118 Comments

Boom goes the dynamite!!!! Bears take down the furd by 19 points!

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Is the Catholic church fish fry something I should be taking part in? If so, are there good ones in the Berkeley/Oakland area?

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We used to do Catholic fish fries in Louisville during Lent. I'd imagine if there are any fish fries they're all takeout right now. I don't remember going to any around here before we moved.

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Pi Day party: I'm happy to set up a Zoom, but I just saw that Imax is planning a Pi Day party on Fbook...to which she invited 496 people!!!

What do you guys want to do?

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smaller zoom. Otherwise it's just too busy.

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496 is way too many. Even 20 gets to be unwieldly.

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ok, what time? evening-ish?

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not be part of a massive zoom

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i would rather do small zoom

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What, and I cannot stress this even more than the last time, the FUCK?

https://twitter.com/MeghanKDKA/status/1369716489369104392

"What do you think about this assignment parents say was given at South Fayette High School?

It asks students to determine whether they would do a “tight pack” or a “loose pack” on slave ships. "

Click through. Take a look at the assignment. Holy moly.

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I like to apply a test: Do the assignment, but reverse the races. See who gets bothered.

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I would go burn the F$%^ing school down if my kid came home with that.

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eh, I can see why people would be upset, but I can see the point of it as well.

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I can't see any point to it at all. Teach the history. Do not make people do an economic word problem to decide how many of their fellow men to sell into slavery. What does any student gain from doing the exercise?

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This is a bad math problem masquerading as a history assignment and that's before we even reach the disgusting roleplay aspect of it. How hard is it to say "slave traders packed slaves in tightly to maximize their profits, despite up to half of their captives dying in the crossing"?

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IDK, ideally insight into man's inhumanity to other men?

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@But the prompt clearly says these are good Christians@

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staggering - read the room my dude

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I thought this was mildly interesting - people have been complaining for ages that iPhones were getting too big, so Apple built a small one, and people aren't buying it: https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/10/22322843/iphone-12-mini-apple-low-production-numbers-decrease

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I would get either the SE or the Mini but I just don't need a new phone.

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I wanted the mini, but I wanted the good camera and the pretty navy color more. 🤷🏽‍♀️

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I got an SE less than a year ago, and the 12 mini is barely smaller.

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yeah, it would've been nice if it were even smaller, but I'll take whatever I can get

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I stumbled upon an old original iphone. That was a nice small size!

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I GOT THE MINI!!!!

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well you are apparently part of an elite group then

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elite group of people with small hands...

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Rank 'em: "Sons of California", "Big C", "Fight for California", "Hail to California", "Palms of Victory"

http://calband.berkeley.edu/media/cal-songs/

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1. Fight for California

2. Palms of Victory

3. Stanford Jonah

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This 4 & 3 house in Boston is for sale for $900k. The second-story living room has a balcony and a special feature.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/302-South-St-2-Boston-MA-02130/67396361_zpid/

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are you sure that's not the master bedroom?

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As someone who has lived by himself for possibly too soon. I think that's a convenient way to continue watching TV even if nature calls....without having to install a TV in the bathroom, of course.

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I think bathrooms without doors are silly, but this is on another level.

That modesty glass next to the toilet is doing some heavy lifting.

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That's odd.

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I mean, when you gotta go you gotta go.

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Welp, Providence Rhode Islanders - your chance to see some Soviet engineering has hit a patch of bad luck. It was a sub that was the movie set about a sub that killed its sailors due to shitty engineering. Before that, it was a vodka bar. After the movie, it sank, was raised to sell for scrap, and now has caught fire and sunk again.

https://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/ap-top-news/2021/03/09/remains-of-cold-war-era-russian-sub-seen-in-film-catch-fire

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that is a VERY Providence story

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I don't know what TCP means, but https://twitter.com/mattblaze/status/1369442016493469699?s=20

@mattblaze: Today in Zoom teaching: my chair broke mid sentence and I instantly disappeared from the frame while attempting to explain how TCP deals with lost packets. I think some of the students thought this was some kind of confusing visual aid.

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TCP/IP - Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol

it is a set of protocols that the entire internet uses to send info back and forth between computers.

so the funny part is that ... the guy was talking about lost packets right when he also physical "got lost"

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i am sure some other more techie person than i can explain it better

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That was the right level of technical detail I needed; thanks!

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New commenting changes

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Looks like the AUTHOR gets a tag. Also I see a bug where after I comment I can't comment again. I have to refresh. Anyone else see this?

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Several times I've had to refresh to get the site to recognize a post, or even function. I had not seen this prior to today's DBD post.

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I haven't noticed anything yet...

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You also have an Author tag, and a little overlay to your image.

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It's a little spiky - I was commenting on another substack site and found something similar

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Someone is a pretty good drone pilot

https://youtu.be/VgS54fqKxf0

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Just recently got a drone and practicing. This is almost impossible...

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before clicking on it I knew it was the bowling alley one. Pretty amazing.

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And a New thread doesn't appear for me after I enter it until I refresh.

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weird, I replied to the "Looks like the AUTHOR" thread and the comment showed up here.

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Voyager

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No one remembers VGER from Star Trek the Movie.

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It was a ponderous movie that screamed look at this scenery, like 2001, rather than look at this action, like Star Wars. Those mysterious powerful space probes are such a common plot device.

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I've actually never watched the original cut of this movie, only the extended cut (and from the media center at the baseball of Moffitt library my freshman or sophomore year...not for any class but just because it was free to do that there) which had an even longer music opening.

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Yup, that was the issue. They thought they were making another 2001. Wrath of Khan got it back to the more character-based morality play stuff that Star Trek really excels at.

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Yeah I do. That movie was boring and strange. It somewhat reminded me of ST 4: The Voyage Home, with a mysterious deep space probe causing major issues for The Federation and Earth.

Those uniforms they wore for that movie were an interesting choice.

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I do remember that. I also remember that first movie being pretty boring.

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Pretty boring?!?!?!?!?!? It's fucking terrible! We waited in line to see it the night it opened, man what a disappointment.

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fucking terrible IS THE RIGHT ANSWER

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Sure do. And Captain Kirk and the crew wore those grey pajama-like unis.

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For some reason, I would have thought Chief Engineer Torres would more likely have been a Cal-Poly or Stanford grad than a UC_Berkley product.

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Voyagers! TV show with John Erik Hexum about a guy and a kid that traveled around time fixing things. The kid knew history and would help the guy fix it. John Erik Hexum died while filming Cover-Up when he pretended to shoot himself in the head with a gun filled with blanks during a break.

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"Adorned" wouldn't be the adjective I would have chosen to describe the effect of those minivans in driveways.

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Voyager 2 launched in 1977, visited Uranus and Neptune, then made its way into interstellar space. Data from the probe will continue to be received by JPL until at least 2025.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/voyager-2

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Can't remember how but I became aware of the Heroes and Icons network on TV. It's one of those ones that shows old time programs. It's nightly schedule includes one episode each of five iterations of Star Trek, including Voyager. I was not a ST fan so don't watch.

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We never liked Voyager, just seemed rather pointless.

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The stakes were a bit smaller because I believe that they wanted to keep the creative freedom of the Alpha Quadrant stories for the TNG movies (by the way, I am finally caught up on The Expanse and thought that season 4 was relatively weaker because it focused on the fate of a colony rather than the whole mankind.

As for Voyager, I thought it did get a bit better after the first season before it became too much of a Borg show after they introduced Seven of Nine.

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I rather liked the storyline of Voyager having better weapons technology, but another group had better biomedical technology. They could have gone farther with that kind of concept.

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Agreed about the Expanse, season 4 had some interesting, even mind-blowing ideas, but it felt like a detour - season 5 was all kinds of awesome.

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Sometimes BBC America airs the original Trek.

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it seems that with all the streaming services, you can more or less find any ST episode you want.

my YouTubeTV will just record all of them. also they are on demand on Prime Video

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The original series is all on Netflix.

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Our Crumbling Democracy

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In a weird development, GOP is now claiming that the wall around the Capitol is a wild exaggeration.

[WaPo]

"The Senate’s top Republican slammed the continued presence of fencing and National Guard around the Capitol, complaining that Congress is “way overreacting to the current need” for security.

“I think we’ve overdone it,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said, noting that there are presently “no serious threats against the Capitol.”

Since shortly after the Jan. 6 riot, the Capitol campus has been surrounded with rings of “unscalable” fencing and round-the-clock patrols of Capitol Police officers and armed National Guard troops. But in recent weeks, the continued presence of those security measures has sparked heated disputes between leading Democrats and Republicans over whether the Capitol is being overly fortified.

Republicans have been vocal about their disdain for the “fortress” around the Capitol, as many have taken to calling it. On Wednesday, McConnell said that “all this razor wire around the complex … reminds me of my last visit to Kabul.”

Apropos: this new weird ad by Boebert, that weirdly ends with gunshots at the end

https://twitter.com/RepBoebert/status/1368939576954216450

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She's got decent propagandists on staff, maybe the democratic party should try that sort of thing

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Incredible amount of self-dealing on behalf of the family-owned shipping business. Fraud and corruption. And she's married to the Grim Reaper Moscow Mitch.

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As it shouldn’t but I believe he should have added “no more mularkey”

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Poll: Andrew Yang is in comfortable lead to win NYC Mayor primary. Yang 32%, Eric Adams 19%, Maya Wiley 9%, Scott Stringer 6%, Katherine Garcia 5%.

https://www.newsweek.com/andrew-yang-favored-win-nyc-mayor-race-just-over-100-days-before-primary-1574921

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What, and I cannot stress this enough, the fuck.

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Today in Covid-19

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Got my first Phizer this afternoon at the Coliseum. There were thousands of people there and it was a well run operation.

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so .. legit ethical question.

apparently if i drive 1.5 hrs north of here to Goshen NY i can get vaccinated. they literally have so much that they are throwing it away according to people on the street.

on the other hand it is still 60+ or other health requirements to sign up and officially get the vaccine ...

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Do it. My sister is in a small town in Iowa and she and her husband, age 74 with pulmonary issues, were registered with their two local clinics but had not been given an appointment. Someone in the town a half hour away where my sister works found out they had unused vaccine that was available and my sister and b-i-l jumped on it. Rightly so even though she isn't of the age group yet.

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No question - go get it before it gets thrown out.

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If they are disposing of vaccines because they don't have anyone to administer them to then it doesn't seem like much of an ethical issue. One more person vaccinated over no one is a plus.

If you're taking the needle from the arm of someone's 80 year old meemaw then that's different, but doesn't seem to be the case you're describing.

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Yeah, that was how we got ours. We were informed they would be going to waste if they couldn't find enough people by the end of the day. Once defrosted, they must be used. No ethical question in my mind. Though I do still have some guilt and am not advertising the fact that we got our first dose.

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Hospitalization rates for old people are plummeting due to vaccination + recovery from holiday surge

https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/1369684700411924480

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Just learned my wife is getting her first shot Monday.

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Nice having the adults in charge, but where's my shot?

"Carefully calibrated goals “avoid losses,” said David Axelrod, the senior strategist for President Barack Obama’s campaigns in 2008 and 2012. “Certainly they must have learned that lesson from watching Trump.”

“Internally, you drive to the highest possible goal you can make. Externally, you set a floor that you are reasonably confident you can achieve,” he said."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/10/us/politics/biden-coronavirus-vaccine.html

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I mean all they've done is cut months off the likely amount of time to get one.

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😃

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Mar 10, 2021Liked by Ruey Yen

technically 2 days off in covid-19: I'm getting my first shot on Friday, which is kind of exciting

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That's good! I'm not sure when my number will come up but I hope to be vaccinated by the end of April.

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Congrats!

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the result of being slightly obsessive, discovering that some new slots were made available at a local hospital at 4 pm yesterday, and typing / clicking like the wind at 4.01 pm

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they lowered the age to 60 in NY, still no qualified but at least it is getting closer ...

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Alaska is now open to anyone 16 or older

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I found out that I qualify through work, which is a bit of a farce, but due to my father's health being in (potentially steeper) decline, I'd like to be able to go to Portland in a hurry without feeling like I need to quarantine once I get there.

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I am getting my first shot today. I qualified because I work in "food and agriculture" industry, but I feel guilty because I work completely from home and not an essential worker. I called and asked if it's really okay to get vaccinated so early, and was told not to worry about it. I just need to bring proof of residency or that work in my county. My business name doesn't really reveal anything about the nature of my business and I'm afraid I might be turned down at the site, so this is the first time I am telling anybody about it. I haven't even told my family yet. lol

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just think of it as accelerating herd immunity ;)

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Thanks, I got it done!

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I also qualify through work, because our parent organization is considered "education," so I scheduled my appointment for Sunday and am also feeling kind of guilty.

It's a huge mess; my boss and her husband both work here, but have different insurance providers, so he could schedule an appointment, but she couldn't. Meanwhile, I know another married couple at work who are covered under one person's benefits, rather than both getting insurance separately, so even though they have the same insurance and same employer, only one of them is on record as "education" with the insurance company. The wife is fully telecommuting, while the husband has been working on site, so she feels really guilty to have an appointment while he's still ineligible.

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My wife missed an opportunity, through her work, to get vaccinated partly because it was unclear who was eligible and partly because she felt guilty getting the vaccine since she is able to telecommute without having to go in to the office. If the chance comes up again she will take it.

I'll get my second shot on Tuesday of next week.

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There is no reason for anyone to apologize for qualifying to get vaccinated. We have to get there as soon as possible, and lots of people can have sudden needs, like you may have, that don't need to be complicated by becoming an exposure/spread event on top of everything else.

That said, continuing prayers and hopes for you and your family in navigating you father's challenges.

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I appreciate the kind words re: my father. Unfortunately at his age stage 4 cancer was always going to be a challenge, to put it mildly.

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indeed. i feel like if you qualify and you are not otherwise doing something super shady then you should not feel bad getting it.

maybe just dont go bananas posting on social media if you are already an influencer like that SoulCycle instructor who got a lot of heat.

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Pro

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A's give up 4 runs in the bottom of the 7th inning, lose to Cubs 9-8.

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Other College

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Les Miles accepts $2m payout rather than receive zero if he lost a hypothetical case that proved the firing was for-cause

https://twitter.com/jessenewell/status/1369388588501241861

https://slate.com/culture/2021/03/les-miles-jeff-long-kansas-whoops.html

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Cal

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GO Bears!

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GO BEARS!

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co '22 Cal QB commit Justyn Martin has recently updated his tangibles. Whereas he self-claimed at 6'4" 185 lbs at the end of his sophomore year, then 193 lbs last fall. Now he says he is 210 lbs with a bunch of new tweets that affirm that he has put a bunch of weight on his skinny legs and arms. And he has adjusted his throwing motion to be less of a short-armed baseball throw that he tries to push the ball and more toward a traditional throw. As a result, the ball leaps out of his hand. He can send it flat, hard, and long. IMO, he seems like the hardest throwing QB since Davis Webb. We may have a deep threat once again. Oh man, he is good.

https://twitter.com/Throw_2_Win/status/1364348160412291072

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