Posts by JackElder
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I used to know a bloke from Belarus. Nice bloke, organic chemistry student. Whenever he went home, he used to buy up a load of chemistry supplies and take them back to the lab at his old university. I asked him how it was taking a load of lab equipment through customs. He shrugged, and said that he also had to buy a lot of cigarettes to give to the customs agents so they let him through. "I'd have to do it anyway," he said, "you've always got to give the customs agents something." He was quite matter-of-fact about the level of official corruption - obviously it wasn't something he particularly liked, but it was just how it was.
Tie this in with the general "win at all costs" mentality that both athletes and coaches have, and I have no trouble believing any of the various theories floating around. Though, as said, the choice of such an easily discoverable doping agent (which can be administered orally) would tend to indicate that the athlete herself may not have been aware that it was being used - as she said, you'd have to be an idiot to dope that blatantly.
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As an aside, I once worked with a woman who'd been a competitive synchronised swimmer. She'd only just missed out on selection for her national team. Specifically, the East German national team back in the mid 80s. "At the time, I was very sad," she said about missing out on selection, "but now I just think that I'd have been given so many drugs to take, and I'm glad I missed out."
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That was what sounded fishy to me: that this is a really old-school steroid, that can be detected fairly easily. Why would anyone actually use this for serious competition, when they know that if they win the event they're going to be tested? The state of the art of competitive doping has moved on considerably, and it seems like quite a crude attempt. Then again, if you figured you had nothing to lose and thought it was worth a try, I suppose you might give it a go. Compare Floyd Landis' positive for synthetic testosterone: it's easy enough to detect, but you never know - something might go wrong, they might miss it for some reason, and when you're staring defeat in the face there's a powerful temptation to risk it all on a single throw of the dice.
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Also very much looking forward to the track cycling. I'm a bit annoyed that they dropped the kilo, but the pursuit events are great fun. If you've not watched cycling, they're good events for the casual watcher.
For example, the pursuit: two riders (or teams), starting out on the opposite sides of a velodrome. Each tries to catch the other one - if they don't manage a catch, fastest one wins. Easy to understand, fun to watch. Ditto the keirin (everyone rides around behind a little motorcycle until right at the end, when they all sprint like madmen), the points race (bunch race, every couple of laps the first few over the line get points, most points wins). And then there's the madison, which is best described as rollerball meets lycra: it involves two-person teams slingshotting each other around the track, crashes are pretty much inevitable.
I'll be cheering Alison Shanks for the women's individual pursuit, I'll say that.
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The men's road cycling race is going to be a cracker. My pick is of course Mark Cavendish, the Manx Missile, who has had a very quiet Tour de France this year (by his standards: he only won three stages). He's been targeting it all year, and he is, quite simply, the fastest sprinter (cyclist) in the world - and quite possibly the fastest of all time. It's a supreme joy to watch him jump out of the pack in the last 300m of a 200k race and go past other riders like they're standing still. His last two victories in the Tour de France both happened in the final three days - which is to say, last Friday and Sunday. He looks to be on incredible form. But a sprinter really needs a good lead-out team - and the British team for the race includes both the winner and runner-up of this year's Tour de France. In fact, every member of the British team who rode the Tour won a stage (Cavendish, Wiggins, Froome, and a cheeky win by David Millar). The thing with the Olympics is that you can't pick and choose your team from a variety of countries, as you can in the regular cycling season - so Andrei Greipel can't have Greg Henderson leading him out, 'cos Henderson's a kiwi so will be riding with Jack Bauer and a lot of hope. Britain seem to have the best all-round team, and I'd be surprised if Cavendish - who is, let's not forget, the current world champion - doesn't bring home a gold.
Ditto Wiggins for the men's time trial - he's been time trialling like a machine. He rode an absolute blinder last week on a 53k TT stage of the TdF, coming in a full 1'16 ahead of the next rider (his own teammate Chris Froome, as it happens).
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When I was a teenager, we lived in Japan. Margaret Mahy came over to Japan on some arts council thingie or another - I'm not sure of the details. But she stayed at our house, which was pretty choice. As part of the trip, she did a visit to my school (one of the English-language schools in Tokyo) to do a series of readings. So in the morning I took her along on my train ride to school. On the train, we sat discussing Japanese culture from the perspective of outsiders. "Now," she said matter-of-factly, pointing to an ad for a men's magazine, "that magazine there is all in Japanese, except that it's got the word 'SEX' in English in big letters. Is that common?" Bit of a shock for a 13-year old boy.
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Typo, first para: "I think the Committee for the opportunity..." - should be thank, presumably.
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Hard News: Where do you get yours? (Food…, in reply to Tim Welch,
Have I got a deal for you…just what you need to get about on
Get an xtracycle, you can refit them onto your existing bike.
Here in Wellington, the inverse is happening: Restaurant Associates (catering firm) have bought a fleet (4’s a fleet, right?) of cargo bikes to deliver their food within the central city. Having ridden past them, they look like a very practical solution to the problem of getting food around a small CBD area.
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Hard News: Did Holopac change everything?, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
It seems to me that we aren't far off photo-realistic CGI (I'd suggest something like a Turing Test - can watchers differentiate between a filmed scene with actors and the same scene created with CGI)
I'm just surprised that you don't think that this form of Turing test is already happening. There's a lot of CG in current films and TV; you spot the bad stuff, sure, but I guarantee you that there's a lot that goes unnoticed.
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Hard News: Belief Media, in reply to Jackie Clark,
it's simply a thanks for food to the universe.
The universe? I bought these bloody biscuits. The universe didn't get off its arse and get down to Countdown, I did. Tch!