Three cheers for crowd sourcing...
I've said before that I don't belong to social networks because I value the private details in my life. Unlike many people who post a remarkable amount of personal detail about themselves on social sites, I'm aware that everything I post online will live forever, so there is some self-censorship.
When it comes to solving (or preventing) serious crime, however, I think law enforcement officials are entitled to use whatever tools are at their disposal. In my opinion, Great Britain's policy of using public street cameras and facial recognition software is a model that should be copied by everyone. If you're in public and committing a crime, you should have no expectation of privacy.
And placing bombs at the site of the prestigious Boston Marathon qualifies as a serious crime.
I didn't think that the United States (and Boston, in particular) had the means to do this kind of tracking. What I hadn't counted on is the remarkable cooperation of businesses and the massive amount of crowd-sourced photos and videos making the job easier for the authorities.
Much of the stuff you see in military and spy movies about real-time facial recognition and movement tracking software may or may not be real. But, in the case of this manhunt, it's clear that the police were able to quickly establish the identities of the perpetrators.
Recent news reports indicate that one of the suspects has already been killed (during a "violent police chase") and I don't believe it will be long until the other suspect - his younger brother - is also apprehended.
I hope this second brother is taken alive. I'd love to know the motivation for the attacks. I'd also enjoy the thought of this person having to spend the rest of his days behind bars.
I'm not an exciting person, but anything that crosses my mind that I care to share with the rest of the world will appear here.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Monday, April 15, 2013
Woulda, coulda, shoulda
What a wild Masters! I will admit I was rooting for Tiger to win it. And, if he hadn't made the PERFECT approach shot on the 15th on Friday, there's a good chance he would be standing with his 15th major championship trophy.
Most people who lose a tournament may be able to point to one TERRIBLE hole, or one TERRIBLE shot that went astray and resulted in a score for that hole that took them out of contention.
In Tiger's case, he can point to one PERFECT shot that had the same effect. Hitting his third shot to the par 5, 15th hole on Friday, he hit the base of the flag stick, right above the hole. The ball ricocheted backwards, and landed in the pond that surrounds the green. Forced to take a drop, he made virtually an identical shot again, but instead of hitting the pin, he hit the green, landing less than 2 feet from the hole.
Had that been his first approach shot, he would have scored a 4. As it was, coming after a drop, it translated into a 6. But later on, during an interview with the press, Tiger described what happened, and how he was careful to drop his ball a bit further away from the initial point of the ball (so he wouldn't drop the ball in his own divit). Apparently, that's a sin that would normally result in disqualification. But, since nobody noticed it during the match, he was instead assessed a 2-stroke penalty and was allowed to continue.
Instead of scoring a 4 on that perfectly played hole, he carded an 8. Tiger lost the Masters by that exact 4 stroke margin.
But, there was another consequence for that shot. Had Tiger scored a 4 on that 15th hole and not played the remainder of the round in a bit of a funk, there's a good chance he would have ended the day in sole possession of first place. And that would have meant the cut line would have been at +3 instead of +4.
That one-stoke difference in the cut line allowed the amazingly talented 14-year old Chinese golfer Tianlang Guan to make it into the weekend. He beat, by more than two whole years, the age of the youngest Masters participant to make the cut. Just imagine what stories this grade eight student will have to tell his classmates when he returns to school in China!
Most people who lose a tournament may be able to point to one TERRIBLE hole, or one TERRIBLE shot that went astray and resulted in a score for that hole that took them out of contention.
In Tiger's case, he can point to one PERFECT shot that had the same effect. Hitting his third shot to the par 5, 15th hole on Friday, he hit the base of the flag stick, right above the hole. The ball ricocheted backwards, and landed in the pond that surrounds the green. Forced to take a drop, he made virtually an identical shot again, but instead of hitting the pin, he hit the green, landing less than 2 feet from the hole.
Had that been his first approach shot, he would have scored a 4. As it was, coming after a drop, it translated into a 6. But later on, during an interview with the press, Tiger described what happened, and how he was careful to drop his ball a bit further away from the initial point of the ball (so he wouldn't drop the ball in his own divit). Apparently, that's a sin that would normally result in disqualification. But, since nobody noticed it during the match, he was instead assessed a 2-stroke penalty and was allowed to continue.
Instead of scoring a 4 on that perfectly played hole, he carded an 8. Tiger lost the Masters by that exact 4 stroke margin.
But, there was another consequence for that shot. Had Tiger scored a 4 on that 15th hole and not played the remainder of the round in a bit of a funk, there's a good chance he would have ended the day in sole possession of first place. And that would have meant the cut line would have been at +3 instead of +4.
That one-stoke difference in the cut line allowed the amazingly talented 14-year old Chinese golfer Tianlang Guan to make it into the weekend. He beat, by more than two whole years, the age of the youngest Masters participant to make the cut. Just imagine what stories this grade eight student will have to tell his classmates when he returns to school in China!