The game clock is one of the more common rules that tends to warp gameplay in this way, with teams that are ahead trying to avoid play and run out the clock rather than continue to engage in the contest. The other team, meanwhile, resorts to increasingly desperate tactics like pulling the goalie, intentionally committing fouls, or laterals and trying for the onside kick.
The end of American Football games is so frustrating because of this, with a team just constantly taking a knee to run out the clock. It makes the last 2 minutes of the game useless.
Constant fouls in Basketball hoping the opposing team will miss a free throw is another frustrating tactic that drags the last 2 minutes on forever, in what is usually a forgone conclusion anyway.
I find clock management to be an interesting aspect of the game in American Football, because literally every second counts. It's one of the things that separates elite players and coaches from everyone else. Tom Brady, for example, was renowned for his ability to move the ball down the field and score in the last two minutes of a game.
Sure sometimes it means the game is effectively over 2 minutes early if the leading team gets possession and the trailing team has no timeouts remaining. But in that case it just has the effect of shifting the decisive moment a little bit earlier (if it's a close game). And the rare games that end with 0 seconds on the clock on a game winning touchdown or field goal are truly memorable.
>And the rare games that end with 0 seconds on the clock on a game winning touchdown or field goal are truly memorable.
Doesn't feel rare anymore, and I'd argue it's a manufactured phenomenon. Weather plays almost no role in games any longer, with the majority of stadiums indoors and played on perfectly consistent synthetic grass. The game has tilted notably in favor of the offense, with roughing the passer, pass interference, spearing, and other calls more strongly enforced or heightened in the same of player safety. To be clear I'm not arguing against player safety, but it has become almost impossible to sack a quarterback without drawing a penalty. Given these rules, the strategy becomes to keep the score close and use the clock to win the game in the last two minutes. Sure, it leads to the excitement of the last second win / loss, but when that becomes an almost pre-ordained scenario (barring the case of an overwhelming disparity in skills of the two teams), then it really isn't exciting anymore.
I don't believe the average sacks per game has changed much. Haven't crunched all the numbers but this has sacks back to the 2003 season [0]. I generally agree though, the NFL wants a consistent and exciting product; for a while now that seems to mean high scoring, offensive games.
On the contrary, the clock management makes American football games more exciting, because you know if your team can just get one first down you will win. The tension heightens because you see the finish line.
But it does lead to unsatisfying situations where a person layer intentionally goes down instead of scoring because he doesn’t want to give the ball back to the other team.
I agree with your basketball complaint. The worst is that a team up 3 also has incentive to foul the losing team because they can only score 2 at the line.
> But it does lead to unsatisfying situations where a person layer intentionally goes down instead of scoring because he doesn’t want to give the ball back to the other team.
I even like this part because it shows situational awareness, and the willingness of a player to put team goals ahead of their own stats. But I could see how it would be disappointing for fantasy football players, for example.
Having been in the situation of rooting for the losing team many times, it's fine with me. Fans understand how the clock works (and commentators also keep people informed) - and that if their team doesn't get a stop on the next play, the game is effectively over. And the rules are the rules - sometimes they work out in your favor, sometimes they work against you. As long as they are applied fairly, I'm happy.
That's true for the team that's leading, but the other side of this is that if the team that's behind has the ball, they have the perverse incentive to draw a pass interference call even more than make a clean play, due to PI rules being so soft and in favor of the offense. Maybe not as much of a foregone conclusion as a kneel-down, but definitely the past few seasons it has begun to feel like the offense has a notable advantage.
I don't know if your situation allows you to run off Local Cache, but that made a big difference for us in terms of stability with regard to Azure storage resets.
The "best and brightest" visa is the O-1. The H-1B visa is a "specialty occupation" visa, defined roughly as an occupation that requires a Bachelor's degree in a particular field of study.
Agreed; having something like this tied to your GPS would be a great service. It would also be useful to quickly know the time the spot becomes illegal again.
I can imagine, too, this would be incredibly useful if self-driving cars ever become a reality (or in helping them become a reality). After one drops you off at the show downtown, it could then check for nearby parking. But maybe this is dreaming too far down the road...
Does any know whether "Chrome" signifies the browser or the OS? Everyone here seems to assume the browser, but my first thought was that it referred to the new OS since I was reading just yesterday that you will be able to read the NY Times offline on there. Also, when I opened the link in Opera it asked me if I wanted to let the site store 10mb of data, which I assumed related to that feature.
I was under the impression that last June (2009) the House voted 310-118 to add an amendment (the Chaffetz amendment) to a bill to ban the scanners as a primary means of screening, but that the Senate never voted on the bill. It seems to me that such a bill would have popular support - supposedly it was backed by both the ACLU and the NRA - but maybe I am understanding the politics wrong.
What percentage of apps are spam? If it is a rather large percentage, it seems like Apple has an incentive to keep them around so that they can advertise they have x thousands of apps. But maybe it is not that large.
Probably the least sophisticated way is to buy shares in an inverse ETF. There are a couple bear market ETFs that target Chinese indexes (FXP and CZI). (I'm not endorsing anything here; please understand whatever you invest in before doing so.)
This really cannot be said enough. I thought I had figured out a way to arbitrage the oil market sometime last year. Luckily I decided to "make the trades on paper" and see how it turned out before actually putting down ten grand. The devil is in the details, of course, and after watching what happened and fully reading the prospectus of the inverse oil ETF I realized what happened. Always READ THE PROSPECTUS if you are going to be using ETFs or anything else exotic. Again: READ. THE. PROSPECTUS.
Nobody has the right to assemble on someone else's private property. Moreover, even with public property, the right to peacefully assemble seems to be not without restraint. For instance, the courts have upheld laws creating "buffer zones" for abortion clinic protests. Likewise, a lot of cities require you to get a permit for demonstration purposes.
Except that "how well they'll stack up" with Apple isn't measured in profit; it's measured in sales or market share. While the Xbox might not yet be net profitable, it does have enough market share to claim that it stacks up with its competition. I'm not saying the Courier will be competitive, but I hardly think you can, a priori, write Microsoft off in this market.
Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elam_Ending