Latest news with #Nyman
San Francisco Chronicle
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Photos: World's Ugliest Dog Contest winner a hairless pooch named Petunia
A hairless pooch named Petunia was declared the world's ugliest dog at the Sonoma County Fair in Santa Rosa. The French bulldog mix, described by owner Shannon Nyman of Eugene, Ore., as a 'world-class snuggler,' took the $5,000 top prize Friday at the World's Ugliest Dog Contest, a popular annual event with global appeal that previously was held at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Petaluma. Petunia, set to appear with Nyman on NBC's 'Today' show, will also have her own limited-edition merchandise sponsored by root beer maker Mug. The pooch's face will be printed on T-shirts, dog toys and a custom Mug can available for purchase on the TikTok shop Monday. Because of her hairlessness, Petunia requires a daily treatment of coconut oil and sunscreen, Nyman told the judges. Second place went to Jinny Lu of Sonoma County, a 5-year-old pug whose owner, Michelle Grady, is director of the Pug Hotel in Rohnert Park, a sanctuary for senior and traumatized pugs. Jinny Lu, who was rescued from Korea, also took the Spirit Award, given to a dog and owner who have overcome obstacles or provide service to their community. Other competitors included Merle Haggard, a 4-pound mutt from Long Beach; Chula the Chupacabra from Foster City; and Little Prince Wonder, an 8-year-old Chinese crested from Los Angeles. Last year's winner was Wild Thang, an 8-year-old Pekingese from North Bend, Ore., competing for the fifth time. The contest's purpose is not to make fun of ugly dogs, but to show the world 'that these dogs are really beautiful,' organizers said.
NZ Herald
01-05-2025
- Science
- NZ Herald
Fresh takes: The best new NZ poetry releases
The Anatomy of Sand by Mikaela Nyman (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $25) Many people have written poetry about the environment and climate change, but few have shown a real knowledge of how nature works. Mikaela Nyman is one. Born and raised in Finland, now living in Taranaki, Nyman has
Local Sweden
26-03-2025
- Business
- Local Sweden
What a strong Swedish krona could mean for foreigners in Sweden
The Swedish krona has grown in value in recent months against major currencies like the dollar and the euro, reaching the highest exchange rate against the euro on March 25th since the autumn of 2022. What does this mean for foreigners in Sweden? Advertisement How high is the krona right now? The Swedish krona is on an upwards curve against both the euro and US dollar, appreciating around 10 öre (0.10 kronor) on March 25th. At around 1pm on that date, one US dollar cost 10 kronor. In the days just after Christmas in 2023, a dollar cost 9.91 kronor, but before 2022 it was unusual for the dollar to cost more than 10 kronor. Meanwhile, one euro cost 10.82 kronor on the same date, which is the strongest exchange rate for the krona against the euro since the autumn of 2022. Why has the krona increased in value? According to Christina Nyman, chief economist at Handelsbanken, it's "hard to know" exactly what's behind the krona's rise. "But it might be the fact that the Swedish economy is in a better position than many other countries' economies," she said in a statement earlier in March. "Sweden has been able to cut the interest rate to what we consider a neutral level, before most other countries, because inflation has dropped." Another factor which could be playing a role is the fact that Sweden has good public finances, Nyman said. This means for example it will be able to finance future investments in defence through loans, which isn't possible for some countries. Advertisement The bank predicts that the euro will continue to drop in value throughout 2025 – in part due to the fact that Swedish finances are better than state finances in the eurozone. The European Central Bank is also expected to cut its key interest rate by 0.5 percentage points throughout the year, which could weaken the value of the euro, while Sweden's interest rate is expected to stay at the current level. Handelsbanken expects to also see the value of the dollar weaken against the krona. "In the longer term, uncertainty around tariffs and inflation problems [in the US] should drop, while [the American central bank] the Fed will continue slowly to cut interest rates," the bank wrote in a comment to the TT newswire. "In that case, the krona's value should strengthen further against the dollar." What could this mean for foreigners in Sweden? It depends on their individual financial situation, the currency they earn their salary in or hold assets in, and which currency they have the highest outgoings in. For people who live in Sweden and who are paid in kronor, the past few years have been painful when travelling abroad or sending money back home, as their Swedish money hasn't gone as far as it may have in the past. The good news is that a stronger krona means that we can expect this situation to change. You'll be able to buy more for your krona when shopping in another currency, whether you're on holiday, sending money to family back home or buying goods from other countries. On the other hand, if you have savings abroad in dollars or euros, then they are likely to be worth less if you convert them into kronor now than if you'd done so when the krona was weaker. Advertisement What can foreigners living in Sweden do if the strong krona is bad news for them? Think about the currency you're paid in It may seem like a good idea to be paid in Swedish krona if the krona is strengthening against the dollar and euro, and that may be the case in the short term, but the best way to protect against currency exchange shocks is to make sure that you're paid in the same currency that you spend in. This means that if most of your expenses are in dollars, you should try and make sure you're paid in dollars, for example. If most of your expenses are in Swedish kronor, you should make sure you're paid in Swedish kronor, so your euro or dollar paycheck doesn't suddenly shrink as the value of the krona rises. Reconsider work abroad If you've been working as a freelancer abroad or part-time for a foreign company who pays you in dollars or euros, your income may have already started to shrink. It might be worth trying to find more work in Sweden, increasing your fee for work abroad, or, if you can't get work in Sweden, looking for work in other countries where the exchange rate against the krona is still beneficial for you. Advertisement Time major spending for the best point in the market If you have savings in dollars or euros and are considering, for instance, buying a holiday house in Sweden, it is probably worth waiting until the dollar or euro has strengthened so you don't end up paying more just because of the exchange rate. Similarly, if you have savings in kronor and have been planning on buying a property outside of Sweden, now might be a good time to consider doing so. Get a multiple currency account It can be helpful to have an account in multiple currencies, such as those provided by banks such as Wise and Revolut. Keeping any cash in a combination of dollars, euros and kronor can reduce your exposure to any single currency. The advantage for foreigners living in Sweden is that you can set up accounts in multiple currencies, such as US dollars, euros and British pounds, each with their own local bank number, which you can use to receive and make payments domestically in each country. As the krona strengthens against the euro and the dollar, it may be a good idea to convert some of your kronor to these currencies, so you can get more for your money.
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Kraken Recall Top Prospect From The Firebirds
The Seattle Kraken have recalled top prospect Jani Nyman from the Coachella Valley Firebirds. Andy Glass Photography This is the 20-year-old's first call-up to the NHL, and he earned it by recording 26 goals and 41 points in 55 games, leading the team in both categories. Outside of leading the team, Nyman is tied for third in the AHL in goals and first among rookies in goals. Following the trade deadline, GM Ron Francis spoke about Nyman's impressive season, hinting that a call-up would be coming soon. Advertisement "Jani Nyman's got 26 goals, he's No.1 in the American Hockey League for rookie goal scoring and I think he's fourth for rookie scoring in points as well," said Francis. "I think he's fourth overall in goal scoring in the AHL, and that's really good for a young kid. That's exciting, and at some point here we'll give him a look too before the end of the season." Listed at 6'4, 220 lbs, Nyman's rookie season has been better than the Kraken organization would have imagined. He took home Rookie of the Month honours in February and was named as Cale Fleury's replacement for the All-Star game. The second-round pick in the 2022 NHL Draft had an impressive camp, setting the tone for the season to follow. He played in just one preseason game but showed quite a few signs of a player with confidence. Francis compared Nyman's shot to Mikko Rantanen's, showing that the organization believes he can be a star in the NHL. Advertisement The Kraken are back in action on Wednesday when they host the Montreal Canadiens, and it could be when Nyman makes his NHL debut. Stay updated with the most interesting Kraken stories, analysis, breaking news and more! Tap the star to add us to your favourites on Google News to never miss a story.
New York Times
06-02-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Baseball's brightest minds revere a reclusive engineer. No one else knows who he is
Somewhere along the Connecticut shoreline, a 77-year-old retired engineer lives in obscurity. A bevy of baseball's brightest minds call him the godfather of modern pitching. Nearly three decades ago, he entered baseball through the wilds of the internet, where his intellectual hooks set in the minds of curious coaches. This was the 1990s, and there were no trendsetting training operations like Driveline or Tread Athletics. Major league teams did not have biomechanics labs or legions of analysts. Instead, there were a few interested souls, some rabble-rousing online forums — and the engineer. Advertisement His name is Paul Nyman. He lives in the town of Westbrook, Conn., a population 6,769. Outside of Nyman's closest disciples, few today know his name. Fewer know how to contact him. 'He was kind of an enigmatic personality,' Cincinnati Reds pitching coach Derek Johnson says. 'He was really, really hard to get in touch with.' Nyman's baseball teachings influenced a generation. He left a trail of prominent disciples. But ostracized from the sport's establishment and frustrated at his inability to change minds, he gave up on baseball 17 years ago. The reasons behind his anonymity are twofold: An impatient, sometimes combative personality, coupled with a sport that was not yet ready to hear all he had to say. 'Paul changed baseball forever and for good,' said Kyle Boddy, the founder of Driveline Baseball. 'From a personal perspective, I would really like people to know that. … There's so many concepts major-league coaches, minor-league coaches, would never know, and they have no idea who Paul is.' When you see a pitcher training with a weighted ball, 'you can thank Paul Nyman,' said Ron Wolforth, the founder of Texas Baseball Ranch. When today's coaches use programs like KinaTrax to analyze mechanics, or when someone uses a term like 'scapular loading' and describes pitching as a whiplike action, they are building on ideas Nyman first popularized long ago. As his descendants helped those ideas evolve from obscure to mainstream, Nyman's perception morphed into myth. Baseball's version of Yoda on Dagobah. Nyman was among the first to debunk notions that velocity was a genetic gift and to recognize it could be trained. He was years ahead in applying physics and technology to the way coaches instruct players. Yet emails to Nyman last summer went unreturned. One phone number listed online was disconnected. Advertisement 'I haven't spoken to him for nearly five years,' Wolforth said. 'And that time it was almost like a CIA operation to contact him.' One day this winter, the phone finally lit up. And on a January afternoon, the enigma's voice came through loud and clear. 'I'm one of the best-kept secrets,' Nyman said, 'when it comes to how to throw a baseball.' He was mad scientist more than pitching coach. His curiosity stemmed from his own athletic failings. As a boy he hung carpet on an outside wall and threw baseballs into the rug one after another, dreaming of pitching for the Boston Red Sox. He grew to a skinny 6-foot-1, yet couldn't understand why a much smaller high-school teammate threw harder. Nyman was cut from his high-school team as a senior but became a collegiate high jumper at UMass-Amherst, where he majored in engineering and physics. He was enthralled as he studied the training methods of athletes in the former Soviet Union. And then, for 25 years, he lived a normal life. He married and had three children. He rose up the ranks of a company that made drives for electric motors. When his company sold and moved to Milwaukee, Nyman did not want to go. Searching for his next move, baseball and its mysteries again captivated him. The sojourn began around 1995, when he dug up film and conducted his own video analysis. Walter Johnson, Bob Feller, Sandy Koufax. Nyman concluded much of the paint-by-numbers style the sport was teaching at the time — get to a balance point, raise your arm, throw — was simply not the way great pitchers actually did it. 'The state of pitching instruction in the early 2000s, it was more myth than fact,' Nyman said. There were parallels to be found in the work of Nikolai Bernstein, who studied movement coordination in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and 1940s. One of his chief ideas was the Degrees of Freedom Problem. Bernstein, a Russian neurophysiologist, had studied the swings of blacksmiths and concluded the experts had more variation than others in their movements, not less. He then postulated the human body has a multitude of ways to accomplish a particular action. Advertisement At the time, no one was applying this to baseball. The more Nyman read, the more video he watched, the more research he conducted and the more daunting his revelations became. He was calling for a radical redefinition of training methods and pitching mechanics. Nyman's highly technical research relied on physics, 3-D skeletal models and movement patterns that had previously only been studied in javelin throwers. He described his expertise not as hitting and pitching but rather 'swinging' and 'throwing.' In a day where the hardest-throwing pitchers were thought to have simply been gifted with otherworldly talent, Nyman posited that, much like those blacksmiths, these pitchers were instead the best at organizing their bodies to help achieve a desired outcome. Their more fluid movement patterns could be studied. Arms could be strengthened. The results could be replicated. But Nyman was not a major-league coach. He had no playing experience. So why would anyone listen to … him? Nyman was flipping the pages of a magazine when his engineering sensibilities kicked in. He saw an advertisement for a bat-speed tracker and decided he could make his own and make it better. Soon he launched SETPro — Sports Engineering and Training Products — and a website that hosted his writings and his forums. He dove headfirst into a gated world and soon learned there were others clamoring to study baseball in a more critical way. As Nyman began to move amongst baseball's early-internet swashbucklers, he started attending pitching conferences across the country. There he met the people who would spread his message. Wolforth, for example, was a converted softball coach who had ventured into the muddied depths of baseball instruction. 'Paul Nyman had the greatest single influence on me,' Wolforth said, 'and I've had a lot of influences.' Advertisement As he read Nyman's work, Wolforth became fascinated by the concept of an athletic delivery. He was equally hooked by the simple concept of intent — that if a pitcher wanted to throw harder, he must actually try to throw harder. Rooted in this concept was the idea that velocity could be taught and improved. Wolforth eventually revamped everything he was teaching. Today, his Texas Baseball Ranch boasts 20 pupils who have thrown 100 mph or harder and 121 MLB draft picks. 'I believe that Paul Nyman is the equivalent of Martin Luther,' Wolforth said, 'tacking his theses on the chapel of Wittenburg and creating the Reformation.' One of the most important figures in spreading Nyman's ideas was longtime MLB pitching coach Brent Strom. Before he helped the Astros and Diamondbacks reach the World Series, he was a rogue minor-league pitching coordinator for the Montreal Expos. While most in the pro game rejected the eccentric ideas of an engineer who did not play baseball beyond high school, Strom — a former MLB pitcher — was drawn to Nyman's contrarianism. 'If you really think about it, the great pitchers are extremely athletic,' Strom said. 'It wasn't really important where you were in space. It was what was happening between the spaces, between the movements. Were they aggressive? Were you moving with momentum? That's where Nyman came into play.' In 2003, Strom invited Nyman to Expos spring training. The two shared a small room. Strom knew there might be drawbacks. 'He's not the most — how should I say it? — sensitive,' Strom said. Nonetheless, Nyman put on a gray shirt and a red Expos hat. One afternoon toward the end of camp, a player approached. He was on the roster bubble, and he wanted to know if Nyman had any ideas that could help. Nyman offered a few suggestions. The player, Nyman says, pitched well and reported back, pleased. Then another coach called Strom into the office and gave an order: Do not let him talk to players. Years later, Strom would still email Nyman and ask for help with a pitcher's mechanics. But that spring training was Nyman's first experience in the pro game, and also his last. 'That, to me, was the paradox,' Nyman said. 'I had a player I thought I had helped. And yet I was being chastised for doing so.' Twenty years after Nyman's rejection, current Georgia Bulldogs coach Wes Johnson led a wave of outsiders who penetrated the traditions of the major-league game. He never played professionally, but in 2019 Johnson jumped straight from college coaching to spend 3 1/2 seasons as pitching coach for the Minnesota Twins. He still keeps a flash drive with one of Nyman's e-books on pitching in his backpack. When he visits with young coaches, he often asks: Do you know who Paul Nyman is? Advertisement Some do. More do not. 'I'll tell them: You're teaching things that Paul taught in '99,' he said. Between his time with the Twins and the new gig at Georgia, Johnson spent 2023 as the pitching coach at LSU. There, he helped mentor a transfer from Air Force named Paul Skenes. Skenes became a No. 1 draft pick and arguably the biggest pitching prospect in a generation. 'You look at the transformation of his delivery from when we got him at LSU to what you see now,' Wes Johnson said, 'his upper body and the way his arm learned to swivel out, that's Paul Nyman 101.' Derek Johnson, the Reds pitching coach, was at Vanderbilt around the time he began following Nyman's work. Count Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake, Red Sox bullpen coach Chris Holt and Tread Athletics founder Ben Brewster among other pitching minds Nyman's teachings influenced. Another coach, Jeff Albert, brings a different perspective. In his home office, Albert keeps binders filled with printouts of Nyman's old forum posts. Sitting in a box, he still has three of the bat speed training devices Nyman used to manufacture. 'He was like the Wizard of Oz to me,' Albert said. As a college player, Albert transferred from D-III Rochester Institute of Technology to D-I Butler. At Butler, Albert was quickly told he was not going to play. He simply didn't have the bat speed. At least not until he discovered where Nyman dissected the mechanics of the swing just as he did the intricacies of the throwing motion. The training programs, paired with his bat-speed computer, relied on overload/underload training — essentially, swinging heavier or lighter objects to build speed and strength. This was the hitting version of weighted balls. Home for winter break, Albert followed Nyman's program. He claims he gained 17 mph of bat speed in about 17 days. He posted his results on the forums. Advertisement Albert returned to Butler, started smashing baseballs and quickly became the starting third baseman. Today he is the director of hitting for the New York Mets. 'I just had this incredible view of what (Nyman) was doing,' Albert said, 'and I was like, 'I want to do that.'' The real action was on the SETPro forums. The message boards were a grand marketplace for baseball ideas. They led Nyman to work with a handful of professional players such as Mark Johnson. Robert Stock, a one-time teenage baseball prodigy, practically grew up on Nyman's longwinded posts, his skeletal models and the equations he used to explain biomechanical mysteries. 'SETPro,' Derek Johnson said, 'was that unique, almost dark web.' Nyman built a small baseball lab in Connecticut and did some instruction, but it was a local operation and never really his priority. Albert called the bat-speed radar '20 years ahead of its time.' But the instruction manuals could be dense. The devices were not exactly user-friendly. There was never a business partner or marketing arm to lift SETPro off the ground. Nyman's quirks did not aid the operation. 'It wasn't a struggle to relate,' Nyman said. 'It was a struggle to get noticed. The negative was trying to get any kind of recognition at levels most people considered gospel, which was the professional level.' More than any of that, Nyman's warts came out on the forums. Pleasant in person, he could be ruthless behind a keyboard. Nyman and Dick Mills, a popular pitching instructor at the time, traded barbs on their respective websites. Nyman once created a post entitled 'Top 10 List of Internet Wannabe Baseball Instructional Gurus.' He mocked personalities such as Richard Schenk, a.k.a. Teacherman, the hitting coach now famous for working with Aaron Judge. 'I don't look at it as vicious,' Nyman says now. 'I had little patience. To me, it was either my way or the highway. A lot of times I had very strong feelings, and that person would have very strong feelings on their end. So it was two bulls crashing together.' Advertisement Nyman, though, had ups and downs with even his closest followers. 'I think there's a part of him, he'd like to be in his Batcave and he'd like to work on ideas,' Wolforth said. 'I don't think people are his favorite thing. I think he's reclusive by nature. I think baseball brought him out of the cave, and sometimes it didn't go well.' The forums are now defunct, but traces of their contents lurk deep in internet archives. By 2007, Nyman was growing frustrated with baseball and anyone who didn't wholly subscribe to his ideas. 'My frustration is gone to (the) level where I really could care less about dealing with anyone other than those who are totally dedicated and willing to buy into what I do here hook, line and sinker,' he wrote in one post. 'And more importantly stick it out. And most importantly not just (go through) the motions of thinking that you know what I know.' Obsession comes with a devastating risk: Disillusionment. 'I basically gave up on baseball,' Nyman said. 'I said, 'enough is enough.'' Kyle Boddy scrolled those forums, read those opuses, learned from those ideas. In 2012, Boddy opened what we now know as Driveline Baseball. The high-tech Washington operation first gained fame thanks to players like Trevor Bauer. Then major leaguers began flocking to the facility each winter, seeking the next edge. 'Paul was more about the research side of it,' Wes Johnson said. 'Paul did not go out and open up a place. And why he didn't do that, I don't know. But if he would have, everybody would know exactly who he is.' Boddy is the first to acknowledge much of his success contained an element of luck. Being in the right place with the right people at the right time. Fascinating, then, to wonder what would have happened if Nyman had come along 10 years later, when baseball's stodgy traditions began crumbling at the hands of data and science. Advertisement Nyman faded from the game beginning in 2008. He took a job designing defibrillators and found it more rewarding, occasionally appearing at conferences but otherwise staying away from baseball. By 2019, Boddy was working for the Cincinnati Reds. He's now a special adviser with the Boston Red Sox. 'He gave up,' Boddy said, 'at precisely the wrong time.' These days, Nyman lives a quiet life. While he spoke on a video call this winter, his wife, a retired librarian, was reading to children at a local elementary school. 'She runs interference for me,' Nyman said. 'You talked about my being somewhat difficult, and she's the person who is the total antithesis of myself.' There is a daughter, Meredith, who lives in Boston. There is a son, Matthew, a former professional soccer goalie. There's also Andrew, a son who died tragically in 2002, at age 27. 'That kind of changed my direction, in terms of who I was and what I was doing,' Nyman said. He left baseball with bridges burned. But Boddy and many others took Nyman's ideas, built on them and turned those seeds of change into transformative concepts. Before velocities rose, hitters flailed (and yes, injuries spiked), there was the engineer and his forums. 'It doesn't take a lot of research to know Paul is the origin of a lot of what we believe in,' Boddy said. 'And maybe that's what bothers Paul, and I had never thought of it until I said it. People say these things, and they're not intellectually curious enough to know where it comes from. I think that could make Paul really mad, and I think it should.' At his home in Connecticut, Nyman talks about his baseball life with a strange sense of longing. Not quite bitterness. Not quite regret. 'I think it was just the frustration of … I thought I had all this information that was good stuff,' Nyman said, 'and I just couldn't penetrate as deeply as I wish I could have in terms of getting people to accept.' On that January day, Nyman joined the video call but left his camera off. A fuller picture of his story emerged. In the black box on screen, traces of the enigma remained. (Top photo of Skenes: Orlando Ramirez / Getty Images)
