Random Thoughts on Sports And Leisure: The Over-Serious Edition
I.
So Michelle Wie came so very close to actually contending in an LPGA Tour event. After the second day on tour, she was challenging for a victory, which would have been as big an icebreaker as Danica Patrick's Indy Car victory earlier this year--although Patrick is known more these days for getting into spats with other drivers.
But Wie forgot to sign her scorecard within the assigned tent space, and was walking away when a volunteer called her back. She returned and signed it, but nevertheless, this violated some arcane LPGA rule, so after the third round the next day, she was told that instead of competing for victory, she was being disqualified.
People argue that rules are rules, and that it was sloppy of Michelle to walk away with her scorecard unsigned. These are valid arguments, but keep in mind that golf is the sport which hosts a showcase event--The Masters--at a golf course with a "No Girls Allowed" policy, which kind of takes the shine off of any high and mighty stances taken by the powers that be.
Rules are made to be changed, or broken, especially if they are this stupid.
II.
Speaking of sports and leisure institutions taking themselves too seriously, my new favorite toy, Scrabulous on Facebook, has been disabled by its creators because Hasbro is suing them and Facebook. I understand that copyright infringement is troubling, and that Hasbro has the right to protect its interests, but the alternative they provided to Facebook, Scrabble Beta, does not actually work. That's just bad customer service, pressuring Facebook and the designers of Scrabulous into shutting down before giving users another choice.
On the other hand, the designers are keeping the game up on their own website, so it could be a disingenuous move on their part, since they voluntarily disabled the game on Facebook. Perhaps they wanted to stir up some protests against Hasbro, to make them look bad, even though, admittedly, all that their own 'creative' work entailed was deleting the text from a Scrabble board, and also making a dictionary that does not recognize 'gi' or 'id' as valid words, but does accept 'ed' (as in Drivers' Education).
The designers are from India; I should research how U.S. copyright laws applies in India, or how that would affect their website. Anyone have any insight on this? I'm curious, but I don't have time to research this first.
So Michelle Wie came so very close to actually contending in an LPGA Tour event. After the second day on tour, she was challenging for a victory, which would have been as big an icebreaker as Danica Patrick's Indy Car victory earlier this year--although Patrick is known more these days for getting into spats with other drivers.
But Wie forgot to sign her scorecard within the assigned tent space, and was walking away when a volunteer called her back. She returned and signed it, but nevertheless, this violated some arcane LPGA rule, so after the third round the next day, she was told that instead of competing for victory, she was being disqualified.
People argue that rules are rules, and that it was sloppy of Michelle to walk away with her scorecard unsigned. These are valid arguments, but keep in mind that golf is the sport which hosts a showcase event--The Masters--at a golf course with a "No Girls Allowed" policy, which kind of takes the shine off of any high and mighty stances taken by the powers that be.
Rules are made to be changed, or broken, especially if they are this stupid.
II.
Speaking of sports and leisure institutions taking themselves too seriously, my new favorite toy, Scrabulous on Facebook, has been disabled by its creators because Hasbro is suing them and Facebook. I understand that copyright infringement is troubling, and that Hasbro has the right to protect its interests, but the alternative they provided to Facebook, Scrabble Beta, does not actually work. That's just bad customer service, pressuring Facebook and the designers of Scrabulous into shutting down before giving users another choice.
On the other hand, the designers are keeping the game up on their own website, so it could be a disingenuous move on their part, since they voluntarily disabled the game on Facebook. Perhaps they wanted to stir up some protests against Hasbro, to make them look bad, even though, admittedly, all that their own 'creative' work entailed was deleting the text from a Scrabble board, and also making a dictionary that does not recognize 'gi' or 'id' as valid words, but does accept 'ed' (as in Drivers' Education).
The designers are from India; I should research how U.S. copyright laws applies in India, or how that would affect their website. Anyone have any insight on this? I'm curious, but I don't have time to research this first.
Labels: copyright laws, Facebook, golf, Michelle Wie, rules, Scrabble, Scrabulous
posted by Devin at 10:28 PM
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