Author: coilerxii

The Draft Bust That Changed History

On By coilerxiiIn EssayLeave a comment

It’s almost Super Bowl time, and it’s Black History Month. So I figure I’d post this tiny bit of gridiron history I was checking out. So if you were to list pioneering black quarterbacks overcoming the past stereotypes of the position to thrive in pro football, maybe you’d pick the first starter in the modern era, Marlin Briscoe. Or maybe Doug Williams, the first to win a Super Bowl. Or Warren Moon, the first superstar.

How about seemingly forgettable draft bust Andre Ware? Picked out of Houston college by the Detroit Lions no. 7 overall in 1990, he sputtered out in the pros. Now the “how” isn’t really the point of this article. From what I’ve read, it was a college scheme that didn’t really translate well to the pros, especially at the time. That white quarterback David Klinger followed a similar “went to Houston, was drafted high, and was a pro bust” seems to support that. But again, that’s not really the point.

The point is that Ware set a precedent for drafting black quarterbacks very high that has never stopped. Looking at later drafts:

  • 1995: Steve McNair: 5th overall
  • 1996: Tony Banks: 42nd overall, second round, however was first quarterback picked
  • 1999: Donovan McNabb (2nd), Akili Smith (3rd), Daunte Culpepper (11th), this was the final nail in the coffin

Now obviously high draft picks are not total evidence of prejudice being eliminated. But it is interesting to note see the exact moment when, in practical terms, the tide turned.

A Thousand Words: OutRun

On By coilerxiiIn A Thousand Words, ReviewLeave a comment

OutRun

Sega’s legendary car driving game OutRun was an arcade time attack game where you control a couple in a Ferrari trying to make it to the end of a series of branching paths before the clock runs out. That is the least impressive thing about it. The most impressive thing is that a game in 1986, even an arcade game, manages to still look fresh and well animated to this day, and have things like a changeable radio and diverging paths. Remember, the console stuff at this time was the likes of Mach Rider.

It took over a decade to finally be able to make an arcade-quality home port of it. Which speaks to how limit-pushing it was/is. While today its most direct legacy of giant arcade machine driving games with steering wheels and frequently even pedals is viewed as outdated kitsch, every game with vehicles owes a lot to this.

Review: The BAC Three-Eleven

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The BAC Three-Eleven: The Airbus That Should Have Been

In one of those “only someone like me would like this book” book purchases, I got Graziano Freschi’s book on the BAC Three-Eleven. The actual never-was airplane itself was an all-British two engine jumbo jet similar to the Airbus A300 only slightly larger and with both engines in the back.

Freschi both describes the plane and makes the argument that it was a mistake for the British to cancel it, as with many (if not all) their big postwar programs, they would spend large sums of money on something and then cancel it, getting the worst of both worlds. His case is weakened by Britain’s poor reputation in such regards, and he kind of hedges from “This would have been a success” to “Britain would have been in a better negotiating position when they rejoined Airbus”.

Though not perfect, it is an interesting look at an obscure plane.

Nuclear Weapons Studies

On By coilerxiiIn Blog Stuff, Essay2 Comments

I have an idea for teaching a class that would combine traditional history with red-teaming. This is of course just a fantasy, but this is a fantasy blog. The course would be called “Nuclear Weapons Studies”. It starts off with history and physics even I can understand. Then comes The Assignment.

Students are given a fictional country with a set government, GDP, and domestic industry. They have to present the story of that country’s nuclear weapons program and will be judged not just according to traditional metrics but also according to how ‘plausible’ it seems to me. And the program doesn’t have to be a successful one, just seriously attempted.

Review: Atomic Steppe

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Atomic Steppe

Togzhan Kassenova’s Atomic Steppe is the story of Kazakhstan and nuclear weapons. A Kazakh whose father was an advisor and think-tank head during the crucial early 1990s period, she’s well suited to write it. The bulk of the book is about the horrific environmental legacy of nuclear tests and infrastructure on the country, told excellently.

The problem with the main theoretical part of the book, the nuclear negotiations, is that despite her sincere efforts to show its complexity, the outcome was obvious and never actually in doubt. Kazakhstan had even less chance of preserving a nuclear arsenal than Ukraine or Belarus. That said, there’s plenty of finds from the almost video-game like saga of Americans retrieving super-enriched uranium for disposal to the Russian crews of the nuclear delivery systems flying bombers away and draining the fuel of ICBMs (SS-18s are liquid fueled) to skewer any chance of Kazakhstan being able to seize them.

It’s not a drama, but it’s a good look at atomic history.

A Thousand Words: Riding Fight

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Riding Fight

Taito’s Riding Fight is a very unique video game.

It tries to match Mode Seven Style “flat but three dimension” fast movement with brawling. While it doesn’t always succeed, I give it credit for trying, and the presentation and music are excellent. The plot involves superhero-mercs-whoever on hoverboards fighting evil, from Momar Gaddafi (yes the second boss is based on him) to Japanese mystic princesses. The final section involves saving “the young mistress of an important man”, which I really hope was a mistranslation. Otherwise it would be a unique twist on the “Save the princess” (what would his wife think?)

The novelty and ambition alone makes this game worth it.

The Offshore Coach Scam

On By coilerxiiIn Essay2 Comments

So I saw a tweet by an offshore sportsbook, in about the 302,122,877th time they’ve done something like this. It declared that Deion Sanders was the favorite to be the next head coach of the Dallas Cowboys and listed odds. Now I was skeptical to put it mildly. As for the actual next one, well, that could be overtaken by events and who knows, maybe it will be Mr. Primetime.

But the point is that sports journalists for the 302,122,877th time took up on these odds and repeated them. Now there’s nothing wrong with repeating genuine futures odds. Just because a chance of something is slim doesn’t mean it won’t happen, and it gives an idea what oddsmakers (including at sharp books) and the market think is the best situation. However…

…This is not the case. The numbers here are basically pulled at random, and instead of letting sharps bet in, they’re from a ‘soft book’ with very low limits. It’s a publicity stunt, and sportswriters ALWAYS fall for it by repeating these things.

Meet Claire

On By coilerxiiIn ArtLeave a comment

Meet “Claire Velazquez”, one of my latest AI projects. Claire began life as one of the blank-slate characters with no face. Namely, she was one of the runaways you could control in Road 96, with this random icon being the only clue as to her looks.

So with the only cues being “short hair in some kind of bob” and “glasses”, I turned to prompting various Stable Diffusion models. Claire tends to wear grey working clothes and in her anime depictions has orange eyes.

Claire was a runaway (duh) with a long and “eventful” journey. She managed to escape via truck (the method that avatar used) and find employment outside of Petria.

Review: The British Carrier Strike Fleet After 1945

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The British Carrier Strike Fleet After 1945

In my 5+ years running Fuldapocalypse, I think I may have found the most dull book I’ve ever reviewed. That would be a reference book with the appropriate name of The British Carrier Strike Fleet After 1945. I feel a little bad calling it that because A: It’s a reference book, and B: It actually has quite a lot of good information about British carriers.

However, even by those standards I found it a slog. To put it very mildly. And I read reference books for fun! So I’d still recommend it if you like aircraft carriers. Just be warned.

A Thousand Words: Road 96

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Road 96

The game Road 96 is an adventure game in the style of the old Telltale ones where you walk around, do dialog choices, and play the occasional quick time/minigame as one of a series of teenage runaways trying to escape the country of Petria in the mid-1990s. You go through one somewhat different set of campaigns which you can change through varying degrees, either by dialogue choices/actions or picking how you’re going to travel (via hitchhiking, transport, a car if available, or if you’re really crazy, walking).

On one hand, I saw basically every plot twist coming and the setting is a little iffy. Not the graphics, which are good for what they are and have an excellent visual design. Petria is a semi-eastern European country (its strongman leader looks like Brezhnev) whose residents have the demographics and style of 21st Century Americans. And for a desperate-to-escape country, it really only resembles a moderately lower-class area of the West.

The characters make up for all of it, as they combine quirks with genuinely hidden depth. While the story is a little janky due to the nature of the gameplay and has the adventure game problem of your choices ultimately not mattering that much to the main plot, it works and more importantly can jump between tones in scenes without it being seeming forced or jarring.

So yeah, I had a lot of fun with this game, even if it’s not normally my style.