Long Reads

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testy boxcar
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Long Reads

Post by testy boxcar »

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govmentchedda
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Re: Long Reads

Post by govmentchedda »

He's the best. That's a riveting piece.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by sancarlos »

Very good story.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by Pruitt »

Absolutely fantastic article. Thanks for recommending.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by DSafetyGuy »

Interesting article from the New Yorker that asks if health care can follow the steps of chain restaurants to improve quality of care, efficiency, and savings.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by sancarlos »

DSafetyGuy wrote:Interesting article from the New Yorker that asks if health care can follow the steps of chain restaurants to improve quality of care, efficiency, and savings.
I'm sorry. I got distracted when I saw "quality" and "chain restaurants" in he same sentence.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by DSafetyGuy »

sancarlos wrote:
DSafetyGuy wrote:Interesting article from the New Yorker that asks if health care can follow the steps of chain restaurants to improve quality of care, efficiency, and savings.
I'm sorry. I got distracted when I saw "quality" and "chain restaurants" in he same sentence.
Article doesn't address improving the quality of hospital cafeterias.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by rass »

I felt aswirl with warm secretions.
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Shrew
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Re: Long Reads

Post by Shrew »

Just, holy shit. Amazing and sad at the same time.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by Sabo »

Birds don’t suck. They lack the necessary anatomical structures to do so.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by rass »

Story on the feud between the guy from Mississippi who was originally arrested for sending ricin to President Obama back in April and the guy who was eventually charged with the crime. Pretty nutty. I liked this quote:
I can absolutely make love to a bull moose on the steps of the Lee County courthouse and garner more than 5 percent of the vote.
(any Swamp references to the case at the time were buried in the Boston Marathon thread)
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Re: Long Reads

Post by rass »

I had never heard of it until yesterday, but apparently a 1966 profile of Frank Sinatra in Esquire is considered to be one of the finest pieces of its kind ever written. This link has the full article, along with a recent set of annotations from the reporter discussing the hows and whys of his research and writing methods.
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Re: Long Reads

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rass wrote:I had never heard of it until yesterday, but apparently a 1966 profile of Frank Sinatra in Esquire is considered to be one of the finest pieces of its kind ever written. This link has the full article, along with a recent set of annotations from the reporter discussing the hows and whys of his research and writing methods.
I read that some time ago. Frank Sinatra seems like an ass to me. I have no idea why that piece is considered so great.

Digress a bit - I used to work with a guy who previously had been a limo driver for Bill Graham, the big concert promoter who owned the Fillmore, Fillmore East, Winterland and others. He told me that Frank Sinatra was simultaneously the best and worst person he ever drove. He said Sinatra would routinely act like a prick and treat everybody badly, but then would lay out the biggest tips he'd ever seen, to everybody who had done anything at all for him.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by brian »

sancarlos wrote:
rass wrote:I had never heard of it until yesterday, but apparently a 1966 profile of Frank Sinatra in Esquire is considered to be one of the finest pieces of its kind ever written. This link has the full article, along with a recent set of annotations from the reporter discussing the hows and whys of his research and writing methods.
I read that some time ago. Frank Sinatra seems like an ass to me. I have no idea why that piece is considered so great.

Digress a bit - I used to work with a guy who previously had been a limo driver for Bill Graham, the big concert promoter who owned the Fillmore, Fillmore East, Winterland and others. He told me that Frank Sinatra was simultaneously the best and worst person he ever drove. He said Sinatra would routinely act like a prick and treat everybody badly, but then would lay out the biggest tips he'd ever seen, to everybody who had done anything at all for him.
I've heard some crazy Sinatra stories from Vegas oldtimers. Pretty similar to what sancarlos' friend was talking about. He is still apparently considered the biggest tipper in Vegas history.
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Re: Long Reads

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Re: Long Reads

Post by Sabo »

Birds don’t suck. They lack the necessary anatomical structures to do so.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by brian »

Agreed. This is a must read, y'all.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by Scottie »

brian wrote:
Agreed. This is a must read, y'all.
Excellent article. Far better research than the Keith Morrison-ish documentary that occasionally surfaces on the Murder Porn channels.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by howard »

Cool story. Could be the basis for a good movie. Great mystery story, as the truth is unknowable, having gone to the various graves.

I never liked Williams. I carry a bias from childhood that predisposed me to dislike him. Having been born with a level of athletic talent somewhere between low-meager and zero, combined with a deep passion for first baseball, then basketball, I developed a powerful disdain for those gifted with great talent in those sports, but failed to use their talent because of lack of passion, love for, or even a little bit of like for the game. Worse my disdain for those talented individuals who seemed to not appreciate the copious rewards they collected for this loveless talent.

Williams epitomized this type of athlete. All that talent, could've been so much better expressed and enjoyed, by someone else who loved, or at least liked basketball. (Someone like me!) Another glaring unfairness of life.

My disdain is part jealousy, part dissatisfaction of my own lot in life. Part my own lack of appreciation for the luck and gifts which have been bestowed upon me, my own whining 'I wish I was a little bit taller' instead of enjoying what I have. So, this bias has faded as I have aged and gained maturity and hopefully some wisdom. But it has not gone away completely.

Further, wrt Williams, while I empathized with his struggles with depression and mental illness as a fellow sufferer, part of me was like, 'hey, I managed to get through life/school/career with depression, and I didn't get $16 million dollars, lots of girls and an NBA career out of it'. Yeah, life is tough all around, Bison. So I had a bunch of negative impressions and ideas about this dude for reasons related to my own character and characteristics, more than his. He was, and is, an apt target for me to project some of my own shit, with the sparse set of data regarding his life available to me as a sports fan, via the media.

Learning more about him, from this article, is pretty interesting and cool. ETA: My first burning question is, did older brother know how to sail, and if so, how well?

One more thing. Can't there be a button so I can get a text-only view and just read the article? Must the assaults on my attention span continue to escalate throughout the Web? Yeah, the artsy presentation is elegant, and I like the pictures. My enjoyment of the read is enhanced with the beautiful photographs and other graphic material. But, you know, some of us even when we read a magazine, just read it, and go back (or forward) and look at the pictures at a pace of our own choosing. Just a 'text-only' or 'printer-friendly' button. For the old fogies. Thanks in advance, SI.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by A_B »

I stopped reading because it was all fucked up, web-layout wise.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by govmentchedda »

First of a long multi-day piece on the Last Voyage of the Bounty, the sailboat that went out into the teeth of Hurricane Sandy.

Spoiler alert: it didn't make it back.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by Scottie »

howard wrote:One more thing. Can't there be a button so I can get a text-only view and just read the article? Must the assaults on my attention span continue to escalate throughout the Web? Yeah, the artsy presentation is elegant, and I like the pictures. My enjoyment of the read is enhanced with the beautiful photographs and other graphic material. But, you know, some of us even when we read a magazine, just read it, and go back (or forward) and look at the pictures at a pace of our own choosing. Just a 'text-only' or 'printer-friendly' button. For the old fogies. Thanks in advance, SI.
That's the first thing I looked for as well. The printer-friendly version. It's unavailable. While the layout is suave enough it's not, shall we say, to my tastes for much the same reason. Also, here, having so many browser functions deliberately disabled or altered, the scroll is clunky and obstructive.

Select all, copy, paste into a text document sometimes works with those sort of pages. Mind you, the resulting text-only is often intertwined with sidebar text, the blurbs that accompany photos. You are spared, however, the often overwhelming effects of excessive style sheets and javascript.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by govmentchedda »

Not sure on the ability to read my Bounty article without all of the fancy shit, but heads up, there's a lot of web content/fancy shit on that one too, old man.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by A_B »

govmentchedda wrote:Not sure on the ability to read my Bounty article without all of the fancy shit, but heads up, there's a lot of web content/fancy shit on that one too, old man.
It at least scrolls well on my machine. There isn't as much "active" content.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by Scottie »

The other thing one can do is, in Chrome at least, right-click, "print" and just read the print preview window that comes up. (You don't have to actually print the article.) You'll still see everything but without all the fancydancy scripting.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by A_B »

govmentchedda wrote:Not sure on the ability to read my Bounty article without all of the fancy shit, but heads up, there's a lot of web content/fancy shit on that one too, old man.

That bounty article has me fiending for the rest. Lately, I am fascinated by nautical stories. Means I will probably have to finally read Moby Dick I suppose.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by Scottie »

Didn't you ever have to read Moby Dick in high school or freshman year in college? I thought, in America, it was pretty much obligatory. That one and The Great Gatsby. And The Catcher In The Rye. ETA: And To Kill A Mockingbird.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by govmentchedda »

AB_skin_test wrote:
govmentchedda wrote:Not sure on the ability to read my Bounty article without all of the fancy shit, but heads up, there's a lot of web content/fancy shit on that one too, old man.

That bounty article has me fiending for the rest. Lately, I am fascinated by nautical stories. Means I will probably have to finally read Moby Dick I suppose.
The Tampa Bay Times (nee St. Pete Times) has a stable of writers to rival any other paper of its size. Michael Kruse, Ben Montgomery and Lane DeGregory all put out fantastic work regularly.

I haven't read this one yet, but I'm planning on setting aside some time tonight to do so.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by kranepool »

Coast to coast in just over a day.
The run was over, and the watches were stopped. According to those involved, they all said the same thing: 28 hours, 50 minutes. The team covered 2,813.7 miles at an average speed of 98 miles per hour. They stopped for fuel just three times. Based on that number, Alex Roy's 31:04 record had been beaten by two hours and 14 minutes.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by Shirley »

kranepool wrote:Coast to coast in just over a day.
The run was over, and the watches were stopped. According to those involved, they all said the same thing: 28 hours, 50 minutes. The team covered 2,813.7 miles at an average speed of 98 miles per hour. They stopped for fuel just three times. Based on that number, Alex Roy's 31:04 record had been beaten by two hours and 14 minutes.
Amazing. I remember reading a story about a similar attempt a few years ago. That guy didn't make it (I don't remember why). The planning and execution necessary to pull this is off is staggering.
Totally Kafkaesque
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Re: Long Reads

Post by kranepool »

Shirley wrote:The planning and execution necessary to pull this is off is staggering.
I was part of a foursome that drove from Charlotte to San Francisco in 51 hours in 1991.

While reading this article, I vacillated back and forth between "Jesus these guys are completely irresponsible and fucking insane" and "holy shit I wish I was part of that trek."
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Re: Long Reads

Post by A_B »

kranepool wrote:
Shirley wrote:The planning and execution necessary to pull this is off is staggering.
I was part of a foursome ... in 1991.

...I vacillated back and forth between..these guys ...I was part of that..."
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Re: Long Reads

Post by DaveInSeattle »

For any former Ultimate players out there (such as myself), a great long essay about playing disc at Harvard and in Boston in the early 80's.
We labor over our big decision and big dreams, but sometimes it’s the small things that change our lives forever. What could be smaller than this: It is the first week of my freshman year of college and I, looking for a sport to play, am walking down to the boathouse for crew, resigning myself to four years of servitude as a galley slave, when I see a Frisbee flying across the street. The Frisbee, tossed from one long-haired boy to another, looks like freedom to me. Then I notice that there are several Frisbees flying back and forth between a band of young men, all wearing shorts, with cleats hanging over their shoulders. At the time I am quite shy but, uncharacteristically, I cross the street and ask them where they are going. To Ultimate Frisbee practice, it turns out, and I am going with them.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by Scottie »

How the World Series of Poker Went From Boom to Bust

I had always thought that poker rose to its certain, if not odd, degree of prominence in the first place only because of the 2004-05 NHL lockout which left ESPN with hundreds of hours to fill (and to a lesser degree the 1994-95 NHL lockout). The prize money happened to grow substantially around the same time. Anyway, interesting article and one that will resonate far more with some of you guys.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by kranepool »

howard wrote:One more thing. Can't there be a button so I can get a text-only view and just read the article? Must the assaults on my attention span continue to escalate throughout the Web? Yeah, the artsy presentation is elegant, and I like the pictures. My enjoyment of the read is enhanced with the beautiful photographs and other graphic material. But, you know, some of us even when we read a magazine, just read it, and go back (or forward) and look at the pictures at a pace of our own choosing. Just a 'text-only' or 'printer-friendly' button. For the old fogies. Thanks in advance, SI.
Yes. I feel the same way.

Go to http://www.readability.com and download (or drag and drop) their bookmarklet to your bookmarks bar. It takes formatting disasters like the SI/Bison Dele article and turns it into this with one click:

Image

I use this feature all the time; especially for bad formatting or when AdBlock isn't getting it done. It's a lifesaver.
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kranepool
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Re: Long Reads

Post by kranepool »

PS: for taking long articles on the train or on a flight, I can't recommend Instapaper enough. Same concept, but additionally takes the article offline and syncs across multiple devices. $5 on Android and IOS. Free on your browser.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by Sabo »

Birds don’t suck. They lack the necessary anatomical structures to do so.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by howard »

When they wanted Reggie Bush's back, did they make Mike Garrett give up his too?

Come on, we only care about OJ's.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by A_B »

You know what you need? A lyrical sucker punch to the face.
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Re: Long Reads

Post by The Sybian »


Cool article, but they are incorrect on the 1943 winner, Angelo Bertelli's trophy. It is on display at Bertelli's Liquor store, a tiny store in a strip mall in Clifton, NJ, not in his widow's home. Prestigious! Guess she wanted to make it sound better.
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