The Hopp Stop

From Wired.com, here’s a good tip for all Gmail users. I checked my settings–it was not enabled.

Why You Should Turn Gmail s SSL Feature On Now – Webmonkey

That’s been in short supply around here since opening day in April, as the Tigers stumbled out of the gate, made a brief run at it, and then fell back out of it to dregs-ville. But after reading Nate Silver’s detailed look (Baseball Prospectus, subscription needed) at the Tigers’ roster through 2014, I’m a little more optimistic. Closing three paragraphs:

Outlook and Recommendations

Bad years happen to good clubs. The key for the Tigers will simply be not to panic, nor to try and save face with guys like Renteria and Willis whose projections don’t really warrant it. The Tigers need to budget somewhere between $15-$20 million for perhaps three pitchers next year, but with the contracts of Renteria, Todd Jones, Kenny Rogers, and Ivan Rodriguez all coming off the books, they can easily afford to do so without increasing payroll.

There are ample opportunities to take advantage of the depth of their position-player roster at spots like shortstop, DH, and left field. On the other hand, while the system has produced a lot of league-average talent, it is short on high-upside guys, and the Tigers must absolutely resist the temptation to deal someone like Wilkin Ramirez. To the extent that the Tigers can pull in minor league talent for Gary Sheffield, or re-flip a Kyle Farnsworth, it is past time for them to do so.

This has been a frustrating season in Detroit, but hardly a disastrous one in terms of the club’s long-term fortunes. There have been several pleasant surprises this year in Galarraga, Joyce, and Brandon Inge’s smooth transition back to the catcher position. From top to bottom, the Tigers still rank somewhere in the top ten in the major leagues in terms of their overall talent pool, and they should be on track to return to contention with some relatively common-sense fixes.

Via Stereogum, check out the “Where the Wild Things Are” inspired My Morning Jacket video for “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream Pt. 2.”

I decided to listen to some podcasts while jogging at the gym this morning. Warmed up with an Economist summary of the latest magazine–a little dry, but hey, I’m warming up. After that came this week’s NPR All Songs Considered podcast. The first two tracks were great (new tunes from Okkervil River and Of Montreal), but then came a live Steve Earle cut and an Alison Krauss (or was it Gillian Welch) tune and everything seemed to bog down in a molassasy morass of twangy folk/country. I had to pause the treadmill and switch to Pinback.

In other music news, Vanessa and I were flipping through some late night show musical guests on the TiVo last night. I record Conan, Letterman and Leno to see the various bands that come through as the last 5 minutes of each show. Leno recently had on the Jonas Brothers. I am vaguely aware that they are sort of a new Hansen (Hanson?), and All Music had some not-outright-mean things to say about their new album on the All Music blog, but beyond that not familiar with them, so curiousity dictated that we put it on. My god! Apparently Leno’s studio was invaded by an army of screeching teenage girls. In a rarity for the late night shows, the musical performance was preceded by some time on the interviewing couch next to Leno. Anything these brothers did, the audience shreiked. Hilarious. Then they played a tune at a mini-stage outside Leno’s studio. Much more shreiking. The song wasn’t horrible, came off as a mediocre Maroon 5 rip-off, so mildly catchy. It was fun to see that the audience in front of the stage was all young women, and then behind them were the parents.

Sometimes technology can just drive you up the wall. A couple things in particular right now: my iPhone continues to be buggy and have all sorts of general issues, as well as specific ones re: installing new apps from the phone or updating apps. And, my Delicious daily link post stopped working again, and efforts to revive it have failed. (That’s why no daily posts since 8/9.) I guess it’s time to give up on the Delicious thang and get a different way to add links. More content to come.

• SportingNews.com – EDSBS columnist
  Nice summary of what it is to be a college football fan, from the Every Day Should Be Saturday writer Orson Swindle/Spencer Hall (the latter being his real name and what he writes the Sporting News columns as).
  (tags: sports)
• Marginal Revolution: The Pledge of Allegiance
  Interesting quick history.
• Ask the Editor 8-8-2008 | iLounge Article
  The first question is re: the iPhone 3G's new incompatibility with certain existing chargers (including Apple products). I've run into that problem with two products: an old Apple Firewire-based wall charger, and the Griffin (? not sure) car charger/aux input device for my car stereo. Annoying.
  (tags: tech auto iphone)
• IPhone Apps: $13 iPhone App Faces Off Against, Embarrasses $150 Dedicated Dynometer
  Awesome, I'm all over this thing.
  (tags: auto tech)