Entertainment

AKABAS | The Top 50 Players in the NBA: #7-1

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In case you missed Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, you can scan through my complete, updated Top 50 list for a quick refresher. This final group of players was so hard to rank that, after losing nights of sleep over it, my dad suggested that I go back to my original criteria for ranking players: “If you dropped this player onto any NBA team at random, by how much would they improve that team’s odds of winning the title?” I set up a spreadsheet with each of the remaining players as the columns and all the playoff teams as the rows, and I tried to estimate (as best I could) the increase in championship odds if each player were to be magically placed onto each team’s roster. The results were laughably inconclusive. For the players ranked 5 through 7, I estimated that their average increase in championship odds would be 17.26%, 17.21%, and 17.15%, respectively. RIP.

Culture

Please Please Please Stop Eating At Chick-Fil-A

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By now, we’ve all learned that almost anything can be political. As public discourse is integrated into industry and culture, it’s almost unusual for a company to lack a hot political take or sympathetic philanthropic cause. Plenty of these causes are admirable. Gillete, for example, recently garnered attention for including progressive ideas about masculinity in a major advertising campaign. Did we really need our razors and shaving creams to be sites of political discourse?

Entertainment

DIVING IN | Strong Suit — An Analysis Of Superheroes And Their Suits

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The night Captain Marvel was released, my friends and I drove to the Ithaca Mall movie theater in a car, brimming with anticipation. Though I don’t consider myself a die-hard Marvel fan, I was particularly excited to see this film—the CGI effects and female-driven storyline captivated my attention. I’m happy to say  that it lived up to its hype (don’t worry, no spoilers here!). Action-packed fight scenes, heartbreaking emotional moments, and gut-busting jokes filled the screen. The film evoked a slew of emotions: fear, elation, dread, anger, pride, hope.

Entertainment

TRUTHBETOLD | The Rise of Bangtan

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They won two Billboard Music Awards, performed at the American Music Awards with their hit song DNA, and recently attended the 61st Grammy Awards to present the award for Best R&B album to artist, H.E.R. Surely you must have heard of them. BTS, also known as Bulletproof Boy Scouts when they first arrived on the Kpop scene, is one of the most famous boy groups to attract international audiences. Hailing from Seoul, South Korea and operating under a small but mighty entertainment company, BTS has overcome many obstacles to reach their goals and share their music with the world. So, what’s the big deal with BTS, a group who wears makeup and dances on stage? The seven members of the group—RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V, and Jungkook—debuted in June 2013 with their debut song, No More Dream.

Culture

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM | More Than A Month: Black History Being Made

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Black History Month is an annual celebration of achievements by black people and their role in history. Since 1976, February has been designated Black History Month, not only in the USA, but in countries around the world- including Canada and the United Kingdom. When thinking about celebrating Black History Month, public figures such as Nelson Mandela and Oprah immediately come to mind. But I wondered if we could broaden that list of black heroes and include those ordinary people who are making or have made giant leaps in their communities, those working internationally to make change on a global scale, and those that were making history long before the Civil Rights Movement. There are so many hidden figures that need to be on everyone’s lips throughout the year.

Culture

SKATCH | Go Watch Some Disney Movies Right Now

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I have a confession: I’m an addict. The feeling I get when I succumb to the sweet, constant pull is utterly indescribable. Suddenly, I’m not a college student who has a future to worry about, but just a little bean swirling around in a whirlpool of nostalgia, simplicity, and goodness.  

I’m an addict…to Disney movies.  

It all started during winter break.

Entertainment

AKABAS | The Dunkies

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The dunk contest was my favorite night of the NBA season as a kid, to the point where I would count the days down from months away until I would get to watch the most athletic players in the league see who could jam a basketball into the hoop in the coolest way. Many years after I reenacted every single dunk contest dunk on my NERF hoop, something about the event continues to enthrall me, so I’m handing out awards for the bests and worsts in dunk contest history. Best Dunk Contest

I ranked every dunk contest throughout history in four different categories. While 2016’s duel between Zach Lavine and Aaron Gordon unequivocally had the best dunks of any contest, the overall greatest contest ever is a tie between 2000 and 1988. In the former, Vince Carter attempted five dunks, made all of them on the first try, never competed again, and remains the undisputed greatest contest dunker of all time.

Culture

INOCCIDUOUS THOUGHTS | 35 Things I’ve Noticed About Food on West Campus

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Before people get mad, let me just say that I’m extremely grateful to have access to Cornell’s diverse dining options. Some of my friends back home only have one dining hall, so we are lucky to have six on West Campus, alone. Also, I have worked with Cornell Dining before, and the passion, labor, and patience put into running a dining hall is absolutely incredible, so we should all be appreciative of what we have! That said, I just wanted an outlet to express my opinion on Cornell’s food (specifically West Campus in this article). This is not to offend Cornell Dining in any way!

Culture

AKABAS | The Top 50 Players in the NBA: Part 2

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If you’re interested in which guys were 27 through 50 on my list, my criteria for these rankings, or the meaning of the different statistics I’m referencing in this article, check out Part 1. Additionally, after flubbing some players’ rankings in Part 1, I’ve decided to keep my Top 50 in a Google Doc, so that I can both correct my previous mistakes and continue to update the list throughout the season. All stats are current as of 1/11/19.  

26. Marc Gasol – I think he’s a tad overrated.

Culture

AKABAS | The Top 50 Players in the NBA: Part 1

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We know how to rank teams: my team beats your team, therefore my team is better. Just rooting for our teams carries an old-school sense of hometown pride and loyalty, but ranking players is overwhelmingly more interesting and fun — it’s a combination of statistics and intuition, of situational evidence and conjecture. How does one even begin to try to rank basketball players? One obvious way is to determine which players are most valuable to their own teams. That’s what the Most Valuable Player award tries to do, at least in theory, but does anyone really know what that award means? This metric is fairly quantifiable, since we can look at team performance with a certain player both on and off the court.