Assuming you're talking Maron and not me, I've listened because he's had interesting guests and is a decent interview. (he had one of my rapper friends on, which was pretty interesting, if not frustrating in that way things get when you hear somebody who is ass ignorant about a thing you know way too much about try and talk about it)

Mos def not a regular listener though.

The other negative is that because WTF is so big, people are aping that style, and man, solo podcasts are just the worst.

where did i say i didn't FF it? im saying, who the hell are the people that sit there any actually listen to that crap before the guest?

I'm as tough on Simmons as anyone but his chemistry with jalen is fantastic. Really funny, entertaining.

koppelman comparing doug ellin to chase, weiner and gilligan made for some huge lols.

apparently it's really damn hard to write for five characters an episode, even if half those storylines are crap like 'turtle took his car to the garage and fell in love with the chick who works there'.

He's actually a pretty talented interviewer, and I think that's how he became popular. He gets people to open up, has an honest conversation with them, and isn't too prying. He also handles deep-ish subjects with some levity.

Otherwise I agree with you. he got into the wrong racket. He's flat out not funny. And not really interesting or smart enough to do the unfunny "gonna sort some **** out here". I saw him live once and afterward my date said "so he basically whines a lot while subtly bragging about having a girlfriend." Pretty spot on.

The live WTF recording after it was pretty good, though. He had a bunch of local Boston comics on. Mike Donovan killed.

same could be said of this paragraph braw

nh

I highly recommend this week's Girls in Hoodies, in which Molly Lambert - without having watched the show or read the books - gives an impassioned critique of Game of Throne's highly problematic consent issues.

Wesley Morris is actually the biggest waste of space on Grantland. What a jerk-off. Pappedemas seems like a cool dude.

Pappedemas does seem cool.

Wesley on the other hand has a tendency to drive me nuts (I still enjoy the podcast though).
He makes some insightful criticism but it's really annoying when he reaches for something that isn't there (or blatantly misses an opportunity to discuss what is actually intriguing about a topic). One thing I just listened to was this bit he did about Nic Cage. He was extremely emphatic (over the course of like ten minutes) that a primary reason for his popularity and success was due to his... sex appeal? For one, it's an uninteresting argument because you could easily make that claim about 90% of star actors and actresses. but the annoying part was that it really was just an overextended reach for analysis. we like Nic Cage cause he's a ridiculous person who often picks ridiculous roles and takes them seemingly very seriously. and we enjoy the fact that he can take these silly roles and deadpan them so perfectly that we are happy to buckle in for the ride.

Wesley is just such a... dork. Pappademus sounds exactly like Jacoby

Jacoby might be the worst of all of them.

I don't mind Jacoby. He doesn't try and pass himself off as some high-minded arbiter of taste and examiner of Serious and Important matters of race, class, and gender.

Simmons really surrounded himself with a bunch of humorless West Coast jerk-offs that are consumed by perception and indifferent to content. It's all toothless opinions and snark.

Exactly what audience is he going for?

Haha, yup.

Jacoby's not that, but high volume stupidity can be annoying too. That, and the way he pronounces "controversy."

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/...d-theyre-good/

Can anyone explain the before and after play by play probabilities here? For example, in the 3 second violation category, where its 55.3 -> 53.6/51.7, I dont see the point of including the 55.3 number.

The point is to show the magnitude of the decline in win percentage. If you just saw the difference in expected win percentage after the technical versus actual win percentage after the technical, you wouldn't know whether teams increased their win percentage by taking a technical or whether they simply declined less than anticipated. Say that the 55.3 number was actually 52%, then getting called for a 3 second violation would have resulted in an increase in win percentage instead of just a less than expected decline. You wouldn't know that just by being told the 53.6/51.7 numbers.

ah, yeah that makes sense, thanks

Latest 99% invisible podcast (it's about design mostly) is about the changing trends in baseball hosiery. Very nice.

If it's just me then it's just me but ric bucher is just the worst right?

Nobody gaf if morey doesn't like you ric

Rolling Stone profile of Simmons

Bucher is terrible. Mistake you made was listening when you saw he was the guest.

simmons maybe a bigger pothead than we all speculated years ago.

Let me guess what bucher said...

Analytics are overrated.... He'd take Rose over Lebron....Go with your gut.... Statistics lie....Eye Test....Watch the games....Heart... Intangibles...blah blah

Traffic wise deadspsin is a fair comparison for grantland, but yahoo and espn aren't.

that slacker Zach Lowe needs to get a second-round podcast up

mvp voting

http://www.nba.com/media/050614-2013...-MVP-Votes.pdf