2025-01-31 05:41:12
I will not bore or depress you with an explanation of how online media is doing, so you'll have to take me at my word when I say that it's unusual and significant when an 8,500-word essay from n+1 goes as wildly viral as Will Tavlin's essay, about the damage Netflix has done to the concept of "the movies." The story rocks, and is a comprehensive and convincing explanation of both the crisis Netflix represents and the various other crises that created it. Drew and I, who have very different relationships with Netflix, both thought it was excellent, so we were excited to bring Will onto the podcast this week to talk about that story, Netflix's contested history and queasy present, and where all this might be going.
2025-01-31 05:23:00
Six massage therapists said longtime Ravens kicker Justin Tucker "engaged in inappropriate behavior" while visiting spas where they worked in the Baltimore area, the Baltimore Banner reported Thursday. The examples given by the therapists included Tucker wiggling so sheets would fall away to expose his penis during massages, Tucker brushing two therapists with his penis, and in three cases Tucker leaving what appeared to be ejaculate on the massage table. Management at two spas also confirmed to the Banner that they banned Tucker from returning after getting reports of inappropriate behavior from their massage therapists.
The massage therapists all said these incidents happened between 2012 and 2016; all spoke anonymously for fear of retaliation from the Ravens organization as well as fans. Most of the women did not know each other beforehand, the Banner reported, but they all provided similar details about what happened.
2025-01-31 05:03:53
After discovering Jontay Porter's connection with an illegal sports-betting ring last year, federal prosecutors are now investigating whether Terry Rozier similarly manipulated his performance as part of a gambling scheme.
According to a report Thursday in the Wall Street Journal, on March 23, 2023, U.S. Integrity, a group that monitors betting markets for sports entities, gambling operators and government agencies, noticed a suspicious wave of bets centered on the performance of Rozier, then a Charlotte Hornet. The Hornets played the New Orleans Pelicans that night, and though Rozier started the game, he played only about 10 minutes before being substituted out with what was later said to be a foot injury. He did not return to the game, and subsequently missed the remaining eight games of the season.
2025-01-31 04:43:07
At this point, it seems like opposing players know that Stewart's easily provoked and do it for sport. He never lets them down.
2025-01-31 02:56:37
If I were a fan of the Philadelphia 76ers, I know that I would've already checked out on this season. No one needs this shit! People have lives to live, real priorities, existential matters for the pondering, perfectly blank expanses of painted drywall to stare into while sobbing. Then again, my hoops fandom is weak from decades of malnourishment. Perhaps true 76ers fans—people who've tasted success and grown accustomed to their team's general relevance—are meaningfully better built for enduring such a preposterous first half of the season. Already these people have seen their team lose 14 of its first 17 games, and then win 10 of its next 13 games, and then immediately lose 10 of 12. Not too long ago this team had credible championship aspirations, and now they are this sputtering, lurching, ramshackle mess. Given the condition of their roster, it would require Saint Maud levels of magical thinking to believe this will ever get better; a person capable of such belief is someone with whom I would not want to share an elevator.
It would be a mercy if just one more key 76er found some pretext for missing a month of basketball, so that these poor bozos could finally spiral down the standings and remove all uncertainty about what's to come. Instead, they are once again winning just enough basketball games to stay gripped onto the butt of the entirely sad Eastern Conference play-in pack. Wednesday night, the 76ers rolled out a comically underwhelming rotation of healthy players and managed to outlast the visiting Sacramento Kings, giving them an improbable fourth consecutive win and putting them into a tie for the East's 10th seed. Nick Nurse and Tyrese Maxey have the Sixers hanging on for dear life; lately the team is depending, for whole big chunks of time and production, upon the likes of Guerschon Yabusele, Adem Bona, and 35-year-old Reggie Jackson. And doing some winning! They pretty well crushed the healthy Lakers on Tuesday while starting Eric damn Gordon and giving 18 shots and 39 minutes to Kelly damn Oubre. Yesterday they hammered Sacramento's reserves with bench lineups that got their scoring punch from former two-way contract guy Ricky Council IV.
2025-01-31 01:30:13
In the final months of 2023, I made one of my most controversial decisions.
More than four years had elapsed since I'd last upgraded my phone; the battery life had already begun its slow descent into either planned or technologically inevitable obsolescence. I'd reached the point in life where purchasing a new phone was more of a chore than anything else. And besides, I loved my then-current phone, the iPhone 12 mini. I'd seen enough of the newer iPhones to know that they'd all pose challenges not just for my pockets, but for my hands. I'd recently discovered that contrary to popular belief, I'm not what anyone would describe as tall. My hands are proportional to my 64-inch frame; the webbed skin between my forefinger and thumb stretched, unfamiliar and unpleasant, whenever I had the misfortune of using someone else's Big Phone. With my iPhone 12 mini I could text one-handed, at a speed only previously achieved in the days of T9.
