Microsoft Windows is an energy-sapper. The world's (supposedly) most popular PC operating system is riddled with increasing ways of making you tear your hair out by the roots. I am constantly amazed by people who proclaim their love for this program because it "looks better" than other options. To these people, I can only recommend that they install Linux and see for themselves.
My pet Microsoft peeve, for the moment at least, is the need for constant reboots after installing the smallest utilities. After seven (and some) years of maintaining Linux machines, I find it highly irritating that Windows still has not found a way around this. There has to be a way of updating the registry, etc. without having to shut down everything else you are doing.
The reboot headache is not one that you encounter once in several months either. Thanks to the various auto-update routines floating around, one is required to start from a clean slate on numerous occassions. However, I would at least expect to be given the chance to decide when to reboot the machine after a software update.
But sorry. No dice! Instead, I get a constant stream of "reminders" every few minutes that it is time to reboot. I can either drop whatever I am doing and bow to my Microsoft masters, or endure a vexing time clicking "Cancel" or "Remind me Later". Why not add a simple option to "Remind me When the Sun Explodes"?!!
Here is a potential marketing gimmick for Microsoft to consider: ship extra memory with every new Windows release, so that the reboots become faster. This will help maintain productivity at current levels, to compensate for the time we spend twiddling our thumbs while Windows recharges its creaking Registry. At least, we will not be running backwards every time a bug-riddled piece of code is installed and frequently updated.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Thursday, July 20, 2006
You hit, I mint!
The most lucrative business today must be the manufacture of baseballs. Watch the game for a while, and try to count the number of balls they use up before play ends. I have not tried this yet, but am convinced that the number will be quite staggering.
Let me attempt to list the more obvious sources of wastage. First, any ball that is hit once by the bat, has to be thrown away! There is no doubt about this. Pitcher hurls the ball, batter hits the ball cleanly, fielder pouches it in his bucket (that stupid glove they use. Come on now, be a man, and catch it bare-handed like in cricket!) Even if the ball never bounces into the dirt, the fielder chucks it into the crowd.
Let us now say that the pitcher loses his radar for a bit, and the ball bounces once before being held by the catcher (the guy who squats behind the batter). Does the ball get reused? It is not entirely clear, but it definitely does not enter the game immediately. Instead, the catcher passes it along to the umpire (who half-squats behind him). The umpire gives him a brand new ball to play with, while he either surreptitiously discards the old one, or inspects it with a microscope (also surreptitiously, since I have never seen him do this on television) to determine if it has not been spoiled in some way. Essentially, the bump ball is soiled until proven otherwise.
Only when the pitcher delivers the ball directly into the glove of the catcher, without being intercepted by anything solid on the way, does the ball come back into play immediately.
So, at a minimum, with 9 innings, 3 batters per inning and 3 pitches per batter (two fouls and a ball in play that gets an out), we are talking about 81 pitches. In reality, there are way more than 3 pitches per batter, so we must scale this number by at least 2. That yields 162 pitches. Now factor the other team in, and we double this estimate to 324.
A solitary Google hit, a web page from 2001, explains that a Major League game averages 250-300 pitches, and that the average life of a baseball is 6 pitches. That is 50-60 balls per game (according to my pitch calculation), without counting the possibility of endless extra innings (don't ask me... it is all too complicated. Maybe in another post). [Aside: extra-inning games are not that uncommon. They happen with sickening regularity, and they continue until a score difference is achieved.]
There are, of course, many assumptions in the above calculations. However, it does seem to be in the ballpark (hehe!).
On top of all the game balls, we need more of them for Spring training, game-day practice, warm-ups and for plain, old autographing. And all this for one game. Each team plays some 160 games a year, and some progress further and play a few more. There are 30 teams currently in the Major League fray. Of course, there are the lesser mortals too, who play in the Minor Leagues, in schools, playgrounds, ...
These are very, very good numbers indeed for the makers of baseballs!
Let me attempt to list the more obvious sources of wastage. First, any ball that is hit once by the bat, has to be thrown away! There is no doubt about this. Pitcher hurls the ball, batter hits the ball cleanly, fielder pouches it in his bucket (that stupid glove they use. Come on now, be a man, and catch it bare-handed like in cricket!) Even if the ball never bounces into the dirt, the fielder chucks it into the crowd.
Let us now say that the pitcher loses his radar for a bit, and the ball bounces once before being held by the catcher (the guy who squats behind the batter). Does the ball get reused? It is not entirely clear, but it definitely does not enter the game immediately. Instead, the catcher passes it along to the umpire (who half-squats behind him). The umpire gives him a brand new ball to play with, while he either surreptitiously discards the old one, or inspects it with a microscope (also surreptitiously, since I have never seen him do this on television) to determine if it has not been spoiled in some way. Essentially, the bump ball is soiled until proven otherwise.
Only when the pitcher delivers the ball directly into the glove of the catcher, without being intercepted by anything solid on the way, does the ball come back into play immediately.
So, at a minimum, with 9 innings, 3 batters per inning and 3 pitches per batter (two fouls and a ball in play that gets an out), we are talking about 81 pitches. In reality, there are way more than 3 pitches per batter, so we must scale this number by at least 2. That yields 162 pitches. Now factor the other team in, and we double this estimate to 324.
A solitary Google hit, a web page from 2001, explains that a Major League game averages 250-300 pitches, and that the average life of a baseball is 6 pitches. That is 50-60 balls per game (according to my pitch calculation), without counting the possibility of endless extra innings (don't ask me... it is all too complicated. Maybe in another post). [Aside: extra-inning games are not that uncommon. They happen with sickening regularity, and they continue until a score difference is achieved.]
There are, of course, many assumptions in the above calculations. However, it does seem to be in the ballpark (hehe!).
On top of all the game balls, we need more of them for Spring training, game-day practice, warm-ups and for plain, old autographing. And all this for one game. Each team plays some 160 games a year, and some progress further and play a few more. There are 30 teams currently in the Major League fray. Of course, there are the lesser mortals too, who play in the Minor Leagues, in schools, playgrounds, ...
These are very, very good numbers indeed for the makers of baseballs!
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