It may only be spring training, but baseball has started and I am finally getting to watch a game. It really wouldn’t matter if there was a foot of snow on the ground, spring training is the signal that winter is closing and there is hope for the summer ahead for a good deal of us. Is baseball what it once was in American culture? No, sadly, it isn’t. If you have any doubts as to how deeply rooted baseball was in everyday America for almost a hundred years, you really need to check out Ken Burns’ documentary on the subject. Even if you don’t like the game, it is eighteen and a half hours of pure Americana. For almost one hundred years, baseball reacted to the state of the nation, and the nation reacted to baseball in ways you would never have imagined. The game was often used to introduce ideas and situations to the common man in a spectrum they could comprehend, almost a social test bed. It truly was “America’s Pastime”, and was an integral part of the common man’s day-to-day life.
What was it that made the game so beloved? Possibly one reason was the fact that the players looked like everyone else. They were the common man making good. Keep in mind, I am talking about an era before steroid ridden iron-pumpers as the norm. You can go back to the mid-eighties, and the players still look like ordinary guys out on the field. Even guys below average in size could become stars (this is in no way a reference to Eddie Gaedel…but if you only check out one episode of the Burns documentary, Bill Veeck’s showmanship during the 1940s and 1950s is very telling). Wee Willie Keeler was one of the great hitters of his (or any) time, and was listed at only 5’7” tall….though eye witnesses say that 5’4” was more realistic. Keeler compiled the 14th highest career batting average of all time, and still held records that stood over a hundred years. When asked about the method for his success, he uttered the infamous sentence “I just hit ‘em where they ain’t”. He was living proof that size could be very, very deceptive.
Noctua adds a new entry into high end, low profile cooling with the new NH-L12 CPU Cooler. The Noctua NH-L12 is a distinct departure from what one typically thinks of in a low profile solution and retains all of Noctua’s signature strong points, ultra-high end build quality and legendary near silent fans. “Fans” in the plural, because the NH-L12 is actually a dual fan low profile cooler, utilizing a 120mm fan on top of the cooling tower, with a 92mm under the tower just above the CPU itself. Both fans are PWM capable for speed control, and a low noise adapter is included in the kit, as well. While the NH-L12 stands at a mere 93mm with both fans in place, it is also capable of operating with only the 92mm fan, thereby cutting down the height to an ultra-slim 66mm for even the tightest of slimline cases. Though the NH-L12 is smaller in stature, it retains use of the Noctua SecuFirm 2 mounting kit, for quick, easy and solid installation and requires no backplate to be used in Intel Mini ITX environments. The Noctua NH-L12 provides extremely flexible mounting options, and is compatible with Intel LGA2011/1366/1156/1155/775, as well as AMD AM2/3 and FM1.
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