[HN Gopher] George Foreman has died
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       George Foreman has died
        
       Author : wallflower
       Score  : 300 points
       Date   : 2025-03-22 02:56 UTC (20 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (variety.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (variety.com)
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | NYT obit https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/sports/george-
       | foreman-dea...
        
       | artursapek wrote:
       | RIP legend
        
       | momoschili wrote:
       | the foreman grills gets a lot of flack but it's a damn good
       | cooking utensil and if not for him I'm not sure it would have
       | been as publicized as it was.
       | 
       | also a great dad, christian, and boxer
       | 
       | RIP
        
         | fibonachos wrote:
         | That little grill got me through many years of apartment living
         | where I couldn't have a propane grill.
        
         | Fezzik wrote:
         | 5 marriages... 100% Christian. No way to say it better.
        
           | rsyring wrote:
           | I don't know what 100% Christian is intended to imply here,
           | although it's obviously critical.
           | 
           | Biblical christianity isn't for the perfect or righteous, but
           | for sinners. Christ rejoices more over the one sinner that
           | repents than the 99 who need no repentance (John 15).
           | 
           | I don't know much about Foreman. But, his fifth marriage did
           | last 40 years. Seems like, at some point, his perspective on
           | marriage/commitment got more aligned with biblical wisdom.
        
           | orthoxerox wrote:
           | Do you think Jacob had his twelve sons with the same woman?
        
             | washadjeffmad wrote:
             | What we do today is totally moral and normal, and cultural
             | practices prior to what we grew up with are sinful
             | barbarism.
        
           | kubb wrote:
           | Being a Christian celebrity doesn't require you to stick to
           | Christian values. It's much more important to proclaim your
           | membership than to live it. It's like wearing a team jersey
           | without playing the game. The appearance matters more than
           | the practice.
           | 
           | Christianity in America is like a brand - more about identity
           | and affiliation than discipleship or doctrine.
        
         | MrMcCall wrote:
         | > also a great dad, christian, and boxer
         | 
         | Indeed. Very much so.
         | 
         | You can learn more about him in this conversation one of his
         | sons has with comedian Daniel Tosh, who's his neighbor and
         | friend:
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itWm0ZLwcus
         | 
         | George Foreman III demonstrates how deserving GF was of all his
         | success. He and GF3 are the best of humanity. And Tosh being a
         | very kind and open-hearted human being, too, makes the
         | conversation not only interesting but simply enjoyable,
         | especially for its insights into his legendary father's life.
        
       | silisili wrote:
       | RIP. Was a big fan of Foreman growing up, even though his initial
       | heyday was before my time. Which is one of the reasons I'm fond
       | of him today - he was 48 years old when he was last heavyweight
       | boxing champ.
       | 
       | Every time I'm feeling "too old" to do something physical, I try
       | to remember the baddest man on the planet was older than I am now
       | - a fact that is still crazy to achy 'old' me now.
        
         | MrMcCall wrote:
         | Same here, and well said, friend.
         | 
         | If you're interested in seeing an interesting conversation one
         | of his sons has with brilliant comedian Daniel Tosh, where they
         | talk about his legendary father, check out:
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itWm0ZLwcus
         | 
         | What a cultured man, raised by a true man of God. George
         | Foreman is a testament to the best of humanity, and this one
         | son (at least) is a testament to that humanity.
         | 
         | What a life, what a legacy!
        
           | silisili wrote:
           | Thanks! It's getting late so I only watched the first 20 mins
           | for now, but agreed. He obviously had a great upbringing.
           | I'll check out the rest tomorrow.
           | 
           | That aside, I used to love Tosh.0, and didn't even know he
           | was still around. I'm a little sad to see him becoming and
           | even sounding like Bill Maher. The old edge pusher is gone,
           | understandably. We all got old and I hate it :).
        
             | MrMcCall wrote:
             | He's no Bill Maher, friend. Tosh despises Trump, because
             | Tosh has that surfer chill and believes in being kind.
             | 
             | And I still think he's super funny, if not quite so edgy.
             | His "WWJD rubber bracelet" bit has one of my favorite
             | punchlines ever.
             | 
             | If you want to see a great (IMO) younger comedian, check
             | out Greer Barnes. I discovered him yesterday and I've not
             | laughed that hard at a comedian in quite a while. He is
             | next-level brilliant.
             | 
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8alpJV1V9pM
             | 
             | Peace be with you, friend.
        
               | bentobean wrote:
               | Wait, I'm confused. Are you both insinuating that Bill
               | Maher is a Trump fan?
        
               | silisili wrote:
               | I don't even know Maher's politics, I just meant Tosh was
               | beginning to sound like and even talk like him(the
               | cadence/pausing etc). He used to be a real fast talker.
               | One could also argue he's even starting to look that way.
               | 
               | All I meant to imply is that he and we are getting old,
               | but it is weird to me how much he sounds like Maher to me
               | in that clip.
        
               | bentobean wrote:
               | Ah, I see. Thanks for clarifying.
        
         | scop wrote:
         | Amen. Having dabbled in martial arts and had the good pleasure
         | of hitting my mid thirties, his ability to win at 48 is nothing
         | short of jaw dropping. Shouldn't be possible.
        
       | bedhead wrote:
       | What a life.
        
         | owlninja wrote:
         | You said it, what a legend. Highly recommend the documentary
         | "When We Were Kings". RIP Big George.
        
       | racl101 wrote:
       | George was a beast. Dominant Boxer. One of the greats.
       | 
       | Also, I loved, loved my Foreman grill. Made so many good meals in
       | college.
        
       | cyanbane wrote:
       | "Although Foreman never confirmed exactly how much he has earned
       | from the endorsement, Salton paid him $138 million in 1999 for
       | the right to use his name. Prior to that, he was paid about 40%
       | of the profits on each grill sold (earning him $4.5 million a
       | month in payouts at its peak), yielding an estimated total of
       | over $200 million just from the endorsement through 2011,
       | substantially more than he earned as a boxer."
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Foreman
       | 
       | Not sure if luck or stars just aligned. But that is some legit
       | naming rights. Kudos to maybe, and I mean it... one of the best
       | at it.
        
         | DoesntMatter22 wrote:
         | Hulk Hogan told the story of how this was brought to him first
         | to endorse but she insisted it was stupid and that instead he
         | endorse the Hulk Hogan Thunder Mixer, a handheld blender.
         | 
         | He rolled his eye the whole time he told the story.
        
           | gojomo wrote:
           | Who's the 'she' in this story?
        
             | ffhhj wrote:
             | Shehulk
        
             | wyldfire wrote:
             | Maybe his talent agent?
        
             | DoesntMatter22 wrote:
             | Sorry, his wife. I missed a word or two there lol
        
           | dkarl wrote:
           | I mean... I consider myself a versatile home cook, and I've
           | owned and used more products similar to the Thunder Mixer
           | than products similar to the George Foreman grill. Sometimes
           | it's a mystery what people buy. Why would you buy a separate
           | appliance rather than a ridged grill pan for your stove top?
        
             | fisherjeff wrote:
             | Because it knocks out the fat, obviously
        
             | cma wrote:
             | Doesn't it cook steaks on both sides at once?
        
               | noduerme wrote:
               | yes, and it also drains all the juice out through little
               | grooves. The very concept is completely mental. No one
               | should abuse a piece of meat that way.
        
               | creato wrote:
               | Isn't it equivalent to an actual grill in that regard? I
               | haven't heard anyone say that a grill is abusing meat.
        
               | noduerme wrote:
               | I always sear meat on a flat top first anyway, but the
               | advantage with an actual grill is that it has flames
               | which help seal the outside of the meat quickly. Much
               | more so than the heat radiating from the Foreman Grill
               | grooves. Without a quick sear, you end up with a rubbery
               | and dry piece of meat.
        
               | owlninja wrote:
               | The foreman grill was not meant for seasoned steak
               | cookers, it was typically for college kids or first time
               | apartment dwellers. It had it's time and place and it was
               | obviously not meant for you in this current time and
               | place.
        
               | TwoPhonesOneKid wrote:
               | Meats don't really seal unless you're literally tarring
               | them with char, and besides, juices leak from the side
               | just fine. You really want to steam off the water content
               | of a steak to get a better texture and fewer grease-runs.
               | The entire meme about searing is literally just a
               | decently crunchy texture. Flip steaks as much as you
               | want.
               | 
               | The high "sear" temperature mostly implies a faster (and
               | easy-to-follow) cook-time, but it still requires salting
               | the steak to drain as much moisture as possible. It's
               | certainly the smarter texhniwue, but not because it seals
               | juices in.
               | 
               | (Also, "searing" a steak does in fact slow the rate of
               | water loss, so it is easier to control cook-quality and
               | easier to cook whilst distracted. But this undermines my
               | main point that water content actually ruins the steak,
               | and that you can get the same texture and taste with a
               | different technique.)
        
               | noduerme wrote:
               | First of all, I'm talking about searing on a flat top.
               | Which doesn't char. And it does keep in the moisture.
               | Especially if you've got fat on the side of the meat. But
               | the best reason to do this is not to hold in the water,
               | but to get a consistently even temperature in the final
               | steak.
               | 
               | It is _not_ a fast process. The steak needs to be rested
               | at room temperature for an hour. Then seared 2 minutes
               | each side, maximum heat, seasoning before you turn it
               | down. Taken off the flat top or cast iron pan, which you
               | deglaze, and pour over the steak. Rested another 30
               | minutes. Return to a cast iron pan and put in the oven at
               | 450F for 8 minutes for a 1 " steak rare, plus 2-3 minutes
               | to medium rare. (11 minutes for a 1" ribeye to MR).
               | 
               | What happens is that the outside is seasoned brown, well
               | cooked and most of the juice stays in, but the interior
               | fat melts down and you end up cutting through a piece of
               | meat that is exactly the same color and temperature from
               | the inside to the very edge of the outside.
               | 
               | If you do want to cook on a grill, obviously don't
               | grease-stain it by flipping it a lot or trying to sear it
               | there. Put your cast iron pan on the grill, sear it in
               | that, and then finish it on the grates for flavor and
               | char.
        
               | TwoPhonesOneKid wrote:
               | I'm just pointing out you can get the same food with a
               | quarter (at most) of the prep time and twice the flipping
               | if you approach it experimentally at the same heat. Very
               | much including basting. If you think steakhouses let
               | steaks sit out before cooking them you're nuts--they
               | might get nuked for five seconds for approximately the
               | same effect. Letting them sit is just a convenience while
               | prepping the rest of dinner.
               | 
               | Also, tenderizing the meat is about 10x as effective as
               | letting it rest at room temperature. Not only does it
               | warm the meat much faster, it reduces cook time, draws
               | moisture out, and improves the crust. A minute of beating
               | the shit out of the steak can trivially improve on an
               | hour of sitting out (as if we have the time most days!).
               | The grid-slice pattern is also very effective, even if it
               | looks trashy. It's trashy because it's cheap and it works
               | so well any cheap steakhouse will do it to obscure the
               | shitty produce. Just make sure to do the tenderizing
               | before you apply the salt.
               | 
               | Of course if you enjoy cooking, don't let my advice ruin
               | it. Food is a lot more enjoyable if you feel satisfied
               | eating it. Not everyone needs to optimize for cook-time.
        
               | TwoPhonesOneKid wrote:
               | Steaks being cooked naturally drain juice. The entire
               | concept of searing a steak "sealing" the juices in
               | implies a cooking paradigm that simply doesn't hold up to
               | experimentation. You _want_ to cook off water mass from a
               | good steak--it 's better flavor, better texture, and
               | you're left with far less grease in your soup-catcher.
               | 
               | If you cook enough steaks, it's quite hard to get a dry
               | one, and you can get excellent texture and taste despite
               | draining the "juice" (which is like 80% of why you salt
               | the steak to begin with--moisture = less even and harder
               | to control cooking which results in a chewier crust).
        
               | kuhewa wrote:
               | We had one on a yacht I crewed that did ecotour sorta
               | sails. When we'd catch a small tuna, after the trips I'd
               | butterfly it and George Foreman it. No added oil just
               | right on the Teflon cooking surface and texture and taste
               | would come out sorta like fried chicken. It was great
        
               | chongli wrote:
               | I think the issue is that the weight of the lid and top
               | grill pressing down on the steak squeezes a lot more
               | juice out than if you grilled the steak on regular grill
               | that heats from below.
        
               | SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
               | You usually press down on it or use a weight with a
               | regular grill. You want a crust from a Maillard reaction
               | on the outer surfaces, with a less-cooked interior.
        
               | chongli wrote:
               | I do not do that. I use the reverse sear technique
               | popularized by Kenji Lopez-Alt. This involves heating the
               | steak to near-doneness over indirect heat, followed by an
               | intense sear over direct heat. A brief rest period in
               | between allows an even better sear, as the surface has a
               | bit of time to dry out and the internal temperature to
               | drop a bit, enabling more time over high heat.
        
               | cma wrote:
               | A ridged grill pan like OP suggested does the same, or to
               | the extent it collects underneath it steams part of your
               | steak, or if it fills to the point it is touching the
               | steak again it partly boils it for some of the cook time.
               | The Foreman grill sears it more like a real open grill by
               | letting the water drain away instead of having to boil
               | off for part of the cooking. A regular flat pan does some
               | of this too since the water is pushed out to the sides
               | faster and boils off away from the steak letting it sear
               | better.
        
               | emeril wrote:
               | I used to only use one side of the grille and usually not
               | close it for most things where I cared about retaining
               | the moisture
        
             | noduerme wrote:
             | I asked my ex once why she owned a bullet blender instead
             | of a normal blender, and her response was "not for drugs, I
             | just saw the infomercial"
        
               | zizee wrote:
               | Normal blenders have substantially more cleanup work
               | involved.
        
               | noduerme wrote:
               | But they also don't break as often. And can hold a larger
               | capacity. And don't spill. Admittedly, the thought of
               | cleanup has put me off the occasional late night
               | margarita...
        
               | philwelch wrote:
               | If you have a powerful enough blender like a Blendtec or
               | Vitamix you can just put soap and water in it and run the
               | blender itself to clean it.
        
               | philiplu wrote:
               | Yep. I paid something like $650 for a Vitablend at a
               | restaurant supply store about 20 years ago. That's the
               | commercial version of a Vitamix. Thing is a tank, and has
               | blended many many gallons of soups, smoothies, grain into
               | flour, etc. over the years. Cleanup is hot water and a
               | couple squirts of dishwasher liquid and run it on high a
               | few seconds. Had to replace the jar a few years ago, but
               | the base will outlive me.
        
               | kjellsbells wrote:
               | The other huge advantage: you can get parts for decades.
               | With good kitchen gear you want to buy it once for life.
               | Need a new cap, or jug, for a 2001 model? No big deal.
               | You dont get that with the stuff from Target. (It is also
               | not correlated to price, eg my zojirushi rice cooker
               | offers the same capability but was way cheaper than the
               | fancy korean rice cookers in the store.)
        
               | philiplu wrote:
               | Past the edit time, but I had the name wrong. It's a
               | Vita-Prep 3, not Vitablend, that's the commercial model I
               | bought.
        
               | bombcar wrote:
               | The downside is they're louder than a prop plane doing a
               | run up.
               | 
               | There are some with sound insulation covers.
               | 
               | But the blendtec is one of my best purchases ever -
               | especially in "I never have to think about this again".
        
             | brudgers wrote:
             | I have both a cast iron grill pan and a Forman. I use the
             | Forman frequently because it heats up fast, cleans easy,
             | and reliably cooks both sides at once...without oil, butter
             | etc.
             | 
             | The grill pan has none of those attributes and can't press
             | a grilled cheese.
             | 
             | Yes it takes up counter space and is ultimately going to
             | the landfill. I wish that were otherwise, but for me, they
             | aren't deal breakers.
        
             | jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
             | Some friends of mine back then had a reason I think may
             | have been pretty common: they lived an apartment building
             | that didn't allow combustion grills on the balconies. And
             | coincidentally this sort of rental property is exactly the
             | type to have an absolutely fake junk "extractor" for
             | handling smoke in the kitchen. So they could put the
             | Foreman on the patio and do an okish job with some steaks
             | or burgers without smoking up the whole place.
        
               | kurttheviking wrote:
               | This was exactly my reason when I lived in a tiny
               | apartment in Boston having no exhaust or fan in the
               | kitchen itself. Put the Foreman Grill by a window with
               | some burgers cooking, job done.
        
               | bsenftner wrote:
               | There's warm weekends in Boston when strolling along one
               | can look into the alleys and see a dozen Foremen Grills
               | in action on the fire escapes. Fond memories of those
               | days.
        
               | bluedino wrote:
               | Apartment dweller here who misses his Weber and
               | Blackstone.
               | 
               | A regular pan on a hot plate or portable induction hob
               | makes a far, far better steak than a Foreman.
               | 
               | I'd be a crime to put a decent steak on one of those
               | things.
        
               | astura wrote:
               | People were cooking burgers and chicken on these things,
               | no steak.
               | 
               | Also, George Foreman grills were popular in the late
               | 90s/early 2000s, before induction hobs were really much
               | of a thing.
        
             | weinzierl wrote:
             | Maybe precisely because the guy endorsing one product is
             | much more relatable than the guy endorsing the other.
             | 
             | Nothing against Hulk Hogan, he is certainly one of a kind,
             | but when it comes to my food I'd take advice from a down to
             | earth type like Foreman a thousand times over that from a
             | persona as detached from real life as Hogan's.
        
           | TwoPhonesOneKid wrote:
           | Hulk Hogan also destroyed gawker because he was too cowardish
           | to admit he's a sex freak. Obviously Peter Thiel was involved
           | because he's too cowardish to admit he's gay, but the
           | takeaway is that our society is run by toddlers who never
           | learned to regulate their emotions (let alone manage the
           | wealth a capitalist society allegedly demands. Eg people
           | outside of Buffet demanding to be taxed more and Chuck Feeney
           | making the gates foundation look like money-grubbing
           | assholes).
        
             | noduerme wrote:
             | It's interesting that we ended up with Hogan, Ventura, and
             | Trump as figures in our politics. I feel like the last time
             | a republic got to that point, there was a lot of lead in
             | the water. I guess now it's mostly plastic in the brain.
        
               | TwoPhonesOneKid wrote:
               | Yea it turns out when you divorce politics from anything
               | that matters it just becomes reality tv. Americans are
               | too moronic to wield the power they claim today so it's
               | hard to feel anything negative about this.
        
               | somenameforme wrote:
               | I'm not sure it's fair to mock the public figures,
               | because it's not like the guys in between them were
               | anything particularly remarkable either. Democracy
               | doesn't select skilled leaders, it selects charismatic
               | ones with 'flexible moral values' of the sort that are
               | useful for gaining sufficient backers. It's fairly
               | predictable that democracies with relatively wide
               | suffrage would trend towards electing pop figures.
               | 
               | This also is exactly democracy was mostly felt to be an
               | unsustainable system by the ancient philosophers. And in
               | reading Plato's assessment of democracy, and its cycles,
               | in "The Republic", he sounds like much more like a
               | prophet than a philosopher.
        
               | pests wrote:
               | Eh, we had Reagan and Schwarzenegger and others before
               | too
        
               | wqaatwt wrote:
               | They put in some effort to not behave like clowns after
               | getting elected, though
        
               | zimpenfish wrote:
               | Schwarzenegger, maybe, but Reagan? The man was a horror
               | show as president.
        
               | wqaatwt wrote:
               | Not sure, I'm a bit too young but the standards seem to
               | have been much higher back in those days. Reagan's
               | [public] behavior would still be pretty tame nowadays.
               | 
               | Of course broadcasting your deranged random thoughts to
               | the whole world in the middle of the night wasn't really
               | and option and listening to Nixon's tapes the way they
               | behaved in private was well.. quite something. I don't
               | even believe that Nixon was especially egregious either
               | he just decided to record everything anyone said in his
               | office due to whatever reasons.
               | 
               | And then you had career politicians like Johnson who
               | might have been even more vulgar than Trump..
        
               | zimpenfish wrote:
               | > Not sure, I'm a bit too young
               | 
               | I, sadly, am not and he was a horror show.
               | 
               | > but the standards seem to have been much higher back in
               | those days.
               | 
               | He was a service-cutting, union-busting, lunatic military
               | hawk guided by Nancy's astrologer. Sure, he's not as
               | overtly and in-your-face as bad as Trump (who could be?)
               | but that doesn't preclude him being a horror show in and
               | of himself.
        
               | epistasis wrote:
               | Don't forget Schwarzenegger too, but both he and Ventura
               | are objectively less evil than Thiel.
        
               | fakedang wrote:
               | Are we forgetting the original one, Ronald Reagan? Guy
               | was a literal middling actor, whose only claim to fame
               | was snitching on Communist sympathizers in Hollywood when
               | it was cool.
        
               | fwip wrote:
               | I'm pretty sure all of them, as well as the most reliable
               | voter age bracket, all grew up with lead in the gasoline
               | still.
        
               | TwoPhonesOneKid wrote:
               | This theory has held up poorly to other theories, such as
               | the federal legalization of abortion. Positing a single
               | cause, even a single dominating cause, is an incredibly,
               | incredibly hard claim to demonstrate. I do believe that
               | unleading gasoline had widespread social impacts, but
               | this narrative is just lazy reduction with no benefit.
               | 
               | Personally, I think the easiest theory is simply economic
               | prosperity. Most American problems these days can be
               | described in terms of relationship to wealth. changes in
               | education take decades to reflect in aggregate
               | effectiveness. If nothing changes, I think we'll be
               | facing a similarly-violent time period for likely the
               | rest of our lives, even if we aren't there yet.
        
             | epistasis wrote:
             | Gawker destroyed Gawker, they acted like toddlers
             | themselves and lost in a way that seemed like they were
             | trying to.
        
               | TwoPhonesOneKid wrote:
               | Gawker still acted more mature in terms of the defamatory
               | content than any given social network. This is as clear a
               | case of revenge-murder as you can find. I just want to
               | know who convinced Hulk Hogan anyone cares about him who
               | doesn't already love him. As far as I know he's still the
               | mustache guy of unknown import who was in that funny
               | nanny movie in the nineties I saw at age four. who cares
               | if he swings?
               | 
               | This was obviously about a man's insecurity leveraging
               | the courts to destroy a publicly-valuable business beyond
               | any reasonable conception of justice. Somehow the new
               | york times was never held to the same standard when they
               | published blatant lies and enabled the invasion of iraq
               | and a million murdered.
        
               | janderson215 wrote:
               | >> publicly-valuable business
               | 
               | "Valuable" is doing a lot of work here. This is a tabloid
               | you're talking about. This is not an institution like NYT
               | or WaPo.
        
               | TwoPhonesOneKid wrote:
               | Gawker was a far more valuable institution than both of
               | the above. I'm not sure how you could claim otherwise:
               | both papers just regurgitate ap headlines with
               | misanthropic assholes managing the editing. Gawker at
               | least managed to break news and contribute to discourse
               | beyond the ivy-league toadies that contribute nothing
               | substantial beyond dogmatic reverwnce for broken
               | institutions that were wildly out of date a hundred years
               | ago.
               | 
               | Centrist idiots blathering about institutional integrity
               | and decorum destroyed this country. I refuse to let them
               | gain power again. I far prefer gossip rags to imperial
               | stooges: at least they're honest about their dishonesty.
               | They also never stooped to the level of the new york
               | times endorsing an obviously illegal invasion.
               | 
               | Granted, both are equally willing to cater towards the
               | american demand for blood rather than justice. But at
               | least I can blame the poeple actually at the capitol for
               | january sixth. Who the hell can I blame for the mass-
               | complacency and dogmatism of college-educated liberals
               | aside from the very same ignorant mass? Until a better
               | scapegoat arrives, the editorial boards of ivy-league-
               | catering newspapers will have to do.
               | 
               | Why do people not read manufacturing consent? It's the
               | only text american adults should be reading. Everything
               | else doesn't matter.
        
               | jrmg wrote:
               | It was more than just Gawker, it was a whole collection
               | of blogs that I'd say were indeed 'valuable'. The whole
               | story is too much to convey in a post here, but Wikipedia
               | has good (or, at least, comprehensive) articles about
               | it.*
               | 
               | I'm what TwoPhonesOneKid calls a 'centrist idiot' in
               | their peer comment (hey, look, I'm treating them with
               | _decorum_!), and I don't think it was more valuable than
               | the NYT, but Gawker Media was a blog staple with a wide
               | reach, and those blogs did real journalism in a wide
               | range of fields in addition to click bait. Some of them
               | arguably recovered under new ownership, but many did not.
               | 
               | * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gawker_Media,
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollea_v._Gawker
        
               | epistasis wrote:
               | Here is a very brief excerpt from a lot of shocking
               | testimony from Gawker's editor; it was Gawker's own self-
               | destructive behavior that destroyed them. Without
               | testimony like this they would still be operating:
               | 
               | > "Can you imagine a situation where a celebrity sex tape
               | would not be newsworthy?" asked the lawyer, Douglas E.
               | Mirell.
               | 
               | > "If they were a child," Mr. Daulerio replied.
               | 
               | > "Under what age?" the lawyer pressed.
               | 
               | > "Four."
               | 
               | https://archive.is/2016.03.10-033848/http://www.nytimes.c
               | om/...
        
             | Dwedit wrote:
             | I think the multiple N-bombs in the tape were the much
             | bigger problem.
        
             | vasco wrote:
             | Weird attribution of morality when buffet gave $40B to the
             | gates foundation. Also, aren't we all toddlers who never
             | learned to regulate their emotions? You and me just cause
             | less hubris because we don't have as much power and the
             | time to convince ourselves we deserve it.
        
             | nemo44x wrote:
             | Gawker destroyed itself because they let a reckless drug
             | addict make editorial decisions while high and drunk which
             | ended in the demise of the company. Fortunately that editor
             | has recovered and has a neat blog/newsletter that focuses
             | on substance abuse.
        
           | astura wrote:
           | Hulk Hogan is also a compulsive liar, so I don't believe this
           | story.
        
             | jfrbfbreudh wrote:
             | To the downvoters: Hogan is a notorious liar and definitely
             | lied about the grill story.
             | 
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AukVofRrSP8
             | 
             | If you have some time to kill, this is a fun video to
             | watch. Otherwise, you can just google his long list of
             | lies.
        
         | Uptrenda wrote:
         | Man, those grills are useful. What I like about their
         | engineering is you can run them on a typical kitchen circuit
         | without worrying about a circuit breaker being triggered. This
         | is not always true with other appliances. Typically stuff that
         | can heat is very power consuming. Even washing machines and
         | stuff like that can sometimes trip breakers (heat + spin). So
         | yeah, it can be convenient.
        
           | washadjeffmad wrote:
           | They were also incredibly easy to clean. Whoever designed it
           | was intimately aware of both the struggle of cleaning a grill
           | grate and not being able to fit pans in dishwasher or
           | standard kitchen sink.
        
             | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
             | The predecessors to the Salton design in the 80s suffered
             | this problem. The hot sandwich makers and grills with no
             | drainage had depressions that were hard to clean. They
             | learned from the flawed competition.
             | 
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5JchC0nQcM
        
       | tomrod wrote:
       | RIP man. You did some great things!
        
       | monksy wrote:
       | I loved his participation in "Better Late than never" with henry
       | winkler, shatner, and terry bradshaw.
       | 
       | RIP
        
       | roflchoppa wrote:
       | Time to pull out Jack LaLanne power juicer, and some chicken
       | thighs. RIP.
        
       | orionblastar wrote:
       | One of the greatest boxers, rest in peace!
        
       | hannasm wrote:
       | My condolences to everyone affected.
       | 
       | In a gerontological context: It would interesting to understand
       | more about his genealogy. Does the age of 76 mark an above or
       | below average age in his family and their historical lifespan?
       | 
       | As someone who has experienced great success in life, and also
       | been (at least at one point) in peak physical shape, the cause of
       | his demise seems especially interesting to me.
        
       | rank0 wrote:
       | RIP. My favorite sports story. Heavyweight champ at 25/28 and 45.
        
         | MrMcCall wrote:
         | It's a great story, for sure, and I think I watched it live.
         | The way he let his lead left jab linger to cover Moorer's eyes
         | and then slipped in his hammer of a right to KHTFO was
         | brilliant.
         | 
         | But I'm partial to Billy Mills 1964 10km gold medal in Tokyo. I
         | _love_ how the co-announcer loses his mind on the American
         | broadcast of the race, because the two favorites were favored
         | so heavily.
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVlKVWFmfhk
         | 
         | It's my favorite sports call of all-time, too.
         | 
         | Billy Mills is a Native American who faced poverty on his
         | reservation and cruel racism in college. A true American hero.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mills
        
       | dkarl wrote:
       | I didn't think much about George Foreman until I watched When We
       | Were Kings. For me, he was just as interesting as Ali, and I was
       | so impressed with how he returned and reinvented himself after
       | the loss to Ali that he was my personal reference point for
       | resilience and personal evolution. RIP.
        
         | JKCalhoun wrote:
         | Yep. Highly recommend "When We Were Kings".
        
       | tombert wrote:
       | I didn't know who George Foreman was a little kid, so I saw him
       | in the commercials for the George Foreman Grill and assumed that
       | he was the inventor.
       | 
       | I was very confused when I, at age 11, read a comic published in
       | 1990 (I think) and saw an advertisement for (I think) a boxing
       | video game with George Foreman on the cover. I thought "huh, I
       | wonder if he's related to the guy who invented that grill on TV".
       | 
       | I asked my mom and she laughed, and that day I truly learned
       | about celebrity endorsements.
        
         | bdangubic wrote:
         | I can live 50 lifetimes and it wouldn't be enough to understand
         | celebrity endorsements... Foreman was one of my favorite
         | athletes growing up but unless he was the greatest chef on
         | earth I wouldn't touch his grill with a wooden stick
        
           | tombert wrote:
           | I actually had one for a couple years when I lived alone in a
           | fairly small apartment. I really liked it; it cooked
           | hamburgers well enough and it was super cheap, like $15-20
           | when I bought it during a sale.
           | 
           | Obviously a full-sized grill would have been better, but I
           | didn't really have that as an option in my apartment. It was
           | easy to clean, cooked stuff relatively quickly, and neatly
           | fit right next to my toaster. I think it's a good product for
           | what it is.
           | 
           | Why they got a retired boxer to promote it, I have no idea.
        
             | MrMcCall wrote:
             | He was an affable and funny man, who also happened to be a
             | boxing great.
             | 
             | What made him so affable was his deep humanity and
             | kindness.
             | 
             | And the endorsement worked, for sure!
        
               | tombert wrote:
               | Oh no question, I saw him in interviews years later and
               | he seemed like a pretty decent dude. He also made fun of
               | himself on King of the Hill, which always has my eternal
               | respect.
               | 
               | And the endorsement definitely worked. It's possible that
               | the grill might have still been successful without his
               | branding, but we don't know that what-if, we just know
               | that the grills that had his branding definitely were
               | successful.
        
             | mc32 wrote:
             | He's an everyday man grilling in the backyard with his kids
             | and buddies. To the day he died, He had a very clean image,
             | so no baggage and a whole lot of goodwill. What more do you
             | want from a pitchman?
        
           | silisili wrote:
           | I get that re: celebrity endorsements, I've never understood
           | why someone would buy a product just because a celebrity is
           | in the commercials.
           | 
           | Now, that out of the way, the Foreman Grill was/is? a nifty
           | little product that actually worked really well. I was gifted
           | one, and despite having a really nice grill and big yard,
           | sometimes I just want to be quick and lazy and bang something
           | out.
        
             | ocdtrekkie wrote:
             | I mean I am sure the endorsement gave it a recognized name,
             | but people forget it was basically the Instant Pot if its
             | day. You could buy George Foreman grill cookbooks in
             | stores. It very much became its own thing, to the point
             | many people know of George Foreman because of the grill he
             | endorsed.
        
           | spike021 wrote:
           | as another comment said, it makes for a decent indoors
           | apartment grill. i used to use one all the time to make
           | hamburgers or grilled cheese in college.
        
           | borgdefenser wrote:
           | I always thought the same until I got one.
           | 
           | It is a really good product.
           | 
           | It especially stands out if on a diet and going to eat a lot
           | of chicken breast.
           | 
           | Steak I wouldn't cook in it but it makes great chicken.
           | Especially on a diet that you aren't going to add much else
           | calorie wise with how you cook it.
        
           | adabyron wrote:
           | The goal of the endorsement is to catch your attention
           | through entertainment.
           | 
           | Then you need something to trigger them to say yes, I want
           | that.
           | 
           | Aside - many people want something easy for them to use,
           | which this thing was. Julia Child's success is a great lesson
           | of a very good chef making it simple & showing mistakes.
        
           | Clubber wrote:
           | I had one in college in the 90s that still works to this day.
        
             | wileydragonfly wrote:
             | Smoking up the dorms and tripping breakers...
        
         | brudgers wrote:
         | Recommended George Foreman movie, _When we were Kings_.
         | 
         | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_We_Were_Kings
        
         | zem wrote:
         | I only just discovered that he didn't invent or at least own
         | the company that made the grill. Not being American, I had no
         | real idea who he was outside of it.
        
       | nomilk wrote:
       | For anyone curious this is the product (and catch phrase) he was
       | most well known for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tABjjmd_XsE
        
       | ks2048 wrote:
       | Besides boxing and his grill, the thing I always remembered about
       | him was that he named all 5 of his sons "George". (I see on
       | wikipedia, they have numbers and nicknames).
        
       | kikokikokiko wrote:
       | if anyone wants to block the annoying troll spammer that invaded
       | hackernews today, please put this rule on your personal filters
       | on ublock origin:
       | 
       | ##.comtr.athing:has-text('bschmidt')
        
       | kikokikokiko wrote:
       | if anyone wants to block the annoying troll spammer that invaded
       | hackernews today, please put this rule on your personal filters
       | on ublock origin:
       | 
       | ##.comtr.athing:has-text('bschmidt')
        
         | asveikau wrote:
         | Wow, I browse with showdead and I see it ...
         | 
         | I can understand having criticisms of HN and pg, and I
         | understand being harshly critical when you find a serious
         | security problem, but surely there's a better way to express
         | both of these.
        
           | lovich wrote:
           | Wasn't the whole white/grey hat ethos based on the idea that
           | if a security flaw exists, someone will use it, so we can
           | help everyone by making them public back doors instead of
           | secret backdoors so anyone who cared about security would
           | know what to fix.
           | 
           | This guy is annoying, but his behavior seems in line with
           | that
        
       | Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
       | A good guy and all around gentleman. My uncle Bryan met him in
       | Topeka in the early 80s and encouraged his career in photography
       | by posing for a few "fighting stance" photos for the local paper.
        
       | somenameforme wrote:
       | George Foreman is dead. Long live George Foreman!
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Foreman#Personal_life_a...
        
       | aucisson_masque wrote:
       | What he did in 1987 Will always be remembered.
       | 
       | Truly a masterpiece of ring iq against sheer strength and
       | stamina.
        
       | johndhi wrote:
       | As a boxing fan, Foreman is special.
       | 
       | So many brutal fights but sharp as a tack, mentally, until the
       | end.
       | 
       | Such longevity - became champ again after so many years away from
       | the sport.
       | 
       | Such a businessman.
       | 
       | From all accounts, such a kind person.
       | 
       | What an impact.
        
       | hash872 wrote:
       | RIP George Foreman.
       | 
       | As a former combat sports fan, I find it increasingly difficult
       | to watch. These guys (and gals) are doing enormous brain damage
       | to themselves & their opponents. Foreman seemed to have been an
       | outlier that came out OK, but listen to the slurring & garbled
       | speech that comes from any other old fighter. I know someone
       | who's a friend with a longtime UFC fighter- he had an anecdote
       | about the guy putting his kids to bed and temporarily forgetting
       | their names. Great fights are very entertaining, but ethically I
       | really find it difficult to be a fan these days
        
         | SecretDreams wrote:
         | This, but also extended to American football.
         | 
         | These individuals are well compensated, but many are signing up
         | for much shorter lives.
        
           | AbstractH24 wrote:
           | It's amazing how long it's taken football to fall from fame
           | for this reason, like boxing did.
           | 
           | Not certain it'll ever happen. At least not for the
           | foreseeable future.
        
           | lurn_mor wrote:
           | I think most folk would gladly shorten their lifespan by
           | decades for a million dollars today - the ultimate sacrifice
           | for future generational wealth? Not that a million gets you
           | anything substantial anymore...
        
           | wileydragonfly wrote:
           | Soccer players suffer more concussions and they aren't paid
           | much.
           | 
           | What do?
        
             | genocidicbunny wrote:
             | Personally, I would be interested to see a type of soccer
             | where you can only use the feet -- head and upper body
             | contact would be disallowed. It won't be the same game, but
             | it would be kind of fun to see how players would adapt to
             | those rules. There would probably be quite a bit more
             | acrobatics involved to handle the ball being in the air.
        
           | genocidicbunny wrote:
           | The ones that are well compensated are the ones that survived
           | high school and probably college football, where they weren't
           | really compensated that much at all.
           | 
           | In high school, the football coaches would nag me at the
           | beginning of the football season to join the team --
           | understandable since I was an example of the kind of wall of
           | muscle and flesh you wanted in your defensive lines. I never
           | joined because it didn't seem like much fun to me to be
           | constantly slamming into other guys of that size.
           | 
           | More recently, I ran into one of the guys who did join the
           | team, played defensive tackle, and went on to also play in
           | college. Having also relatively recently seen up-close the
           | effects of TBI, alzheimers, dementia -- even a short
           | interaction made it obvious he was suffering heavily from
           | hitting his head so much; the sad part is that he's the same
           | age as me, and that by the time I hit middle age, he's
           | probably going to be dead. Well, that's one of the sad parts,
           | the other big one is that his reward for all that is two jobs
           | in retail to try to make ends meet because he never got paid
           | much for playing, and the TBIs made it hard to find a high-
           | paying career.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2025-03-22 23:02 UTC)