Pull My eFinger

The Last World Cup Post For Four Years, part 2

2010-07-05 23:56:45 GMT

As predicted, the United States defeated Algeria. We did make it a little more dramatic than necessary. Landon Donovan's stoppage time goal won the game at 1-0. As a reward for winning Group C, we were matched up against Ghana in the round of 16.

If you'll recall, we played and lost to Ghana in World Cup 2006. That game ended 2-1. Unfortunately, so did World Cup 2010.

I'll take two items away from World Cup 2010.

1. The United States is right there. So close. We nearly beat Ghana. In fact, the game's tenor felt as if we would beat them. It was close, but in the end we lost. Then Ghana advanced to play Uruguay, and despite what the official score sheet says (Uruguay victory via penalty kicks), Ghana defeated Uruguay to advance to the semi-finals. Maybe in World Cup 2014 we have a slightly better player in a position or two, and we're able to beat the likes of Ghana, and advance to the semi-finals.

2. FIFA (the official world soccer organization) really needs to assist their referees. The referees are doing their best, but the game has become too fast. The referees simply can't make perfect calls for every close play, and in the modern game there are loads of close plays, which means there are an increasing number of wrong calls.

The United States had two goals taken away on wrong calls. And when your aggregate World Cup goal tally is five goals, as is the case for not just the United States but almost all 32 teams, two goals are imperatively important!

The most egregious decision went against England. England scored a goal to even the score at 2-2 versus the Germans. But wait. The goal was not called a goal. Despite crossing the goal line by approximately two feet. How is that possible? Because the game is too fast. While the linesman is busy checking for offside players, the ball crossed the goal line, but then bounced back across the goal line in the other direction.

What should happen is FIFA should introduce technology in to the game. Put a location sensor inside the ball. Have computers track the ball. Computers would know with 100% accuracy if the ball had crossed the goal line. Also, computers would not cause a delay in the game at all. Not even a single second, which I believe is an important points for a game like soccer which has literally non-stop motion.

I'll go a bit engineerish here and point out that if a computer knows the instantaneous location of the ball, it also knows the velocity, acceleration, and direction of the ball.

Acceleration -- meaning the computer can track when the ball is kicked or otherwise passed, which is an important part of the offside rule. (Offensive players must be behind two defensive players at the time of the ball's passing from the passer to the receiving offensive player.)

Direction -- meaning the computer can track if a pass is forward or backwards, which is an important part of the offside rule. (Offensive players are considered not offside if the pass to that offensive player is a backward pass.)

Based on acceleration and direction, we're halfway to defining offside completely within the realm of a computer's brain. All we're lacking is the offensive player's location relative to two leading defensive players, and the referee's discretion that the offensive player was or was not involved in the play.

Location -- if we're to have a computer track player's location for the offside rule, we'll have to redefine the player's location slightly. At present, an offensive player's location is in violation if any part of his/her body is forward of the last bit of the defender's body. So in theory, a long strand of hair could have an offensive player offside. No way a computer can track that. My idea is to redefine this part of the rule as the offensive player's shoes must be behind the defensive player's shoes. And we can put a location sensor in the shoes of each player.

Referee's discretion -- is simple. If the offensive player is in offside violation at the time of the pass, and the pass is forward, and he/she leads too many defenders, then the computer can buzz the referee's earpiece. The referee can then decide if the violating offensive player is involved in the play.

Will all this happen? No way. But if I were in charge of FIFA, it sure would. Soccer purists everywhere would hate me. But at least goals would really be goals, and the fans could trust that the calls were correct. In my opinion, we'd see scoring increase as well.

Probably Not The Last World Cup Post For Four Years

2010-06-22 22:07:01 GMT

Today is the big day for the Americans. Just under nine hours now to match start. We need a win versus Algeria, or a tie and hope for help from the Slovenians in the form of a tie or victory over the English.

Our previous match, versus Slovenia, was ridiculous. We went down 2-0, then came back even at 2-2, and finally scored the apparent match winner putting us up 3-2. But for some reason known only to the referee, the goal was disallowed.

We tied the Slovenians, two goals for each side.

Anyway, I'm hesitant to pick scores for the two big matches tomorrow. I have a feeling we'll pull it off this time, unlike four years ago versus Ghana.

Countdown To World Cup 2010

2010-06-08 23:02:10 GMT

Seems like just yesterday we were counting down to World Cup 2006. Yet here we are a mere two days until World Cup 2010!

As predicted by yours truly (read link above), World Cup 2006 sucked for the US. Not because the US team sucked. But because we were placed in a terribly difficult group, and with a terribly difficult game order:
- We played Czech Republic first, who spanked us. But literal giant Jan Koller was injured and played zero minutes outside the US match, which was an indirect disaster for the US who badly needed Czech Republic to defeat Italy.
- Up next was for the US was Italy. The US tied Italy in a fantastically classic match. Italy then proceeded to win their next five matches for their fourth World Cup title.
- The third game for the US was Ghana. Claudio "Captain America" Reyna went in to retirement at halftime -- but played the second half of the match anyways -- and the US lost.

2010 shapes up much better for the US. This go round we've got just one giant in our group - England. The other two foes are minnows in the forms of Slovenia and Algeria. I will not temper my enthusiasm and I openly predict a US advancement in to the elimination stage.

Round 1:
England 3, USA 2
Algeria 0, Slovenia 0 (I really have no clue.)

Round 2:
Slovenia 0, USA 1
England 3, Algeria 0 (England advance)

Round 3:
Slovenia 1, England 1 (England plays their scrubs.)
Algeria 1, USA 2 (USA advance)

I hope my brother will interject with his touchdown and field goal predictions for each match.

The first round of the elimination stage will most likely have us playing Germany, and I assign us a fair chance to defeat them.

The games this year are played at 4:30am, 7am, and 11:30am Pacific time. Quite nice for me. As was the case in 2006, I can catch one game before work and one game during lunch. The early game will wait on my DVR for my return home from work.

Venus Fly Trap In Full Bloom

2010-05-12 20:53:01 GMT

After a winter flush with juicy flies.

Ways To Improve An NBA Game

2010-04-30 21:09:29 GMT

Referees:

If a foul is committed, call the foul.
If the foul is intentional, call the foul intentional. Especially at the end of games when the losing team is trying to make up a point differential.
Every player must be subject to the same rules. No special treatment of star players.
No make-up calls.
Call the rules identically regardless of the game situation or foul situation.

Rules:

Reduce the maximum number of fouls per player from six to five.
Allow the team that was awarded free throws the option of shooting free throws or taking the ball out of bounds in lieu of free throws.
Accumulate free throws and shoot them between the third and fourth quarters. During the fourth quarter, shoot free throws during the flow of play (same as the current rule).
Increase the shot clock from 24 seconds to 30 seconds. But have the shot clock begin as soon as the other team makes a shot or otherwise loses possession of the ball. Also, the shot clock runs while a team attempts to in-bound the ball.
Strike the "illegal defense" and "illegal offense" rules.

The Graphics On Your Television Will Be Customizable

2010-03-31 22:59:27 GMT

So I'm watching Lost last night. Opening sequence, first thing I notice is it looks like it's going to be a Sun and Gin episode. Cool. I like the Sun and Gin characters.

Opening sequence continues, and ABC decides to put a gigantic red V along with a by-the-second countdown timer in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. And it never leaves. It's there for the entire episode. (In addition to the usual ABC logo that I would have otherwise completely ignored.)

I don't care what the red V with the countdown timer is advertising. I just want it off my screen. Like any fan of Lost I'm worried that I'll miss something critical to the episode.

And sure enough, during the critical closing sequence, Sun scribbles something on a notepad. What does she scribble? I don't know. Her scribbles are covered by the red V and countdown timer.

But ABC isn't alone. All networks put crap on the screen. Any sports fan will tell you. At times there are more graphics on the screen than sports. I suppose Fox made it popular perhaps fifteen years ago when they introduced the score box to the screen -- at the time an excellent innovation no doubt. But here we are in 2010 and now we have a red V and countdown timers.

Here's what I want. I want a raw video feed of the broadcast. No graphics. No banners. No scores. Nothing. A bare, raw video feed. Not even audio.

I also want the ability to add graphics as I see fit. My set top box should allow me to add graphics to the screen. Go to a menu on the set top box and select a graphic -- say, a score box graphic -- and the set top box should then ask how big I want it to be, and where to position the box. What style should the box have. Colors. Those sorts of things.

Where does the set top box receive information about the score box graphic? From the television station. The television station should encode data files along with the video feed. By default, all the data files should be ignored by the set top box. How would it work for my score box graphic?

First, there would be one main data file. The main data file simply tells the set top box what data files are available and what they represent. The set top box would use this data file to present options to the end user about what graphics are available. The available graphics would vary by type of video. (Obviously, a drama like Lost would have no use for a score box, but apparently it does a have need for a gigantic red V graphic.)

Second, each data file would be sent from the television station to the set top box only as appropriate. Perhaps once per second for a score box. Perhaps once and only once for, in the example of a sports broadcast, the thumbnail pictures of the competing teams' logos.

What might the score box data file contain? It might contain just two bytes. The score of one team, and the score of the other team.

What might the team logo thumbnail file contain? A 64x64 PNG of a football helmet or whatever.

Together with the score and the team logos, the end user could construct a pretty nice info box on their display.

What might some other data files be?

Play information. In the case of football, the previous play's yardage. Who passed the ball. Who caught the ball. The receiver's updated statistics.

And for each data file, the end user has defined when to display the information. Perhaps the user has selected to display a receiver's stats every time they are updated. Perhaps only upon a significant change in the receiver's stats. Or perhaps not at all.

There is one other big data file. The audio. The end user should be able to select from several audio feeds. If I'm watching a Mexico-USA soccer match, perhaps I could select between the Spanish and English audio feeds. Each audio feed would be separately supplied to the set top box as a streaming audio data file.

The audio streams would not be limited to different languages. For a Texas-Oklahoma football game, the end user could select between the Texas audio and the Oklahoma audio.

Some years from now I believe all of this will happen. When? Shortly after televisions switch over to packet-based traffic. Another way of saying that is when people switch from watching television on their, uh, televisions and instead watch on their computers. Which has already begun happening in small percentages.

The Best App On My Cell Phone

2010-02-24 00:07:12 GMT

The best app on my cell phone is definitely Pandora. As compared to satellite radio or - shudder - traditional broadcast radio, it's like the difference between email and the postal service. Fundamentally, they serve the same purpose, but there's a huge chasm between the two. At some point some years from now everybody will use Pandora or a similar service and broadcast radio will die.

Pretty much every song Pandora feeds to my phone belongs to a handful of bands.

dredg
Deftones
Muse
Tool
A Perfect Circle

Pandora gives me a random sample of all the songs from all the albums from each of those bands. All five of those bands are great. What's cool is before I began using Pandora, I hadn't ever heard a single song from Deftones or Muse. Which is (was) a shame because I really like them.

Every few songs, Pandora sends a song from a similar but slightly different band. If I like it, I hit the "thumbs up" button. Over a period of time, Pandora has determined my tastes to a decent degree. Certainly far, far better than even my most favorite broadcast radio station.

The coolest part about all this is most new car stereos have stereo input jacks. And most new cell phones have stereo output jacks. Thus Pandora can input music to your car's stereo. Remember how you used to have all those CDs in your car? You can forget about them now.

New Phone Number Courtesy Of Google Voice

2010-01-26 23:27:38 GMT

I registered a new phone number today. My new phone number is a Google Voice number. What's my new phone number?

234-2xx-xxxx

Where xx-xxxx is my last name, which, if you don't know me, you can easily figure out from the URL of this web site. (To avoid phone number harvesters, please do not type the complete phone number in a reply on this blog.)

If you've called my cell phone in the last year you know that cell phone service is nearly non-existent at my house. You might try my cell phone, and then end up calling my home phone when my cell drops. But now if you call my Google Voice phone number, it will ring on both my cell phone and my home phone simultaneously. Obviously, if I'm at home I'll answer the home phone. Easy for you. Easy for me.

Also what's cool is if you leave voicemail on either my Google Voice phone number or my cell phone number, it'll be automatically transcribed and then both emailed to me and texted to my cell phone.

Please note that the 234 area code is some place in Ohio. If you receive a call from Ohio, there's a chance it's me. I might also be LeBron James, but more likely it's me.

Both my cell phone number and home phone number have not changed. You may continue to use them. However, if you prefer to use my Google Voice phone number, please have at it!

The Definition Of Earth-Like For Extrasolar Planets

2009-12-16 23:14:01 GMT

It seems like each week now a science team somewhere announces the discovery of a new extrasolar planet. The most recent announcement is GJ 1214b. I think the discovery is great. But what bothers me slightly is the description of GJ 1214b. It's described as Earth-like. Even though it weighs in at a hefty 6.6 times that of Earth, and even though its radius is 2.7 times that of Earth.

As I've been reading the news of extrasolar planets over the years I've noticed various authors using the term Earth-like and sometimes also the term Earth-twin in a -- if I may be non-technical here -- in a willy-nilly fashion.

I have yet to find a formal definition for either Earth-like or Earth-twin. Yet, It seems like with all the recent discoveries and with the Kepler Mission's potential next year to announce the discovery of thousands (literally!) of extrasolar planets, it seems like we really ought to have formal, mathematical definitions.

I earnestly searched for a scientific guide on what qualifies as Earth-like or Earth-twin. The closest I've found is a PDF copy of a book written in 1964 by the RAND Corporation, Habitable Planets For Man. After taking information from that book and performing some research and analysis, I've put together my formal definitions.

First, I've expanded on the two Earth categories. I've defined four categories which I'll formally define shortly:

1. Earth-like
2. Earth-similar
3. Earth-twin
4. Earth-habitable

Second, I've defined five criteria:

A. Mass - a candidate planet must be within 50% of Earth's mass (M_E = 5.97 x 10²⁴ kg).
B. Radius - a candidate planet must be within 50% of Earth's radius (R_E = 6371 km).
C. Mean surface temperature - a candidate planet must be within 25% of Earth's mean surface temperature (T_Emst = 287 K).
D. Breathable atmosphere - a candidate planet must have a breathable atmosphere.
E. Liquid water - a candidate planet must have accessible liquid water.

The formal definitions for the four categories listed above:

1. Earth-like - meets any two of the five criteria.
2. Earth-similar - meets any three or four of the five criteria.
3. Earth-twin - meets all five of the five criteria.
4. Earth-habitable - meets at least criteria C, D, and E but not necessarily A or B.

How does my guide work for the planets we know well? Mars meets criteria B and C. Venus meets criteria A and B. Thus, both Mars and Venus are Earth-like. If at some point liquid water (criterion E) is discovered on Mars, it would then be upgraded to Earth-similar.

GJ 1214b does not meet A or B, and we don't yet know if it meets C, D, or E. Thus it is wildly premature to call it Earth-like, although we cannot yet rule out the possibility.

HSC In Santa Clara

2009-11-03 00:24:31 GMT

If you asked me to pick my favorite place of business in the Bay Area, it would have to be the ephemeral Kwik-e-Mart nay 7-11 on Shoreline Boulevard in Mountain View.

If you asked me to pick my second favorite place, before today it would have been Fry's Electronics. However, as of today I have a new second favorite. HSC in Santa Clara. I can't believe I've lived in the Bay Area for almost a decade and hadn't heard of HSC until today. Every electronics component I've ever needed, but couldn't find anywhere, I could have bought at HSC for a bargain price.

I needed a dozen BNC-RCA adapters. They've got them.

A dozen RG-59/U twist connectors? They've got those, too.

Mono 6' RCA cables? A mere $0.99 each.

And while I would categorize those electronics components as fringe (and probably unavailable) at any other electronics store, I would categorize them as mainstream (and highly available) at HSC. HSC has everything an imaginative electronics hobbyist's mind can possible imagine.

It seems the only thing they don't have is advertisement.

I could spend hours at this place.