eLife--A Paradigm Shift in Scholarly Publishing?

I was reviewing recent emails from Kurzweil.net, and one of them pointed me to this blog post on Nature.com: ‘eLife’ Journal Takes Another Step Forward.  I think the project is commendable.  In short, a number of large, well-funded research foundations, including "the US Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the UK Wellcome Trust and Germany’s Max Planck Society," have teamed up with (at least 175) scientists to publish an open-source journal.  This appears to be a serious endeavor given the players involved and the apparent time and effort everyone is putting into this one.  In fact, per the blog post, "its backers hope that the publication will eventually rival Nature and Science as a top-tier journal."

As I have noted in the past, I am in favor of making all scholarly publications open to public purview without charge.  If the eLife venture is successful, it might entail a paradigm shift which leads other journals to take the open source route.  Only time will tell.  Regardless, the eLife project is something to keep an eye on in the coming months/years.

When I Was Young...

 

When I was young (7th Grade), I was confident that I could capture the essence of myself in a book length autobiography.  I never got around to penning that memoir, and it is probably a good thing. I have since learned that I am too complex to capture fully in any medium, regardless of the context or size.  At the same time, my views constantly change with age, life experiences, etc.  In that way, I really am not the same person today that I was 5 years ago, and probably will be much different in another 5 years.  I am certainly not special; I think almost everyone reading this passage would agree with me.  With that said, I still try to capture pieces of "me" in short snippets in a diary, in blog posts, in articles, in message board and Facebook posts, in photos and other multimedia renderings, and via other means.

 

When I was young, I believed that my society was a meritocracy.  I thought that television shows contained the best actors; the songs playing on the radio were the best ones available; etc.  I realized later on that while meritocratic values do influence our country's corporations, schools, societal organizations, contests, etc., other factors, such as luck, marketing ability, looks, etc. play a significant role as well.  Nonetheless, I think that the "me" of today would agree with my naive, younger self in stating that I'd rather live in today's society than, say, in any part of the world during the Middle Ages.  :-)

When I was young, I was focused on the present.  I didn't worry too much about the past or the future.  I also was not as aware of how my actions impacted others.  The me of today is much more self-aware.

Perhaps It Is Time to Change Up My Fantasy Football Drafting Strategies

This article from Yahoo (by Jason Cole) got me thinking about fantasy football drafting strategies.  In previous years, I have always picked a running back (or in my first year playing in a fb league using a snake draft system--a wide receiver) in the first round.  In fact, on many occasions, I would opt to choose the best available running backs in Rounds 1 and 2.  I would often wait until the 4th or even 5th round to snag a QB.  I changed up that strategy last year and snagged Drew Brees in the first round in one league.  I went ahead and picked up either Stafford or Brees for my other leagues in the 2nd or 3rd rounds (in 2 leagues I had both Stafford and Brees; however, he was a later round pick in those two leagues).  At the same time, I tended to focus more on picking up quality wide receivers and less on snagging top-tier running backs.  I would, for instance, snag a tier 1 rb (Adrian Peterson for instance) and a Tier 2 guy with potential, like Beanie Wells or Darren Sproles.  In one or two leagues, I didn't have any tier 1 backs on my team at the start of the season.  Despite this fact (or maybe because of it), I enjoyed the most success I've ever had in fantasy football in the 2011-2012 season.  

Given how much success I had in fantasy football last year, I will probably be even more likely to pick-up a Tier 1 QB in the 1st round of this year's fantasy football drafts (depending on draft position).  I think my days of prioritizing running backs (and sometimes wide receivers) over quarterbacks is over.

An NBA Team in Las Vegas? First Reaction to the News about the Sacramento Kings

I was tuning in to ESPN radio and heard that the stadium deal between the City of Sacramento and the NBA franchise, the Kings, fell through.  According to the announcers on ESPN, the Kings are the ones who are responsible for this snafu.  A couple of weeks ago, the franchise gave its okay to a tentative deal with the city to build a new stadium; however, Kings are now trying to renege on some of the promises they made to the city as part of the agreement.  

The ESPN announcers stated that the Kings might move to Seattle or Vancouver if the franchise can't strike a deal with Sacramento soon.  However, the first thought that came to my mind is, "Why don't the Kings move to Vegas?"  I mean the Maloof family, which has a majority ownership stake in the Kings (or at least I think they do), are part owners in The Palms casino (though I guess they own a little bit less of that casino now: see BND.com story).  Las Vegas might not be a great T.V. market, but it certainly has enough tourists and locals to fill a good sized arena each night.  Heck, maybe Las Vegas would be a better T.V. market.  It doesn't have anywhere near the population as California; however the Kings also won't have to compete with several other teams for Nielsen ratings/shares.  Finally, I don't think the NBA has to worry about a Las Vegas team ruining its brand.  No one in L.A. is going to stop watching the Lakers or Clippers because the NBA chose to allow a team to move to Sin City.  The same thing goes for the fans of the other NBA franchises. 

The Maloof family and Nevada could even save some money and build a stadium adjacent--or perhaps connecting to The Palms.  That could be a win-win for everyone.

Now the Sacramento Kings franchise might want to change its name if it does move to Vegas.  The Las Vegas Gamblers probably wouldn't work.  How about the Kings of Hearts or, err, perhaps the Vegas Boardwalkers, or maybe the Vegas Rain (irony there).  The sky's the limit for this one.

Of course, it is highly unlikely that the Sacramento Kings will ever move to Vegas.  I doubt if any NBA team would...But it is sometimes fun to speculate...

Disclaimer: the author usually goes to Las Vegas once a year, so his views may be biased. ;-)

Photo is from Wikimedia Commons.  The photo's author/owner is Photos by flipchip / LasVegasVegas.com.  It was taken on September 27, 2007 and placed in the public domain via a  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.  Thanks again to http://www.lasvegasvegas.com for positing this photo in Wikimedia Commons.