Monday, July 30, 2012

No Olympics for me



This year I thought I'd be watching the Olympics streaming online.  I was ready with Airplay, Apple TV, and Mountain Lion to stream the Olympics from my MacBook to my television (that's one of the great new features of OS X on newer Macs).  And I would be doing that, but I live in America, where NBC has chosen to only stream the Olympics to cable and satellite subscribers whose contract includes television. It's the dark ages.

I could setup a UK proxy and watch BBC coverage, but my past experience with iPlayer wasn't great.

Maybe I'm better off not getting streaming Olympic events from NBC:  I've read that their presentation of the games is the usual commercial TV sentimental slop: 'Heart warming' stories of US athletes overcoming something, and the camera shots of their parents in the crowd.

I just want to see athletes in top physical condition perform great athletic feats. That's exciting and compelling enough for me.

Now the medal count.  I know that it's not in the spirit of the games to compare national medal counts because individuals compete against each other. But everyone follows the national medal count.

This is how it's done: the country with the most gold medals is first.

This is how it's done in the US: the country with the most medals wins. Using this logic, a gold is equal to a bronze.


Wednesday, July 04, 2012

George Washington NSFW

This animation pokes fun at the insipid hero-worshiping (whoreshiping?) cartoons used to teach American children about their white history.
(The language is for adult ears only. It's a bit crude)