Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.com
North Korean propaganda is ripe with the amazing achievements of its Dear Leader. The highly controlled state also closely monitors its citizens to make sure they do not speak out against Kim or challenge his rule.
Kim pilots jet fighters, pens operas, produces movies and accomplished a feat unmatched in the annals of professional golf by shooting 11 holes-in-one on the first round he ever played.
I really liked this song so had a friend translate the lyrics to 100 Years (a Five for Fighting song) into Spanish. Enjoy!
100 años
(five for fighting)
Por un momento tengo 15 años
Estoy atrapado entre los 10 y 20
Y solamente estoy soñando
Contando los caminos en donde tu estas
Por un momento tengo 22 años
Ella se siente mejor que nunca
Y estamos ardiendo
Buscando formas de regresar de Marte
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Great photos!
http://www.pbase.com/manny_librodo/my_best_shots
When Lance Armstrong claimed his first yellow jersey on 3 July 1999 he gave millions of people hope. At the age of 27 the all-American champion proved there was life after cancer. He had ridden the Tour de France before, won stages in fact, but victory in his first appearance since he was struck down by the illness was a triumph of spirit. But surely his time in the overall lead of the world’s biggest bike race wouldn’t last much longer than the first week. Aficionados of the event knew his name and they recognized his weaknesses.
Before cancer, the Texan couldn’t climb and his ability in the time trial was reasonable at best. Tactically he’d made more than one faux-pas. He was a star but not a rider capable of holding onto the ‘maillot jaune’.
Lance proved that the cynics were wrong. And he has continued to do so every year.
In the final race of his career there was nothing left to prove. At the age of 33 he had eclipsed the efforts of the greatest cyclists in history in the race which matters most. When Armstrong last raced on the famous Avenue des Champs Elysees he established a new benchmark. Winning six titles was an unobtainable quest. If Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain couldn’t achieve this mark, how could a brash Texan who almost lost his life to cancer reach the elusive tally?
Pure determination powered by a phenomenal physique, directed by a master tactician and support from teams of heroes all contributed to the re-writing of cycling history.
Another major contributing factor to the Hollywood-esque tale of success is the self-confessed insecurity of the rider who sealed his seventh victory in the French capital on the final day as a professional cyclist.
Tell a champion he can’t do something and you fuel his ambition. From 1999 onward there was always someone who suggested they had figured out a way to crack Armstrong’s formula for success. They came, they tried and they failed.
Of the 162 Tour stages he contested since his first day in the yellow jersey, Armstrong has won 21 of them.
It’s not a bad percentage for a man who was told he’d never ride a bike again. If he was lucky, he’d live. Since that diagnosis, he’s not only survived but thrived. Lance lives strong.
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Nice try Microsoft.
The only thing they “copied” was the dragability.
Um, they copied a lot more than that. They copied resizing the map window to fill up the browser window.They copied the general color scheme. They copied the ability to switch between street maps and aerial photos. They copied DHTML layering to show point data on top of the maps. They copied the entire design for searching, navigating, and finding points-of-interest. And they copied it so closely, they made it cross-browser functional (you can damn well bet if Google Maps didn’t exist as a cross-browser functional product, MSN VE would only work on IE).
And they copied the most innovative part of Google maps – tile-based pre-built raster images to assemble dynamic maps. As someone who has developed GIS applications, I can tell you, while this may sound trivial, it is not. Google thought outside the box. The GIS community for years has used vector data to produce one raster image on-the-fly at runtime (like Mapquest). Instead, Google creates small tiled images at every zoom-level they offer and stores them on the server, and thus can produce a map at any location and any zoom-level, and offer it with “dragability”. This is a completely new paradigm for interactive GIS apps. The old way does offer some advantages over the new way, but for web-based interactive GIS, the new way is pretty phenominal.
While the rest of the GIS community was happily working to make incremental improvements to the old paradigm, Google innovated a new paradigm. MSN just copied it. There’s nothing wrong with copying (well, until the USPTO grants software patents), but don’t mistake it for anything other than what it is.
Source: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=156854&cid=13150014
Is it just me or does it seem like all MS is doing these days is just copy catting google? Google made a better search, MS tries to make a better search. Google makes a map, MS makes a map.
I think it’s rather obvious that the creative type who comes up with the ideas usually prevails over those trying to play catch up. When MS makes something new and Google has to copy it, that’s when you know the tables have turned.
Source: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=156854&cid=13149282
Microsoft doesn’t create markets, it attempts to take over young markets through agressive (and sometimes illegal) marketing. It aims to achieve a monopoly, which it can then use to lock its customers in, creating a long-lasting cash-cow.
This is the technique used for Microsoft Windows, Word and Internet Explorer. It isn’t always successful, but it is successful often enough to make a lot of money and annoy a lot of people.
Source: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=156854&cid=13149386
I feel that competition is good when it breeds the creation of new, more innovative, and better products. Yahoo, I feel, is doing a good job at innovating, though they did copy Google’s simple search layout… Microsoft is just see what products consumers like and then stealing those ideas and attempting to release them as a new, great thing from the creative minds at Microsoft. You have to wonder how many truly creative minds are left at Microsoft when everyone is leaving to work for Apple, Google, or Yahoo.
Velogal’s Race Blog – A great Tour de France blog
Updated Tour de France photos: http://velogal.smugmug.com/
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/07/02/Columns/Tennis_cowers_before_.shtml
By GARY SHELTON, Times Sports Columnist
Published July 2, 2005
WIMBLEDON, England – Finally, there is someone who can beat Roger Federer.
Finally, there is someone with enough game, with enough guts, to end this domination. Finally, there is someone with enough confidence, with enough charisma, to keep Federer away from the history books.
His name is Borg.
Just as soon as 1980 rolls around again, all of this Federer foolishness is over.
It was hours after Federer had rolled into his third straight Wimbledon final, stepping over a perfectly harmless Lleyton Hewitt along the way, when the monitors at the tennis club began to show old matches. Voila, there was a young Borg beating a young McEnroe, giving birth to a perfectly logical question: Gee. What would happen if Federer could play the winner?
If not Borg, how about Sampras? How about Laver? How about Becker? How about Connors?
With those guys, you can at least get an interesting discussion as to who might win, which is more than we have had at Wimbledon for the last three years. Federer has drained men’s tennis of all intrigue. He has become a foregone conclusion on grass, and at times, he resembles a sheepherder taking his flock to market more than a competitor facing down legitimate challengers.
Every time Federer tosses a ball into the air, it seems, the history book opens a little wider and his opponents bow a little lower. The rest of the tour lies curled around his feet, hoping for scraps and bad bounces.
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Kick Off Your Shoes and Run Awhile (available with free registration)
By CHRISTOPHER McDOUGALL
Published: June 23, 2005
UNTIL he met a reclusive tribe of near-mythical athletes at the bottom of a Mexican canyon, Micah True could never figure out why his running injuries got worse as his running shoes got better. Then, the Tarahumara Indians taught him a lesson that even Nike is now starting to embrace: the best shoe may be no shoe at all.
Mr. True, 53, from Nederland, Colo., wasn’t the only one baffled by the injury mystery. For years kinesiology professors, physical therapists and athletic-shoe designers have been puzzling over the same paradox: if running shoe protection and cushioning have improved, why haven’t injuries among joggers decreased?
“The technological advancements over the past 30 years have been amazing,” said Dr. Irene Davis, the director of the Running Injury Clinic at the University of Delaware. “We’ve seen tremendous innovations in motion control and cushioning. And yet the remedies don’t seem to defeat the ailments.”
Since the running boom of the 70’s, giants like Nike, Adidas and New Balance have rivaled Silicon Valley for speed of R. & D. rollout, releasing improved products nearly every six months. One shoe, the Adidas 1, even has microprocessors that analyze foot impact and adjust cushioning with each stride. New Balance has a motion-control shoe so finely engineered it costs $199.99.
Still, 65 percent to 80 percent of all runners – joggers and elite marathoners alike – are injured in an average year, according to Dr. Davis. Aching Achilles tendons, sore knees, inflamed arches and hobbling plantar fascia pain are as common today as they were when boot camp grunts were jogging in canvas Converse “Chuckies.”
“Since the first real studies were done in the late 70’s, Achilles complaints have actually increased by about 10 percent, while plantar fasciitis has remained the same,” said Dr. Stephen Pribut, the president of the American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine.
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Excerpt from Lance Armstrong’s War on Outside Magazine
Tour de France
Street Fighting Man
From prologue to Paris, DANIEL COYLE followed the reigning champ throughout the 2004 Tour and all the way to victory No. 6. Now he’s written a true-life sports thriller about how the Armstrong machine smashed the opposition. In this exclusive excerpt from Lance Armstrong’s War, the author chronicles the brutal turning point of Lance’s greatest triumph.
By Daniel Coyle
ON JULY 17, 2004, one hour before the Tour’s toughest stage, Lucky 13, the thousands of people swarming the sunny Pyrenean town of Lannemezan were burning with the same desire: to see Lance Armstrong’s face. The fervent throng of fans gathered outside the U.S. Postal team bus were motivated by the usual goals—a photo, a word, a touch. But Armstrong’s rivals had their own goals, summed up by a single image that glowed in their minds: the Dead Elvis Grin.
The Dead Elvis Grin refers to Armstrong’s facial expression when he’s pushed to the edge, on the verge of cracking, that tactically useful moment poker players call the tell. Armstrong’s tell began with the American changing positions on his bike—standing, sitting, standing again, rooting around for more power. Then he leaned forward on the handlebars, throwing his body weight into the pedals. His face went red, then ashen. The furrows in his forehead deepened, his eyes fixed, and his upper lip slowly rose over his front teeth, unveiling the signature half snarl, half smile.
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Wow, Cyprus was amazing! I am so glad that I had the opportunity to take this class on social justice. As always, photos are available on my Smugmug Cyprus Trip Photo Page. (The more I use Smugmug, the more that I love it.)
I’m going to be leaving for a Costa Rica/Nicaragua medical mission trip this Sunday (July 3rd) but I’ll update this blog with more of my thoughts on Cyprus once I get back. I don’t have time to do it now because I have to 1) finish my reflective learning journal about the Cyprus class, 2) finish my medical school applications, 3) request letters of recommendation from various teachers.