<story><title>NBA GO – Watch NBA in Your Terminal</title><url>https://github.com/xxhomey19/nba-go</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jpeeler</author><text>First of all, cool project. Looks very nice. And kudos to nba.com for making their data so easily accessible via JSON (and perhaps other methods, didn&amp;#x27;t look too closely).&lt;p&gt;Personally, I have little interest in sports in general. And I find that the interest ratio is much lower with those interested in technical fields than others. However, obviously proven by this project and life experience, there are definitely those who are very interested in both sports and STEM-like disciplines. So I wonder: what makes one become attracted to sports or conversely what has caused certain groups of people to be apathetic? Why is most of the geek population uninterested? And lastly, what causes certain people to seemingly be an exception with equally strong interest in both areas?&lt;p&gt;I assume my life experience is congruent with the hacker news community, but I&amp;#x27;m also keen to know if my observations don&amp;#x27;t mirror others!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jerf</author><text>I found my interest in sports went up when I understood the rules a bit more deeply, and some of the reason why. For instance, basketball for a long time looked really silly to me, and I &lt;i&gt;thought&lt;/i&gt; I knew the rules because &amp;quot;we had played some in gym class&amp;quot;, but it turns out that I knew almost nothing about it. There&amp;#x27;s a lot more to the rules about who can be where, and a lot of rules around what your feet are doing and what it means for them to be set or not, that makes the game much more interesting. Still not my favorite sport, but I can watch a game now without being bored, because my boredom was really being lost without realizing it. And what previously struck me as random gyrations where everybody is still, then suddenly everyone on both teams are in motion make much more sense to me. (Basketball has a lot of phase changes between the teams being solid and liquid, to stretch a metaphor.)&lt;p&gt;Similarly, while I understand why (American) football can look like 11 armored clowns randomly bashing into each other, it is arguably the most interesting and strategic game on offer by the time you understand the rules, the &lt;i&gt;why&lt;/i&gt; of those rules, and the resulting strategies, metastrategies, statictics, etc. Baseball is also more interesting when you understand more of the whys of what is going on than just &amp;quot;Man hit ball with stick and run fast&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Of course there&amp;#x27;s no great virtue per se in loving to watch sports, so I&amp;#x27;m not advocating that anybody seek this out, but if you are interested in what all the fuss is about, I recommend learning more about the sports and the rules and the second-order effects of the rules and such before writing them off. Unfortunately, I do not have any references; I did it the long, slow, hard way.&lt;p&gt;(Contrariwise, while soccer is fun to play, learning more about it has still left me pretty cold to the sport.)</text></comment>
<story><title>NBA GO – Watch NBA in Your Terminal</title><url>https://github.com/xxhomey19/nba-go</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jpeeler</author><text>First of all, cool project. Looks very nice. And kudos to nba.com for making their data so easily accessible via JSON (and perhaps other methods, didn&amp;#x27;t look too closely).&lt;p&gt;Personally, I have little interest in sports in general. And I find that the interest ratio is much lower with those interested in technical fields than others. However, obviously proven by this project and life experience, there are definitely those who are very interested in both sports and STEM-like disciplines. So I wonder: what makes one become attracted to sports or conversely what has caused certain groups of people to be apathetic? Why is most of the geek population uninterested? And lastly, what causes certain people to seemingly be an exception with equally strong interest in both areas?&lt;p&gt;I assume my life experience is congruent with the hacker news community, but I&amp;#x27;m also keen to know if my observations don&amp;#x27;t mirror others!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jawilson2</author><text>Personally, I love sports and exercise. I grew up playing basketball, football, baseball, soccer, etc. If I don&amp;#x27;t exercise (and maintain a good diet), it dramatically negatively affects my work. My mind is clearer, I&amp;#x27;m able to focus longer, etc. Plus, a mid-day trip to the gym makes my afternoons much more productive.&lt;p&gt;In terms of sports, I like the competition, I like the strategy, overcoming the odds, and the idea of dedicating your life to mastering a skill. Though, I have strayed from football recently due to brain trauma concerns, and my kids aren&amp;#x27;t allowed to play it.&lt;p&gt;I also coach my kids basketball teams, which is a ton of fun, and has helped me with leadership and planning, plus is some extra exercise for me!&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Why is most of the geek population uninterested&lt;p&gt;This isn&amp;#x27;t my experience at all. I have worked in academia, and there is a nearly universal interest in sports, particularly the &amp;quot;local&amp;quot; college teams (Ohio State and Wisconsin, in my case). My PhD department could have fielded a competitive track and field team. At my current job as a software engineer at a prop trading firm, EVERYONE is interested in and plays sports. We have many corporate teams, our TVs often have sports on, and the devs behind me have an encyclopedic knowledge of baseball. Like literally, it is faster to ask one guy about baseball going back to the 50&amp;#x27;s than it is to google the question. The other guys on my team are very active, work out regularly, and play sports in their free time. The stereotypical &amp;quot;geek&amp;quot; in a Doritos-stained hoody and an extra 200 lbs ALMOST doesn&amp;#x27;t exist here.&lt;p&gt;For me, it is having a physical yin to the mental yang of problem solving all day. I meditate as well, but just DOING something physical is very cathartic, and meditative in its own way.&lt;p&gt;In terms of why some people get interested, it is probably environment. I like and play sports, so my kids do too. I don&amp;#x27;t push them to, but if Daddy is watching and excited about basketball, they will be too probably. One of mine isn&amp;#x27;t AS excited about sports, but is loving martial arts now, which I have never done.</text></comment>