Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 118 posts

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#61

Post by mikey_p »

tw04 wrote: post #30

I'm guessing it has far more to do with network connectivity than the tablet itself. The problems he describes to me sound like exactly what I would expect in a stadium filled with 100,000 cellphones emitting wifi and cellular interference. I'm guessing the NFL didn't get clearance from the FCC to use a dedicated wavelength within the stadium to isolate their systems from noise.

There is actually an immense amount of coordination that goes into an NFL game, even more so for the Super Bowl:

* http://blog.rfvenue.com/karl-voss/

"... at the Super Bowl we manage ... basically anything D/C to light that is allowed inside the NFL venues.

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#62

Post by mikey_p »

6stringmerc wrote: post #56

On the one hand, it's a reasoned, eloquent, logical gripe about technology not functioning as intended for its target audience, an NFL head coach. On the other hand, this is Bill Belichick doing the talking, so I take the bulk of his complaints about the communications equipment with a healthy dose of skepticism. If you're not familiar with Mr. Belichick, he's earned the reputation of being worthy of suspicion when i…

I'm not saying it's impossible (given the history with on field equipment – aka deflategate), but it's seems highly unlikely given that the NFL hires RF specialists with spectrum analyzers and direction finding equipment just to hunt down unauthorized transmissions at games.

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#63

Post by nck4222 »

6stringmerc wrote: post #56

On the one hand, it's a reasoned, eloquent, logical gripe about technology not functioning as intended for its target audience, an NFL head coach. On the other hand, this is Bill Belichick doing the talking, so I take the bulk of his complaints about the communications equipment with a healthy dose of skepticism. If you're not familiar with Mr. Belichick, he's earned the reputation of being worthy of suspicion when i…

A quick search also brings up radio trouble at stadiums all around the NFL that have nothing to do with Bill Belichick.

Here's several coaches confirming it: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/09/12/coaches-say-...

Also, the teams communication devices are provided by the NFL, and have nothing to with the individual teams: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2564764-nfl-issues-statem...

Lastly, I'm not sure the tablet failing for Bill Belichick, but not the opponent, supports your claim that Belichick is trying to gain an unfair advantage out of this.

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#64

Post by dredmorbius »

liquidise wrote: post #2

This speaks to a higher level perception about software. Bugs and crashes, however inconsistent, irreparably damage the sentiment about using a technology. Younger folks grew up in an age with these inconsistencies and are less perturbed by them. To older folks though, manual systems rarely "fail" during use. The bar of acceptance is a great deal higher when your reliability and availability are compared to pencil an…

My view is quite the opposite. I've been using technology since the 1970s, worked with it since the 1990s, and my main set of gripes are things which intentionally suck. As in pretty much every last systems aspect of my Samsung, Logitech, and Google-mediated tablet experience.

There are parts of this that I like. The battery life, display, and WiFi connectivity are pretty awesome.

The OS, shell tools (there is a shell, it's just ... completely fucking crippled), advertising-orientation, lack of any user-centric controls, lack of user-centric data management, alteratives to store your data on the cloud^W^Wsomebody else's server, a ham-fisted locked-down experience from Samsung, crap hardware design and crap warranty service from Logitech.

I know all of that can be far better than it is, and that each of these companies are paying people whose jobs it is to specifically make the experience suck.

That is what this grumpy old techie's view is.

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#65

Post by superdaniel »

greedo wrote: post #42
liquidise wrote: post #2

This speaks to a higher level perception about software. Bugs and crashes, however inconsistent, irreparably damage the sentiment about using a technology. Younger folks grew up in an age with these inconsistencies and are less perturbed by them. To older folks though, manual systems rarely "fail" during use. The bar of acceptance is a great deal higher when your reliability and availability are compared to pencil an…

Younger folks... My TWC cable net connection has been dropping on a daily basis for the last two months. Resetting the modem solves it until the next outage. (TWC has since replaced a shit ton of stuff to fix this). So everyday, my two special snowflakes would get pissed when the Wifi would go nowhere. They would text me expecting me to fix it even when I'm in the office. They would text me when I was watching footba…

If you're talking about the built-in wifi on the TWC given box then I would try using a third party access point. I was having the same problems as you and that solved it for me.

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#66

Post by dredmorbius »

It's not just capabilities, but reliability that matters.

If I've got a system that takes a bit of consistent prodding to happen, or can do A & B reliably but not C, and it is consistent about that, it's almost always far more acceptable than a system which works most of the time without prodding but then falls down copletely, or a system that does A, B, & C, but fails to work right 10% of the time.

That little bit of uncertainty pokes an sticks at you. It's always at the back of your consciousness. A football coach's job is to coach the game. It's not to to try to figure out what's wrong with his comms equipment or even if it's working correctly or incorrectly.

Closely related: the paradox of automation.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/11/crash-how...

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#67

Post by davesque »

Balgair wrote: post #8
davesque wrote: post #3

Not sure this really says anything bad about Microsoft. Is it really hard to imagine an NFL coach losing his temper with something let alone a computer?

Have you watched a Pats game? Belichick is about as wordy as a granite counter-top in game and is like a cemetery in front of journalists. That he bothered to complain, let alone did some much to reporters, indicates that there are VERY big problems with them.

I don't think that's a very sound viewpoint to take on this. The facts that Belichick happens to be the coach of a major NFL team and appears to have a very calm demeanor don't make his opinions on this matter any more valid than the next guy.

It's also not a stretch to say that NFL coaches are mostly from older generations and have never had a lot of incentive to embrace computer technology. Furthermore, they head up highly competitive teams of large male athletes in a culture which prizes assertiveness and displays of aggression.

Put all these things together and you get one guy who's uniquely poised to get frustrated with technology. You also get someone who's uniquely ill-equipped to speak of that technology's actual shortcomings. For instance, the way these issues are described makes it sound like they're having network connectivity issues which are not related to the particular device they're trying to connect to the network. But did he throw the wireless AP at the wall? Nope, he threw the tablet at the wall.

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#68

Post by TillE »

mountaineer22 wrote: post #57
ChuckMcM wrote: post #43

I wonder if there is an actual product here or if there is just a product placement. And by that I mean has anyone sat down with coaches and said "Given what you do in a game on the sidelines, the choices you are making, the questions you are asking, and options you are trying to weigh; Is there a way to improve the tools you've already been using with some automation?" Anyone know?

I don't, but why would a coach give up his expert knowledge to all other coaches he is potentially competing against? The incentives for all parties involved in this situation is less than ideal.

I'm sure there are plenty of retired NFL coaches out there who would be willing to advise.

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#69

Post by stevehawk »

Technology seems to be a huge issue at the Patriots home stadium. Pretty much every visiting team coach that's been there complains about headset failures / communication issues between coaches/on-field captains. Mike Tomlin said "It's always the case" when speaking about them failing. Like countless other people are saying in other comments - this is likely just a huge radio frequency collision issue for all of the wireless operations of any stadium.

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#70

Post by gdulli »

tw04 wrote: post #30

I'm guessing it has far more to do with network connectivity than the tablet itself. The problems he describes to me sound like exactly what I would expect in a stadium filled with 100,000 cellphones emitting wifi and cellular interference. I'm guessing the NFL didn't get clearance from the FCC to use a dedicated wavelength within the stadium to isolate their systems from noise.

> I'm guessing it has far more to do with network connectivity than the tablet itself

That view is reinforced here: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/10/patriots-bill-belichi...

"Microsoft's hardware isn't necessarily the culprit here, merely the victim. The NFL uses a lot of wireless hardware—communications headsets, public Wi-Fi networks, private networks for the tablets, networks for the press, and more."

Post reply on HN