if you're going to write a story about people being confused by big words, please don't use big words
This isn't about big words, its about Jargon. Jargon is specific to an area (in this case "tech"). You're a (presumably) educated american, but if I were to start talking to you about "40/20s", "sets of six" and "dummy halves", you'd almost certainly be mystified.
Not because its complex, but because its jargon from a field in which you're not very proficient (unless, of course, you're America's only Rugby League fan...)
Depends on which system of transliteration you use. Njet is the more modern (and probably more correct) by Nyet has a longer usage in Anglophone countries. The Oxford English Dictionary gives "niet", "nyet" and "njet" as accepatable.
If it were left to governments, the only computers would be bigger and heavier mainframes.
And the only way to network computers together would be a massive row over which of seven different proprietary implementations of OSI to use. See, government science funding made your posting (criticising government science funding) possible.
Luckily. (Or I would write on my car: "Not responsilbe if I hit you")
Except contracts (by necessity) require two or more parties, so unless you could get the pedestrian to also sign, thats not a contract. If you could, and you later hit them, its by no means clear that the contract would be held invalid. Can't see any good reason why it shouldn't, tho' IANAL.
... if they just noted that the tedious jam from Tuesday gig at the Cleveland Enormodome is not different from the Thursday's tedious jam at the Philadelphia Giganto-park, in any musically interesting way.
Was meche hitting the catcher's mit as perfectly as Maddux? Was Wilson framing the pitches as well as Lopez?
No they weren't, but it shouldn't matter. Umpires should call the strikezone as it is in the rulebook, much as they should stop calling the "phantom tag" in a double-play ball, and deny first base to people who don't try and avoid being hit by the ball.
Of course, conning the umpire is a skill, as you say. But it's a skill that I do not want to see rewarded, much like diving in soccer ("simulation", they call it in hockey).
If you told 100 people that they could probably become rich and famous but may lose 10% of their life I bet 90 peopple would take it.
You're not the first to reach this conclusion:
"If there was a pill that would guarantee you win 20 games, but would take five years off your life, guys would gulp it down without thinking twice." -- Jim Bouton, Ball Four (1969)
"Douggie," Schilling contended, "runs this little fat dwarf (Billabong) out into the woods in search of fame, only to get pounced upon by a whole flock of ticked off birds. I see his health bar dropping faster than my batting average in May, and I know it's trouble"
Schilling's version was a slightly different: "Doug got the beating he deserved." According to Schilling, Glanville induced him into a battle with Pratt -- and only then "backstabbed me like the true, leaf-eating wuss he is."
There was something in there about how Glanville did later beat him one-on-one. But that, Schilling alibied, was due to a "computer glitch."
the projection of the ball isn't going to be greatly altered during the next metre
Tell that to Mike Gatting... The trouble is, if the front foot is to the pitch of the ball, the ball's final direction will still be in a certain amount doubt by the time it strikes the shoe/ankle. Human umpires know what to do (not out, unless its clearly plum). Hawkeye will turn these into a lottery.
Pitcher's like Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux have made careers out of being so accurate with pitches that they can "expand" the strike zone. They start on the outside corner and gradually move further outside...if the ump calls the first one a strike, it's hard for him to draw the line between a strike and a ball if the difference is only an inch or two.
I'm aware of that, I just don't think its necessarily a good thing. I watched Maddux pitch against the Mariners on Sunday, and a few things were apparent:
Maddux was getting those pitches called strikes from the start. He didn't "expand the zone", or rather he did, but he did it by winning all those Cy Youngs in the 90s. Whenever Meche hit those spots, he wasn't getting the call. Maddux was getting them on reputation, as much as anything else.
Squeezing the hitters like that is detrimental to enjoyment of the game. When Edgar Martinez (the Greg Maddux of batting) took a 3-2 pitch that was 3 inches off the outside corner, he should be rewarded for this display of rare skill. A Maddux v. Martinez matchup should be a treat -- a real battle of skills -- and not decided by the capriciousness of an umpire who has decided that Greg gets a wider strikezone than everyone else.
That for all this talk of "fairness" and "consistency", what the major leagues want to see from theses changes is more offense. Rightly or wrongly (i.e. wrongly) thats what a lot of fans (and, crucially, occasional non-hardcore fans) want to see.
Hawkeye is far less reliable than Quest Tec, because there are more parameters. Baseballs curve in the air due to rotation, but not much else (though I'd like to see a machine umpire a knuckleballer). Cricket balls move through the air cause of spin, seam, spin, bounce at unpredictable heights due to cracks and the general condition of the pitch, and then swing (often late) due to the difference in shine on the two sides of the ball...
Hawkeye is a nice toy, but its less good than a really excellent umpire.
The slashdot summary is wrong (I'm shocked, shocked!). The 32.1 to 31.4 figures are both called by umpires, one when the machine is present, one when it isn't. (i.e. the machine is pressuring umps to call more strikes than they would otherwise).
I have been playing sports my entire life and I must say that it is the human factor that makes it interesting.
I kind of agree. Mistakes by the players certainly add to matches. Some of the most exciting sports events I've seen were riddled with mistakes. But I can't think of a single occasion where mistakes in officiating helped the game. However fallible the players are, I want the officials to get it right.
(and as an occasional rugby referee, I feel much worse when I've had a bad game officiating than I ever did when I was a bad player...)
Of course, if US patents are to do what the founding fathers originally intended -- make it easier for the *inventors* to invent -- the patents should be non-transferable
Thats just wrong. Inventors need to eat, but many of them want the palaver of having to commercially exploit their own inventions. Ergo, the right to sell patents to someone else in order to pay the rent until the next useful invention to come along is helpful in incouraging invention.
Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman - Excellent book on Physics and Quantum Mechanics. Outstanding really.
Theres almost no physics in "Surely You're Joking". Its mainly anecdotes, funny stories and occasional bouts of philosophising. It is highly entertaining, but it's not about science, popular or otherwise...
Because the laws they uphold, and the courts they run, help you to stop other people ripping you off. Thats what a patent is, its government protection, and its cheaper than the mafia (just).
Slashdot Mirror
Not because its complex, but because its jargon from a field in which you're not very proficient (unless, of course, you're America's only Rugby League fan...)
But you didn't really read it sufficiently closely to notice that the bit quoted by PhysicsGenius about never having had dates wasn't in the article .
HE MADE IT UP
It was made up, in order to troll the gullible, many of whom may actually have a low UID (isn't that a method of contraception?)
This means you.
it's called .nyet
Oh, the irony.
Dogma sucks.
Sure, you can't use power to force the other person to sign, to protect the little guy, but thats only fair.
... if they just noted that the tedious jam from Tuesday gig at the Cleveland Enormodome is not different from the Thursday's tedious jam at the Philadelphia Giganto-park, in any musically interesting way.
Of course, conning the umpire is a skill, as you say. But it's a skill that I do not want to see rewarded, much like diving in soccer ("simulation", they call it in hockey).
Hawkeye is far less reliable than Quest Tec, because there are more parameters. Baseballs curve in the air due to rotation, but not much else (though I'd like to see a machine umpire a knuckleballer). Cricket balls move through the air cause of spin, seam, spin, bounce at unpredictable heights due to cracks and the general condition of the pitch, and then swing (often late) due to the difference in shine on the two sides of the ball...
Hawkeye is a nice toy, but its less good than a really excellent umpire.
The slashdot summary is wrong (I'm shocked, shocked!). The 32.1 to 31.4 figures are both called by umpires, one when the machine is present, one when it isn't. (i.e. the machine is pressuring umps to call more strikes than they would otherwise).
(and as an occasional rugby referee, I feel much worse when I've had a bad game officiating than I ever did when I was a bad player...)
Because the laws they uphold, and the courts they run, help you to stop other people ripping you off. Thats what a patent is, its government protection, and its cheaper than the mafia (just).
No, *YOU* got second place, he won...