Mental Transcript

Last month I did a post on how I was going to plot the Rugby rankings data as I was disappointed with the IRB's offering.

http://chrischen.co.uk/post/11616251137/irb-world-rankings-analysis

Well I finally did it, enjoy.

Data is current as of the end of the Rugby World Cup 2011.

World Cup 2011 participants.

As a geek, and with all the excitement over the Rugby World Cup in recent weeks, I have been looking at every bit of info I can about it. Stats can be amazingly interesting.

The key stat for any rugby fan is the world rankings. The way this is calculated is quite complex and is designed to give a mathematical representation of the performance of each team over the years.

To summarize the way they do it .

Step One: Check pre match ratings 

Step Two: Allow for home advantage 

Step Three: Calculate the Rating Gap

Step Four: Check the possible Core Rating Changes

Step Five: Apply weighting factors

More details here.

It is great, but I was disappointed by the 'Analysis' offered. I was hoping to see great charts show the points changes over the years. Instead it, rather bluntly, gave only the position ranking changes over the years. Not that interesting.

The first thing that came to my head is to do it myself and that is what I intend to do.

I could not find a link to any raw data but they do offer up an archive of the rankings going back to 2004 when they were introduced.

My approach will be to extract the numbers from the archive using a script that will cycle through the dates and grab the countries and their ranking values for each day going back to 2004 and convert it from html tables to csv.

I then intend to use Googles public data explorer http://www.google.com/publicdata/home to create visualisations of the data and also use their existing Geo data to add mapping and population data to the mix.

Awesome.

  This is probably really obvious to most developers but coming from C# and Visual Studio, initially I had difficulty working out how to do the simple action of calling a method from a button event.

Google recently announced the acquisition of Motorola Mobility. Google say they are rewarding Motorola's loyalty but most pundits see this as solely a patent acquisition deal to protect them from current and impending litigation.

None of what is being talked about is really exciting me, let's talk about what is.

Firstly, Motorola devices will now be the frontrunner to be my next phone. Yesterday, they did not have a look in due to bad experiences with Motoblur and the Motorola DEXT/CLIQ. Phones like the Atrix looked awesome except for the software, the modified user experience and the slow updates really put me off. With Google in charge, these problems should be a thing of the past and every Moto phone frome now on should be a Google Experience device.

I currently have an HTC Desire running Cyanogenmod 7. But HTC, who used to be exciting and innovative, have stagnated as of late and are releasing much of the same phones over and over.

Primarily though, I am excited about the potential for ChromeOS and Webtop integration.

Webtop on the Atrix was the most exciting thing to come out of CES at the start of this year but was DOA due to the implementation of the Webtop OS.

If Google can utilise the technology, and replace the OS with ChromeOS, the end result could be as great as we all thought the Atrix would be.

The two things I am most excited about at the moment are Google+ and Minecraft.

If you have no idea what either of these things are, here are the best descriptions of each that I have read.   Minecraft: I Don't Get It Easier read/video: http://www.minecraft.net/    Inside Google+ Easier read/videos: https://plus.google.com/    I am excited about Google+ because Google gets how I wanted to use a social network. Just like they understood how I wanted to use a browser when they released Chrome.   I am excited about Minecraft because some of my close friends who are in a different country play regularly on my server so I get to chat to them and we are building a sweet world while we do it. Not to mention the recent release of version 1.7.   Reconnecting with friends is one of the primary purposes of a social network, but the only thing I use Facebook for right now is commenting and sharing pictures and videos of Minecraft. I use Minecraft to reconnect with friends.   This weird crossover made me think. How can Google+ be used with Minecraft to enhance my online social experience? It got me even more excited about both services. I’ll run through the main features of Google+ and show how they can make Minecraft even better or the other way round.   

Circles

  Circles allows you to share only with the friends you choose to, and lets be honest, announcing to all of your 300 friends from high school, work colleagues and family that you are obsessed with a fantasy game where you place blocks is not the most desirable thing to do. Circles is perfect for this, share your Minecraft screenshots (more on this later) and chat about the latest update or Shadow of Israphel episode to your hearts content. Minecraft could automatically create a circle of everyone who has connected to your server, allowing you to share thoughts with them with even less effort and ensuring only they can see it!

Hangouts

This is probably the most exciting of the features for Minecraft. My biggest problem with playing Minecraft with friends is that you hardly ever know what they are up to and in order to chat to them you need to stop playing and press ‘t’ to type. Sometimes you don’t even know if others are there. You feel quite isolated at times even if there are several others playing with you. We installed Mumble/Murmur to overcome this using voice chat. However, only some of us use it as it takes up some of your precious bandwidth and requires you to install and launch an additional program. It also requires the server admin to set it up on the server. Not ideal. Hangouts let you drop in/out of a video chat room in the browser. Which is not another program as I have http://www.minecraftwiki.net open at all times anyway. In addition to the great benefit of simple voice chat there is video. Minecraft could feed your minecraft playing window into the webcam of your computer, allowing other players see where you are and what you are doing, making or crafting.

Hangouts automatically shows whoever is talking and has an interface that can beautifully display all player viewpoints at once.

This would be an amazing addition to Minecraft and would change how the game is played.

Instant Upload

Right now if i want to upload a screenshot of my creation I press F2, browse to the save folder to check it’s ok, log into facebook, browse to my minecraft group, click upload, browse for the file and upload. Minecraft could utilise instant upload to upload a screenshot automatically every time you press F2. Easy. You could also set it to automatically share with your Minecraft circle.

Sparks

I can’t think of how this adds to the Minecraft experience through integration. If anyone has any ideas I am keen to hear them. @chrischennz

Huddle

I have always wanted to text chat with people on the server while on the go. Or just log on while on the bus to see who will be online when I get home. Huddle would be perfect for this. Minecraft could use Huddle to allow players to group chat from within Minecraft to users on their mobiles. Alternatively you could just use it to read the chat while on the move.

Wrap-up

From what I’ve heard and read, most people are loving Google+. They love the ease with which they can do certain tasks that Facebook makes hard or impossible. They have apprehensions though because, as with every social product (and demonstrated via Googles previous efforts Wave and Buzz), it is only of value if a large number of people are using it. The network effect. With what I have described above, Google+ could be useful to us Minecraft players even if we are the only ones using it. All this relies on a few things:

Google releasing an API and allowing integration into the apps.

Mojang or a 3rd party plugin developer reading this post and writing the code.

Demand from Minecraft players.

Freddy Rumsen: I know the client, this thing is rigged. It’s what he wants. 

Peggy Olson: It’s not just about the client. People are looking at everything we do here. 

It seems coming from such a outmoded period that this quote would not be relevant today.  But I see this attitude all too often especially in the UK where the culture is to never extend your responsibility, to not go above and beyond and only care about your immediate job and not the bigger picture.  I guess it is not of the times, even back then they knew that attitude was archaic.

Peggy to Freddy: Everybody’s right about you. You and your grande dames and your portable typewriters and your desperate spinsters. You’re old fashioned, you know that? 

It must be an attitude thing. Do you actually care about the output of your work?