Bag of Randomness for Friday, April 8, 2022

  • I can speak most for Tiger Woods as we both are half-Asian, military veterans as fathers, divorced, parents to a boy and a girl, are three months apart in age, and both had a spinal fusion. I’m curious to know what type of pain medication he’ll be taking while playing golf, and I wonder what’s allowable within the rules.
  • Working with the ex it exhausting, especially since she won’t verybally communicate. Oh well, only eight more years of this.
  • I’m sure Barry over at LiberallyLean really hates me, and I’m about to give him another supporting reason. For the life of me, I can never remember the difference between “tornado watch” and “tornado warning.” I’m sure I’m overthinking it:
    • Be on the watch for a tornado. Now that one has been spotted, we are now warning you to take shelter.
    • We are warning you a tornado is highly probable. One has been spotted, now watch out for it and take shelter.
  • Dog with 6 legs, 2 penises wasn’t expected to live. Now he’s healthy and has a new home
    • Raga was born with six legs, an extra colon and four testicles. Oh, and an extra penis that had to come off. One of Raga’s penises appeared to function correctly, but his body was sending fecal matter to the other one, causing him to be hospitalized on heavy duty antibiotics to knock down an infection.
  • Ohio police officer resigns after not issuing a citation for four years
  • I’m one of those who don’t think the rules should be the same for both college and professional sports. I just appreciate the differences, strategies, and implications both cause. The pass interference penalty may be the most obvious example. But, I got curious about why does college basketball has halves and high school and pros have quarters. Using this as a source, here are my findings and some interesting tidbits.
    • The NBA and NCAA use time in roughly the same way. The NBA has four 12 minute quarters (48 minutes in total) and the NCAA goes with two 20-minute halves (40 minutes in total). FIBA also uses four 10 minutes quarters to perfectly match the NCAA’s total time.
    • When Dr. James Naismith invented basketball, Rule 12 states, ““the time shall be two fifteen-minute halves, with five-minute rest in between.”
    • As such, in 1905 the official rules changed to extend the time to two twenty minutes halves with a 10-minute break in between them. Sound familiar? That is the same format the NCAA still uses to this day. However, the two half system did not stick for that long. In 1951 the game went through a huge change when the league decided to split it up into four 10-minute quarters. This rule was for both college basketball and the NBA. While that change stuck in professional basketball, it did not hold in college. In fact, the four-quarter system was only around for three short years in the NCAA. In 1954 college basketball went back to playing in halves while the NBA stayed with the quarter system. That created a break that still lasts to this day.
    • Some people believe colleges favor the two halves because it is how the first rules were put in place, while others think it was to separate themselves from other leagues. One of the leading theories is that it makes the game much more competitive. Two long halves tend to create closer games than four separate quarters. Close games not only lead to more excitement, but they can also lead to upsets. Two halves also create less stopping time, which gives the game a steady pace and keeps everything moving along. The more flow that exists, the better the games are to watch. While none of these theories have been absolutely proven one way or another, they do help suggest why one league goes with two halves and one goes with four quarters. Both work. It just comes down to preference.
  • Dallas-Fort Worth computes No. 3 ranking among America’s top metros for tech jobs
    • Austin landed at No. 1 again this year, followed in descending order by San Jose, California; Dallas-Fort Worth; Atlanta, Georgia; and Huntsville, Alabama.
  • Texas State buys new president a $2.9 million home from university donors — more than 3 times its value
  • Conservatives have enacted about 1,600 book bans in school districts over the last 9 months, with Texas leading the way, report says
  • Here’s the new food items the Texas Rangers are selling at their new ballpark. I’m not very impressed.
  • Good question.

  • Apologies to anyone who thinks this is too sexy for this blog, but I thought it was funny.

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