Well, it has become abundantly clear that the Tennessee Volunteers are not as good as many hoped. Given the inherently unpredictable nature of the game of college football, I really suppose that we shouldn’t be all that surprised—in all honesty, I am not.
I offered a few thoughts immediately after the game which began to discuss a few of the problems as I saw them. As is usually the case with my brand of half-baked analysis, I didn’t want to rush into criticisms based wholly upon my knee-jerk reaction to losing a game that I had down as a “W” in my preseason predictions.
Full Story
Wednesday, 10 September 2008
Monday, 8 September 2008
Robotics becomes the new sport
Twelve-year-old Jeremy H. Kniager of Sutton shook his hands and tensed up as he and the other members of Team Rotelle watched their LEGO MINDSTORMS robot try to outscore four other robots during a robotics program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute for middle-school students last month. It was a far cry from the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, where high school teams from around the world compete in the FIRST Robotics Competition Championship every spring, but the program was one sign that robotics season never ends.
Time was when FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robotics teams would get their kits in January and finish competition by April. These days, robotics season has the same expanding schedule as sports: different seasons for different leagues, formal competition, off-season competition, and fundraising and demonstration months.
Manchester, N.H.-based FIRST has four leagues ranging from the traditional FIRST Robotics Competition to Junior FIRST LEGO League, and non-FIRST competitions such as VEX Robotics also cover the calendar. If you’re wondering just how many teams and tournaments there are, consider this: Twenty minutes before Jeremy and his 18 fellow enthusiasts ended their competition in WPI’s Higgins Labs, an unrelated high school group across campus ended its competition with VEX kits. The city regularly hosts large competitions, including two that fell on the same weekend during the last school year.
None of this is news to robotics enthusiasts, who can watch BattleBots on cable, spend the fall working on VEX robots and the spring on FIRST robots. Summers, teams can do demonstrations, run or attend programs like the one at WPI in August, and fundraise. Fundraising is as necessary to FIRST robotics as it is to a football team: A FIRST Robotics Competition team costs at least $10,000 a year and generally requires sponsorship, according to Colleen Shaver, manager of robotics initiatives at WPI.
The summer program for middle schoolers at WPI, called Junior Robotics Challenge, served two purposes: It introduced younger children to robotics and raised money for the Burncoat High School robotics team. Students and adults involved with the team ran the camp.
“A lot of us are well-rounded in robotics,” said Nicholas P. Galotti III, a senior Web applications administrator at WPI, adviser to the Burncoat team and leader of the Junior Robotics Challenge at WPI.
“A lot of us are not well-rounded anywhere else,” joked Joseph E. Hennigan, who just graduated from Burncoat and worked at the Junior Robotics Challenge. He’s attending the University of Massachusetts at Lowell this fall.
It isn’t just the WPI-affiliated folks who work 12 months a year. The long-standing Clinton High School/Nypro Inc. FIRST robotics team has training and fundraising activities year-round, said Nypro spokesman Al Cotton. “Every year there’s more and more,” he said. It doesn’t end at high school graduation, either. Many college students mentor younger teams when they get to college, he said.
After school isn’t the only place robotics is spreading. WPI offers a major in robotics, and the machines are making inroads into elementary and secondary school curricula.
“Some of our summer camp teachers are classroom teachers, and they do this year-round,” said Nancy Lane, FIRST Place education and outreach coordinator at FIRST headquarters in Manchester, N.H. “They use it across the curriculum, and a lot of the state standards include robotics and technology, so this is an easy and fun way to get that into the curriculum,” she said.
Parents can’t seem to get enough, which is fortunate, considering the possible time investment. “There’s a lot of cooperation” among team members, noted Beth Fleming, whose daughter, Frances, was on Jeremy’s team at the WPI summer program. Innocent Nortey of Worcester said his son, Quincy, hopes to do it again next year and wants to be a civil engineer or architect.
Jeremy’s mother, Kathleen Huddleston, noted that the experience piqued his interest in WPI. And even though Team Rotelle and the others eventually fell to Team Lasagne, Jeremy remained enthused.
Speaking of the FIRST high school program, he said, “I would love to try that out.”
Time was when FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robotics teams would get their kits in January and finish competition by April. These days, robotics season has the same expanding schedule as sports: different seasons for different leagues, formal competition, off-season competition, and fundraising and demonstration months.
Manchester, N.H.-based FIRST has four leagues ranging from the traditional FIRST Robotics Competition to Junior FIRST LEGO League, and non-FIRST competitions such as VEX Robotics also cover the calendar. If you’re wondering just how many teams and tournaments there are, consider this: Twenty minutes before Jeremy and his 18 fellow enthusiasts ended their competition in WPI’s Higgins Labs, an unrelated high school group across campus ended its competition with VEX kits. The city regularly hosts large competitions, including two that fell on the same weekend during the last school year.
None of this is news to robotics enthusiasts, who can watch BattleBots on cable, spend the fall working on VEX robots and the spring on FIRST robots. Summers, teams can do demonstrations, run or attend programs like the one at WPI in August, and fundraise. Fundraising is as necessary to FIRST robotics as it is to a football team: A FIRST Robotics Competition team costs at least $10,000 a year and generally requires sponsorship, according to Colleen Shaver, manager of robotics initiatives at WPI.
The summer program for middle schoolers at WPI, called Junior Robotics Challenge, served two purposes: It introduced younger children to robotics and raised money for the Burncoat High School robotics team. Students and adults involved with the team ran the camp.
“A lot of us are well-rounded in robotics,” said Nicholas P. Galotti III, a senior Web applications administrator at WPI, adviser to the Burncoat team and leader of the Junior Robotics Challenge at WPI.
“A lot of us are not well-rounded anywhere else,” joked Joseph E. Hennigan, who just graduated from Burncoat and worked at the Junior Robotics Challenge. He’s attending the University of Massachusetts at Lowell this fall.
It isn’t just the WPI-affiliated folks who work 12 months a year. The long-standing Clinton High School/Nypro Inc. FIRST robotics team has training and fundraising activities year-round, said Nypro spokesman Al Cotton. “Every year there’s more and more,” he said. It doesn’t end at high school graduation, either. Many college students mentor younger teams when they get to college, he said.
After school isn’t the only place robotics is spreading. WPI offers a major in robotics, and the machines are making inroads into elementary and secondary school curricula.
“Some of our summer camp teachers are classroom teachers, and they do this year-round,” said Nancy Lane, FIRST Place education and outreach coordinator at FIRST headquarters in Manchester, N.H. “They use it across the curriculum, and a lot of the state standards include robotics and technology, so this is an easy and fun way to get that into the curriculum,” she said.
Parents can’t seem to get enough, which is fortunate, considering the possible time investment. “There’s a lot of cooperation” among team members, noted Beth Fleming, whose daughter, Frances, was on Jeremy’s team at the WPI summer program. Innocent Nortey of Worcester said his son, Quincy, hopes to do it again next year and wants to be a civil engineer or architect.
Jeremy’s mother, Kathleen Huddleston, noted that the experience piqued his interest in WPI. And even though Team Rotelle and the others eventually fell to Team Lasagne, Jeremy remained enthused.
Speaking of the FIRST high school program, he said, “I would love to try that out.”
Iraq complaint against FIFA
Court of Arbitration for Sport will rule this week whether FIFA was wrong not to sanction Qatar for fielding an ineligible player when it beat Iraq 2-0 in a World Cup qualifying match earlier this year.
Iraq took its case to the world's top sports tribunal after FIFA said it would take no action against Qatar for fielding the Brazil-born Emerson just seven weeks after he became a citizen of the wealthy Gulf emirate.
The tribunal will hold a hearing Wednesday and issue a ruling before the end of the week, CAS secretary-general Matthieu Reeb said Monday.
The result led to Iraq being knocked out in the third stage of Asian qualifying for the 2010 World Cup, while Qatar continued to the next round.
Sunday, 24 August 2008
the attack of the minuscule celebrities - News & Gossip, Entertainment - Independent.ie
Read More Here: "And people just can't get enough of this Z-list speculation. If they're not reading about minor celebrities, they are emulating their lifestyle on the Dublin social scene, which has become a best-in-show parade of expensive blow-dries, cheap tans and designer labels. Socialising for the in-crew is now about image, exclusivity and the pursuit of VIP treatment. They all want to skip queues, enjoy table service, be invited to private parties, attend exclusive launches and feel like they are important. They have started to dress, drink, eat and behave like wannabe celebrities, whether they can afford to or not. The lure of a celebrity lifestyle means drinking champagne cocktails at the Shelbourne Bar or the Ice Bar, perhaps buying exclusive membership for private clubs such as the 'chic' Residence, or dancing the night away at a 'glitzy bash' in Krystle Nightclub, the Harcourt Street hangout for every Z-list 'love-rat' and 'top sexy legs' in the city."
Tom Daley books place in 10m platform diving final - Beijing Olympics 2008 - Telegraph
Read More Here: "Daley, 14, booked a place in his first individual Olympic final as he finished within the last 12 at the Water Cube.
The Plymouth teenager pulled off an impressive fourth-round jump - an armstand back triple somersault with tuck - to earn 86.4 points and put himself back into the reckoning.
He followed that up with an excellent backwards three-and-a-half somersault which brought 89.1 points, allowing him to eventually finish eighth on 458.6.
However, team-mate Waterfield, from Southampton, just missed out by one place having been in the top 10 until his third dive dropped him to 12th.
He redeemed himself with a reverse three-and-a-half somersault with tuck to gain 90.75 points from his fourth effort only to finish badly on his next attempt.
His poor entry on his reverse three-and-a-half somersault tuck cost him and just 40.8 meant he fell back to 13th. He could not retrieve things from there and finished one place short of the final."
The Plymouth teenager pulled off an impressive fourth-round jump - an armstand back triple somersault with tuck - to earn 86.4 points and put himself back into the reckoning.
He followed that up with an excellent backwards three-and-a-half somersault which brought 89.1 points, allowing him to eventually finish eighth on 458.6.
However, team-mate Waterfield, from Southampton, just missed out by one place having been in the top 10 until his third dive dropped him to 12th.
He redeemed himself with a reverse three-and-a-half somersault with tuck to gain 90.75 points from his fourth effort only to finish badly on his next attempt.
His poor entry on his reverse three-and-a-half somersault tuck cost him and just 40.8 meant he fell back to 13th. He could not retrieve things from there and finished one place short of the final."
The Sports Network - Olympics
Read More Here: "Beijing, China (Sports Network) - They're golden girls again.
Kara Lawson scored 15 points, making all five of her shots from the field, and the U.S. women's basketball team won its fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal by thrashing Australia, 92-65.
Lisa Leslie and Candace Parker each scored 14 for the Americans, who beat the Aussies in the final for a third straight time. Sylvia Fowles tallied 13 points.
The U.S. used a 24-4 run, bridging the end of the first quarter and into the second. Lawson had the first six points of the spurt. Two free throws from Seimone Augustus capped the quarter for a 22-15 advantage.
Cappie Pondexter's bucket ended the big push for a 34-17 lead with six minutes left in the half."
Kara Lawson scored 15 points, making all five of her shots from the field, and the U.S. women's basketball team won its fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal by thrashing Australia, 92-65.
Lisa Leslie and Candace Parker each scored 14 for the Americans, who beat the Aussies in the final for a third straight time. Sylvia Fowles tallied 13 points.
The U.S. used a 24-4 run, bridging the end of the first quarter and into the second. Lawson had the first six points of the spurt. Two free throws from Seimone Augustus capped the quarter for a 22-15 advantage.
Cappie Pondexter's bucket ended the big push for a 34-17 lead with six minutes left in the half."
Jankovic has eyes on first slam - Breaking News - Fox Sports
Read More Here: "The knock on the world No.2 Jankovic continues to be her failure to breakthrough at a grand slam.
The 23-year-old Serbian has yet to reach a final in the 20 grand slam appearances and despite going deep into just about every tournament this year she has just one win on her resume.
She blames that in part on injuries.
'I am working very hard and some of the things don't happen overnight,'' she said. 'You can't get your endurance and your strength back in a few days. I will keep working hard and we will see what happens.''
In the semi-finals of the French Open, Jankovic appeared to be headed to victory when she was up 2-0 in the third set before losing to countrywoman Ana Ivanovic."
The 23-year-old Serbian has yet to reach a final in the 20 grand slam appearances and despite going deep into just about every tournament this year she has just one win on her resume.
She blames that in part on injuries.
'I am working very hard and some of the things don't happen overnight,'' she said. 'You can't get your endurance and your strength back in a few days. I will keep working hard and we will see what happens.''
In the semi-finals of the French Open, Jankovic appeared to be headed to victory when she was up 2-0 in the third set before losing to countrywoman Ana Ivanovic."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)