Trades

In fantasy football there aren't that many ways to improve your team, especially when you lose a player because of injury or a player with a lot of expectations busts. The first way is through the draft. Every league has one draft at the start of the season where members systematically go through and pick players. Most drafts are snake drafts; meaning the person who has the first pick one round has the last pick the next round and so on. This evens out the draft a little bit so that having the first pick doesn't mean you automatically have the best team. Another common way to gain an advantage in fantasy football is to pick up players off the waiver wire. The best situation to pick up players is when a key player is injured (specifically running backs) because their back ups will have to pick up some of the slack. The problem with the waiver wire is that most leagues have some sort of system to allow lower ranked teams to have higher priority, so if you have a good start to the season and you start slumping it may be hard to pick up players.
By far the most interesting method of improvement is trades. Trades are fairly self-explanitory, two people exchange players. In most cases, trades are made when one member wants to improve a certain area of their team and are willing to give up something the other member wants in return. In my experience, trades are usually a toss up and you can't see whether someone has gotten the better of a deal right away, you have to wait a few weeks to see how they perform. One of the worst feelings in fantasy is when you trade away a solid player, and the player you get goes out for the season with a torn ACL. Come on Keenan Allen.

Lost in Space

"Neural Connection Established... Loading stored memories..."
"Memories loaded... Waking..." I woke. In a flash of panic, I tried to move my body. Nothing responded.
"Waking body senses... " I relaxed, comfortable with this ritual, as my sense of touch returned.
"Body senses woken..." I felt familiar sensations rush back to me.
"Scanning for mutations... Green. Awakening physical systems... Opening cryostasis hatch." I sat up, feeling weak, and more importantly, thirsty and hungry. However, that could wait.
"Computer, location and time." I stated. I wanted to know how long I had been in "deep sleep."
"Error, data not found," it replied. I resisted the urge to swear, settling for a loud and long "GRAAAAHHH!"
"Estimates?" I asked, hoping, in vain, that the computer had tracked our drifting through space.
"Error, data not found," it replied again. I dropped to my knees. I was lost in space, with a limited food supply, an unemotional ship computer, and no means of contacting help. Could the situation get any worse?
"Broadcast SOS signal." I ordered.
"Broadcasting." I got up, and hobbled towards the pilot's controls. I settled in my chair, and looked around me. My helmet was on its hook where I left it before going into cryostasis. How long had I been adrift? Days? Weeks? Years? The multi-display turned on, panels of the walls changed to show space in front of me. "Food. Water," I ordered. A dispenser to my left shot out an insta-meal and a bottle of water.
"Artificial gravity. Off. Computer, are there any planets nearby?"
"Negative."
"Asteroids?"
"Negative."
"Power levels?"
"50% Currently charging from star 0.14 lightyears away." It's definitely been years.
"Take us closer. Any planets orbiting the sun?" Probably not.
"Negative." Right. I was right.
"Computer, reset time. Wake me up when we make contact with another planet or when we make contact with another life form." I stare into space for a little while longer, absently reaching below my seat and taking out a photo of 5 of my friends and I from flight school. Back then, everything was better. We were confident that no one could beat us. On the back, my friend's signatures are all there, wishing me luck. A reminder of happier times. My thoughts drift back to my current situation. Lost in space with a damaged fighter. Maybe the United Colonies would dispatch a search team for me. My gaze sweeps over the small souvenirs that decorate the edges of the command table. Five from the T-84 offensive. Another three from the Miner's rebellion. I put the picture back under my flight seat and push myself out of the chair, orienting myself and pushing to get through the entry way into the back of the fighter. My cryostasis pod awaits in the back. I tap a button and the door to the chamber slides open silently. I get in, settling into the form fitting gel and lay my head back against the headrest. The hatch closes and I am shut in the dark. "Lost. I am lost forever." is my last thought as the computer shuts down my body's functions, and eventually, my brain to preserve them for the long wait ahead.

Christopher Nolan, A Genius of his Art

Christopher Nolan, one of the greatest directors of all time. He is known for his insane plots; dark, twisted loopholes; and enough psychoanalytic trauma to fill Sigmund Freud's offices for years.

We'll start with his early work. Memento, his first big movie, tells the tale of a man who is looking for his wife's killer. There's a catch, however, he has short-term memory loss, much like Dory, but with him it's devastating because he knows about his condition and is constantly leaving mementos for himself, taking pictures and writing things on them to remind him of something important, tattooing himself with words that he needs never forget and which will now never get lost. The film jumps from place to place, time to time, telling this man's tale as he sees it. It moves almost backwards, which makes for a very confusing plot but once you watch it more than once it all falls into place and becomes one of the best movies I have ever seen. Nolan has a tendency to make his stories dark, which Memento certainly is. I place it 3rd on my list of all-time best movies and give it a 9.7/10 simply because in order to fully understand it you must watch it at least twice.

Next, we move to The Prestige. A story about magicians and the science behind magic. It tells the story of two magicians, competing in a stage war to garner more popularity. It delves into the psyche of these two, or maybe three, artists. They do everything from steampunk devices which remove birds from cages to escaping from a glass box full of water to vanishing acts, that puts one person in two places at the same time. Nolan is almost obsessive with the three stages of magic. The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course...it probably isn't. The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige". Recommended for a light evening. 8.4/10

Nolan investigated Batman. He spent nearly a decade on The Dark Knight trilogy and it is one of the greatest vigilante stories in history. At a staggering 7.5 hours, you couldn’t watch the entire thing in a school day. In classic Nolan theme, he turns everything dark and throws some of the most terrifying villains of all time, one of which gave Heath Ledger an Academy Award. The only thing I can say is you need to watch this trilogy. 9.8/10. The second installment, The Dark Knight, falls second on the list of all time best.

Inception and Interstellar are two action packed thrills where Nolan challenges science in more ways than one. With Inception he challenges the idea that we are able to control our dreams and that we can even extract information from the subconscious mind. Leonardo DiCaprio does a fantastic job portraying a disgruntled man trying to get back to his family. Falling fifth best of all time, it gets a 9.6/10. In Interstellar, Nolan looks at wormholes and space travel. With highly accurate science he puts a dystopian Earth in need of a new planet in a decision between making enough food to survive and funding a space program to search for a new home. It goes beyond three dimensions and shows manipulation of the fourth and maybe even fifth dimension. Excellent science, recommended highly. Twelfth on the all-time list. 9.4/10.

Casey Starr

Blog

Skiing is something everyone should learn how to do at a very young age. In my opinion it should be a requirement for all United states citizens to learn how to ski and try it out because it would being so much money into the economy if everyone was paying for skiing, and it would bring joy to everyone and realize stress. I am mainly joking because it cost money that people don't have but my point is that if you have the opportunity to be out in the woods, skiing with friends and just enjoying the outdoors you should take advantage of that.

Once I get out onto the slopes it’s hard to get me off. I always buy 50 cent ramon because the prices of the food in the ski areas are stupid expensive and take up to much shredding time. I normally just eat the roman hard on the gondola up to the glades where the powder is fresh. If I’m lucky I can find a nice line of fresh tracks and have the day of my life. On snow days, me and my friends wake up at the crack of dawn, drink our coffee on the way up to the mountain so we can check the first tracks on a fresh powder day. They best days are snow days during the week when all the New yorkers are too scared to make the drive so we got the whole mountain to us Vermonters. Skiing is what makes the winter fun for me and I can’t wait for it to start up again.

Big Ole Whale

One of the hardest questions in life isn't one that we come across as adults. It is a staple of any childhood, and the answer changes as frequently as the tides. For me, I always knew what animal I would want to be if I could be any animal. Some people try to complicate the question, create some sort of conditions that you need to meet in order to have a valid animal. The only answer I need is the killer whale.
The killer whale is the most amazing member of the underwater squad. Killer whales are technically dolphins, but when sailors first encountered one, they called it "whale killer". The name was soon reversed, and they came to be known as killer whales or orcas. They are the most fearsome animal in the ocean, and have only ever been hunted by humans. Orcas hunt a huge variety of animals, from sharks and dolphins, to moose and pelicans.
Killer whales can live to be over 100 years old, similar to how long humans can live, although the lack of predators means that orcas will more frequently live to be very old. They use echolocation to find their prey, as they cannot smell and their eyesight isn't the most useful tool in their toolbox. Possibly their best trait is their temperament. They only ever attack humans while they are in captivity, meaning that no wild killer whale has ever killed a human. If I could be any animal, I would be a killer whale.

Noobsquad Update

It was an intense week in fantasy football, with many good teams squaring off, and many bad teams participating as well. All I do is Winston continued his win streak, beating the Cashmere Bull by 14 points in what started out as an even matchup but quickly turned the victory away from Marcus. By 4:30, it was pretty clear after two rounds of games that I had a sizeable lead on Marcus’s underperforming team. He also made the mistake of starting Adrian Peterson, who, with age slowing him down and an offensive line that can’t seem to make any room for him, got a measly 3 points before being injured. Isaiah Crowell meanwhile sat on Marcus’s bench, gaining 21 points and could have gotten Marcus the victory if he knew which players on his randomly selected team were actually good.

Winners were rewarded again in Week 2, with half the league 2-0 and the other half 0-2. The winners are being separated from the losers early this year, with a few upsets as previous league champion Adam sits in second to last place, scoring less than 200 points in two weeks with a team that has only one good player on it. In other league news, four households have successfully hosted get togethers so far, providing pizza and burgers for the boys. We can only hope this trend continues next Sunday, and maybe this time we’ll be able to watch the real NFL Redzone as opposed to a stream from a sketchy looking website.

Mountain Removal

I love the mountains, and I believe that I can say the same about everyone else in this room. As a lover of the mountains of the Appalachian I believe that it is my duty to notify all of you of the situation in the southern Appalachians. In the southern, West Virginian section of the Appalachians, mountains are being destroyed through the act of mountaintop removals, where the top of the mountains are being taken off for the coal hidden underneath the first hundred or so feet of rock and soil. I would know what this destruction looks like because of all the experience I have had driving across this landscape, and because of all the hours of flying over and capturing pictures of the covertly decimated mountains. I believe that together we can break the deafening silence that surrounds this unspoken tragedy.

It is unimaginable to believe that up to 500 mountains have been destroyed from mountaintop removal spanning from northeast Tennessee and eastern Kentucky, through western Virginia and southwest West Virginia, all the way to Charleston, West Virginia.  In some counties it is calculated that up to 40% of the landscape has been destroyed from the mountains being flattened. These areas are among the richest, most diverse temperate forests in North America, and until mountaintop removal began 20 years ago, they were the source of clean water and beautiful tourist areas for much of the eastern U.S.  

Imagine a beautiful New Hampshire landscape, mountains like precious gems spread across the whole horizon. Now imagine that you look across the same horizon in the same location three to five years later and find yourself looking at a totally different landscape. Half of the mountains are cut in half and the others stand alone as foothills compared to what used to be. You have just witnessed what it is like to find yourself in the midst of a mountain-top removal area in West Virginia. Not only is this common, unsatisfying, and demeaning to see but it creates major environmental problems. The mountaintop removals in West Virginia are long overdue for opposition, and need to be rebelled against. Let us stand up together, and maybe we can make a difference before it is too late.