March 23, 2004
But What Do You Do For Fun?
One of the new friends I've managed to make through OffWing is Kareem -- known online as Reemer -- a Montreal native and employee of ESPN.
At ESPN, Kareem works in the fantasy games division, and he recently shared his insight about "Uber-gamers" -- folks who participate in fantasy games across multiple sports in pursuite on an overall championship at ESPN.com. Here's the profile of just one uber-gamer:
"Clark O. (Uber runner-up from last year) and currently in 2nd overall - designed the robot positioning system for the Mars Rovers that just landed over the past week. To hear him describe it - he had to create a system where the lander could know where it was on the surface of Mars without having to look around with a camera, take a day to get info back to Earth, then have scientists plot out how to move which wheel in what direction and by how much and then take a day to send the information back to the Rover for it to do, then send back, etc... so he created a mathematical formula for the robot to have a map of the geopgraphy of Mars in it's computer banks at all times and by knowing exactly where it is on that map it knows what it has to do to move around. Fascinating... and he still reports that winning Uber is more challenging ;)"
As somebody who'll be starting his 14th season of Fantasy Football next September, lets just say I can relate. To the football, not the engineering.
POSTSCRIPT: Besides his original blog, Kareem also follows his favorite NBA team at TotalRaptor (glad to see all the new Basketball blogs to go along with Mark Cuban's effort).
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» "Uber" Uber Alles from Transition Game
Great post (hat tip Eric at Off-Wing) on Uber-gamers at ESPN including info about a guy who designs the robot positioning systems for Mars Rover landers. ...To hear him describe it - he had to create a system where the... [Read More]
Tracked on March 25, 2004 12:17 PM
Thanks for the plugs, Eric. One note: I love la belle province and went to college in Montreal, but I bleed blue and white due to my upbringing in Toronto. :)
Posted by:
at March 23, 2004 11:33 AM
I haven't played any fantasy anything since my NHL league folded a couple years ago. (I live in DC, half the league moved away when the Clinton years ended.) Oddly, despite my full-time job, my part-time art-writing avocation and my devotion to fine adult beverages, I miss it!
Posted by:
at March 23, 2004 06:52 PM
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