that the accomplished male web designers and developers have, almost without exception, been warm, generous, welcoming, respectful, and supportive in any of my little endeavors. Any advances I haven’t made in my professional life I blame entirely on myself. I’m not particularly interested in quotas and statistics. So, please don’t assume that my next comment is a simplistic, knee-jerk, anti-male response. What were these organizers thinking? It doesn’t matter a bit if this group is San Francisco’s hottest thing going or whatever, I find its presence at a tech conference repellent, offensive, demeaning, and, as a woman, humiliating. Why would a woman, seeing this, want to attend or speak at a future conference? I’m disgusted. If you don’t get this, You. Just. Don’t. Get. It.

I wonder how many people walked out, compared to the number busily taking shots on their phone cameras and shipping them off to friends and co-workers. I wonder how many (in the audience, not the organizers) even remotely wondered how the women in the audience were reacting?

And god knows, I’m not intolerant of behavior that would be easily classified, well, inappropriate by some. Or many. Or all of you. I just try to be careful to keep it limited to the people I know don’t mind, I don’t (well, I try not to) blare it out in a public forum for all to see and glory in.

The fact that women were actively (and, we assume, happily) involved in this stunt doesn’t make it appropriate. There are women who enjoy the “frat house” environment — but that doesn’t assume that all women want to party in a frat house.

Sigh. Folks won’t get it (again), but the reality is, the more public the thing you’re planning, the wider the audience, the less you KNOW who that audience is going to be, the more careful you have to be how you organize it.

You know, if instead of what happened here, they had a group of guys put on blackface and come out and sing an hour of Al Jolson tunes — we wouldn’t be having this discussion. No matter how good they were as singers, I doubt sincerely it would be very well received…

National Parks Traveler: The Essential Yellowstone

National Parks Traveler: The Essential Yellowstone:

Perhaps the world’s most iconic national park thanks to its parks-movement history, incredible geology, and rich fount of wildlife, Yellowstone is both the standard-bearer and lightning rod for the national park system.

Very nice piece on what to do at the park (which laurie and I are hoping to hit in the fall…)

one reason Doug Wilson is so pissed.

Some might think that Doug Wilson’s reaction (as I’ve pointed to this week) might be a bit — extreme. It’s not like the Sharks missed the playoffs, after all.

But the reality is, this was the year this team was aimed at; last year, “the kids got good experience” was good enough, this year, the expectation was for all the pieces to be there and click. Now, that didn’t happen — Mark Bell just never came close to what he was expected to be, not in any remote way, and I think the team spent a lot of time trying to fill that hole, never completely successfully.

But, also realize this: In the mid-90′s expansion, the Sharks showed up, then a year later, the Senators and Tampa. Then a bit after that, Anaheim and Florida.

Tampa’s won a cup. Anaheim and Florida have been to the finals. This year, the Senators and Anaheim are going to the finals, and one of them will win a cup.

San Jose is the only one of the teams from this round of expansion that haven’t made the cup finals.

That has to hurt, and cause heartburn. And it has to hurt even more that it’s two teams from that expansion period fighting it out this year… And I’m convinced Wilson believes the western team should ahve been the Sharks, and while we saw the Wing’s ability to make game 6 VERY interesting and the series a lot closer than maybe we expected, ultimately, Wilson’s convinced it’s waht the Sharks did NOT do, not what the Wings did.

And in that context, his reaction makes sense….

Be Careful With Those Hard Drive Cables – O’Reilly Digital Media Blog

Be Careful With Those Hard Drive Cables – O’Reilly Digital Media Blog:

However, there’s a dark side to using external hard drives. The cables. Firewire and USB cables are easy to connect and disconnect, and that’s the rub. They’re quick to set up, but they are also somewhat sensitive to being knocked around and accidently coming undone. You don’t typically notice this much when you are using a desktop or using a portable drive with a laptop for a few minutes. But when you sit down for a few hours with your laptop and a portable drive hooked up, its so very easy to jiggle the cable loose as you move the laptop around, especially when you move it off of your laptop and onto a table so you can take a break.

This is why I decided to keep my active projects on my laptop disk, and then migrate masters out to a second drive once I’m done with them. That allows me to not need the firewire drive attached to the laptop except for migration. It is to some degree the best of both worlds, and allows you to manage, say, a 20 gig Aperture library on the local disk and avoid this problem.

I’m currently using a single Aperture library with migrated masters. I’m seriously considering moving to a model where I keep two aperture libraries, and my new/active stuff is on the laptop, and then using “export project” and “import project” to move a finished set of photos to a second library on a different disk. This would allow me to use a vault disk to store a copy of everything (right now, if you migrate the masters out of the aperture database, the vault stores the meta data, but not the masters. I hope Aperture makes that an option some day).

You could, in fact, keep an infinite number of aperture databases, on different disks, some left at home, some carried “in case”, some on the laptop disk. I’m currently considering seriously moving to a workflow where secondary images (the non-primary ones in a set) are shifted to a secondary database in case I ever want them, and only keeping my “primary/best” images active. I haven’t worked out the details of that, but it’d simplify some aspects of backing things up over migrating masters. About the only detail to worry about (and maybe not need to) is keeping the keyword lists coordinated.

Exhausted? You’re not alone – That’s Fit

Exhausted? You’re not alone – That’s Fit:

Exhaustion is becoming an epidemic as more and more people work long hours and let sleep slide in order to squeeze more hours into their day. A survey conducted in the UK found that 42% of people cite lack of sleep as their biggest health concern. Another report showed that nearly half of us feel fatigued at work and suffer with insomnia.

And let’s not forget that it may not be a lack of HOURS asleep, but the quality of that sleep. The stats I got while being evaluated for apnea was that upwards of 20% or more of people have some form of Apnea. Which is why, if you’re having problems with being tired all of the time, maybe you should talk to your doctor about it. Especially if you are (a) overweight, or (b) a snorer. In fact the more you annoy whoever shares your space with your snoring (or the further away the people being annoyed are), the more you should think about it…

The worst that could happen, of course, is that someone says “no, that’s not it”. And it doesn’t involve things being poked into places you don’t want them to check…

Animal Spirits

Animal Spirits:

Why go out into different habitats with a book and binoculars during all different seasons to find and identify the birds you find? What is the appeal of being able to look and see and know a black-crowned night-heron or a ruby-crowned kinglet or a belted kingfisher or a white-throated sparrow or a red knot or a white pelican or a brown thrasher? Birds are just birds are just birds, right?

Why birding? Birding, the adventure of learning to see and know these winged members of a particular habitat let me see better and know and understand better the entire habitat, the entire ecosystem around me. And once I learned to really SEE birds, the realization came that there are far more species around than I ever imagined.

News – Sharks GM Looks Back On Playoff Exit – Forward To 07-08 – San Jose Sharks

News – Sharks GM Looks Back On Playoff Exit – Forward To 07-08 – San Jose Sharks:

INJURIES

Most injuries are revealed when the playoffs conclude, as what happened with Marleau’s shoulder, but others that came to light were sports hernias with Guerin, Smith, Vesa Toskala and Jonathan Cheechoo (a double).

“Vesa could have played,” said Wilson. “(With Cheechoo), they were shocked he was still playing. It is a simple procedure to fix.”

TOUGH YEAR FOR BELL

Wilson did discuss the difficult season for Mark Bell who was talented offseason pickup, who then had some off-ice issues and then found himself a healthy scratch in the playoffs.

“Mark got off on the wrong foot,” said Wilson. “He didn’t play the way he wanted and we didn’t get what we wanted for him. We’re looking forward to getting back the hockey player he was before. I think he can be a really good hockey player (for us).”

San Jose Mercury News – Sharks GM won’t guarantee coach’s return

San Jose Mercury News – Sharks GM won’t guarantee coach’s return:

General manager Doug Wilson needed two weeks to calm down after the San Jose Sharks’ second-round exit from the playoffs, and he’s still not ready to make any quick decisions on the futures of his players and coaches.

Saying he’s “frustrated and disappointed” with the end of an otherwise successful season, Doug Wilson plans to decide by next week whether coach Ron Wilson will return to San Jose next season.

The general manager was at times both blunt and evasive Monday in a wide-ranging interview, his first since San Jose was eliminated by the Detroit Red Wings in six games two weeks ago.

Nice to see Doug Wilson isn’t standing firm.

Now, if he cares about what my suggestions are, they’re here:

Actually, we seem pretty close overall.

A couple of other comments:

The Sharks’ postseason collapse included Ron Wilson’s thinly veiled scolding for captain Patrick Marleau, who struggled throughout the Detroit series despite a reputation for strong postseason play. Marleau’s leadership skills are questioned repeatedly by fans who don’t see how the taciturn son of a Saskatchewan farmer can be an effective captain.

“I trust that dressing room,” Doug Wilson said. “I don’t micromanage. There will be conversations that will take place. We’ll handle it.”

the only difference between Patrick Marleau and Steve Yzerman is that Yzerman won a Cup, and that shut up the critics. Otherwise, they’re the same style of captain. Ditto, say, Trevor Linden or in Ottawa, Alfreddson. Now, that’s not saying that Marleau is going to match any of those guys in terms of success as a captain, but I will note that Alfredsson has JUST this year beaten the critics and made carried his team to the conference finals, and he’s got about a full season of games more than Marleau has.

Steve Yzerman joined the wings in 83-84, became captain in 86, and the wings didn’t make it to the cup final until 1994-95 and didn’t win the cup until 2 years later; that’s 862 games before they made the final, and about 1000 games before Yzerman finally won a Cup. In other words — Marleau’s not exactly doing badly compared to similar captains with similar styles and similar criticisms. Trevor Linden, FWIW, had the fastest track to the Cup final of all of these guys, getting there in about 550 games.

So, my suggestion to fans ripping Marleau: chill.

Doug Wilson understands fans’ concerns that the Sharks are turning into the West Coast version of the Ottawa Senators, who struggled through years of regular-season successes and playoff failures before finally breaking through to the Stanley Cup finals this year. The Sharks blew leads in three of their losses to Detroit, including a pair of two-goal margins.

You know what? If we’re the West’s “Ottawa”, that’s not bad. After all, their captain stepped it up this year and carried them into the final this year — and Marleau seems to be following that development path pretty well so far. What we don’t want to be is Buffalo, who (again) didn’t get the job done and now has the unfortunate job of figuring out what players they can afford to sign and how to reload around them. Buffalo’s key shot was this year, and now the chances they keep both Drury and Briere are pretty small, and they don’t have the track record of Detroit as far as reloading in place. The Sharks, thanks to smart budgeting and planning, aren’t at that point and look to have a couple more years with the core of the team together. We’re not worrying about how to keep Marleau and Thornton, we’re worrying about what to do to Mark Bell.

Oh, sorry. WITH Mark Bell, not TO. Freudian slip there.

sort of.

Two for Elbowing: my commentary on the Buffalo/Ottawa series so far..

Two for Elbowing: my commentary on the Buffalo/Ottawa series so far..:

Buffalo: I don’t want to go on the cart.

Ottawa: you’re not fooling anybody….

Buffalo: I think I’ll go for a walk….

And then there were three. Congrats to the Senators.

And congrats to the Sabres for getting that far. Let’s not forget how many good teams are golfing while they were still playing…

A DC Birding Blog: West Nile Virus Hurting Local Bird Species

A DC Birding Blog: West Nile Virus Hurting Local Bird Species:

A new study reports that several local bird species have declined since the West Nile Virus was introduced in 1998. The study included the American crow, an obvious candidate given news coverage of the disease. Other species affected by the virus include Carolina chickadee, tufted titmouse, blue jay, American robin, and eastern bluebird.

my commentary on the Buffalo/Ottawa series so far..

Buffalo: I don’t want to go on the cart.

Ottawa: you’re not fooling anybody….

Buffalo: I think I’ll go for a walk….

Good for Buffalo for playing well and winning game 4. but anyone who thinks a miracle is going to happen, I doubt Ottawa is going to allow it. I think game 5 is it. There’s a reason four straight wins from down 3-0 has only happened twice. You can build up the energy to win A game. But keep that four straight? not likely.