Mastodon is making it easier for newcomers to create an account on the platform. On Monday, the decentralized network announced that it will start directing new users to create an account on mastodon.social instead of prompting them to choose from one of the thousands of other servers on the platform.
This update doesn’t mean that Mastodon’s taking away the ability for new users to sign up for an account in a specific community, though. It will simply present two separate options on its signup page: “Join mastodon.social” or “Pick my own server.” The service’s flagship mastodon.social server is the platform’s largest, but the network notes that users can swap instances at any time.
Prior to this change, creating a Mastodon account wasn’t…
The first leg of the Triple Crown of horse racing takes place Saturday with the 149th Kentucky Derby. The post positions were drawn on Monday and now the oddsmakers have released the initial odds for the “Run for the Roses.” Of the 20 horses that will race in the one-and-a-quarter-mile event, only three have odds of less than 10-to-1, seven have odds between 10-to-1 and 19-to-1, and 10 have odds of 20-to-1 or more.
Forte, running out of the No. 15 position, is a strong favorite at 3-to-1. Tapit Trice, in the No. 5 spot, checks in a 5-to-1 and Angel of Empire, in the No. 14 pole, has the third-best odds at 8-to-1. Forte led all horses in Derby Points, the point system used to qualify horses for the race at Churchill Downs. Practical Move was second in Derby Points but has longer odds than Angel of Empire (who was third in Derby Points) and Tapit Trice (fourth). There are four long shots at 50-to-1 odds with Continuar, Raise Cain, Sun Thunder, and Reincarnate all listed as dark horses.
How much does the post position matter for the Kentuck Derby?
Let’s hit the rewind button to last year, when Rich Strike — who wasn’t even in the original Kentucky Derby field — was the first to cross the finish line at 80-to-1, becoming one of the biggest underdogs to win the Derby. Rich Strike was just the second horse to win the race from the No. 20 post position. Only one horse has won from the No. 19 spot and no horse has won from the 17th pole (bad news for Derma Sotogake).
The No. 5 post has yielded the most wins, with 10 winners coming from that position. The No. 10 spot has produced nine winners and eight winners have come from the first, seventh and eighth poles.
2023 Kentucky Derby Odds and Pole Positions
Post Position 1: Hit Show 30-to-1
Post Position 2: Verifying 15-to-1
Post Position 3: Two Phil’s 12-to-1
Post Position 4: Confidence Game 20-to-1
Post Position 5: Tapit Trice 5-to-1
Post Position 6: Kingsbarns 12-to-1
Post Position 7: Reincarnate 50-to-1
Post Position 8: Mage 15-to-1
Post Position 9: Skinner 20-to-1
Post Position 10: Practical Move 10-1
Post Position 11: Disarm 30-to-1
Post Position 12: Jace’s Road 15-to-1
Post Position 13: Sun Thunder 50-to-11
Post Position 14: Angel of Empire 8-to-1
Post Position 15: Forte 3-to-1
Post Position 16: Raise Cain 50-to-1
Post Position 17: Derma Sotogake 10-to-1
Post Position 18: Rocket Can 30-to-1
Post Position 19: Lord Miles 30-to-1
Post Position 20: Continuar 50-to-1
The total prize purse for this year’s Derby is $3 million with $1.86 million going to the winning horse, $600,000 for second place, and $300,000 for third place.
If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call the National Council for Problem Gambling 1-800-522-4700.
Patrick Everson reports on the biggest movers and shakers on the odds board after the NFL Draft. Click here to see which teams’ Super Bowl odds improved the most; one team will surprise you.
LeBron and Steph, Steph and LeBron … they were not grouped together as rookies, like Bird and Magic, and they do not play the same position like Wilt and Russell, so it took some time to see what should be obvious now. This is their generation of basketball. Every other great player is in the book, but LeBron James and Steph Curry belong on the cover.
That is why this Lakers-Warriors series is such a treat. It will be the fourth time James and Curry face each other in the NBA playoffs, but the first time we can watch the whole series with a firm appreciation of their historical significance—and do so while they are still at the peak of their skills. If the league held a draft of the remaining players for the rest of this spring, James and Curry might be the top two picks.
In 2015, the world was still adjusting to the idea of Curry being a true superstar instead of just a shooter. He didn’t even win Finals MVP. The ’16 Finals were framed, before and after, as a matchup of a great team (the 73-win Warriors) against an all-time great player (James, who was then with the Cavaliers). Both teams met again in the ’17 and ’18 Finals, but those series mostly served as a chance for Kevin Durant to prove what any intelligent observer already knew about him.
But now …. now we have a fuller picture. The few remaining LeBron James critics have been laughed off the stage. Injuries, age and free agency diminished the Warriors just enough to force Curry to carry them, which he has.
This will not be the best series of their five against each other—no second-round series could top the Cavs’ comeback from a 3–1 deficit to beat those 73-win Warriors. But this is the one that will give fans the feeling they will try to explain to kids in 20 years.
LeBron and Steph Curry usually face off in the regular season, but this is the first time they’ll clash so early in the postseason.
Cary Edmondson/USA TODAY Sports
Whether James and Curry are the two best players of their generation is actually debatable. (We pause here to say that basketball generations are much shorter than human generations. Curry is only seven years older than Giannis Antetokounmpo, and both are millennials, but they belong to different basketball generations.) Durant would like a word and deserves one. So would, I suppose, James Harden, through his spokesperson, Daryl Morey, but we shall not grant him one.
There is no doubt, though, that James and Curry are the most important players of their generation.
James has been the most prominent player in the league for longer than any other player in history. He has led three franchises to championships, played in the Finals in 10 of the past 15 years, and—well, this is a matter of opinion and may sound nebulous—but James has helped teams win more games in more ways than anyone else. Come up with anything a basketball player can do, and James has probably done it at an all-NBA level.
James has also radically changed the way the league operates. Without him, would we have ever heard the words “player empowerment”? You still don’t hear it much in other sports. Before James, stars usually stayed with the team that drafted them, got traded or (this was still a fairly new development) left via free agency. Now the decisions and timelines are almost always determined by the player. Since he was in high school, James was expected to carry the league’s image. He has done a lot more than that: He has redefined it.
Curry has changed the game itself, in ways that are long lasting and profound. The quick-fire threes get most of the attention but only partly explain his influence. Curry controls the other nine players on the floor with a combination of shooting range, quick dribbling, passing will and vision. No one ever played like him before, and everyone seems to want to play like him now.
Curry probably has a higher approval rating than James—he has played for one team, avoided controversy, is smaller and more relatable, and still benefits from much lower expectations when he came into the league. Once James was tabbed as the heir to Michael Jordan, he could never exceed that. Even now, Curry is likely underrated historically by a lot of knowledgeable fans, though we really (truly!) do not need to debate that now.
Just enjoy it.
It’s not a referendum on their careers. It’s not really a celebration, either. It’s a gift from the basketball gods, and a rarer one than you might realize. Larry Bird and Magic Johnson faced each other three times in the postseason. James and Kobe Bryant never played against one another in the playoffs. James and Curry will meet for the fifth time despite spending most of their careers in different conferences. Those meetings, and these two players, have defined an era.
One changed the league, the other changed the sport, and they’re not done yet.
After the Lakers eliminated the Grizzlies from the NBA playoffs last week, Memphis is taking its medicine since the team talked so much trash before the playoffs. What makes matters worse is not just that the Grizzlies couldn’t back their talk up, but they lost by 40 points to Los Angeles in Game 6.
In Monday’s episode of First Take, Stephen A. Smith addressed Memphis for the first time since its ungraceful exit, and he went right after the team.
“They look like damn jokes, they were an embarrassment, and I don’t say that kindly, and I don’t say that with any joy in my voice or in my heart,” Smith said. “They didn’t lose, they got their a– kicked.”
.@stephenasmith sounds off on the Grizzlies after their first-round playoff exit:
“They look like damn jokes. They were an embarrassment. … They’re a laughingstock right now. They’re all talk and bluster and nothing else.” pic.twitter.com/GbYzb3tlX6
Smith added that, even with the rest of the playoffs still going on, the Grizzlies enter the NBA offseason as one of the biggest jokes in the league.
“They’re a laughingstock right now, they’re all talk and bluster and nothing else,” he said. “They got embarrassed and it is what it is. They are gonna have a long offseason because ain’t nobody gonna let them forget that.”
While criticizing the team, Smith specifically called out two players on the team for their words and actions. First, he went after Dillon Brooks for essentially inviting the Lakers to destroy them with his trash talk. Then, he criticized Ja Morant for smiling on the bench while the team was about to flame out of the playoffs.
“When you’re down 40, and you’re a superstar in this league, and you’re seen, while you’re down 40, laughing on the bench, it reeks of everything that says ‘I got my bag,’” Smith said.
The Würth 400 at Dover Motor Speedway in Dover, Delaware got underway on Monday, May 1st after getting rained out. The 400-mile race was 400 laps and Kyle Busch started on the pole, with Christopher Bell second. During Stage 1 Kyle Larson, Brandon Poole and Ross Chastain got involved in a minor accident, sending Larson to the garage. William Byron won the opening stage, marking his 6th stage win of the year. Ross Chaistain won Stage 2, his fourth stage win of the season. Martin Truex Jr. earned his 4th career win at Dover, his brother Ryan, won the Xfinity race on Saturday. Ross Chastain came in second and Ryan Blaney came in third place.
The Apple Watch Series 8 isn’t a massive step up from the prior model, but it does offer a few new features. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
In September, Apple launched its latest batch of smartwatches, introducing the first-ever Ultra ($799) alongside the Series 8 ($399) and a new Apple Watch SE ($249). Each wearable has its own pros and cons associated with it, but the introduction of the high-end Ultra also means there are now more Apple Watch models on the market before than ever before — and a lot more deals to be had.
But with all of those options, which one should you pick? Generally speaking, you want to buy the newest watch you can afford so that it continues to receive software updates from Apple. The latest update, watchOS 9, launched on the Apple Watch Series 4 and newer models in September, though no one can say with certainty whether the Series 4 will get the…
