Chris Motes | SF

I remember radio shack. It wasn’t always just calculator batteries and random parts.

In the early 80s I took my first programming class there. They were teaching BASIC and BASICA. Line 10: print “Chris rocks”; line 20: goto 10. BOOM

Then in the mid 80s it was the place to find new PC games like Ancient Art of War, Kings quest, Starflight and Universe.

Then after I started playing the guitar and got into music it was the place I’d go to get cables and connectors for all my audio stuff.

After the 80’s it just became the place where I bought chargers for my phones.

Last time 2 times I went in: emergency need for new phone charger and a male to male stereo car connector.

They seemed lost for last 15 years or so… No room for storefronts for random Electronics needed asap. Rip.

If you don’t follow college football recruiting, this post will be meaningless to you, and there is a 50% chance it will be meaningless even if you do.

I’ve been a fan of Texas A&M football for 25 years now. Coaches do a lot of work to haul in recruits every year, and in general the better your recruiting class the better your team’s performance on the field. So fans follow recruiting. In the mid 1990’s following recruiting was largely through newspapers and word of mouth. Then one day a friend told me about this site called Websider where some in the know people were posting info. It was a message board with a chat room. Near national signing day (early feb) I’d check it a few times a day, and occasionally there would be some new good info on there about which recruits were going to sign with us. It blew me away at the time and opened a window for the public to look inside the recruiting process.

Fast forward to today - Twitter and video and some other things have totally changed the way fans engage with the recruiting process. Some examples:

1. Message boards have exploded. Fans bases huddle with their own on their message boards and talk to each other about how great their school is and how all recruits will sign with them, bash and troll their rivals, develop conspiracy theories, worry out loud about microscopic things and belittle everyone who doesn’t post in line with the herd. Mixed in with that are snippets of excellent reporting, commentary and discussion. Message board posts can get 50,000 PVs in a few hours.

2. There is a whole industry (don’t know total market size but suspect it is in the $100M annual range) of pay for information sites where recruiting analysts with good info share it for subscription fees.

3. Recruits can now build followings on Twitter and say whatever they want to them. There are recruits with 40K followers. Every action by a major recruit on Twitter is quickly disseminated and analyzed on the message boards minutes after it happens

4. Because of Twitter and the message boards… recruiting dramas that, 20 years ago, would have probably been totally private between the recruit and the opposing coaches are now in the public eye, with fans on both sides constantly over analyzing every bit on info available and feasting on wildly speculative reporting.

5. Recruits live broadcast their school decisions to sometimes large audiences.

6. To see highlight film you used to have to watch the game or the local news channel for that high school. Now highlight videos are everywhere.

The list goes on and on. Point is that the CFB recruiting information landscape has changed a lot since that first set of message boards came out circa 1996. 

So what will 2020 be like? A few predictions:

1. Recruiting gurus will have all of their predictions tracked by an independent service, and the accuracy of their predictions will be publicly available and constantly updated. So we’ll have independently tracked data to prove who is the best at their job. The service will make the gurus who blindly speculate in favor of their own school behave better.

2. Someone like a Nate Silver will run with this and lots of other data on where recruit is visiting, who they are following on twitter, distance between home and school, performance of teams that recruit is looking at… to make algorithmic predictions on where recruits will end up. Like a poll of polls but factoring in historical accuracy/bias + other data. This company will add coverage for schools much like banks initiate coverage for companies. Fans will pay for this service.

3. Coaches will talk to recruits whenever they want via WhatsApp and Snapchat - including dead periods - and the NCAA will flail to try and manage it.

4. There will be more drama of last minute flips and conspiracy theories as high profile athletes amass even bigger online followings and soak up the attention they get on their stages.

5. 80% of high school football games will be livestreamed via GoPro cameras and available for anyone to watch. The GoPro setup at many high schools will start to get quite advanced - even some cameras running on a wire with remote controls, but managed by amateurs. Recruits and their fans will be able to clip highlights from these streams and make highlight reels, complete with background music and stats. Without having to pay a pro to do it. The income from the video advertising before these highlights will get a lot of scrutiny.

Mental note: Revisit this in 2020.

10 days ago, I went to Philadelphia for my 10 year business school reunion. On a late Friday night myself and a few friends grabbed a taxi and made our way to Pat’s and Geno’s for a late night cheesesteak.

The driver dropped us in the neutral zone in between the two. Some friends went straight to Pat’s. Other’s to Geno’s. Three of us couldn’t decide which to get, so we got one of each and did a taste test.

The test confirmed what I already knew:

1. There are microscopic differences between the two places. Saying you’re a Pat’s person or a Geno’s person is the equivalent of saying you’re a Bud person or a Miller person. IT IS THE SAME.

2. The cheesesteaks at both of these places are almost inedible. The meat was gray. It looked and tasted like it was microwaved. The bread - if you can call it that - might have been bread at one time but tasted days old. Geno’s added peppers but that couldn’t hide the cardboard taste. I think there was cheese in our food but I couldn’t tell. I’ll give them credit - the food was hot. The benefits of the microwave.

3. The thing that Pat’s and Geno’s seem to excel at is being open really really late. They also don’t care if you puke in front of the restaurant - and we watched this happen. That’s their customer base - the drunken 20-something who is so out of it that they would eat a bowl of shit if you put it in front of them.

New slogan: “Pat’s and Geno’s: The place to go in Philadelphia when it is really late and you are so shitfaced that you don’t care that we will serve you gray cheesesteak.”

Seriously people, this is prison food. Get over it and go eat at place that really respects the cheesesteak.

Yes.

Moved everything over to Tumblr. Typepad just too hard!

I migrated every post that was worth migrating, which was only a handful of posts.

My almost 3-year-old son has been getting out of bed every night for the past 2 weeks. We think he gets scared. With a newborn, it’s a bit hard.

So we asked some friends for advice.

We noticed slight differences between what our female friends told us versus what our male friends told us.

Samples of advice are below. Can you pick which group of advice is from female friends and which is from our male friends?

Group 1’s advice:

1. Your son just needs reassurance that he is safe and that you love him! This happened to us too, you will get through it.

2. Silently walk him back to bed, sit with him a while, and things should be back to normal soon. We’re totally here for you if you need help!

3. Give him a toy if he can get through the night without getting out of bed! Can I bring you food during the day or anything to help?

Group 2’s advice:

1. Just lock the door.

2. Buy earplugs.

3. Stay in a hotel.

Posted on April 13, 2012 at 10:09 AM