Posted by Adrienne on February 27, 2007 under Books, Random Thought | 
I own a book called The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson. It’s an interesting book – the premise is really fascinating – but it has just about the worst ending ever: a total cop-out ending. So I always like to warn people about that before I suggest they read it. Anyway, the idea of the book is that in The Future, technology has gotten smaller and smaller until everything is made up of tiny little nanites. And these nanites can build stuff and communicate and do all kinds of things. At one point, one of the characters (a real tough guy who dies in the very next chapter) gets tiny webbing installed on his ear drums so that he can listen to music whenever he wants. The webbing is controlled with his mind through an implant. He’s got a gun in his forehead, too, but I’m beginning to digress. Read more…
Posted by Adrienne on February 26, 2007 under TV & Movies |
Me! That’s right, me. I completely forgot that the Academy Awards ceremony was Sunday, and I wouldn’t have realized except that someone at church made a comment about it. I don’t really care too much about the Oscars, but I was surprised at how out-of-touch I was. Here’s more proof: I haven’t seen any of the films nominated for Best Picture. And the last Oscars I watched seriously? 2003, when Return of the King won Best Picture (Whoo!) But I felt like I should put it on the big TV in the library when I went in to work (with no sound, of course, it is a library after all). I mean, I showed the Super Bowl on that TV. And Monday Night Football with the Seahawks, so I should probably be fair and show things that aren’t sports. You know, for all those folks who don’t follow them.
And it was fine having the Oscars on. I didn’t watch any, because I was too busy, but I happened to walk by when both Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio were on the screen together. Yikes! I’ll be having nightmares about that for awhile. Good thing there wasn’t any sound!
Of course, I still couldn’t tell you who won Best Picture. I want to keep the Award for Being Oblivious.
Posted by Adrienne on under Arsenal, Soccer |
This week in soccer was a bad week for quite a few people. First off, Arsenal lost both of their matches. On Tuesday, the Gunners lost 1-0 to PSV Eindhoven, a Dutch side, in their first Champions League match. It was even worse because I had specifically made time to go to the pub and watch. If Jens Lehmann (who made some great saves otherwise and is a pretty good keeper) had just played a bit more to the right, he could’ve blocked that ball, but it got by him for the goal. And that was pretty much the most exciting bit, although Arsenal challenged several times, they could never pull it off. Read more…
Posted by Josh on February 21, 2007 under Gaming |
I’ve been on a bit of a Civ IV kick lately. One of the best sites (if not the best site) about Civilization is CivFanatics. It’s a great resource for mods, strategy, and anything else you ever would conceivabley want to know about Civilization. My favorite mod is CIV Gold, which is now in its third version and adds ~50 more civilizations and leaders to pick from. It can make for more interesting games when you’re not always dealing with Montezuma, Isabella and Saladin (my personal least favorites).
Today, the website also featured an article in The Weekly Standard about the Civilization franchise and Sid Meier. Once you wade through the introduction, it gets progressively more interesting.
Ultimately, Meier hopes people will want to read more about the subjects treated in his games. “I think people like to learn.” And he might be on to something–at least when it comes to Laszlo Korossy. The 21-year-old junior at Catholic University has been playing Civilization in one form or another since the age of five, at a time when he spoke mostly Hungarian and knew only a handful of English words. At first, he says, “it was all just a game. I would then run into certain historical concepts, and as I started learning about history in school, I would see these concepts reappear. I already knew the word ‘feudalism’ in the first grade. I had no idea these concepts from the game were based on reality. But the game provided me with this framework through the years, a sense of familiarity.”
I was particularly fascinated by some of the biographical/anecdotal information about Sid himself, including that he’s Lutheran!
Posted by Josh on February 19, 2007 under Basketball |
It’s official! The Wisconsin Badgers are ranked number one in the country. [Rankings] Sure, the USA Today/ESPN poll has them ranked #2 behind Ohio State, but I think the AP Poll is better. Not only that, but I think ESPN is wrong and so they don’t count (how’s that for an unbiased perspective?).
Well, biases aside… this is why Wisconsin deserves to be number one:
1) They’re 26-2. The only other team in the country with only 2 losses is Nevada, and they’re not in one of the power conferences and, as such, tend to have an easier schedule. They haven’t played a single ranked opponent, and the best teams they’ve played are Gonzaga (who is on a down year), Santa Clara (yeah, who?), and UNLV (who they lost to).
2) Wisconsin has not necessarily had the hardest schedule around (they’ve had the 57th toughest schedule as of this posting), but they’ve had their fair share of tough victories with wins over #16 Marquette (#20 at the time), #10 Pittsburgh (#2 at the time), and #2 Ohio State (#5 at the time).
3) They beat Ohio State and are #1 in the Big Ten.
Okay, so there aren’t quite as many reasons as I would like. In fact, as far as margin of victory goes (how many points the team wins by on average), #3 Florida, #4 UCLA, and #5 UNC all have Wisconsin beat in that category BUT they all have 3 losses. So there!
And an argument could be made for Ohio State because their only losses have come on the road against Wisconsin, Florida, and UNC. On the other hand, the best team they’ve beat is Tennessee (who was #20 at the time but is currently unranked and 5th out of 6 in the SEC East conference). So the lesson here is: even if the only teams you’ve lost to are among the best in the country, it doesn’t mean you’re any good, but you can still be ranked number one anyway.
Regardless, I can all but guarantee you that the winner of next Sunday’s game with Wisconsin at Ohio State will be the unanimous pick for #1 in the country.
On Wisconsin!
