Check out this robot arm catching things thrown at it:
Put that thing on some Segway wheels and we have an awesome robotic addition to many sports. Heck that would finally bring us a step closer to my dream world where Base Wars exists in real life.
Check out the robot arm on Engadget.
As a nerd, I’m sure you’ve had people say that video games are ruining young people and that the world is doomed to eternal damnation because people play video games. I’m not saying that you should eschew everything else and focus solely on video gaming, but I do have a nice picture that may help combat some of the hate.
It’s the weekend, so here’s a fun infographic I came across this week. ????? I like this for 2 reasons: first it’s quite nerdy — being stats about gamers with an 8-bit theme, and second it really shows how picking and choosing some numbers you can make a case for just about anything. ?????? ??????
(via Joystick Division)
I have a bit of a Kickstarter problem, to the tune of 14 backed projects in the last 7 months. But don’t worry — I can handle it. I can quit any time I want. Until that time comes though, let me tell you of a few interesting finds.
162pixels 2012 Baseball Statographic eBook – These guys are putting together a small ebook full of preseason baseball pretty statistical goodness. In less than a week, we’ll know if they made their tiny $1500 goal. And no, I didn’t go for the level that includes a link to my blog in the book. ? And if you think that $5 for a silly baseball book isn’t worth it, give them the money for the fun Moneyball-style promotion video:
Gridiron Heroes – This one actually just finished funding. But don’t fret, you can still get in line to play some Gridiron heroes by checking out their Facebook page. What are you getting in line to play? A Tecmo Bowl style football simulation MMO game on the Facebook. I’ve also seen these Chelsea vs Liverpool tickets so can choose from a wide selection of tickets and secure top seats for the game. If you are into MMOG then you should try playing destiny, if you want to level up your character faster then check out this awesome destiny 2 boosting. I’m tired of all the Facebook games being puzzlers or boring farming simulations, so I can’t wait for some footballs up in there. Here’s their gameplay trailer:
BALLCRAPS – Also recently successful in getting their project kickstarted, BALLCRAPS is a mix of craps and football. Basically it’s a felt craps-style board where the betting that happens is about predicting the future plays of the game. ??? ???? ?? ?????? I’ve put myself on their mailing list to be the first to know about Baseballcraps when the get around to making that.
That’s kind of all I found for decent sports-related KickStarters, but instead of ending this post now, I’m going to point out a few interesting board gaming ones for the nerds who are into that.
Mobile Frame Zero: Rapid Attack – This is strategy and tactics LEGO-based miniatures game. ??? ??????? The designers are Vincent Baker (of Dogs in the Vineyard, Apocalypse World, The Abductinators, etc.) and Joshua A.C. Newman (of Shock:Social Science Fiction, Shock:Human Contact, and Under the Bed). So it has some decent pedigrees and it’s about fighting LEGO robots — What more do you want?
Velociraptor! Cannibalism! – “Velociraptor! Cannibalism! is a card game of survival, mutation, and the occasional volcano. Based on a crude understanding of natural selection,Velocipator! Cannibalism! puts you in the role of a young, eager and bright eyed Raptor as they must eat delicious, adorable prey, survive environmental disaster, mutate and steal the body parts of other Raptors. ????? ?????? ????? ” And if that’s not enough to convince you, perhaps this fancy kitten-eating raptor can change your mind:
I’ve written about sports video games before, and I do this for a reason. I’ve broached on topics from aussyelo lol accounts to high-end EA sports. I like sports (hence the blog) and video games (hence the blog) but I am not physically cut out for many of the sports I enjoy. Also, at times I prefer fandom to actually playing — especially those sports where’s I’d likely break bones. But has it come to a point where the games are extremely accurate simulations?
FIFA soccer (the video game) has a World Cup event. I wonder if players from the same countries dominate every time like the real World Cup?
Madden doesn’t just suck at announcing in video game form, he sucks at the real thing too:
In a recent playoff game, Mr. Madden said the New York Giants, who faced a third down with 10 yards to go, had not performed well in those situations. Seconds later, Mr. Madden’s NBC booth partner, Al Michaels, called his attention to a graphic on the screen which noted that the Giants were tops in the NFL in third-and-long situations.
Find more examples from that article in the Wall Street Journal and wonderful comments section of The Big Lead. So it seems that EA has definatly got one thing right. What about the realism of the game?
For that I turn to a monolith of Nerd on Sport — Mark Cuban. ????? ???? ????? Yup, the now owner of the Dallas Mavericks who made a good chunk of his early money from selling a website to Yahoo. He wrote on his blog:
NBA Live 09 is becoming a management tool in the NBA.
That’s right – good enough to be used by the real NBA, live. ??? ???? ????? ?? ???????? ?????? And it sounds like a good plan to me. What better way to try out how some differing strategies might play out against a certain team.
So what I’m getting at, is that maybe these games have gotten to real. Is that possible — I mean it is “just a game. ????? ??????? ” Either way, if Cuban is looking for a new hire to run his NBA Live division – I enjoy Dallas, and the AA Center is very nice.
You think UNC’s got ups? You think UCLA’s got the defense? Just wait until you see the Nerds on Sports March Madness tournament!
T-1000 vs. Batman
What the T-1000 boasted in strength and adaptability, it lost in speed. The Caped Crusader leapt from rooftop to rooftop to avoid his pursuer. Analyzing a sample of liquid metal with his Batcave computer, he figured out the T-1000’s weakness quicker than Linda Hamilton did, and disabled it with a liquid nitrogen spray.
Winner: BATMAN.
Morpheus vs. Captain James T. Kirk
The two captains faced off in a garbage-strewn subway. Morpheus’ kung fu was strong, but Kirk kept luring him into situations where he couldn’t unleash his full power (narrow hallways, subway turnstiles, etc). Kirk lost some headway in the early rounds, however, by mistaking the superhumanly strong Morpheus for a robot. “What is love?” he bellowed, trying to trick his opponent’s programming. “What … is the meaning … of life?”
Battered and bloodied, Kirk finally tricked Morpheus into severing a phone junction box with a vicious roundhouse kick, cutting off his means of escape. He then wrapped Morpheus up in a headlock and threw him into the path of a train. But Morpheus shocked the crowd by backflipping off the opposite wall just before the train arrived and landing on Kirk’s head with a double knee strike. This was one for the record books – the closest match the Tournament has seen so far.
Winner: MORPHEUS.
Wolverine vs. Optimus Prime
This one went into triple overtime with no clear leader. Optimus Prime kept stepping on Wolverine, but the feisty Canuck couldn’t be kept down. Meanwhile, Wolverine had the cutting power but not the muscle mass to take down a robot ten times his height – despite having no problem with Sentinel robots of similar size.
Finally, a stroke of good fortune exposed the Autobot Matrix of Leadership to Wolverine’s claws. Optimus fought the remainder of the third overtime period with one hand protecting his chest cavity, giving Wolverine an advantage. As Optimus fell, the Matrix bounced out of his chest and landed in the hands of Judd Nelson.
Winner: WOLVERINE
Luke Skywalker vs. Legolas
A lot of commentators expected this one to go longer than it did. Legolas had some clear advantages in agility and precision, and a thousand years of experience over his young and headstrong Jedi opponent. However, lightsabers can still deflect arrows, whereas the reverse is never true.
Winner: LUKE SKYWALKER
Final Four
This week brings us to the conference championship games, which will determine who faces off in the finals next week. We’ve seen some upsets and some blowouts, but I think we can all agree that these competitors deserve to be here.
Hyrule Conference Championship: Batman vs. Morpheus
Paragon City Conference Championship: Wolverine vs. Luke Skywalker
Log on to our survey to vote for your favorite. We had several matches in this last round come down to just a few votes. Don’t let your favorite get knocked out because you didn’t vote for him!
Voting ends midnight on Sunday, April 6th. Good luck, and see you in the finals!
The NCAA bracket has excited exactly no one, with top seeds like UNC, Tennessee and Kansas cruising on through. But the Elite Eight at Nerds on Sports continues to surprise!
Blowouts
Given past success in defeating Superman, it shocked no one that Batman wiped the floor with Superman’s low-rent Jersey cousin, Mr. Incredible. A complicated series of super-gadgets and martial arts nerve strikes brought the invulnerable bruiser low, though the two superheroes parted as friends. The Operative looked awfully bad-ass, quoting obscure philosophers and wielding a totally cool katana, until Optimus Prime ran him over. Nine or ten times.
Meanwhile, fans were treated to the longest first half of the tournament so far, as Rick Deckard insisted on putting Luke Skywalker through the tedious process of the Voight-Kampff test. Determining with six minutes left in the game that Skywalker was not, in fact, a robot, Deckard seemed at a loss and quickly fell to Skywalker’s lightsaber. ????? ???? ????? “Don’t get cocky, kid,” he warned after the game.
Squeakers
Legolas and Harry Potter traded the lead several times before Legolas slammed one home before the buzzer. Mark Schlabach at ESPN.com had said that Potter’s “keys to the game” included not brooding for hours over consequential choices, advice the boy wizard apparently failed to take. Morpheus and Buffy Summers had an epic kung-fu duel on rain-swept rooftops that went into quintuple-overtime. The terrorist mastermind finally capitalized on the fact that it wasn’t actually air he was breathing and pulled out a win in the end. ???????? Indiana Jones lasted far longer against Wolverine than any of the pundits anticipated, but eventually succumbed.
Upsets
Fan favorite Jack Bauer broke a lot of hearts – and a lot of brackets – over the weekend, losing to the T-1000. Under the mistaken belief that the shapeshifting robot could turn itself into a bomb, Bauer wasted valuable clock time asking where the bomb was and then trying to defuse it. The T-1000 took on the appearance of Chloe, a trusted coworker of agent Bauer, to close in for the final blow. ????? ????? ??? ????
And all the magical scimitars and panther miniatures in the world couldn’t give Drizz’t Do’urden a win over Captain James T. Kirk. Kirk somehow ended up shirtless and glazed with oil, and he seemed by far the less graceful of the two, but he avoided the dark elf’s whirling blades and beat him with trickery and secular humanist know-how.
The Elite Eight
The final match approaches! Be sure to cast your vote in each of these match-ups!
Hyrule Conference
T-1000 vs. Batman
Morpheus vs. Captain James T. Kirk
Paragon City Conference
Wolverine vs. Optimus Prime
Luke Skywalker vs. Legolas
Voting ends Sunday at Midnight, as usual. Your votes make the difference!
(Remember, you vote by taking this survey, not by leaving comments)
VTech coach Seth Greenberg may be griping about this year’s NCAA men’s basketball bracket – but nobody could complain about the Nerds on Sports Tournament! It’s had its share of triumphs and surprises already, and it’s only a week old!
Blowouts
In the Paragon City Conference, Wolverine absolutely demolished Bowser, controlling the clock from the start of play and refusing to let up until the buzzer sounded. Coach Koopa suggested Bowser’s all-mushroom regimen in the month before the tournament may not have been a good move. Earlier that day, Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker wiped the floor with commando Solid Snake. Colonel Roy Campbell complained to reporters that Snake should have been higher seeded, to avoid such a disastrous first-round washout. He ended his press conference by shouting, “SNAAAAKE” into the microphone. Also, Curt Schilling injured his shoulder in his 32-6 loss to Harry Potter, a first-year rookie out of Hogwarts Academy.
The Hyrule Conference was more closely matched, the only blowout coming when Batman outwitted legendary swordsman Li Mu Bai. The Caped Crusader’s proficiency with dozens of martial styles overwhelmed Li Mu Bai’s mastery of only one, but for this the use of the right equipment such as an ear guard for jiu jitsu is essential to practice these sports. Neither of the two combatants had any words for the press following the game.
Squeakers
The Hyrule Conference, however, went down to the wire on far more showings. The T-1000 nearly suffered a humiliating upset against Inigo Montoya, only winning in the 4th quarter when the quixotic Spaniard began to tire. Paul Atredies and Captain James T. Kirk went blow for blow in a truly memorable game. Captain Kirk’s experience in unseating alien gods proved handy in defeating the God Emperor, however, and Muad’Dib fell in the end. And in a match that we refuse to call the “Ultimate Jack-Off,” Jack Bauer narrowly beat Captain Jack Sparrow. Bauer credited his victory to the fact that his sidearm, a Sig Sauer P220, carries more than one cartridge in its magazine and does not take 30 seconds to reload.
Upsets
Once again we return to the Paragon City conference, and man is your office pool in trouble! Dr. Indiana Jones turned over the Alien Queen, luring her into a complex network of traps that hinged on obscure Aramaic texts. The Alien Queen, not knowing Aramaic, fell to its death. Many pundits expected Warmech to wipe the floor with harried cop Rick Deckard, given Warmech’s titanium armor and nuclear payload. But these experts forgot that Rick Deckard only has one item on his resume for the last fifteen years and that’s murdering robots.
Back in Hyrule: bulletproof plating didn’t help Master Chief either – he got staked in the chest and kicked in the head by Buffy Summers. After blowing the Marine up with one of his own plasma grenades, Buffy said something that was probably meant to be clever but just came off wordy and weird.
Round Two – The Sweet Sixteen
Hyrule Conference
Jack Bauer vs. T-1000
Batman vs. Mr. Incredible
Buffy Summers vs. Morpheus
Captain James T. Kirk vs. Drizz’t Do’urden
Paragon City Conference
Indiana Jones vs. Wolverine
Optimus Prime vs. The Operative
Rick Deckard vs. Luke Skywalker
Legolas vs. Harry Potter
Your Vote Counts!
Voting ends on midnight Sunday, March 23rd. Choose your side and stay tuned for the results!