Tag Archives: football

CodeMash … and Football!

Have I mentioned CodeMash? LOL! Even my conversations IRL these days seem to find their way to CodeMash. So no one will fall over when I mention CodeMash and football in the same blog post, right? Well, at least not my real life friends …

Yeah, we were being daring, putting together developers of all languages and platforms to learn from one another. Back when the conference planning started (ahem, discussions last spring!), we didn’t really THINK about football. But … it’s happened. One of the longest standing rivalries in college football has escalated to be The Game. Not just for the Big Ten Championship, but likely for rights to go to the National Championship. And it is coincidentally occurring on the same year that we’re putting together Michigan and Ohio programmers for CodeMash.

In this family, my 1 year old son signaled “touchdown” before he said “Mommy” (and I was OK with that). And my 3 year old daughter yells, “GO, GO, GO! RUN!”, and “NO!” at all of the appropriate times. Yup, we’re huge football fans. MICHIGAN football fans.

Sadly, even though Josh is an Ann Arborite, he isn’t really a football fan. So, on the organizing committee for CodeMash, it’s me against the Ohio guys (many of whom are in Columbus). They’ve been polite, even as they were apologetic in their hopes that Michigan would lose to Notre Dame in the early season, setting up a OSU/Notre Dame national championship. But alas, we know what happened (reminder to the Fighting Irish: it was 47-21 MEECHIGAN!). I didn’t gloat. I just quietly sat in meetings throughout the year, hoping that both teams would go UNDEFEATED into the UM/OSU matchup.

So on November 18, I’ll be cheering on Chad Henne, Mike Hart, and Steve Breaston (no trash-talking on my buddy Breaston, Kirk Herbstreit!), and all of the other guys including the AWESOME defensive line. And then the following Tuesday, I’ll go back to our weekly CodeMash organizing meeting with “the Ohio guys”.

So come one, come all to CodeMash! We’ve got Java and Python and .NET … and even some people from both Michigan and Ohio State!

CodeMash – I'll be there! 

In Praise of Technology: Sportvision

Just embracing the little ways in which technology has enhanced entertainment!

In Praise of Technology: Sportvision

Well, I have decided that if I could do ANY job as a software developer, I would want to work at Sportvision (http://www.sportvision.com). This is the company that developed the 1st and 10 line in football. That yellow line for the 1st down is one of the reasons I like to watch my MEEECHIGAN football at home (in addition to easily accessible bathroom facilities, no traffic, not being squeezed into the small seats at Michigan stadium, and my husband’s fabulous guacamole!).

My Olympic viewing has also been enhanced by SportVision. I love the “world record line” that the swimmers chased in the last summer Olympics. I love watching the current ski leader superimposed on the screen with the current racer. And the team who developed the technology to “embed” the country flag below the ice for speedskating amazes me. The graphic is SO good. I’m not all that much of a speedskating fan, but I will confess to have watched a bit last night just to get a good glimpse of the flags to see if any shadows, etc. were missing. It just looks flawless to me!

I heard an interview on NPR yesterday by a representative of Sportvison, about the use of their technology at the winter Olympics. It was pretty cool. You can hear the interview at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5204366.

So … the real geek question is … what language, toolkits, etc. do they use? Wouldn’t you love to know?! (Of note: their website doesn’t work very well with Firefox)