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OT: Home Audio/Video Discussion

I want to lodge a complaint.

Like many people these days, I regularly use a variety of streaming apps on my TV and devices. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Vudu, Paramount+, HBO Max, Disney+, Hulu, etc. And, for reasons that escape me, these apps, which should be mind-numbingly easy to build from a usability standpoint, pretty much all suck big-time.

Sure, most are pretty good at streaming, which I suppose is the most important thing. But the user experience in most of these apps is among the worst in the digital world. It's like they hired their UI/UX designers from the MC Escher school of straightforwardness.

First of all, they're constantly adding new "features" nobody was asking for, which always make the experience much worse.

For example, WTF made the app developers think that making the currently selected item on a list expand (e.g. in Amazon Prime) and pause, as you navigate across the list using one's TV remote, would be a good thing to do? All it does is interrupt the user who is trying to navigate quickly across the list and choose something to watch. Idiocy. FFS, cut it out!

Then there's the long-standing irritants.

Such as, who decided to not give users an easy way to remove stuff from the "keep watching" list? We give a show a try, decide we don't like it. No biggie, right? Except now we're stuck with a lifetime reminder of our bad choices in potential new entertainment. Thanks for that. As if I didn't already feel bad enough about my life choices, such as my choice to be a couch potato, fighting your crappy app, instead of doing something productive for once. Here, raise my monthly subscription fee, you really earned it.

Or like how Netflix places the exit button all the way down and right so users have to click a dozen times to get to it. Everybody else just lets us back-button out of the app. Some ask for confirmation when we do that, which is it's own annoyance since if we didn't mean to exit, we can just go back into the app. But okay, whatever, at least it's only the one extra click.

It's like a couple stoned UI developers Netflix decided to screw with us users for the laughs. "Hey man, let's move the exit button so users have to spend half their lifetime navigating to it. Yeah dude, that'd be totally awesome!".

Or, and this is a personal favorite, WTF can't Vudu provide a "start over" button for movies I've already watched. Instead, I need to start the movie, which starts up at the credits at the end, then use the scene selector to move to the start of the damn movie. Are you effing kidding me with this shit? People have been complaining to them about that for years. Just reuse the damn scene selector feature's logic and stick a new button on it. But do they fix it? Noooooooo!

Aaaaaaagh! 😡

OT: Dickie V, show on ESPN

So good. So emotional. So inspiring. Touched on Rutgers.

I first met Dick Vitale at Rutgers Prep Basketball Camp when I was a young kid. He was so energetic and motivational. He always taught with passion. Taught me how to do a crossover..

My Mom worked in the cafeteria at Prep below the gym, filling vending machines. He would always go out of his way to stop and talk to my Mom, “Hey, Millie!” He would shout. She would always give him a sandwich.

I truly hope Rutgers brings him back SOON like THIS YEAR, and honor him with a banner while he’s still here with us to hear the RAC shower him with love.

Make it so. He deserves it.

MBB Offense in 2023/2024 (Warning:Quite Long)

This may have gotten lost as it was at the end of a thread that ended up getting locked down, but I wanted to share my take on how the offense would look, especially relative to this past year, which runs counter to some expert opinions that I value



In short, our offense will be a descent amount better than last year for some obvious and not so obvious reasons, which I will name below



Caleb- moving on is Addition by Subtraction on the offensive level. As much as he won us games with his amazing defense, very little focus was placed on the games he cost us with his offense. With a 3 PT shooting percentage of 20% there was no reason why he was averaging 4 attempts per game. More importantly, he restricted the flow on offense and many of the possessions where we had shot clock violations or had to take an last second shot, the ball was in his hands. He was just as big a building block as Geo and RHJ for getting us to where we are today, but I am not gonna miss him on offense



Paul - is probably the biggest X factor on offense. When we beat that series of ranked teams in 2022, it was the aggression and jump in Paul's play that got us there. For as smart as a player as he is, he gets too caught up in his own head when things are not going well This year, he will have additional pieces around him, and if he is healthy, I think we will see mostly " Good Paul" and will see nights where he is a triple double threat. Too many times last year we wasted seconds just having him dribbling the ball beyond the top of the key, that should disappear this year





Noah - We have missed Jacob Young from the second he put his name in the portal. Outside of Simpson, we had no downhill momentum towards the basket, and Fernandes gives us that JY element on offense in addition to being a descent 3 point shooter. Having Noah on the team, is the best thing that could have happened for Paul's final year



Cliff - I expect to see a next level leap in his offensive game. He will work on getting his hands stronger and also converting many of those opportunities he missed last year that were within 3 feet of the basket. If he just converts half of those gimmes, his average goes up 5-10 points



Gavin - it is CRIMINAL how little we speak about him as most fans are focused on Dylan Harper and then still trying to figure out who Ace Bailey is and why he committed to Rutgers. Gavin deserves just as much of our attention, and the fact that he didn't even need a huge NIL deal to come here ( he WANTS to be here) should be reason alone to hype him. Additionally,( with the exception of "Good Paul"), Gavin will have the highest basketball IQ from the moment he puts on a scarlet uniform, and will make everyone around him instantly better



He had a terrible eye injury a year ago and was only recently starting to play at full strength. I firmly disagree with those who say that Cam is better at creating his own shot, as Gavin has way more size ( 7 foot wingspan) and will eventually have more strength than Cam and will often be a matchup problem for our opposition.

GAVIN IS THE ELITE SHOOTER WE HAVE BEEN DREAMING ABOUT FOREVER



 Mag - was just starting to come into his own on offense when he got hurt. He is an efficient scorer, who can score at all 3 levels, and it may take him a bit longer to come back on the defensive side given the added level of quickness he possesses



Simpson - showed a lot of promise towards the end of last year especially relative to his recruiting rankings. As a true freshman, he was often placed in a position to be our #1 scoring option, that resulted in some highlight reels but a lot of freshman mistakes. I trust the coaching staff to develop the mental side and if he can create a mid range game for himself, his ceiling is much higher



The remaining roster of Hyatt, Wolf, Choi, Davis and whoever we pick up from the portal should all improve from last year, and barring the occasional 15 -20 point explosion from Hyatt, it might mean foul trouble or injury if we need any of them to step up in a meaningful way



With that said, here is my way too early prediction of PPG this year's team



Cliff 17

Noah 12

Paul 10

Gavin 9

Simpson 9

Mag 8

Hyatt 5

Transfer 1 3

Transfer 2 2

Wolf 2

Choi 2



The above totals close to 80 points a game which would be insane for any Rutgers team of recent memory, as even our teams with RHJ and Geo were only around 70, and last year was in the high 60s



This should be a way more balanced team, and the impact of a big man like Cliff, has not been seen since the days of Sellers and Hinson.

If we get a smart and healthy Paul, and Noah is the player we saw when we played UMass and Gavin makes all of you feel terrible for not having more threads about him, this should be a very different Pike team to watch and a significant upgrade, that leaves fans saying " Cam Who"??
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