Article: Don’t Worry, MLB — Hitters Are Killing The Shift On Their Own
By: 538
Link: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dont-worry-mlb-hitters-are-killing-the-shift-on-their-own/
Notes: “The Shift” is a defensive practice in baseball to use historical data of the places a batter is likely to hit a ball and move the defenders more towards those areas.
Statistically it seems like this tool is becoming less valuable. Somewhat predictability, it seems like batters are starting to adjust to this strategy and change their hitting styles when encountering the shift.
It feels like another example of evolution within the game where one group finds an advantage and another group adapts to overcome it. Taking this idea to its conclusion, it makes me theorize that every generation the players are overall better than the previous generation as we collectively learn more about the game and how to plan, practice, and play it better.
Article: The 8 Signs That Machine Learning Will Automate Some or All of Your Job
By: Gizmodo
Link: https://gizmodo.com/the-8-signs-that-machine-learning-will-automate-some-or-1831853145
Notes: Machine learning is coming and it’s going to significantly change many current jobs. It will replace some jobs completely. Not as talked about though is how many jobs are going to have some or part of their tasks augmented or supplemented by machine learning. If you spending your time doing repetitive tasks or tasks that have very concrete input and output, it’s very possible those tasks will be offloaded to automation, either making you more efficient and profitable or allowing a single person to do the work of several.
It’s coming for all of us eventually though 😉
Article: Cassini Saw Rain Falling at Titan’s North Pole
By: Universe Today
Link: https://www.universetoday.com/141271/cassini-saw-rain-falling-at-titans-north-pole/
Notes: It’s summer on the north pole of Titan. And it’s raining methane.
Video: How we Make the Coldest Places in the Universe
By: Scishow
Link:
Notes: Absolute Zero is the lowest possible temperature, at which point the motion (kinetic energy) of subatomic particles completely stops. Currently we can create situations in labs that are closer to absolute zero than anywhere else we know in the Universe.
The Doppler cooling method involves firing photons at an atom to slow its kinetic motion. But there’s a limit as to how far this can cool an atom.
Sisyphus cooling goes beyond this by having the atom enter a higher energy state emit a photon, sending it into an overall lower energy state.
