Quotulatiousness

August 24, 2010

Sidney Rice has hip surgery, won’t be ready to play until November

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:39

In what many are claiming is a contract-related move, Vikings wide receiver Sidney Rice had hip surgery yesterday for an injury he took in the NFC Championship game:

There has been a lot of controversy concerning that injured hip of Sidney Rice, primarily questions about when the injury happened and why it wasn’t reported until a Twitter-related confession from his agent.

Rice was at the Steadman Clinic in Vail, Colo. No, not to try to pull John Elway out of retirement but to have his injured hip examined by a new set of eyes. Rice confirmed to the Star Tribune he had surgery that is expected to sideline him for the first half of the 2009 season.

What makes the situation curious is that Rice, whose contract calls for $550,000 for the 2010 season, went through minicamp without any obvious hindrances and now needs surgery. The injury is said to have happened during the NFC Championship Game vs. the Saints in January.

If he had been in a scenario that would need surgery, the team clearly would have preferred to have the procedure done much earlier so that he would be ready for the start of the season. As it stands, he could be sidelined until November.

This is a very odd development: as John Holler points out above, this is an old injury and if surgery was required, it could have been done earlier in the year. If the Vikings had indicated that they weren’t willing to pay Rice extra for the breakout season he had last year, it could easily be interpreted as a deliberate move to punish the team for being unwilling to reward Rice.

Update: The Vikings have signed Javon Walker, who played with Brett Favre in Green Bay:

Walker worked out for the coaches Friday and, contrary to Walker’s recent body of work, there seems to be enough left in his 31-year-old body to give them depth at a position that has none.

We’ll see. Until Walker has a chance to prove himself, it would be a shame to see him move ahead of younger players such as Logan Payne. Payne, 25, played in two games with Seattle in ‘08 but has potential. Walker is a household name with a Pro Bowl past, but he also has been beaten down by injuries and off-field trouble the past four seasons.

The last pass Favre threw to him was in the ‘05 season opener. Walker tore an ACL on the play and has had only one productive season since. Heading into that season, a rift developed between Favre and Walker because Favre publicly criticized Walker’s decision to stage a contract holdout. The Favre-Walker relationship obviously has been mended because the Vikings never would bring in a receiver Favre didn’t want.

Censors to poke noses into what Aussies can load on their iPhones?

Filed under: Australia, Law, Liberty, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:16

Roger Henry sent this information to one of my mailing lists and I repost it here with his permission:

An interesting bombshell in Oz. Apple iPhones, and presumably other similar devices, have been put on notice that all, or nearly all, of the apps that people buy and install should, by law, have been submitted for “Classification” (i.e., censorship). Failure to do so is a criminal offence with penalties of some AU$35,000 per offence. Purchasing said ‘apps’ without a Classification label is also a criminal offence, punishable with jail time and/or fines. Seems that getting these ‘apps’ Classified attracts a charge varying from AU$470 to AU$2,600 so a lot of money is outstanding. With 50,000 apps already in use, the government accepts that there are some practical limitations to the matter but they aren’t going to let the matter just fade away.

This is Roger’s summary from information posted in The Australian‘s weekly IT Notes. And then, in response to a “Dude, WTF?” query:

It may well be that Apple will cease making apps available in Oz. Yes. It is known that they have their own censors. This merely compounds their culpability. What might have been an accidental oversight is now clearly a deliberate attempt to A) avoid censorship and B) defraud the government. This cannot go unpunished. As for the consumers, well, they are all probable pedophiles and identified thieves. No punishment can be too severe . . . it might take awhile but Justice will be served.

While it likely will all end in a round of dignified press releases and backslaps all ’round, there’s still the outside possibility of a highly entertaining politico-technical train wreck here. Let’s hope the wilder spirits prevail.

Gluten-free food not the dietary silver bullet

Filed under: Food, Health, Randomness — Tags: — Nicholas @ 07:54

With a celiac in the family, we’ve been very aware of all the ways the food industry uses gluten as a cheap filler (because we have to read ingredient lists very carefully). The recent boom in gluten-free products has been wonderful: we still read all the labels, but there are more products we can safely buy and use with confidence. But some folks buy the products thinking that gluten-free means guilt-free:

The notion that a gluten-free diet can help people lose weight or avoid carbohydrates is a myth. “Many packaged gluten-free products are even higher in carbs, sugar, fat and calories than their regular counterparts, and they tend to be lower in fiber, vitamins and iron,” says Shelley Case, a registered dietician on the medical advisory board of the Celiac Disease Foundation. “Gluten-free does not mean nutritious,” she notes.

Gluten, a protein in wheat, barley and rye, is not only a key ingredient in baked goods. It’s also used as a thickening agent in ketchup and ice cream. It helps ferment vinegar and alcoholic beverages. It’s even in lip gloss and envelope adhesives.

For people with celiac disease, ingesting even tiny amounts of gluten can set off an autoimmune reaction that flattens the finger-like villi lining the small intestine. The most common symptoms are bloating, gas, diarrhea and constipation, as well as early osteoporosis. The autoimmune reaction can also cause skin rashes, chronic fatigue, bone and joint pain, neurological problems, liver problems, diabetes, infertility in both men and women and cancers, including lymphoma. An estimated three million Americans have celiac disease — and the vast majority don’t know it because it can have no symptoms or mimic other diseases.

Separately, a smaller group of people have a specific allergy to wheat; exposure can lead to rashes, asthma and even anaphylactic shock.

A third category of people — as many as 20 million Americans — appear to be sensitive to gluten without having full-blown celiac disease. For them, symptoms may be less typical, involving depression, mental fogginess, mood swings and behavior changes. Much less is known about this group.

The Guild, Season 4 Episode 6

Filed under: Gaming, Humour — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:38

<br /><a href="http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/season-4-episode-6-weird-respawn/y0at2alk?fg=sharenoembed" target="_new"title="Season 4 - Episode 6 - Weird Respawn">Video: Season 4 &#8211; Episode 6 &#8211; Weird Respawn</a>

“One of the few thrills of working as a bylaw enforcement officer is making people cry”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Government, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:23

Ezra Levant looks at the bylaw enforcement regime in Clarington, just east of Toronto:

It’s not a lemonade crime wave that the brave city elders of Clarington are combating. It’s the menace of backyard barbecues.

Peter Jaworski has been holding backyard barbecues at his parents’ property there for 10 years. It’s a house in the country on 40 secluded acres. Once a year, Peter invites a few dozen of his friends to spend the weekend eating his mom’s cooking and camping next to the swimming hole. I’ve been there: it’s one part family reunion, one part picnic and one part political talk.

So clearly, the Jaworski family must be stopped.

First came the health department. They poked and prodded, and even took water samples. No one has ever got sick at a Jaworski barbecue — the opposite; everyone comes for the food — but the government ordered that no home cooking would be allowed. The Jaworskis complied with these costly and ridiculous demands, catering the whole weekend and serving only bottled water, at great cost.

But bureaucrats travel in packs. A local bylaw enforcement officer waited until the barbecue itself, and marched right onto the property — no search warrant needed! — and started peppering the guests with questions.

He wasn’t a health officer; he was a bylaw officer. Yet he demanded to know what the guests had for lunch. In the name of the law!

Armed with this devastating information, the officer charged Peter’s parents with running an illegal “commercial conference centre,” which carries a fine of up to $50,000. The officer, a burly, tattooed, six-foot-something man, told Peter’s mom to “be very careful.” She burst into tears.

Why do people get this insane idea that they should be able to do what they want on their own property? If we wanted that to happen, we wouldn’t appoint bylaw officers and arm them with bylaws to quash your fun and destroy your ability to enjoy your own property!

This scourge of backyard entertainment must be defeated, and Clarington is leading the way!

Silent Star Wars

Filed under: Media, Randomness — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:32

H/T to Marc Campbell.

GW2 links from Gamescom

Filed under: Gaming — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:04

Arenanet had the first live demo of Guild Wars 2 at the Gamescom event in Germany this weekend. Rubi Beyer couldn’t attend, but still feels that she’s getting plenty of information about the upcoming release:

I did not go to Gamescom. I was kind of not anticipating last week at all, because I envisioned it as a week of me looking at all the wonderful things I couldn’t have, much like a starving orphan outside a bakery (or maybe a homeless orphan in some player’s home instance). I figured it would be very un-fun.

In fact, the opposite was true. Sure, I couldn’t play hands-on, but I enjoyed all the Guild Wars 2 news flooding out of Gamescom just the same. I imagine being there would have made it impossible to take in all of these details from every direction — it just would have been too overwhelming.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not sour grapes. I would have loved to be there! But since I couldn’t, I’m really enjoying my bird’s-eye view, so to speak. Even from this point of view, the amount of new information we have is nearly impossible to keep track of, so for Flameseeker Chronicles this week, I thought I’d take all that we’ve heard this week and try to distill it into a guide on where you can find information.

It’s felt a bit like trying to take an octopus and 15 of his closest friends and convince them all to fit comfortably in one small sandwich baggie, but I’ve done my best. Follow along after the jump to see where you can find the latest and greatest from Guild Wars 2 at Gamescom.

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