Latest news with #Feldmann
Chicago Tribune
10-07-2025
- Sport
- Chicago Tribune
Jacobs graduate Doug Feldmann finds baseball home as official scorer for Cincinnati Reds. ‘Kind of got hooked.'
Doug Feldmann won't be mistaken for actor Kevin Costner, but this college professor is living a baseball dream of his own that would be the envy of many. Costner, of course, starred in baseball movies 'Bull Durham' and 'Field of Dreams' before playing the role of fictional Detroit Tigers pitcher Billy Chapel in 'For Love of the Game,' a 1999 film. Feldmann graduated from Jacobs in 1988, the year that 'Bull Durham' was released. He's parlayed his passion for the sport to build a resume filled with baseball connections while pursuing his career in education that started at Northern Illinois and includes a doctorate from Indiana. 'I kind of got hooked,' said Feldmann, who is in his first season as an official scorer for the Cincinnati Reds. It's a job he shares with legendary Ron Roth, who's been at it for 45 years and has coached amateur baseball for 60 years. Both are employed by Major League Baseball. Feldmann, who has taught in the College of Education at Northern Kentucky for the past 20 years, has played and coached baseball, written about it and scouted for several professional teams. His extensive writing on baseball history and the sport's sociological impact on urban and small-town America include articles for Society of American Baseball Research and several books. He previously worked 15 seasons at Reds games for MLB as a data caster. 'Staring at a laptop, he sits next to the P.A. announcer and official scorer putting in all kinds of data that includes scoring and play-by-play,' Feldmann said of the role. 'At the end of the night, I'd check with the scorer to make sure we matched up, then sent a report to New York. It was fun.' With the new job comes more responsibility. Hit or error? It's an age-old question for anyone who has ever kept score at a baseball game and is still one of the most challenging decisions to make, although with all the information that MLB records and compiles, there's more help. Feldmann has 24 hours to change any call he's made and players have three days to appeal. 'Five to six years ago, they were still faxing information to New York each night, but now it's done electronically,' Feldmann. 'In my training I was told the guiding principal is, should (or) could an average major leaguer make the play? 'If someone like Elly De La Cruz ranges far to his left and dives but can't come up with the ball, how many players would even get to the ball? I'm told to trust my eyes.' Players do appeal, especially with decisions possibly impacting bonuses outlined in their contracts based on performance. 'It's dizzying,' Feldmann said of all the information that's now available in the age of analytics. How hard the ball was hit can be gauged by its speed off the bat. 'I'm kind of older school,' Feldmann said. 'I hope the beauty of the game is not lost.' His love for baseball came naturally. His father, John, played minor league baseball for both the Chicago Cubs and White Sox in a professional career interrupted by service in the Navy. Feldmann's late brother, Chuck, taught and coached football at Dundee-Crown. His sister, Julie Edwards, still lives in Algonquin. Feldmann played the sport in high school as well as basketball and football. He walked on to the football team at Northern Illinois. 'I had played fullback and linebacker at Jacobs but was the backup punter at NIU,' he said with a chuckle. 'Not a very critical position.' So, when the school reinstated baseball in the spring of 1991, Feldmann asked coach Jerry Pettibone if he could skip spring practice to try out. He was given the OK and made the team, playing mostly third base and some outfield for coach Joe McFarland. 'We were kind of a ragtag operation,' Feldmann said. 'We took some lumps but we had fun.' Feldmann taught high school for several years and coached lower-level baseball in DeKalb, Libertyville and Rockford before moving on to college teaching. There he tried scouting as a side job, assisting full-time scouts and feeding them information in a freelancer role. 'I'd love to stick with scoring,' Feldmann said. 'I don't know for how long, but I'm really enjoying being at the ballpark and going to the games.'
DW
29-06-2025
- Science
- DW
Fact check: Climate deniers misinterpret Antarctic ice study – DW – 06/26/2025
Satellite data shows that Antarctic ice sheets have grown in size, prompting claims that climate change is in reverse or even a hoax. But it's not that simple. A recent study has found that the Antarctic ice sheet mass has slightly increased in size in recent years, prompting a wave of claims on social media (such as here and here) that global warming may be reversing. Published in March 2025 by researchers at Tongji University in Shanghai, China, the study reported that the Antarctic ice sheet gained approximately 108 billion tons of ice annually between 2021 and 2023. This data focused on four glacier basins in the Wilkes Land-Queen Mary Land region of the eastern Antarctic ice sheet, has been misinterpreted by some climate skeptics as evidence that climate change is a "hoax." DW Fact Check looked at the numbers. Claim: Posts on platforms like X (formerly Twitter) have gone viral, with one stating, "Moral of the story: Never believe a climate alarmist," garnering over 270,000 views. Another viewed more than 55,000 times, claimed,"Scientists have had to pause the Climate Change Hoax Scam." DW Fact Check: Misleading One post even featured a GIF that the user believed showed new land emerging off the coast of Dubai due to falling sea levels — apparently unaware of the artificial Palm Islands constructed there between 2001 and 2007. The findings in the Chinese study are based on publicly available data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites, which have been measuring the Earth's gravitational field since 2002 and have documented changes in the planet's ice and water masses. The data may be correct, but its interpretation by conspiratorial social media users is not — a situation not helped by the researchers' decision to insert an increasing average trend curve next to the preceding decreasing curve depicting ice mass. "This is perfect fodder for people who are intentionally looking to spread disinformation," said Johannes Feldmann, a physicist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research near Berlin. Feldmann emphasized that climate science relies on long-term data — typically over 20 to 30 years — to identify meaningful trends. "Two, three or even five years are far too little to identify a long-term trend," he explained. Cherry-picking short-term data is a common tactic among climate change deniers. "There are always phases where the increase [in temperature] levels off a bit, which people suddenly take to mean: global warming has stopped, the trend is reversing," Feldmann added. "But it's never turned out to be true." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The Antarctic ice sheet, like many natural systems, is subject to fluctuations. A 2023 study from the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom highlighted how meteorological events, such as unusually heavy or light snowfall, can temporarily affect ice mass and sea levels. Therefore, fluctuations such as those observed between 2021 and 2023 are to be expected. "We're dealing with a natural system that is subject to fluctuations — and this is nothing unusual," said Angelika Humbert, a glaciologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, northern Germany. "We sometimes have years with a lot of snow and sometimes years with no snow at all, and it's the same for ice sheets." The Tongji University researchers themselves acknowledged this in a separate 2023 study, linking increased ice mass in eastern Antarctica to unusually high snowfall. "Given the warmer atmosphere, we know that these snowfall events could increase in the coming years," said Feldmann. "On the one hand, this means more snow could fall more often [on the ice sheets] but also that more could melt — because it's getting warmer. "This is all well-researched and will continue to be researched," he added. "There was a brief increase [in Antarctic ice mass], but it didn't come anywhere close to replacing the losses of recent decades. The long-term development we are observing is a large-scale loss of the Antarctic ice sheet."
DW
26-06-2025
- Science
- DW
Fact check: Does Antarctic ice increase expose climate hoax? – DW – 06/26/2025
Satellite data shows that Antarctic ice sheets have grown in size, prompting claims that climate change is in reverse or even a hoax. But it's not that simple. A recent study has found that the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) mass has slightly increased in size in recent years, prompting a wave of claims on social media (such as here and here) that global warming may be reversing. Published in March 2025 by researchers at Tongji University in Shanghai, China, the study reported that the Antarctic ice sheet gained approximately 108 billion tons of ice annually between 2021 and 2023. This data focused on four glacier basins in the Wilkes Land-Queen Mary Land (WL-QML) region of the East AIS (EAIS), has been misinterpreted by some climate skeptics as evidence that climate change is a "hoax." DW Fact check looked at the numbers. Claim: Posts on platforms like X (formerly Twitter) have gone viral, with one stating, "Moral of the story: Never believe a climate alarmist," garnering over 270,000 views. Another viewed more than 55,000 times, claimed,"Scientists have had to pause the Climate Change Hoax Scam." DW Fact check: Misleading One post even featured a GIF that the user believed showed new land emerging off the coast of Dubaidue to falling sea levels—apparently unaware of the man-made Palm Islands constructed there between 2001 and 2007. The findings in the Chinese study are based on publicly available data from NASA's GRACE and GRACE Follow-on satellites, that have been measuring the Earth's gravitational field since 2002 and have documented changes in the planet's ice and water masses. The data may be correct, but its interpretation by conspiratorial social media users is not—a situation not helped by the researchers' decision to insert an increasing average trend curve next to the preceding decreasing curve depicting ice mass. "This is perfect fodder for people who are intentionally looking to spread disinformation," says Johannes Feldmann, a physicist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) near Berlin, Germany. Feldmann emphasizes that climate science relies on long-term data—typically over 20 to 30 years—to identify meaningful trends. "Two, three, or even five years are far too little to identify a long-term trend," he explains. Cherry-picking short-term data is a common tactic among climate change deniers. "There are always phases where the increase [in temperature] levels off a bit, which people suddenly take to mean: global warming has stopped, the trend is reversing," Feldmann adds. "But it's never turned out to be true." The Antarctic ice sheet, like many natural systems, is subject to fluctuations. A 2023 study from the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, highlighted how meteorological events, such as unusually heavy or light snowfall, can temporarily affect ice mass and sea levels. Therefore, fluctuations such as those observed between 2021 and 2023 are only to be expected. "We're dealing with a natural system that is subject to fluctuations—and this is nothing unusual," says Angelika Humbert, a glaciologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany. "We sometimes have years with a lot of snow and sometimes years with no snow at all, and it's the same for ice sheets." The Tongji University researchers themselves acknowledged this in a separate 2023 study, linking increased ice mass in eastern Antarctica to unusually high snowfall. "Given the warmer atmosphere, we know that these snowfall events could increase in the coming years," says Feldmann. "On the one hand, this means that more snow could fall more often [on the ice sheets] but also that more could melt—because it's getting warmer. "This is all well-researched and will continue to be researched," he continues. "There was a brief increase [in Antarctic ice mass], but it didn't come anywhere close to replacing the losses of recent decades. The long-term development we are observing is a large-scale loss of the Antarctic ice sheet."
Business Mayor
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Mayor
Real-world map data is helping make better games about farms and transportation
I'm feeling a strange sense of pressure as I set up my first bus route in City Bus Manager . I want to get things right for the public transportation users of this city, probably because it's the city I actually live in. City Bus Manager uses OpenStreetMap (OSM) data to populate its maps, so I can see all the familiar streets and points of interest laid out in front of me. These are my neighbors, who, like me, want an efficient transit service. I want to be able to provide it to them — even if only in a simulation. City Bus Manager is part of a small group of management sims that are using OSM's community-generated database to make the whole world their game setting. Other examples include Global Farmer , NIMBY Rails , and Logistical: Earth . In these games, players can build farms, railways, or delivery networks all over the globe, using data about real fields, settlements, and infrastructure to inform their decisions. When the idea of using OSM was first raised at PeDePe, the studio behind City Bus Manager , 'we had no idea if it would be technically feasible,' says Niklas Polster, the studio's co-founder. But once established, the license gave them access to an entire world of streets, buildings, and even real bus stops. And these do more than just form the game's world. They're also used for gameplay elements like simulating passenger behavior. 'Schools generate traffic in the mornings on weekdays, while nightlife areas such as bars and clubs tend to attract more passengers in the evenings on weekends,' ' Polster says. Typically, Polster says, people are drawn to playing City Bus Manager in their local areas. (This seems to be confirmed by looking at YouTube playthroughs of the game, where creators often begin by saying they're going to dive into their own city or town.) That personal connection appears almost hardwired into people, says Thorsten Feldmann, CEO of Global Farmer developer Thera Bytes. When they showcased the game at Gamescom in 2024, 'every single booth visitor' wanted to input their own postal code and look at their own house. Global Farmer. Image: Thera Bytes There's a specific fantasy about being able to transform a space you know so well, Feldmann says. In addition to your own home or town, the marketing for Global Farmer suggests using famous tourist locations, such as Buckingham Palace, as the beginning of your new agricultural life. '[Players creating their] own stories around those places can be even more impactful than in purely fictional environments,' Feldmann says. There is something inherently fun about being in control of a place you see every day or one that is deeply iconic. In particular, tearing down a perfectly manicured gated garden from which the British royal family takes £510 million per year and turning it into land to grow food for a country where 4.5 million children live in poverty might not be a one-to-one political solution, but it is emotionally compelling. 'We've heard stories of players who became interested in public transport as a career thanks to the game.' The quality — or lack thereof — of public transportation is another key political topic where I live. The local buses are currently in the process of being nationalized again after what South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard calls a 'failed experiment' in privatization. Maybe that's why, even though these might just be pixels on a screen, I want to do it right. That's a feeling many players seem to experience. 'Our Discord community is full of players who are passionate about public transport,' Polster says. 'We've heard stories of players who became interested in public transport as a career thanks to the game.' Read More Topgolf launches a golfing experience on Fortnite's UEFN platform Of course, game developers using OSM data are still making games, rather than exact simulations. The real world is not always a well-balanced game design space. 'In smaller towns and villages, routes can be unprofitable with realistic numbers,' Polster says. City Bus Manager compensates for this by giving players more financial support, which is a straightforward and useful bit of game design. But when it comes to treating the games as direct representations of the world, it elides some complexity. For example, according to Polster, some players have reached out to their local transportation agencies with data they've gathered from playing in their local areas — despite the fact that the game is not actually designed as a faithful recreation of the real world, even if its map is. NIMBY Rails. Image: Weird and Wry Another challenge is that OSM data isn't always fully reliable. Polster explains that there can be errors or missing data that break very specific areas in the game, requiring PeDePe to manually find the issues and fix them. But OSM is also a volunteer-run program, meaning players can correct the data at the source. 'Many of our players contribute directly to OpenStreetMap,' if they find errors in their local area, Polster says, which improves the dataset for everybody, no matter what they're using it for. Density of data is also a particular issue for the Global Farmer developers, who found that OSM has a lot more information about roads than field systems. There are plenty of areas where individual field boundaries aren't mapped, making 'total grey areas where gameplay actually couldn't happen.' The developers compensated for this by making a map editor, where players can copy satellite images from other sources to correct the data, but it means that those who don't want to build their own maps are limited to the places where OSM has detailed data or where other players have shared their creations. Read More The best split-screen PS5 games Management sims have often reached for a sense of realism, and OSM data is a useful tool in that toolbox. It also allows players to control environments they know well and can connect with. But it is not a perfect recreation of the world, and even if it was, that isn't always what games need. According to Feldmann, navigating these factors 'can be very frustrating.' But, just like players, developers are drawn to the idea of blurring the lines between places they know and places they simulate. 'It is also super rewarding whenever you manage to find a solution and get great results that are connected to the real world,' Feldmann says.
Boston Globe
02-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
The Used celebrate 25 years with a three night stand in Boston
'That was it for me. When I was really young, I saw Michael Jackson perform on MTV and I was convinced that was my job.' The Used's first few recorded demos of songs 'Maybe Memories,' 'Just A Little' and 'Zero Mechanism' caught the attention of producer and Goldfinger vocalist John Feldmann. Within days of hearing the songs, Feldmann procured offers from several major labels before The Used signed with Reprise Records in 2001. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The group's debut came one year later, though McCracken reveals that stardom didn't happen overnight. The musicians' calamitous sound captivated Feldmann, but audiences took a little longer to warm up to it. 'It was weird at first, because there was really no place for The Used to fit in. We toured with all sorts of different bands just to try to find a space in the scene,' McCracken says. 'We were kind of the outlier, the homeless band, so to speak.' Advertisement After playing pubs with Audiovent and Riddlin' Kids and performing at radio festivals alongside artists like Unwritten Law and Andrew W.K., The Used would soon find a home on the 'We played this Warped show and there was a point where all the equipment on the stage went out and the crowd just kept singing 'The Taste Of Ink.' It was amazing to see the self-titled [album] kind of pick up like that,' he recalls. 'We had this really cool feeling, like, 'Yeah, this is going somewhere.'' Their sophomore record, 'In Love and Death,' was released in 2004 and remains The Used's most commercially successful album to date. Despite McCracken processing the tragic loss of his pregnant ex-girlfriend at the time and the group dealing with their own internal conflict, 'In Love and Death' exemplified a palpable maturation that few artists can achieve. The project's first single, 'Take It Away,' was a visceral shot of adrenaline punctuated by McCracken's frantic energy and harrowing vocals. Other singles, like 'All That I've Got' and 'I Caught Fire,' showed his aptitude for penning melodic anthems. McCracken says that the album's universality was a by-product of innate authenticity. Advertisement '['In Love and Death'] kind of lends itself to a really listenable record. Everyone will or has experienced loss and heartache and sorrow and for me to be able to open up my heart like that…I think it's helpful for music fans. Especially this kind of catharsis that we get to experience when putting all of our emotions into a song,' he says. McCracken's resounding passion grew on subsequent Used records ('Lies For The Liars,' 'Artwork,' 'The Canyon'). He also channels his emotions into the group's live performances. McCracken has previously said that The Used has always been a live band first, and for 25 years, he's made good on that claim. Constantly touring is how they gained their unwavering fanbase, but the band's caliber of performance is why those fans have stayed loyal. 'We take performing really seriously nowadays and we do this big long warmup. We play the entire show before we actually go out and play the show…that really helps us to get in the head frame and get in the mind space to put on the best show we can,' he explains. He says that's only increased over time. 'We've never cared more about how the band sounds and how the band makes a statement. We've never practiced harder and we've never been more dedicated. When I'm on stage, I have no choice but to be in it and to be on fire. But I never felt a lot of pressure–it's always about the love for playing and love for singing.' During their three-night stand in Boston, The Used will continue to use their sonic nonconformity to cultivate a space for audiences to freely express themselves. McCracken understands that self-expression is now more important than ever. 'I think people are lost as to where they should fit in or where they belong…so for younger generations growing up, this music has something incredible to offer,' he says. 'We encourage that kind of individuality at shows and the space to not be judged or not to judge other people.' Advertisement After all of these years, fans of The Used remain devoted. As shows continue to sell out across the country, McCracken insists he does not take this support for granted. 'Looking back, we've been through a lot of ups and downs, but we're just so humbled and grateful to still be here after 25 years. I'm excited to make it 25 more.' The Used At House Of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St., Boston, April 9, 11, 12. 7 p.m., $63.00,
