Archive: July 5, 2009

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TDF stage 2 / flat: Cavendish! a classic field sprint

Sunday,  07/05/09  11:53 AM

To no one's surprise today's TDF stage 2 from Monaco to Brignoles ended in a bunch sprint, and to no one's surprise it was won by Mark Cavendish.  It was almost too easy, George Hincapie and Mark Renshaw each taking their turn leading Cavendish to the front.  Tyler Farrar gamely hung on to Mark's wheel for second, but had no chance to come around to challenge.  The rest of the stage was pretty boring, if picturesque, with no change in the GC.  If Cavendish makes it to Paris he already seems like a lock to win the green jersey. We're enjoying the HD pictures Versus are providing this year; it sure makes those wide helicopter shots of the French countryside more appealing.  But could I please ask, now that we have so much screen real estate, would it be possible to give us a little more information on-screen?  Seems like an accurate representation of the relative positions of the breakaway and peloton should be possible, right?  Not to mention things like temperature, distance traveled, vertical distance climbed, etc.  The technology in the team cars is way ahead of the technology in the announcer's booths.  Admittedly a quibble as Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin are on their game as usual (and fortunately Craig Hummer is less annoying than usual).  Should be a great tour. [ Tour de France 2009: all posts | index ]

 

Sunday,  07/05/09  11:11 PM

Wow, that just felt like a really long weekend.  I guess that's because I actually took all three days "off".  Actually spent time, you know, not working; played with my boat, hung out with friends, watched the Tour, went sailing, BBQed with my family, and sat by the pool reading.  (Julian Comstock via Kindle, if you must know, so far, so great.)  I pay for it starting tomorrow with a couple of busy weeks sandwiching the Death Ride next Saturday, whew.  But in the meantime... I haven't mentioned for a little while, but I continue to enjoy Winding Road, an online-only car magazine.  In the latest issue they not only review the best Aston ever (a subject near and dear to my heart :), they also test drive the Tesla Roadster and compare it to a Lotus Elite.  (Verdict: Wow.)  A great read, especially considering the price ($0).  According to FuturePundit, the 1999 "peak oil" study has proven quite accurate in the ten years since it was published.  Prices are rising, and production is down.  Hmmm...  Meanwhile Chris Anderson says Tech is too cheap to meter.  Well maybe.  Reading Julian Comstock (which takes place in a future that resembles the 1900s due to the end of abundant oil), the combination of a recession and peak oil is not cause for celebration.  I think Chris might be trying too hard (per the Law of Significance).  So new browsers like Firefox 3.5 support the <video> tag from HTML5, which means in theory they could play video without any support from plug-ins or "local" codecs.  Great, so which codec do they support?  Well...  here we run afoul of the various patents which encumber any usable codec.  And here we have another exhibit in a long list of cases where patents do not spur innovation, and do not help technology move forward.  Remember: copyrights=good, patents=bad.  Got it?  Have you ever known someone who was a lightning rod for anything bad that could happen?  Well my friend Mark is like that, and recently he caught quite a bolt; check out this article in the LATimes about how he was saddled with a $10,000 phony phone bill from Verizon.  It ended well but Whew.  Here's quite a collection of unusual and innovative table designs...  wow, some people stop at the Zs, but not these...  I'm adding this picture to my "summer" collection...  tentatively called Maresia.  I think I can smell the sun tan lotion and salt air from here :)

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