Not modern, nor penta.

The Olympics still has a somewhat strange mix of sports, where multi-millionaires in some sports go through the motions with thoughts of more important events to follow, while others grab golds and smash records, then go back to shop-worker wages.

One event that continues to exist purely because of the Olympics is the increasingly misnamed Modern Pentathlon. Originally created as an updated idea of the Greek Pentathlon, it is often said that it was supposedly meant to demonstrate the skills of a military officer. First held in 1912, events a couple of years later showed that these were very outdated skills. Having been distinctly non-modern for a century, it is now arguably no longer a pentathlon either, as they're combining the running and the shooting. The random drawing of horses at the last Olympics appeared to make it a bit of a lottery (although I got the impression the women coped rather better with the horses than some of the men did). I suspect it's a sport that has its place in the Olympics guaranteed by its history of being invented by Baron Coubertin, but it's also in danger of not getting shown on the TV unless either a) one of our athletes might win it, or b) it's as funny as the horses that refused to jump were.

Either way, it's still not as silly as synchronised swimming.

As you sow...

Hilariously, Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson is claiming that teams are fouling United's Cristiano Ronaldo so often referees think the winger is diving.

Um. This is not a chicken and egg situation. Ronaldo has dived so regularly that referees became suspicious, and gave the defenders the benefit of the doubt when Ronaldo hits the deck.

That's the benefit of the doubt, not carte blanche, of course. It's probably not surprising that Ferguson waited until after a match where the defenders had become too blatant, with one of them sent off as a result, to make his complaint.

None the less, if strikers realise that regularly diving will result in them being tackled more without repercussions for the defenders, hopefully this will result in a few less strikers hitting the deck without being touched.

Ecclestone's F1 Imperial overreach

F1 commercial boss Bernie Ecclestone is still fantastically rich (even if his decision to put his wealth into the name of his tax-exile wife turned out not to be such a smooth move)

But while he has been readily abandoning the traditional base of Formula One for the allure of new tracks (ones that'll pay him huge wadges of cash), it appears he's forgotten to ensure that the new venues are actually, well, popular. China, who started paying large amounts of money to host F1 a few years back, are now having second thoughts on the grounds that the Chinese themselves don't appear to care. In the credit-crunch era, they may not be the only rich but fair weather friends F1 has.

Don't forget your prime purpose

Any large organisation will develop a large support infrastructure. This has its dangers. For example, the central bureaucracy can start running things for the benefit of the central bureaucracy - the accountants are on tap, rather than on top. For an organisation that can't go broke - e.g. a university - this puts in a danger of forgetting that the main purpose is to educate and to research. If the educators and researchers are put second best to image and publicity, short term gain will become long term pain. I can sometimes be heard grumbling about a lab that has single glazing rather than my desired double glazing because changing the window during the refurbishment would have "changed the external appearance of the building". I don't see this as a reason not to go ahead - the purpose of the building is to do research. The central authorities did - presumably this is an image and appearance thing, ahead of research efficiency (and energy efficiency - there is a breeze in my office (similarly benighted with single glazing) with the window closed. How much energy is wasted heating this room?)

Reading the NY Times, there are much larger illustrations of this - the US Ivy Leage university, Rutgers, has spent millions trying to become a major power in college American Football.

Now, it is not that Rutgers American football team has a large budget that is the problem. If this budget was raised from the gate receipts of people who want to watch the team, and from TV revenues for broadcasting the team, then I would have no problem with them spending this money on the team, even if that results in the team coach earning more than the professors (although how many professors would swap their tenure for the instability of a sports team manager?). This money has come from the sports fans, and so can be spent on giving the sports fans what they want. I don't see it as a necessity that income from this should be taken away and given to research any more than income from filming soap operas should be taken away and given to cancer research, except via standard taxation.

It is not even that they're spending money on something other than pure teaching and research - extra mural activities are an important part of many a students time at universities, and many employers look very favourably at the appearance of a sports team on a graduate's CV as a demonstration of commitment and team work. It is that this is *all* about image, and not about education. How much more education does the average player get on a college American football that has a winning record? How much more benefit could that money do in keeping tuition fees down, budgets up, even in supporting a much larger number of students in less high-income sports (e.g. rowing, swimming, athletics) or student theatre, music, art etc?

This can't be defended as education of rounded students. It is because someone in a big office has decided they want to see Rutgers name up in the top flight of college football. But he has forgotten what a college is for.

Google search box predictive text update

Yes, I should be working. Instead I'm mucking around on the internet. The joys of 21st century life, eh?

Anyway, to update a post from a month ago - Three changes to the list:
j - John McCain, having been beaten by Barack Obama, is now being beaten by Ms Jennifer Hudson. Whoever she is, plenty of people are googling her.
k - The mysterious-to-me Kelly Blue Book has been replaced by Kohls. Which is also mysterious-to-me.
l - Limewire (obviously something internet) loses out to Lowes. Which I guess is probably an American shop of some sort. Perhaps Kohls is also. Tis the season to go shopping, even though you have no money any more.

Unsurprisingly, the President-elect is still dominating the Os, and will continue for years - particularly if the likes of Southwest Airlines, Skype and Sears continue to fail to displace Sarah Palin.

Vulgarity and offensiveness

One of these random thoughts that strikes me occasionally:

The BBC is currently apologising about everything, particularly to people who are disgusted at the vulgarity and offensiveness of BBC programmes they didn't actually watch/listen to at the time, but now they've heard about it are outraged at the vulgarity and offensiveness of them.

As these people actually in some way must enjoy being offended to have sought out the vulgarity that offended them, there must be some who not only enjoy this but also have the (im)maturity to admit to it.

What if these people got together (say, on Facebook) and started an organised complaint that some BBC programme was neither vulgar nor offensive and they, as licence payers, demanded to be offended immediately? Could they get the BBC to apologise for that too?

Phoenix will not rise again

The BBC report that NASA have declared the Phoenix lander to be silent, presumed dead, having lasted two months longer than its expected three month operating period.

Having not heard from it since the 2nd of November, NASA are scaling down operations, while listening in just in case it has more surprises in store. With no power to supply warmth, the cold of a Northern Martian winter will break the solar panels and electronics.

Phoenix was a resurrection of the Mars Polar Lander, the original of which was lost near the South Pole.

The other NASA stalwarts, Opportunity and Spirit, are still going in the relatively balmy equatorial region.

Google search box predictive text

The Google search box on the Firefox browser has predictive text - not sure how much of that is remembering what I've searched for before, as opposed to the current default (appears to be google world rather than UK only, but I suspect there is some UK weighting), but I thought I'd note what some letters bring. Some will stay the same for years, others show that this is updated fairly often (and will hopefully change very soon now)

So you have the internet royalty (Amazon, Ebay, Google) the new internet royalty (facebook), the US powerhouses (is craigslist even in the UK?)

a: Amazon - internet royalty, unsurprising. The second place of Argos makes me think there must be a UK weighting to these results, though.
b: Bebo - I've vaguely heard of this, perhaps its for a younger audience
c: craigslist - American powerhouse, I think
d: dictionary - one of the few English words to win
e: ebay - internet royalty
f: facebook - new internet royalty
g: google - figures
h: hotmail- clearly not dead yet
i: imdb - not exactly internet royalty, but clearly doing well to beat itunes
j: john mccain (mccain doesn't even appear on the m list)
k: kelly blue book - I've no idea what this is. Or indeed many of the other entries that appear under 'k'
l: limewire - as above, no idea
m: myspace - the tawdy network site, unreadable to anyone my age
n: next - the retail chain or the English word I wonder?
o: obama - Mr President-elect - no surprise there (Barack Obama is sixth in the bs)
p: photobucket - photo hosting. 'Palin' hit ninth, which I suspect is not largely due to fans of the dead parrot sketch
q: quotes - a small field, and won by a non-trademark.
r: runescape - I suspect it's a game.
s: sarah palin. Oh please let this be temporary.
t: target. I think this is a retailer.
u: utube. Are there really that many people who don't know it's "youtube"?
v: verizon wireless
w: wikipedia. Internet royalty, despite the flakiness of some of its entries
x: x factor. Make it go away, please.
y: youtube. For those who can remember the spelling.
z: zipcodes. See, I said it was American.

The US dominance of google searches is clear - of the big hits, only one that I'm aware of started outside US territory (imdb - technically the bit of Panama that john mccain was born on was US territory or he wouldn't have been able to stand for president)

Time to vote?

According to the BBC's live feed, Barack Obama appears to have taken about 16 minutes to cast his vote. While careful consideration is a plus in a politician, this may be taking things a little too far...

Music to resuscitate to

The story about the Bee Gees "Staying Alive" has been going around for the past couple of weeks, to the extent of cropping up on a popular news quiz on the BBC.

The NY Times article on the topic has a little more information than the BBC article I first read about it in. Those studying the idea - find a track that is sufficiently well known and has the right beats per minute to match the suggested chest compression rate - clearly had added a third requirement, which is applicability.

Or, to put it bluntly, if someone *has* to sing along while trying to resuscitate you, the Bee Gees "Stayin alive" at least gives a more optimistic slant on the chances of their success than Queen's "Another one bites the dust" does.

The great intellectual conspiracy

In what can hardly come as a surprise to Republicans, that intellectual Obama has been endorsed by a total of 76 Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry, Physics or Medicine.

Of course, as the Republicans don't appear to be in favour of wasting time and effort on careful consideration, investigation and study and prefer the fast action that is only possible by going with gut feelings - how can you be a DECIDER if you'll change your mind just because mere facts and evidence suggest you've made a colossal mistake - then they'll hardly be bothered by this 76-0 lead that the Obama campaign has in some of the greatest scientific minds alive.

And yes, this is my business. I'm in the free world, and Americans can't say it's not my business if they're going to keep using this "leader of the free world" line.

Stormy Weather

Why exactly is the BBC's weather forecasting so bloody awful?

OK, British weather isn't the easiest thing to predict, but given that there's been a great big giant band of rain slowly crossing the country all day, to be continuing to say it'll be dry in Nottingham is just complete rubbish. It's been chucking it down for hours.

Plus I'm also annoyed at myself for not going into town on Saturday and buying the rewaterproofing spray I need to get my waterproofs waterproof. D'oh.

Too much slime, even for a pitbull?

The Rovian slime machine has already proven far too much for Colin Powell, who has thrown his weight behind Obama, and John McCain himself has shown his discomfort at some of the negative emotions stirred up by the Republican Party campaign.

So who's the latest to express disquiet at Republican tactics... Sarah Palin.

Um. When the "pitbull in lipstick" starts second guessing the smears, it appears that even the Republicans have realised that Republican tactics are rather unpalatable to the US public...

Throw them out.

Here's a simple test for UK political parties wanting my vote - do they agree to this:

Article 12.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

It appears the Labour party does not.

Italy deems the future to be too expensive

Italy has decided to take from the Universities to fund the bankers. In practical terms, the subjects that will suffer most are those which require a large number of support staff - in other words, technicians in the research labs.

Italy suffers distinctly in that research staff there are civil servants rather than appointed by the Universities themselves, and the past decade has seen almost no permanent recruitment. Instead, the labs are maintained by short-term contract staff. In Italy, these are nicknamed precari, acknowledging the precarious position of such a post.

Now they want to get rid of thousands of them. This is no way to run research. Italy is already well behind the likes of France and Germany in research expenditure per GDP. This will not help. I hope the Italian government enjoys the whooshing sound of Eastern European countries overtaking them.

Astroturfing forums

Now, I'm a cynical sort, so I may be prone to seeing things that aren't really there, but I tend to find that when I'm searching the web for comments on a product, I can often find forums that I find suspiciously eager to declare their love for one particular brand. While some brands are able to gather fanboys who will declare their love of the product of their own genuine fanaticism for it, others are otherwise so functional (e.g. a waterproofing spray) that you can't imagine them inspiring devotion.

So when I find a forum that discusses a brand only in the most worshipping terms, that uses the full product name repeatedly, and that links and promotes their website at every opportunity -

"BRANDNAME have a great competition on their website (link)!"
"I went to the BRANDNAME website (link) and registered straight away!"
"BRANDNAME is great!"
"BRANDAME is a friend, and it's a companion, And it's the only product you will ever need"

etc (alright, that last one is from a Tom Waits track), it doesn't look like the grass roots devotion that some brands have inspired, it looks like the astroturf of a company trying to fake it. And now I'm not going to buy their product either.

MTV gets rickrolled

Broadcasters who let the public vote for who wins awards often come up with a problem - the public just doesn't take them as seriously as the broadcasters think they should.

This trend ranges from BBC Sports personality of the year (which has also had rumours of Aussies voting for non-winning Englishmen to avoid ones who beat them getting the nod) to the religion section in the UK census getting the Jedi vote out.

Latest victims are MTV, who have found a surprise nominee for best ever act in their latest pointless vote.

A gay politician is still a politician

This is the sort of non-joined up thinking that makes me unsurprised that politicians let the economy get in such a mess.

The BBC quotes some Tory that Gays 'have a duty to vote Tory' - because apparently Cameron has stopped the party from selected only straight white men, but also because homosexuals are 'net contributors to the taxes because they don't have children'.

Right. And they all top themselves at 65, do they? While you don't want too many children - this country is currently in an environmentally unsustainable mode, and more people makes that harder to fix - you do want there to be a certain number so they can run the services and earn money that pays your pensions once you've retired.

Beats the face on Mars anyday

The human brain is great at pattern recognition. One problem is that it is so good, it sees things that aren't there. Apart from a dirt track, there's not a lot at the coordinates of 50.01,-110.11 that isn't natural, but...


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Gone to the dogs

The Kennel Club is getting a bit sniffy that the BBC dare broadcast a documentary to suggest that the Kennel Club's rules are not good for dogs.

The Kennel Club being - in my opinion - deluded about what they are doing (they think they are doing the right thing, but they're not) have even accused the BBC of being "biased against dogs".

Rubbish. The Kennel Club are not dogs, dogs are not the Kennel Club. One can be very pro-dog indeed and disagree with the Kennel Club.

You only have to look at photos of what the Kennel Club's ideas have turned the bulldog into. It's hardly a surprise that there could be health problems there. In the wikipedia article on bulldogs, it states that the Bulldog Club "In 1891 the two top bulldogs, Orry and Dockleaf, competed in a contest to see which dog could walk the farthest". How would a modern bulldog compare to the average mongrel in that contest?