China won. +15 gold medals trumps +10 total medals. It was on every page of Will and Beyond all throughout the Olympics. I was pretty into them in the beginning, and made quite a few posts, but my enthusiasm wore, and they became less frequent. Not just the posts, but my viewing as well.
I love the Winter Olympics much much more, and you can expect to see many more posts in two years.
This Washington Post article talks about reporters who asked Phelps a bunch of questions after he got his eighth gold medal. One of the reporters was from the Harvard Lampoon, and asked where he "stood on the scientific debate about whether light is a particle or a wave."
"I have no idea what to really comment on that," he said, and moved on.
You fool, the answer was both! Wave-particle duality! de Broglie would not have been happy to hear that. You've won more gold medals in one Olympics than many countries have in their entire Olympic history, congratulations. However, this doesn't mean you shouldn't know these things.
Well, he did it; 8 gold medals in one Olympics. Beat his old, pathetic record of 6 golds, and Spitz's olympic record of 7 golds. For some reason NBC chose not to stream this event online, so I was watching Table Tennis (Hong Kong vs. Korea). Intense, but probably not as much as that last momentous race. How did I find out? I was watching the Twitter search results for keyword 'Phelps' and suddenly it blew up, as you can see below.
In the last two minutes since I've been writing this, the word Phelps has come up 739 times on Twitter, and I'm sure it will be higher by the time I get to the end of this even. Look forward to seeing the actual race later, so adios for now.
Take a look at the medal count below. Notice anything upsetting?
Oh, what's that? China's kicking our ass! Sure, we have one more medal than them, but who cares. They have 8 more gold medals than we do. Better yet, where would we be without Michael Phelps? Well, he's given us five gold medals*, so subtract those and we move down from 2nd to 5th. We really need to our act together, we even have illegally underage gymnast stealing our golds. (That's up for debate, but that's another issue.)
The opening ceremony for the Olympics was spectacular to say the least. I'm going to take you on a pictorial tour, and show you some of the highlights. I'll be skipping the parade of nations (the flag march) and the speeches. The parade was nice, but nothing stellar, and unfortunately the speeches weren't that great. With no further ado...
1:27: The ceremony started off with drumming. The drummers were playing on special drums that lit up when there were drummed on.
1:46: As you can see, they used the drum lighting to countdown to the beginning of the ceremony, at 8:08 Beijing time. Fireworks erupted once the timer reached zero, and dancing proceeded. The BBC announcers tell me that that it is a dance about a Confucian saying, 'Friends have come from afar, how happy we are'.
7:28: Fireworks shot up in the shape of footprints which went from the stadium to Beijing's capital. It was later (fairly quickly) discovered that the footage shown on TV was fake, since it was too dangerous to film so close to the fireworks. Amateur videos of the real event are on YouTube, etc., but it looks pretty much the same, just not from as good of a view.
9:21: 'Dust' settled on the ground in the shape of the Olympic rings. Faeries began to fly around and lifted the dust off of the ground as you see.
11:29: The Chinese flag was marched by a group of culturally dressed Chinese, while a little girl sings on stage. The flag was then handed off to Chinese military, whereupon it was raised onto a flagpole, and the Chinese anthem was sung. Following the anthem, more fireworks were shot off; I'm beginning to see a trend. A film reel shows the history of calligraphy and the scroll is shown on screen, which smoothly transitions to a scroll on the ground.
17:07: The scroll opens across the stadium floor; commentators tell me it is more than 25m long.
18:42: Dancers with paint on their limbs dance on top of the scroll while gracefully sweeping their paint-covered hands across the scroll, painting large images. This continues for some time, and then the scroll is lifted into the air; yet another recurring theme... Next, 3000 Confucian disciples do a dance while holding bamboo slips; an ancient form of a book. We now transition to the movable type, yet another Chinese invention on display, as it fluidly ripples across.
27:31: Aside from just making beautiful motions, the type also forms characters. This amazing show continues for a little bit.
28:38: When it stops, people rise out of the 'shells', very happy and excitedly, and they wave to the crowd.
30:04: Puppeteers put on a show, while being carried on the giant scroll, like a float. When I first saw the puppets, I thought they were well-trained monkeys. I'm not sure what I was thinking.
33:33: A beautiful Chinese dancer performs a ribbon dance, again while being carried on a scroll.
35:16: Next, there is a demonstration of the silk road. What you see below and above (harder to see) the scroll, are hundreds of people carrying huge oars with paintings on them. They come together to form pictures of boats, best seen below. On top of rowing with the oars, they do amazing synchronized motions; quite incredible given the large size and weight of these.
36:59: In the center of the oarsmen is a dancer, who is showing off the compass, yet another Chinese invention. Soon after the oarsmen all raise their oars at about a 45 degree angle and surround the scroll making it appear as one huge boat.
41:14: More pretty dancing girls. There are Chinese warriors rising on columns, which are intricately decorated with dragons. Once this comes to an end, more fireworks erupt.
45:05: Lang Lang (the older pianist on the right) is China's most famous pianist, and is playing alongside Li Muzi, who is only five years old. You can see she is very happy, but also very shy.
47:39: The piano is surrounded by dancers donning white suits, which dazzling neon colors are shone upon. While this is happening, a little girl flies on screen from somewhere, and we see that she is flying a kite (another Chinese invention...) while flying herself. Muzi isn't playing as much as she was in the beginning, you can see that she's a little scared, maybe even of Lang.
52:33: It wouldn't be a Chinese cultural show without some sort of martial art, so here is their Tai Chi demonstration. You can see there are lots of explosive graphics happening in the background. To elaborate that Tai Chi is about more than just fighting, we see a Chinese classroom being held in the middle of all of the Tai Chi warriors.
56:05: Now we see even more people doing Tai Chi, all synchronized very well. We transition back to the classroom, and what do we have here? More painting on the ground, this time it's the children doing it. Another difference is that the painting is now in color, very symbolic of the passage through time we're taking. The painting can't stay on the ground for long, as we know by now, the next step is for it to fly into the air. Astronauts descend from the sky, and begin to fly around the stadium.
1:02:48: While the astronauts fly around, a globe ascends from the stage, which is 18m in diameter. Dancers emerge and proceed to run laps around the planet, and continents begin to form. The globe is very colorful, which many changing colors. Liu Huan and Sarah Brightman (the first/only non-Chinese performer, I believe) sing 'You and Me' from atop the globe.
1:06:33: This part's a little weird, people are holding up pictures of children's faces while the singing continues. Fireworks ensue, but the signing continues; for once fireworks are used during a performance, not just in between.
1:09:06: Fireworks continue, and as the singing ends, a huge finale of fireworks ensues, which is the most impressive yet (as finales should be). During the finale, there is a lot of dancing, very happy and joyous, you can see the pride in their faces.
Now is where the parade of nations and speeches would be, but let's skip those. The timing of the pictures which I've been indicated will continue as if the parade/speeches never happened.
1:11:29: Li Ning, a Chinese gymnast from the 1984 Olympics flies into the air, with torch in hand.
1:12:02: He 'lands' next to the scroll, where he proceeds to run along with it, towards the torch which has been unveiled.
1:12:28: The torch is raised to the large fuse, which quickly explodes with flames.
1:12:38: Flames jet upward along the fuse towards the torch.
1:12:59: The torch is lit, and more fireworks happen. The 2008 Olympic Games have officially begun!!! I hope you all enjoyed the pictures and commentary, that was quite a show China; congratulations. The commentary comes primarily from me, but I picked up a thing here and there from the BBC commentators, along with some facts from the Wikipedia entry. Keep reading Will and Beyond for more of my Olympic posts.
Michael Phelps is less than 6 months older than I am and he has 9 Olympic medals, 7 of which are a pretty gold color; show-off. I am admittedly not that into swimming, but it's undeniable how impressive it is. He did 'pretty well' in the 400m IM preliminaries, and kept it up to win the US' second 2008 gold medal. (The first was in fencing.)
It's funny the New York Times article where it talks about the gold medal spends about two paragraphs discussing his Facebook; crazy pop culture. Shawn@Table Salt Games exposed me to a hilarious ad with Michael Phelps and Morgan Freeman, you must check it out.
You might notice that I embedded a table of the Olmypic medal standings there in the right navbar, that's courtesy of 08:08:08. There's no way I can keep up with reporting everything I'd like to about the Olympics, let alone watching everything I'd like to, so I recommend the New York Times and YouTube.
China Apologizes for Beating Journalists
Despite their promise to the IOC for 100% journalistic freedom during the games, Chinese police beat and detained Japanese journalists after they witness and recorded the Chinese taking down some terrorists.
Chinese Taxis are Spies
Putting microphones in taxis for driver safety isn't anything new, but in Beijing they can be activated remotely. The Chinese government was asked if they were used to spy on riders, and they declined to comment. Translation: yes.
Deciding Whether or Not to Wear Masks
Wearing a mask definitely makes you stand out, and is a statement whether or not you want it to be. According to the article, Australia was the first IOC member to acknowledge the pollution problem. Today the air quality index is 92, which is a 'blue sky day' in China, but beyond EPA standards here in the US.
By the way, if you're not watching the opening ceremony and want to be, here's a link with good quality.
Whether or not the Olympics excite you, the opening ceremony should be a good show. The Wikipedia entry talks about who will be performing, and which country's leaders won't be attending (France, England, America). You'll be able to watch the opening ceremony live here. That site should also be streaming the rest of the Olympics live. If that doesn't end up working, or you just want other video sources, Lifehacker gives you some resources. Edit: Well, apparently this starts in less than 6 hours, at 8:08am EST. Stupid timezones.
*Follow my personal account at @randomguy132 or my Will and Beyond account at @willandbeyond. I'll follow you back with @randomguy132 if I know you in person, and I'll follow you back with @willandbeyond if you're interesting.
With the Olympics Opening Ceremony in two days, I've decided to start doing a daily (well, at least regular) post summarizing the most interesting Olympic news.
Masked Cyclists
A team of American cyclists arrived at the Beijing airport wearing masks. I was confused by the headline, but it refers to the type of masks you wear for sanitary breathing purposes. It was understandably seen as a jab at China for being a poor host. The cyclists have apologized, not for wearing the masks, but for being mistaken as making a political statement. It's important to note the IOC rules prohibit athletes from making political statements.
Revoking Joey Cheek's Visa
Joey Cheek is a former Olympian, a speedskater, who leads Team Darfur. As the wiki reads, it's an alliance of athletes bringing awareness to the Darfur situation. China has revoked his visa, which will prevent him from attending and watching the games. He had already said that he didn't intend to demonstrate, and planned to just watch the games. The IOC cannot step in because he is not a current Olympian. China is defending their right to do so, and is not giving a reason, and they don't have to.
The Olympic Trap
There is some discussion as to whether or not the Olympics are being used as a decoy to lure in the world's citizens, to trap them. This should be given some reasonable thought, after all, it is coming from 'America's Finest News Source'.
China's internet censorship isn't news, but in accepting the Olympic bid, they promised uncensored internet access for journalists. They don't seem to be following through. It's obviously too late to move the games somewhere else in response to their disobedience so far, but shame on them.
The article linked earlier had a link to a website where you can test the accessibility of a site in Seattle, compared to that in China. It will show you the time required to render the site, along with DNS propagation info, etc. I discovered some shocking information. See the image below? 18 less bytes of Will and Beyond were seen in China; they're censoring 18 bytes of Will and Beyond!!! Which important aspect are they blocking? All of the breaking news posted here? The intense debates on civil rights? My face?
