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2013 Offensive Line Rankings
https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2014/01/13/2013-offensive-line-rankings/3/
13. St Louis Rams (26th)
PB: 17th, RB: 9th, PEN: 26thStud: Many, ourselves included, wondered if Jake Long (+25.8) was done. He’d enjoyed a great start to his career in Miami but two so-so years left a lot to be desired. Well, this was the year he came back with a bang, and it’s a horrible shame his season ended with an ACL and MCL tear.
Dud: He may be a former first-rounder but Chris Williams (-21.8) is just a liability as a lineman. Far too much pressure, not enough good run blocking, and he’s the team’s weak link on offense.
Analysis: A step forward but perhaps not as much as they would have like to see. They nailed it with the pickup of Long and got surprisingly good play from Joe Barksdale, Shelley Smith and Rodger Saffold at guard. That would suggest a higher finish, but the interior trio of Williams, Harvey Dahl and Scott Wells really didn’t play up to the level that was needed of them.
Neandertal trait in early human skull suggests that modern humans emerged from complex labyrinth of biology and peoples
Washington University in St. Louis
Summary: Re-examination of a circa 100,000-year-old archaic early human skull found 35 years ago in Northern China has revealed the surprising presence of an inner-ear formation long thought to occur only in Neandertals.
Share ThisThe Xujiayao 15 late archaic human temporal bone from northern China with the extracted temporal labyrinth superimposed on a view of the Xujiayao site.
Credit: Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Science
The Xujiayao 15 late archaic human temporal bone from northern China with the extracted temporal labyrinth superimposed on a view of the Xujiayao site.Re-examination of a circa 100,000-year-old archaic early human skull found 35 years ago in Northern China has revealed the surprising presence of an inner-ear formation long thought to occur only in Neandertals.
“The discovery places into question a whole suite of scenarios of later Pleistocene human population dispersals and interconnections based on tracing isolated anatomical or genetic features in fragmentary fossils,” said study co-author Erik Trinkaus, PhD, a physical anthropology professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
“It suggests, instead, that the later phases of human evolution were more of a labyrinth of biology and peoples than simple lines on maps would suggest.”
The study, forthcoming in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is based on recent micro-CT scans revealing the interior configuration of a temporal bone in a fossilized human skull found during 1970s excavations at the Xujiayao site in China’s Nihewan Basin.
Trinkaus, the Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor in Arts & Sciences, is a leading authority on early human evolution and among the first to offer compelling evidence for interbreeding and gene transfer between Neandertals and modern human ancestors.
His co-authors on this study are Xiu-Jie Wu, Wu Liu and Song Xing of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Beijing, and Isabelle Crevecoeur of PACEA, Université de Bordeaux.
“We were completely surprised,” Trinkaus said. “We fully expected the scan to reveal a temporal labyrinth that looked much like a modern human one, but what we saw was clearly typical of a Neandertal. This discovery places into question whether this arrangement of the semicircular canals is truly unique to the Neandertals.”
Often well-preserved in mammal skull fossils, the semicircular canals are remnants of a fluid-filled sensing system that helps humans maintain balance when they change their spatial orientations, such as when running, bending over or turning the head from side-to-side.
Since the mid-1990s, when early CT-scan research confirmed its existence, the presence of a particular arrangement of the semicircular canals in the temporal labyrinth has been considered enough to securely identify fossilized skull fragments as being from a Neandertal. This pattern is present in almost all of the known Neandertal labyrinths. It has been widely used as a marker to set them apart from both earlier and modern humans.
The skull at the center of this study, known as Xujiayao 15, was found along with an assortment of other human teeth and bone fragments, all of which seemed to have characteristics typical of an early non-Neandertal form of late archaic humans.
Trinkaus, who has studied Neandertal and early human fossils from around the globe, said this discovery only adds to the rich confusion of theories that attempt to explain human origins, migrations patterns and possible interbreedings.
While it’s tempting to use the finding of a Neandertal-shaped labyrinth in an otherwise distinctly “non-Neandertal” sample as evidence of population contact (gene flow) between central and western Eurasian Neandertals and eastern archaic humans in China, Trinkaus and colleagues argue that broader implications of the Xujiayao discovery remain unclear.
“The study of human evolution has always been messy, and these findings just make it all the messier,” Trinkaus said. “It shows that human populations in the real world don’t act in nice simple patterns.
“Eastern Asia and Western Europe are a long way apart, and these migration patterns took thousands of years to play out,” he said. “This study shows that you can’t rely on one anatomical feature or one piece of DNA as the basis for sweeping assumptions about the migrations of hominid species from one place to another.”
Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by Washington University in St. Louis. The original article was written by Gerry Everding. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
I thought we were going to get to the part where you accused X of reading peoples PMs..
That;s alright, I already did.
And now you are just in taunt/fight mode?
If so movc on. That’s a direct mod statement.
My summary. YOu should not have over-reacted to one line by me in email when I was blocked. If you didn’t know I was blocked you were negligent…a ghost admin is not supposed to take out a board mod on the basis of some ancient grudge. That;s bad management on your part. I apologize for calling you a dick that one time when blocked. That’s not very professional. However, I didn’t do that because I was blocked–I did it because I was frustrated because #1 I naturally assumed you had blocked me, and #2 didn’t get why you were doing that instead of just raising whatever issue you presumably had. Or, if you’re going to give in to your apparently considerable temper, you could have just banned me and given notice to the buzz posters (instead of shutting it down and re-directing posters to ROD).
My bet is, yOu won’t apologize for heavy name-calling in this thread, for reasons anyone can speculate about. Running around on the Rams board with all those (several) little (now deleted) childish attack posts was beneath you (and that’s why you were banned…not because of this thread). To emphasize: you were not banned because of THIS thread. You were banned because you took it to the Rams board and kept putting up little TheRamsWon style flames, which I deleted. IMO, an owner with high aspirations for his own great site should not be acting like a PD board style flame warrior on someone else’s site.
We expect fake handles to show up here, but as long as they obey the rules they’re fine, and when they try to re-raise the old huddle wars it’s easy for everyone to spot.
If you think all your (as yet unposted) emails and PMs somehow take the onus off of you for dumping a site without notice, fine. Think that. My view is, if you thought I was a problem long before the 28th, you should have just banned me THEN and given the buzz posters notice.
That’s it. Thread closed. It’s now a repository for posts fighting about the take-down of the buzz and which also violate the rules (though I am going to draw a line on that, because some could take advantage and start writing attack posts just so I will move them here. I don’t intend to encourage that.)
I edited this to make it less “heat of the moment.” Substance is the same.
I DIDNT BLOCK YOU FROM ANYTHING.
Do I condone the actions by X? Your damn right I do.
Yes I asked RM to ban him. He would not get off attack mode so I deleted a couple of posts. The thing is, there can be a one-time exception as people sort out what happened on the 28th–there are a lot of upset posters who suddenly with no warning found themselves without a board. But it has to stop sometime.
Did you know I was blocked? You already say you condone it, which is half of the story. (See saying YOU personally didn’t do it is simply an evasion when the question is whether you knew about it. Assuming that’s even true and it actually happened the way X said.)
For that matter, did you know about it the first time it happened, when I was just blocked from ROD (that was about the time when you bought ROD, the buzz went down with a virus soon after, and then came back up minus many features, including the Rieker donations, and when I asked about them, your response was to say you could just take the board down. I was blocked from ROD round about then.)
And my question to you was not if X is in on all of your sites, the question is whether you informed me, your partner, that he was not only an admin but was reading PMs and according to him blocking people. You think you should have been trusted implicitly…but did I really know how the buzz worked if an outside party was reading mod PMs, later to talk about them in public. Don’t be so defensive…this one is a minor issue.
You keep raising the level of provocations, including trying to get in a dig at me when you apologized to all the posters whose site you blew up. So you didn’t really take responsibility for anything. It was sort of “I am sorry and it’s his fault.”
And then on to the name-calling we’re not supposed to do because it’s so wrong. ER’s post stands because X’s post stands. That’s my call. Unless the other mods want me to take down both. Or for that matter, a couple by you, too.
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Huge Akmann
Just read a tweet from Steadman Bailey saying he’s heading to OK in the morning for some workout sessions with Bradford. This is something Bradford hosts every summer with his receivers.
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STEDMAN BAILEY SR @iamSB3 · 2h
Flight out to Oklahoma in the AM to link with Sammy B for some workout sessions! #ChemistryActually all I see so far is Bailey doing it…don’t know if it’s others too.
..
Should I hold my breath waiting for an apology?
I said several times throughout the thread I shouldn’t have name-called you. Go back and look. Not sure what else you want.
But then in spite of your denial, I WAS blocked. So let’s begin one small step and see how it goes. X said I WAS blocked (like I knew I was). Did you know about that or not, and do you condone that or not now that it’s completely public?
Either X did it like he said, without your knowledge…which means you were running a site where someone could do that (plus read mod PMs and talk about them in public). Or you knew X did it. Or he’s just covering for you.
Did I ever know I was running a site where someone other than you was reading mod PMs and could block whoever he wanted? Did I know that was the deal I signed on to? How does that sit with you? We fell apart because of distrust. How does something like that contribute to distrust?
You could give an honest answer, or you could do more zn bashing. But that rings hollow because I asked you to partner up on a site in the first place because you had already invited me to front one for you (that happened when you were impatient with RM because at that point the huddle kept going down). You had known me since the herd. You had known me on the huddle. When my solution to the huddle wars was to make a new site, that was fine with you…and you saw the huddle wars while they were happening. (To the point where you even told me on the buzz that Arsenic was Pancake). Your idea, as you kept telling me, was to have the biggest, most advanced Rams board, and you clearly thought you could do that with me–you even said so, and praised the board (until you bought ROD). That’s all completely understandable, but as I said all the subsequent zn bashing rings completely hollow now.
Let’s see how this goes. Did you know I was blocked, and/or do you condone it now that it’s completely public?
So X was the Dick. RM wouldn’t sell us out because well X is a dick . Most left the Huddle because of Thordaddy being a dick. X let Bob take the heat for him which is very high on the dickish scale. So the Huddle basically went out on it’s own got rid of the dicks (the goal when we left the herd) and now we are back home with out the dicks . Nice work Dick!
Sigh. Sooner or later we have to get back to order and the Rams, ER. As a rule we shouldn’t be doing any of this stuff—naming posters, attacking old warriors. Just go forward. Thor, for example, is ill…I wish him the best, frankly. People can move on and change.
But…under the circumstances…as long as it doesn’t leave this thread…it doesn’t feel right to delete it. Not if X’s post stands (and X’s post in this thread will stand.) And this isn’t a “warning.” Just a hope. Let’s go on and be better than this. Fair enough?
X
So now you know. I was able to block you from both sites, and I did. I blocked you from ROD because of your constant pilfering of my posts, and because of your incessant whining about being talked about by guys like Les and Thor and Albe and Boffo. So out of sight, out of mind, yeah? I blocked you from The Buzz because I felt like it. I’ve always had administrative access to both sites, even after I sold ROD. I knew when Bob was going to be away, and I’ve been planning on nuking you for a few years now. So I did. Not unlike Samir Suleiman, I’m a fucking throat slasher. And you deserved all of it.
The fact that you petulantly demanded satisfaction without knowing the full story is just typical of your past, present, and future behavior. Bob hooked you up BIG TIME, and you repay him by calling him a dick? Who the hell do you think you are? The “inconvenience” that I caused you for all of one day was for all of your lectures via PM for the things I posted and the way I posted them. That was for turning every good poster into a shitty poster because you lack even a rudimentary understanding of how to speak to people without condescension. Les, Thor, Albe, Boffo … those are all genuinely good and interesting people that you turned into assholes because you can never, ever, ever, humble yourself and see another person’s point of view OR take even the slightest bit of criticism and gain a little introspection from it. But mostly, it was because you decided to turn on me one day before I even knew who the fuck you were. And I forget nothing. I’ve been stringing you along for years now. Pretending to be your friend, taking shots at you, apologizing to get you on the hook again, taking shots at you, apologizing, dogging you, apologizing, and so on and so on and so on. You. Are. My. Puppet. My greatest revenge comes this day, “Rick.”
So here’s my advice to you going forward. Shut the fuck up and listen once in a while. Don’t challenge people’s intellect because you think yours is superior. Don’t make the mistake of thinking everyone is forgiving, and stop leeching off of other people to get what you want. But most of all, take a goddamn look in the mirror. You’ve been ostracized from every board not named the PD, and for good reason. Dozens upon Dozens of people registered and left The Huddle because of you. You alone. A jury of your peers booted you off of ROD, and The Herd still mocks you to this day. You want a place to call home so that you can stop being the leader of the martyred flock of the internet? Buy one. Register the name, “ZNsWorld.tv” and pony up $8.95 a month to host your own site. Push a goddamn button to install a board, and lord over it like the creepy pie eating internet fascist you are.
For the rest of you who thought I was a decent guy, and was trying to help? Nah. I tried to buy The Huddle from RM, but he never responded to any of my emails. I was going to make that board great and ban the one guy responsible for destroying it. Some of you would have followed him through the gates of Hell I’m sure, but many of you would have noticed that the guys who were “ALLEGEDLY” responsible for its demise are actually the ones who have the personality to make a board click. And without them, that board died. I realize most of you are happy with a small community revolving around ZN and the face he shows you in public. I get that. But if you were ever exposed to the other face? The one that puffs out his chest behind the scenes because he can’t STAND being anything other than the center of attention and the sole voice of authority? Well, you’d know you were being duped.
Ban me now. I have no desire to respond to the inevitable victim speech that’s sure to follow.
My work is done.
Rules violating posts by you in the future will get torched. This post will stand though. It’s really a testimony to a lot of things. Including your own essentially vindictive spirit. Even if it’s one big game for you.
I will call you on a couple of your misconceptions and bs. And this will not lead to an argument. That WILL get nuked. No responses–you just posted the most petty attack post this community has seen since the old huddle war days, and you don’t get to continue with it. I never incessantly said anything about any poster at ROD (meaning, the ex-huddlers who still post there)…I double-checked on it with Bob to ask if he had zapped out the names posters were trying to bash. I asked if he had done that, and he said yes, and I basically said good job (because we had the same policy at the buzz, basically…no old wars. At the time I thought Bob and I were friends when I asked that…and for you to know it means you were reading buzz board PMs). I never “stole” anything from you and all boards copy posts, including ROD. But I did ask people to not copy mine, and if this is your way of doing the same, so be it. I didn’t petulently demand anything… I knew I was blocked and thought Bob was doing it for a reason. I wanted to know the reason, so we could have honest communication. What does one do when one is blocked and they know it, recite hindu prayers? Turns out, either you were his proxy or you’re covering for him or you just used him in a set up. If anything you said is even true. It doesn’t matter much if it is or not. Either way, he crashed a whole board community because of it.
The one thing I do want to stress is that describing my FRIENDS as “followers” is just a piece of projection on your part.
We have a board, X. That’s all that matters. You haven’t “gotten” anybody. But think so if you want. Shrug.
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