The U.S. men and women both dropped the baton in the Olympic 400-meter relays Thursday night and failed to advance out of the first round. First, men’s anchor Tyson Gay, part of the American team that won the relay at last year’s world championships, did not get the red metal stick from third-leg runner Darvis Patton. Then, about 25 minutes later, women’s anchor Lauryn Williams flubbed her exchange with Torri Edwards, their baton dropping to the ground, too.
Twitter's popularity has soared recently, and, of course, this has caused spammers to flock to the service like right wing radio hosts to a fiery black preacher. Twitter has plenty of problems of its own with out having to worry about spammy posters ruining the party for everyone else.
One of the most common techniques used by spammers to rack up a significant number of followers -- folks who track a particular person's tweats -- is to follow as many people as possible. The idea is that the folks a spammer follows will return the favor and follow the spammer eventually, too. Twitter is combating this practice by limiting the number of people any one user can follow, and therefore limiting the amount of people the spammer can connect to.
The limits are different for each account and based upon the number of followers and other undisclosed criteria, but generally the limit seems to be in the 2,000 range. Some may complain about the restriction, but it seems perfectly reasonable to us -- there is no way you could possibly keep up with following 2,000 people and get anything useful out of it.
Bolt is something of a sprinting experiment, defying assumptions that tall men can't run the 100. Silver medalist Richard Thompson said Bolt shattered the stereotypes of sprinters as "short, strong and stocky." At 6-foot-5, 193 pounds, with rapid turnover and the ability to explode from the blocks, Bolt is the "beginning of something else again," Thompson said.
Such talk inevitably leads to speculation about doping. And there is a perception that Bolt came out of nowhere this season. That's not entirely true, or fair.
For years, the track world has expected much from Bolt, but his records were supposed to come in the 200 meters. He won the world junior championship in the event at 15 and a 2007 world championship silver medal. If anything, those who saw Bolt as a teenager wondered what took so long.
"He's been running very well since he was very young," Thompson said. "It was just a matter of time before he was running these times."
Bolt's countryman Asafa Powell, the former world-record holder who was supposed to challenge the phenom, finished fifth, another in a long line of disappointments at major meets. That didn't stop him from praising his teammate. "Usain is spectacular," Powell said. "You just have to look out for what's coming next for him."
Indeed, everybody in the stadium spent the evening speculating on how fast Bolt can go. Everyone except Bolt. "I don't know," he said.
He kept insisting he was only there to win, not to set a record.
After all, Bolt already owned the 100 record, running 9.72 in May against Gay in New York. In response, Gay put up his American record at the Olympic trials before injuring his hamstring in a 200 heat.
Gay said after the loss in May, he knew he'd need to run 9.6 to beat Bolt, and that he'd prepared himself mentally to do it at the trials. So Gay's absence in the final disappointed everybody, including Bolt.
"I've been telling Tyson all season that I wanted him to get better," Bolt said. "Because if you want to be the best, you've got to beat the best."
Now, there's no question who is the best.
"Toscanini said Marian Anderson's contralto voice comes along once a century," said Dr. Herb Elliott, a physician for the Jamaican Olympic team. "A guy like Usain Bolt comes along once a century."
Maybe Bolt's bib number, 2163, was a hint at how far into the future it will be before we see his like again. In any case, Jamaicans won't think about tomorrow for awhile. They'll just enjoy what one of their own did in the present.
"In Kingston," Elliott said, "business stopped today."
When the latest edition of the football video game franchise is released Tuesday, it will still feature the quarterback in his Green Bay Packers uniform -- despite the fact Favre was traded to the New York Jets.But publisher Electronic Arts said it was releasing a downloadable update to make Favre a Jet in the game, as well as new cover art for anyone who wants it.
"We do not plan to reissue packaging but will offer a free downloadable cover in the coming days on easports.com featuring Brett Favre in a Jets uniform," EA Sports said in a statement released Thursday. "Fans can print this new cover out and insert it into the case of 'Madden NFL 09."'
EA Sports will release a free downloadable update to the game with the Favre character as a Jet -- and any other player who signs as a free agent or moves teams -- before the start of the regular season. But "Madden NFL 09" will be released Tuesday with the Favre character as a Packer on all-time greats team.
Yesterday developer Armin Heinrich posted an iPhone app to the App Store called I Am Rich. The program displays a red gem, has no function but to display your wealth to others through ownership, and costs $1000. It has since been removed from the App Store, although no one knows whether Apple or Heinrich pulled it. I Am Rich isn't the most clever piece of art, but it's not bad either. For some, the iPhone is already an obvious display of wealth and I Am Rich is commenting on that. Plus, buying more than you need as an indication of wealth is practically an American core value for a growing segment of the population. Is paying $5000 for a wristwatch or $50,000 for a car when much cheaper alternatives exist really all that different than paying $1000 for an iPhone app?
When news of the app got out onto the web, the outcry came swiftly. VentureBeat implored Apple to pull it from the App Store, as did several other humorless blogs. Blog commenters were even more harsh in their assessments. What I can't understand is: why should Apple pull I Am Rich from the App Store? They have to approve each app but presumably that's to guard against apps which crash iPhones, misrepresent their function, go against Apple's terms of service, or introduce malicious code to the iPhone.
Excluding I Am Rich would be excluding for taste...because some feel that it costs too much for what it does. (And this isn't the only example. There have been many cries of too many poor quality (but otherwise functional) apps in the store and that Apple should address the problem.) App Store shoppers should get to make the choice of whether or not to buy an iPhone app, not Apple, particularly since the App Store is the only way to legitimately purchase consumer iPhone apps. Imagine if Apple chose which music they stocked in the iTunes store based on the company's taste. No Kanye because Jay-Z is better. No Dylan because it's too whiney. Of course they don't do that; they stock a crapload of different music and let the buyer decide. We should deride Apple for that type of behavior, not cheering them on.
