https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGHZgt_ioy8#t=39m20s (Go to 39:20 in the video) "The online scoring...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGHZgt_ioy8#t=39m20s (Go to 39:20 in the video)
"The online scoring ... oh, a bit of a surprise, it's close."
That was me.
This was almost 20 years ago, in 1996 (years before the MLB All-Star voting incident), during an undercard for the first Holyfield-Tyson fight (not the "Bite Fight," but the one before that). I wrote a Perl program to try to win the online vote for Holyfield.
I needed to test the program, so I ran it in the undercard bout between Akinwande and Zolkin. I picked Zolkin (since Akinwande was the favorite, so I could try to better measure the effect) and ran the program to vote repeatedly for him during the fight. Seeing that Zolkin was getting hammered in the fight, but winning the online voting, I stopped the program after four rounds. From the fifth round on, Akinwande won the online voting, leading me to conclude I was having a significant effect.
The web site isn't around anymore, nor even on the Internet Archive, but at one point it was, and I archived the result page: https://pudge.net/boxing/.
I ran the program during the Holyfield-Tyson fight, but I was not having a significant effect, as the volume of other voters had significantly increased. My program was actually able to register fewer votes per round during Holyfield-Tyson, which compounded the problem.
It was a trip, though ... to hear announcers on a live televised event talking about the impact my little program was having on the online voting, during the fight. Today that wouldn't be a big deal, but it was pretty crazy to me back in 1996.
"The online scoring ... oh, a bit of a surprise, it's close."
That was me.
This was almost 20 years ago, in 1996 (years before the MLB All-Star voting incident), during an undercard for the first Holyfield-Tyson fight (not the "Bite Fight," but the one before that). I wrote a Perl program to try to win the online vote for Holyfield.
I needed to test the program, so I ran it in the undercard bout between Akinwande and Zolkin. I picked Zolkin (since Akinwande was the favorite, so I could try to better measure the effect) and ran the program to vote repeatedly for him during the fight. Seeing that Zolkin was getting hammered in the fight, but winning the online voting, I stopped the program after four rounds. From the fifth round on, Akinwande won the online voting, leading me to conclude I was having a significant effect.
The web site isn't around anymore, nor even on the Internet Archive, but at one point it was, and I archived the result page: https://pudge.net/boxing/.
I ran the program during the Holyfield-Tyson fight, but I was not having a significant effect, as the volume of other voters had significantly increased. My program was actually able to register fewer votes per round during Holyfield-Tyson, which compounded the problem.
It was a trip, though ... to hear announcers on a live televised event talking about the impact my little program was having on the online voting, during the fight. Today that wouldn't be a big deal, but it was pretty crazy to me back in 1996.
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
Leave a comment