Replacing Golf Spikes

Replacing the spikes (Cleats) on golf shoes takes a little preparation, the right tools and the right replacement spikes. The first step I took was to scrub the grass and dirt from the bottom soles of the shoes (good time to clean and polish the uppers as well). The spikes are designed to stop the shoes slipping on wet grass. Old golf shoes have metal spikes, but these are now banned on most golf courses. Modern shoes have plastic "soft spikes", which bend on a hard surface, causing less damage.

The Four Attachment methods for Golf Spikes

There are two common locking systems: Q-LOK and Tri-LOK (also called "Fast Twist"). The locking systems use a plastic thread which takes only about a half turn to lock. Other golf shoes have a large bolt thread holding the spikes on (Large Thread), there is also a smaller thread (Small Thread). The replacement spikes may be sold individually at your pro-shop, but usually come in packs from golf stores. The number of spikes on a show varies. You can replace as many as needed.

It is difficult to tell the different attachment systems apart: small from large thread and Q-LOK from Tri-LOK. So unless you have the details for your shoe, you may be better off taking the shoes into a pro-shop or golf store to get the right spikes.

Removing Old Spikes

All these spikes have two small holes into which you can insert a key to turn them (counter-clockwise to remove). The holes may be filled with dirt, thus the need to clean the shoe first. The spikes can be hard to turn. I found some spray lubricant (WD-40 or similar) helped. I found a set of needle nosed pliers worked better than the flimsy key. You can also use a Golf Shoe Spike Wrench, which is shaped to fit the spike and provides better leverage. After removing the old spikes I cleaned the threads with a toothbrush, soap and water. Replacing the spikes is easy, bur remember the locking systems only need a half turn or so: don't turn too much or too hard.

Golf Overshoes

Even spikes are not permitted in the clubhouse (and wearing them on hard paving wears them out). Golf overshoes (galoshes) are available which cover the spikes. These are made from soft foam plastic, similar to "Crocks" brand sandals. The overshoes are also made for football boots and cycling shoes.

The Cleatskins brand overshoes come in a range of US shoe sizes:

Womens

Small: US Womens 5-6.5
Medium: US Womens 7-9
Large: US Womens 9.5-12

Mens

Medium: US Mens 6.5 to 8
Large: US Mens 8.5-10.5
X-Large: US Mens Cleats 11-12.5
XX-Large: US Mens 13-15.5

FootySpeak: Natural Language Generation for AFL Reports in Aboriginal Languages and English

Greetings from the School of Language Studies at the Australian National University in Canberra, where Mark Dras, Department of Computing, Macquarie University is speaking on "Arrernte Footy: A Computational Grammar and Natural Language Generation System for Arrernte". The idea is to generate natural language new articles in English and Arrernte automatically from the data about an AFL football match. This is of interest to researchers, as well as having commercial application in financial and sports reporting, where there is a regular structure to what is reported and lots of statistics. This is also of interest for teaching languages and making languages more understandable. It occurs to me that the English language description of an AFL match is not really in English, it is in "FootySpeak", a subset of English (like Seaspeak). The same approach might be used to generate weather reports and emergency warnings, in a readable, but very precise language. The problem is that messages have to be created quickly in high stress situations.

A content selector, planner, deep realizer, dictionary complier, XLE and Weighted Finite-State Transducers (WFSTs) are used in turn to create the natural language sentences. A lexical functional grammar is used to describe the structure of sentences in the language. For Arrernte some featured not required in English are used, such as for reduplication. Also Glue semantics could be used, if the software would support it.

Some of the research was carried out at the Ngurratjuta Lightning Carnival (Lightning football is a shortened version). One use for the automatically generated text would be for teaching reading in schools, as football will be of many interest to many students than other topics.

Mark needs some recording or text of descriptions of football matches in Arrernte, so if you have any contact him.

ps: It would be interesting to generate Roy and HG commentary.

Arrernte Footy: Natural Language Generation for AFL Reports in Aboriginal Languages

Mark Dras, Department of Computing, Macquarie University will speak on "Arrernte Footy: A Computational Grammar and Natural Language Generation System for Arrernte" at the Australian National University School of Language Studies in Canberra, 4pm, today. He will discuss the analysis of reports of AFL football matches in the language of the Arrernte people of Mparntwe (Alice Springs).

ANU School of Language Studies
Monday 13 February SEMINAR 4 pm Baldessin Building, room W 3.03 (Map)

Mark Dras, Department of Computing, Macquarie University

Title: A Computational Grammar and Natural Language Generation System for Arrernte

Abstract:

Natural Language Generation (NLG) systems have as their goal the generation of human-like text from some underlying representation, often numerical or other data from a database. We are currently developing an NLG system to generate texts in both English and Arrernte about Australian Rules football games, of the sort found in newspapers after a game has been played (e.g. "GEELONG has claimed the club's ninth premiership and marked itself as one of the greatest sides of all time with a stunning 38-point Grand Final win against Collingwood...."). The final stage of this system is a realisation component that is built around Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) and its XLE environment for grammar development: this takes a description of the functional structure of a sentence, and uses a computational grammar to make appropriate lexical and syntactic choices to produce the actual sentence. A large-scale grammar of English has already been developed by the international ParGram project, which we will be using; we are now building a computational grammar of Arrernte, based on existing linguistic descriptions of the language.

In the talk I will give an overview of this system, with a focus on the computational grammar of Arrernte, in particular how we've implemented in the LFG formalism a number of constructions that have been discussed in the literature, such as complex predicates like associated motion.

33rd Futsal National Championships in Canberra

Greetings from Canberra, location for the 33rd Futsal Australian National Championships. A form of football, Futsal is designed for a confined space, with only five players per side.

One venue for the championships is the Australian National University Sports Hall, with the Purple Pickle Cafe busy serving players and supporters.Players have come from as far as the Solomon Islands, with their Under 16 Futsal Team winning over Football NSW West and Victoria.

Real time monitoring of athletes and soldiers in the field

Dr. Ken Taylor at the CSIRO ICT Centre is developing a real time athlete monitoring system for the Australian Institute of Sport. A smart phone relays data, including location and effort, via a wireless network to a web based map and graphs. This allows a coach to monitor the athlete's performance and also talk to them via the phone.

It occours to me that the same system could be applied to military personnel. For training purposes the low cost smart phones could be used, to monitor the performance and safety of the troops of the training range. For use in combat, the system could be integrated with the DOMINATOR Integrated Infantry Combat System being acquired by the Australian Defence Force. This would allow commanders to not only monitor the location of their troops, but also their physical condition, allowing for better planning. Australia could also provide the military forces it trains, with the lower cost smart phone based system.

2011 Eastern University Games

There are several thousand extra university students in Canberra for the 2011 Eastern University Games. There is also a cold front over Canberra resulting in blizzard conditions in the surrounding mountains and cold showers in the city. The visiting students, not used to the cold, are dressed in fur trimmed coats, fur lined hats and in some cases head- to-toe ski suits. Each person also has a competitor ID around their neck which looks like a ski lift pass. The result is that the city has taken on the look of a ski resort.

Australian interactive cricket web site

The National Museum of Australia have issued a request for tender for someone to build them an interactive display about Australian cricket. This is likely to create a lot of interest from cricket mad web developers in India. ;-)

The tender calls for Flash. Developers need to keep in mind that Australian law requires that such services be accessible to the disabled, which requires a little extra work when using Flash.

The National Museum of Australia seeks the services of an appropriately qualified organisation to develop the Australian Cricket Flash-based interactive for the new Australian Journeys gallery at the National Museum of Australia. The required services will comprise of:

1. Creative concept development
2. Functional and technical specification
3. Interface design
4. Post production of archival film
5. Programming and development of the interactive in Adobe Flash ...
   

From: Australian cricket interactive, ATM ID NMAT0708/14, 20-Mar-2008

They also have a tender for "European Voyages interactive".

In praise of plastic shoes

I finally bought a pair of "Crocks" style, lightweight plastic shoes. These were originally made for boating and water-sports, they are slip-resistant with a non-marking sole.

Common designs, such as the Crocs Cayman, have holes for ventilation, but the "Crocs Endeavor" have no vents (holes) and the "Professional" only at the sides. The " Islander Crocs " are a lace up shoe with leather around the ankle, sealing the top, but still with ventilation at the front of the shoe. The "All Terrain Crocs" have a lace up leather top and no vents. The Crocs Mammoth has synthetic fur lining and ventilation holes on top (none at sides to prevent water entering).

Also there are Bistro Crocs, designed for the foodservice industry with an added tread, claimed to conforms to the slip-resistance standards. There have been safety concerns about nurses getting infections from wearing crocs, and discussion of the ones with no holes being too hot. Obviously they should not be worn were there is a risk of injury from dropping something on your foot.

But if you just want the ordinary style (with holes), there are much cheaper ones available than the "Crocks" brand. These shoes are not for heavy duty use, but better than walking around the house in your socks.

Some Types of Crocs Shoes

Vents:	None	Side	Top and Side
One strap	Crocs Endeavor Shoe	Crocs Professional	Crocs Cayman
Lace-up	All Terrain Crocs		Islander Crocs