Nicky Wins!!!

Go USA! If any of you follow motorcycle racing (which most of you probably don't) you are sure to know that Nicky beat Rossi this weekend in the final race in Valencia. It has been an exciting season! It came down to Nicky Hayden and the best motorcycle racer in the world, Valentino Rossi, from Italy, who has won every year since 2001. Nicky had the points lead coming out of the U.S. Grand Prix, but it seemed week after week his lead slipped as Valentino Rossi gradually moved up the points pole, and week after week, Nicky kept making mistakes. It was close last week in Portugal when it all went wrong! Nicky had been doing great all weekend during practice and qualifying and felt strong and ready for the race. He was sure he could get some points back so he would be more ready for the final race in Valencia, when it went all bad. His teammate Danny Pedrosa crashed and took Nicky out with him! Check out this footage. You can see the crash and how upset Nicky gets, who by the way is usually very mild tempered. The infuriating thing is instead of running over to help Nicky pick up his bike, Danny just throws his arms in the air and walks away, which leaves Nicky no chance to get back in the race. A DNF (did not finish) costs a lot points, especially when Nicky had so few to spare.

Then came the final race of the season, Valencia. Nicky was starting in the second row ..not good for our American, especially with Rossi in the first line. The start was quick and Nicky was fast, he quickly got into second while Rossi got stuck in seventh. It was so exciting, it looked like Nicky had a chance after all, but Rossi is an amazing rider, and had the whole race to catch up. Then in his attempt to get closer to Nicky, Rossi fell!!! No one could believe it! ROSSI FELL!! He quickly got up but couldn't make it past 13th place. All Nicky had to do was ride a safe but steady pace and the championship was his. And that is precisely what he did. He dropped down to third but maintained a steady speed and ended up winning the Championship 5 points ahead of Rossi. Check out the video below in the post titled Valencia Race! It is great, you get to see cut throat racing, Rossi falling, and the end is the best!! Nicky is so overwhelmed with emotion he can barely ride his motorcycle. Then to show what a classy guy Rossi is, he comes up to Nicky, pats him on the back and shakes his hand. To give you some reference while watching the video Nicky is number 69 on the Repsol Honda and Rossi "The Doctor" is number 46 on the Camel Yamaha.

Valencia Race

Here is the video of the Valencia Race Nicky - number 69 on the Repsol Honda vs. The Doctor (Valentino Rossi) - number 46 on the Camel Yamaha.

Congrats SJSU!!

Wow! San Jose State came in top five out of 820 different student entries from 230 schools. Check out the news story here. (This was filmed during a press conference in our class when the announcement was made. It was an interesting and exciting experience, and a great way to see first hand what it is all about.) The top five student entires came from University of Wisconsin, Elon University in North Carolina, Washington University in St. Louis, and Savannah College of Art and Design...which I am also a former student of. Yay SCAD! But of course, not as much as Yay SJSU!!! What an accomplishment for our three students, not too shabby for a resume either. To get an ad aired during the superbowl costs about $2.6 million for 30 seconds. This is Huge for a college student! They have an incredibly hectic schedule to follow, but I am sure they are having fun while doing it. We don't know what the storyboards or the ideas are yet, very hush hush, but it will be great when we can finally hear the concepts and even more exciting to know that we won...notice I didn't say if. We have the best students, faculty and ideas in the country!! Duh! GO SJSU!! If you want to follow the story more closely you can check out the Chevy Ad Challenge blog, or the faculty advisor's blog.

Deja Vu?

On October 18th an 81-year-old Florida man made national news when he was stung in the heart by a spotted eagle stingray. James Bertakis was fishing with his grandchildren on an Intercoastal Waterway when the stingray flopped into the boat. Bertakis was apparently trying to get the stingray out of the boat when it stung him. It is an odd coincidence so shortly after Steve Irwin's untimely run in with a stingray. The Crocodile Hunter died at 44 early last month while filming an underwater documentary in the Great Barrier Reef when he was stung in the heart by a stingray. Fortunately, James did not pull out the foot-long stinger, as did Irwin (or maybe even because of the knowledge from his death) and was rushed to the hospital. He had a collapsed lung and pierced left ventricle; doctors were able to remove the barb and close up the wound in his heart during surgery on Wednesday and Thursday. He is expected to make a full recovery, but due to his age, the healing process will be slow and monitored closely. Most reports are calling this an attack, but it is pretty hard to envision a fish out of water thrashing about an attack. I would be more comfortable calling it a crazy coincidence/freak accident. At most the stingray felt threatened and acted in defense. Either way, it is an interesting twist of fate so soon after the world mourned Steve Irwin in such a similar accident.

Bill Gates House

It's funny how things seem to come full circle. Just to give you a little background info, I am an administrative assistant at a very exclusive country club in Menlo Park (top 100 in the nation); and our chef is one of the top chef's in the world. Anyway, we took our boss out to lunch today to celebrate Boss' Day, and we got on the conversation of Bill Gates. So I mentioned what we discussed in class yesterday about the technology in Bill Gates' house.


Then Chef begins talking about the locator that you have to wear, the art on the walls and temperature preferences. It turns out he was with the Gates' for a week interviewing to be their personal chef. See full circle. He was explaining about the technology in his house, and the ridiculous size of the house. He explained that the locator was mainly for security, and that you had to have high status with Bill to have anything change in the house. Not to mention Bill always gets priority. So if you're strolling through one of his over sized rooms with him, don't expect to see your favorite artist on the wall. So how does the story end? Well they really liked Chef, but they wanted another chef to go up against him for a comparison. They looked for three months for someone that could compare to chef. Then it turns out a friend of Bill's old chef was looking for a job, so they hired him because it was a friend of a friend sort of thing. So what does Chef do? Becomes the personal chef of Steve Jobs of course...go figure!

Green Machine

The green machine, developed by Nicholas Negroponte, is an upcoming laptop for under $100 made for poor countries. One Laptop per Child, OLPC, is sponsoring Nicholas in his endeavor. The computer needs to be a durable, so it will be wrapped in a rubber skin. The battery will be charged by the wind up crank; one minute of turning the crank should provide 40 minutes of energy for the computer. The screen will have an LED display which uses 1/10 the power of the average computer screen today. It will run on a free software such as Linux and have a 500 megahertz processor. It will be able to do much of what a regular computer can do except store large amounts of data. There will just be one gigabyte of memory but will have four different USB ports to allow for external devices. They have also removed any extras within the computer. They claim that in the average computer, 2/3 of the software is used to manage the other third. They are just going to put in what the computer needs to run. They do plan to have access to the Internet through a mesh network, P2P, developed by MIT. The computers will be distributed directly to ministries of education by the millions to keep down costs. The ministries can then distribute the computers to schools and the children. They want the kids to be able to work with the computers in the classroom as well as at home. Computers are a way to access information around the world as well as a tool to help them learn. Both of these can be crucial for the development of these countries; their youth can become more educated and more aware of the world around them. Brazil, Thailand, Nigeria and Libya are planning to pilot the product. It will then be passed through Central America and parts of Africa. Many other countries in Asia and Africa have expressed interest but are still not on board yet. They are still looking at different designs for the product.
The product is still in the development stage. Just recently the test boards became available for the computer. They hope to have the product out by the end of this year or the beginning of 2007. Once 5-10 million have been ordered and paid for manufacturing will begin.

Must See TV Top Three

With as many stations as there are on television, you would think there is bound to be something good to watch. And yet, despite infinite channel surfing, you can rarely find something of interest. This makes it even more difficult to say which three TV shows were the most influential or important. I would have to say that The Simpsons, the original Star Trek, and Survivor are three shows that have had a definite impact on culture or evolution of television programming.

Survivor pretty much kicked off the reality show phenomenon as we know it. It began as a major hit television show in Sweden called Expedition Robinson in 1997. In 2000 it made its way to the U.S. and was a huge success. The Situation Comedy was soon replaced by the Reality Show. Soon to follow was The Bachelor, Joe Millionaire, America's Next Top Model, The Biggest Loser, The Apprentice and Big Brother. You name it, there is a show about it! It could be argued that MTV's Real World was the origin of Reality TV, but it was really survivor that changed the format and began the craze that we have today. The Real World was the first to throw strangers together and give them a confessional, but Survivor made it a competition. Reality TV today is almost always based around that competition - voting someone off, and awarding a prize to the last person standing. This is a very different concept from the original Real World which is why after vacillating over which program was more influential on Reality Television I opted for Survivor.

The Simpsons is the longest running American sitcom and animated series. It is also the the first animated series to be aired in prime time other than the Flintstones. The show deals with political, religious, and other controversial issues through humor. The Simpsons have permeated pop culture and are part of people's general knowledge. Who hasn't said "D'oh" on one occasion or another (which by the way is an actual word in the Oxford English Dictionary) or told someone to eat your shorts! People love The Simpsons; there is merchandise to collect, fan clubs to join, and don't forget to try to solve the mystery of their true location.
Here is an ad that uses Marge Simpson to demonstrate how well the product works, but also demonstrates how identifiable the Simpsons have become. The consumer can immediately interpret this ad because Marge has become part of people's basic understanding. The success of The Simpsons also led to the creation of other animated series such as Family Guy and South Park.

The original Star Trek aired in 1966. This television show generated five related series, ten movies, as well as a legion of fans affectionately known as Trekkies. Gene Roddenberry wanted to address existing challenges on Earth, but its setting in space provided a non-confrontational situation for its viewers. Star Trek dealt with heavy issues such as warfare and discrimination. Lieutenant Uhura was an African-American woman with a respected title and role. Star Trek even had the first interracial kiss between Kirk and Uhura. They didn't stop there; there was also a Japanese American, a Scotsman, and a Vulcan. This ability to live in harmony despite obvious differences was a major statement within the show. Star Trek also played into the populations interest in space travel as the race for space with Russia coincided with the show.