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October 2022

Breathing Fire!

Sep 30, 2022

England failed to chase relatively low scores two games in a row. They are in no mood to repeat their failures. Salt is peppering the ground with boundaries. The required run rate was a manageable 8.5 but his strike rate is approaching 300!

So, it'll be 3-3. The winner takes all match is on Sunday. This has been a hugely entertaining series. The biggest contrast has been the frustratingly conservative Pakistani batting versus the insanely risky English shot selection. Had England played a little carefully, they would have already won the series. There was little reason for aggression when they chased 145 on Sep. 28. Well, today, it worked out for them.

Posted at 01:14 PM in Cricket | | Comments (0)

One Veggie To Rule Them All

Sep 30, 2022

Yup. Potatoes are awesome. The best is oven baked wedges with a bit of beef fat. Sprinkle salt, pepper and oregano; roasted garlic on the side with sour cream as a dipping. That can be an entire meal.

Posted at 12:56 AM in Life | | Comments (0)

Another constriction

Sep 28, 2022

The Pakistani bowlers showed up to win a second match in a row against England.

For the second successive game, Pakistan were put in to bat first, scraped to what appeared a below-par total, and saw their bowlers bail them out. After being bowled out for 145 in 18.5 overs, the hosts took the attack to England with the ball, knocking over three wickets in the powerplay and then squeezing with the spin of Shadab Khan and Iftikhar Ahmed.

Even though there are two matches left, Rizwan is a lock for the Man of the Series award for his 68 88* 8 88 63. Considering how the middle order keeps falling apart, his runs are incredibly valuable. They won the last match by 3 runs, today by 6. Without Rizwan, it would have been serious losses.

Posted at 10:01 PM in Cricket | | Comments (0)

Those horrible White supremacists!

Sep 28, 2022

Yes.

Posted at 05:20 AM in Politics, USA | | Comments (0)

Inflexible order

Sep 25, 2022

Asif Ali hit more sixes in his three deliveries than the rest of the team did in 19.3 overs! Ali should have been sent in to bat in the 12th over to get the momentum going. To make matters worse, the management sent Shah before Ali in the 19th over. What were they thinking? Did they forget this remarkable hitting from Ali in the World Cup last year?

England must be salivating to chase this 166. Let's see if they can be stopped.

Update: England take unnecessary risks and get reduced to 14/3. Their approach is fearless. So, they'll keep on marching. Pakistan need every wicket to win.

England, now, 116/6 with 51 runs needed in 5 overs. A big test for their lower order.

Liam Dawson smashes Hasnain. 24 runs in 4 legal deliveries!

WOW! England needed 9 runs from 12 balls but Pakistan's bowlers fought back and took 3 quick wickets to win the game by 3 runs! The team that scored a mammoth 220 runs two days ago couldn't chase 166 today.

The seesaw series is at 2-2 with 3 matches left.

Posted at 12:16 PM in Cricket | | Comments (0)

Not so universal

Sep 24, 2022

An amazing guide on how NOT to name new tech for consumers:

In 2013, USB-IF announced that it was taking USB up to 10 Gbps and, in doing so, changed the version number for all USB 3.x products. So USB 3.0 (5 Gbps) became USB 3.1 Gen 1 and the new, 10 Gbps speed became USB 3.1 Gen 2.

In 2017, the organization rolled out a 20 Gbps speed for USB 3.x devices. In honor of the new speed, the version number changed for all speeds so the 5 Gbps speed became USB 3.2 Gen 1 and the 10 Gbps speed became USB 3.2 Gen 2 and the 20 Gbps speed became USB 3.2 Gen 2x2.

They renamed older tech twice! Also, the "Gen 2x2" never fails to amuse. The cherry on top of this confusion is that one has to worry about USB cables. For example, you can connect your phone to your PC using a USB-C cable and then ... nothing happens. So, one has to check the relevant USB version and have the proper cable.

Posted at 12:52 AM in USA, Web/Tech | | Comments (0)

10 to 11

Sep 23, 2022

What I wrote eariler today:

The template for the opposition is simple: break the opening partnership and expose the less experienced, weaker players who can't manage the spiking required run rate.

Babar out for 8. Rizwan out for 8. Game over. One positive for Pakistan: Shan Masood. The big negative: their bowling. They don't have the resources to limit the damage from the opposition batsmen. Shaheen and Shadab are definitely missed.

Posted at 10:44 PM in Cricket | | Comments (0)

Always have options

Sep 23, 2022

That's the major downside of a debt-powered lifestyle. Remember reading a story about a guy who kept on buying more and bigger as his income went up. He moved his wife and children to a better house with a larger mortgage. Got a newer car; wife got her own. Eventually wife quit her job to stay home. More toys, lavish vacations. The problem? Zero savings and insane debt.

He lost his job in 2008. Sold her car. Then, his own. Couldn't pay mortgage. Moved in with the in-laws. He went from a $200,000 salary to working part-time at Walmart. He had the option of wiggle room but he wasted it.

Posted at 11:48 AM in Economics, Life | | Comments (0)

The Azam-Rizwan Show

Sep 23, 2022

With a required run rate of 10, England, surprisingly, couldn't break the partnership of the best opening batsmen in the world. It's the highest ten-wicket win in history. This England team is definitely a contender for the World Cup next month. So, this is definitely a big win for Pakistan. Though, their weakness, the off-color middle order, wasn't exposed.

They had just completed the biggest 10-wicket win in T20 history and become the first pair to put a 200-run partnership in a T20 run chase, breaking their own record. But more than that, after relentless scrutiny and criticism, they had reminded their fans how brilliantly effective they can be.

Oh, they've been very effective. Babar had a few ugly matches which cost them the Asia Cup. However, the middle order simply didn't pull its weight. They nearly lost chasing 120 against Afghanistan! England and Australia have stronger players that can bail out the team when the top order fails.

A reader at Cricinfo sent the best comment:

Wajid Jawaid : "Don't worry England, we know this feeling. These two did the same to us. Love, India."

The template for the opposition is simple: break the opening partnership and expose the less experienced, weaker players who can't manage the spiking required run rate.

Posted at 12:20 AM in Cricket | | Comments (0)

The Diversity has spoken!

Sep 23, 2022

Can't the UN find smarter coloreds?

They can always bury a few benjamins and wait a couple of months for the money to start falling.

Posted at 12:18 AM in Economics, Politics, USA | | Comments (0)

The equality logic

Sep 22, 2022

Well, that's one way to solve the trans sports issue:

No need for separate sports? It would be amusing to watch a national event where all the participants are guys. Equality, bitches!

Posted at 12:15 PM in Politics, USA | | Comments (0)

Leading the pack

Sep 22, 2022

Samsung makes some of the best NVMe SSDs but they've topped out at 2TBs for too many years. Finally, a big player goes big with NVMe drives:

Corsair has quietly added an 8TB SSD model to its MP600 Pro XT family of premium PCIe 4.0 drives and started their sales in Europe, perhaps months before the company begins sales of its next-generation MP700 SSDs with a PCIe 5.0 interface. The new drives offer a massive capacity, but their performance is slightly lower when compared to other SSDs from this family.

They are pricey but their speed, small physical size, efficiency, and better reliability make them superior to hard drives. Windows, games, and higher MP cameras are pushing capacities. It's nice to keep everything on one drive.

Posted at 11:54 AM in Web/Tech | | Comments (0)

Science!

Sep 21, 2022

Vox Day:

The evidence against the Covid vaccines is on the verge of becoming undeniable by the mainstream. Between the excess deaths, the declining fertility, and the hard evidence being provided by embalmers around the world, the lethal nature of the vaxx is on the verge of being conclusively proven.

I heard about a young, healthy police officer who died suddenly just one day after his third vaxx shot. Who knows how many died directly because of the vaxxes? We can get an approximate number from the excess deaths.

Let's see how many NPCs wake up and realize that they gleefully and repeatedly jabbed themselves with poison.

Posted at 10:10 AM in Economics, Life, Politics | | Comments (0)

Pay attention to tax rates

Sep 20, 2022

Yeah. Here, in the largest province of Canada, if one earns an annual income of $66,000, then the income tax amount would be $12,191. That's a 18.5% tax rate.

Instead of income, if a rich guy got $66,000 worth of "Canadian eligible dividends" from his investments, then his total tax amount would be ... $71. That's a 0.1% tax rate.

All this can be easily calculated but most stupid Canadians would still push for higher income tax rates.

Posted at 10:27 AM in Economics, Politics, USA | | Comments (0)

Those bleeding heart liberals

Sep 17, 2022

Quite the comparison here:

Posted at 09:38 AM in Politics, USA | | Comments (0)

Lazy and incompetent

Sep 14, 2022

I've had similar experiences with my local banks.

  1. Scheduled a meeting to open a chequing account. Got to the bank five minutes early. Noticed a casual, happy atmosphere where the staff is chatting and merry. Time comes and I notice that one rep is rushing around to get the paperwork in order for ... me! It took her about eight minutes to get ready. This wasn't some complicated product; I was opening a basic account!
  2. Another bank, another appointment. The rep is telling me the benefits of the retirement savings plan. She tells me the amount I can take out for buying my first home. The problem is that number changed a few years earlier. I calmly and politely tell her that but she's adamant and stubborn. I double-checked at home and her info was five years out-of-date!
  3. I had investment accounts in Canadian dollars and wanted to open corresponding US$ accounts. The bank told me to come in and fill out forms. I had read that a phone call to the investment center from the bank rep. with my personal info about the CDN accounts should be sufficient. The rep. didn't know. I went to the appointment, she called the relevant number, gave them my info, and done! Filling out dumb forms was totally unnecessary.

Oh, in all three cases, women! I do my own research before dealing with banksters who're greedy, lazy, and incompetent.

Posted at 09:52 AM in Life | | Comments (0)

Premium Fab

Sep 13, 2022

The pinnacle of technology is not cheap:

[...] Micron's latest investment will become the first all-new memory manufacturing fab constructed within the U.S. in the past two decades. According to Micron, only 2 percent of memory available on the global market is produced domestically.

Micron's current timetable states that actual construction on the Boise fab will commence in early 2023. Cleanroom space will become available in phases, starting in 2025. Later that year, Micron will be ramping production of DRAM products. However, the fab won't operate full-tilt until the latter part of this decade, once the entire 600,000 square feet of cleanroom space becomes available.

Micron will spend a mind-boggling $15 billion for just this one location.

Posted at 07:40 AM in USA, Web/Tech | | Comments (0)

Asia Cup Final

Sep 11, 2022

Pakistan wins the toss. Their chance of winning starts at 99%.

Sri Lanka is reduced to 58/5 in just under 9 overs. Their bowlers will have a tough fight ahead.

The Sri Lankan lower order fights back from 58/5 to finish with 170/6. An incredible total under pressure.

Babar's miserable tournament comes to an end. Rizwan got little support. Their chase got crushed in the 17th over when they lost 3 wickets in 5 balls. Credit to the young Sri Lankan team for fighting all the way through. And to think they only had a 1% chance of winning!

Posted at 11:51 AM in Cricket | | Comments (0)

Nigger bomb squads

Sep 11, 2022

Thousands of murders go unsolved in the US every year. Yet, somehow, the police have resources to pour into this nonsense.

Posted at 01:31 AM in Politics, USA | | Comments (0)

The psychos lost

Sep 10, 2022

The owners of an Ohio bakery celebrated on Thursday their $36.5 million victory over the liberal arts institution Oberlin College in a defamation case, declaring that 'David has overcome Goliath'.

The college had been ordered to pay after jurors ruled that it had defamed Gibson's Bakery by describing the institution as racist, after the storeowner chased down three black students who stole from the business in November 2016.

With legal fees and interest, the amount rose to over $36.5 million.

The owners had to fire employees and suffer unrelenting abuse for six years before they got a small piece of justice.

Posted at 12:33 PM in Politics, USA | | Comments (0)

The importance of rest

Sep 09, 2022

Virat Kohli scores his very first T20I century in his 104th match:

[,,,] when I came back I was not desperate. Six weeks off I was refreshed. I realised how tired I was. Competitiveness doesn't allow it, but this break allowed me enjoy the game again.

Playing at the elite level away from family and friends for long periods of time in foreign lands with different time zones with the expectations of over a billion people must be mentally and physically devastating. It would have been shocking if he wasn't tired.

Glad to see the run machine is back.

Posted at 06:44 AM in Cricket | | Comments (0)

The Dismal Minister

Sep 09, 2022

Nobody is going to halt the fixed costs of businesses: rent, insurance, property taxes, necessary utilities, basic maintenance, increased loan payments thanks to lockdowns and high interest rates, etc.

The stunned reaction of the interviewer says it all. Let's see how long it takes before they make nice with Putin.

Posted at 12:20 AM in Economics, Politics | | Comments (0)

181 wasn't enough

Sep 05, 2022

The Indians were at 54/1 in 5.1 overs. They were a screaming locomotive going for over 200 but only managed 88 runs in the last 10 overs to finish at 181. The shocking bit is that Pakistan didn't panic and crumble as is the historical record. In fact, they timed the chase really well. They hit a six and minized the dots in almost every over in the second half of their innings. The combo of Rizwan as anchor and the unexpectedly promoted Nawaz as the big hitter paid off.

It should be fun watching these two play in the final.

Posted at 10:52 AM in Cricket | | Comments (0)

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