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Sport: Cricket
Bat Amplifier   (+2, -3)  [vote for, against]

One of the joys of cricket is the sound of the wooden bat striking the leather clad ball, but in a large and noisy venue, the more subtle detail of this unique sound can easily be lost.

The solution to is simple - fit a tiny pick-up microphone into the main body of the bat, which transmits the vibrations to an amplifier that in turn broadcasts them to the surrounding spectators.

Similar devices could be installed in baseball bats, golf clubs, tennis rackets etc
-- xenzag, Aug 26 2011

Approximately sixty percent down the page... http://www.avisoft.com/sounds.htm
...Leistler's bat social calls...TURN IT UP! [normzone, Aug 26 2011]

The Aluminium Bat incident. http://www.youtube....g6WeQ3xx3d16nVYk5RQ
[DrBob, Aug 26 2011]

BBC test match "leg over" hilarity http://news.bbc.co....yid=6961129&bbcws=1
cricket commentary's finest moment.... I defy anyone to listen to this and not fall about laughing. Those who live in the colonies may not get it (Aussies and Kiwis excepted) [xenzag, Aug 26 2011]

A picture of the Pacific Ocean http://en.wikipedia...ubl_1837_edited.jpg
Another British eccentricity. [mouseposture, Aug 28 2011]

... so not a Chiropteran hearing prosthesis then ?
-- FlyingToaster, Aug 26 2011


//One of the joys of cricket is the sound of the wooden bat striking the leather clad ball//

Not if you are on the fielding team it ain't!

This idea calls to mind one of the Great Moments in Cricket History. Linky.
-- DrBob, Aug 26 2011


Ever notice how nobody but the Brits refer to former empire-enslaved nations as 'the colonies' anymore?
-- RayfordSteele, Aug 26 2011


That's just a manifestation of the well known "teenager's embarrassing parents" phenomenon. They'll get over it when they grow up and have colonies of their own.
-- 8th of 7, Aug 26 2011


Isn't that because it was only the British Empire where the term for the colonies was "the colonies"? Presumably the French, for example, had a more foreign word for them, one with 50% more vowels.

If the beef is that such usage is condescending (and I can see why it might appear to be), it might be worth making clear that use of the term is usually couched with a slight disparaging nudge directed not at those former outposts of Empire, but at our failure to maintain possession of either them, or what was once seen as our rightful place in the world. It's more a more rueful usage than it is malicious.
-- calum, Aug 26 2011


Les Coulouniesse.
-- theleopard, Aug 26 2011


Der Kolonialgebiete.
-- calum, Aug 26 2011


They are "The Colonies" in the same way that other institutions are referred to , such "The Royal Navy" or "The Royal Society" - in each case, use of "The" as a prefix is a short form for "The Only One That Matters, Actually".

Other plodding imitators are actually obliged to insert the name of their country before the noun, to make it clear who it belongs to. How humiliating.
-- 8th of 7, Aug 26 2011


//to make it clear who it belongs to.// gr: to whom it belongs. Tut tut, hivemind the size of a planet, etc.
-- zen_tom, Aug 26 2011


Televised Major-League Baseball has this baked (just on tv, not in the park): they already run the game on five- or ten-second delay to edit out managers shouting obscenities at the umpire and spectators flashing the cameras, so they take advantage of that to dub in a "crack!" when the batter makes contact, even if it's just a bunt, and a "vvvt!" sound when the ball hits the catcher's mitt. It's utterly ridiculous, and the only reason it doesn't really bother me is that I loathe baseball. It is quite possibly the only sport that is more boring to watch than soccer.
-- Alterother, Aug 26 2011


// They'll get over it when they grow up and have colonies of their own. //

We do have colonies of our own, only we call them 'territories' and, unlike you limey gits, we've managed to hold onto most of ours. You're just sore losers, that's all.
-- Alterother, Aug 26 2011


Thay would be like, "Territory of Iraq/Lybia/Place with Accessible Oil Reserves" ?
-- 8th of 7, Aug 26 2011


No, you're confused: I meant Guam, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, etc.

Those places you named are _future_ US Territories. Don't beat yourself up, though; anybody could have made that mistake.
-- Alterother, Aug 26 2011


//Presumably the French, for example, had a more foreign word// "DOM-TOM" On paper, anyway, lotta French colonies weren't colonies, merely parts of France located overseas.
-- mouseposture, Aug 26 2011


//You Brits *do* remember the Falklands, I presume? Well, we had 'em first).// - not so fast with the Falklands claim

"English Captain John Strong sailed between the two principal islands in 1690 and called the passage "Falkland Channel" (now Falkland Sound), after Anthony Cary, 5th Viscount Falkland (1659–1694), who as Commissioner of the Admiralty had financed the expedition and later became First Lord of the Admiralty. From this body of water the island group later took its collective name." source wikipedia. I can find no record of an American claim.

What's all this got to do with fitting a pick-up to the bat used in the world's most popular game?
-- xenzag, Aug 27 2011


Once they be a colony, they always be a colony. (Sir Cheggard Monstrom)

Meanwhile in the history of the Falklands I can find no evidence of an American claim, and any one that exists is predated by hundreds of years. "In 1765, the British captain John Byron explored and claimed Saunders Island on West Falkland.... and a settlement was constructed in 1766. He claimed the island group for King George III, and introduced the game of cricket."
-- xenzag, Aug 27 2011


[mp] There are still districts of Paris in the Caribbean and the Pacific.
-- j paul, Aug 28 2011


[j_p]] Cool! Tell us more.

(Of course British Admiralty lawyers can say, with a perfectly straight face, that the Pacific Ocean is located here <link>.)
-- mouseposture, Aug 28 2011


Shirley this would be an electric bat, then?
-- ye_river_xiv, Aug 29 2011


Yes - you are quite right [ye_river_xiv] With a string tensioned across the pick-up, that bat could double up as a musical instrument.
-- xenzag, Aug 29 2011


Is it now too late to forestall the inevitable "Cricket Bat Hero" idea posting ?
-- 8th of 7, Aug 29 2011



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