You wouldn't think a man would have much leisure time in a race in which he sets a new world record of 9.69 seconds, but Usain Bolt had enough of a lead at the end of the men's 100-meter dash to blow out finger pistols, flash Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella triangle hand sign, and check his watch.
If I were racing against him, I'd be intimidated just seeing "Bolt" on the back of his jersey.
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I thought I saw Michael Phelps ride across the pool to his last medal ceremony standing on the backs of two dolphins, holding a trident.
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I was wondering about something at dinner yesterday and saw that someone else had asked Marginal Revolution the same thing: for such a populous country, why has India won so few Olympic medals?
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Visual evidence that Nikon has made a huge comeback against Canon in the professional sports photography market. Look at the lenses in this shot of the press photography area at the Olympics.
Black lenses are likely Nikon's mounted on D3's, while the light gray lenses are the Canons that used to dominate.
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Is it worth carrying an airline-mile credit card? Probably not unless you are a big-spending, high-flying, elite status traveler. I ditched mine several years ago in favor of various cashback cards.
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Is it really possible Anthony Lane didn't know right away which actor was playing Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder? From his review:
He is a doughy, balding monster with big spectacles and even wider hand gestures, all his power distilled into profanity: a grotesque update, if you will, on the movie executive with the shock of white-hot hair, brought to life by Rod Steiger, in “The Big Knife,” more than fifty years ago. It took me half the running time to realize who was playing this new beast, and it was only his voice that triggered the recognition; I suspect that there will be gasps during the end credits, as people see his name and find themselves rethinking the whole movie, marvelling at what could have inspired so stiff an actor to unfurl and bounce around.
Roger Ebert also thinks some people will not recognize the actor behind this cameo:
The movie is a send-up of Hollywood, actors, acting, agents, directors, writers, rappers, trailers and egos, much enhanced by several cameo roles, the best of which I will not even mention. You’ll know the one, although you may have to wait for the credits to figure it out.
Really? I think most every person in the theater will know who it is right away.
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As if it wasn't already hard enough to tell what people really look like from their carefully chosen and touched-up Facebook profile photos, soon we may all have access to software that can automatically enhance facial attractiveness. This SIGGRAPH paper discusses the technique and shows some results which were validated by independent ratings.
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Ah, only in Texas.
Posted by eugene at August 17, 2008 2:23 AM