Damien Cox: New-look San Jose Sharks out-Winging their opponents

ESPN – Damien Cox: New-look San Jose Sharks out-Winging their opponents:

The Detroit Red Wings, needless to say, proved there was another way last season, riding skill, speed and Tre Kronor power to an impressive Stanley Cup title. The Wings hardly fought at all, didn’t carry an enforcer and roared through the postseason.

That left the San Jose Sharks, to name one team, in a bit of a conundrum.

Follow the Ducks or follow the Wings?

Simply being the Sharks, after all, wouldn’t do. That had become synonymous with strong regular seasons — 418 points in four seasons — and disappointing playoff pratfalls.

Well, for better or worse, the Sharks chose to imitate the Wings.

In fact, beating the Red Wings 4-2 in Silicon Valley on Thursday night boosted the Sharks to 9-2 on the season, the best start in San Jose franchise history. It was a game that came on the heels of an impressive win over the Eastern Conference defending champs from Pittsburgh, in which Sidney Crosby and Co. were held to just 11 shots by the stingy Sharks defense.

Except, of course, that the Sharks have Jody Shelley. Which kinda mucks up the point Damien Cox is making, if you ask me.

The reality is the Sharks did “wing-ize” themselves, but they aren’t the kind of team Cox is trying to make them into. They are (and the Wings are in many ways) a physical and gritty team as well. Last year, the Wings had Downey and they have Darren McCarty, neither heavyweights, but strong, physical intimidation players. The Sharks have Shelley, who can toe to toe with the best of them, and they also have guys like Ryan Clowe, who’s McCarty’s younger brother (or should be).

The Sharks spent some time without a true enforcer, and after Brad Stuart almost had his head removed (by, um, Jody Shelley) Doug Wilson decided that was never going to happen again. So no matter how much you want to think the day of the enforcer is fading, it’s not. And the Sharks are a perfect time to show that it isn’t, for all they skate you out of the building. they’re also a good example of the reason why.

Which mostly proves you simply can’t pigeonhole these things the way Cox tried here. Life’s never that simple. And enforcement has a role, as long as it’s used with discretion (and that’s the problem the Ducks have, they go overboard, constantly).

iMac, Mac Mini Updates November 11 According to… Pure Speculation

iMac, Mac Mini Updates November 11 According to… Pure Speculation | The Apple Blog:

Yesterday, Macsimumnews.com published a piece in which editor David Sellers claims to be “pretty sure” that the iMac and Mac mini will see updates on or before Tuesday, Nov. 10 (it’s actually the 11th). He makes no mention of sources, and the article is categorized as an opinion piece.

Which didn’t stop 9to5mac from posting about the piece under the banner “iMac, Mac Pro upgrades loom?” Loom? It hardly seems valid to suggest updates are “looming” based on the guesswork of a single Apple journalist, even if he does have experience in the industry.

Good lord.

All of you. stop. Just stop it. Get out of your parent’s basement and go outside. Do something. Get a life. cut it out.

I swear to god, I’m going to start a rumor blog, make up some false identity and start posting really weird fantasy crap, just to see who picks it up and treats it as real news. And then I’ll out you for the idiots you are.

or maybe I’ve already started. who knows? well, I do.

But please: if you have a brain and don’t need a keeper to remind you to breathe, do the universe a favor and DO NOT READ OR SUPPORT sites that pull this kind of stuff. And no, I’m not suggesting you do it to theAppleBlog, but to those poor disasters they’re yelling at…

League Revenues, the Loonie and the Salary Cap

HockeyAnalysis.com » Blog Archive » League Revenues, the Loonie and the Salary Cap:

If my projections are accurate, so long as the league can increase revenues (not including currency factors) then the salary cap isn’t likely to be impacted negatively in any significant way and could increase by a couple million dollars if the Canadian dollar rebounds measurably (it has jumped a couple of cents today). But in a worst case scenario where the league cannot grow at the same pace as it has and the Canadian dollar remains where it is today the salary cap is likely to fall by up to a couple million dollars.

some interesting numbers looking at the impact of canadian dollar value on the cap. No idea how accurate they are, but at first reading, I think he’s done a good job on putting this together.

the one thing that I’d raise as an issue is that I think the phrase “as long as the league can increase revenues” is an issue. there’s softness in a number of markets (Columbus, Atlanta) and I’ve seen some comments by Bettman about softness in sponsorship, which I expect will likely accelerate somewhat. A flat revenue growth is more likely than continued growth, if you ask me (and honestly, there was a lot of growth to grab coming out of the lockout, and I was expecting growth to flatten, if not completely go flat, before the economic crisis hit. Now that it has, ratchet the numbers down further, folks).

I was betting the cap would only go up minimally next year; now, I’m not only betting flat, maybe down a bit, but I’m also wondering if the players are going to see money lost to the escrow.

So far, Bettman’s said that the economy hasn’t really impacted revenues. I believe him. What he isn’t saying is that something like 80% of the league revenues are locked in before the puck drops to open the season, so there’s not a lot of wiggle room (good OR bad), barring some major catastrophe like a team owner going broke.

But next year? We’ll have to wait and see — when sponsorships and other deals are renegtiated next year? We’re seeing companies walk to the sidelines in other areas of sponsorships. Will teams find the economic weakness leads to reduced ticket sales, or price reductions to manage reduced demand?

None of this is (a) bad, or (b) the CBA’s “fault”, or (c) bettman’s fault. It’s part of the economic reality of life. Are some teams in deep trouble if the cap flattens or goes down? Definitely. But that’s because some teams are lousy at planning and budgeting, not because the system is flawed. ANY system you put in place, some teams (hello, Toronto) will find ways to screw it up, while other teams never seem to run into those problems and find ways to prosper (hello, Detroit and San Jose). And then there are teams like Anaheim, which sometimes guess wrong and sometimes run into surprises, but figure out a way to make it happen.

Hey, if you ask me, any team that insists on spending to the cap, committing too much salary for too many years and is depending on the cap continuing to go up gets exactly what it deserves. Don’t “fix” the system, get better management.

The good teams seem to be able to navigate this pretty well, even though we’re still in the learning curve for the CPA and the cap.

RSS and Sliced Bread. Tough To Explain. Never Go Back

RSS and Sliced Bread. Tough To Explain. Never Go Back – Technology Evangelist:

f the bread slicer was a recent invention, I imagine a conversation like this would take place somewhere in the world:

Guy #1: “Dude, you have to try sliced bread.”

Guy #2: “Why would I need that? I can slice my own bread, thanks.”

Guy #1: “Dude, you just have to try it. It’s so much easier and gets you to sandwich status so much quicker.”

Guy #2: “Man, how long does it really take to slice bread? You can’t be serious.”

Guy #1: “Forget that I ever brought this up.”

And so goes RSS evangelism in 2008

Has anyone stopped to think that “sliced bread” also implies the commoditization of bread? When you start buying your bread sliced, you’re also to some degree committing to buying “manufactured” bread. Or perhaps “generic” bread is a better way of putting it.

That’s not a negative, per se. When I’m making lunch, that’s fine. And maybe that’s all you want out of your bread. If so, fine.

But… there’s still something to be said for a good loaf of fresh, carefully baked bread. Even more, fresh-baked and still warm.

Do you really want to cook that special meal for that special someone, and serve Wonder Bread with it?

Just imagine how that’d reflect on you.

Now, this isn’t really a discussion of sliced vs. artisanal bread. It is, in fact, a discussion of RSS; “sliced bread” is a wonderful thing, but only in its place. Sliced bread is more generic, harder to differentiate from other sliced bread. It’s going to go stale faster, too. In some ways, you lose the special aspects of bread in favor of convenience and speed.

Sort of a metaphor of today’s society in general, and especially the online world.

Really want to understand what bread CAN be about? Read James Beard on Bread.

Grab yourself a nice piece of warm, fresh pumpernickel, slather it with a nice salted butter, and go sit down in front of your monitor and ask yourself how this is relevant to RSS feeds.

(hint: do you really want your online presence to be thought of as sliced bread? Or do you aspire to something someone will slather butter on?)

This is something I’ve actually been thinking about a lot lately. Not just the online aspects, but hauling out the bread machine and getting to it again.

Honestly, while RSS is a key technology, and I am one of those “if you have no RSS, you might as well not exist” people, the thought of life eating only Wonder Bread? Or baking it?

There’s something seriously missing in that life, folks.

I think I need a nap..

I was just talking to a co-worker about the early days of our careers (it turns out we both entered the industry within a few months of each other), and I went and looked at my really-old-historical resume to make sure of the dates…

I got my first non-computer-lab job, my first “paid to do computers for real” job, in October of 1979. that means I’ve started my 30th year in the industry. Add a year and a half or so as a school lab geek if you want, but for almost three decades, this stuff has paid the rent. In that 29 years, I was unemployed for six weeks twice, once last year before I started my current gig.

Just thinking about how far things have come, from PDP-11′s and Data General computers, and from fortran and cobol and RSTS/E basic to today’s world of ruby and python and django and rails. What a trip (and it’s far from over). As I like to say, my keyboard has more processing power than my first computer…

I also hit another milestone back when I wasn’t paying attention. I moved from Southern California in 1982, back when Silcon Valley was fresh and new. Today (Silicon Valley is still pretty fresh and new, actually!) I realize I’ve actually lived here in Northern California longer than I lived in Southern Cal. does that make me a native or something?

When Duncan was down here the other weekend, we wandered around the valley looking at random things. One thing I showed him was the building I worked in when I worked for Sun.

It’s a Google building now. Of course, the buildings I worked for at Apple are, well, Apple buildings. Except for the one in Campbell, that is. Last I looked, that one was empty. Oh well. My building at National Semiconductor later turned into world headquarters for (I kid you not) Ujena swimwear, home to really skimpy bikinis worldwide, but it (and, I think, the building) both Went Away.

Anyone seen my walker? I think I need to totter off for my nap…

A Compromise On Hits To the Head

Mike Chen does a good job of looking at the problem of hits to the head.

To some degree, I agree with him: hits to the head need to be penalized. But the devil is in the details…

KuklasKorner : Mike Chen’s Hockey Blog : A Compromise On Hits To the Head:

I don’t think anyone wants to see what happened to Brandon Sutter, and I’m constantly surprised at the fact that every time this happens, the NHLPA does nothing—you’d think the safety of their players would truly be their primary concern.

Under Kelly, the PA’s attitude has been changing; note, for instance, that Kelly is now in favor of mandating visors with a grandfather law for veterans. Of course, increasingly, this is a moot point. Stop and count the number of current Sharks that do NOT wear visors. I was thinking about that the other night, and it’s a surprisingly small number.

I think the fact that the league and PA aren’t moving faster on this is simple: it’s a difficult issue that is tightly wound to the core of the game. How do you take it out of the game without screwing up the game in other ways?

I’ve often been in favor of penalizing hits to the head—it’s not exactly a new concept in hockey, after all, and the stuff that can happen later in life due to concussions is downright frightening. However, the execution of such a rule in the NHL is the subject of endless debate.

There’s a valid argument about the position Sutter was in when Doug Weight ran him over. With that in mind, here’s an attempt at a compromise rule:

-Any shoulder impact on a player’s head is a two-minute penalty

-Any elbow impact on a player’s head is a four-minute penalty (two minutes for elbowing, two minutes for hit to the head)

-Similar to the “Was it a distinct kicking motion?” rule, a judgment-call exception can be made by the referee when a player is in such a position that his head is lower than the top of his shoulders. Basically, don’t hunch over with your head down—got it?

It’s not exactly black-and-white but it’s pretty darn close. It also requires a little bit of split-second judgment by the refs, which is never an easy thing. However, if this is executed properly, I think it’s a reasonable way to try and integrate a preventative into the game while not catering to stupidity. In other words, if you’re hunched over admiring your nifty stickhandling work, you’re still fair game.

The precedent here is the high stick. It’s a “no tolerance no excuse” rule, and players have (mostly) adapted.

The sticking point for me is the boarding or hitting from behind penalty. Players have figured out they can draw penalties by turning away from a hit — once a player commits to the check, they can find themselves with no options. It’s really a form of a dive, if you ask me, but it’s that same kind of split-second-judgement we’d now be asking referees to make.

And it’s got some of the same implications. A player that misjudges the hit into the boards can find himself seriously injured or spitting teeth onto the ice (hmm. did I just imply that’s not a serious injury? guess so; in hockey). Players are willing to put themselves at risk to draw the penalty here — to me, that says some will do the same with hits to the head, just to get the penalty. And that’s bad on a number of levels.

On balance, though, I like this approach. I’m a lot LESS worried about shoulder hits; we need to encourage that in the game, it’s the elbows, forearms and fists I want to see dropped from the game.

So how about this? Basically, extend high sticking to the elbow. Any touch to the body above the shoulder from the elbow to the blade of the stick is at least 2 minutes. 2 for incidental contact, four for significant contact, five for intent to injure.

I’d leave the shoulder out of it for now. Clamp down on elbows and forearms, and see how it goes. If shoulder hits continue to be problems, we can look at revising the rules. To me, though, I worry about heading too close to “hockey is a physical game, as long as nobody gets hurt”. you can’t do both; injuries WILL occur, and we have to be willing to accept that. Trying to stop every possible injury removes the physical aspect from the game. What we need to do is find that balancing point that allows for the great phyiscal play while discouraging the play that leads to dangerous situations and avoidable injuries. And I’d rather take two smaller steps and evaluate the change than one big step and realize we’ve gone too far, because it’s hard to take it back out of the rules once it’s there.

Head hits in the news (again)

Head hits in the news (again) – From The Rink:

“The league should at least stop saying it’s concerned with hits to the head, because it’s not,” Hurricanes GM Jim Rutherford told TSN.ca. “I’ve had four players — Erik Cole, Trevor Letowski, Matt Cullen and now Brandon Sutter — get badly injured on hits to the head and only one of the guys who hit them was suspended. So don’t tell me the league is concerned about hits to the head because it’s not.”

It’s good to see this issue getting some much-needed publicity, especially from one of the league’s GMs. Of course, outcries like this would be much more effective if they didn’t come immediately after one of the team’s own players was hurt.

So what do we do? Outlaw ANY hit to the head?

I’m sorry to see Sutter hurt (he’s now out of the hospital), but… Who’s responsibility is it to avoid a hit? If you watch the reply (embedded above), Doug Weight is skating with one foot on the center line. Sutter comes into the camera view with his skates about 2 feet from the blue line. Weight doesn’t change his line.

Neither does Sutter. Weight hits him straight on. Clean hit, if you ignore the head part.

Sutter had 20+ feet of ice, with a clear view, to see Weight, recognize the hit coming, and either avoid the hit or get ready for it. He did neither.

So who’s responsible here? Should Weight be responsible for making sure he doesn’t hit Sutter? One could argue that Sutter shifted his position after Weight committed to the hit, moving his head into the hitting zone, but that’s all really subjective.

What isn’t subjective is that Sutter had multiple seconds and 20′ of ice to see Weight coming and do something — and he didn’t. Weight, I think, has a responsibility to try to avoid hitting him in the head, but did he really have the opportunity?

Quotes I read from Colin Campbell and the war room all indicate everyone in league office agreed it was a clean hit, and I agree as well. I don’t see that Weight did anything wrong here; in fact, I’ll go so far as to say that Weight probably has an expectation that Sutter is going to try to evade him at some point, and was as surprised as anyone when Sutter didn’t see him and didn’t try to move off the hit.

Sutter had his head down. Neither player was in traffic, neither player’s view was obstructed, and frankly, I think ultimately it’s the player BEING HIT that has the responsibility to avoid the hit, not the hitting player’s responsibility to pull the hit. If you don’t keep your head on a swivel, someone is going to line you up and hit you into next week.

Sutter’s somewhere in next week right now.

Sorry, that’s hockey.

We can argue whether or not any hit to a head under any circumstance should be a penalty at any time — and honestly, I could buy into that — but I think this one’s Sutter’s fault, the same way the classic hit on Lindros by Scott Steven’s was Lindros’ fault. And honestly, if you change the rule so that any hit to the head causes a penalty, well, heads will be safer, but we’ll shortly be complaining about how many penalties the referees are calling (again).

Hockey’s a physical game. Players have to be aware of what’s going on around them. Sutter wasn’t. That is, to me, the base problem here: If Sutter had been watching what was going on, Weight never would have gotten a hit on him. It was completely avoidable.

A Would-Be Zebra’s Code of Behavior

On Frozen Blog › A Would-Be Zebra’s Code of Behavior:

A morning shower train of thought: were I an NHL referee, how would players, coaches, and fans commonly characterize my officiating style?

But more importantly, every time I sat in an arena’s officials’ dressing room lacing up my skates near 7:00, I would reflect on the thousands of hard-working men and women directing their limited disposable income at our evening’s entertainment then pouring through the turnstiles one level above me. Additionally, I would ruminate on my role for the evening: to endeavor to remain inconspicuous.

And here, you’ve just failed. The referee is not there to make the fans happy; he’s there to call the game the best they can, and as fairly as it can be done.

As soon as you start thinking in terms of the fans or the people in the arena, you’re wandering down that path of biasing the game in favor of the home team. That’s a major failure. The job of the players is to entertain the fans. The job of the referee is to keep the playing field level.

A referee has to be blind and dumb to anything going on off the playing surface. The referee’s job isn’t to be inconspicuous; it’s to call a good and fair game. If the players make that impossible — that’s not the referee’s fault. It is more important to make the right call than to be inconspicuous. It is more important to make the right call than make the fans in the stands happy. Follow either of those paths, and as a referee, you fail.

Additionally, I would gather the team captains, including the assistants, and have an explicit dialogue with them before the game. Call this a reinforcement state of the hockey union message on the sheet. In baseball, a game begins and transpires for some innings before the teams know just what’s called a ball and what’s called a strike behind home plate. With pucksandbooks as referee, every night the two hockey teams on my sheet would know what I’d be on alert for before the game clock lost a second.

Not exactly. In baseball, a SERIES begins with the managers and umpires talking over the particulars of the ground rules unique to that stadium. It doesn’t happen every game, and it doesn’t involve captains, or even ballboys, or mascots, or anyone else. And that’s only because every ballpark is unique and has differences that have to be understood. Hockey arenas don’t, other than perhaps the location of the doors to the benches. So there’s no need to remind people about the ivy in Wrigley or the “in play” rules of a ball headed into a side-line bullpen.

I’m not here to chroncile the ticky-tack. If you can adhere to these broad dictates, you shouldn’t hear much from me.

and every NHL referee thinks and says the same thing. And the players consistently ignore them, forcing the referees to step in to make sure the game is called fairly.. So if you believe this, you’d simply end up in the same place as every other NHL referee….

Incidentally, Mr. Bettman, I skate pretty well.

I don’t. But I have umped baseball and refereed football and basketball at the high school level, and I know people who’ve gone into these sports professionally and talked to them a lot.

And I think it’s safe to say that all of them — to a person — wish they could do what you say you’d do, or that it’d be that easy… it’s not.

Tom Benjamin on the possible rule changes….

Tom Benjamin takes a different position than I did on the rule changes floated at the GM meeting. Worth a read, so if you haven’t, do so.

Of course, Tom and I disagree on the particulars, and the way he frames his arguments bothers me, so I’m going to argue back a bit and see what happens….

Tom Benjamin’s NHL Blog » Blog Archive » Leave It Alone:

The first is the Larry Pleau idea that I first detailed this past weekend, which essentially would change the delayed-penalty rule so that the penalized team would have to fully clear the puck from its defensive zone to get a stoppage in play rather than simply needing to possess the puck. The St. Louis Blues GM believes it would create more offensive chances with the sixth attacker on the ice for a bit longer before a whistle blows. He’s probably right. I like this one.

No real surprise here – Puck Daddy asked readers for their opinion on the idea several days ago. I’ve been chewing on it ever since. I’m now convinced that both the original change and the proposed amendment are bad ideas. The new rule seems innocuous, but…

1. As we can see, it’s a slippery slope. Why stop with clearing the defensive zone? Why not make the defending team get the puck to centre? Why not make the about to be penalized team put the puck in the empty net to get the stoppage?

Problem: Tom shifts the argument here from what the NHL is actually suggested to an extreme extension. If we adopt this rule, then what? Extend it to center ice? Force the other team to score a goal? Play doesn’t stop until someone tackles the opposing goalie and stuffs his head down a toilet? You can play this kind of absurdist game as far as you want, and it’s a common debating technique, because it forces the other side to defend a position it hasn’t proposed — and when they struggle to, declare victory and run for the exit.

The short answer is: nobody’s suggesting any of these extensions, so arguing them is irrelevant. And the not so short answer is: if the league decided to amend this proposal to include any of them (except maybe stuffing the goalie down the loo) I’d pull my support for the proposal. But the reality is, requiring the team to clear the puck is perfectly reasonable. Extending that to presume the league will turn it into a circus makes for good (and typical) Benjamin “the league masters are idiots” argumentation, but he’s now arguing against something nobody but Tom is suggesting.

So I’m fully in support of not supporting what Tom is arguing against. Too bad it’s not what the league suggested — and what the league suggested, I’m in favor of. If the league changes the details of the rule, then we can all re-examine it and decide if we still support it or not. But this kind of absurdist positioning actually doesn’t lead to any useful discussion on the topic, it merely attempts to provoke closure by absurdist fiat.

2. It increases the cost of a penalty when a substantial portion of penalties are so bogus we have damaged the credibility of the officiating. These stupid hooks aren’t worth a two minute penalty. Why make them worth more?

Those “stupid hooks” are why we are no longer watching hockey that is so boring it makes us want to watch paint dry. Those “stupid hooks” are what is keeping a return of the 1996 Florida Panthers Cup finals. You really want that back? Not me.

Ripping on the refs isn’t just a habit among some, it’s an art form. Personally, I think the reffing is pretty good. Perfect? what is? But the bottom line for me is that the league is generating some pretty fun hockey to watch, and the reffing is a key reason why the hockey is such fun to watch, because the reffing is not just about trying to keep players from killing each other, but about encouraging the kind of play you want in the game, and discouraging the kind of play you don’t want. People like Tom and Don Cherry who define how many minutes someone spends in the box based on how many teeth were removed in the play may not like it, but that kind of attitude is what allowed the kind of play we ended up with to take over the game in the first place.

3. It won’t work. It will marginally increase scoring, but it won’t increase it enough to make any real difference. The number of lead changes and the number of come from behind victories won’t change by enough to matter.

Of course, the problem is, that’s not what the league is really pushing for here. It might be what the media (and bloggers like Tom) are saying the league is trying to do, but if you read or listen to the league leaders like Bettman or Colin Campbell (XM radio helps a lot here; so does avoiding the presumption that every word coming out of their mouth is a lie, which seems to be what Tom believes.) it’s not about raising scoring, it’s about creating more scoring chances.

Will that increase scoring? One might hope, but what the real focus of the GMs was here was making the game more interesting to watch.

Horrors. We have to stop that. Let’s not try to make the game more interesting for casual fans…;

4. All the tinkering has the effect of demarketing the game. The apparently desperate efforts to increase scoring declares,

Funny, every league tinkers with its rules on a regular basis. Go take a look at the last five years of the NFL and some of their changes to things like the pass interference rules (a blatant attempt to open up scoring, folks…); you don’t see fans freaking that the league is panicking over in football land….

Here, the problem is that Tom’s long ago decided the people who run the NHL are idiots, and EVERYTHING they do is proof of that basic fact. Not that the league is perfect, god forbid. But… Can you really say with a straight face that the league circa 1995-96 was better than it is today? Tom sure seems to be with his comments on how the rules are currently strutured and interpreted. Frankly, he and Cherry can have the 96 panthers, I like today’s hockey.

If I wasn’t a fan, I’d wait until it was fixed before I bothered watching. If I was a fan who listened to the league, it would turn me off.

well, one wonders what a “turned off” Tom might be like, given as far as I can tell, he hasn’t liked anything the NHL has done in the last 15 years or so… But ignore that catty comment.

Fact is, all leagues are constantly tweaking things. There are always ways to make it better. Part of the problem is that for a while, the league DID stop trying to improve the game, and instead let it wander off without enough overt direction; the direction it wandered off in, no surprise, was the one which limited the risk of a coach being fired, i.e., playing to limit the other team’s offense and to not lose. And hockey turned into a game of drying paint interspersed with brawls, where success was decided not on skill, but on a player’s ability to prevent skill.

The NHL was headed off into becoming the Quebec Senior league, which is, I guess, okay for some of you, but not for me.

Adding a few goals won’t deliver up any more fans. Constant tinkering may drive them away. Its an exciting game whether there are an average of five goals or an average of six. Leave it alone.

The fans Tom is most worried about driving away won’t notice the tinkering in the first place, because they don’t pay that much attention to the league in the first place. But good, exciting hockey is a lot more likely to attract them than “wrap them in a carpet” hockey. I have no problem with taking a good game and making it better.

I’d have no problem if all of these proposals are tabled or rejected, actually. But given these are still in “let’s chew them over and see what we think” mode with the GMs now — far from a formal proposal, in fact, something that keeps getting lost in these discussions, I think it’s a good idea for them to be thought over and discussed.

But leave it alone? That’s how we got into the lousy shape the league was in during the late 90′s, folks. The league got too focussed on “let the boys play” and not enough on “is this fun to watch?”

God forbid we go back down that path…

Possible rule changes talked about at the GM meetinsg

ESPN – Pierre LeBrun Blog:

• The first is the Larry Pleau idea that I first detailed this past weekend, which essentially would change the delayed-penalty rule so that the penalized team would have to fully clear the puck from its defensive zone to get a stoppage in play rather than simply needing to possess the puck. The St. Louis Blues GM believes it would create more offensive chances with the sixth attacker on the ice for a bit longer before a whistle blows. He’s probably right. I like this one.

• The second has to do with hand passes and making them more consistent all over the ice. Right now, players are allowed hand passes in the defensive zone but nowhere else. The idea being discussed is not to allow it anymore in the defensive zone, just like the rest of the ice. I highly doubt this will happen. Blowing the whistle every time there’s a hand pass in the defensive zone would simply create more stoppages in play. It’s not what we’re looking for in the game right now.

• The third idea, and perhaps most interesting of all, is an idea from Montreal Canadiens GM Bob Gainey. He proposes that players in the defensive zone must have at least one skate on the ice when blocking shots. So, instead of having players collapsing all over the ice and sliding all over the place, Gainey believes this would allow for more pucks to get through from the point and, hence, create more scoring chances. Great idea by Gainey, although it really puts the onus on the referees.

Three possible rule changes talked about at the NHL GM meetings. I really like the changes made this year with where penalty face offs are dropped and the icing rule where they don’t allow the TV timeouts. Not entirely sure why they didn’t do the latter in the first place, but it really puts the onus teams to play defense well; fewer places to “get a lazy out”, and that leads to scoring and scoring chances.

And they’re minor things — but minor things that can have notable impacts.

For all fans have focussed on things like bigger nets or goalie gear changes (myself included), it’s interesting to note the league is spending most of its time on less dramatic (obvious) changes. All to the good. And that continues this year with these three possible changes.

I really like the first two; in fact, I was planning on writing something on the second one recommending it. If what you want is to increase scoring chances, don’t make it easier for the defense. Force them to use their sticks, not just toss the puck around. I’m tempted, actually, to extend that further, and outlaw batting the puck down with a hand at all (like soccer), even preventing a player from knocking it down to himself in the offensive zone. If they do, treat it like icing, faceoff in their defensive zone, no player change.

Both of these ideas I’d love to see implemented.

The third? At first glance, I really like it — but the devil is in the details. Enforcement is a bear; will players learn how to accidentally fall on demand, and how do referees handle it? what’s the penalty? treated like icing? Is that something that turns into a “good penalty to take?” category? This one gets really complicated really fast, so I’ll be curious to see how the league moves it forward.

But when about 50% of shots attempted are now not getting through to the goalie, this is an area that really can impact the game in positive ways; doesn’t matter about goal size or goalie gear size if the puck never gets there, right?

Hmm. Maybe the answer is to make shin pads somewhat less protective… Not enough that players aren’t save, but maybe enough that players think twice…

Zeppelin tours of the Bay Area

The Days Are Just Packed – Zeppelin tours of the Bay Area:

he zeppelin was shipped by boat from Zeppelin AG in Germany to New Orleans and is right this moment flying toward San Francisco. She just crossed the Arizona/California border, as documented on their blog

$500 per ticket for a one-hour tour. $950 for two hours.

oh, really cool. But watch out for that three hour tour.

The Man Who Would Buy Apple;But Sun’s Chief, Scott McNealy, Probably Won’t Be Caught Overpaying – New York Times

The Man Who Would Buy Apple;But Sun’s Chief, Scott McNealy, Probably Won’t Be Caught Overpaying – New York Times:

In the last week, Mr. McNealy’s tightwad tendencies have become painfully apparent to the top management of Apple Computer Inc. After months of discussion, Sun proposed an acquisition of Apple last Tuesday in an exchange of shares that would value Apple at $23 a share, according to executives familiar with the talks. That is well below the recent price of Apple shares, which have traded around $30.

Even at a higher reported bid of $33 a share, Sun, by the standards of most takeover deals, would be offering Apple a fire-sale price. Last June, Apple’s stock traded at more than $50 a share, though that was well before the Cupertino, Calif., computer maker announced its recent losses and layoffs.

For his part, Mr. McNealy has declined to confirm or deny that his company is talking to Apple at all. In an interview on Friday afternoon, Mr. McNealy insisted that any discussion of Apple was off-limits.

Fascinating blast from the past, good old 1996. I remember those layoffs well, they were truly painful (and in fact, I was on the layoff list at one time, and talked my manager into not laying me off. I still wonder if that was a smart idea or a stupid one, but I don’t regret it, because shortly after that, the severance package was changed and a layoff later would have cost me at least $30K from the previous package. A moot point, but.. And by staying with Apple, we were able to nurture and grow the mail list system that became lists.apple.com, which led to all of the other email stuff I built for them.

The joy of stringing together decisions. A decision made by Bob Fair in the Apple Business Systems unit in the 90′s made possible Apple being able to do New Music Tuesday and move much of their marketing and customer communication online in the 2000′s. Go figure.

But that’s not what I was posting this about (but heck, why not? old pharts get to remember the Good Old Days, although calling Apple in the mid-90′s “good” is a farce)…

More interesting to most of you might be this: I’ve heard, from various people I trust, that there was one key reason why this deal didn’t go through: Michael Spindler. It wasn’t the stock price, it was that Spindler was demanding a seat on Sun’s board as part of the deal, and McNealy simply wouldn’t allow it (good call, Scott!). That was the rumored reason why the Apple to Sony deal was scotched, too. Spindler was so intent on making sure he got taken care of he scotched the deal.

In retrospect, thank god. At the time, I was praying for the Sun deal to go through. Huge respect for McNealy — very few execs have been able to do what he did and have the run he had with Sun, and he might have been able to do interesting things if he’d gotten his hands on Apple technology. Not as interesting as Steve did when he came back. Stop and think for a minute just how different Silicon Valley — and our world — would be today if the Sun deal had gone through.

Not worse. Not better. But definitely different.

(and of course, I should probably remind folks that before my stint at Apple, I did four years at Sun. Employee 1200ish, still have my lucite block they handed out the day they went public in my office at home. Damn, I’m old…. And hopefully, Scott’s forgiven me for that little tstech oopsie by now…)

(hat tip: Daring Fireball for the pointer)

(Update: already been asked the “how would you know that?” question. Fair question, fair answer: I used to work out at the gym with someone who used to do aerobics regularly with the women in charge of making sure Herr Spindler got to his meetings on time and in clean shirts and at least somewhat briefed on what the meeting was about. There were three of them, they were not huge fans of Spindler (to put it mildly), and later on, some of the more interesting gossip would be re-gossiped around the bench press… Take that source for however you value it…)

Apple profits beat estimates, but sales disappoint – San Jose Mercury News

Apple profits beat estimates, but sales disappoint – San Jose Mercury News:

Worse, the company forecast that its holiday period results would fall far shy of expectations.

In the period ended Sept. 27, the Mac computer maker earned $1.14 billion, or $1.26 a share, on sales of $7.9 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, meanwhile, had forecast that Apple would earn $1.11 a share on $8.05 billion in sales.

and the Apple numbers are already being spun into negatives. somehow.

Note to those wondering: this is not an “Apple” problem. this is “the analysts barely deserve jobs working at car washes” problem.

(eye roll)

In other news, Yahoo just announced layoffs of 1,500 (10%) or more, and we’re hearing via the wonderful “little birdie” network of friends of friends that yahoo managers have been told to trash another 10% of their staff in reviews to encourage them to leave w/o packages. Oh, and the packages are rumored to suck….

and over in Sun land, it’s mostly cloudy with a chance of rain. Anyone remember way back when when Sun was going to buy Apple, and didn’t because it was too expensive and Mike Spindler was demanding a board seat as his personal playtoy? How times change.

Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results:

Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2008 fourth quarter ended September 27, 2008. The Company posted revenue of $7.9 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.14 billion, or $1.26 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $6.22 billion and net quarterly profit of $904 million, or $1.01 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 34.7 percent, up from 33.6 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 41 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

In accordance with the subscription accounting treatment required by GAAP, the Company recognizes revenue and cost of goods sold for iPhone™ and Apple TV® over their economic lives. Adjusting GAAP sales and product costs to eliminate the impact of subscription accounting, the corresponding non-GAAP measures* for the quarter are $11.68 billion of “Adjusted Sales” and $2.44 billion of “Adjusted Net Income.”

Apple shipped 2,611,000 Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing 21 percent unit growth and 17 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 11,052,000 iPods during the quarter, representing eight percent unit growth and three percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone units sold were 6,892,000 compared to 1,119,000 in the year-ago-quarter.

“Apple just reported one of the best quarters in its history, with a spectacular performance by the iPhone—we sold more phones than RIM,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.

okay, we can all go “wow, oh my god” together. Just a stunning quarter. Even more so when you remember that iPhone income is accrued over time, which not only means these numbers are down more than they would otherwise (see the non-GAAP numbers later in the press release, there’s about $4billion of income deferred into accruals, from the look of it), but that money will fliter into FUTURE quarters, so it’s going to bolster (or buffer) future quarters for the forseeable future.

Wow. I’m impressed.

Patrick Rissmiller on waivers

St. Louis claims Koci – From The Rink:

Two more players on waivers today: Patrick Rismiller of the Rangers and Ken Klee of the Ducks.

I admit to some surprise here. I was a little disappointed when the Sharks allowed Rissmiller to leave via free agency, but he was solid but replaceable. I certainly didn’t expect him to fall off the depth chart at his new team, but that seems to have happened.

It’ll be interesting to see if another team grabs him. If you ask me, he could contribute to a number of teams in the league.

But it really looks like the Sharks guessed right in letting him move on.

Again.

Blogs are so over, Wired magazine says — mathewingram.com/work

Blogs are so over, Wired magazine says — mathewingram.com/work:

Hey, didn’t you hear? Blogs are so 2004. They’re dead now, says Paul Boutin (who also writes for Valleywag) in a piece he wrote for Wired magazine.

People still read Wired?

Refunds And Trials In The App Store

Refunds And Trials In The App Store – Inside iPhone Blog:

Apple has complete control over the App Store and its component parts. I’ve bemoaned this control in the past, but it could easily be used to benefit developers and customers alike. Hopefully, as the App Store continues to mature, Apple will consider making it possible for developers to offer free trial versions of their software.

A number of developers are, in fact, already doing this.

They’re doing it by issuing both a “light” or “limited” version of the App for free, and then encouraging you to upgrade to the full, paid version.

A good example is Mighty Mighty Good Games Sudoku, which I decided to give a shot, and then happily upgraded to the full version.

(and am wasting a number of evenings with it right now…. highly recommended, if you don’t want a life)

So you can do this today, at least with some classes of Apps, and I’m not sure just how much a formal “trial version” set up might help the cause here; I don’t think it’ll make developer’s lives easier, in any event.

It’s not as convenience at the Xbox 360 marketplace download&activate model, but it’s actually workable and practical today.

My best shot at fall color…

Here’s my best shot for fall color down in the Teton’s. IMHO, it’s — okay — but nothing special. Oh well.

Amusing side story to this image. I saw the color exploding off of the hill as we were driving by, decided it was a good place to stop and shoot. Hit the u-turn, came back and pulled off the road. Laurie went wandering off looking for critters to shoot in the field, I set up the tripod and went to work.

About ten minutes later, I surfaced from focussing on the images to realize about four other cars had pulled over. One had already declared they saw the critter I was shooting (but it just went behind that tree over there), They were all nice enough to (a) not get into my shot, and (b) not interrupt me while I was working [neither action being universally true these days...] but once I stood up, they asked me what I was photographing. I had to let them know it was the foliage.

They all ended up filtering back to their cars, the one person continuing to protest that he had, in fact, seen something up there. Maybe he did, too, but I didn’t, not that I was looking for it…

My first traffic jam…. Laurie and I had been joking that the rangers really needed to put out signs around the park at the jams saying “Bison”, “elk”, “We don’t have a clue, either” so that people could decide without getting out if they wanted to; the reality is, about the tenth time you stop to see a single bison hanging out chewing on a bush, it gets a bit old… And so laurie came back from chasing her critters to note that we really needed our own signs, only in this case, it should have said “only foliage!”

Camcorders and USB: Is Steve Jobs Right

Camcorders and USB: Is Steve Jobs Right? | The Apple Blog:

The results? I believe all but one of these models allows USB 2.0 for video. The one exception being the Canon HV30, which appears to include USB 2.0 for still shot transfers only.

Not counting the HV30, it’s interesting to note that prices range from $88 (the Oregon Scientific) to $775 (The Canon HG20), with a few located in what might be considered the “sweet spot” for consumer camcorders in the $300’s.

Of course, if the camcorder you currently own is not due for replacement, and only supports FireWire, this news is of little use to you. I understand that, but then again I’m not trying to answer each individual case;

[....]

Finally, I’d like to point out that this “top 20″ list didn’t just materialize in the last week. It seems clear the movement away from FireWire in the popular camcorder space has been in the works for a while, else they wouldn’t so thoroughly dominate the top 20 now.

Reality check: USB 2.0 won. Life moves on. So does Apple.

MacRumors takes their shot. And whiffs.

Notebook Event Rumor Wrapup: Winners and Losers – Mac Rumors:

With even more media attention on Apple and the rumors surrounding the latest release, more sites have gone out of their way to call out those who got things wrong. While this has given an opportunity for some to say that you shouldn’t listen rumors at all, I think it just goes to show that sources matter and not all rumors are created equal.

Amused to see referrers into my blog from MacRumor.com. turns out, they took a shot at me (not surprising).

The link to my posting was in this phrase: While this has given an opportunity for some to say that you shouldn’t listen rumors at all, which, while I was fairly critical of the rumor sites (with justification, since THEY WERE WRONG ABOUT KEY DETAILS AGAIN), that’s not at all what I said. What I said was this:

Chuqui 3.0: Thoughts on the new Macbooks — and the circus that preceded them…:

It’s not that you shouldn’t read the sites; they have their purpose. Just don’t take them so damn seriously.

quote, unquote.

So yes, Macrumors, sources matter and not all rumors are created equal, but accuracy matters even more, and if Macrumors can mis-interpret (or mis-spin, or simply misrepresent blatantly, choose your poison) such a clear and straightforward statement, well, doesn’t that call into question the accuracy of anything else they say?

Which is, in long form, the answer to the question “gee, Chuq, why do you read AppleInsider and not MacRumors?” — and why, if you feel the need to follow a rumor site, you ought to follow AppleInsider.

While I have my issues with AppleInsider as well (honestly, I get really tired of them writing in that “I am speaking in my adult journalist voice, so you must take me seriously”), they pretty much get what they exist for. And that authorial voice I really blame on a bunch of fan geeks growing up reading Mac the Knife in MacWeek. Gah.