Tim Writes Stuff: Nick Cafardo Remains an Idiot

I take down Nick Cafardo and his unending idiocy over at Stats in the Wild.

Tim Writes Stuff: The Pirates and Playoff Chances

With the Pirates enjoying first place and the best record in baseball I wrote up a little bit on how the Pirates and their playoff chances.

Photoshop trickery

Buzzfeed bothers me (though I find it occasionally enjoyable). Today it was this article "23 things we all do but none of us admit to. And yea, there's a ring of truth to some, but that is not my point. A lot of times, Buzzfeed has lists about ironic signs, many of which are photoshop so blatantly. So today's got me to stop at one entry and post to my handy blog that literally no one reads!

The offending item:

#5. Ignoring a text for days* and then saying “Omg I’m SO sorry, just noticed my reply didn’t go through!”

Accompanied by this picture:

LOL, amirite? Ugh. Now, it doesn't take a genius to see artifacts around the second "1" in 2011. I'm no photoshop genius (I'm lying. I am.) but look what I did in 20 seconds!

I mean, LOLz!

Additionally- iMessage debuted in October 2011 with the release of iOS5. The lower case first letters in "hey" and "i sent that..." also indicate that the messages were sent from Messages on a mac, and Messages on the computer came out as a beta in Summer 2011 but couldn't go to phones yet. 

I have now vented my spleen.

Tim writes stuff!

I occasionally write for a blog called "Stats in the Wild," which belongs to a friend of mine who holds a PhD in statistics. He did the stats for my resident research project. He's a good guy, you'd like him. The blog is basically items related to practical statistics (as in statistics one would encounter in everyday life). He invited me to write some stuff about baseball, which generally means I make fun of Nick Cafardo, but I have clandestinely added more to my plate.

I saw a Buzzfeed article,12 Extremely Disappointing Facts For Geeks, and was bothered by something that happens every day on every news site that uses statistics: improper context. They happen to use a bunch of logical fallacies too, but in the end it's mainly bad math and poor context.

So head on over to Stats in the Wild to read my brilliance and hang around for Greg's stuff too.

Fleischer Man of Steel

I was trying to come up with a cool present to give my nephews (who were 2 and 4) this past Christmas. They're both superhero crazy, and the younger one, Patrick, loves Superman in particular. So I came across this beauty and fell in love. The Max Fleischer Superman shorts  were amazing, rotoscoped pieces of gorgeous art deco awesomeness that inspired my favorite Saturday morning show of all time. But I couldn't find an actual print of the original art, and that site was literally the only evidence I had of it existing. So I used my art skills and my graphic tablet to recreate the scene.

And, hey Zack Snyder, look at how brightly colored the costume is. Isn't that odd?

Saturday Morning Deathgrip podcast episode 1

 So this podcast I'm co-hosting- Saturday Morning Deathgrip- is about 80s and early 90s cartoons (exactly what a professional should be talking about).  It does, though, give me an opportunity to do some art to support it. So our first episode was about the 1990 PSA Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue, and as promotional art I did a bit of a parody (hear that US copyright law?) of one of the posters for The Expendables (below). Except for Theodore and ALF, I have doodled these characters on notebooks throughout my school career, just not recently. What am I, a child? I have doodled a Ninja Turtle since second year of dental school...

Bored at work sketch #2- The Real Dr. Peter Venkman

The Real Ghostbusters was one of my favorite shows growing up because Ghostbusters is the single greatest artistic and comedic accomplishment in human history (If only the Pietà was funnier...) I hadn't drawn something from the show since I practiced using a book like this (though not this specific one. The one I practiced on focused mainly on Egon).

I doubt anyone reading this doesn't know it's this scene that I was going for. Also, I doubt anyone is reading this...

Bored at work sketch #1- Scrooge and Flintheart

Sitting at my desk, rather bored, as patients refused to show up. So I drew my two favorite Scottish ducks. (Though as I cover in the first Saturday Morning Deathrgip, Flintheart was supposed to be South African.)

Also, dear reader, if you know (or you are) Alan Young, tell him (or yourself, if you are Alan Young) he (you) is (are) legitimately a hero of mine.