We've been without sports for such a long time that it seems like they would never come back, but now suddenly we have this NASCAR is coming up on Thursday, but that is the exact same night as MLB opening night. We have basketball coming one week after that. So our run with NASCAR DFS kind of being the lone ranger in the sporting world is coming to an end, which is kind of sad, but we're still going to have this NASCAR podcast here. We're still going to have NASCAR DFS to play. It's going to be a little bit different than what it was previously, but I am excited for Thursday nights race. It's going to be a fun one. I like Kansas as a track, so it should be a good way to go out on a high note and then transition to this phase where we'll have a lot of things going on all at once. It's going to be a whole lot of fun to talk to you, to record those podcasts and get you all set for all those slates. And I'm looking forward to that experience. But before we do that, let's dive in and talk about Thursday night's race in Kansas. Welcome on into the heat check fantasy podcast powered by number fire. That's right here on the fan dual podcast network and number fire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for number fire.com here to break down the super start batteries 400. That is a Kansas on Thursday night locks at 730 p.m. Eastern and should be an interesting one starting order has not been set yet. We are recording this on Wednesday morning. So no starting order as of yet, but we do know broadly where drivers will start. We'll base some analysis on that and have some discussions around contingency plans based on where certain drivers may draw. First of all, big thank you to everyone for being patient with me last week when I was out for my wedding. I do appreciate everyone being pretty chill about that. The congratulations on Twitter. That was nice of you as well. So thank you for the patience. We are now back to a regular schedule and pack with a lot of podcasts. We have this one here today. We have the solo shots are MLB DFS podcast coming back tomorrow and Friday as well. We'll have a UFC heat check coming up on Friday with Austin Swain. Brandon Gadoula already recorded the PGA podcast without me.  Which means the picks will be better, which is, I guess, a good thing for sure. But a lot of good stuff. So make sure you are subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed, which you can find wherever you get your podcasts. Make sure you subscribe. And if you like what you hear, please rate and review as well because that does help us out a ton. A lot of stuff coming up over these next couple of weeks. So we'll take a look at the track breakdown here for a Thursday night in just one second at first. 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Make sure you check that out over at number fire. Let's dive into the track breakdown here for Kansas, which is the third consecutive race at a one and a half mile track. And this one is back down to being 267 laps, which means it'll be almost a carbon copy of the strategy we discussed entering Kentucky. And if you remember that strategy was to just pick the drivers, we think will be fast regardless of where they're starting. Sounds pretty easy and it is. Kansas is a multi groove track and passing here should be decently easy and they're using the same method to set the starting order as we've seen recently. It's set by owner points where the top 12, starting the top 12 spots, et cetera, et cetera. And then there's a random draw, which will likely be announced on Wednesday night. When that has been the case on one and a half mile track so far this year, we've always had a similar construction in the perfect line. At least two drivers in the perfect lineup has started within the top 12 spots. There have been three drivers from inside the top 12 in two of the four races. Just a bit less likely to happen here with fewer laps to be run on Thursday night. So you want slash need two drivers in the top 12 who can run out front and lead laps. It just doesn't matter where the drivers start within those top 12 spots. 10 total drivers have made the perfect lineup after starting inside the top 12. Three of them did start inside the top five, which means that seven started outside the top five. Six of them started ninth, 10th, or 11th. But those drivers who started towards the back into the top 12 still mostly lead laps. So they weren't getting into the perfect lineup due to place differential, at least to the most part. They were getting there because they led laps and finished well. So I am okay, including two drivers who start right at the front of the pack within the same lineup. The optimal situation here is obviously going to be where we get one driver in each bucket, one driver up front to lead laps in the first stage, and another to lead laps later on. But I wouldn't force that if that's not where the speed pushes you. Try to identify the drivers you think be fastest during the race and use them regardless of where they start. And it's just a little bit extra, a little bit easier for us if those drivers happen to start one of the top five and one a little bit lower to lead laps later on. As far as the value plays go, they're coming from a pretty wide range. Some of them have come from the back. Drivers outside the top 24 and owner points, four of the 10 value plays started 29th or lower. But the four drivers who did that have all since moved up in points. So they were better than their points standings indicated. They had speed, which makes it easy to get place differential. If you can start 29th in a really good car, it makes sense you would make up a lot of ground and be a good DFS play. Now there are a couple of drivers back there this week who we'll talk about in the tier by tier breakdown. So you can still get some place differential here. But I think my main preference will be the drivers near the bottom end of the range from 13th to 24th. Last week in Texas was the first race we have had in this time since Cole Custer moved into the top 24 and owner points. And in that race, three drivers made the perfect lineup after starting between 21st and 24th. There were two in Homestead as well. And I think that's going to be the most lush range with more competent drivers graduating up into the next range. We've been leaning on Cole Custer and Christopher Bell this entire time since the end of the COVID-19 layout. But now both those guys are in the top 24 and owner points and will no longer be these lock button place differential plays. So like I said, there will be some value in looking outside the top 24, but the main appeal to me will be the guys around 20th or so who draw towards the bottom end of that range from 13th to 24th. The one salary dead zone we've kind of had in looking at perfect lineup set, one and a half mile tracks using the same starting order method has been the drivers from $9,100 through $11,000. Only three drivers have made a perfect lineup from there in this four race sample. One of them was Ryan Blaney, who was pretty clearly just underpriced for that race, so it just hasn't been a good range overall. And I'm guessing that's happening for two reasons. The first one is that those drivers aren't the types you expect to lead laps. So if they're in the top 12, they're less likely to dominate. And second, I think it's kind of a roster construction issue because if we're using two drivers inside the top 12 who can lead laps and win, that's going to make us emphasize value plays in our other three slots. If we use one of those slots on a guy with a salary between $9,000 and $11,000, we have to punt with one of those spots. And that's not all that appealing on tracks like this, where speed does matter. Only two drivers with a salary under $7,000 have made it. And those guys were Cole Custer and Christopher Bell, who were starting super deep in the order and have since been priced up to account for their actual speed. So if your lap leaders are cheaper and you can afford mid-range place differential drivers, then go for it. That's totally okay. And they're going to be good plays, but I wouldn't force that in if it makes you use lesser drivers as your swings for lap leaders, or if it forces you to punt in one of your slots, because that has not worked out so far in this range. That's the roster construction for this week. From a data perspective, we have really good recent info at tracks similar to Kansas because Kansas is a moderately banked one and a half mile track. It is a fourth race this year in a track that fits in those two buckets. And it's the third since the end of the COVID-19 layoff. The recent races there have been in Kentucky and Homestead. The other was in Las Vegas back in the beginning of the year. And those are the races I will be leaning on most when trying to decide where the speed is in this field. I'll also look at recent races in Texas, Atlanta, and Charlotte because they are one and a half miles. But our best data will come from Kentucky, Homestead, and Las Vegas with similar banking to what we'll have on Thursday. So if you see a driver you like who is good at those tracks, you can use them no matter where they are starting because speed matters a lot. My personal preference will be one driver starting at the top, the front of the top 12 and one further back while giving preference to drivers starting 20th for my value place. But as long as they're fast, you can have freedom and you can justify them anywhere in this pack. So to recap our strategy for Thursday nights race, we want two drivers in the top 12 to run out front, lead laps and try to win this race. Doesn't really matter where they start within those top 12 spots. After that emphasize a balanced value build after that starting around 20th, tending to be the best. But again, if they're fast, you have some more leeway in that. I would look at Kentucky, Homestead, and Las Vegas for the best information, Texas, Atlanta, and Charlotte are more secondary options when trying to judge who will be fast on Thursday night. With that wrapped up, let's dive into the tier by tier breakdown based on the salaries over at Vanduul. Starting off with the elite tier that is Kevin Harvick at $14,000 through Kyle Busch at $12,000. And Harvick is going to be the tops in this tier for me. He has awesome form and his track history is really good too. He's led 306 laps in the past six races here, which is the most among all drivers. So that's the obvious play going with Kevin Harvick. But I also do want to go out of my way to mention that Chase Elliott is well worth his $13,400 salary. Elliott has been very good on these moderately banked one and a half mile tracks this year. He led 70 laps in Vegas. He was runner up and led 27 laps in Homestead. He had eighth place average running position in Kentucky. The Hendrick cars have lacked speed recently, but Elliott has been largely fine. He hasn't been great, but he's been fine. He will be below Harvick for me, but that's not a knock on Elliott by any means. Elliott is also a hair ahead of Harvick in my model. He ranks second overall while Harvick is third. So I think that there is still reason to be into Chase Elliott, even though Hendrick Motorsports has been down a bit recently. The other three cars in this tier are Joe Gibbs racing cars. And I think I'll put Denny Hamlin just ahead of Martin Truex Jr. Hamlin won Homestead and that's a very similar track to Kansas. The reason I have him ahead just a bit ahead of Truex is that Truex has also been really good on the one and a half mile tracks. He actually led 57 laps in Kentucky and finished second, even though he started that race all the way at the back of the field. So Hamlin and Truex are pretty even to me. I'd still put them a tier ahead of Kyle Busch, even after Busch had a decent run last week. So to me, it's Harvick won, Elliott two, Hamlin three, Truex four, and Kyle Busch five in this tier, in my ranking of the elites over on Fandle. The second tier on Fandle was Brad keselowski at $11,600 through Kurt Busch at $10,200. And this is a really, really strong tier to me, mainly because it has all three of the Penske racing drivers in it. And I like all of them quite a bit. Keselowski is $11,600, Legano is $11,400, and Ryan Blady is $11,000. And Blady is actually the number one driver in my model for Thursday night. Probably does not surprise you if you are a regular listener to this podcast, but I actually agree with it. We've had three races at one and a half mile tracks with moderate banking so far this year. Blady's average running positions in those three races are fourth, third and fifth, respectively. He led 70 laps and finished third in Homestead. And Blady also had a fourth place average running position in, or at least a fourth place average running position in three of the past six races at Kansas. And two of those actually came before he was even with the Penske proper team. So I love Ryan Blady. But I think that Legano is a bit undervalued too. He's been struggling recently. He does have just one top five finish on a one and a half mile track since he won in Las Vegas, but he did lead 27 laps in Homestead and he had a sixth place average running position in Kentucky. So I love Legano as a win bet. He is 16 to one right now at Fandall Sportsbook, but I think he is a good lower salaried stud in DFS as well in a similar vein to Ryan Blady. Prefer Blady, but Legano right there too. Keselowski is always kind of lurking. So I'll put him third. He doesn't dominate as much, but he definitely has the upside to win as he did last year at this exact track. But the broader point here is we should be high on Penske racing entering this weekend. Blaney one, Legano two, Keselowski three, but all three of those guys are among the top eight drivers in my model and among my favorite place for DFS on Thursday night. Two other guys in this range who could be sneaky contenders are Alex Bowman and Eric Almerola. Bowman is one of the three drivers with a top 10 average running position in all three races at the moderately banked one and a half mile track so far this year. The others are Blaney and Chase Elliott, so in good company. Bowman almost won in Las Vegas. He almost won this race last year as well. Keselowski passed him late to get the win and Bowman's first career win came last year in Chicago, which is another track that is similar to Kansas. So I think that Bowman is due for a bounce back and I'm very much not opposed to it. Almerola has been knocking on the door for a while now. Kansas is a great track for him even though he did have a pretty gnarly wreck here a few years ago and we know he has been liquid hot recently. I would put Almerola above Bowman because the form has been better but I'm willing to consider both as lower salaried studs if I want to be more balanced. So Bowman and Almerola in play is not as high on my list as the Penske driver. So to me this tier is Blaney, Legano, Keselowski, Almerola, Bowman and then Kurt Busch is the last one. The mid-range on Fandall is Eric Jones at $10,000 through Austin Dillon at $8,200 and this tier has last week's top two finishers in Austin Dillon and Tyler Reddick and I don't think that win for Dillon was a fluke. Yes, it was lucky with the way that circumstances played out but a fluke means you could not have seen it coming. The finishers for Dillon this year kind of said that this was within his range of outcomes and I am in on him again at $8,200 but I'm actually a smidge higher on Reddick even though he has a higher salary at $8,800. The similarities between Homestead and Kansas are what draw me towards Reddick. Reddick is a monster at Homestead. He won two championships there in the Xfinity series and he had a fourth place average running position there in the cup series earlier this summer so he's really good at Homestead. He was also in Kansas in the lower series too. He never won but he was runner up twice. He was fifth in the other race. He also had a top five average running position twice in Kansas in the truck series one of which came during his age 19 season. This will not be the first cup series race for Reddick at Kansas either. He had a one off ride with RCR last year and he finished ninth in that race so Dylan is a really good option once again but I'm going to be a little bit higher on Reddick at $8,800 and I will use him no matter where he starts. I think both these RCR cars are noteworthy for how they've done on the one and a half mile track so far this year. I'll go Reddick just ahead of Dylan as my preference but I think both of them are tremendous options. Right between those two guys is William Byron. He is $8,500 and that's come down. I think that with the two RCR cars having flashed last week we could see Byron check in at a bit lower popularity. That lower salary, the lower popularity is justified but Byron has had a top 10 average running position in two of three races at similar tracks this year. His best finish this year on a one and a half mile track came in Homestead so I'm not as high on him as I am on Reddick and Dylan but he will still be a solid option. I think that if you're looking for a single entry pivot off of the chalk William Byron might wind up being that guy. If you could afford Clint Boyer I would love to get to him. The lone drawback is that he is $9,600 which is tough to get to. Same thing with Eric Jones who is $10,000 so if you can get to Boyer and Jones they are my favorites in this tier and I would favor Jones by a bit but I'm also willing to take the discount and bump down to guys like Reddick and Dylan with Byron firmly in that mix as well. The value tier on Fandle is Christopher Bell at $8,000 through Bubba Wallace at $7,000 and this range includes one of the drivers who is going to give me Knight Terrorers leading in the Thursday night. That guy is Ricky Stenhouse Jr at $7,100. After last week Christopher Bell moved into the top 24 on owner points. That means he will no longer be this lock button play in DFS but in order for him to get in he had to knock somebody out and the guy he knocked out to get in there was Stenhouse and that means Stenhouse will now start between 25th and 36th. That is huge for DFS and he's been good both on this track in the past and on one and a half miles this year. Stenhouse had a sixth place average running position in this race last year finished 11th. That was his best average running position of the entire season and even better than on the drafting tracks. He also has a pair of top five finishes on the one and a half miles this year. That's the good. He has that upside. The bad is that he is still Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and he wrecks a ton. So even if he does have good speed you're not guaranteed to turn that into a good finish. So I think what I'm going to do despite my best thoughts is that I'm going to wind up being overweight on Stenhouse and hoping for the best. That's a terrible strategy in general. Hoping for the best is going to lead you down bad paths and DFS. But there are some people who just refuse to use Stenhouse and DFS because of the crashes. But if he has one of his good days he is a lock for the perfect lineup. There are not many guys you can say that about within this field. For Stenhouse that is true. So I'm going to use him at $7,100. If it hurts me and it might hurt a lot, so be it. But I think he is worth it because of the upsides. We're going to plug our noses, click that button, lock in Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and just pray for a caution-free race on Thursday night. So Stenhouse is first in this tier for me. That's Christopher Bell, second. I'll go Cole Custer, third. Ryan Newman, fourth. Matt Kenseth, fifth. And Bubba Wall is sixth. I like Bubba a lot but his equipment doesn't do him any favors. And I say that acknowledging that he was in the top 10 late last week and acknowledging that he has similar equipment. He has similar engines to Dylan and Reddix. So I like them. I should like him. But I prefer to go with guys in a little bit better equipment who are within the same range. The punting tier on Vanduul is John Hunter Nemechek at $6,700 on down. And Nemechek will be starting similar to Stenhouse outside the top 24, which makes him interesting in a similar vein to Stenhouse. I'd rank Stenhouse higher but Nemechek is at least an option. It may be a pivot off of Stenhouse. Both those guys wreck a lot though. So just be warned and know what you're getting yourself into. My favorite guy in this tier, partly depending on where he draws, is Chris Buscher. Buscher will start between 13th and 24th. So he's not as deep as Stenhouse and Nemechek and that's led to some massive issues for me using Buscher this year because I haven't used him that much even though I adore him in general. But that has pushed his salary all the way down to $6,300 and I think that's too cheap. Buscher had a ninth place average running position in this race last year. He's also had a top 17 average running position in three consecutive races at one and a half mile tracks. Nobody else with a salary of $7,200 or lower has done that even once in this three-way stretch. Buscher, if we look straight up, ranks 19th in my model. He is ahead of Stenhouse, ahead of Bell, Newman, Custer, Nemechek, etc. before you account for starting position. So Buscher might be tough if he draws towards the front end of this range but he's also $6,300 and he could get you access to guys like Boyer and like Jones who are pretty fun in that mid-range on Fanduul. So I am willing to roll the dice on Buscher a pretty fair amount and he will be a core play for me if he winds up drawing at the bottom end of this range between 13th and 24th. So Buscher in play regardless but could be a core play if he winds up starting 20th to 24th. My favorite guys in this range are Nemechek and Buscher. If they draw somewhat near each other like if if Buscher is 24th, Nemechek is 25th, give me Buscher for sure. But if they wind up being super split I will go Nemechek but I'm going to give some preference towards Buscher just because I think that the upside for him, the finishing upside for Buscher is better when we have with Nemechek. Let's finish up here with the picks to win for this weekend as always. One guy above $10,000 and one guy below it and we're going to go Ryan Blaney again. Let's see what happens. Blaney again has had good runs at Kansas in the past. He has been awesome on the one and a half mile track so far this year and we know the speed will be there. So I'm going to go Ryan Blaney one more time. Let's cash in baby. And the driver below $10,000, I am going to go Tyler Redick. I think that the second place finished last week partly based on strategy but he was fast enough to hold that position once he got it. This track is similar to Homestead and we know that Redick can do well there especially given what we saw from him in the cup series this year. So I'm going to go Blaney at the top end, Redick at the bottom for my win picks for this weekend. That is all that we have for Thursday night's race in Kansas. Do not fret though. The heat check will still be here with NASCAR analysis every week despite baseball being back and basketball being back soon. I believe the most likely recording time will be on Thursday morning. So make sure you are subscribed to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed to get these podcasts whenever they go live along with the solo shot along with the Daily ISO by Tom Vecchio and that comes back. PGA podcast still chugging along and a couple of UFC's podcasts sprinkled in there as well. So a lot of stuff coming up on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed make sure you are subscribed to that. Big thank you to Calvin Theobald our video producer. Right on the video side of things here today. Thank you Cal as always and thank you to everyone for tuning in. I appreciate once again your patience and your flexibility with me last week. We are back for the long call now looking forward to a lot of sports. Hopefully things start off on the right foot on Thursday night. Talk to you again soon. This has been the Heat Check Fantasy podcast powered by Number Fire.


Most people are too comfortable with their worldview. They're unaware of the implications and presuppositions for their own beliefs. Everybody from the Christian to the atheist, the rationalist to the empiricist, the physicalist to the idealist. They're all quick to point out the absurd conclusions in other people's worldviews, but they often overlook the absurdities in their own. Frankly, I don't think that any worldview can escape absurdity. Given the peculiarity of the universe that we inhabit, there's no pristine belief system. Everyone comes with dirty and unsatisfactory conclusions. The most popular, superficially pristine worldview is physicalism, the idea that everything in existence is constituted by states of the physical universe and that nothing exists outside of space-time. These beliefs are very frequently coupled with hard determinism, the idea that everything has a prior cause, stretching back indefinitely, and these chains of causality are never broken. This means that from the point after the Big Bang, everything had to unfold exactly as it did. There's no random chance or free will that can somehow change how events unfold. The universe to a physicalist is akin to a billiard table.  It would be a neat and tidy worldview, but there's one problem. Where does conscious awareness fit into the physicalist narrative? As far as I can tell, consciousness interjects the absurd into physicalism. Any attempt at explanation results in unsatisfactory conclusions, though of course that doesn't imply that physicalism is wrong. It's remarkable how quickly a very hard-nosed and skeptical physicalist will turn into a medieval mystic when consciousness is brought up. Indeed, there seems to be an entire genre of materialists who have their own form of spirituality, something akin to pantheism. They say woo-woo-sounding things like the universe is in the process of becoming aware of itself, or we are a way for the cosmos to learn about itself. Now that sounds like some Pocahontas-type stuff, but it actually makes a great deal of sense. Follow this line of reasoning. Let's say that every part of the universe is constituted by the same type of physical stuff. We, humans, are part of the universe. We are also aware of things in the universe. Therefore, we humans are ultimately one small part of the universe that's becoming aware of itself. It's a remarkable idea. The universe is filled with mindless matter that's whirling about, crashing and exploding into other clumps of matter. But remarkably, way off in a distant galaxy, the matter bumped into itself just right and out popped self-aware, volitional clumps of matter that are walking and talking to themselves and writing about all the other clumps of matter that they interact with. It's a mindless universe creating little minds out of itself, a fact that only the little minds can comprehend. Now, if that doesn't sound outrageous or even spiritual, I don't know what does. Yet, given the premises involved with physicalism, that's the conclusion that follows. Some people see an even deeper connection with the universe through physicalism. Not only is the universe becoming conscious of itself through humans, but the entire universe plays an integral part in our daily life. Consider the implications of hard determinism. At any given moment, things are a certain way and they certainly couldn't have been otherwise. Meaning, every single moment of your life and every moment in the future was destined to be as part of a grandiose unfolding of the entire universe. Nothing happens. Nothing moves or is moved in isolation. It's all intimately connected with everything else, ultimately resulting from the Big Bang. That means when you go to the post office, every part of your trip is another effect of the same root cause.  Every word you say, every feeling you feel, it was all destined to happen at that specific time and place. Thus, it shouldn't be surprising when pleasant things happen to spiritually inclined physicalists. They often attribute it to the universe. They say things like, just ask the universe and it will help you. The entire universe has created you and everything in it. So when you find a quarter on the ground or when you accidentally stub your toe, it's the story of the universe unfolding within you in a very literal way. No part of your life, conscious or otherwise, exists outside the universe and therefore it is the universe. You might even say your existence is equally as necessary as the universe's existence. After all, when we reference the universe, you are inescapably part of it and result from it. Now, I am very uncomfortable with these conclusions and they kind of struck me as absurd a few days ago. So every so often I go to the local masseuse and get a deep massage from my back because I grew too fast as a kid and now I have back problems. As I was lying there on the table with her elbows digging into my back, it struck me. What am I feeling and how can I explain it? Now, superficially I would say, well, I feel these ladies elbows massaging my back muscles. Such an explanation requires a definition for lady, elbows, massaging back muscles and even myself. And it also requires some theory of possession, i.e. I was referencing my back muscles. So without trying to define all these things, I could say much more simply, I feel forces. And this brings up the central question, where do these forces come from? From a physical standpoint, we cannot be satisfied by answering, well, the forces come from the masseuse because the chains of causality stretch back much farther. The masseuse is simply a collection of matter that's responding to external stimuli. There's no room for free will or psychological decisions. Nobody ultimately decided to be there at the moment. I was destined to lie down and she was destined to elbow me. So the only truly consistent answer is to say, the forces I feel come directly from the Big Bang. In effect, I wasn't feeling some ladies elbows. I was feeling the cosmic forces that happen to manifest themselves in that ladies elbows. In other words, the entire universe was giving me a back massage. Or maybe I should say more precisely, the entire universe was giving itself a back massage. Not only that, but it was a nearly miraculous event. Every previous state of the universe was destined to lead up to that moment. Thus it shouldn't be surprising that the spiritualist physicalists see the profound in the mundane. The entire universe leaves little impressions of itself everywhere, from the flower to the human to the gigantic galaxy a trillion light years away. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is absurd and therefore it's false. Like I said earlier, I think absurdity is inescapable. So cosmic back massages might seem a little ridiculous, but what's the alternative? Did my massage instead come from a conscious self-aware being who can mentally control parts of the universe? Well that doesn't seem particularly satisfactory either. Now I am not a physicalist, and I am drawn to appeals to common sense. In my opinion, the reason my massage wasn't cosmic is because humans aren't billiard balls, nor are we causally determined. My experience with humans makes much more sense when I can say that event happened, but it could have happened otherwise. The masseuse and I made a series of decisions, we expressed our individual conscious wills, and the universe was only a part of the equation. In other words, I find the physicalist worldview unpersuasive, because it leaves out all the mental phenomena that's involved with getting a back massage. Our experience of the world incorporates both the physical and the mental, and we can't satisfactorily eliminate one category or the other, at least to me. However, this position too comes with its own set of absurdities. Non-physicalism isn't pristine either, but that will be a topic for another time.


recording. Is it recording now? Yes. Okay. Good afternoon. Good morning. This is Jenkins Advocacy and Outreach SIG. Today is Thursday, July 14. I have on the agenda GSOC update from Jean-Marc, a quick DevOps world update, CDF slash Buffy update. Is there anything else we should add? Those are all that I know about. Excellent. Oh, do we need to have any conversation about scale 19x? We can. I don't have anything new to update, so that's kind of like why I left no need to have it then. Okay. So Jean-Marc, you want to take over the GSOC update? It's working well. I had the office hour just a couple of minutes ago. Everything is going well. The contributors are getting ready for the Jenkins online meetup. I shared with them that we might run out of sponsoring funds to get them to DevOps world. And so they know that the likelihood is decreasing slowly. Nothing really interesting or general to share on that activity. Okay. So with regards to last year's GSOC stipend, Marc, you saw the email. I need to do some more digging with regards to what happened last year. It looks like Oleg suggested reaching out to Kara. So I will do that. But according to the Linux Foundation, they did not find a registration for last year. So that kind of makes me worry. No, it may just mean that Kara chose to or we intentionally did it and didn't make note of it that we weren't going to ask for the stipend. So if that happened, that's okay. I mean, it's optional that Google offers the stipend and we may have just said, look, we're not going to try to do the complicated thing of getting that stipend paid to us. Okay. So I'll root cause that and see what happened. For DevOps world, so the next phase is that the agenda is currently up. So the next phase is we need to help the event promote it. So how we've done this in the past is by providing technical content about our speaker sessions and we do that via blogs and tweets and LinkedIn posts. But mainly we don't want to do like a marketing pitch, but maybe, you know, hey, I'm speaking here. This is what you can learn when you join that kind of content. So I will be driving that effort with Bruno and Jean-Marc in this next phase, but I'm hoping that we could have content to post at least like once a week just to keep the noise rolling. So Jean-Marc, I will reach out to you on that. Yeah. So and Jean-Marc and I and Bruno have been discussing very actively what we're going to do for a two hour contributing to open source workshop. We've got concepts that we're preparing and ideas. So I think, I think for at least Jean-Marc, me and Bruno, we could, we can help with that in terms of providing a blog post or, or tweet or, you know, et cetera. So absolutely would love to we've got a, we've got an initiative around making it easier to contribute to Jenkins, and it's a great excuse to highlight that. Now it may be several weeks before we're ready, a few weeks before we're ready to trumpet that because I gotta, we've got to finish the writing part of the content, but, but it's a good one, Alyssa. Let's use it. Let's do it. Yeah. Okay. Now I think this is kind of like the first time that we're doing this, Marc, right? How many people do you anticipate attending? Because we're trying to work with the events team on the setup for the room. And Jean-Marc and I had this discussion yesterday. I don't anticipate it to be like a pipeline workshop where it's, you know, standing room and such. So, so we think we were thinking we could support from 30 to 60 attending. Okay. Jean-Marc, are you still okay with that as a concept? We've, we've got working model for 30, and, and I think it would be a fun thing if, if we got more than 30, but if we get much beyond 60, if it gets to a hundred, it's probably going to be tough. There, there, we, we will not be able to, especially if we want to feed the fast, the one that move ahead fast with additional material. Right. Now, it will keep us busy. We could consider if we've got, so you, you had a note there that Alex Brandus and Uli Hofner, we may be able to have, if Alex can be there, he would be a great helper for our workshop. Yeah. So, well, there I feel more comfortable. Okay. So if, if we could persuade Alex to be a participant in the workshop, he'd be a great voice to have. Okay. Yep. The principle, Alissa, is that the people will, will work in pair. This is how we can reach the maximum capacity of 60. Right. All right. Okay. But I, I triggered the discussion, Mark, with Alissa, that we have enough space to move between the tables. But this is barely under control because otherwise they need to reshuffle the room and this is going to, to fail on that day. Yeah. We certainly don't want to make them adjust the room layout, right? We, but let's, let's be sure that we've got space that we can work. But if, if they tell us, oh, no, the room's only set for 20. Okay. We understand that we'll, we'll plan for 20. If the room is set for 200, then we'll probably tend to use a smaller fraction of the total room. Or have the people use one bench. Right. Exactly. Alternating, alternating benches, that kind of thing, alternating seats. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm working with the events team on that. So I will keep you posted with what they can do. Great. Alissa, the, the size of the block posts to prepare are these regular 1000 words block posts or less 500, 500 would be a good target. Otherwise people will not read you. Do you have an idea about that? I've seen them short and long, Jean-Marc. Some of the great blog posts are very detailed, very technical. So those tend to be long. So I don't have a specific preference, but I mean, it, I think it really depends on the content that we deliver. I'm going to check on previous versions to see what so I have a target. Yeah. Because I don't want to bore people. And I can, I can dig some up and share it with you too, which the ones that I thought were, were great. Yeah. Okay. That would be very helpful. Yeah. Okay. And then, so the next item, Marc, you already went ahead and alluded about the, the contributor summit. So I just got news from Uli this morning. So this is like right, a hot off the press. So he will be able to join, but he might need to leave early, which is perfectly fine. At least he'll be there for the contributor summit and perhaps Wednesday. Great. Okay. Yeah. So I am working with them on the logistical details on finances and such. And, you know, we want to make sure that we take care of them with regards to reimbursing them accordingly after the event. And then, you know, any logistical issues they have, I'm working directly with them as well, just to make sure that it's a smooth process for them. And there's no roadblocks. So we are, so Bruno, Marc and I are working on the agenda for the contributor summit. Marc has given us some great directions and where to head to. And I'm working on the scene of, you know, confirming people in attendance and that they are giving us their blessing that they will speak. So that's in the process for me. And then next week, Bruno will send out a conversation via discourse and we will solicit additional feedback and input at that point. But that is our current plan. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Thanks, Alyssa. You bet. CDF and Bevy. So there's been talks of moving meetup.com to Bevy. The decision has not been made. So we had a discussion this week. Thank you, Jean-Marc and Marc for leading that discussion with CDF. But I think they have a very clear understanding of our needs. So they just need to take that information and go back and work on their numbers and see what will work for them and what will work for us. Because definitely, we do not want any features taken away from us. I think we're okay with meetup at the moment, but we're willing to try out Bevy as well. And then Zoom will remain as is at this moment. Even with some improvements to have individual accounts. Yes. Yeah. Or SIG. Yeah. And that's it. Let me stop the recording.


Right, there's some great looking things in this video. One is that backdrop too, well, it's arguably me. And the third one is these irons that I've got in my hand, or these wedges rather. I think a lot of average golfers are gonna love these things. They're new from Ping, it's the Glide 4. Let's go and see how they get out on the course at Palero here in Madeira. The first thing to talk about with these wedges is just how good they look. New design in terms of these Glide 4s. Ping have done a real good job of being able to streamline these things into the I-59s even possibly, and certainly the 525s. And that's something that I really like. This idea of going into your existing set of irons and blending them seamlessly into your wedge set. And these Glide 4 have got the same finish, that hydropole finish. And they look very consistent with both those sets of irons. That's a real thumbs up from me. And that hydropole finish is suggested. It performs really well in dry and wet conditions. I cannot prove that theory right or wrong. I'm happy to believe it. Right, so the things I like about these wedges, let's start off with the fact that I have chosen to play both the 54 and the 58 in this wide sole option, which I think is a real help. The bounce is a real sort of help for most average golfers. And I think that for me, what's been clever about these Glide wedges is that they've got the thick wide sole, but they've still got plenty of shaping and chamfering off to allow plenty of versatility for your canner to play a number of different shots with each of the clubs. I'm going to class these as game improvement irons with plenty of workability, flexibility. For players who've got the confidence and want to do a little bit more with their wedges. Right, okay, the next part of this review comes from a different golf course. Santa de Sera was still on Madeira, but I played lots of shots with the wedges in and around Palero yesterday, which you're seeing now. And I've got more than an opinion on whether or not I think these wedges are any good or not. But unfortunately, by the time I started doing recording, the weather changed a little bit. So we've moved into Santa de Sera the following day. Plenty of shots hit here. So I feel like I've got a good sort of, well, I've put it in plenty of positions. We've tried each of the lofts and I've got a fair old opinion and I'm about to share with you. And I think these wedges, as I said in the intro, are really appealing to most average golfers. Now wedge reviews are boring. There's not a great deal I can do to make these exciting, apart from looking at me execute shots with them. And like I said, that's pretty boring, I know. So what is so good of it? Let's keep it very, very brief. The wedge market is a real interesting one. I've done videos in recent weeks where you either buy a specialty wedge, you buy or you buy a continuation of your iron set into the wedges. Then there's a couple of wedges in between all that, which I would class as game-improvement wedges. That's a bit insulting in some way to these wedges and the others that I'd put in there. But let's look at sort of CBX wedges from Cleveland. Then we've got, what's the other wedge? ES21s from Mizuno. They're the kind of wedges I would class as game-improvement wedges. And I'd possibly put the glide four in there.  But the reason I say that is because they're forgiving. And I've done lots of videos about where I say why go in from sort of game-improvement, play as distance signs, whatever we're gonna call it, and then go into blade-like wedges because they're the opposite of what you have in the bag. And that's where I think these are so good in that they've built a wedge that is forgiving, but it doesn't look bulky. It doesn't look as though it's got a lot of mass on it. They're very much a slimmed-down version, but without doubt there is an aim there to make them forgiving at the same time and very playable. I already said I love the wide soles, gives you a lot of versatility, a lot of golfers out there. Well, when I say a lot of versatility, there are a lot of versatility in terms of what Ping is offering in terms of bounce options and sole options, which I think is fantastic. But for me, that wide sole, 14 degrees of bounce, it's a big help for me. It stops me from chunking stuff and it's been a real positive on a personal level and that's where I think the help out average golfers. And as I say, the final point, because I'm gonna keep this brief, we can't go on about this any longer, it's just about their looks. They blend into their current iron sets really, really well and by the same token, if you've got a set of Mizuno blades or whatever it is, Mizuno irons, if you've got a set of Ping irons, these are gonna look really, really good in the bag alongside them. So all in all, right now, Ping have just brought out i5-25, the four wedges and the i59s. And apart from the price tag, they all get huge thumbs up from me. All I'm interested in is what your thoughts. Tell me how they look, tell me what you think of the performance you've seen of them in my hands and are they a consideration for you in this coming months. Right, as ever, thanks for watching. We've been at Santa de Sera, this one in Madeira. Thanks for having us. Thanks for letting us use this backdrop. It's been pretty nice. Right, see you all soon.


Good day, May 40 here. I've got a shocking insight for you. Sometimes people act in their self-interest, right? Sometimes when people interact with you or try to get you to do things or try to sell you things, they're not acting in your interest. Often they're acting in their interest. Isn't that shocking? Unbelievable. And sometimes when people say why they want you to buy something or to do something, the rhetoric that they're offering you, it's not the real reason they want you to buy something or to do something. Isn't this shocking? Do you know that there are politicians who sometimes act in their self-interest rather than the national interest? Unbelievable. Oh my god. Yes, it's shocking. You know, it's entirely possible that a significant reason that we invaded Afghanistan in 2001 was so that George W. Bush could get re-elected, right? Maybe it was just in part to provide an emotional catharsis for the American people after we got hit on 9-11. Well, we're gonna hit them. Do internet pundits acting their self-interest? Yes!   Orthodox Jews? No! I'm not gonna do it. All right, I'm gonna limit the things that I say on here to those things that work for the rest of my life.   No! I'm not gonna do it. So, yeah, it's not always clear, but people generally speaking are motivated by their self-interest. So, it's entirely possible that George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to get re-elected. It's entirely possible that George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003 because he thought it was a political winner. Now, if you join the US military, you're gonna get sent overseas and you may well lose your life in part or in large part because politicians are trying to get re-elected or trying to sound tough or maybe just politicians just trying to get laid by sounding tough on TV. So, remember the Cuban Missile Crisis? You know what was driving the Cuban Missile Crisis? John F. Kennedy was facing mid-term elections and the Democrats were perceived as weak on defense so the Democratic Party's political interests were on the line and so he precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis. He acted much tougher than he needed to for his own partisan political reasons. He put America's survival at stake to try to further his political interests. Like, he got us into this Cuban Missile Crisis so that Democrats could win more seats in the mid-term elections. America faced the possibility of nuclear obliteration because its leader wanted to ensure that his political party did better in the mid-term elections and there's no alternative to that. You can never get away from that, right? There's no alternative to having leaders and leaders will always be at least in part affected by self-interest.  So, the average person is about 95% selfish. So, I tell my sponsors, try to be just 90% selfish.  Now, go for just 90% selfish. Try to live your life 90% selfish. So, recognize when you join the US military, you may be sent to risk your life and to die for a politician's self-interest, right? So, don't be so naive. Like when people are trying to get you to do things, they're driven by their self-interest. Nations invade other nations for often individual self-interest of leaders. Often the individual self-interest of leaders is very different from the national self-interest. So, we have to always ask, like, what are the incentives here? What are the incentives that the president faces? What's the incentives that the various politicians face? What are the incentives various bureaucrats face? What are the incentives that the pundits face? Right? And just expect that people are going to be 95% selfish. So, when you interact with people, have that understanding and when you sign up for a job, right? Expect that your boss is going to be 95% self-interested. Your boss is not going to put himself at risk or enjoy less efficient work just because he likes you, generally speaking, right? People employ people out of self-interest. And at the same time, your boss is not going to be terribly concerned about your well-being. Like, I'm thinking about one acquaintance of mine. He hired someone away from, you know, what would have turned out to be a multi-million dollar payout at some ascended tech firm. And so, he hired someone away for a piddling salary. And this guy, if he'd instead taken the offer at Uber or Facebook or something like that, he would have made millions and millions and millions of dollars. Instead, you know, he got a far inferior rate of return. You can't expect an employer to look out for your best interests. You can't expect your friends necessarily to look out for your best interests.  And you certainly can't expect politicians. So, when you join the U.S. military, it's like, oh, I'm just doing this to, you know, pay my way through college. Well, some politician's self-interest may send you to die in some hellhole in Africa, right? And there's no way out of this. There's no way out of frequently divergent conflicts of interest between what's in the political leaders, self-interest, and what's in the nation's self-interest. What's in your boss's self-interest, what's in your self-interest. So, frequently, politicians do things that are in their self-interest in the interests of their career that are really bad for you, really bad for the country. And if you sign up for the U.S. military, yeah, you may well be sent to die on the other side of the world in some hellish place for reasons that have nothing to do with America's self-interest. So, you may be a patriot enjoying the U.S. military for patriotic reasons.  And so, he's going to put your life at risk doing something pointless.