Hawk-Eye and Peanut Butter Franken Time

We, as human beings, take a lot for granted. I would never argue otherwise. There are things I'm thankful for, but few come close to the Hawk-Eye Officiating System.

Have you ever sat down to watch TV and found yourself watching one of four Grand Slam tournaments (Austrailian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, US Open)? This happens to me more often than one would think. I am a tennis fan, but I rarely know about the tournaments before catching them while channel surfing at home. Hawk-Eye is that computer system they use to allow players to dispute a judges call. It tracks the path of the ball and uses the principles of triangulation through four high speed video cameras around the court. In each frame sent from each camera, the system identifies the group of pixels which corresponds to the image of the ball. It then calculates for each frame the 3D position of the ball by comparing its position on at least 2 of the physically separate cameras at the same instant in time. A succession of frames builds up a record of the path along which the ball has traveled. Amazing, right? Right. Using the laws of physics, it can also predict the future path of a ball. Crazy!

In other, less random news, I finished my first audio project on GarageBand last night. I took a pre-existing song (Peanut Butter Jelly Time!) and simply recorded my voice saying a word ("Franken") over parts (the word "Jelly") to make it hilarious (Peanut Butter Franken Time!). It was a little treat for Pegatron and the Al Franken for Senate campaign for which she works. After playing it at the morning meeting, this was the conversation via text message between Pegatron and I:

Me: So, it went well?
Pegatron: Yes, we all peed ourselves.

After receiving that text, I realized that the idea of an entire political campaign staff peeing themselves simultaneously is much funnier than any song could ever be.

Until next time...