Big Jay Let's Talk

Antetokounmpo totaled 32 points (14-23 FG, 0-1 3Pt, 4-11 FT), nine rebounds, six assists and zero turnovers across 41 minutes in a Game 5 victory over Phoenix on Saturday.

The first thing I want you to think about is this:

Resisting failure is, at its core, seeking perfection. And, perfection doesn’t exist.

That’s why perfectionists are also likely to be chronic procrastinators.

As Psychology Today noted in their article Pitfalls of Perfectionism, people who constantly seek for perfection stop themselves from engaging in challenging experiences.[1] That’s because these perfectionists are less creative and innovative than the average person — plus they’re less likely to take risks. Add these factors together, and you have someone who is overly focused on their own performance and is always quick to defend themselves. Unfortunately, these traits prevent them from having the necessary focus when it comes to learning new tasks.

Let me be clear: Striving for perfection is not the same as striving for excellence.

The former is a fool’s quest for the unattainable; while the latter is really just about doing our very best (which we can all obtain).

Cryptocurrencies let you buy goods and services, or trade them for profit. Here's more about what cryptocurrency is, how to buy it and how to protect yourself. Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us. This may influence which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page. However, this does not influence our evaluations. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners and here's how we make money.The investing information provided on this page is for educational purposes only. NerdWallet does not offer advisory or brokerage services, nor does it recommend or advise investors to buy or sell particular stocks or securities.

More than 10,000 different cryptocurrencies are traded publicly, according to CoinMarketCap.com, a market research website. And cryptocurrencies continue to proliferate, raising money through initial coin offerings, or ICOs. The total value of all cryptocurrencies on July 16, 2021, was more than $1.3 trillion — down from April high of $2.2 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap. The total value of all bitcoins, the most popular digital currency, was pegged at about $599.6 billion — down from April high of $1.2 trillion.

Be inspired by an exceptional group of women in this collection of videos and web-exclusive features from trusted public media partners. Each of the features below is a window into a documentary or program about Black women who have made a special mark on their communities and the World. The features will connect you directly to the website of a PBS partner where it can be viewed in full or allow you to watch a preview directly within the collection below.

Nevertheless, there is always that other dark cloud looming over big-time college football and basketball. And it never goes away. It is a cloud of hypocrisy. Big-time college hoops and college football are defined by the NCAA in a glib and self-serving way: As long as the players aren’t getting paid openly, legally and directly, the serious business of the multibillion-dollar games can continue the charade that they are “amateur sports.”

And it’s the players, the pre-pros, who bear the burden of maintaining the charade, get caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar and risk losing everything from their reputations to their eligibility to play ball and their scholarships.

If the first wars were fought with sticks and stones, modern warfare is a high-tech battlefield where social media has emerged as a surprising — and effective — weapon. From Russian hacking to influence the American election to online recruitment for terror groups such as ISIS, an array of players are using false news and bogus accounts to stoke fear, incite violence and manipulate outcomes.

Authors Peter W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking describe this as “likewar,” a term that plays on the Facebook “like” feature. In their new book, LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media, they explain how these platforms have become persuasive tools of propaganda. The recently joined the Knowledge@Wharton radio show on Sirius XM to discuss their work.

An edited transcript of the conversation follows.

Knowledge@Wharton: It is incredible how social media has developed and expanded rapidly in the last 20 years, and the impact it has had on politics.

Peter Singer: It’s absolutely fascinating. One of the people we interviewed for the book was the literal godfather of the internet itself, Vint Cerf. He talked about how it was once this military network for scientists, and then there was this moment when the scientists began to email back and forth about science fiction. That’s when he realized, “Hold it. It’s become this social thing.”

You move forward, and now [there’s] Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you name it. They’re not just the nervous system of the modern world, they’re where we do business. They’re where we set up dates. But they’ve also become this space of battle, and battle over everything from political campaigns to use in military operations, marketing wars, you name it.

One of the things that the book is about is essentially how, if cyberwar was the hacking of networks that both governments and businesses have had to deal with, we now have this phenomenon of what we call “likewar,” which is the hacking of the people on the networks by this mix of “likes,” but also lies.

Knowledge@Wharton: You think about the stories we’ve heard about ISIS and other organizations using social media to recruit people. Can you talk about that?

Emerson Brooking: This issue came on our radar and the radar of a lot of folks across the country back in the summer of 2014, when the Islamic State invaded northern Iraq. They only had about 1,500 militants. They had pickup trucks and secondhand weapons from a lot of militant groups past.

But they did something new, and that was instead of keep their invasion a secret, they actually tweeted about it. They had a hashtag campaign, #AllEyesOnISIS, which they used to consolidate and broadcast their propaganda. And they had a huge network of both passionate supporters but also Twitter bots, which they used to lock down the trending hashtags on Twitter for the Arabic-speaking users.

“Over a very short period of time, a handful of tech geeks have become among the most powerful figures in all of politics and war.”

As a result of that, even though they only had a small invading force, they were effectively able to spread fear [and seem to become] much greater than they were, and pushed these demoralized defenders of a city like Mosul — with 1.5 million residents — to drop their weapons and flee. In the process, ISIS started scoring these propaganda videos and weaving them back into their online messaging. It became a source of great inspiration for people following along at home.

It was a direct result of these online tactics that they were able to recruit some 30,000 fighters from the Middle East, but also the wider world — more than 100 countries where people would leave their homes to journey to Syria and Iraq to join them. Or if that wasn’t possible, they felt inspired to commit acts of violence at home.

Malik Monk willing to give up his jersey number to LaMelo Ball?

Giannis Antetokounmpo is one of the most unlikely superstars in NBA history. The son of Nigerian immigrants who settled in Greece, Antetokounmpo and his brothers famously sold watches and sunglasses in the streets to help their parents make ends meet. Antetokounmpo started playing basketball around 13 years old and turned pro a few years later in the lower levels of the Greek league.

There wasn’t much footage of Antetokounmpo against high-level competition when he entered the 2013 NBA Draft, but the Milwaukee Bucks were still intrigued enough to take him No. 15 overall. Antetokounmpo only averaged six points per game as a rookie but improved rapidly each year. By his sixth NBA season, at 24 years old, he was named MVP and led the Bucks to the best record in the league during the regular season. He repeated both accomplishments again the next year, and also added a Defensive Player of the Year award to his mantle.

Playoff success was harder to come by for the Bucks. They reached the Eastern Conference Finals in 2019, but blew a 2-0 lead to the Toronto Raptors. During the 2020 playoffs in the bubble, the Bucks were upset by the Miami Heat in five games as Antetokounmpo exited the series with an injury in Game 4.

The Bucks are in the 2021 NBA Finals this year, where they have battled back from an 0-2 hole to tie their series against the Phoenix Suns. Ahead of a pivotal Game 5, Antetokounmpo was asked how he’s learned to keep his ego in check despite so many accomplishments at age-26. His answer was perfect.

In comments still rippling through the network, the reporter Rachel Nichols, who is white, said Maria Taylor, who is Black, earned the job to host

Bayless left ESPN to join the fledgling FS1 network as one of its cornerstones. His rating numbers are nowhere near where they were with Smith at ESPN but they have climbed through the years.

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