A Super Bowl Koan: Does The NFL Wish It Were A Tech Company? (siliconvalley.com) 126
Are tech companies cashing in on the popularity of Super Bowl -- or is the Super Bowl trying to get into the world of tech? An anonymous reader writes:
The NFL hosted a startup pitch competition before the game. And they also ran tech-themed "future of football" ads during the game which showcased the robot tackling dummies that provide moving targets for training players. Lady Gaga's halftime show is even expected to feature hundreds of drones.
But Microsoft was also hovering around outside the stadium, pushing the concept of "social autographs" (digital signatures drawn onto images) with their Surface tablets. Intel ran ads during the game touting their 360-degree replay technology. Besides the usual game-day ads for beer, there were also several for videogames -- Arnold Schwarzenegger endorsed Mobile Strike, and a reality TV show parody suddenly turned into an ad for World of Tanks. So is technology subtly changing the culture of the Super Bowl -- or is the Super Bowl turning into a massive pageant of technology?
Are any Slashdot readers even watching the Super Bowl? All I know is the Bay Area Newsgroup reported that a Silicon Valley engineer ultimately earns more over their lifetime than the average NFL football player.
But Microsoft was also hovering around outside the stadium, pushing the concept of "social autographs" (digital signatures drawn onto images) with their Surface tablets. Intel ran ads during the game touting their 360-degree replay technology. Besides the usual game-day ads for beer, there were also several for videogames -- Arnold Schwarzenegger endorsed Mobile Strike, and a reality TV show parody suddenly turned into an ad for World of Tanks. So is technology subtly changing the culture of the Super Bowl -- or is the Super Bowl turning into a massive pageant of technology?
Are any Slashdot readers even watching the Super Bowl? All I know is the Bay Area Newsgroup reported that a Silicon Valley engineer ultimately earns more over their lifetime than the average NFL football player.
Social Autographs (Score:3)
DRMed? (Score:2)
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The bully stopped picking on me when I broke the handle on my clarinet case hitting him with it.
Jockstraps can... well... whatever weird things they want to do in the locker room is okay with me.
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What I really don't get is fans of out-of-state teams referring to their team as, "we," as if they have some connection with the team other than buying their merchandise and rooting for their success.
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It would probably be a more intelligent question to wonder why they use that word if they are not actually on the team.
That's what I said.
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What I really don't get is fans of out-of-state teams referring to their team as, "we," as if they have some connection with the team other than buying their merchandise and rooting for their success.
as expressed here by mitchell and webb:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
snake
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I googled how much actual "play time" is involved in a NFL game.
It's 11 minutes.
I see the Superbowl as nothing but a bunch of advertising, some shitty attempts at "entertainment" at half time and an excuse to get a bunch of people together to eat a shitload of food.
It is a good time to do some traveling though as the freeways aren't crowded during the game.
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I googled how much actual "play time" is involved in a NFL game.
It's 11 minutes.
I see the Superbowl as nothing but a bunch of advertising, some shitty attempts at "entertainment" at half time and an excuse to get a bunch of people together to eat a shitload of food.
It is a good time to do some traveling though as the freeways aren't crowded during the game.
And most video games can be played through in 30 minutes or less... what's your point? that you don't like Football (American Football)? Got it...
While there may be an average of 11 minutes of "play time", there is a lot going on beyond the actual physical play. Strategy, alignment, play calling, etc. takes up a bunch of time on field. For Football fans (American Football for our International friends) this is just as important as the actual physical play. Those who do not enjoy the game will see it a
smoke and mirrors (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now tech is hot, tech is popular. It doesn't matter why it's hot or popular, if they can find a way to cobble it in for greater profit then they will do so. The game itself has not changed significantly for a very long time, the only tech required has been safety equipment to attempt to reduce injuries.
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I said tech is popular. I didn't say that tech work is popular. Using tech is what's popular, but only where the use of that tech is easy, where it's a marvel, kind of like previous marvels. Those using it often have no clue why it actually works.
Consider historical examples. Cars are popular. Cars have been around for the masses for about a hundred years now. The average driver doesn't know how an engine or a transmission really works at a fundamental level, they only know that when they st
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There are too many kinds of 'tech work' to really generalize on any particular kind.
Most IT work is Data Janitor Drudgery.
Most Technician work is just hands on craftsmanship.
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The average telephone user doesn't understand how trunk lines work or the line voltages for talk and ring on the average phone, or how a telephone exchange works, they only care that when they pick up the handset, there's a dial-tone and they can make a call.
I wonder how many people under about 18 or 20 even know what a dial tone is. Plenty of them have probably never had a home phone, or at least not when they were old enough to use it. Are dial tones in enough movies and TV that it would be familiar? I'll have to ask my kids.
Re: smoke and mirrors (Score:2)
Did you call for the troll, or are you part of it?
Quite the opposite I think (Score:2)
Tech is more popular yes. But that doesn't mean technical workers are any less in demand, because even if more people were actually drawn to tech work than before (are there?) the ones who just do it for the glory either make it hardly past the rigors of learning programming, or if they do perform so poorly on the job that all people who really enjoy technical work look like giants by comparison.
Re:smoke and mirrors (Score:4, Interesting)
The game has changed quite significantly. They have lost their main stream media lock in, the creation of the illusion of heroes and heroines. The reality of boring egoistic dumb douche bags, willing to do the same boring crap endlessly, is starting to leak through and the whole hero/heroine bullshit is dying. The era of 'I am not lying, I am acting' when it comes to unsportmens and unsportwomen marketing products is coming to an end. They are desperately trying to stay relevant, in a market, where they can no longer control the message and establish a gestalt that turns dumb idiots playing like children into heroes who sell product, whether consumables (alchohol, cigarettes), or politics or what ever they are trying to sell. They are in desperate to stay relevant mode and the market it shifting to, 'crap it was all marketing bullshit mode, all of it, heroes heroines, great achievement, managed public appearances, just all bullshit'.
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Football, the actual game played on the field measuring 360' by 160', with a 300' by 160' contested area, has not significantly changed. The act of the offense attempting to advance down the field against the defense attempting to stop them or better, force a turnover, is largely the same since the founding of the NFL. Undoubtedly a few rules have changed over the years and some equipment has been added or improved upon, but someon
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Re:smoke and mirrors (Score:4, Funny)
You know you can, right? I mean, this is something totally within your control to make happen.
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Lifetime Earnings comparison (Score:5, Interesting)
All I know is the Bay Area Newsgroup reported that a Silicon Valley engineer ultimately earns more over their lifetime than the average NFL football player.
Reminds me of an article comparing a doctor's lifetime earnings vs a UPS driver. In the analysis, the doctor doesn't pull ahead until about 18 years after high school, due to the long period of schooling and residency, plus debt load.
http://www.er-doctor.com/docto... [er-doctor.com]
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Reminds me of an article comparing a doctor's lifetime earnings vs a UPS driver. In the analysis, the doctor doesn't pull ahead until about 18 years after high school, due to the long period of schooling and residency, plus debt load.
You make it sound like 18 years after high school is a long time. That is only 35-37 years old, or in other words only a little over a third of the way into your career.
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Reminds me of an article comparing a doctor's lifetime earnings vs a UPS driver. In the analysis, the doctor doesn't pull ahead until about 18 years after high school, due to the long period of schooling and residency, plus debt load.
You make it sound like 18 years after high school is a long time. That is only 35-37 years old, or in other words only a little over a third of the way into your career.
On the other hand, those comparisons never add in what would happen if you took the out of pocket money that would be paid to college and put it into an S&P 500 index fund between the ages of 18 and 22. My guess is the doctor wouldn't catch up until age 45 or later. I'm not talking about the med school money (the doctor would literally never catch up if I did), just the out of pocket cash for undergrad.
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But in the business side of medicine, a lot of doctors buy into medical groups and by the time they're in their 50s they are the senior people in their group culling more profit from the group's practice and working fewer, better hours and then often selling out their share of the practice to someone new.
I have a friend who is an orthodontist and he started that way, and he then expanded the practice being the principal practitioner at a couple of new locations, which includes owning the buildings. He's 55
For those of you not living in the USA (Score:1, Funny)
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As an American that played Rugby in college, I sympathize - seeing millions of Americans go ballistic over a watered down version of Rugby is sad.
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I have a lot more respect for rugby players than football players.
I'd like to see football players stripped of all of their "protective clothing" instead of being a bunch of pussies.
They may as well just drive bulldozers to get the job done if they want to be "safe".
Rugby players are real men and don't need to wear all of the crap. The sport also doesn't have so much dead time (11 minutes of actual play time in an NFL game).
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I had always heard that rule and style of play differences allowed American football players to hit harder, thus resulting in a more violent sport.
A little google searching found a 2016 study [sagepub.com] from the The American Journal of Sports Medicine on injuries in collegiate football and rugby in the US. The authors found, "Overall injury rates were substantially higher in collegiate rugby compared with football. Similarities between sports were observed in the most common injury types (sprains and concussions), lo
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They call the sport football but it is not in any way related to actual football.
Football includes a family of vaguely similar sports, including Association Football (soccer), Gridiron Football (USA football), and Rugby Football (rugby). All of them can be rightfully called football, even though their rules vary greatly. There is no "actual" football.
Gaga Drones (Score:3)
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The opposite of on-the-fly...
Pre-recorded:
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/0... [usatoday.com]
Superbowl halftime show is now on par with the chinese Olympic Opening Ceremony fireworks, that many people called "cheating"
Let me say two things (Score:1)
I don't give a shit about football (either American, or soccer)
and WTF is a koan?
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and WTF is a koan?
From http://www.dictionary.com/brow... [dictionary.com]: a nonsensical or paradoxical question to a student for which an answer is demanded, the stress of meditation on the question often being illuminating.
The British definition is a little clearer: (in Zen Buddhism) a problem or riddle that admits no logical solution
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Comcast isn't tech. It's salesmen in mid-priced suits.
Atlanta is kicking the Patriots' collective butts (Score:2)
Early in the fourth - all is right in the world.
But back on topic: Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLB-AM) has been extremely successful - that probably has the NFL drooling.
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Game is now in overtime. How will the Patriots cheat their way to a win?
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Well, obviously Russia got involved.
(I kid, I kid...)
Get in the sea (Score:4)
This is the stupidest thing I've seen on the Internet since 4pm.
The average career length of an NFL player is 3.3 years. The average career length of a Silicon Valley engineer will probably be closer to 40 years. Longer if they "reform" Social Security and add years to the retirement age.
Almost all are tech companies (Score:2)
Back before it was considered an evil cost center, tech was once used as a tool and process engineering. You need internet, email, spreadsheets, databases, business intelligence, statistics, social media marketing, etc.
The newer companies GET IT. You want to sell more product? Don't do silly commercials. Go to facebook, twitter, and use analytics from these to find out what your customers want and to support fan driven sites. That is just one example.
The NFL gets it! THe dying companies do not and are rea
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Did you know that the average career of an NFL player is only 3.3 years? Crazy, isn't it? For every multi-millon dollar superstar with a long successful career, there are many anonymous athletes who experience a career-ending injury in their first or second season. They must also be counting only what the football player made while playing football.
I can easily believe that the "average" engineer earns more over the course of an entire career.
Sports? Really? (Score:2)
As for cheerleaders... holy shit... they all look like rednecks attacked by botox on hair spray.
I think
Massive Pageant but not of technology (Score:2)
About a week ago I read something about the Super Bowl's "opening night" and I wondered if it was a football championship or a Broadway musical.
How can a football game have an "opening night"?
No doubt it was a big show, but as another poster points out there was only 11 minutes of playing time. Is that true? And the hype about the commercials and the half-time show is possibly even bigger than the action on the field.
I guess the NFL has done some cool things with technology....well, not the NFL but peop
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Words Mean Things (Score:2)
A haiku is not a poem based on syllables. Karma is not what goes around comes around. And a koan is not a RANDOM FUCKING QUESTION.
Re: Hobby Lobby (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump is President.
President Trump. Say it out loud. What do we have to complain about?
Are there really any nazis in the US? There are a few thousand KKK idiots, but in 2017 that's like wanting to be an Astronaut when you grow up.
The worst thing anybody can do is take idiots who say they are nazis or kkk members seriously. That gives them credibility.
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>The worst thing anybody can do is take idiots who say they are nazis or kkk members seriously. That gives them credibility.
Wasn't this what around six million Jews and others in Europe said about the Nazis?
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1. In Europe.
2. In 1939.
We have more serious threats to worry about. Nazis and the KKK are historical anachronisms. The people who participate in those 'movements' in 2017 are harmless and/or easily identified and neutralized.
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Rather off topic, but I heartily disagree. Liars and xenophobes should be called out on their toxic crap otherwise they might get elected president one day.
Oh wait....
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Rather off topic, but I heartily disagree. Liars and xenophobes should be called out on their toxic crap otherwise they might get elected president one day.
A "xenophobe" who's married to a foreigner.
You folks have gone beyond self-parody at this point.
And "liar"? Ever heard "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor"?
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You're right, Trump is honest, because somebody else said something that wasn't true.
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You need a good swift kick in the head, you do...
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He already had it - that's why the self-evident brain damage.
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Astrology and magic spells are a big part of every major religion. I'm serious. Look it up.
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