Day-to-Day Nonsense

Scott Hamilton: The snark

Twice this Olympics Scott Hamilton has been snarky.

First it was the Brian Boucher comment: Finally Brian gets his gold medal. Like really dude, we know you beat him. We know it. And yes we’re bitter as Canadians that Brian came in second twice.

Then it was the comment on Ice-Dancing: I’ve been around the sport of ice-dancing my whole career, but I’ve never understood it.

well at least that one I can get behind.

Add comment February 27th, 2010

From heaven to hell in 5 seconds

The Olympic Quarterfinal women’s pursuit between Germany and the US produced the most amazing race.

The German racer, Anna Friesinger-Postma,  bonked, pulled a muscle, who knows, but she was failing with one lap left to go. And then with no gas left in the tank she fell on the ice and hurtled herself towards the finish line.

She falls on the ice and slides into the finish line.

Convinced she had blown it for her team she was on the ice pounding her hand onto the rink in frustration. She didn’t even bother to look at the result, because she knew they had lost. She knew she had failed her team. And the team was also convinced that they had lost.

But no. She had managed to cross the line just before the Americans … And her absolute determination to cross that line at all costs had paid off.

From heaven to hell in 5 seconds.

Add comment February 27th, 2010

I am a millenial … 37 years old mind you

The Pew Research group created a survey that measured how close to being a millennial we all are.

The data the was the basis of the study is here.

http://pewsocialtrends.org/assets/pdf/millennials-confident-connected-open-to-change.pdf

What I found amazing was that I was 87% millenial. Given that I was born 10 years before the millennial generation

Add comment February 27th, 2010

There is a body of research

So I was curious to read about ski waxing. And I thought, well maybe there is some home-brew, anecdotal, crappy knowledge, but there isn’t any real science behind this.

Uh no.

There isn’t just some research out there, there is a body of research on the topic.

There is a field. I found this thesis which concentrates on a subset of the co-efficients  that affect the performance of skii’s.

http://epubl.luth.se/1402-1757/2006/03/LTU-LIC-0603-SE.pdf

I’m sorry.

I didn’t realize. Waxing at the Olympic level requires a Ph.D..

The countries with the deepest research departments, and the best athletes have a decided edge.

Wow.

Add comment February 27th, 2010