- Every professional athlete entering the last year of his
contract wants to have his best year and thereby earn the biggest possible
payday when he becomes a free agent. That motivation leads to some remarkable
seasons and often nets contracts that players never live up to once they’ve
already been rewarded with big money, but Washington Redskins pass rusher Brian Orakpo doesn’t sound like he’s
using his impending free agency as motivation for the season ahead. With new
Redskins coach Jay Gruden saying he’s content letting Orakpo play out the
season on a franchise tag, Orakpo insisted he isn't using that perceived
disrespect as motivation. "I have to prove myself again, huh?" during
a luncheon for his cancer charity. "I don't have to prove myself to
anybody. I'm already proven in this league. I don't have to prove anything to
anybody. That goes for fans, that goes for media. Anybody. I'm well-proven in
this league. If it doesn't work out, then it doesn't work out, but I don't have
to prove anything to anybody." His stance is slightly different than many
players who hate the franchise tag because it prevents them from grabbing the
lucrative, long-term contract they desire, but playing under the $11.45 million
franchise tender he signed earlier this offseason isn’t exactly a massive
sacrifice for the 13th overall pick in the 2009 draft. In the Redskins’
defense, Orakpo has never been a game-changing player and his career-best sack
total is 11, which was set as a rookie. He has played in all 16 games just
twice in his career and Gruden didn’t sound overly desperate to ink him to an
extension when he spoke at the owners' meetings last month. "I wouldn't
mind letting him play out this franchise tag and see what happens," Gruden
said. "He's a talented player. I think he can do a little better, we can
ask more of him to where he could be more productive." Orakpo should have
the necessary chance to shine this season, as he said defensive coordinator Jim
Haslett has expressed a plan to give both of the team’s outside linebackers
more chances to make plays. That matters a lot when dollars are on the line……….
- How do you create what may be the thinnest, smallest wires ever made? That is
not a trick question. Junhao Lin, a Vanderbilt doctoral student and
visiting scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, has cooked up
a method of using finely focused beam of electrons to build what are already
being touted as among the smallest wires ever made. With his focused beam, Lin
was able to make flexible metallic wires only three atoms wide. The wires are 1/1,000th the
width of the microscopic wires used to connect the transistors in today's
integrated circuits and tinier wires clearly means smaller devices needing less
space to fit their no-longer-bulky wiring. In order to build these minute
miracles, Lin and his fellow researchers used a special family of semiconducting
materials that naturally form monolayers. Called transition-metal
dichalcogenides (TMDCs), these unique materials are created by combining the
metals molybdenum or tungsten with either sulfur or selenium. Beyond their use
here, monolayers are favorites within the tech world due to the number of
remarkable qualities they possess. They are renowned for their strength, transparency
flexibility and high electron mobility. They vaulted to scientific prominence
in 2014 with the discovery of an easy way to create graphene and have grown in
popularity ever since. Now that these mini-wires have been created, the next
step is figuring out what sorts of applications they have in the real world.
Possibilities include tablets and television displays as a sheet of paper,
which of course would fetch an absurd price that early adopters would be all
too happy to pay……..
- What the eff is wrong with you, Germany? You’re such a
cool country and aside from the ugly decade where you were ruled by a genocidal
maniac who lacked both a soul and a basic respect for humanity, you’ve brought
a lot to the world in the past few centuries. Your beer is wonderful, your
chocolate is solid and your bratwurst of all varieties is amazing – not to
mention the culinary greatness that is schnitzel. So why the hell are there fools
among you that insist on yanking Deutschland in the wrong direction by fueling
a rise
in politically-motivated crimes, specifically a spike in left-wing violence and
other illegal activity. The German Interior Ministry said Tuesday the far-right
accounted for most such crimes with 17,042 acts in 2013, down 3.3 percent from
2012. In the absence of far-right crimes, their extremist counterbalance on the
far-left side of the spectrum saw their crimes rise 40.1 percent to 8,673 acts
in 2013, nearly half of which were property damage. More than two-thirds of the
right wing’s crimes were classified as propaganda, such as displaying the
swastika or other banned symbols, but its violent crimes dropped 0.6 percent to
837. For the left wing, violent crimes rose 28.4 percent to 1,659 — primarily
attacks on police and others during demonstrations. Perhaps on the strength of
their most polarized people, the Germans saw their anti-foreigner crimes soar
11.2 percent to 3,248. However, in a refreshing turn of events, there was a
7.2-percent drop in anti-Semitic incidents to 1,275. It might seem like a small
note in an otherwise ugly story, but for a country that once attempted to
eradicate an entire race of people from the face of the Earth, even a small
step forward is a positive step. None of that excuses the belligerent and
bigoted views of those on opposing extremes of the political continuum, but
every country has its resident kooks and the chances of ever fully eradicating
these morons aren't high………
- Let the awkward scenes of people signing their way through
life continue. NBC has seized the early lead for major TV networks airing live TV musicals
with the strong performance of December’s airing of a live broadcast of
"The Sound of Music" starring Carrie Underwood and the Peacock has
already announced plans for a live production of "Peter Pan" for next
December. Clearly, no rival network can sit back and ignore the strong ratings “Music”
pulled in and so it is that Fox is entering the fray with a wholly predictable
and likely to be lame three-hour live version of the musical "Grease"
that will feature "a young ensemble cast.” That cast has yet to be named,
but in reality, the legions of stuck-in-time tools who enjoyed the movie and
are still hung up on the mythos of the story probably won't care whether Adam
Lambert, Zac Effron, Jonah Hill or Robert Pattinson are involved. All these
sycophants want to see are iconic “Grease” songs such as "Summer
Nights," ''Greased Lightnin'," ''We Go Together" and
"You're the One That I Want." The original movie was released in 1978
and played a large role in boosting the fledgling careers of John Travolta and
Olivia Newton-John. It has been done to death and then some by numerous high
school and community theater groups over the years and while a live TV version isn't
exactly going to bring anything new to the table, expecting Fox to sit idly by
and lose more ratings battles would be foolish. Your move, ABC and CBS……..
- Stockton, Iowa…who would have thought that a place where cornstalks
outnumber people 1,000,000-to-1 (all numbers approximate) would be such a
hotbed for racially charged issues surrounding one of the most inflammatory
symbols in American history? Bizarre as it may be, the small town in rural Iowa
is embroiled in a scandal thanks to the reaction of some locals after one of
their own was targeted by an anonymous letter to the city council for flying a
Confederate flag outside their home. The letter came in expressing outrage that
a backward-thinking ass hat would dare to hoist the colors of an ugly and
repressive entity that fought for its right to continue enslaving other human
beings based solely on their skin color and when that letter arrived, it was a
decisive moment for some around town. In response to the letter and moreover to
the unwillingness of its author to sign his or her name to it, some residents
began flying the Confederate flag outside their homes as well. That includes
Mayor Melissa Fowler, who has not commented publicly on the issue yet but has
nonetheless kept the flag flying. Those on the pro-flag side of the issue
believe that people have a right to their beliefs – no matter how ignorant and
steeped in hate they may be – and therefore won't demand that anyone stop
flying the Confederate colors. Others believe that having a town’s mayor
pimping for one of the ugliest eras in American history sends a bad message to
children and families. City council member Donnalee Holmes argued that the flag
represents some residents’ southern heritage and is therefore no big deal. “I
don’t see what would be offensive about it, I really don’t,” Holmes said. “This
city needs a lot of things and fussing over a flag seems silly.” Ah,
lessons on racial sensitivity from the heartland………
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