florkledorkle

If 73% of millennials started tweeting about their bowel movements tomorrow, would you be trying to monetize the toilet as the hottest new social network?

Social media is a communication tool. What you’re seeing is evidence that normal human beings share interests and discuss them. That is not automatic evidence that the interest needs to be technologically exploited at the source. That this is not immediately clear is a significant driver behind the most reprehensible parts of the computing industry. I also think you’re overlooking that “I solved it in four! Yay!” is a mild extension of the anecdotes you’re hearing about five minutes and forget (they’re not mutually exclusive). I bet even the engineers who spent the last couple weekends solving for the optimal word are ready to put that bag down, too, and are probably just as strongly in that five minute group.

It already has a Share button that is implemented in the most respectful way possible for a user. Wordle’s backlog is precisely zero items long. Anything you’d do to it to consider social media would make it fundamentally worse. That you think it’s a social network in waiting leaves a metallic taste in my mouth and a bunch of despair for where we are.

That comparison doesn’t hold, though. You’d ground quite short with a tennis racket because of the give in the racket (which absorbs all the momentum in the ball that you’re using), and by the time you were to get atop the motorcycle to ride to first after you hit that ground ball, you’d already be out. I bet it’d be pretty close to a bunt or break the racket, honestly. Baseballs have energy and a big part of it is utilized in the hit to add to distance. Think about the inverse: hitting a tennis ball with a bat instead of a racket.

Even with a perfectly placed hit it’s hard to imagine a motorcycle improving the run to first, too, and that gets even worse when you’re thinking about other bases. Going to first you have the momentum of your swing to help you get going too, particularly if you bat left. I’d honestly like to see that tried, because I bet a runner would win every time even if you made the rule touching with a tire instead of your body.

I’m struggling to improve on your metaphor, though, and historically cheating has focused on other things like sticky balls to improve handling. I think it’s pretty hard to hit better with a different tool than a bat, short of making the bat bigger but keeping its properties. Maybe a treated 2x4? Corked bats come to mind too as something that’s been tried, and what that does to the bat and swing is interesting, but it pretty conclusively doesn’t make you hit better or farther (the opposite; we’ve played with it on my team).