CyberToothedTiger.com

It was all over the Internet and television news the past few days. Bette Midler was in big trouble for cutting down over 200 trees on her property in Hawaii without the proper permit. The story was more newsworthy because Ms. Midler has been an advocate and spokesperson for environmental causes for many years now. The news about her arboreal faux pas broke earlier this week when the Board of Land and Natural Resources finally took official action, recommending a $6500 fine and a replanting program.

Most of the early news stories failed to report that the misdeed actually took place last fall. On October 17, 2006, conservation workers noticed the trees being cut down and reported it to the proper authorities. Ironically, it was only eight days after Ms. Midler made news in New York City with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and her New York Restoration Project, where she and Bloomberg planted the first ceremonial tree in the Million Trees initiative. In other words, while she was promising a million trees for NYC, she was already planning to cut trees on her Hawaiian property.

By all accounts, Ms. Midler was unaware that she needed a permit to clear the land. After her people were notified, Ms. Midler hired a botanists to survey the damage and identify the fallen trees. In retribution, earlier this year she also hired professionals from the National Tropical Botanical Garden to design a replanting program. Her lawyer said she was concerned with replacing some of the non-native trees with native Hawaiian species, and that she would not contest the fine.

The missing part of the story is that no one asked, or at least no one reported, who actually cut the trees down. I’m fairly certain that Bette wasn’t out there with a chain saw. Did she just hire some guys off the street? If she hired an actual landscaping or tree service, why didn’t they know about the permit? Why weren’t they named in the investigation? It sounds like they got off without a scratch. Hey, maybe they can use this incident to their advantage. They could use it as a slogan: “Permits? We don’ need no stinkin’ permits!”

Yes, I know that’s not how the line went in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but that’s the way that most people know it, and that’s the way they repeated it in Blazing Saddles.

Tags: Humor, News, Opinion by Smilodon
No Comments »

User-generated content is all the rage on the Internet. Sites like YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia, and Digg.com have been highlighted in mainstream media, so a lot of people have at least heard those names, even if they’ve never visited the sites or understand how they work. These four sites in particular, and probably hundreds of others, exist only because users (that’s people like you and me) take time to submit their own material (known as content on the Internet) or to edit and rewrite someone else’s material.

The issue is, that if any of these websites become wildly popular, the owner becomes wildly famous and/or rich, while no compensation is considered for the hundreds and thousands of people who volunteered their time and energy to make it popular. So what is a person’s motivation for participating in these user-generated sites? Well, I can tell you my motivation.

For a few years, I was a volunteer editor for the dmoz Open Directory Project. I did it because I felt like I could improve the product for the benefit of other users who shared the same interests as me. I did it because these niche categories were mostly ignored on the ODP, and I felt that I could bring a level of expertise, from a technical standpoint, to edit these non-technical categories. So there was an element of self-satisfaction in the whole process. On my personal website I certainly included a link to my ODP categories (ODP always made it clear that the correct terminology is not “my category”, but rather, “the category I edit”) where users could see my name listed at the bottom of the page. I left the ODP because I found other interests which took up my free time.

I have never submitted anything to YouTube or the other video-sharing sites, but it seems to me that they actually provide a tangible service to their submitters. Similar to the photo-sharing site Flickr, they provide a free service for users to share digital media with family, friends, and the world. Of course, commercial ventures and wanna-be professionals use YouTube as free advertisement. Other amateur submitters hope to gain their proverbial 15 minutes of fame by producing a viral video.

The term viral has mutated once again. The biological virus is characterized by its ability to infect a host for the purposes of self-replication. It was adopted into the computer lexicon as a piece of malicious software which gets copied covertly to your computer, and then replicates itself onto other computers. Now the term is used to describe digital media, a video or audio track, which gets passed around intentionally from friend to friend as “you gotta see this!”

In the case of Digg, the users find news or feature articles from anywhere on the Internet, post the link on Digg, and then other users vote on which are their favorites. The stories that get the most diggs move to the front page. There is a definite benefit for the actual writers and publishers of the original content, in that, the higher they are on the Digg rankings, the more traffic they get to their site. In fact, sometimes having an article posted to Digg can generate so many visitors that servers on small websites get overwhelmed, causing the site to crash. This phenomenon is the well-known digg effect. For the people who submit stories, there is a competition of who submits the most stories that make it to the front page. As I see it, it’s similar to a video game. You play the game for the entertainment value and to get bragging rights for the top score, but there isn’t much benefit beyond that. So when the owners of Digg cash in their highly-valued website, all of those users who spent countless hours playing the game to make digg what it is, get nothing. But I don’t see any difference from a company that produces a popular product. People buy it, tell their friends, they buy it, and the company makes a lot of money.

The Wikipedia is another huge website built on user-generated content. In essence it is an online encyclopedia, but its scope goes well beyond the traditional 30-volume set of books from your childhood. But the most unique feature is its method of growth. Any user, including you, can add material to the Wikipedia. The advantage is that the Wikipedia can be instantly updated. For example, when Barry Bonds broke the career home run record, it was immediately updated on his entry and on Hank Aaron’s entry before the game was over. For those unfamiliar with the site, it may sound like Wikipedia would get trashed by a lot of false information. The theory, though, is that so many people view and edit the articles, that people with expertise would immediately correct any misinformation. I have added material to Wikipedia myself. In all cases, my contributions are concerned with historical people and events, and I always post my references as part of the article. My motivation is similar to what I described about the ODP.

So what is the current state of funding for these sites? dmoz ODP is funded by the Netscape/Mozilla family of Internet products. YouTube was purchased by Google from the original developers for 1.65 billion dollars earlier this year. Digg is still funded by venture capital investors. Wikipedia is a non-profit venture which is funded by donations. Recently I heard the founder of Wikipedia being interviewed. The host asked him why he doesn’t just put advertising on the site, and he defended his decision to keep it non-profit. From my perspective, if Wikipedia ever becomes a profit-generating site, it undermines the motivation for users to volunteer their time and effort. Consider the following scenario.

An elderly widow in our neighborhood could not maintain the general upkeep on her home. The mortgage was settled, but she had no means to hire someone to do general repairs or even to cut the grass. So the neighborhood association took it upon themselves to help her out. The neighbors donated funds and material, and every weekend there were volunteers to mow the lawn, paint the porch, repair the roof, and even replace part of the tile floor inside. After several months, her house was looking pretty good, and we all felt rather proud of our accomplishment. And then her son showed up. He took her out of the house, put the house up for sale, and sold it for much more than it was worth only months before. How do you think the volunteers felt then?

Tags: Opinion, Tech Comment, User Content by Smilodon
No Comments »

Social websites are popping up everywhere… Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Flickr… the list goes on and on. The idea is that you create virtual groups of friends so you can share everything online and keep each other informed. You can share news, photos, music, links, or you can just tell everyone where you are and what you are doing. The competition for these sites is to get you to sign up for an account. They’re all free (mostly), and easy to do. The problem is that they only work if your friends are on the same site. And the hot site today may not be so hot tomorrow, so you move on to another site.

My question is, where are the web developers when you need them? Why can’t you just communicate between social websites? Yes, I know you can set up RSS feeds to aggregate your posts in and out, but you still have to have an account on each one to use them. In 1971, Ray Tomlinson developed the modern email application by standardizing the use of the @ symbol. He created a protocol whereby computer files could be sent across the network to people who were on different domains — you know, like tiger@tree.com could send a message to flea@dirt.com. Tiger and Flea didn’t have to have accounts on the same domain to exchange data (Yes, I know that was in the old Arpanet days, before there were any dot coms, but you get my point). The same should be true of social network websites. If you have a Facebook, you should be able to add a friend from MySpace or Bebo. The application and protocol should exist for you to create the same friends list across websites, just like Tomlinson’s email.

Now that I think about it, maybe I’ll write the protocol myself. Let me fire up my GW-BASIC interpreter and see what I can do.

Tags: Humor, Social Networking, Tech Comment by Smilodon
No Comments »

The 2007 college football season will begin in a couple weeks, and I am as excited as ever to see how my alma mater will stack up against the rest of the league and in the national Division I-A polls. In a couple months we will begin to hear the sportscasters calling once again for a Division I-A playoff system. Now I’d love to see a playoff as much as the next guy, but what gets me is the way these guys flip flop on their arguments.

The current Bowl Championship Series format determines who are the two best teams to play for the national championship. Every sportscaster and his brother can tell you how that system unfairly disregards other deserving teams, but every year they have a different idea on how to remedy it.

The NCAA keeps changing their terminology with regard to Division I-A college football. As of last year, the eleven Division I-A football conferences and the major independents were called the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The six major conferences — the ones who get an automatic bid to the Bowl Championship Series — were called the BCS conferences. The other conferences were unofficially referred to as mid-majors. Now it seems that they’ve decided to call all of them BCS Conferences since, technically, they could all qualify to play in a BCS game.

Let’s review some of the last few seasons…

2000

At the end of the 2000 season, Oklahoma was the only undefeated team at 12-0 and clearly the top-ranked team. Their opponent in the championship game was Florida State, who had lost earlier in the year to Miami (FL). But there were four other teams with identical 10-1 records that could have been there as well. Miami (FL) had lost early in the season to Washington. Washington had lost once to Oregon. Oregon State had lost once to Washington. And Virginia Tech had lost once late in the season to Miami (FL). Those five teams seemed to have had their own round-robin tournament during the season. As the sportscasters pointed out, a six or eight-team playoff would have solved that injustice. But my question is, why should Oklahoma have the same standing in a playoff? Since they were undefeated and the clear number one team, shouldn’t they just wait for the playoff to see who they play for the championship?

2001

In 2001 it was Miami of Florida who was the clear number one, undefeated at 11-0. Their opponent was Nebraska, a team that was undefeated until the last week of the regular season when they lost to Colorado. As a result, Nebraska didn’t even win its league division. Still, Nebraska had enough points in the polls and computers to stay at number two and earn a trip to the national championship game. Left out was Oregon, a 10-1 team that had lost in midseason to Stanford. Surely a four-team playoff would have solved that injustice. But which other team would you put in that playoff? There were no other one-loss teams. All of the other contenders already had two losses by season’s end: Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Washington State. Is picking a fourth team for a playoff any easier than picking a second team? Well anyway, everyone was sure that situation with Nebraska limping into the championship game was just a fluke and wouldn’t come up again.

Everything turned out okay in 2002. Ohio State buzzed through the Big Ten and an unprecedented five non-conference games and ended up with a 13-0 season. Miami (FL) won a close game over Florida State and a shoot-out with Virginia Tech to finish 11-0. As the only two undefeated teams, there was no arguing about who should play for the national championship.

2003

It all went awry in 2003. The preseason favorite, Oklahoma, looked like the juggernaut of 2000, finishing the regular season undefeated, averaging over 50 points, including a 65-13 drubbing of archrival Texas, and then an embarrassing 77-0 defeat of Texas Tech. The number two team was not so evident. The darling Southern Cal team (are they calling themselves USC again or not?) had lost an early season game to California, but then they steadily rose back up the polls as they rolled through their last eight opponents without much trouble. The other contender was Ohio State, who had lost a tough-fought game to Wisconsin in midseason. But Ohio State had to play Michigan in the last game of the season, and Michigan, already a two-loss team, dashed OSU’s title hopes. So who was left? Lowly Louisiana State. LSU had a great team, but they had lost a home game to Florida earlier in the year. Still, as the weeks wore on, LSU kept winning, rising in the polls, all the way to the SEC title game, where they convincingly defeated a 10-2 Georgia team. Meanwhile, Oklahoma fell completely flat in the Big Twelve title game, losing 35-7 to Kansas State. But when the final rankings were released, it was still Oklahoma on top, and LSU at number two to challenge for the national title. Poor USC. It’s playoff whining time again.

When USC defeated Michigan, and then LSU defeated Oklahoma, the Associated Press voted USC number one anyway. The end of the 2003 season probably brought the most vocal cry for a playoff. One broadcaster remarked how great it would have been if LSU and USC could have played a final game for the championship. Uh… what? If anything, it should have been LSU and USC playing for the right to play top-ranked Oklahoma. And what would you have done if Michigan had defeated USC? Just say, forget it? Pick a different team to play LSU? And if you’re going to have the winner of one game play the winner of another game, isn’t that a four-team playoff? So how exactly did Michigan qualify for this exclusive club?

2004

The 2004 season ended with just as much controversy. Southern Cal made good on their promise of the previous year, albeit with a few close calls, but nevertheless they avenged their loss to California and finished the regular season at 12-0 as everyone’s number one pick. The problem was, that there were four other undefeated teams! Oklahoma was second-ranked, followed closely by Auburn, but there were two non-major teams that were also undefeated: Utah and Boise State. Of course, based on their schedules, no one considered either of those latter two teams for the national championship. Both Oklahoma and Auburn won their league championship games, but when the final rankings were released, it was Oklahoma at number two, and Auburn, an undefeated SEC champion, left out.

In the old Bowl days, before the Bowl Championship Series, USC would have gone to the Rose Bowl, Oklahoma would have gone to the Orange Bowl, and Auburn would have gone to the Sugar Bowl, which means we could have ended the year with three undefeated major conference champions.

As the discussions of a playoff rose again, one sportscaster pitched his idea for an eight-team playoff, and he named the eight teams that deserved to be included. When one of his colleagues pointed out that he’d snubbed the undefeated and highly-ranked Boise State team, the sportscaster smiled and replied, “Well, no, not Boise State.”

Are you kidding me? You want to have a playoff system, but even if a team goes undefeated, there’s no way they’d be allowed to contend for the championship? If that were the case, then those teams should have their own division in which they can contend for the national championship. Once again, I am not defending the Bowl Championship Series format, but I haven’t heard anyone come up with a fair playoff system that would work each year, no matter how many teams are undefeated.

Sure, it’s not so difficult to come up with a playoff system at the end of the year, if you can tailor it to the results of that particular year. The sportscasters most often cite the lower Division football playoffs and the NCAA Division I basketball playoffs as examples of doing away with the current system and letting the games decide a champion. Division II football has about 150 teams in 13 conferences, and they take 24 teams, which means they select about half of the playoff teams. And the basketball playoffs are just as much a selection process as any. That’s why they call it Selection Sunday. They just take it to an extreme. Everyone loves a Cinderella team in the hoops playoffs. What would a Cinderella team in football be like? Maybe Boise State upsetting Oklahoma? Oh, wait, they did that in the Fiesta Bowl to complete an undefeated 2006 season.

Most people seem to favor a smaller Division I playoff system, between eight and sixteen teams. My contention is that, however many spots there are, the rules for getting in must be clearly defined before the season, with minimal input from rankings. Make it just the conference champions, regardless of record. It would force the Big Ten to split into two divisions and have a conference championship game, or risk having an undefeated team left out. Yes, it would also introduce the possibility of having an 8-4 conference champion, say Team A, with three non-conference losses going to the playoffs over Team B with an 11-1 record. As long as you have a conference championship game, that could only happen if Team A beat Team B. It makes every conference game crucial in the national championship race as well as the conference race. But if you want to have a playoff, you’re going to have teams with more losses in the mix, and that means you might get a national champion with the 5th best record.

So what is my playoff system? It would be eight teams in the usual brackets. The qualifiers would come from the six automatic qualifiers as they are now, plus two wild-card teams from non-major conferences and independents. Normally that would be Notre Dame, regardless of record, because, you know, they’re Notre Dame, but it could be anyone. The seedings would come from the current ranking system. There could be other caveats such as, you have to have beaten at least one team from the big conferences, and you have to be ranked in the top 16, otherwise the highest ranked non-champion team would get in. And there you have it. The games would decide all but two of the eight teams in the playoff. No conference would generally have more than one team in the playoff, and a non-major school like Boise State would qualify if they have an outstanding year.

Tags: Sports by BrokenClaw
No Comments »

For thirty years now we’ve been hearing how soccer is growing in popularity in the US. Soccer aficionados believe that youth soccer is the answer — that if kids are exposed to soccer at an early age, they’ll learn to love the game, which will carry on to adulthood. But that just isn’t the case.

Youth soccer is certainly big in the US. Most every community has a youth soccer program, with huge numbers of participants. Parents love youth soccer. The reasons why parents, particularly moms, flock to youth soccer are self-evident:

1. There is relatively no chance of injury.
2. There is little cost of equipment.
3. There is no skill required to play.

In other countries, where kids start playing pick-up games of soccer in the streets and fields, I have no doubt that some kids develop noticeable skills by age 6 or 8. In the US, however, kids just don’t play soccer on their own. They only play it in organized leagues when their parents load them in the minivan and take them to play soccer.

And that’s the difference between soccer and other sports in the US. Youth soccer is an activity, not a sport. I’m not saying that it’s not a worthwhile activity, but it’s just an activity. Take the kids to the park, to the playground, to the pool, or to soccer. There isn’t much difference. Yes, I know there’s some instruction going on, but for the most part, a kid can stand around and run back and forth on the soccer field without ever participating in any type of athletic skill.

Conversely, a kid never gets singled out for poor play, which is related to number three above. In other sports, everyone sees when a player strikes out, or drops a pass, or makes an error, or throws the ball out of bounds, or misses a shot. In youth soccer, nobody is expected to have a particular skill, so nobody notices when no skill is demonstrated.

So then what happens? By the time kids are 10 to 12 years old, those with actual athletic skill move on to other sports where they can develop and showcase their abilities. Most of the others simply drop out of organized sports. A minority few continue to play soccer.

In the late 1980s, Boris Becker from Germany took the tennis world by storm. During one of his matches, the announcers were discussing the paucity of world-class tennis players from the US. The analyst made the point that, if Boris Becker had been born in the US, he would probably be a linebacker at a major college like Michigan, instead of playing tennis. You can say the same thing about soccer players.

Tags: Opinion, Sports by BrokenClaw
No Comments »

When I was in Fifth Grade, our teacher had a small bulletin board that he changed each Monday. On it he posted a Word of the Week along with a picture to illustrate it, a Quotation of the Week, and a general knowledge Question of the Week. The only question from that Fifth Grade bulletin board that I remember was this one: “How many home runs did Babe Ruth hit?” In other words, it was considered general knowledge for a fifth grader that Babe Ruth held the home run record.

Read more →

Tags: Opinion, Sports by BrokenClaw
No Comments »