The NYTimes "Room for Debate" column poses the question:

[url=http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/08/09/what-should-be-eliminated-from-the-olympics/?ref=opinion]What Should Be Eliminated From the Olympics?[/url]: [i]The Olympics provides a quadrennial opportunity to spend five minutes staring at activities you would never even have thought about otherwise. There are about 300 events. But if the Olympics were looking to pare itself down, where should it start? What sport should be eliminated? The one where women make themselves look like scary puppets?[/i]

Re: Women's 4x100 meter relay last night: Holy Crap!

The record broken was one of a handful by the former East Germany remaining on the books - [url=http://www.welt.de/sport/olympia/article108578012/In-welchen-Sportarten-die-DDR-noch-Weltspitze-ist.html]This [i]Die Welt[/i] article explains[/url], non-Deutsch-speaking readers should feed the link to Google Translate.


Interesting software-related cock-up in the women's hammer throw final last night:

[url=www.3news.co.nz/Hammer-medal-botch-up-explained/tabid/1697/articleID/265111/Default.aspx]Hammer medal botch up explained[/url]
[quote]Lack of prompt action by the competition jury after a computer warning initially deprived Germany's Betty Heidler of a hammer throw bronze medal at the Olympics, the IOC revealed.

It also allowed China's Zhang Wenxiu to do a lap of honour with national flag in the belief she had won bronze before the result was reversed.

The computer was not ready to accept the freak occurrence of successive throws of exactly the same distance and wiped out Heidler's fifth throw of 77.12 metres, which came after Russia's Tatyana Lysenko - who went on to take gold - had also thrown 77.12m.

"My understanding from what the IAAF has told me is: Her attempt was exactly the same as the attempt before. So the system didn't recognise it," IOC spokesman Mark Adams explains.

[u]The competition computer was programmed in such a way that identical distances in successive throws are automatically rated a mistake by the event jury.[/u]

Heidler's distance never showed up on the scoreboard.

Heidler protested immediately but it took until around half an hour after the competition, after endless discussions during which even the old fashioned tape measure was brought out to check the distance, the correct result was finally given.

By then, China's Zhang had been on her lap of honour. The Chinese camp protested once Heidler was bumped onto the podium, but that was rejected.[/quote]

The most dominant US Olympic team (40 straight Olympic victories) is one of the most-ignored:

"America's most dominant team? Women's basketball, even as the country ignores it"

[URL]http://sports.yahoo.com/news/olympics--america-s-most-dominant-team--women-s-basketball--even-as-the-country-ignores-it.html[/URL]

[quote] LONDON – Dominance doesn't always wear cleats and knee-high socks, and yet America's fascination with a female champion goes only as far as Twitter wars and "Dancing With the Stars." In a basketball country, the most beloved girls play on a soccer team.

On Thursday, just before the U.S. women's soccer team won another gold medal, the U.S. women's basketball team won its 40th straight Olympic game, beating its only rival, Australia, by 13 points in the best game Australia can play. The U.S. found a way to stop a 6-foot-8 center who has dunked in these Olympics. And it broke the Aussies with a ferocious zone defense. On Saturday, Team USA plays for its fifth straight gold medal. It would be an enormous shock to see the team lose.

Yet nobody much cared. Only a handful of American journalists came to the game. The questions were brief. The players weren't in demand. It was nothing like a U.S. women's soccer game, where the flood of television cameras and flashbulbs and tape recorders never seems to end.

After the game, U.S. coach Geno Auriemma clenched his jaw. This disparity between the soccer and basketball teams gnaws at him.

"I have a lot of respect for what they've done and how they've done it and the perpetual drama that seems to surround every one of their tournaments, you know?" Auriemma said of the women's soccer team as he walked down a corridor of the North Greenwich Arena. "I guess that's what people like, and the fact that there is very little drama involved with our games."

Then he chuckled.

"I'm sure if we were to lose a game we would become way more famous than we are now," he said.

. . .[/quote]

[URL="http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/photos/olympics-record-breakers-of-2012-1344773931-slideshow/olympics-day-15-athletics-photo-1344773811.html"]World record breakers at the 2012 Olympics[/URL]

[QUOTE]A total of 38 records were broken in the 2012 Games. Some were improved by a few milliseconds, while others were shattered in blistering new times. View the athletes below who achieved world records in London.[/QUOTE]

The link that sent me there said all world records had been broken in London.

Nice to see the massive crowds for the men's marathon today ... great move @23 miles by the Ugandan on the 2 Kenyans (one of whom shares the same surname, app. no relation, though) to set up the win. I really enjoyed the way the route wended its way through so many interesting parts and historic areas & monuments of the inner city.

Thanks and congratulations to the UK organizers and the city of London for putting on a fabulous show. Good luck dealing with the inevitable hangover - hopefully that massive medal haul by the native athletes will help. :)

Brain May looks like a (crazy) physicist!!! (It's such a shame Mercury couldn't be there in person :sad:)

[QUOTE=Dubslow;307761]Brain May looks like a (crazy) physicist!!! (It's such a shame Mercury couldn't be there in person :sad:)[/QUOTE]True, but always look on the bright side of life.

[QUOTE=xilman;307779]True, but always look on the bright side of life.[/QUOTE]

Like [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIdKrSJ6270"]YouTube[/URL]? Thanks to that link (and watching it more than once last fall semester), when they played the recording of him, I already knew the whole thing :smile: (Edit: Actually, I must have gotten the wrong one, because this one's different from the recording shown today... none of the dialog is right either...)

[QUOTE=Dubslow;307761]Brain May looks like a (crazy) physicist!!! (It's such a shame Mercury couldn't be there in person :sad:)[/QUOTE]
Brian May is [B]in fact[/B] an astrophysicist, ...in case you didn't read about it in the very first line in Wiki. :razz:

[QUOTE=Batalov;307782]Brian May is [B]in fact[/B] an astrophysicist, ...in case you didn't read about it in the very first line in Wiki. :razz:[/QUOTE]

I'm more-than-well-aware of that, but was pointing out how much he looks like it now. My mom thinks he grew his hair like that to look like Newton. :smile: (The white hair shocked me a little, but it is gloriously awesome white hair, for the reasons above.)

[QUOTE=Dubslow;307780](Edit: Actually, I must have gotten the wrong one, because this one's different from the recording shown today... none of the dialog is right either...)[/QUOTE]

I went through my Youtube history and found the one I remember (apparently there was a Friday and Saturday concert):
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw-_LQJ6e8E[/url]
As a few of you might have read before I edited it, I did in fact have a top [URL="http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=nw-_LQJ6e8E"]comment[/URL] on this video. :smile: (Ctrl+F "sure of it")

PS Perhaps it's the hour, but what a glorious two concerts they were...