Sports - Dan Joseph

The age of technology still grows…

Comics, Sci-Fi, Sports, Technology, Twitter, Video Games No Responses »

Jul 112011

Every year I watch the Home Run Derby. As a baseball fan, its one of those traditions that I hope never dies, but still wish they’d revert to the previous format. Still, I found myself in amazement at one more thing they’ve found to improve on technologically. This year they’re showing graphical tags of how far the ball traveled where it lands.

I don’t think I’m amazed personally at what they’re doing, or how they’re showing it. I’m amazed that sports has come this direction. There are so many purists in the broadcast booths today that I’m amazed they even let them run a radar gun or show instant replay.

Tagging home runs isn’t the only thing they’ve started doing this year. A couple days ago I watched a special on FSN Detroit about the angle of the bat in relation to how far the ball will travel, and where it will land. Have we really come to the point in pro sports where we have to condition our players to understand the angle they’re swinging the bat? Do we really need to be that intricate to squeeze 10 more feet out of a hit?

And let’s not forget the Pitchers. They have people on staff with some ball clubs now to analyze the movement of the pitcher, and push them to the very brink of where the body can handle the hard jarring motion of a pitch. Imagine if Nolan Ryan had this type of guy working on his motion. 105-108 MPH could have turned into 115-118 MPH.

But does it really need to come to this? Have we focused too much on technology? I think in some cases we have. I understand the desire to want to strike out more people, or get more multibase hits, but I also understand why the purists want to keep it a game, and not evolve us into machines.

There is an episode of The Twilight Zone called “Steel”. Simply put, Boxing is an outlawed sport for humans. You must use a robot. These robots are stronger and more durable, and there are different models to upgrade to. If we keep overusing technology in sports, could this become reality? Quite possibly.

Still, even if you’re not a fan of over technologing (is that a word??) sports, you have to admit, some of the byproducts are exciting to watch. We all love to see the 100 MPH fast ball, and there is nothing more exciting than the triple. I just hope this doesn’t saturate that excitement.

Here’s some news stories I found interesting today…

Google+ has its minuses

I can’t imagine why anyone would write a negative article on something that is enjoyable, let alone one about an incomplete social network. C-Net’s Jessica Dolcourt does a good job breaking down the aspects of Google+, but it gives an early looker a false sense of what Google+ will evolve into. Maybe you’ll agree with some of it, but I’d keep an open mind.

Secret Service uses Twitter to find bike mechanic

I have no words for this. I am speechless. Just read it…

Finaly Fantasy XIII-2 Screenshots

I loved Final Fantasy XIII. If you’re a fan of RPGs, and haven’t played it yet, you should. I am looking forward to XIII-2. The early reviews and screenshots are very promising that Square won’t repeat another X-2 debacle.

Comic Con 20111 Coverage

I’ve never been into comics, but recently read the first 3 Jericho Season 3 comics. I really enjoyed them. Aside from the fact that I’m thinking about looking for a new Comic series, this is the 2nd biggest gaming event of the year. This is also a great look at some Sci-Fi.

Finally, congratulations to Robinson Cano, 2011 HR Derby Champion. He didn’t use technology. Just a bat.

Dwelling on the past…

Architecture, Database, LivingPoetic.com, Social Media, Sports, TeaserLeague.com, Twitter No Responses »

Jul 062011

It isn’t often I take up some blog space to brag about myself in the past. Today I had a phone call from someone interested in one of my past projects, TeaserLeague.com.

Teaser League is a game that I often describe as a football survival pool with a team based rotisserie element to it. Aside from the sports element, there was a lot of database and back end architecture that I got to contribute to the project:

Database Design
Database Performance Tuning
Automation Process for standings, new membership, and real-time NFL scores.

One of my favorite resources for tuning our MySQL database was the MySQL Performance Blog. They have a lot of information on just about any topic you need. For us, it was how to make the database run as fast as possible, with a lot of heavy queries, and a lot of simultaneous connections. We were gearing up for a 250,000 member web site, with most everyone active all day Sunday.

I had my first chance at writing production C code. We decided to write our first breed of automation scripts in C in an attempt to pull the most performance possible out of our linux servers. I didn’t know Python, and C seemed a better route than Perl. Nothing against Perl, but we could have just as easily used PHP, and not accomplished what we wanted. I should note that in the end, we had mostly PHP scripts, and just a couple C scripts pushing the back end.

Another aspect that I really enjoyed was the chance to interact with the community. I was asked if I would handle our social media aspects, and setup a Facebook fan page and a Twitter account for the site. I pushed those pretty good, and built a pretty decent following. I was even able to get Ochocinco to read one my responses to him, but couldn’t get him to RT me. My guess is he was restricted from anything that resembled a gambling site, even though we were for entertainment only.

I miss working with a community. It was a nice break form the hectic and sometime grueling task of coding. I’m still working on getting LivingPoetic.com up and running, and hope to break back into some community management this fall.

Speaking of social networking, I could use a few followers in Twitter. Please follow me: @iamdanjoseph — I promise I’ll follow back.

HTML5, Games, Softball…

HTML5, Sports, Video Games No Responses »

Jul 022011

I would like to first thank my neighbor, Steve, and his Church, Memorial, for inviting me to play softball tonight. We played a double header against another local Church, and won both games. I K’d, walked twice, scored 2 runs, and had a couple blooper hit outs. Considering I hadn’t picked up a bat since 2005, I’m writing it off as a win for myself. I played 2nd base and Right Field throughout both games. I had 1 error at 2nd, but made a couple good plays to make up for it.

Speaking of games. Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is only 4 months away. 11-11-11. I can’t wait. Morrowind was awesome. Oblivion was pretty awesome. I’m hoping Skyrim tops them both. So far what I’ve seen from it, the game play is much smoother. Bethesda wrote their own engine from the ground up this time. The graphics are incredible as always. I’m assuming the story will remain well written as always.

I ran across a really nice web site tonight that talked about HTML5 and Games for the web. Build Your First Game With HTML5. Thank you Chad VanCalster for the link on linkedin!

Something I’ve learned about game programming on the web thru HTML5 (and WebGL) is it takes patience. I would almost compare it to writing games in C++. Back in 2005, I was laid off from my job. The job market was horrible in Michigan, so I spent hours at the library in a study room learning C++ and DirectX 9. When I first starting looking at WebGL a couple weeks ago, I had flashbacks of that library.

Speaking of WebGL…. I think it might be doomed. Recently, Microsoft wrote it off as insecure, and they won’t be supporting it in IE9. Normally I’d just say that MS is missing out, but I think that might be the nail in the coffin for widespread support of the language. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m sure someone somewhere will get something else standardized and pushed through. And maybe that’s a good thing. Who knows. Maybe Flash will just stick around. I personally think that’s the better option anyway.

4th of July weekend is upon us. When I was a kid, we’d head up north for the weekend (or week). After water skiing all day, my dad would light up some fireworks. It was pretty cool. This year I’ll be starting off by grilling hot dogs at the Church after the parade, and then grilling some brats for my wife, before we head out to see fireworks in Westland.

Have a happy 4th of July!

-Dan