Spot the Ball • Hacker News Board

Re: Spot the Ball

#81

Post by mgkimsal » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 1:34 PM UTC

_alastair wrote: post #5

corbinpage wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you construct the background image that replaces the ball?

That's the work of Sam Manchester, deputy editor on the Sports desk and chief Photoshop wizard. I believe most of it is just cloning different parts of the photo to cover up the ball, though it can get more complex. For example, on the 4th photo of this previous round: http://projects.nytimes.com/interactive/sports/worldcup/spot... he actually cloned a players face from a different photo and pasted it in to cover up…

Maybe there's a way I just can't find, but it would be handy to be able to toggle everything 'off' again to get back to the original ball-less image.

Re: Spot the Ball

#82

Post by reamworks » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 2:03 PM UTC

This is _much_ more fun that drawing graphs about poor people and college.

Re: Spot the Ball

#83

Post by Rexxar » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 2:21 PM UTC

The second time, after removing the cookie, is much more easy (~46% to 99.67%). The conclusion is that there are, for the moment, few cheaters.

Re: Spot the Ball

#84

Post by Serow225 » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 2:35 PM UTC

_alastair wrote: post #61

Serow225 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nifty. So do each of the guesses shown account for a roughly equal number of clustered clicks, or do some of them aggregate more clicks than others?

I hate to throw to Wikipedia but I won't be able to do a better description than they do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-means_clustering

No worries thanks, it's been a while since I've read the details about it.

Re: Spot the Ball

#85

Post by dminor » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 2:41 PM UTC

_alastair wrote: post #44

pervycreeper wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the concept behind this, and what is interesting about it?

Thanks for the question, pervycreeper! The concept is not new at all - Spot the Ball is a competition that ran in UK (and possible other) newspapers going back at least as far as the 70s. It was a cash prize competition and was pretty popular, though it's died out in recent years. I wanted to bring it back to get people to interact a little more with a highlights photo gallery - it's a lot more fun that way. IMO, it'…

MLSSoccer.com did this last year during the playoffs.

Re: Spot the Ball

#86

Post by dminor » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 2:41 PM UTC

_alastair wrote: post #44

pervycreeper wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the concept behind this, and what is interesting about it?

Thanks for the question, pervycreeper! The concept is not new at all - Spot the Ball is a competition that ran in UK (and possible other) newspapers going back at least as far as the 70s. It was a cash prize competition and was pretty popular, though it's died out in recent years. I wanted to bring it back to get people to interact a little more with a highlights photo gallery - it's a lot more fun that way. IMO, it'…

MLSSoccer.com did this last year during the playoffs.

Re: Spot the Ball

#87

Post by untog » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 3:12 PM UTC

dminor wrote: post #85

_alastair wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the question, pervycreeper! The concept is not new at all - Spot the Ball is a competition that ran in UK (and possible other) newspapers going back at least as far as the 70s. It was a cash prize competition and was pretty popular, though it's died out in recent years. I wanted to bring it back to get people to interact a little more with a highlights photo gallery - it's a lot more fun that way. IMO, it'…

MLSSoccer.com did this last year during the playoffs.

Yep - after we did it for the World Cup last year! Great to see more people taking it up.

Re: Spot the Ball

#88

Post by Klinky » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 9:18 PM UTC

hackuser wrote: post #18

It's odd to see a casual game, with no other significance or meaning, in the NY Times. It would be great to see them using interactive tools to tell news stories more often.

Next they'll be putting crossword puzzles in the New York Times! Of all places!

Re: Spot the Ball

#89

Post by emodendroket » Mon, Jun 22, 2015, 2:23 PM UTC

jdrock wrote: post #29

emodendroket wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't you? It seems like if you were skilled enough you could figure it out by the reactions of various players in the photos with more than one or two people in them.

Trying to triangulate based on where players' eyes are looking rarely works. In many cases, the goalie is looking in a completely different direction than where the ball is. I guess that's why they're getting scored on.

I'd guess that a pro soccer player is generally looking where he expects the ball to go and not necessarily where it is.

Re: Spot the Ball

#90

Post by ChrisArchitect » Mon, Jun 22, 2015, 4:13 PM UTC

as a footy fan I enjoy this a lot - tho this time around I scored terribly compared to world cup a year ago

thanks _alastair for getting involved here - tons of great little insights