HavePityPlease

I noticed this wasn't the only Nuclear Blast video that was suddenly removed... welp: Looks like the hackers (probably) deleted everything on the channel. Anyway, here's the audio 😕

Very nice, Cattle Decapitation always seems to deliver (Terrasite was just banger after banger). 🍻 When I'm in a doom mood I usually end up on stuff like this: A more recent one that I have in my playlist: If the prog style stuff is more up anybody's alley, this also-not-so-well-known-Canadian band brings the goods every time:

Well now there's a "teleporter" for me... these guys are from the town where I went to high school, I've heard this tune (and all their tunes) countless times, and I wasn't even a fan. I think they were a potentially unique band in that they were extremely popular locally in the city - heavily followed, beloved and attended, for years - before they ever blew up nationally in Canada, let alone globally. Maybe that's a little more common down there in the US. They probably reached their "exposure" zenith when Dan Aykroyd brought them on SNL when he hosted: Anyway I'm metal/death metal guy so probably not the most enjoyable stuff for people here. My kids are into "the rap" though, so I can share what's in here with them and see what they think. 😅

Yup agreed, but it sounds like this might be another level above just explanation with every secondary player working every secondary position... but I've never been to a pro practice so maybe others have seen that happen before? Let's be fair and say it's still very early in the on-field off-season and as "thick" as ever into the clickbait season. We'll see if the secondary comes out blazing when the actual playing starts.

I can see both sides of the argument around this. With the complexity of NFL defenses and wanting players to "not think, just play", I get teaching them one position and leaving it at that for the most part. But in a perfect world you have exactly what Golden seems to be trying to to get to here - everybody in the secondary understands everybody else's job on any given play, so they better understand how their responsibility fits in (and thus to some degree you hope to avoid freelancing/overplaying). And yes you would theoretically get plug-and-play generic "DB's" as well. Personally I'm glad he's trying to get there.

What I like about this draft is it appears to demonstrate that Golden is going to turn the defense into a linebacker-driven unit, i.e. the position should be expected to make active, attacking plays, hopefully on every down. I mostly say that because I personally enjoy watching it the most (and really want it to happen), but I believe it's the most versatile and extensible from a strategic perspective too. I really liked the LBs that we picked before the draft, which is nice (Schwesinger was my favourite, I guess there was no secret about him considering where he was picked). All in all, optimism abounds as it always does at this time of year. The key to the season will likely be what our new coaches can get out of the existing players who underperformed last season, on both sides of the ball.

This dude is basically the anti-Burton... solid, committed, mature, focused. He's my favourite pick of this draft, easily.

Agreed about Golden, he's not hiding much on the general level about his defense and I enjoy his pressers. As well from Stewart's comments I got the impression he was told the Bengals D will be "attack" style, which if true would be very welcome IMO.

I think this will be the answer to the question in the end. The versatile guys we have (it seems) are Ford, Kirkland, Karras (who isn't moving) and Patrick. The ones that we've at least seen swing out to tackle are Kirkland and Ford. Can Volson do that? We've seen no indication of it, so his value appears to diminish from every new angle you look at it. The only reprieve would seem to be if our new OL coach can somehow turn Volson into a super stud... is that happening? Otherwise, as many have pointed out here for a while, we're paying average starter money to a backup, which is just bad management.

If a guy can be a consistent disruptor while he's being coached up, that means he's playing regularly if not starting - opposite Trey, that's a good thing. For me, actual "project" means you can't put him on the field unless it's special teams or spot duty (granted that's entirely possible with any pick until you get them in pads). If we had Murphy on the other side I'd agree with all this, we can't have a disruptor who's learning to finish opposite a guy who doesn't really want to be there. Luckily that's not a problem (for now).

Run defending is as much collapsing your gap as making the actual hit. This guy does that consistently, but not always in control. Having a guy that can collapse from the edge is a luxury we haven't had - like I said, he CAN stop the run but he doesn't finish. All we can do is hope he can be taught hand skills and breaking down without thinking, which is something to be more optimistic about than hoping a guy starts liking football (Murphy).

I know we all feel burned by Murphy and many maybe suspect this guy is another one like him, but I don't think so. Murphy's issue coming in was he'd take plays off/seem disinterested/hot and cold, and indeed that seems to continue. This guy goes full bore all the time, can stop the run, he's just not a finisher in the backfield. It's a better pick than the Murphy one was but I understand the trepidation. If you consider him a replacement for Hubbard I think it's a fair comparison... except this guy has a MUCH higher ceiling.

How about 13? 😅

IIRC in his first interview after coming back Golden said it would still be a 5-2 base, but later it came out from a lot of "sources" that it'll actually be a 4-3. IMO as long as you have LBs who can cover you don't need to have the extra DB all the time. That's a personnel more than a strategy problem so it's fair to argue that it remains to be seen until they build the final roster, but it's also fair to argue that one should go with what Golden himself said last.

I think for some that's why Jihaad Campbell is a much more enticing target. Wilson and Pratt are the returning starters (as of now), we signed the career back-up from the Eagles (Burks), and Pratt asked for a trade. Something's got to give here, and it might just be we need to come out of the draft with a guy who can log significant snaps, if not start. Worst case scenario we go to battle with Wilson, Pratt and Burks and hope the UDFA's and such that we have on the roster can step up big (along with any we pick up late in the upcoming draft). I don't think that's a great move... as I've voiced elsewhere here I hope Golden uses the LB position as a strategic weapon more than Lou did. For the DEs some might argue it reduces the need for an ace pass rusher (as you can use the LB for it) but honestly I think the target is the same - an all-rounder who can't be blocked one-on-one off the edge with consistency. I'd argue that's why Shemar Stewart is intriguing - he's a good run stopper who definitely disrupts on passing downs, but doesn't seem like a finisher in the backfield. That's a trait that can be trained, but at least you get everything else you wanted if he never becomes that finisher (I'd say some of the other DE targets we talk about are more the pass-rush-only type). DT I think with the signing of Slaton we've at least attempted to address what's most important here... keeping the line open/clogged (as the case may be) so the LB's can cook. I'd again say though that the formation shouldn't change the draft targets as the value proposition is the same in any case. We have personnel that cover the bases and I'd expect anyone new we bring in from the draft would be guys we expect to be back-ups with potential to start down the road. If BPA at 17 is a DT I won't be shocked if they take one though.

"Teams are willing to pay him but the Bengals' asking price is ridiculous" is simply a stupid thing to "report". The Bengals didn't give Trey permission to seek a big contract, they gave him permission to seek a trade. If the Bengals don't think they're getting fair value, then the trade search failed. That's what to report. If Trey thinks he's worth $32M then he should also think he's worth a low-first-to-early-second, or more (granted we don't know exactly what the Bengals are actually asking for, but supposedly Trey's team said they could fish out a first rounder, and haven't done so). All of these dumb headlines always scream "agent cope" to me, and at best they're hoping to drum up fan + media pressure on the Bengals to "just go ahead and cut their losses". This isn't the Seahawks trying to get some cap room and dump a headcase, this is the reigning sack leader that they have under a cheap contract (for what he brings) who actually wants to be here. If you actually read these Twitter threads it becomes abundantly clear that most commenters assume that either a) Trey will walk this offseason if not traded (i.e. they don't realize he's under contract) or b) think that he'll hold out all year if necessary, which they seem to think ends up with him as an FA next year (it doesn't). Having Trey Hendrickson on your defense in 2025 is a very desirable thing that the Bengals would be very happy to just let happen. A funny one is that there's this sentiment in those threads that Trey is "only worth a third rounder bro".... well, if he walks next year the Bengals would get a 3rd round comp pick guaranteed, so having him on your defense + a third in 2027 is higher value than a third right now, at least when your goal is Super Bowl-in-the-JB-window.

Sorry, we already started building the wall, sorry. (Did I say sorry?)

It'll be interesting to see what the EU shakes out to in the current climate, but the last thing they should be doing is looking to Elon (or any foreigner) for voting advice. At the same time people over there need to recognize the rights that are being trampled the hardest (free speech rights for example) and stand firm in protecting those rights. Again FWIW Trump has managed to at least wake people up up here (by talking shit) as to what we're at risk of losing if we don't actually stand up for what we believe in, or having something to stand for. Unity here is the highest it's been in quite some time - a low bar, but it's a start.

Yep, that's the goal. FWIW my (Chinese) wife has been using WeChat for years, she loves the convenience of it while acknowledging the depth of privacy loss it presents. She argues any control factors it provides are lost on someone who doesn't live there, which I think is fair, and I'd argue if you want your data kept private you pretty much need to get off the internet forever and dust off your Nokia 3310. That doesn't mean I advocate for nihilism or have surrendered to defeatism, far from it. The most present danger I see here is how fast all of this is coming down, on a populace that isn't conditioned for it (in the US). Compliance is unlikely to come easy, if at all, which to me is a good thing.

To add my two cents (i.e. wall of text) as to where we are with Musk and his retinue of followers/sycophants/hangers-on: First off, who is he? Aside from the environment he comes from and where he started in life (which shouldn't be ignored, far from it), the man is a self-professed Asperger case - which can imply he may be a born sociopath. A lot of what he does lends credence to this notion or diagnosis. That's unfortunate (and not something he can help) but it's important to be aware of when assessing or analyzing anything he does - he doesn't understand you, me or anyone else, especially as to why we do, act, say or feel anything. He has to post-analyze most things (objectively) and things he tries to process in real time can be confusing or even frightening, often resulting in lashing out or saying something we all take as surprising or shocking. Again that doesn't condone or excuse how he acts but it's important to be aware of. He fits certain profiles of people with this diagnosis - he's loud, he's socially awkward, he laughs at childish things constantly, he does and says things without the slightest thought of how it affects anyone else. He'll lie and go as long as he can insisting on it, but shrug it off when it finally is proven to be a lie. He's pedantic and dismissive. He gets more out of interfacing with tech than he does with people. The other tech people on this site may have been exposed to many people like this, I certainly have. A decent analogue is "The Dwight Schrute type". So let's take it as a given the guy is a sociopath and has a hard time dealing directly with people. How, then, is he so successful? Well, from similar cases we can observe some coincident outcomes, the most similar I see is Steve Jobs. Both guys were/are known assholes, really kinda shitty to be around for any length of time, and I'd argue for the same reasons, clinically. However, both guys also had a very clear vision/visions of what they wanted to make "happen". Both are missing a critical "shame" or guilt most of us have for treating people like shit, or feeling bad about failure, or hedging bets or actions for the greater good. To me, this is where their emotional limitations help them a great deal to "succeed", at least by the measure of our capitalistic society. Something extra is clearly there, however, and you can call it drive, energy, motivation, whatever you want - but they just don't stop. I'd argue that aspect of their personality draws people in regardless of their social awkwardness, because we as human animals seek to follow "leaders" - people who are willing to take risks and throw out instructions to others with intensity and confidence, even if misplaced. The more they succeed whilst doing that, the more people come flocking. It helps a lot when these people get rich, too - again because it's what our society has taught us implies "merit" and what we should all aspire to. So what's Elon's vision? Well, years ago I actually thought he saw some of the large-scale issues of the world - the climate problems and carbon levels and slow pace of technological progress - and simply wanted to help fix those things and make money doing it. Once he revealed more and more about the whole Mars end-game, it eventually became clear to me that that is the vision. There's nothing else, literally everything he's doing is in service to that vision, IMO. How is that? Well (take all of this with a grain of salt, obviously): SpaceX: an obvious one, but he clearly saw that making a business of space hauling was the road to building rockets to Mars. Tesla: electric vehicles are clearly the most efficient choice for a space/Mars vehicle, as long as you can maximize the battery tech. Which leads to... Solar/batteries: as above, solar power will be the energy source in space, he's said this plainly many times, and it makes sense. It also helps explain why he keeps offering his battery tech and patents as openly usable by other companies. If the end goal is maximizing the tech, then "getting everyone on it" is the wisest choice. Boring company: tunnels are the only place humans will survive long-term on Mars until some structure can be built (again, if ever). Satellites: clearly the choice for building up a comms and data network on another planet. Robotics: humans alone won't be able to build up any kind of sustainable habitat on Mars, because you won't get the required numbers. So, don't use the meat bags. AI: Elon has always been, I think, one of the only "sane"/sober voices around AI. He started OpenAI with the stated intent that AI be researched and built with peaceful intent and avoiding the most obvious dangers it could present. Predictably he and this idea were both tossed out by those in charge, and he was left with trying to play catch-up. It's clear he thought he'd simply be able to take over whenever he felt it was time, but it didn't work out that way. How does AI serve his vision? He's sort of said it before, but the robotics work won't serve much of a purpose with single-job robots who need oversight and direction. They'll have to be able to make their own decisions. A valid question I think is why would Elon care if AI is used peacefully or in a manner to avoid "danger"? Personally I think he knows that it could very easily mean the death of humanity, and that's not very conducive to getting humans to Mars. Incidentally I think that's why he harps on birthing levels and maintains his own harem of baby-mommas. Twitter/X: This is often cited as some flight of fancy, or a child-like result of a tantrum over who gets to say what about him, but I think it's always been a way to get as much data as possible to feed his AI models. Everything else about it is "bonus", and it lets him preen. Neuralink: This is one is a little harder to trace to a fit, but I've come to the conclusion that he expects to need to communicate with robots/machines in faster and more direct ways. It's also valid to point out his various transhumanist "leanings" and his constant invoking of the term "human consciousness" and not "humans" as what he's trying to preserve. It might of course just be a backup solution of sorts in case the meat cannisters aren't available anymore. So what does any of this have to do with Trump, DOGE, anything at all that Elon is doing right now? Honestly I think he just saw a possibility that all of this could suddenly disappear at the whim of the government. Several governments around the world don't like him (for one reason or another, the main one being his potential for control) and try to limit what he's doing, so he's picked a side and he's throwing everything on the table to ensure his ventures not just maintain, but dominate their position (the key one being AI and data). He probably thought being tightly aligned with the military was enough, but it's clearly not. So my take on the various focal points of the current saga: The "tech bros": People have a lot of opinions about these guys but it's all pretty simple IMO. Young tech people work tirelessly, want to please, and naively feel like blind hard work and grinding will lead to everything they want (ask me how I know). They are unburdened by familial ties/kids, pesky experience and wisdom, and in many cases - lack empathy, self respect and much of an identity. They're perfect acolytes for tech oligarchs. For what it's worth, it's silly to think of or refer to these guys as "auditors". They're not auditing anything, they're data miners and high-intensity "implementers". What are they implementing? Quick and dirty systems that at least purport to modernize and improve old, broken government systems (good) but with a primary purpose to ensure those system serve Trump and Elon's goals specifically (probably bad). Again, for anyone with experience in this, a gaggle of wide-eyed twenty somethings are not going to be able to extract the tacit knowledge in an old, decaying COBOL-based system (of all things) with any kind of speed, so anything produced in any near timeframe will not be an upgrade, but more a drop-in replacement with "real men test in production" vibes. What does Elon want with that data?: I believe he wants to feed the AI models and again, maintain a dominant position. That's it. It's pretty silly to think it's for money for the richest guy on the planet, as some in the media like to claim. It's power, control. What about the savings?: Wherever actual fraud and abuse are uncovered and the people benefit it should be celebrated. The problem is they've already been caught clumsily fudging the numbers and presenting the data in the most hyped-up-yet-obfuscated way (especially Elon himself). An example: Elon presenting the millions of "death_flag == true" entries on the SS database, with a cropped image of a couple of columns. For any tech person the obvious questions are "what was the query? The schema? Is there an 'is_receiving_cheques' flag? What is this database actually used for in the overall operation?". What Elon is presenting is just hype, it's meant to pique your anger. Ask questions, dodge the hype. For what it's worth a handful of supposed insiders have supposedly run the actual query to pull out "dead people who are being paid" and it's not even 100K. That's weird and needs forensic analysis, but it's not something that provides stupendous, immediate savings. It is likely, even probable, that the end game for the 'savings' and cutting is to make the general populace more accepting of cuts to things that actually serve them. It's also likely to be followed by heavy tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest people. I don't think that's a controversial assumption when a Republican government is in charge. What's really going on here?: Unfortunately we still won't know until more outcomes are observed. There's been some obvious bad and some tenuous good IMO, but at the end of the day the most powerful (i.e. richest) people are still running your government and the evil psychos have their claws deeply buried - guys like Thiel, Karp... these people are your real enemy, they want you compliant or dead. Vigilance is key here, don't accept window dressings as facts. If you made it this far, cheers! My goal to organically reach the character limit for a single post marches on...

IIRC the reason it's "definitely" the whole season is they're going to have to go and do yet another surgery which still hasn't even happened (in January they were giving a vague "in the coming months" timeline for the second surgery).

It was a fair bet all along that he would be cut, but as others pointed out Golden's interviews seemed like an obvious signal that he wasn't favoured by the new coaching crew. I pay a lot of attention to the LB's, mostly because it was my favourite position to play and the one I get the most animated about during a game. Pratt had kind of a strange journey here but ultimately a successful one on the field - until this past season. As others noted, he was pretty poor and outright stopped trying in some games. Some observations of his time here: - As a drafted rookie he seemed willing, high energy, but he had some serious fundamental bad habits and flaws that lasted for quite a while. The most obvious to me was he had this weird tendency to wrap, pick up, and back-slam every ball carrier he tackled. This is both a strange tendency for a player that reached this level, but just plain "not smart", because he's expending massive amounts of wasted energy every time he does it. Anyway, he eventually stopped doing it either late in his second season or into his third. - Once he stopped the energy wasting habits it seemed to (unsurprisingly) improve his overall energy level and made him more effective. Whenever the "go for the strip" policy was heavily bought into by the defense he was probably its most eager advocate. Sometimes this didn't help end a play (the opposite), but as we all know it worked enough times to probably be "worth it" in his case. So, he became the chase-and-strip stereotype guy. - His tantrum at Ossai in the lost AFCC game was a really bad look and it soured me on him quite a bit. After the dust settled and he said his piece about it, it felt more like he was worried about how it all would affect his contract more than the way the game was lost or that it was lost at all. If you are going to point at your teammates for "blame" in your contract situation, you're a pussy, sorry. Earn your own damn contract. - It seemed clear both implicitly and by some public statements by the coaches that he was to be relied on this past season as a leader and example-setter for the D. Yeah that didn't go so well, eh? So, obviously, I'm not sad at all to see him go, quite the opposite. Now we have a chance to upgrade which should be a much more consequential position in any defense. Just watching LBs on other teams, it feels like we've been short-changing what's possible. With that said, I'm sure others here have pointed to the hey-maybe-why-not-is-it-a-pipe-dream-one-can-hope-maybe possibilty that Zack Baun might want to reunite with his old LB coach here? He played MLB with the Eagles but a playmaker's a playmaker, it'd be fun if it happened. I tried googling Baun and of course most of the results are now the AI-generated type with the standard headline "Zack Baun Projected To Sign With <insert every fuggin team in the league>", so no interesting news to be found there yet, as expected. Others have mentioned the draft, I think they'll obviously need something from the draft, but I wouldn't sneeze at a high pick there. I feel like playmaking LBs have a better chance to make an impact as a rookie than a lot of other positions. Exciting times ahead!

I'm not commenting on it being posted here, I appreciate that peeps like Griever put in the work to post all things Bengals - it is much appreciated. This is one of the new-ish breed of clickbait articles that I get suggested to me all the time in my feeds. The headline reads like there's real evidence that "The Exciting Thing!" might really happen... I mean, it's ESPN! But then when you read the actual article it's just some schmoe throwing out a totally random hot take, no actual journalistic work done at all (and the article itself is just some loose, generic "wrapping" around that hot take). In my experience you'd usually have such things limited to the hot-take type of on-air shows, which are easily avoided - and often the hot take did come from such a show. Now, these generated sites shove it on you from every angle, and more and more often these are clearly written by ChatGPT or other LLM text generators. I'm starting to recognize the generic pattern of headline wording, site naming, even font usage that are hints to this type of clickbait. The amount of Leafs garbage I see in my feeds every day is actually starting to become easy to filter out with simple scripts or a quick regex. I guess my point is - I see a silver lining in the lazy uptake of AI by fad-chasers and content spammers.

I heard it's Josh Tupou with a fake moustache