Sports

College Football is Huge in Clemson's Death Valley

While looking for a photo of the entrance to Clemson's Death Valley football stadium, I found a bizarre form of photography that's exemplified by this picture: Take a close look at the larger sizes of Steven Bower's image, which is called a tilt shift, and let me know whether you think it's a photo of a real scene or a miniature. ... (read more)

2007/07/16

Keep Your Eye on Jason Kottke

Jason Kottke found something unexpected in an Online Journalism Review article about page design that used eye-tracking tests on 255 people. When looking at a photo of baseball player George Brett standing at home plate while batting, men and women had different points of attention. Women focused on the area around Brett's face, while men divided their time between the Hall of Famer's face and his crotch. I've added eye-tracking capabilities to Workbench to determine if these results are ... (read more)

2007/03/14

Fuzzy Zoeller Sues Over Libelous Wikipedia Page

Golfer Fuzzy Zoeller has sued a Florida company for libel over edits made to his Wikipedia entry from one of the company's computers. Although I reported one of Wikipedia's best-known gaffes -- project founder Jimmy Wales edited his own page to remove credit from a former colleague -- I'm a defender of the project. I think it's an amazing experiment in collective fact-gathering that deserves to be nurtured, no matter how many different ways Seth Finkelstein proves it should've been smothered in ... (read more)

2007/02/22

Saturday at the ACC Championship Game

I attended yesterday's ACC Championship game between Wake Forest and Georgia Tech in Jacksonville, picking up two $125 lower deck tickets near the 50-yard-line. I wanted to see whether seats that good at Alltel Stadium are worth the price. The game wasn't even close to a sellout, so there were giant packs of unhappy scalpers outside. One thing I didn't need to hear as my son and I walked in: "Lower deck seats, $5!" The section we were in, 237, has its own entrance and a Carrabba's, Outback ... (read more)

2006/12/03

Fired North Texas Coach in Black Mood

My alma mater, the University of North Texas, made national news this past week when a booster for its football program threatened to withhold a $1 million donation after the team fired Coach Darrell Dickey. In nine seasons, Dickey led the Mean Green to four straight Sun Belt Conference championships and the first bowl trip since 1959. He's one of the most accomplished coaches in the school's modest football history, but two losing seasons and criticism over recruitment led to his ouster. He's ... (read more)

2006/11/21

If You Had Told Me in 1986 ...

Trying desperately to find a silver lining in the loss of the House and likely loss of the Senate, rabid Republican blogger Hugh Hewitt writes: ... if you had told me in 1986 that 20 years later there would be a Republican president facing a 20 seat Democratic majority in the House and a two seat Democratic majority in the Senate -- and that the Soviet Union had collapsed -- I'd have cheered long and loud. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. That's a very weird use of the "if you had told me x ... (read more)

2006/11/08

You Stay Classy, Indianapolis Colts

Indianapolis Colts punter Hunter Smith took a weird shot at the Jacksonville Jaguars after their game Sunday: Jacksonville is like a stand-up comic who can only use vulgarity and curse words because he lacks intelligence and lacks class. He really doesn't have anything to say. Our intangible is our class and our intelligence. A team that gets personal fouls the way they do, the roughing penalties, they just don't have any material. That may be the most haughty insult I've ever heard from an NFL ... (read more)

2006/09/26

SMU's Loss to UNT Its Worst Ever?

Covering last night's UNT-SMU game, Dallas Morning News columnist Gerry Fraley writes, "The alumni wanted coach Ray Morrison's head after the Mustangs lost the first game in school history -- at TCU in 1915." SMU had no alumni in 1915. That's the year the school opened. Speaking as a UNT homer, the rest of Fraley's commentary is equally sloppy. The North Texas team that beat SMU as a five-point underdog Saturday is one season removed from four consecutive Sun Belt championships. Though the ... (read more)

2006/09/10

That's the Reason I'm a Mavericks Fan

Sigh. ... (read more)

2006/06/21

In the second inning against the New York Yankees last night, Scott Baker was pitching for the Minnesota Twins when he felt something snap. "Joe Mauer is asking for Ron Gardenhire to come out. I don't know what ... Baker at the moment is walking off the field ..." ... (read more)

2006/04/15

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