PicoBlog

Draft grades are the worst. For as much preparation as we do to get ready for the draft each year, no one has any clue what’s going to happen with these rookie classes. Russell Wilson’s rookie class with the Seattle Seahawks was given an “F” grade right before going on to win a Super Bowl. We can speculate all we want, but at the end of the day we won’t know much about these draft classes until a few years down the road.

Among all of the bad decisions I’ve made in my life, deciding to turn a four-round 2024 NFL Draft mock into a seven-round mock is certainly one of the worst. This was fun until I hit hour seven of putting it together and still had two rounds to go. I suffered a lot to make this, so I hope you enjoy it.    This mock draft mixes some of my personal inclinations with predictive elements.

I wrote last month about how I reduced my Goodreads reading goal for 2024. I dropped my goal from 52 to 45 for a number of reasons: I want to read with more intention in 2024. I want to read more involved, wandering stories that feed my soul like A Little Life (it’s a casual 832 pages) or the book I’m reading right now — The Quickening by Elizabeth Rush — which, for me, requires close, studied reading.

Ice on the Tanana River at Nenana went out early in the morning on Saturday, April 27th, 11 days earlier than last year. This is very close to the recent average and the earliest since 2019. The Nenana Ice Classic reported the official break-up as occurring at 5:18am AKST. Curiously, this was only the sixth time since 1917 that the ice went out between 1am and 9am. Figure 1 show images from the Nenana Ice Classic website from Friday early afternoon (left), showing the tripod standing on water-covered ice, and Saturday morning shortly after the tripod floated out of sight.

As wonderful as the week was, there were still bogeys, doubles and quads at the 2024 U.S. Open. Drivers. USGA CEO Mike Whan left the door open to revisiting a squashed proposal that would reward more center strikes. Dropping this after five years of study, comments, whining and politicking looks even more silly to have abandoned after multiple players have said they can hit it anywhere on the face and get away with a huge drive.

Thanks for reading the Her Hoop Stats Newsletter. If you like our work, be sure to check out our stats site, our podcast, and our social media accounts on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. You can also buy Her Hoop Stats gear, such as laptop stickers, mugs, and shirts! Haven’t subscribed to the Her Hoop Stats Newsletter yet? Talented players from all across the world have been part of the WNBA since its inception, with international players like Eva Nemcova, Janeth Arcain, and Elena Baranova making an impact in the league all the way back in its very first season in 1997.

Thanks for reading the Her Hoop Stats Newsletter. If you like our work, be sure to check out our stats site, our podcast, and our social media accounts on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. You can also buy Her Hoop Stats gear, such as laptop stickers, mugs, and shirts! Haven’t subscribed to the Her Hoop Stats Newsletter yet? Talented players from all across the world have been part of the WNBA since its inception.

Hey, it’s that time again! No, sorry, not time to get in the car and drive on track. I wish. But here we are, at the end of another year, and with that, it’s time for reflection and looking forward. Whether you celebrate Hanukkah, Solstice, Yule, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Years, Festivus, something else, or nothing at all, this time of year is still a good time give to others, and even to yourself.

Uh, is this thing on? Anyways, welcome back to Buckets & Bytes! Can I say that I’m “reviving” this blog if I’ve only posted once? I’ve been chronicling some of my recent visualizations on GitHub, and I thought that I might as well start this blog back up — but expect shorter posts. There’s just no way that I can sustain 3,000-word tutorials, but I hope that this will still provide some semblance of value!