Scientists at Qatar University claim to have developed artificial clouds to provide shade for stadia and training grounds at the 2022 World Cup.
The fierce summer heat in the Gulf has led to concerns about conditions for players and fans at the tournament. Temperatures in June and July can reach up to 50 C.
Qatar were announced as hosts in December, and Fifa president Sepp Blatter initially said he expected the 2022 competition to be moved to winter.
But Blatter has since stated that he feels the tournament will go ahead as planned in the summer months. Qatar plan to air condition their World Cup stadia via solar power, and now scientists have designed the ‘clouds’, which can be produced at a cost of $500,000 (about £310,000) each.
Everything you need to know about the future of the NFL could be seen in the gloriously decadent stadium that hosted this Super Bowl. As NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell pointed out, “Quite frankly, that’s our stage.” It was the cleanest, safest, nicest stadium anyone has ever visited. It was also the most extravagant and economically stratified. It cost double what Jerry Jones said it would, and taxpayers financed about a quarter of it, yet its innermost marble interiors are totally inaccessible to the average fan.
A tipping point was reached with this Super Bowl, for me. It was the screwed-over anger of those 1,250 people without seats that did it. Those travel-weary, cash-whipped fans paid small fortunes to go to the game, only to discover their stubs were no good, because fire marshals declared some sections unsafe.
From last week’s Real Time With Bill Maher, also on the Huffington Post:
New Rule: With the Super Bowl only a week away, Americans must realize what makes NFL football so great: socialism. That’s right, for all the F-15 flyovers and flag waving, football is our most successful sport because the NFL takes money from the rich teams and gives it to the poor teams … just like President Obama wants to do with his secret army of ACORN volunteers. Green Bay, Wisconsin has a population of 100,000. Yet this sleepy little town on the banks of the Fuck-if-I-know River has just as much of a chance of making it to the Super Bowl as the New York Jets — who next year need to just shut the hell up and play.
Now, me personally, I haven’t watched a Super Bowl since 2004, when Janet Jackson’s nipple popped out during half time, and that split-second glimpse of an unrestrained black titty burned my eyes and offended me as a Christian. But I get it – who doesn’t love the spectacle of juiced-up millionaires giving each other brain damage on a giant flat-screen TV with a picture so realistic it feels like Ben Roethlisberger is in your living room, grabbing your sister?
It’s no surprise that some 100 million Americans will watch the Super Bowl next week — that’s 40 million more than go to church on Christmas — suck on that, Jesus! It’s also 85 million more than watched the last game of the World Series, and in that is an economic lesson for America. Because football is built on an economic model of fairness and opportunity…
It was the Metrodome in Minneapolis, Minnesota where the Vikings were due to play this week. I guess even Mother Nature really wants Vikings quarterback Brett Favre (who’s been in the news for non-football reasons) to retire:
Contestants and their fans will converge in Montreal on October 27, 2010 for the first ever laughter competition — Le Grand Championnat de Rire de Montreal. Comedy contests are common, however this will be the world’s first televised laughing contest. The contest was inspired by my documentary Laughology, currently distributed by The Disinformation Company, in which I demonstrate that people can laugh spontaneously by using various “active laughter” techniques.
Contestants across Quebec will compete in diabolical laughter competitions, contagious laughter face-offs, and competitive laughter duels to see who will be crowned the “Best Laugher in Quebec.” The show is a pilot for an eventual international laughter competition to demonstrate that laughter could itself be a competitive sport.
The Championnat is a based on the revolutionary concept that because laughter is contagious: laughing makes people laugh. It involves games designed to produce natural contagious laughter. The whole event is also being filmed for Rire Extreme, a documentary for CANAL D. I got the idea for my documentary Laughology after meeting Doug Collins, an American who is said to have the most contagious laugh in the world:
I believe that because of Quebec’s tradition of Joie de Vivre and Quebec may have laughers who are as good or better than Collins. This summer Laughter contests where held at major Quebec festivals, including le Festival du Grand Rire in Quebec, The Western Festival of St. Tite and le Festival de Poutine du Drummonville. The winners of those contests have been invited to the Championnat which takes place at in Montreal in a special ring.
We really found some extraordinary laughers. I’m afraid to imagine what happens when we get them all in the same room. I hope that the idea of a laughter competition is to spread the positive, healthy emotions of laughter. And I’m trying to prove that laughter could be a competitive sport.
Contestants are coming from around Quebec however, we have left one spot open for one last great laugher. Auditions will be held on Oct 27th at Salla Rossa at 5 p.m. Please email hey@laughology.info. to be put on the list.
If the U.S. earning a draw with England wasn’t bad enough for the Brits, here comes another blow. Another Yankee is trying to purchase one of their beloved football teams Liverpool. Alex Massie writes in the Daily Beast:
If Red Sox owner John Henry’s purchase of Liverpool soccer club goes through, he’ll have to clean up the mess left by its current owner, former Texas Rangers chief Tom Hicks.
This week, John Henry and the New England Sports Ventures consortium made great strides in their attempts to purchase Liverpool football club. For once, an American takeover of a great English institution is being welcomed — but only because it means running the previous American owners out of town. Better the wealthy Americans you don’t know than the ones you do.
That’s because owners of American sports teams have a history of running English football clubs into the ground. Liverpool, the most successful football team in English history, has $450 million in debt due on Friday and this season is off to its worst start in 57 years — thanks, in large part, to its current American owners, former Texas Rangers chief Tom Hicks and George Gillett.
Everyone knows I’m not exactly keen on manners. But in some ways I am downright old fashioned. For instance, if a man I was vaguely acquainted with took a liking to me and decided the best way to win my favor would be to forward a hastily snapped pic of his, oh, how should I put this, his wang; well let’s just say there is a very short list of people who could get away with such a thing without my taking out a restraining order.
You know where I’m going with this. Proving once and for all that he is a congenital retard, Brett Favre did the above to a comely female member of the sporting press, thusly taking a bad idea and making it monumentally worse. I know, I know, allegedly. Brett Favre allegedly stuck his cell phone down his shorts and allegedly snapped the most unspectacular and tepid alleged dong pictures I have ever had the displeasure of seeing.… Read the rest
New Delhi, India — Chotu is not happy to see visitors. He is busy scratching himself and intensely surveying his surroundings when he’s approached.
He and his buddies Pinki and Mangu are in the middle of their eight-hour shifts. They have important jobs to do. They are some of more than 100,000 security forces protecting people during the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.
But Chotu and his gang are a special force trained to put a stop to any monkeying around near the stadiums. Chotu, Pinki and Mangu are langur monkeys.
Their trainers said each one has the ability to scare off 50 potential attackers — namely the wild smaller macaque monkeys that roam the streets and buildings of Delhi.
The wild monkeys are known for some naughty habits. You can’t blame the macaques; they’re just being themselves. The wild monkeys are in a densely populated city where they occasionally have run-ins with humans — especially if there is a chance to snatch some food.
From Kotaku comes an interesting piece on President Obama appearing in video games. Owen Good writes:
In two weeks, President Obama will appear in a video game for the second time in two months. Is he being paid for that? Is the White House cutting deals with sports game makers? Not likely.
Obama appears in a special cinematic added this year to Madden NFL 11‘s Super Bowl presentation mode. Win it all, and your team gets a White House visit with the POTUS, just like in real life. NBA 2K11 this week revealed it will have the same type of ceremony when your franchise takes home the title in its Association mode.
American society enjoys the most robust entertainment culture — and, it seems, civil litigation market – in the world, so most folks are aware that when someone shows up in a commercial work, he has to give his permission, and often is compensated.
In addition to the World Cup, this summer featured RoboCup — an international tournament in which teams of soccer-playing robots square off. The level of play is low, and the game is often unsettling to watch, as when a fallen robot player struggles fruitlessly to right itself, limbs flailing. The hope, however, is that by 2050, a robot team skilled enough to compete against humans will be developed.
BBC Sport reports:
