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Who's Excited for the Olympics?!


Ayumi_Chan

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You two, let's try and keep this conversation about the Olympic Games and not whether a democracy or a monarchy is the best form of government.

Sure. Because both forms are fucking shit anyway.

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Guest Smithsonius

About 90% of that G4S article is a pile of shite, trust me. For starters it's a requirement to read and write English to be able to complete the SIA. Disastrous admin though.

People like that investigative journalist really tick me off.

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Guest flamins

Yeah, it's the Daily Mail, so I didn't expect it to be that accurate.

The Daily Heil hates the Olympics on account of all the foreigners it brings into the country.

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Fuck Monarchy.

Fuck democracy. 'The people' are too stupid to be allowed to drive.

In practice a British Monarch exerts less legislative and even executive power than an American President.

Also, I find the Olympics to be literally the least interesting or exciting event in history relative to the hype it receives. Everyone watches the five hour flag-carrying/opening/closing ceremonies as if it's their supreme social obligation, and yet no one on Earth has ever actually enjoyed a single minute of it. And then to the actual games... aren't we all jaded and worldly enough to realize that a sense of chest-thumping nationalist pride over some guy winning a fucking medal is just a tiny bit pathetic?

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Guest Smithsonius

I don't really watch it for the nationalist aspect, I watch it for the sport and to a certain extent the atmosphere if you're at the actual venue. I was at the Millennium Stadium to watch Wales vs Ireland earlier this year and that was fantastic. It's the fact you're in a stadium with tens of thousands of people with all that sound and energy etc. It's not really something you can get anywhere else or easily convey.

As for the ceremonies, I quite enjoy them, China's was pretty awesome and I absolutely loved the Vancouver Winter Olympics opening ceremony, that was really cool and I have a feeling that London 2012 might have used that as a template for how the Olympics opener will go.

As I said before, for me it's not about the nationalist pride, for me it's about seeing some of the best athletes from across the world compete against each other on a massive scale. Obviously I want to see some events more than others and I like seeing some athletes win over others but that's all part of the fun. For all the attempts of the press to encourage a state of depression over the Olympics if you go down to the site, particularly over the next month or so, you'll get to see a great atmosphere they've got going on down there. It's absolutely bustling at the moment!

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Guest Atlya

aren't we all jaded and worldly enough to realize that a sense of chest-thumping nationalist pride over some guy winning a fucking medal is just a tiny bit pathetic?

This...
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Guest flamins

.. aren't we all jaded and worldly enough to realize that a sense of chest-thumping nationalist pride over some guy winning a fucking medal is just a tiny bit pathetic?

Sure, if the person winning is from another country.  BUt it they're bagging medals in the name of UK, then chest-thumping national pride sounds pretty awesome to me.

Remember China?  When we were all like "oh, human rights...how terrible."  Then we started winning shitloads of medals, and we were all "WOAH THIS IS THE BEST FUCKING OLYMPICS EVER, GO CHINA, GO!"

I'll be all over this Olympics if we win more medals than our arch-enemies in Europe. 

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Guest Smithsonius

And knowing curvage's past content I have no doubt in my mind that there are those here planning on watching the women's volleyball etc.

We've had all manner of in and out of shape athletes on here and the olympics will be a veritable goldmine, seeing as 4 years ago brought up the likes of Shawn Johnson, I'm guessing there'll be more than a couple of people with an eye out for new potential...

See why be so pessimistic?

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Sure, if the person winning is from another country.  BUt it they're bagging medals in the name of UK, then chest-thumping national pride sounds pretty awesome to me.

Remember China?  When we were all like "oh, human rights...how terrible."  Then we started winning shitloads of medals, and we were all "WOAH THIS IS THE BEST FUCKING OLYMPICS EVER, GO CHINA, GO!"

I'll be all over this Olympics if we win more medals than our arch-enemies in Europe.

Haha, sure.  ;D As if you guys can win anything big. You can't even manage the security. My god, your fat bold soldiers have to come from Afghanistan and save you from evil arabians installing a bomb on the Tower Bridge. Gim'me a break.

Now, let's face it: Great Britain's, specifically England's sport is based on colonies. 60% of your guys winning medals are originally born and raised in Africa. 30% are born and raised in Britain having a family in Africa. 10% are Brits. And don't you come around with Bradley Wiggins now, the dude who won the Tour de France. Everyone knows that this sport is fucked up 'till no end. He was probably full of doping while driving around the Arc de Triomphe yesterday, singing songs of Paul McCartney.

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Guest flamins

Haha, sure.  ;D As if you guys can win anything big. You can't even manage the security. My god, your fat bold soldiers have to come from Afghanistan and save you from evil arabians installing a bomb on the Tower Bridge. Gim'me a break.

Now, let's face it: Great Britain's, specifically England's sport is based on colonies. 60% of your guys winning medals are originally born and raised in Africa. 30% are born and raised in Britain having a family in Africa. 10% are Brits. And don't you come around with Bradley Wiggins now, the dude who won the Tour de France. Everyone knows that this sport is fucked up 'till no end. He was probably full of doping while driving around the Arc de Triomphe yesterday, singing songs of Paul McCartney.

WELLWELLWELL-Someone-has-sand-in-their-vagina.jpg

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And then to the actual games... aren't we all jaded and worldly enough to realize that a sense of chest-thumping nationalist pride over some guy winning a fucking medal is just a tiny bit pathetic?

It's the best.  Of the best.  Of the best.  Competing against the best, and giving their best.  What the fuck else are you going to cheer and thump your chest about?  Even the badminton games get pretty fucking intense. 

I mean honestly, are you feeling ok?  Because it sounds to me that you might have a case of pussyitis. 

Allow me quote the great Racer X as he gives advice to his confused younger sibling:

"It doesn't matter if racing never changes. What matters is if we let racing change us. Every one of us has to find a reason to do this. You don't climb into a T-180 to be a driver. You do it because you're driven."

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I dunno, maybe identifying with near certainty the Higgs Boson.

Because having the best of the best in a field that actually matters coming together is far more exciting.

Any endeavor which brings out the best in man has intrinsic value, but extrinsically I can't think of anything that actually matters.  To each their own... I find one to be more interesting and the other to be much more exciting. 

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Guest Smithsonius

I dunno, maybe identifying with near certainty the Higgs Boson.

Because having the best of the best in a field that actually matters coming together is far more exciting.

I've obviously seen all the coverage and hype over searching and, what appears to be, finding the Higgs Boson, but what exactly will be the impact for the future of physics and technology from this identification? What kind of advancement to mankind is this expected or hoped to bring.

I ask because after all the fanfare about CERN et al. I don't think I've ever actually seen or read an article which explains the point outside of it maybe helping to explain a tiny bit of the post bang environment.

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I've obviously seen all the coverage and hype over searching and, what appears to be, finding the Higgs Boson, but what exactly will be the impact for the future of physics and technology from this identification? What kind of advancement to mankind is this expected or hoped to bring.

I ask because after all the fanfare about CERN et al. I don't think I've ever actually seen or read an article which explains the point outside of it maybe helping to explain a tiny bit of the post bang environment.

I was tempted to just ask what lasting effect the London Olympics will have, but there is a genuine answer to your question. Basically, it allows the theory of super-symmetry to fit beside/within the current Standard Model. That is with the alteration that there's another boson, but it doesn't fundamentally change the existing particles in the SM, so much as confirms the existence of a whole bizzaro world of other particles as well.

If you want an analogy, well...what immediate difference did/does the theory of relativity make for anyone? Why do you need to care about light moving relative the objects bouncing/emitting the photons, or red shift, or how nothing can travel faster than light? Well, directly you may not, but from society's perspective it does fundamentally change some pretty big shit, like space travel (I'm talking even small-scale travel) and fusion reactors - our best shot at longer-term clean energy. Same with quantum mechanics: do you care if light is a particle or a wave? Probably not, but this shit may even effect your computers in fifty years' time (or way less), so don't write it off as a complete abstraction.

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Same with quantum mechanics: do you care if light is a particle or a wave? Probably not, but this shit may even effect your computers in fifty years' time (or way less), so don't write it off as a complete abstraction.

And what effect will a faster computer have?  My cell phone is more powerful than the computers that sent a man to the moon, and would absolutely blow the minds of people from 50 years ago.  We live in the future of the past, just as the future of now will be the unremarkable present.

The best we can hope for technology is that it will let us approach some sort of utopian society, a society in which people are free to do things like climb mountains, write music, play sports, and continue to search the heavens for meaning in a universe that offers none. 

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To avoid getting abyssed, I want to bring it back in perspective with the Olympics. How is a faster computer not more beneficial to society than a faster Kenyan?

The best we can hope for technology is that it will let us approach some sort of utopian society, a society in which people are free to do things like climb mountains, write music, play sports, and continue to search the heavens for meaning in a universe that offers none.

Even within the confines of realistic expectations, quantum computing can mean better mapping of genomes and a more accurate understanding of our cell structure, which - as a potential result, in conjunction with stem cell research - could lead to effective treatment and cures for chronic diseases, among other things. Is climbing a mountain and writing music going to give that gift to future generations? I think not. And did Feynman know more about the fundamentals of the universe than Newton purely because he could stand on the shoulders of more giants? No, the technology was as much a contributing factor as the accumulation of raw empirical data from generations past.

The problem is that you glorify time-honored pursuits (music, philosophy, sport) by attributing some abstract sense of 'virtue' to it, while viewing something like superior computing as a purely selfish end, as if uploading higher resolution pictures to your Facebook gallery is the ultimate goal of integrated quantum mechanics.

It's like a kid holding a coin up to the sun and saying the coin's bigger.

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To avoid getting abyssed, I want to bring it back in perspective with the Olympics. How is a faster computer not more beneficial to society than a faster Kenyan?

Even within the confines of realistic expectations, quantum computing can mean better mapping of genomes and a more accurate understanding of our cell structure, which - as a potential result, in conjunction with stem cell research - could lead to effective treatment and cures for chronic diseases, among other things. Is climbing a mountain and writing music going to give that gift to future generations? I think not. And did Feynman know more about the fundamentals of the universe than Newton purely because he could stand on the shoulders of more giants? No, the technology was as much a contributing factor as the accumulation of raw empirical data from generations past.

The problem is that you glorify time-honored pursuits (music, philosophy, sport) by attributing some abstract sense of 'virtue' to it, while viewing something like superior computing as a purely selfish end, as if uploading higher resolution pictures to your Facebook gallery is the ultimate goal of integrated quantum mechanics.

It's like a kid holding a coin up to the sun and saying the coin's bigger.

Maybe so, but when it comes to big sporting events I'm with "flamins", with the chest thumping and flag waving. The reason is simple, nothing builds up drama better than sport, because it is so unpredictable. Who would have thought Ernie Els could win the Open, 4 behind with only 4 holes to play and Andrew Scott totally in control of his game. Who really thought Chelsea would win the Champions League, with the draw they had and being 3-1 down to Napoli in the first leg of the last 16. It also brings out a strength of character in a person/team to overcome such adversity to win, it's what champions are made of.

Oh and to Morpheus, have you thought that because the Tour De France is now cleaner than ever, that would also explain why the "clean" Bradley Wiggins did win. Are we Brits going to win more gold than at Beijing? I think we will and will be watching as many events live on TV, at the time we have the chance to win gold.

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Opening ceremony looked good to me. I really really really liked the depiction of the industrial revolution, there was so much going on at the same time, it was madness! All those actors and steel and chimneys looked awesome and really gave a feeling of energy.

The NHS and the average houshold were shit though, and they really were a low point to the opening. It looked like they'd run out of ideas all of the sudden and was quite painfull to see.

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Opening ceremony looked good to me. I really really really liked the depiction of the industrial revolution, there was so much going on at the same time, it was madness! All those actors and steel and chimneys looked awesome and really gave a feeling of energy.

The NHS and the average houshold were shit though, and they really were a low point to the opening. It looked like they'd run out of ideas all of the sudden and was quite painfull to see.

And then, Rowan Atkinson.

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Opening Ceremony was an overacted, discusting capitalistic manifest. Not more, not less.

As long as people die everyday because of poignant hunger and poor hygiene while some fat bastards make an opening ceremony which costs 81 fucking millions, that is all I can say.

All those actors and steel and chimneys looked awesome and really gave a feeling of energy.

Feeling of energy? Really? If I need such a feeling, I go to the Gym.

But if at least 10 million people felt that too, the 80 millions were invested really really really well.

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