h a l f b a k e r yThe phrase 'crumpled heap' comes to mind.
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Although I don't play cricket, or watch or enjoy cricket, or
know anything
about it, I have noticed that catching the ball is often a
large part of it.
And this catching does not always work.
So, MaxCo. is launching its range of Predictive Cricket
Glasses. They
consist (for each eye)
of a camera with a decent frame-rate,
a small VR-
style screen, and some gubbins. The gubbins take the last
three images
from the camera, and perform a quick comparison between
them. From
this, the apparent motion of any object (such as a cricket
ball, for
instance) can be predicted with decent accuracy, and
displayed on the VR
screens.
Because there are two camera/gubbins/screens (one for
each eye - much
better), the predicted monocular images will of course
equate to
stereoscopic prediction. A small dial on the left-hand stem
can be turned,
but does nothing and was put there by Marketing. However,
a similar dial
on the right-hand stem can be used to select the degree of
prediction; you
can choose to see the ball where it will be in 0.2 seconds,
0.5 seconds, all
the way up to 2 seconds into the future. Naturally, the
error in the
prediction (due to factors such as wind) becomes greater for
the longest
predictions.
(Please note: the beta-test versions currently in circulation
have a
processing delay of approximately 2.5 seconds, but we are
working to
resolve this issue.)
[link]
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Of course, for matches between <placeholder until I can find
out something about cricket> and <placeholder until I can find
out something about cricket>, the predictions can be
extended out to about a week. |
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You attempted to be halfbaked, but, oh no! I think it will
certainly work. It's very patentable and could be used for
athletic training even if it were cumbersome or prohibited
at actual contests. |
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2.5 seconds? Are you using a Vic-20 to run the math
through a LOGO-to-Pascal interpreter? |
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No, but we've put in a budget request for one. |
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Haven't you still got that HP85c that you needed for the Large Hadron Collider data analysis ? You could use that ... |
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When we read the title, we thought it would be a pair of sunglasses with a tiny speaker that played the phrase "You're going to fall asleep any minute now, you know". |
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//HP85c// Yes, but those hadrons were tiny. We'll need
something much, much bigger for a cricket ball. |
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// show where the point is. // |
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You can't show something that doesn't exist. |
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A point may not exist, but it still has a position. So you can
show where it is. For instance, there's a point inside this O |
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Yes, there is, but there's no point in cricket. |
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Interestingly, there apears to be even less point in baseball, which suggests that the square root of minus one comes into it somewhere. |
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Now you're just imagining things. |
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The most interesting variation of cricket is the
game of "Bricket" where a half brick is used instead
of a cricket ball. Players waddle around in heavily
padded protective suits, similar to that of bomb
disposal technicians. The Bricket keeper cowers
behind an armour plate with a horizontal slot cut
in it for vision. |
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Now, we certainly would pay a dollar to watch that. |
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What do they use for the bat? |
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A cricket bat with a metal face should be suitable. |
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Handy if you disagree with the other team and have to appeal to the vampire .. |
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I think you'd be better off with a wom bat. |
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No, but that would be a good idea in itself. |
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Not observing cricket is very easy; just don't sit still looking in the same direction for a couple of hours. If you keep moving and keep looking at interesting things, the chances of accidentally observing cricket are slim. |
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There are ball catching robots that use a variety of systems
to optically predict the flight of a ball. Even when it's gently
tossed in their direction, they're dreadful at it. The moving
part is the easy one for robots, it's not hard to make one
that will whizz around faster than people. The sensing and
prediction are where robots are behind the human visual
cortex. Also, how does the path prediction take into account
reverse swing when even grizzled Yorkshiremen don't
understand reverse swing? |
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//Although I don't play cricket, or watch or enjoy
cricket, or know anything about it |
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and my 100% spot-on prediction is..cricket is boring. |
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"... and tonight on Mastermind, our first contestant is [not_morrison_rm], who has chosen the specialised subject of 'The Bleedin' Obvious' ..." |
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