OOTP 14 released: the best baseball experience outside of the park

The software gurus at OOTP have done it again.  They improved their already outstanding in-depth baseball experience software.  OOTP 14 is the newest release of this game, available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.  As a former Mac and hopeful Linux user, I can appreciate the cross-platform dedication.  There is also an iPhone version (iOOTP) that I have yet to use.  My simulations are all based on the Windows version of OOTP 14.

New to the game?  Out Of The Park Baseball is baseball simulation software that allows the user to simulate an entire career as a team manager, owner, or GM.  Either be the super-user ‘commissioner’ who can change all  qualities, or just a manager who can be fired at the whim of his team’s owner.  If you choose to GM, you will be responsible for keeping your team’s roster and finances in order.  Initiate and respond to trades, watch over the waiver wire, and promote that young player lighting it up on your triple-A team.

Any ballclub in MLB baseball history is available, from 1871 to 2013.  Re-live your childhood by taking over the team you grew up watching.  Using add-on central, historical logos, caps, jerseys, and pictures can be uploaded.  The game also works extremely well using fictional players.  Using their cool FaceGen system, players photos show aging over time.

OOTP 14 startup screen

For me, it took no time before I was completely immersed in this complex simulation.  Is my lineup or pitching staff too imbalanced towards RH or LH?  Do I have good pinch hitting opportunities but no backup infielders to replace my starters once I pinch hit for them?  Should I trade my prospects and draft picks to try and win this season or dump my veterans?  My owner won’t give me the resources to trade for that player, I better dump some salaries.

If at any time the decisions start to become overwhelming or there is a desire for more OOTP information – current OOTP game users gather on a tremendously helpful forum.  The software developers are part of this forum, and encourage suggestions to better their software.

OOTP 14 updates worth mentioning (complete list of updates is here):

1. updated to include full 2013 major league and minor league rosters.

2. while simulating a game, the probability of each team winning the game is updated every plate appearance.  Up 4-3 in the 4th inning with 2 outs bases loaded and 2 outs?  Now you know how likely that you will lose or win this game.

3. updated scouting system.  my scout just informed me he signed a 16-year old Dominican kid with a promising fastball.  I will follow his development closely.

4. better fielding development system.  As player’s age, they more accurately move across the defensive spectrum.

5. better player development tracking.  every month I receive an update on how my players are developing.  My ever informative scout (depending on the scout accuracy level I choose) also tells me which minor leaguers should be promoted or demoted.

6. The complexities and enjoyment of being the GM are enhanced in this new version.

8. Updated game simulation experience.  From crowd sounds to pitch type, speed, and location – the immersion is fun.

recreate baseball history

For baseball fans of all ages, OOTP14 is a well-worthy pickup.

1998 mlb career milestones

William James Sidis link added to Blogroll

William James Sidis was a famous child prodigy (no, it doesn’t mean he used the internet service provider as a kid).  His childhood accomplishments are legendary – he passed Harvard Medical School anatomy exam at age seven and MIT entrance exam at 8.  Harvard made him wait 2 years for admittance because he was only 9 – he enrolled at Harvard at 11.  The link has been added to the site links under ‘ima nerdy birdy’.

William James Sidis link.

http://www.quantonics.com/The_Prodigy_Review.html

Or, if you prefer an audio introduction to Sidis’ life, The Memory Palace has an excellent podcast, “six scenes from the life of william james sidis”.

http://thememorypalace.us/2011/01/six-scenes-in-the-life-of-william-james-sidis-wonderful-boy/

“‘Intellectualism’ is the belief that our mind comes upon a world complete in itself, and has the duty of ascertaining its contents; but has no power of re-determining its character, for that is already given.

“Among intellectualists two parties may be distinguished. Rationalizing intellectualists lay stress on deductive and ‘dialectic’ arguments, making large use of abstract concepts and pure logic (Hegel, Bradley, Taylor, Royce). Empiricist intellectualists are more ‘scientific,’ and think that the character of the world must be sought in our sensible experiences, and found in hypotheses based exclusively thereon (Clifford, Pearson).

“Both sides insist that in our conclusions personal preferences should play no part, and that no argument from what ought to be to what is, is valid. ‘Faith,’ being the greeting of our whole nature to a kind of world conceived as well adapted to that nature, is forbidden, until purely intellectual evidence that such is the actual world has come in.”

-William James, namesake of William James Sidis (1842-1910), from “Some Problems of Philosophy: A Beginning of an Introduction to Philosophy” -  The quote above is NOT from Sidis, but can be found through the link provided.

William James Sidis' unwanted celebrity began early in life

Photo from ‘teknokekko vuodatus‘.

probably not a good idea to tell the court that "evolution is my God"

2nd pic from sidis.net.  That website is chock full of wonderful Sidis’ work and is also added to the blogroll.  Read “notes on the collection of transfers”(Sidis 1926) in its entirety, then let me know if you still want to be a genius.

Catching up with SkeptiSys

Thanks to you readers who contacted me, wondering when I will post again.  Well, ‘ere I am.  Let’s see if I can catch up in just one article.  What’s been going on…

SkeptiSys on his break

1. Tiger Woods has been attacked mercilessly by the government (Disney) for having consensual sex with White women.  And for dominating a previously all White sport.  Yes this is repeat news from 1912 – see Jack Johnson, Boxing champion.

2. The Obama/Exxon administration manages to be considered ‘left’ and ‘liberal’ despite:

a) nominating 2 right-wing corporate loyalists to be U.S. Supreme Court Justices.  In fact, most of Obama’s position choices are right wing corporatists, many of whom served under Bush

b) turning over multiple trillions of dollars from the people to large banks that caused a depression, auto and gas industries that caused global warming, military companies that have committed murder, fraud, and the Iraq fiasco, and the Insurance industries that have caused our medical and disaster recovery to be the worst in civilization.

c) blocking all investigations into war crimes committed under the Bush administration, which itself is a War Crime.

d) Protecting large telecommunications companies that committed crimes by spying and wiretapping American citizens then sharing the private info.

e) Increasing the already sick military budget and escalating wars, resulting in well over one million civilians dead – many are women and children.  Somewhere during this, Obama receives Nobel Peace Price from obviously stoned Nobel panel.

f) Declaring the President can order the assassination of any American citizen without oversight.

g) resisting all humane health options (single payer or public option) to assure record profits by scummy health insurance companies.

h) increasing the prison rate, poverty rate… and on, and on, and on.

Somehow the ‘media’ has defined ‘left’ and ‘liberal’ to include Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, John Lennon, and Hitler.  Take that Propaganda, old mother Russia!

3. The Catholic Church, obviously upset that they have lost their crown as Most Evil Institution to Islamic Fundamentalism -  makes a comeback with their ‘we rape children’ advertisement campaign.

Here is Pat Condell with his unique view on the Catholic Church:

As an aside, did you notice that you are considered by pollsters to be voting based on ‘morals’, if you vote for a candidate that hates Gays, but not if you vote for a political candidate because you hate killing and rape by military and religious wackos?  In this weird culture,to be more ‘moral’ means having more hate and bigotry.

I guess that is enough to get out of my hiatus.  As always, be skeptical of everything, and make a joke out of everything.  Peace and love!

Peace & Love

Photos from tattoo.

If you like Pat Condell, donate to his cause at his website.   If you hate his work, please write a note saying so, when you donate.

Fanatical mass suicide killers

Save us Dick!

In this day and age, I am sure you will agree that this is just horrible. I am sick of these vengeful fanatics that feel they and their kind have being attacked and killed their whole lives, for generations, so they feel they are justified in brutally killing their ‘oppressors’ at any costs, even if they die themselves in the horrendous act. I don’t know how people can put up with these low life vermin. You don’t hear about white ones in the science field acting this way!

Here is a news article from BBC on a bunch of these dirty despicable creatures. Disgusting!

BBC article on ‘deadly suicide mission’

via area voices.

Who will police the police?

out of control prison system

How do we fight back against a powerful American police and military system run amok?  ‘Kop Busters’, a group fighting back against police corruption, had an entertaining idea.  They decided to run a sting operation that would catch only police corruption.  Noting a rash of police ‘misinformation’ on search warrant requests, Kop Busters decided to ‘plant’ 2 Christmas trees in an apartment without any illegal activity taking place.  Odessa, Texas Police then illegally raided the house and arrested (with no basis) the attorney waiting for them.

Watch a news report on the public service sting operation here:

Read more about it here:

Donklephant.

I expect severe punishment of the police who arrested the attourney without any hint of illegal activity, as well as of any police officer who lied on an official court document to obtain a warrant.  As this is not an isolated incident, but a reaction to a glut of similar suspected  acitivty, I also expect an independent probe into potential corrupt behavior among upper level police and D.A. in Odessa Texas.  God bless these patriots!

Kathryn Johnston age 92, gunned down by police in her own home

November.org has some great info.

Read about Kathryn Johnston, the 92 year old lady who was gunned down by police in riot gear breaking into her home on warrant misinformation, in wikipedia.

Idiocracy, fact or fiction: baseball bans water

In Idiocracy, a film parody of today’s American consumer corporate culture, future civilization cannot sustain vegetation due to the replacement of all water with a Gatorade like substance.  Apparently Bud Selig, MLB, and Gatorade are taking a major step in that direction, according to a news report. The New Jersey Star Ledger is reporting that Major League Baseball has banned all bottled water from the dugout, and threatened to extend the ban to the clubhouse if there is any violation.  Gatorade has neither sugar-free nor any ‘natural’ product.

When asked for a comment, baseball’s commissioner Bud Selig said, ‘uh it’s got like electrolytes or something.  Hey!  Whycome you no got tattoo?’

Stuff

According to my ‘blog stats’, somebody found my website by searching for “women defecating video”. So, of course, I tried to recreate the search (which is why it is in my history, your honor). No luck finding my website this way. Well, not ‘no luck’ at all, because I think I found the new Mrs. SkeptiSys.

Whycome is this?

Autumn violence:

Question everything?

Some quotes have survived generations because, like images, they inspire thought. Others survive because they are repeated over and over during a sporting event. So, ahem, Where’s the beef?

The following quote from George Bernard Shaw sticks with me because I feel we only gain intellectually when we question everything. Or ‘one thing I do know, and that is that I know nothing’ as stated either by Socrates or in Hogan’s Heroes, …who remembers.

Here is a quote I found from George Bernard Shaw, through the Futility Closet website:

“A razor company once invited George Bernard Shaw to shave his famous beard. He responded with a postcard:

Gentlemen:

I shall never shave, for the same reason that I started a beard, and for the reason my father started his. I remember standing at his side, when I was five, while he was shaving for the last time. “Father,” I asked, “Why do you shave?” He stood there for a full minute and finally looked down at me. “Why the hell do I?” he said.”

Why am I doing this?

The one that got away, with nothing

“What is that group down south that is trying to recreate the Civil War? Anyone know what I mean? Oh yeah, Georgia State Troopers”

Emo Phillips

The United States has a peculiar fetish for locking up Black people, in chains or prisons. As I have noted in prior posts, the United States has the highest per capita prison population in the world, with a rate over 19% higher than the 2^nd highest country.

The Department of Justice estimates that 4.8% of Black males were in prison on the midpoint day, 2006. One in 20! So the next time a Black man tells you he is being oppressed by the White man, walk away before you are arrested as an accessory.

 

Oh, as an aside, I am using the terms ‘Black’ and ‘White’ to communicate that I am writing about race. I could use ‘Caucasian’ and ‘Negro’, but that upsets more people. The term ‘African American’ is a BS term that is 1) inaccurate (there are White Americans from Africa and Blacks who are neither African nor American), and 2) a distraction from the real problem. If you study or experience racism in this country, and determine that the problem is simply that the wrong label is being used, you are part of the problem, get out of the way. That would be like being raped anally and worrying about getting your hair mussed. If you want to be called any name, as an individual, I will be happy to oblige, be it African American or Snappy Sweet Cheeks, but don’t make me sacrifice accuracy and communication because you are afraid of some commonly used words. Oh sorry, where was I?

 

Oh yeah, 1 in 20 Black males in prison. As many of you probably know, about 13 years ago, a Black man got away, by the name of O.J. Simpson. Well, he didn’t really get away, even though he was found ‘not guilty’. He lost: most of his money, which was significant; his livelihood; his reputation; considerable time to prison; and a second trial. Most of us are in bad shape in this country, if we are simply accused of a crime.

Some people didn’t like that he got away, mainly those with TV broadcast stations, so I and many others had to sit through years of whining how he was guilty, and the system doesn’t convict enough guilty Black people. TV ‘news’ tends to repeat itself, a usual trait of propaganda. In the meantime, the same people basically ignore a more disturbing travesty of justice, when Scooter Libby is convicted of a major felony, but is set free. Yep, in Scooter’s case, unlike O.J.’s – the jury found him Guilty. Scooter may have made money in the deal too – because his defense fund collected over $5 million, perhaps more than his fine ($250,400) and attorney costs. His livelihood is fine.

Now O.J. is back in the news, arrested again, and we will have to hear more crap about how the system is tilted towards celebrities. Well it is tilted, against the majority of the American population. Sometimes the system allows a guilty person to go free, but – more than any other country, the system puts average citizens behind bars. When I hear about O.J., I think about the many innocent people the system has put in prison, and how to give strength to their weak voices.

 

 

Without Net Neutrality…

Click on this picture for the future of the internet, without net neutrality.