Mars Update - August 29

Your daily picture from Mars, courtesy of the Curiosity rover:

You can find the full size image here, and the frequently updated NASA image gallery here.

Get ready for football with some links

The college football season starts tomorrow, and I am a little bit excited. Here are some of the college football-related websites I regularly visit, and recommend for anyone trying to get into or catch up on the sport:

SB Nation, which among other things hosts a blog for nearly every FBS (Division I) college football team.

EDSBS (Every Day Should Be Saturday), a quirky blog run by SB Nation contributor Spencer Hall.

An in-depth preview and statistical breakdown of every FBS team, courtesy of SB Nation blog
Football Study Hall.

Dr. Saturday, a news and special interest-focused blog on Yahoo! Sports.

Smart Football, which goes deep into football strategy and the origins of famous offensive and defensive schemes. (The proprietor is out of town on his honeymoon and will return in September. In the meantime, check out the archives.)

And of course ESPN.com, which is my preferred source for schedules, box scores, rankings, etc.

If you actually want to watch some football online, you can do so at Watch ESPN, provided you get your Internet from one of the sponsored ISPs.

Football's back! (Technically): Impressions from the Hall of Fame Game

Yes, I did in fact watch the Hall of fame Game (which I teased two weeks ago) on Sunday. The HoF Game is technically the first game of the NFL preseason, and is played at a high school stadium next door to the pro football Hall of Fame in Canton Ohio. Yes, in a stadium 1/3 the size of the smallest NFL stadium, football got off to a glorious, awkward start. Here are my impressions from the game:

- I can't reiterate enough how puny the stadium was, considering it was technically housing an NFL game. They couldn't bus people a hour away to, say, Cleveland Stadium? The Browns are technically an NFL team, right? (Apologies to any actual Browns fans. I've been told you exist.) Maybe this way for the best, as the stadium could at least try to look somewhat full this way.

- The referees were replacements, as the regular crew of NFL refs is on strike. The situation was referred to as a 'Lockout' by the broadcasters, maybe in an attempt to call back to last year's NFL lockout which caused the cancellation of the 2011 HoF game and threatened to compromise the season. Where was I going with this?

- Oh yeah, the refs were terrible. They called the coin toss wrong. They spent several minutes figuring out how to deal with an extra point kick. They were extremely lax in calling penalties, probably out of fear they would get more calls wrong. They were frequently corrected and almost openly mocked by players. Roger Goodell, CEO of the NFL, needs to just pay the refs what they want - these new guys are intolerable.

- I know it's the start of the preseason, and the brief early part of the game in which all the starters are in is not supposed to be representative of these teams' actual capabilities, but I have to say that the Saints looked good and the Cardinals really bad. Starting Cardinals QB Kevin Kolb's first pass attempt was intercepted, his second and third were incomplete, and on his fourth pass (caught for four yards) he went down with a rib injury. The Cardinals then brought in John Skelton, who is supposed to be losing the QB battle to become the starter to Kolb and...well he wasn't good either, but at least not terrible. Basically all the Cardinals have is  WR Larry Fitzgerald, a couple decent other offensive skill players, and not much else. Who else is even noteworthy on the team, besides I guess Patrick Peterson? Time will tell.

- The Saints backups successfully prevented the Cardinals backups from scoring any touchdowns, and the Saints eventually 'won' 17-10, not that the concept really applies during the preseason. More importantly, the Saints also 'won' in the sense that they looked much better overall. Drew Brees is still the class of the NFC South at Quarterback. I don't have much to say to the Cardinals at this point except 'good luck.'

There will be more preseason NFL action on Thursday. Until then, the wait for football is over, and the wait for football with stakes won't be too much longer. See you soon.

(Image taken from ESPN.com.)

More information about Curiosity

Above is another picture taken by the Curiosity rover from the surface of Mars. We should start getting even high-quality, color pictures in the next few days.

If you want to know more about Curiosity, I've linked a few more videos:

A video about the complex landing process Curiosity went through early this morning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV6w_ju9kMo&feature=related

A stop-motion video of the descent, taken from a fisheye lens camera:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcGMDXy-Y1I

Touchdown! NASA lands a car-sized rover on Mars

This is a picture taken by a car-sized robot - the Curiosity Rover - NASA successfully landed this morning. You are looking at the surface of Mars. You want to talk about gymnastics? NASA stuck the landing from 154,000,000 miles away.

Watch a recording of the control room feed here - skip to 7:20 for the touchdown.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=763cuUnlbEI&feature=my_liked_videos&list=LLsPfB7sjkp673OvPTJHZyZw

Follow Curiosity on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/MarsCuriosity

I'll be posting more pictures and information as NASA makes it available.

Recapping the Olympics: Day 4

Highlights and winners from Day 4 (July 31st) of the London 2012 Olympic Games:

- The US women's gymnastic team (pictured above), consisting of Gabrielle Douglas, Jordyn Weiber, Alexandra Raisman, Kyla Ross, and McKayla Maroney, won gold in the women's team all-around event, the first time the US has won that event since 1996 (the year of the 'magnificent seven'). The margin of victory - over 4 points - was also surprising. This victory likely came as a consolation for Weiber, who surprisingly did not qualify for the individual all-around event.

- After picking up a silver medal in men's 200m butterfly, Michael Phelps became the most decorated Olympian of all time by winning gold in the men's 4 x 200m freestyle relay, along with his teammates. The Olympic medal was the 19th of his career. At this point, with Lochte having blown leads in an earlier relay and an individual event, leading to silver in the former and no medal in the latter, and Phelps hitting his historic mark, talk of Lochte supplanting Phelps on the ads and magazine covers had largely died down.

The United States' women's soccer team, already having locked up their group and qualification to the elimination rounds, cruised to a 1-0 win against North Korea in their final group stage game.

- Today was the fourth consecutive day in which the host Great Britain Olympic team won zero gold medals, leading to some consternation among their fans.

Recapping the Olympics: Day 3

Notable events and winners from Day 3 (July 30th) of the London 2012 Olympic Games:

- Kim Un-Guk of North Korea won gold in men's weightlifting, setting a world record when he successfully lifted a total of 327kg (719.4 lb)! At the medal ceremony, he saluted the crowd (see above picture).

- The United States picked up two gold medals in swimming events, with Missy Franklin winning in women's 100m backstroke and Matt Grevers winning that same event in the men's. The US also won two silvers in swimming, and bronze medals in diving and judo.

- This day also marked the first time in my life I watched Olympic handball or dressage, and...all I can say is it might be the last. Those events hold no particular interest to me.

Recapping the Olympics: Day 2

Notable events and winners from Day 2 (July 29th) of the London 2012 Olympic Games:

- Kim Rhode of the US, pictured above, won a gold medal in skeet shooting, scoring a 99/100 in the final round. I have to wonder if she was disappointed with that score being not-quite-perfect.

- Dana Vollmer won the United States' first gold medal of the 2012 Olympic Games in swimming, setting a world record in the women's 100m butterfly final. The US also picked up two additional silver medals in other swimming events.

- Kelci Bryant and Abigail Johnston of the US won a silver medal in women's synchronized diving, the first medal for the US in that event since the 2000 games. The gold was won by He Zi and Wu Minxia of China. China won 7 of 8 gold medals in diving events in the Beijing games and successfully began their quest to win 8 of 8 in London.

(Image taken from the Los Angeles Times website.)

Recapping the Olympics: Day 1

Beginning a series of articles in which I recap the highlights of each day of the Olympics so far, and each remaining day as it comes, here's my recap of London 2012 day 1, plus the opening ceremony and the events which technically preceded the opening ceremony.

Caveat: I probably will not be able to keep these recaps from being United States-centric, as that's the foremost perspective I have when watching the games. I'll try my best to consider champions from other countries who stood out in my mind.

- On July 25th, fully 2 days before the opening ceremonies, the first Olympic event kicked off - soccer. As the US Men's soccer team shamefully did not qualify for the Olympic tournament, the US Women's soccer team has the duty of representing US soccer at the Games. After sweeping through the qualifying tournament with an amazing record of 38 goals scored and none allowed, the US team was likely taken aback when they found themselves down 2-0 fifteen minutes into their opening match against France. However, a 19-th minute goal by Abby Wambach of the US stemmed the tide, and the US team eventually stormed back to win their opening group stage game, 4-2. This put the US team atop their group, tied with the North Korean team who surprisingly won their opening match against Columbia. (This marked the first victory by North Korean over anyone in any televised event I can remember.)

- On the night of the 27th came the opening ceremony, which wisely did not attempt to outdo the Beijing 2008 opening ceremony in scale and simply told its own stories, the best of which was helmed by a winning combination of Rowan Atkinson (pictured above) and classically self-deprecating British wit. Overall I liked the opening ceremony, with the exception of the 'modern love story' skit which was confusing and underwhelming.

- The actual first day of the Olympics saw US swimmer Ryan Lochte start off his quest to replace Michael Phelps as the premiere male US swimmer on a high note, winning gold in the Men's 400m individual medley while Phelps finished fourth. The US also picked up two bronzes and a silver in assorted other swimming events.

- In archery, the US men's team upset favorites South Korea in the semifinals before losing to Italy on the last shot of the final round, 219-218.

- In soccer, the US women's team had an easy victory, 3-0 over Columbia, in the second group stage game, taking sole possession of first place in their group.

If you want to see a somewhat live set of information about how the US is doing in the Olympics, consult this Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_at_the_2012_Summer_Olympics

(Image taken from telegraph.co.uk.)