the thing i like about modern sports is that it's at the forefront of philosophical debates over the nature of reality

Michael Pina@michaelvpina.bsky.social · 2d ago

I wrote about the NBA’s increasingly stupid analytics vs. eye test conversation: www.theringer.com/2026/08/03/n...

Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts are amazing even now. He animated the sequence by himself for more than four months -- without computers or even an easy way to check his work. We're looking into how he did it: animationobsessive.substack.com/p/how-ray-ha...

huh...

hunchback from sardinia@dogfromsinope.bsky.social · 2mo ago

what's funny about trump's 38% "floor" of support is that its literally the same exact figure as the floor of support that got daniel ortega into power in 2006, where he remains to this day...

keep saying this: the most ingrained modern ideology (in terms of the thing that people believe to be true and natural without ever thinking about it) is not capitalism, it's nationalism and nation-states

#StupidSuez@diplomatofnight.com · 3d ago

It is pretty sad that so few people actually believe in open borders

the thing about nostalgia is that 50 years from now we'll be saying the same exact thing but about streaming

Brendel@brendelbored.bsky.social · 3d ago

It’s hard to explain but tv was better when you couldn’t watch the show you wanted whenever you wanted to watch it and most of the shows were worse and the TVs were worse and the entire experience was worse, that’s when it was better

your average republican:

*stares in kafka*

the part in marx's capital where he describes the arguments mainstream economists were putting forth against the implementation of a law that would have reduced the hours of *children* working at factories from 11 to 10 hours is BONKERS

listening to a book on franco, and man, never realized how explicitly these people subscribed to the imperial boomerang effect. to the degree that franco was writing notes in the early 1900s describing how the repressive tactics he was using against moroccans should be used to resotre order to spain

whether it's platner or fetterman, those guys from "know your enemy" are really bad at identifying their enemies

i grew up in madrid, and as a kid i was a devoted real madrid fan. once it begun to sink in that they were the yankees of soccer, my love for the team receded. the galacticos period under florentino perez, which coincided with me moving to the US, really accelerated the separation. but also...

the spanish were extremely critical of luis enrique's tenure as spain manager. but he deserves a ton of credit for putting together the team that just won the european cup and world cup. here's the linup the final game he coached, which spain lost in PKs to morocco in the round of 16 in 2022:

the beautiful story of the young idealistic revolutionary who bravely fights to topple a repressive, corrupt, dynastic dictatorship in order to start their own repressive, corrupt, dynastic dictatorship www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

Nicaragua’s president says country will not hold any more elections

Daniel Ortega, the 80-year-old authoritarian leader, says move will ‘build a wall’ against the opposition

theguardian.com

bear with me as i share a bunch of scattered thoughts on spanish soccer:

goals that would have gotten called back with VAR: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRol...

Gary Lineker & Jürgen Klinsmann React to Diego Maradona's 'The Goal of the Century'

YouTube video by FIFA

youtube.com

🗣️ Published today in @aeajournals.bsky.social. Ethan Lewis and I use a visa lottery, as a nationwide randomized experiment, to test the effects of foreign labor on US firms and workers. doi.org/10.1257/app.... A concise summary from @nber.org —> www.nber.org/digest/20221...

tried to predict what 2062 would look like. here's part 1: substack.com/inbox/post/2...

2062

Part 1

substack.com

what i'm having trouble wrapping my head around with regards to marx's "capital" is why do random prestige goods acquire the social value that they do. why does tyrian purple become so prized, versus any other thing that would require a theoritically equal amount of socially necessary labor time

there is an untapped market for an AI that is mean to you

this is straight out of "curb your enthusiasm"

this passage from marx's "capital" seems relevant as we enter the era of trillionaires

man, i paid 27 dollars for 25 ounces of olive oil today, what the fuck

them showing montages of lovable celebrities on celebrity row but the camera then accidentally panning to the worst human beings on the planet in the background as players shoot freethrows or jump into the stands for the ball

feel like you could make a good SNL skit around the inanity of what get shared with mic'd up players. the skit would just be a guy yelling "yeah!" and "woooooo!" in reaction to everything

funniest part about everyone calling that tiktok woman an idiot is them then following it up with stuff like, "everyone knows that humans suffered from caloric deficiencies which is what led them to invent agriculture!" which is orders of magnitude more idiotic a take than anything in that video

she is basically summarizing james c. scott's "against the grain." not sure why everyone is throwing a hissy fit about it

@rprobbins.bsky.social · 2mo ago

A different take on that statement from an archaeologist 💯💯💯🎯

with la masia consistently producing perennial balon d'or talent and the basque region/northern spain consistently churning out the world's greatest coaches, it's hard to argue against the idea that spain is the greatest footballing nation in the world

James Dolan invited his friend Donald Trump to watch Game 3. In order to do that, they have to ban the organic, historically joyous parties happening outside MSG for fans who can't afford to be inside. Modern sports in a nutshell

Pablo Torre@pablo.show · 4mo ago

Sports owners are using tech to build private surveillance states — while taking public money. Which means that Knicks owner James Dolan is the future. In a new collaboration with @wired.com, we go inside how MSG secretly watches fans, surveils kids, tracks players… youtu.be/yNZ3hJPN5Vc?...

one way to frame my critique of current anti-racist ideology is that it continues to treat race as a commodity and merely attempts to alter its valuation.

Is Graham Platner a Nazi? No, but he's not not a Nazi, either. substack.com/home/post/p-...

Graham Platner is a Type of Guy

And You Gotta Decide What That Means

substack.com