Remains of the Day

Misusage alert: "literally"

Jerry Jones said of Cowboys cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones, who got in a fight with a bodyguard despite already have been suspended by the NFL previously for misbehavior: "He’s literally on a high wire without a net."

Which sounds dangerous indeed, more so than tempting the NFL to slap him with a further penalty. Though perhaps suspension is a welcome thing, if he was indeed on that high wire without a net.

Read: "He's figuratively on a high wire without a net."

A quick trip through Buzzfeed

Is Obama announcing his running mate tomorrow morning? Drudge thinks yes.

Funny bust, err...bus stop ad.

Speaking of the Wonderbra, they came up with another clever billboard, a photomosaic made up of hundreds of photos of women in their bras.

If I work on the top floor of this building and they announce that they're doing a fire drill test some day, I'm calling in sick.

Backlashes seem to have been accelerated by the Internet, so it's surprising that it took so long for the Radiohead backlash. Me, I'm going to see Radiohead at the Hollywood Bowl on Sunday and I couldn't be more excited.

At this moment, there might not be a bigger way for a woman to summon a world of fame onto herself than by dating Michael Phelps. First contender: fashion model Lily Donaldson.

8 short notes on the day of Phelps' 8th gold medal

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.

Literally, a photo finish

Sports Illustrated has a series of photos showing just how close Milorad Cavic came to upsetting Michael Phelps in the 100-meter butterfly yesterday. It's easy to see why, to some outside the pool, it looked like some conspiracy that Phelps won. He was so far behind before that final half-stroke that chopped the wall that it looked like an error when they superimposed that #1 graphic in his lane on TV.

I don't understand the advantages of wearing the high neck Speedo LZR Racer suit versus just the legskin, but I wonder why Phelps only wore the legskin for this swim, and whether that would have made a difference. Cavic wore the high neck bodyskin.

Fail

When I saw this photo of Spain's Olympic basketball team making slanted eyes in an ad, I thought there couldn't be any possible way they could have known what that gesture meant. How could anyone be so blatantly racist? I haven't seen that gesture since the playground days in elementary school, and the feeling it evokes has evolved. Then, it stung. Now, it angers.

But the Spaniards have not apologized, and participants like Pau Gasol are quoted saying, "It was supposed to be a picture that inspired the Olympic spirit."

Huh?!?

Jason Kidd is right, if the U.S. team had done something like that, David Stern would have disciplined them. But no one, not even FIBA, has done anything, not even a public rebuke.

I'm rooting for the U.S. Olympic hoops team to remedy this by meeting Spain in the finals and kicking their asses up and down the floor.

Me Winner

That common victory pose, arms thrust high, chest stuck out -- think Michael Phelps -- may be innate to primates according to scientists. Their evidence is that chimps and monkeys do it also, and blind athletes who've never seen others do it also strike that pose.

What I want to know is what the root of the walk-off home run celebration is. If I spot a gorilla throwing off a half-coconut shell helmet and then jumping into a big group of gorillas, at which point they all start hopping up and down in a circle, I'm going to freak out.

Olympics humor

From Jessica Hagy's Indexed:

Someecard:

Giving Alain Bernard the finger (.08s worth)

The Olympics are a time for being part of the global community, for sportsmanship, for setting aside our differences and celebrating...

...yeeeaaahhhhh! Suck it France!

In the pool, Lezak had seen Bernard hit the far wall first.

"I'm not going to lie," Lezak said. "When I flipped at the 50 and I still saw how far ahead he was, and he was the world-record holder 'til about two minutes before that, when Sullivan led off with the world record, I thought, it really crossed my mind for a split second, there's no way.

"Then I changed. I said, you know what, that's ridiculous. This is the Olympics. I'm here for these guys. I'm here for the United States of America. It's more than -- I don't care how bad it hurts, or whatever, I'm just going to go out there and hit it.

"Honestly, in like 5 seconds, I was thinking all these things -- you know, just got like a super charge and took it from there. It was unreal."

...

With the pressure of all of it on him, Lezak threw down the fastest split of all time, 46.06.

Yoo hoo, Pretty Boy

After finally watching Margarito pound Cotto's face into a Margarito pizza on my friend's DVR, I am ready to pony up money to see Mayweather step into the ring with Margarito. Pretty Boy ducked Margarito once despite an $8MM guaranteed payout, but if he really wants to cement his legacy he should come out of retirement and face down the Tijuana Tornado.

Already, problems with Olympics broadcasting

I was so excited for this year's Olympics because for the first time, 2,200 hours were going to be put online at NBCOlympics.com. DirecTV has some 6 or 7 channels dedicated to the Olympics. It didn't seem possible that the problems with the last Olympics would recur, namely that anyone who is on the Internet would find out results before they were shown somewhere.

Alas, that idea of maximizing audience via an artificially enforced notion of primetime still haunts us. If you want to watch Michael Phelps compete in events, you don't get to see them live, at least not on the West Coast in any legal fashion. I logged into ESPN this morning and there on the front page were the results of Phelps' first heat of the 400 IM Medley (which I won't share here). In fact, the result is even listed on the homepage of NBCOlympics.com. But the network is trying to still aggregate an audience for TV, so marquee events like that are not shown online, they are only shown on TV on a delayed schedule. In this case, the heats are shown at 3:30 to 4:30pm PST.

The final is at 5pm PST, but on the west coast they are going to delay coverage until 8pm PST, so for three hours the East Coast and Midwest in the U.S. will know the results, while the PST folks will have to detach all electronic devices and live in willful ignorance of the sports world if they wish to have any suspense when watching the main events on TV.

The revolution will be tape-delayed. Sigh.

Opening Ceremony: The Big Picture

Was hoping The Big Picture would cover the Olympics Opening Ceremony, and they did.

Best. Opening. Ceremony. Ever.

Related: Some of these photos by Li Wei remind me of moments from the Opening Ceremony.

I'm a !@#$%*? You're a *&%$#@!

In a letter, Giles Coren excoriates the Times sub-editors for altering the last sentence of one his columns. The Sunday Times sub-editors respond to Giles with their own letter and wonder why he had to be so rude and profane.

Good points all around. Not quite a literary feud, but similar entertainment value.

On a related note, Chuck Klosterman is overjoyed by the Shaq-Kobe feud and mutual hatred.

How little we (They) know

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch

Celtics fans and Laker haters, you can watch all of game 6 on Hulu.

Kobe vs. MJ

Bill Simmons, in his ESPN chat this week:

Grant (Chicago): Can someone put an end to all the "Kobe is as good as MJ talk." Kobe wins one championship (i'm assuming the Lakers win) without Shaq and he's all of a sudden as good as MJ? I don't get it, Kobe hasn't even had one season that would crack any of MJ's top 10. Not to mention that Kobe isn't mentally tough enough to have gotten through those physical eastern conference playoffs in the 90s.

Bill Simmons: It's such an absurd argument that it's not even worth writing about. Kobe has shown flashes of MJ-dom, and he definitely dipped into those waters in the playoffs, but Jordan played at that level for 10 solid years, and he was doing it during an era when players got pounded and they didn't have the hand-check rules. I have written this before but I honestly believe that, if the MJ from '87 to '93 played with the rules in place from '05 to '08, he would have averaged 45 a game

John Hollinger, in his ESPN chat today:

david I (manhattan): How many total titles with this current roster will it take to truly put Kobe in the same sentence with MJ and not get many arguments?

John Hollinger: At least three. Possibly more. I'm sorry, but I just want to puke anytime somebody compares a contemporary player to Jordan. There's no comparison at all. That's no disrespect to Kobe, who will likely go down as the second-best SG of all time. But MJ was absurdly good.

There are people who think Kobe is MJ's equal or superior. Those people don't know anything about basketball.

Christmas comes early to Chicago

The Bulls get their pick of Derrick Rose or Michael Beasley in the upcoming NBA draft. Maybe suffering through such an awful season wasn't all for naught.

I vote for Rose. Let the healing begin.

Steps

I love Lebron, but this clip Eric sent me is hilarious. Lebron takes about 15 steps on the way to the basket. It's great that it's then show in slow-mo so you can see just how egregious a travel this is. NBA refereeing is difficult, but traveling is an easy call that they just don't ever make, like the phantom tag of second base in baseball.

How it all went down

Everyone who hears about my basketball injury asks how it happened. There were no video cameras there, but imagine me as Chris Paul and this is an eerie video replay of the shot I hit just before my Achilles exploded.

T-minus one day until I go under the knife. I am ready to get it over with and start on the long rehab process. The thought of not being able to run or jump or exercise until sometime in February or March of 2009 is driving me crazy. No NY Marathon in November, no golf trip with the boys this summer, no snowboarding next winter, no running along the beach in Santa Monica, no hitting tennis balls with coworkers.

I need something, and I'm not sure what it is yet, to dissipate my agitation, or I'm going to lose my mind.

Margin of victory

From a chat with John Hollinger on ESPN today:

Will (NYC): I agree that some close games are 50/50 but those are in the minority. A big part of being a great team is the ability to show heart and win the close games. It's called performing under pressure and that is something that Boston showed they may be lacking greatly. That is why people are less confident in their chances.

SportsNation John Hollinger: (3:37 PM ET ) A lot of people believe that, but it isn't true is just overwhelming. Look at any team that was together for a number of years, even the great ones -- Jordan's Bulls, for instance -- and you'll find that the closer the score, the closer they are to .500. In other words, in games decided by two points or less they'd be almost exactly .500, even a team like the Bulls; in games decided by 15 points or more they'd be nearly 1.000. It's a fallacy that the good teams win the close games; the good teams win by 20. The lucky teams win the close games. There is no team in history that's been able to defy the correlation between scoring margin and wins over an extended period.

Statistical analysis has indicated the same relationship between luck and records in close games in baseball. It's a result that seems contrary to our intuition, which is that certain players, like the Jordans or Bryants, give some teams an edge in crunchtime. I believe in that idea generally, but still think that having Michael Jordan was that rare exception that did give the Bulls an edge in close games.

Fifa Street 3

Le foot.

Odds and Ends

Oh, I'll just set aside my $80 for this now.

Kevin Love, making like Lebron James in that Powerade commercial.

Friday Night Lights greenlit for Season 3, but only in a unique deal in which it airs on DirecTV first, starting in October, then moves over to NBC in 2009?

Howard Shore scoring, Guillermo del Toro directing...The Hobbit sounds promising.

The sometimes bizarre effects of scarcity: a used copy of the CD of the score to The Transformers is running, at a minimum, $89.99 on Amazon.com.

The bizarre

Floyd Mayweather knocks out The Big Show, but not before playing up the drama for the crowd.

Years later, the theatrics of wrestling and the popularity of said performances don't seem to have changed much.

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The cast of the upcoming G.I. Joe movie includes:

Channing Tatum as Duke

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cobra Commander

Sienna Miller as The Baroness

Ray Park as Snake Eyes

Dennis Quaid as General Hawk

Arnold Vosloo as Zartan

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Heavy Duty

Jonathan Pryce as the U.S. President

Marlon Wayans as Ripcord

Things I Like

* Modern Love, the weekly column in the Sunday Styles section of the NYTimes. I enjoy the introspective, confessional nature of each installment. This past week's column, "Mom, It’s Me, Your Son, Finally," was a good example of its tone. It's interesting to me how my tastes for various sections of newspapers and magazines has changed over time.

* New Balance 1220 running shoe series, of which the latest incarnation is the 1223. My flat, wide feet are thankful for shoes that, unlike Nikes, aren't made for people with perfect feet, narrow, high-arched. I guess that's to be expected from a shoe company named after a Greek goddess. The 1220's don't change too much from generation to generation, so when I walked into the store looking for a replacement for my 1221's, the saleswoman simply handed me the same size for the 1223s, and I walked out and was running in them fifteen minutes later. There's something to be said for product continuity in the shoe market.

I loved the Air Jordan VIII. It was the first pair I ever owned, and the day my mom bought it for me from a sports store in a mall is still a tactile memory. But subsequent models of the shoe changed so drastically that they just didn't fit my feet anymore.

* Runner's high (proof it exists?). I'd always thought runner's high was the occasional feeling that one could run forever without getting tired, but the definition in the article implies that it's something you always experience during running. Which may be why I have not experienced it in so long.

* Taco trucks. Seemingly an LA institution, the Hulu dev team seems to find a new one every week, each better than the next. I have yet to find one comprehensive listing of all taco trucks, though partial coverage can be found at The Great Taco Hunt and this Google Map.

Slaughter rule

March Madness is a great sporting event, but as I've said many times before, a good percentage of the excitement lies in the format of the event, 65 teams, single elimination, tournament style (its suitability as a large-scale gambling event doesn't hurt, either).

If I were to improve the tourney, I might try to improve the quality of the 16 seeds. No top seed has ever lost in the first round to the 16 seed (Number 1 seeds are now 94-0 versus 16 seeds). A little dose of competitiveness from time to time in that game wouldn't hurt. UCLA won its first round game today 70-29. 70-29!

In an understatement, coach Ben Howland said of his decision to not play Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, who sprained his left ankle last week versus USC, "I thought about it and I felt comfortable we would be able to get this one without him."

The art of the outlet

I've seen freshman power forward/center Kevin Love of UCLA play three times in the span of a week and a half. For a big man, he's a phenomenal passer. It's pretty watching him pull the rebound and whip the outlet pass down court to start the break.

Technorati Tags: basketball, sports

Super Bowl ads

Wow, what an upset! Tom Brady can take solace in being one of the few people in the world for whom this ad is not aspirational.

I also have some Hulu invites to give out, so leave a comment with your e-mail address if you're interested in one but haven't gotten in yet.

Sampras beats Federer in last of 3 exhibition matches

The old man can still play. Were these matches on TV? I wanted to see one of these exhibitions.

Highs and Lows

Ed had tix to the Stanford-USC game and asked if I wanted to go today. I had too much work to catch up on, and besides, Stanford was a 41 point underdog. What would be the fun of driving all that way to see a drubbing? Stanford was starting a QB who had thrown 3 passes in college because their starter had a seizure earlier this week.

Oops.

Meanwhile, I had the Cubs game on MLB Gameday in the corner of my screen, which was like having an IV drip in your arm, except instead of useful fluids, the drip contained liquid depression, spreading through my body drop by drop. If you can't get hits off of Livan Hernandez, who's about 87 years old, it's probably not meant to be.

Abracadabra...uh, open sesame...uh, hocus pocus

Last night, I got home from work around 1 in the morning and pulled up to the electronic gate to my parking garage and pressed my remote key fob button. Nothing happened. I waved it out the window, then got out of the car and walked up to the gate, pressing the key fob near any place I thought the sensor might reside. No luck.

One car pulled up behind me, then another, and soon a few others. We all stood outside our cars, pressing our key fobs. In our neighborhood, there wasn't any street parking, so we were stuck. It was 1 in the morning, I was dead tired, and I was not a happy camper (though if my key fob was out of order then I was on the verge of being literally an unhappy camper).

So I turned my attention to the exit gate, just next to the entrance. That was one of those gates that opened as soon as you pulled up to it. The sensor for that was a bit further inside the garage, but by sticking my tennis racket through the gate I could just reach far enough to trip it and open the gate. I managed to lean my tennis racket against the sensor and then directed traffic through the exit like John McClane waving the planes home at the end of Die Hard 2.

A different discontent plagued me in the nanosecond before I passed out. The security in our parking garage is not good, not good at all.

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Kanye vs. 50 Cent, as judged by Amazon Sales Rank: Decision to Kanye. Critic's average judgment? The same. From guns to lyrics to now sales...hip-hop conflicts are progressing to more civilized playing fields.

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Jon Stewart will host the Oscars in February. He seemed a bit nervous to start the last time (even the coolest customer can experience some jitters in the face of so much star power), but he loosened up by the end of the ceremony. I think the second time will be the charm.

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My favorite Microsoft application was always Excel. I spent a good portion of my early career in that application building massive models, writing macros in VBA, pushing it to its limits. It didn't always keep up--I always had problems getting linked workbooks to update and calculate quickly, and sharing workbooks among my team never worked quite as we wanted to--but of the Office suite, it's always been king.

I hate Powerpoint, and Word's formatting quirks always drove me batty. So when Apple came out with Keynote, and then Pages, I was willing to switch over. I haven't yet, but only because I don't use Word or Powerpoint anymore. All my writing now is done in a plain text editor, e-mail client, script formatting software, or with an actual pen and notebook. As for Powerpoint, I haven't had to make one of those in years, hallelujah.

But I was curious about Numbers, the new spreadsheet app in iWork 08, so I fired it up, imported an Excel spreadsheet, and gave it a whirl. I attempted to update the spreadsheet

Though I like a lot of the interface decisions made in Numbers, I will remain, for the time being, an Excel guy. And it isn't because Number lacks advanced features like pivot tables. My main complaint with Numbers is that it's not keyboard friendly. You have to use the mouse to do so many things that Excel allows you to do without leaving the keyboard. Mousing around a spreadsheet is just counter to my working style.

Numbers might be the "spreadsheet for the rest of us," but I guess that makes me one of Them.

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George Saunders appears on David Letterman.

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Looks like I won't be seeing The White Stripes in concert after all. Disappointing.

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Patriots fined and penalized for videotaping NY Jets defensive signals. Outside of the Bears, the Patriots were once one of the few teams I rooted for because they seemed to win by being smarter than their opponents. Outside of Tom Brady, they didn't have too many marquee names, and they didn't have a crazy financial advantage like teams like the Yankees or Red Sox because of the NFL salary cap. They were the Oakland A's of the NFL.

I suspect that the advantage they gathered from videotaping opponent signals is overstated (as is the case with many forms of cheating in sports), but what's disappointing is the hubris and stupidity/arrogance represented by the videotaping scheme. They were playing a team coached by one of their ex assistant coaches; how did they think they were going to get away with it?And anyone watching the two teams would think it ridiculous that the Patriots had to resort to such scheming to defeat the Jets.

If Mangini was part of such a practice when he was with the Patriots, and if he was indeed the one who snitched his ex-team out, then there's a beautiful tragic resonance to the sequence of events. Every one involved with the scheme is getting what they deserve: Mangini is seen as a rat, Belichick (never a warm fuzzy personality to begin with) is seen as a win at all costs Nixon of the NFL, and the Patriots now will never get the full credit they deserve for their accomplishments.

People are always going to be jealous of and resent perennial winners, but it certainly helps the cause to have ammunition. Brady fathering children out of wedlock and dating supermodels, Harrison using HGH, Belichick and staff using videotape surveillance...it's more than enough.

As a sidenote, a cyclist caught using HGH nowadays is looking at a minimum of a year's suspension and a lifetime of disgrace. A pro football player caught using steroids or HGH gets a four game suspension and then is back on the field, or in the case of Shawn Merriman, on to the Pro Bowl or Nike television commercials.

The NFL has been rocked by all sorts of scandal for a year straight now, from Michael Vick to HGH to PatriotsGate to the revolving convict lineup on the Bengals to who knows what else, and you know what? The league is as popular as ever. The NFL is so popular that it doesn't seem to absorb any economic penalty from scandal. Perhaps because of the violent nature of the game, fans seem far more tolerant of steroid use in the NFL than in other sports.

Astute

I find most ex-pro athletes to be poor color commentators on their own sports, but tennis seems to be an exception. Agassi was in the booth providing commentary on the Roddick-Federer quarterfinal match and damn if he wasn't a really fantastic analyst who provided some unique insight into what it was like to play Federer.

Unfortunately, CBS still insists on having Dick Enberg do a lot of big matches, like today's men's final. He stumbled over Djokovic's name in the trophy presentation, one night after having referred to Justine Henin by her married name of Henin-Hardenne just a short while after her divorce. Which would all be fine, but Enberg knows about as much about tennis as your average Joe, so why not put someone like Cliff Dryesdale in the booth with McEnroe and Carillo?

Watching Djokovic and Federer trading nuclear forehands, I tried to think of another sport that had changed as much in my lifetime. The combination of racket technology, grip changes, and the rising popularity of the two-handed backhand have transformed tennis at the pro level into a power baseline game. Players can hit groundstrokes with so much pace and spin that you can hit outright winners from the back court with unprecedented frequency. The foot speed of the average human just hasn't been able to keep pace.

Except perhaps for players like Federer and Nadal, who seem to be able to get to everything. One of the joys of watching Federer is that he seems to have fused the past and the present. He uses the classic Eastern forehand grip unlike so many modern players, and yet his forehand shares the spin and pace of a Western grip forehand. It's a modernized Eastern forehand, hit from an open stance with a loose wrist that lags until just before impact, generating crazy pace and spin. Go to YouTube and you'll find dozens of slow-motion videos of the Federer forehand. Bill Viola should do a high-def exhibition with dozens of plasma TV's displaying various Federer strokes playing on loop.

Federer also hits a classic one-handed backhand, but again, it has the spin of a two-handed backhand, allowing him to hit some shots I thought could only be hit with two hands, like that crazy dipping cross-court pass. I have no idea how he does it.

I downloaded a demo of Virtua Tennis 3 for the PS3 and found Federer in that game to be ridiculously good. You can literally hit a winner on every shot with Federer. But is his videogame doppelganger really so different from the real thing? Maybe not.

As for Djokovic, at least he had both Sharapova and Robert De Niro in his box. And for tennis fans, he looks like someone besides Nadal who can push Federer which is good for the game.

Sports Sunday

Djokovic-Federer and Chargers-Bears overlap tomorrow. That's not to mention DirecTV's crazy fantasy football optimized channels. Time to clear some space off of the DVR.

I need to find a way to get streaming TV onto my laptop at the office, where I've been living for a week now.

Technorati Tags: Bears, sports, tennis

Oddly worded insult

Finally, Marco Materazi reveals what he said to Zidane to provoke the most famous head-butt in sports history: "I prefer the whore that is your sister."

Is that a translation of what Materazzi said on television in Italian or is that what he actually said in English? If he said that to me in English I'd have to pause for a second to contemplate the bizarre syntax before head-butting him in the face.

Technorati Tags: football, soccer, sports

Live from the Emerald City

This post broadcast from the Emerald City, where yours truly attended Audrey and Matt's lovely wedding this weekend (some pics here). Seattle's gorgeous summer weather arrived early (for the Pacific Northwest) this year; it's actually warmer here than in Los Angeles. The only problem is that I have one of the worst summer colds I've ever experienced and have been hacking myself awake every night for a few hours. I'm popping decongestants like they're SweeTarts. If this is my last post ever, know that I probably choked to death on my own phlegm in the middle of the night.

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Telekinesis is an iPhone Remote application that allows you to access files on your computer via your iPhone.

Red is a popular brand name for high end products. Besides the camera, we now have SRAM working on a sub 2000g component group called Red (for those of you who are non-cyclists, a component group is all the stuff that goes on your bike frame (outside of your wheels and pedals and handlebars; components include your cranks and derailleurs and brake levers, stuff like that). Always good to have a bit of competition for the two market leaders, Shimano and Campagnolo.

The rumors are confirmed: Dan Patrick is leaving ESPN. The peak of ESPN's quality was when Patrick and Keith Olbermann hosted The Big Show. He faded from view for me in recent years as he moved over to the radio. I didn't even own a radio in NYC.

Dress like Roger Federer at Wimbledon. You're sure to impress in your all-white blazer and warm-up trousers when you show up for local club match, at least until you pull your hamstring in the third game. That was some final between Federer and Nadal, by the way. Those two epitomize the peak of the modern tennis game now; compare that to, say, footage of an Edberg-Becker final from back in the day and it's a totally different game.

You think you're always waiting a long time for the woman in your life to get ready? Lián Amaris Sifuentes took it to another level. She went through the usual preparations for a date but slowed them down to fill 72 hours, and she performed it in Union Square this weekend (so close to my old apartment!). NYU professor R. Luke Dubois shot the performance on three high-def camcorders and will compress it into a 72 minute video. Dubois has used this technique before, compressing previous Academy Award Best Picture winners into one minute. Some examples are posted here (Amadeus or Titanic, e.g.). That's what it must be like to have one's life flash before one's eyes. Trippy.

Technorati Tags: apple, art, cycling, ESPN, gadgets, iPhone, tennis, software, sports, tech

iNotes

Very little evidence supporting theory that poverty breeds terrorism. I find that reassuring.

In a Q&A about some device called the iPhone, Walt Mossberg says Apple will add Flash support to the iPhone browser through an early software update.

Alessandro Petacchi out of the Tour de France after doping charge. His urine sample after the third of his five stage wins at this year's Giro d'Italia showed an unusually high level of albutamol, an asthma treatment. He holds a therapeutic use exemption for its use, but he exceeded the permitted level of 1,000 nanograms/millileter. Well, there goes the top sprinter in the Tour. I'll still watch, though. I just got back on my bike the other day for the first time in ages, and on the 4th I went with Tory for a climb up Malibu Canyon Road. That climb kicked my butt all over the road but I survived to summit.

Crazy battle at Kruger National Park in Africa, caught on video. Some unlikely twists and turns. I think I caught Jeff Van Gundy in there, hanging onto the leg of a Cape Buffalo. I've seen enough specials to know that Cape Buffalo never leave a man behind (thx to Mark for the referral).

Verizon COO Jack Plating sends internal memo titled iWhatever, throws out some brave talk in the face of the iPhone. He is true in that the network is Verizon's first and most powerful advantage. But Verizon handsets are not impressive at all.

I had lunch with Robert today, and the cafe was broadcasting highlights from Wimbledon. We were talking about Federer's loss in the French Open final to Nadal, and Robert thought that a big problem is that Federer was not extending on his first serve. He was keeping his first serve motion in too close, resulting in his ghastly first serve percentage. You wouldn't be able to tell from the final score, but based on the % of points Federer won on his first serve, he would have won that much had his first serve gone in more. One of these years, Federer will break through against Nadal at the French. He's played well enough to do so in the past, but it just hasn't happened there at Philippe Chatrier.

Technorati Tags: Apple, cycling, economics, gadgets, iPhone, nature, politics, sociology, tech, tennis, terrorism, video, web, youtube

A "reversal"

Joey Chestnut unseated six-time winner and reigning champion of the Nathan's hot dog champion Takeru Kobayashi by eating 66 hot dogs to Kobayashi's 63 in 12 minutes. Judges deducted from Kobayashi's final count because he suffered a "reversal"--a euphemism for vomiting--after the 12 minutes were up. 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes works out to 1 hot dog consumed every 10.9 seconds, a rate which has me contemplating a reversal just thinking about it.

No one, even Chestnut or Kobayashi, had cracked 60 hot dogs in 12 minutes before, so clearly they're pushing each other, and the grand sport of competitive eating, to new heights.

Joey Chestnut is a great name. If he weren't a competitive eater he could be an adult film star.

Technorati Tags: food, eating

Le foot

Freddy Adu's first of his three goals against Poland is pretty damn sweet.

Technorati Tags: soccer, sports, video, youtube

Your newest Chicago Bull

This is the child of a former Miss Sweden and Yannick Noah (not, not David Stern, but the tall guy on the right in the photo). I can't find the words...

For what it's worth, which is probably very little considering how much uninformed banter sports drafts inspire, I think it was a solid pick. People keep saying the Bulls need a low post scorer but who was going to be that at No. 9? The Bulls are going to be a pain in the ass to play against next year with all their long-armed freaks and shot blockers in the frontcourt.

Plus, just look at that guy? He may be equal parts exuberant and irksome, but the Bulls wholesome punch needed some spiking, no?

UPDATE: According to one man's metaphoric imagination, we've drafted...Shakira?!

Technorati Tags: basketball, bulls, chicago, NBA, sports

Hollinger ranks this year's NBA draft prospects

John Hollinger unveils his new system for evaluating the pro potential of college basketball players. His system would have corrected for Carlos Boozer having been picked 26th in the 2002 draft (Hollinger's system had him ranked #1 in that draft), and would've suggested a pass on Adam Morrison and J.J. Redick in the 2006 draft. Of course, if you develop a system based on the past several years of draft data, then the system should do well by those measures, so we'll have to wait a few years to see how the system holds up. Still, the thinking behind the system seems solid, and I'm a big Hollinger fan so I'm giving the system the benefit of the doubt.

The big news, of course, is what the system says about this year's draft, and it gives Kevin Durant a big edge over Greg Oden (Bill Simmons will be pleased). In fact, Durant ranks as the top NBA prospect in the last half decade, besting Carmelo Anthony's raw score in 2003. Other findings: Conley ranks third, just behind teammate Oden, and Corey Brewer, Acie Law, and Spencer Hawes are quite overrated. Fascinating stuff, and it's available as a free preview from ESPN Insider.

The Wages of Wins journal has posted its evaluation of NBA prospects, and it has Nick Fazekas at the top of the heap based on Position Adjusted Win score per 40 minutes (which, notably, does not adjust for strength of competition). Durant ranks second, Horford third, and Oden fourth. Oden was hurt for much of the year so perhaps his score understates his ability. The PAWS/40 minute ranking also predicts Corey Brewer, Acie Law, and Spencer Hawes to be busts.

P.S.: I'm a Durant guy--I've seen him play, and to be that skilled at that age on the offensive end is special.

Technorati Tags: basketball, NBA, sports

Showdown Sunday

Federer vs. Nadal on the terre battu. Tony Soprano vs. Phil Leotardo on the New Jersey soil.

It's also the day I have to face down my movie and wrangle it into a screenable form for the last week of school, but for the two showdowns noted above, I'll be glued to the screen.

Technorati Tags: sopranos, tennis, tv

Da Bulls

John Hollinger ranks the top NBA Finals teams of all-time, and the Bulls took 1st place (96 team), 4th place (91 team), 5th (97 team), 7th (92 Bulls), 12th (98 Bulls), and 15th (93 team). Lists like these are lightning rods for debate, but it's nice to be reminded of how spoiled we were as Chicagoans (and it almost makes up for a lifetime of misery as a Cubs fan).

Technorati Tags: basketball, bestof, bulls, chicago, cubs, list, NBA, sports

1 on 5

I was fortunate to be watching the second half of the Cavs-Pistons game the other day, the one in which Lebron went off for 25 points in a row. I feel obligated to pay tribute.

What was unbelievable was that on some of those drives to the basket in the fourth quarter, he didn't even put a move on his guy. He simply put his head down and accelerated past his defender towards the basket (often it was Tayshaun Prince, no slouch). The help defenders were always late to get over, either because James was too quick or because they didn't have the heart to step in front of a 6'8" 240 lb freight train (on the first drive and dunk, he crossed over Jason Maxiell, and you can see the help defender Prince running for his life out of the waybecause he was already too late and was inside the circle where you can't take a charge). it reminded me of playing NBA Live, when you just take an explosive player and press turbo and run straight to the basket and press shoot close to the basket for a dunk. I think it's safe to say the NBA has never seen a physical specimen like James, someone of his size and explosiveness going to the basket.

There were times when the rest of James teammates just basically stood at the sides of the court with their hands in their shorts, eyes averted, and Detroit still couldn't stop James. The variety of ways he scored was just plain fun to watch. I liked the behind the back dribble to shake Billups at the top of the circle for a 3-pointer; it reminded me of Jordan shaking Cliff Robinson with a behind the back dribble for a jump shot in the NBA finals.

My favorite Lebron move, one I haven't seen him execute in a while, is when he drives to the basket and then suddenly spins the opposite direction in a 360 degree pirouette while maintaining his movement towards the hoop. He does that better than anyone I've ever seen.

You can rewatch video of Lebron's final 29 points of that game at NBA.com. James may not have the most likeable attitude, and he has a certain certain amount of narcissism that seems to cause him to coast at times, but when he plays with a chip on his shoulder he can take over a game like only Kobe can in today's NBA. If only we cold implant Iverson's attack-dog spirit in Lebron, he'd be unstoppable attacking the basket.

Me, I'm looking forward to Lebron James vs. Bruce Bowen in the NBA Finals. Let's start beating up on Lebron now so he'll enter that series sufficiently peeved.

Technorati Tags: basketball, nba

The magic lasso

I've long thought that pickup basketball provided the ultimate insight into a man's soul. What can we tell about Barack Obama by his pickup ball demeanor?

On the court, Mr. Obama is confident, even a bit boastful.

“If he would hit a couple buckets, he would let you know about it,” said Alexi Giannoulias, who played in the late 1990s with Mr. Obama at the East Bank Club, a luxurious spot in downtown Chicago.

He is gentleman enough to call fouls on himself: Steven Donziger, a law school classmate, has heard Mr. Obama mutter, “my bad,” tossing the other team the ball.

But “he knew how to get in the mix when he needed to,” Mr. Giannoulias said. “There are always elbows, there’s always a little bit of jersey tucking and tugging,” he said, continuing, “Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to win.”

“Most of the guys who played in our little circle are former players in college or pros,” said Mr. Robinson, who is still Princeton’s fourth-leading scorer of all time. “They’re real high level.”

Mr. Obama cannot match their technical prowess, say those who played regularly with him. But he is fiercely competitive, and makes up for his deficits with collaboration and strategy. “He’s very good at finding a way to win when he’s playing with people who are supposedly stronger,” Mr. Nesbitt said.

The trope for assessing your sister's potential husband is to take him out for a drink, but far better, I think, to take him to a competitive pickup basketball game and see how he reacts. I suspect the disarming quality of pickup hoops has to do with the pace of the game and the instinctive behavior of people when their competitive juices are flowing (which is why board games are often a decent proxy). Obama's wife also believed in the power to discern a man's personality on the court:

Cut to the future Mrs. Obama asking her brother to take her new boyfriend out on the court, to make sure he was not the type to hog the ball or call constant fouls.

Technorati Tags: basketball, politics, obama

Iron Fist

Unfortunately it's restricted to ESPN Insiders, but Dan Patrick's radio interview with David Stern today about the Amare Stoudemire/Boris Diaw/Robert Horry suspensions was chilling and awe-inspiring. If Dan Patrick, Charles Barkley, Steve Kerr, and anyone else who has spoken out against the NBA suspensions turn up floating down the Hudson River, you can be sure that somewhere, David Stern is in a box watching Enrico Caruso singing an aria, an aide whispers in his ear, and a smile breaks through his tears a la Robert De Niro in The Untouchables.

Stern, clearly not happy with all the negative reaction to the ruling, employed condescension, sarcasm, exasperation, and intimidation in equal measures in bullying Patrick. Stern has always been, for better or worse, the Don Corleone of sports commissioners, both impressive and alarming in the ruthlessness of his reign.

The NBA has all but conceded that their ruling was not about doing what was right but what was "correct." As Stu Jackson, NBA EVP of basketball operations, said, "It's not a matter of fairness. It's a matter of correctness."

When you hear Stern's tone of voice to Patrick and read the Stu Jackson quotes, you can feel them digging in, the veins on their necks bulging. It's as if the more outraged commentators and fans become, the more obdurate the league becomes in its stance. They've chosen to stand firm despite losing the goodwill of fans, despite the fact that probably both the Spurs and Suns would be happy to continue that series without any suspensions, despite the fact that NBA fans would come see games even if an occasional fight broke out.

They wanted to prove a point, and now they have. Now a promising NBA playoffs have taken a back seat to the suspension story and David Stern. I think it's a terrible decision, for the same reason so many other people have (Sports Guy always does a good job speaking for the people). The NBA is an entertainment organization, this isn't a court of law, and I think a pragmatic ruling of "nothing to see, let's move on" would have maximized value for every one all around. But there's enough discussion of that. What's more fascinating to me is David Stern's personality. Someone should do an investigative bio of the man.

Thankfully, even if he can railroad Dan Patrick, he doesn't control the airwaves and Internet (though the way Hootie Johnson and Augusta control what's said during CBS's broadcast of the Masters is an example of how it can be done). I'm certain the rule will be changed this off-season, but that's little consolation to the Suns this series.

There may yet be karmic retribution for the league's stubborness. We seem to be headed towards another San Antonio/Detroit finals that no one watches.

Technorati Tags: basketball, NBA

Little bit of that

Seeing beyond sight: photos by blind teenagers.

It's been apparent to everyone that this season of 24 has been the worst yet. I gave up on it a few episodes in. The good thing is that low ratings have forced the show producers to take notice.

The Golden Ratio for making your butt look great is being employed by a jeans mfr called The Proportion of Blu:

I used to think those commercials by Citicard about credit card theft, where a criminal's voice would play over the lip movements of an old lady or other credit fraud victim were quite remarkable, the lip matching was so perfect. Then I used VocAlign with Pro Tools at school and realized it wasn't that technically difficult to pull off after all.

Now that the whole HD-DVD code story is a day old, the hot blogosphere story of the day seems to be this article in the NYTimes which cites an economic study (PDF) by Justin Wolfers and Joseph Price finding evidence of racial bias among NBA refs, namely that white refs call fouls at a higher rate against black players than against white players. The NBA did their own study that they claim shows that refs are not biased, but their refusal to release the underlying data from their study really weakens their position. Steven Levitt looked over the Wolfers/Price paper and found it sound. I suspect that if you'd asked a bunch of NBA fans and observers beforehand if they'd expect the study to find bias, and if so, how much bias they'd expect, they'd come up with numbers higher than Wolfers and Price found in their study. In other words, the study isn't that shocking.

Technorati Tags: book, economics, fashion, math, NBA, photography, race, software, tv, video, youtube

A green and tan

Rafael Nadal beats Roger Federer 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (10) in an exhibition match held on a half grass, half clay court. I'm not sure you can conclude much from an exhibition--what a wacky stunt. Next we just need them to play a match where Federer plays left-handed and Nadal right-handed.

Technorati Tags: photo, tennis, sports

All you can eat

After the production madness of winter quarter, I thought the spring quarter might be a more relaxing one, but it's turning out to be just as, if not more, busy.

Part of that is my own choosing. We're assigned to take 22 units of class this quarter as 1st years, and they recommend though do not require 1 elective. But I discovered that we're allowed to take as many electives as we want, and there's no difference in your tuition if you take no electives or a hundred.

I'm interested enough in all sorts of subjects related to film that this was like being set loose in an all-you-can-eat buffet. So I signed myself up for four electives for a total of 34 units of class. I also have to edit my 6-minute film from last quarter for screening during finals week, and I have given up three Saturdays to all-day workshops led by Stephen Burum, this year's Kodak cinematographer in residence (legendary for his longtime collaboration with Brian De Palma, his work heading up 2nd unit on Apocalypse Now, and his contributions to the American Cinematographer Manual).

I had one day in April which was open, last Sunday, and I spent it doing homework and laundry. In May, I also have one day that isn't already booked by class, weddings, or workshops. It's amazing how quickly all my plans for going out and working out and trying out some restaurants and watching movies all just evaporated.

But for the most part, I'm digging all my electives, and I'm learning tons. The craft of filmmaking just requires a life-consuming commitment. Sleep is scarce these days, and I've found myself dozing off Grandpa Simpson style

Being a student has one great advantage, and that's access to student-discounted software. I've finally got Pro Tools installed on my desktop and I'm learning my way around it. You can do some amazing things with the software--it's like Photoshop for sound. Add the Pitch N' Time plugin and you can turn your out-of-tune karaoke rendition of "Welcome to the Jungle" into something Simon Cowell would be proud of.

One of the most enjoyable classes I'm taking is Music in Film, and our first exercise was to go through North By Northwest and log all the musical cues, when they began, when they faded out. When a director sits down with a composer for a "spotting session," the director will collaborate with the composer to select when music should come in and go out. What's fascinating about Bernard Herrmann's score for North by Northwest is how Hitchcock had Herrmann hold back on bringing in the musical cues until the last possible moment. In places you'd expect a swelling musical cue to come bursting through the speakers, there's nothing (the famous farm field scene is a great example).

Our professor talked about why that might be, and that restraint is really striking given how liberally modern movies use score to cue the audience on how to react emotionally to scenes. Most viewers never stop to think about why music comes in at a particularly point in the movie, and it's a useful exercise to do with one of your favorite movie scores. Our exercise for next week's class is to spot Monsoon Wedding, a really enjoyable movie, and not just because of its score. Listen to just the title credit score, and without having seen a single frame of the movie, you should be able to predict the theme of the movie.

Our professor took us on a field trip last Friday to the famous scoring stage on the Sony Studios lot. Named after Barbara Streisand, it's the scoring stage of choice for John Williams, and so many famous scores have been recorded there. On this afternoon, we had the opportunity to listen to a scoring session for an upcoming episode of The Simpsons by renowned composer Alf Clausen. While Alf conducted an orchestra in short cues to match the Simpsons footage projected on a large screen (some of the animation hadn't been finished and consisted of sketches), we sat in the control room and watched through the glass, listening to the music on one of the most sublime sound systems imaginable. It was inspiring to see how much work goes into a 7 second musical cue for a half hour episode of The Simpsons. Very few TV shows score with an actual orchestra. Lost, for one, and Desperate Housewives, though on a much smaller scale. That might be it. Who would've guessed The Simpsons would be among that elite group (I say that not to disparage the show, one of my favorite TV shows ever, but to express surprise that a half-hour animated satire would spend more on its score than most hour-long dramas).

Listening to the music in the control room elevated the familiar Simpsons musical cues to a sublime place. I refuse to believe people who say they can't hear the difference between an MP3 played off of their iPod and a well-recorded CD played over a good pair of speakers. From the live performance of music to your ears, much of the magic can be lost. To hear Clausen's score live was like setting foot on a place I'd only seen in postcards before.

I love hearing behind-the-scenes stories about film shoots from a wide variety of guest speakers and professors. Not surprisingly, in an industry full of storytellers and mercurial personalities, the stories that are passed around have the finely honed quality of mythology. I can't really share the stories here, but suffice it to say that events like the David O. Russell tantrum aren't new to folks in the biz.

The only downside of my crazy schedule this quarter, besides lack of time for sleep and exercise, is that I've been having a series of disturbing dreams, all linked. Last night was the most disconcerting episode yet. In this dream, I've shot and killed someone, and though no one knows I'm the killer, many people are suspicious and closing in on me. Feeling the net encircling me, I spend the entire dream in a sweat, with a sense of doom and guilt crushing all the hope out of me. By the time I wake up I can't remember who it is I'm meant to have killed, but for the duration of the dream, I feel the guilt of a murderer, and it's unsettling beyond belief. In that elusive way that dreams slip through your fingers like water, I can't recall the details anymore, but I'm certain I've had this dream more than once this quarter.

I realize that Freud's theories on dreams have been discredited, but I'd love to know what the current state of thinking is in the field of dream interpretation.

This, thankfully, is not a dream. ESPN Experts? More like ESPN Expert:

Technorati Tags: basketball, bulls, filmschool, movies, music, dream, sports

Trying to laugh through the tears

Next year, I'm mailing my taxes via UPS or Fedex. Still fuming and on hold waiting for various financial institutions to answer their customer service lines and resend my 1099's. Argh. But through the tears, perhaps a few nuggets of laughter...

The Apple iRack.

Google Maps directions for New York, NY to Paris, France...skip ahead to step 23 (via a Sports Guy reader)

Also funny, from the same Sports Guy column, this box score from the San Antonio-Phoenix NBA game. Skip down to Robert Horry's line for the Spurs.

Ryanair CEO vows to offer flights from the U.S. to the UK for less than $10.30. You'd probably pay more because Ryanair charges for all sorts of basics a la carte, but still.

Some progress today in the fight against global warming.

Jackie and Jet team up (with an assist from Yuen Woo Ping). It would have been a dream of a pairing if they two of them were about 10 to 15 years younger, but we'll take what we can get. Meanwhile, the Weinstein Co. could use some wire work.

Tiger Woods Reveals He Is Zach Johnson.

Technorati Tags: Apple, basketball, google, humor, movies, NBA, golf, sports, theonion, travel

Spring break's over

Auto porn: a part by part look at the new BMW M3 V8 engine. Featuring brake energy regeneration (reminds of of the old Tiger Woods/BMW joke). Hear the sound of the new V-8 during acceleration. Check out these headers, and imagine them glowing bright red. If Paris were an auto-snob, she'd say, "That's hot."

As one article noted, these images of the BMW engine headers recall Edward Weston's photo of a pepper. Compare:

Arnold Kling on the single-payer health care:

1. People are forced to buy something that they don't seem to want
2. Provided by a monopoly
3. Paid for by higher taxes

Three funny Onion sports headlines:

• Greg Oden On Final Four Appearance: 'I'm Happier Than I've Been In 30 Years'
• Confident Phil Mickelson Guarantees Tiger Woods Will Win Masters
• Tiger Woods Signs $15 Million Deal To Endorse Alex Rodriguez

TigerCinema.com seeks to be a Netflix for Asian DVDs. They state that 95% of their titles have English subtitles and that most are Region 1. Sadly, the search and browse functions are somewhat crude. No browse by country? director? actor? The browse tree for Martial Arts is only one level deep! Good luck delving through 23 pages of results. The selection is decent but not as complete as I'd expect for such a niche-focused site. It's probably not entirely their fault as there are so many editions of many Asian movies, and many editions are out of print or hard to find. They probably can't stock enough copies of certain titles. For now, there's still eBay and HKFlix and YesAsia and sites like that for those willing to buy. Many eBay DVDs are simply burned copies and will not last very long; I treat most of those as disposable copies.

One of the best channels for showing off your high definition TV is Discovery HD Theater. Perhaps the best program to air on that channel yet is Planet Earth which debuted last Sunday. Apparently viewers agreed as the show snared 12 million viewers total over 3 hours and had a 3.6 HH rating, Discovery's third highest ever. I've only watched the first episode, "Pole to Pole," and it was spectacular, all of the footage having been shot in high definition. They say porn is the killer application for any new video technology, but IMHO sports and nature shows are the most desirable types of programming for HD.

Technorati Tags: autos, bmw, cars, economics, hd, healthcare, humor, dvd, sports, theonion

If you like 6'5" 230lb quarterbacks with a laser rocket arm

Word is that Peyton Manning impressed in his SNL workout Saturday. Granted, the SNL bar couldn't be set any lower these days, but this clip is worth a few chuckles.

Manning's appearance could have been funnier if this bit hadn't been tossed onto the cutting room floor.

Technorati Tags: humor, SNL, tv, video, youtube

The Big Red One

The Nike+iPod is a fun running accessory, but exercise caution before using it as a serious training tool.

David Pogue offers an overview of Grandcentral, a site that offers to consolidate all your phone numbers under one phone number which will ring all your phones simultaneously when dialed. I signed up during the beta a couple months ago and got a number but never used it. Pogue notes a number of nifty features that have been added since their launch, so perhaps it's time for me to dig that number out.

Neal Gabler recently wrote an op-ed in the LATimes titled "The Movie Magic is Gone." Kristin Thompson finds seven points in Gabler's article and states her case against each.

Another film shot mostly digitally: Zodiac was shot uncompressed with the Viper FilmStream camera in 4:4:4 1920x1080/24p. Here's a thread on cinematography.com discussing the look of the film. Here's the product page for the Viper, and here's an American Cinematographer article in which Paul Cameron discusses his experimentation with the Viper in shooting Collateral.

Right now, the HD video camera receiving the most use at our school is the Panasonic HVX200. The unreleased HD video camera with the most buzz right now is the Red One. Side project of Oakley founder Jim Jannard, the Red One looks more like some powerful weapon from some first person shooter than a video camera. Here's a gallery of video footage shot with the Red One, and here's one massive 4K frame capture down-converted to 8-bit JPG. The big buzz around this camera is its sensor size: 24.4mm x 13.7mm (Super35mm). The camera is intended to offer the same depth of field as 35mm Cine Lenses instead of the higher depth of field that characterizes most video. The Red One will retail for $17,500.

A working editor weighs in on Avid vs. Apple, having recently switched from Avid Media Composer to Apple's Final Cut Pro. I've tinkered with Media Composer but am more familiar with Final Cut Pro. I like some things about Media Composer better, and it is still more the industry standard for big motion pictures, but Final Cut Pro just has more momentum and resources behind it. Most film students can't afford an Avid system and are taught to edit on Final Cut Pro systems. I think Avid needs to make a stronger push to make inroads with the next generation of film editors.

Technorati Tags: Apple, business, camcorder, editing, film, filmmaking, finalcutpro, fitness, gadgets, hd, ipod, movies, phone, avid, running, sports, tech, video

The sound of one hand shooting

Seeing highlights of Gilbert Arenas shooting 3-pointers one-handed in the 3-point competition reminded me that he recently won $20,000 from teammate Deshawn Stevenson in practice doing something similar. Arenas shot 100 one-handed college 3-pointers, and Stevenson shot 100 NBA 3-pointers using both hands. Arenas made 73 out of 100, Stevenson made 68 with 5 balls left, then missed and left the court, $20K lighter. What's fun is watching Arenas trying to distract Stevenson while he shoots, then watching Arenas roll around in joy after Stevenson's last miss.

Shooting college 3-pointers with one hand is pretty impressive. Shooting NBA 3-pointers one-handed is sick. Arenas also has two sweet nicknames, Agent Zero and The Hibachi.

For more material that's more impressive than what was actually seen NBA All-Star weekend, here's footage of Dwight Howard prepping for the Slam Dunk contest. If he'd made round 2, he would have performed a kiss the rim dunk. Instead we got to see Nate Robinson miss five hundred dunks in a row for two minutes again.

Technorati Tags: nba, basketball, sports, video

2-Double-0-Seven

In this week's New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell examines the difference between a puzzle and a mystery and argues that Enron's business model and much of what U.S. foreign intelligence face today are more mystery than puzzle. To solve a puzzle, you simply need more information, but more information may only add complexity to a mystery.

Also in this week's New Yorker (a good one), David Denby does a diagnostic of Hollywood, the state of the business. The article makes mention, at the end. of the ArcLight, perhaps the nicest multiplex in the country, at least in terms of sight and sound.

Most sports fans already saw the highlights, but for the few who didn't, Boise State won the Fiesta Bowl using, among other trick plays, a Hook-and-Ladder and a Statue of Liberty play. Here's another angle which also includes the following: after scoring the game-winning 2-pt conversion, Ian Johnson ran over and proposed to his girlfriend, a cheerleader. He converted that one, too. Just an unbelievable game, maybe the most entertaining college football game I've ever seen. Here's a compilation clip of all of the 4th quarter and OT highlights. (Sorry about the clip quality--YouTube and its Flash video is really suboptimal for sports clips; let's hope that by the end of 2007 there's a high quality video streaming site for sports highlights).

The Apple menu command key comes from a Swedish symbol used to indicate interesting attractions in campgrounds.

How do you like your coffee? With a mushroom cloud drop of milk, please. Cool photo.

100 things we didn't know last year. "In a fight between a polar bear and a lion, the polar bear would win."

I'm not usually one to make New Year's resolutions, and after being named Time's Person of the Year in 2006, I'm facing some brutal year over year comps, but one goal I have for 2007 is to be carbon neutral. It was easy to do while in NYC, when I took public transportation everywhere, but it will be a challenge in LA. There are a variety of Carbon Calculators on the web if you want to participate. It has been so warm in NYC this holiday break. Pieces of arctic ice shelf are breaking off or just plain melting. It feels to me as if the impacts of global warming will descend upon us quickly, perhaps not as quickly as this, but quickly enough that it's perhaps already too late for us to act. One way to start is by purchasing compact fluorescent bulbs to replace the incandescents you likely have in your household. I don't love the light of compact fluorescents, but I'm going to try living with it.

Technorati Tags: apple, design, environment, football, gladwell, globalwarming, photography, green, sports

Is there a one syllable name athlete?

Funny but also debate-provoking bit from this Football Outsiders NFL article:

The greatest athletes of all time by number of syllables in their name: Two syllables: Babe Ruth. Three: Wayne Gretzky. Four: Michael Jordan. Five: Muhammad Ali. Six: Roberto Clemente. Seven: LaDainian Tomlinson. Eight: Martina Navratilova. Nine: Chris Fu'umatu-Ma'afala or somebody.

Technorati Tags: athletes, bestof, football, list, NFL, sports

Sundry

At Broad Nightlight is a small c