Tag: sports

I wouldn’t wear a Fitbit regularly anymore now that Google has purchased them. And I certainly wouldn’t have an account tied to it recording my data:

When Mike Carpenter learned Google’s latest acquisition would be Fitbit, the maker of a device he wore at all hours of the day except in the shower, he left his Fitbit Charge 3 on the table at his office where he was working that day. He, and others like him, haven’t picked it up since.

On Nov. 1, Google said would be buying Fitbit for $2.1 billion in hopes of boosting its hardware business getting a foothold in the health space. Google explicitly said in the announcing the deal that it won’t sell users’ personal or health data. Despite that assurance, some Fitbit users say they don’t trust the company, and are shedding the product altogether.

“I’m not only afraid of what they can do with the data currently, but what they can do with it once their AI advances in 10 or 20 years,” Carpenter told CNBC, saying he didn’t believe the company’s privacy assurances. “Health insurance companies would love to get their hands on that data and their purposes wouldn’t be advertising so is that what they are going to do with it? They didn’t spend the money to not utilize it in some way.”

The trend of people throwing or threatening to throw out their Fitbit devices comes as Google faces a perception problem that has spanned everyday users and regulators alike. The company has paid data privacy fines in the EU and made recent strides into the stringently regulated healthcare industry, which has caused the public to re-think seemingly harmless tools.

“I only recently got it and now I’m thinking I don’t need Google watching literally my every step or my every heartbeat,” said Dan Kleinman, who said he is getting rid of his Fitbit Versa.

Any benefit of knowing that information is significantly outweighed by the disadvantage of Google also having it

Discuss amongst yourselves

A longtime NHL broadcaster is deplatformed for daring to observe that Paper Canadians don’t care about the historical sacrifices of real Canadians.

Hockey broadcaster Don Cherry has suggested that he was given an opportunity to stay with Sportsnet after making widely derided comments about immigrants and poppies.

“I could’ve stayed on if I wanted to and knuckled under, and turned into a simp, but that’s not my style,” Cherry said Monday night in an interview with Toronto radio station Newstalk 1010.

“If had gone on and said a few things and done a few things, I definitely would have been back. There’s no doubt about it,” he added later.

Cherry was fired Monday, nearly 40 years after he began working for “Hockey Night in Canada,” as part of the fallout from Saturday night’s broadcast.

During his “Coach’s Corner” segment, the 85-year-old Cherry claimed that immigrants do not wear poppies or support veterans.

“You people … that come here, whatever it is, you love our way of life, you love our milk and honey, at least you can pay a couple bucks for a poppy or something like that,” he said. “These guys paid for your way of life that you enjoy in Canada, these guys paid the biggest price.”

The remarks, which are the latest in a decades-long string of controversial comments from the popular commentator, were widely criticized. Sportsnet network president Bart Yabsley called Cherry’s comments “discriminatory” on Sunday and announced Monday that he would be no longer be on air.

No matter who you are, no matter what you do, no matter how famous you are, if you do not kneel before the Narrative, the SJWs will come for you.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

23 Vikings
26 Chiefs

The playcalling on the last two Vikings’ drives was catastrophically stupid. Here you have the lead, the leading rusher in the NFL facing the number 30 run defense in the league that also happens to be exhausted, and the ball with six minutes left.

Do you:
a) run the ball down the throat of the defense and burn the clock?
b) get cute and try to fool the defense with screens and draw plays on 3-13?

They actually chose (b) twice in a row. I knew we were in trouble from the first 1-and-10 call when Cousins didn’t just hand it off to Cook off-tackle. This is why Zimmer will never be in Belichick’s class. He doesn’t have the confidence to rely upon his team’s strengths and order his offensive coordinator to do the obvious.

Those who rely upon surprise rather than execution lack confidence.

The Vikes are already 6-2. That is all.

It’s reprehensibly stupid when sports reporters not only can’t stick to sports, but insist on publicly demonstrating both their complete ignorance of geopolitics as well as their intellectual cowardice.

Enough already with the politics. From John D.: “We get it. You’re liberal and you hate the POTUS. Just shut up already about it.”

I will spend some words from time to time calling it the way I see it.

I am a coward for not addressing China last week. From Jeff Cannon Sr.: “You’re a coward, Peter. A quiet coward. Thank the ghosts that your industry is dying an accelerated death … Avoiding the subject of China while taking another needless shot at the president cost you a loyal reader. Good day.”

You mean you don’t want me to stick to sports?

One overriding thought about the NBA-China-United States-LeBron-Morey story: If Daryl Morey expresses his opinion wishing good luck to Hong Kong for its freedom fight from China, and if China gets incredibly ticked off about it, that is understandable. China is not as free as the United States. So of course China will be angry. So what? The Chinese run their country their way. We run our country our way. Why should anyone in the United States—particularly someone who has benefited from the freedoms of the United States like LeBron James—kowtow to China? Our belief is that our citizens can speak freely, which is what Daryl Morey was doing. China should understand this is who we are. Who cares if China is offended? If the Chinese don’t accept that we have a right to criticize them, well, tough. And if it costs the NBA billions, such is life.

I get it: It’s not my money at stake. But it’s outrageous, honestly, that China would be outraged at us. If they want to prevent their citizens from speaking freely, that’s their business. We allow our citizens to express opinions, on everything. They should understand that.

Why should the Chinese understand that? Why should anyone understand that, especially when it is observably false? Peter King would disemploy, disavow, and forcibly silence anyone in his power who expressed an opinion of which he did not approve on race, sex, or sexual abnormalities. Why should he affect outrage that China should wield its economic power as it sees fit?

If Sports Illustrated had simply stuck to sports, it might not be circling the drain now.

Mahomes is out. The Vikings are on the rise. Discuss amongst yourselves.

I think it is pretty clear the Chinese don’t intend to permit the game to take place barring a full and public kowtowing from the NBA Commissioner:

Despite nearly every coach, player and staff member apologizing on behalf of Morey, China is severing financial connections with the league and discontinuing scheduled broadcasts.

Ahead of a preseason game between the Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers set to take place Thursday, multiple videos have surfaced of NBA memorabilia being purged from the public view in Shanghai.

The move has many wondering if the game will be canceled.

NBA China update from Shanghai:

4:30pm NBA press conference was cancelled.

NBA fan event tonight cancelled.

Video shows how logo of Chinese Smartphone maker Vivo – an NBA advertiser – was covered on an NBA promotional sign.

Lakers-Nets scheduled to play in Shangai Thursday.

The Chinese are absolutely within their rights. They are a sovereign nation and the NBA is blatantly lying through its teeth about “free speech”, which it does not respect, practice, or support in any way, shape, or form. The NBA has literally nothing to complain about in light of the way it treated a former team owner over nothing more than comments of which it did not approve.

On the plus side, we have now discovered the one force capable of forcing Mark Cuban to keep his mouth shut. And President Trump is right to observe that these bozos have no problem shooting their mouth of about him, but they’re terrified to even mention an entire country, much less criticize it.

• Item: Silver refused to apologize and said the NBA doesn’t dictate what people can or can’t say.
• Item: Philadelphia 76ers fans kicked out of game for carrying ‘Free Hong Kong’ signs.
• Item: All of the NBA’s official Chinese partners have suspended ties with the league.

There is a lesson in this, people. You don’t have to let SJWs push you around.

The NBA is about to learn that China doesn’t negotiate with lying foreign devils:

The National Basketball Association won’t gag its personnel or apologise over a team executive’s tweet that ignited a firestorm in China, commissioner Adam Silver insisted Tuesday, standing firm despite a growing backlash that imperils the league’s lucrative Chinese following.

The tweet last Friday by Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey supporting pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong has infuriated Chinese fans and led to broadcasters and sponsors severing ties with the NBA.

But Silver, speaking at a press conference in Japan where the Rockets are playing exhibition games this week, said the world’s top basketball league would continue to “support freedom of expression and certainly freedom of expression of the NBA community.”

“The NBA will not put itself in a position of regulating what players, employees and team owners say or will not say on these issues. We simply could not operate that way,” Silver said in a statement before the press conference.

It won’t surprise me if the Chinese government waits for the commissioner to travel to China before cancelling both exhibition games at the last minute. Especially in light of how Silver’s claim that the NBA supports freedom of expression is absolutely and entirely false. The NBA doesn’t even hesitate to put itself in a position of regulating what players, employees and team owners say when it comes to “racism”, “sexism”, “anti-semitism”, and “hate”.

“We believe that any comments that challenge national sovereignty and social stability are not within the scope of freedom of speech,” China Central Television (CCTV) said on its social media account.

Just call it “hate speech”. Then the NBA will have no choice but to ban it.