John Stafford

@ZubyMusic @CoachDanGo They let my advanced gym class in HS try it. Incredibly hard, only one guy could make the pole even flex.

@CoachDanGo I've always wondered how you know if you're good at pole vault. How many people have even tried it? I did a ton of sports have never attempted a pole vault once.

A 2024 study tracked 95,000 athletes across 44 sports. The athletes that lived the longest? Pole vaulters. They lived 8.4 years longer than the general population. Gymnasts: +8.2 years. Sumo wrestlers: -9.8 years. The longest-lived athletes train every quality at once: speed, balance, power, strength, coordination, and fear management. This doesn’t mean you have to train like a pole vaulter to live longer but it definitely would not hurt.

@Empty_America Plenty of physics slots at Ohio State (and as pointed out, in the BS programs at many of the listed unis). Not every public college in a state should have every program.

This is part of the "great sucking in." 100 years ago, even small towns in Ohio were places where ambitious people could live, they built mansions that still stand. Now, you must leave to do something like get a Physics degree, go somewhere more central like Mass or NY.

@c_hunter_r @HamptonPrezcott @aaron_renn This is near Miami?

@HamptonPrezcott @aaron_renn My parents had no issues joining their country club in Florida although don’t look at the initiation fees now. Plus they live in the county in Florida that has the best public school in the state, along with two excellent K-12 private schools, well, one is in the county next door

Miami (and other Sun Belt boom towns) will struggle to attract high income talent going forward due to 2 things: 1. Dearth of top notch private schools 2.Dearth of top notch country clubs No one wants to give up a cushy lifestyle so they can spend 15 years on a club waitlist

@coolappleagain @HamptonPrezcott High end catholic definitely part of the equation. Old style parochial not relevant. Miami also suffers from a very complex school placement system. There’s not a suburb you can move to and all is well.

@HamptonPrezcott How important are private schools? Where I’m from it was Catholic schools that people with money went too it seemed

Our soccer club made parents take “parent training”. It was surprisingly good. “Is your kid better or worse by your behavior on the sidelines?” Regardless of whether the response is justified, try the behavior that allows your child to perform the best. And no long debriefs on the way home. Parents get one and only one observation, then must shut up or say positive things. And be sure to inquire if that’s what the coach wanted. Nothing worse than parents yelling for behaviors contrary to coaching.

Dear Mom & Dad: I know you’re just trying to help but you’ve got to get better at reading their body language. If your voice and presence is becoming a thing of distraction, added pressure, stress, and anxiety, it’s time to 🤫. Signs to be aware of: • They look to you in practice and games for approval. • They look to you to see your response when they make a mistake. • They play more relaxed when you’re not around. • They play more emotional when you are around. It can be a hard pill to swallow realizing you might be part of their inconsistencies, emotional instability, and insecurities but please take a moment to think about it and make some adjustments if they are necessary.

Unsustainable. Non-revenue College sports are dying. These athletes will never have the campus impact beyond tennis that US players would have. Solution is that teams must reflect institution which caps at 1 or 2 internationals. Next step is academic index must be better than the 25th percentile similar to Ivy League.

NCAA men’s tennis Sweet 16 snapshot — by my count: 20 American starters in 96 singles spots. 12 from just two teams: Stanford and Ohio State. That leaves 8 American starters across the other 14 teams. The issue is the overall numbers — and what they mean for American players below the elite level.

@TheSharkPunch @PEWilliams_ The purpose is to reveal other parties stealing their IP

@PEWilliams_ The goal is to create databases with info that no one else posseses. They've identified books that haven't been scanned into any existing public or private database and are buying all known copies to prevent anyone else from having it. Once all physical copies are gone, that's it

A friend of mine who works in rare books mentioned today everyone he knows is getting weird, big orders from the same buyer this week for "long tail books"—decades-old textbooks, private press niche history, unremarkable but rare titles just collecting dust. Obviously AI, right?

Yes for football. Yes for tennis/golf for the bottom of the roster (many kids can contribute in 3rd/4th year). Volleyball. Wrestling. Happens for Lacrosse/Field Hockey but most are crossovers. There are not many really strong rec programs left in our area that support this type of athlete. If the athletes goal is to start varsity vs sit bench varsity, extra training is definitely a big help. Only needs 50 mile radius.

I see plenty of athletes playing varsity that didn’t play travel ball in most sports.

@bighorsebox Part of this is that it signals “liberals welcome” which is necessary for success when recruiting nationwide and at many top college campuses.

the reason this happens is really funny raytheon figured out in like the 80s if they didn't make being gay as shameful in their corporate culture "give us state secrets or we'll tell everyone you're gay", a normally very effective blackmail technique, would not work as well

@octal It seems more of a conceptual problem than an implementation problem.

@johnstaff Yeah, but crew scheduling/operations is a huge and well-resourced part of a legacy airline, and they were already running systems -- I assume they outsourced it to an IT dev contractor vs. building the new tool in-house.

Apparently the delta meltdown this weekend was because they rolled out new pilot scheduling software that offers a flight in sequence to pilots, with a 12 minute window for each, so it can take many hours for them to successfully bid flights.

@ShriramKMurthi @octal I know, which makes it amazing they didn’t consult the OR people about such a flawed idea prior to implementation.

@johnstaff @octal Airlines *definitely* know about OR. I've met with and even hosted guest talks from OR folks at airlines.

@Build_Like_Bob @SpiritAirlines Spirit is a horrible airline that deserves to be liquidated.

@realEstateTrent I get calls everyday. Several I’ve taken to offer and the offers are jokes (ex: 180 days to close at 60% of cash offer 18 months ago). Yes, I’m interested in selling. Yes, I know what I’ve got and am patient. 95% of calls are uninterested in a market transaction.

It happens countless times a day in America. A broker cold-calls a property owner to see if they’d be interested in selling, and they get the most nonsensical answer possible: “Sure, bring me an offer.” When the broker asks for more information about the property, they get an even more nonsensical response: “No, I’m not giving you anything. You said you work with buyers, so bring an offer.” Now, it takes a pretty extreme level of unsophistication to take this position. Anyone who has even minimal common sense understands that the same property could be worth $5M or $10M, depending on what the leases say. If the building is 40,000 square feet and the rent is $1M a year, which would be market, it could be worth $20M. If the seller gave the tenant a 20-year lease at $300k with no increases, and a 10-year flat option, the same exact building could be worth $4M. If you really are serious about selling, then you need to be serious about sharing some basic information if you want a real offer. If you are so naive about real estate that you don’t understand this simple concept, maybe you’re naive enough to sell your property for much less than it’s worth. In which case, maybe we should bring you that offer after all…

@mcuban Too many executives are on separate Mercedes health plans. These should be banned — you don’t understand until you’ve been there (or at least driven by the exit).

Want to know how ridiculous and awful Ins company and their PBM denials are? The insurance company that denies the claim, that is if it’s them and not a subcontractor like medica , also picked the network and doctors.   So they are saying the network, that they sold to plan holders as being great, isn’t good enough for them to trust enough to determine your care. And on top of that, they charge to appeal denials. Which is a problem for many people.  That should be illegal.  And on top of that 60 pct of plan holders have plans from self insured employers.  It’s the company’s money.   But the ceo has no idea that the carrier they hired to authorize care , may have denied life or death care.   They don’t know that for some amount of money they may be able to save the life or maintain the health  of an employee or their family.  Require all TPAs to inform the CSuite of all critical denials , same day  They Are Too Big to Care. Break Up Big Medicine.

This article goes into great detail about the conflicts of interest plaguing the health insurance industry. For example - 3 reviews concluded the health insurance company was right. 3 reviews by the same doctor, and when they accidentally did one with a doctor who had actually practiced in the field (or even in the past 30 years), they quickly wiped out all the traces to pretend it had never existed. Then there’s the grossly inaccurate misrepresentation of what the patients doctor said to the insurance company doctor. Meanwhile the mega-employer wipes their hands of the issue, refusing any role of contract supervision.

I had a guy with an illegal deer stand roll his 4 wheeler and die on my land (probably triggered by heart attack). One reason why I sold it (also, the development strategy had failed). Best practice is always to let a local hunt it for a reasonable yearly lease, let them chase off the others.

I recently found a deer stand on my property, like, newly put up, fresh corn and salt blocks under it. My whole property line is marked. Just like Dolio you can't enter without knowing. I have a nice Mennonite guy who helps me part time with labor stuff around the property and I was like, hey, I found someone's deer stand in the woods. And he was like, no you found YOUR deer stand in the woods, it's on your property. And I said no, I found YOUR deer stand in the woods, because I don't use deer stands. After this round of back and forth, my worker went out snd took it all apart and now has a new deer stand which apparently is worth some money. I set up a trail cam watching the spot. Like 3 weeks go by and I see a guy come humping out of the woods into the grove where the stand was with a salt block and a bag of corn over his shoulder. He looked very confused, then he looks straight at my camera up in the tree and leaves. I had a good laugh. I was going to make a post about it but I decided knowing my luck it would go viral and people would recognize him or something, lol. But, then like 30 minutes later a beat to hell truck with welded bumpers and taped together plastic windows comes flying down my driveway. Fortunately my worker was out front and hes not a small guy and, surprisingly, not very conflict averse for being of the religious variety and this man has the audacity to say what did you do with my deer stand?! My worker says you mean what did I do with MY deer stand? This guy is like well I been hunting these woods my whole life and I'm not gonna quit just because of some piece of paper and you better go get my deer stand before theres problems. My worker looked back and said well I also been hunting these woods my whole life and you better hope I dont see you out here again because you look an awful lot like a deer and I own an excavator and points to my excavator. My worker has the thickest most backwoodsy drawl you've ever heard, and I dont know if he just didnt hear it during their first exchange. But the poacher blinked, then squints at my guy, and says sorry I thought a northerner had come in and bought this land. Just straight up turns around, stomps back to his truck, and drives away. No further discussion. Last we saw of him. 🤣😂 My worker was like lucky I was outside and I was like I know right and I was like I'm not even a northerner and he was like yeah but you aren't from this county and its a safe bet for him that whoever bought this land was from somewhere else with how many out of towners are buying property out here and I was like yeah, I guess so. I think about how many times this is probably happening all over with people buying up land and other people still just hunting it with no regard. I dont have many neighbors, so my guess is that my land and the other forest around me has all been getting poached for a while. Ive owned it for a few years now but I've only been living here full time for 1 deer season, I'm hoping I dont have the same problems and that people figure it out, but from other posts I feel like this is going to be an issue for me going forward. 🫤 PS before Don comes in and accuses me of being married to my worker, since he accused me of being married to any man that I mention, who looks at me, who talks to me, or anything else. 🤣😂 He's already married to a nice woman who makes me cookies and wears the whole religious head covering and the long dress and the whole thing and they have 8 kids together. I'm not joking. 8. It's crazy and that's definitely not for me. 😂🤣

@florianederer @maya_sen There isn’t uber capacity in PVD/South Boston to handle more than 2500 spectators. After the first game is a disaster for drivers, they’ll refuse to drive the remaining ones. Getting home will be a nightmare.

@johnstaff @maya_sen Early Uber to the game?

$380 minimum for Curaçao vs Côte d'Ivoire in Philadelphia Tons of empty seats These ticket prices are going to drop like a rock a few days before the match.

@maya_sen @florianederer This is the big problem. There will be no last minute demand for tickets at any price. If you don’t already have your parking/transport solved at Gillette, you have a serious problem.

@florianederer I have a colleague who’s banking on playing this exact strategy at Gillette (wait until a few days before or even same day) But transportation seems like it will be a huge mess?

@GMErectheus @LibertyJen More than having to deal with their feedback this is don’t promise things to your kids you can’t deliver (like a specific house). Tough enough with spouses.

@johnstaff @LibertyJen "We did not allow our kids to see our new house until we were under contract." This is just weird.

I can’t fathom putting a decision like this on two children under 8. The kids should not even know about the move until the end of closing. Why do people put these immense decisions on little kids?