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Pentium Throws a Fastball
phillippaxton writes: "Abner Doubleday lives in the 21st century. Two mechanical engineers have gotten together and created what may be the perfect pitching machine, powered by a P3 850MHz computer. Using an eight-axis industrial robot, it has the ability to throw practically any pitch within the strike zone. Custom-built software enables you to choose the type of pitch by pointing at a touch-screen, setting the speed, location, handedness, as well as fastball, curveball, slider, slurve, changeup, cutter, sinker, splitfinger fastball or knuckleball. There's also a database of 2500 preset pitches in a database."
At a Microsoft PDC last year or the year before they demonstrated a file system implemented inside a SQL Server table. The BLOB contained a filesystem. Inside this filesystem, they created a SQL Server instance. Viola: A database in a database.
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"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
throw obscure_reference
I hope they name the prototype Spencer Talos.
First of all there is cost. Every carpenter I know owns a handsaw. For small cuts I will take a handsaw over a power saw anyday for speed, and thats even when the power saw is already pluged in! I've seen it over and over again: the handsaw is faster then the power saw. Of course there are two things to note: the hand saw user cannot do a second cut at near the speed, so the power saw wins in endurance. Also, not all cuts qualify, I'm thinking of very selected cuts where the fastest tool is a handsaw. (this applies to both metal and wood working)
There are still farmers today who farm entiely without tractors in an area where tractors are avaiable. They love their horses (oxen, donkeys, ...) enough that the slow speed is worth it. I'm not talking about Amish or others who do it for religion reasons, there are normal people who's hobby is farming with animals.
Baseball does not allow (or at least didn't) instant replys in the game. What the umpire sees is what is, even if the ump really is blind. Football allows them. Compare and you will soon notice that replays are a major factor in almost every play in football. I prefer baseball's approach even though it means teams have lost because of the umps error. Part of the game is the human error. I'm not claiming either way is better mind you, make your own decision.
Fah! We might as well use a cannon instead of a pitcher as well. In fact, I am sure that with a little engineering we could get a supersonic fastball. We might need to replace the catcher, but that shouldn't be hard as you wouldn't need to worry about errant pitches. We should also consider arming the first basemen with battle-axes. That way if a hitter does manage to connect with the ball the first baseman can make sure that the poor fool doesn't make it to first base. Heck, why not just give all the players automatic weapons and see which team has the most players standing at the end of nine innings.
This is precisely the reason why there are rules to baseball. Everyone knows that you could have better pitchers just by letting them spit on the ball. But the point is the competition. Someone somewhere along the way decided that spitting on the balls was illegal (for whatever reason), and so now hitters don't have to worry about "spitballs." The rules may be strange (and sometimes fairly arbitrary), but folks like to watch and play baseball, and the rules allow the game to proceed fairly. Mixing in a robot pitcher may be great for hitting practice, but it would almost certainly be against the rules for competition, and since it wouldn't really be that fun to watch it almost certainly won't ever become legal.
Nope, not Cartwright, either. (Unless he came up with the rules as an infant. :) See this weekend's story on this topic, "Early Reference to Baseball Found."
-Waldo
We will not have the perfect pitching robot until it also scratchs itself for a minute and a half in between pitches.
Come on. It's got to do much more than that to be the perfect pitching robot. It has to be able to show up at spring training 200 pounds overweight yet still bitch about "only" making $6 million a year. It has to be a named defendant in at least one paternity suit. It has to be able to snort cocaine for years, come close to blowing its entire career, and then suddenly find Jesus.
This thing's still got a long way to go.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
I think you actually meant to say:
Cheers...
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CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
See, robots could never replace real ballplayers, because mankind doesn't have the technology to build a robot as ugly as Randy Johnson :)
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Whatever the market will bear.
Baseball is BIG business. The value of a product is determined by the perceived value to the one who has the funds.
My guess is that they will sell quite a few of these. Good for them. I hope that they are very successful.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
If by this you men the episode where Catherine convinces Bill to use a bunch of ridiculously fake "street-talk" in his racially offensive malt-liquor commercials, then no. This is not that episode, although this episode does reference that episode. Catherine tells Bill: "Wazzup, y'all" is seriously dated and that today's cool street people greet one another "Gazziza!" In the "Space" episode, Bill and Catherine greet one another: "Gazziza, Bill." "Gazizza, Catherine." Also very funny...
Anyone know all the words to Bill's "misinformed" Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor ad? I remember it was hilarious. It had a line like "It has the zazzapy gazmossis that will keep your feet stinkin' all night long" or something like that. The mix of badly phony "hip" words with absurd variants of real "street" reinterpretations (think "keep your feet stinkin'" as being like "down with that," or "you bad") was just plain hilarious...
I immediately thought of the Newsradio "Space" episode. Joe is thawed out in the far future and immediately asks who won the World Series since he went into hibernation. I forget the exact words, but it was something like "In 2021 it was the Yankees, 2022 the Braves, 2023 the Robots, '24 the Robots, Robots, Robots...."
Made me laugh...
The abstract here intimated that it was a robot arm or something. I was all excited to see a robot arm and hand controlled to simulate a real pitcher's arm. What do I get? Same ol' auto-pitcher technology with a little extra control grafted on. Cool, yes, but seems a little like bait-and-switch to me. What do they pay the editors here for?!
Blar.
They still haven't made a computer that can hit the ball... this requires significantly more smarts to do in the general case.
Oh come, come! If Rummy and Dick can get the Pentagon to produce a missile defence, how hard would it be to adapt the system to hitting fastballs? Who knows, this might even make missile defence against an imaginary adversary worthwhile! :-P
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
are here. note the $175,000 pricetag and the $18,000 maintenance fee. must be former IBM engineers. :)
I've batted against this thing at the Vet in Philly where they have one set up, and I must say that is extremely realistic in that if you can see the pitches hand and you can watch for the seams instead of the old goofy BP balls. The only complaint is every pitcher and ever pitch has the same release. Like the article says there is no 3/4 release and there are no sidearm or submariners, but on the whole it's an amazing device and mixes up the pitches well. If you're near a ballpark in your hometown, I recommend trying it.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
I have to disagree with the sediment. I think they mix quite well.
That's not a very concrete response.
OMG! What are you smoking? King of The Hill is the worst piece of animated trash I've ever seen! It makes Beavis and Butthead look intelectual!
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
padding? in baseball?
Bender: Clem Johnson? That sack of skin wouldn't have lasted one pitch in the old Robot Leagues. Now, Wireless Joe Jackson, there was a blern-hitting machine.
Leela: Exactly. He was a machine designed to hit blerns. I mean, come on, Wireless Joe was nothing but a programmable bat on wheels.
Bender: Oh, and I suppose Pitch-O-Mat 5000 was just a modified Howitzer?
Leela: Yep.
Bender: You know, you humans are so scared of a little robot competition you won't even let us on the field.
If all this thing can throw is strikes, any half-decent batter should be able to smack the crap out of it. The reason good pitchers are good is because they get the batter to swing at stuff they just can't hit.
The way this season is going, they'll probably get this robot into the Mets' bullpen. :(
Unix: Where
Ok, I admit, this is kind of cool. If I was a baseball player, I might even buy one to practice with. But what it really boils down to is this; baseball is boring enough as is, does anyone REALLY want to sit around watching a robot throw out pitches?
When they make one that can do leg-spin and offspin and throw a Googly they'll have something to show off about.
But seriously, what about the spitball?
Cincinnati, OH- Two Reds pitchers were placed on this disabled list today. Johnny Johnson was placed on the 60-day DL with a blow tendon in his pitching elbow. Johnson is scheduled to undergo Tommy John surgery tomorrow. Linus Blazer, the phenom pitching robot, was placed on the 15-day DL to upgrade its repetoire. Blazer is scheduled to undergo a ./configure; make; make install Thursday.
I always thought the sport would be a lot more interesting if everyone had a bat, and was allowed to use it as they see fit.\ =\=\=\
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All we need now is a robotic batter. Baseball has never been so much fun!
More
(a) pick the processor that supports OSes and tools you are familiar with and can easily get and that will let you do all your initial software development on your existing computers, or
(b) try to save $200 per unit by going with a cheaper processor that requires tools you aren't familiar with, and new development systems?
God, I hate baseball.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
It's not whether a pitcher is/isn't the best, but when.
There's baseball as hitting and pitching, then there's baseball the game. Machines might make better pitchers or hitters, but they won't improve the game just by doing what they do better than any human could.
Their G4-powered iPitcher is oriented at minor league players and throws perfect goofballs, which come out in graphite, flower power, and blue dalmatian variety.
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
There's also a database of 2500 preset pitches in a database.
I've been trying to figure out for years how to include a database as a field in another database. How'd they do it?
Remember all those industrial revolution fables of man versus machine, like Paul Bunyan and John Henry? If I recall correctly, the moral of the stories was that even the best of any field were eventually beaten by machines that anyone could wield, and that the old-fashioned way of doing things eventually died out.
So, now we have a machine that can theoretically pitch better than any pitcher, living or dead - that will always place the ball wherever it wants, and that can keep a database on each player's weak pitches and patterns that screw them up.
The question is - why keep pitchers at all? When society realized that it was better to plow with a tractor than a bunch of oxen, we got rid of the oxen. When we realized that it was better to manufacture and box crayons with robotics than with third-world child labor, we did that, too. So -
What is the intrigue of seeing someone pitch a baseball, now, in a fashion that we know is not the best?
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
1. Tradition
2. "The crack of the bat" is a much more elegant thing to say than "the dink of the bat"
3. Tradition
4. Guys like Sosa and Griffey could potentially kill a pitcher or third-base coach if you let them hit with metal bats
5. Tradition
6. It's absolutely hillarious entertainment when a good pitch breaks the bat of a cheater, and we see shards of cork fly all over the field.
7. Tradition
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Besides, it's kind of cheap to start by saying "he took steroids" only to parenthetically acknowledge that actually, he did not. Let me cut the redundant text by rephrasing your second sentence:
Mark McGwire was not takeing steroids the year he set the home-run record.
Much shorter, much more accurate.
Carefully chosing the right foods would have had the exact same effect as McGwire's daily clump of nutrient powder. That crap is really just a quick-n-dirty alternative to eating the same health-food entree every damn day. It's not at all the same thing as taking artificial hormone pills.
Besides, why get worked up over a record that Bonds is probably going to shatter this year anyway?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Coming from a baseball fan, I don't see how an 8-axis robot is going to imitate real MLB pitchers, considering that there's much more than the simple location and velocity of a given pitch.
I can't see a robot imitating the movement of a Tim Wakefield knuckler, or the movement on a Hideo Nomo split-finger.
There are just too many variables, I would think, for this truly be of signifcant use for a hitter.
jack's bicycle is music to my ears
Yup... think catchers' mitts, batting helmets, and the suit of armor that the catcher and umpire wear. Padding in baseball isn't as prevalent as it is in some other sports (football, hockey) but it certainly plays a role.
Much like the space program, in fact...
P.S. Why do you give out your call on your Slashdot posts? There's a lot of kids here who I wouldn't want to know that much of my personal information if I could help it.
when he charges the mound.
i could live a little longer in this prison
A perfect batting machine would be cool too for pitchers who need some practice! Also, use it to train the whole team - you could have perfect pops and setups for the team to practice with.
The machine could be height adjusted, etc...
I donate all spillover Karma to the charity of my choice... Ada was still a babe despite what people may say...
This is how the terrifing future depicted in Death Race 2000 began. Will we all just sit by idly while it happens?
I blame Intel.
This reminds me of a cartoon in Ray Kurzwiel's Book "Age of Spiritual Machines" where a guy representing the human race is in a room with papers. Written on each paper is a task that was once thought to be doable only by a human. The guy keeps discarding them as computers prove to be able to do the tasks.
"Only humans can play baseball"
right....
I have to disagree with the sediment. I think they mix quite well. I think improvements in sports medicine have added to games, keeping some of the greats in the game longer, allowing people to get familiar.
It also does something else, it allows geeks to compete in professional sports, though not directly, I could see it as a source of pride to have designed the exercise program that made your team the forth quarter terrors. Or to develope a machine that helps some player recover and extend his career.
As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
Your post is awfully narrow minded. If not for the content of it then for the Go Red Sox part! :) Go Yanks BTW!!!
:) ) but sports research does have a realistic ROI in at least some cases.
I'm only kidding but you saying we're wasting money on sports research is the same as those rednecks who say NASA is the black hole of money. Why do I say that? Well, my sister-in-law had to have arthroscopic surgery on her knee after a skiing snafu and she is 100% back after only 6 months. Where do you think they perfected that technique? Why are those sneakers you wear into work everyday so comfy? When we send food to Africa how do you think we know how to pack as much nutrition into as small a package as possible? Those are only the tip of the ice berg (thats my excuse for being unable to come up with anything else
BOSTON SUCKS!
Have you ever heard the story of the old baseball, when the fields were huge and irregular, people wore little to no padding, and most importantly there were not ten zillion geeks roaming like ants over the fields of sports medicine and sports technology in order to ramp up everything to the conceivable maximum?
You know, we draw the line on steroids and such for some reason, but allow other drugs; we outlaw aluminum bats for Little Leaguers but we let people invest millions in designing a better nutrient regimen for sports teams.
The bigger baseball biz gets, the more home run races we will want to see and the farther and farther science will push baseball from the sport that you can see played each weekend at Little League and weekender team fields around the world.
I don't think that a computer can do any thing except put coaches into comeptition with each other for the best equipment and force pitching, hitting and coaching into a computer-determined standardization.
Fuck a bunch of that.
P.S. GO RED SOX!
Goat sex free since 2001
Does their code throw exceptions?
That's not even funny.
CrazyLegs
"Pork!!" said the Fish, and we all laughed.
The best pitches are the ones that make the batter reach or hit into a predetermined part of the field. If the robots AI were to have the ability to choose which pitches where and when then it may be a "smart robot" but it'll get taken for yard every pitch. Unless it has Jason Kendall calling the shots for it :o)
No, I'm from Chicago.
"From of old, there are not lacking things that have attained Oneness." - Lao Tzu