Red

After the Orange and Yellow, it only seems logical to continue with Red. Red is of course the color of the Chinese flag and of the Olympic 2008 logo.

So far (three days before the end) 'we' are doing pretty okay with '6-5-4' (gold-silver-bronze).

Here is (s short) list of my most viewed websites for these Olympics. Since there are so many sports to follow I didn't bother to look for in-depth websites for the different sports.

NOS Olympische Spelen 2008 Live
When you're in the Netherlands you can watch 11 different channels live on your computer. Due to copyright restrictions not available outside Holland.

Google - Summer Olympics 2008
Google made a nice page where you can download a gadget for your iGoogle homepage, see the latest news and (that's the really nice thing) see: all the medals, the events and the stadiums on a map. When you download the Google Earth plugin, you can even see 3d models of the stadiums (incl. the famous Bird's Nest).

Numbers

18 days of holiday
20 days of not reading e-mail or rss-feeds
51 unread e-mails in Gmail
49 unread e-mails at work
219 unread rss-feeds (of which I've shared 11)
899 photo's (still unsorted)

Volcanoes in the (big) picture

I've posted about the Big Picture before, and you can find a lot of their 'stories' in my Shared items in the sidebar on the left, but today they had a series of amazing photo's of erupting volcanoes you just have to see.

I mean, how beautiful can nature be. Once 'formless and empty', now well shaped and filled in lots of different ways.

Mt. Augustine, Alaska (US), March 27, 2006

Tour de France on internet

Okay, here are some websites to follow along with the Tour de France:

Google Maps.
Just before the start of the Tour, Google launched their Street View in Europe. With the stages of the Tour de France.

NOS Tour 2008 Live
If you're in the Netherlands you can watch all the different stages live on your computer. Due to copyright restrictions not available outside Holland.

Le Tour
The official site of the Tour de France, with live coverage in text and all the standings. There are also links to their official tv-partners in many countries. Maybe you can find a live broadcast via internet in your country.

Ubilabs
I don't eally know what this company does (they offer 'location based media'), has a site where they follow a couple of riders with gps and show it together with some personal data (heartbeat, speed) on a (Google) map. What's also very nice is that they have a small Street View picture on the side, so you can see what the riders see. When you don't have tv, but a huge imagination this is the site for you.

Tour.nusport.nl
And for a quick look at the different standings and teams I use this site.

Post your own favorites in the comments.

Yellow

As in yellow jersey.

It's that time of the year again. Three weeks of cycling in France. Interesting? Yes and no. Usually the first week isn't that great, altough these sprints are incredible. The mountain stages, and especially these in the Alpes... Yeah, they really make the difference.
But what about doping? I don't know. It sure makes it less interesting, but it still is amazing to watch the tactics and the great 'fights' in the last kilometers of Alpe d'Huez.

In the sidebar you can follow along (in Dutch) what's happening, live.

I'll update this post soon with some interesting websites on le Tour.

Oranje

Update: And we're back on earth. South Africa 2010... here we come!

Hmmm... Something's different, but what?

Since we've survived the first part of Euro2008 superbly, I thought I'd change the look of my website to the most beautiful color around these days.

For those of you who would like to know more about the matches played, see (virtual) replays from every angle possible (even from the ball's perspective) or be able to predict a better result based on previous matches by the different teams, take a look at these websites:

Website: Nu.nl - Ek 2008 (in Dutch)
Highlight: Head-to-head comparison for all matches played (see: Programma).

Website: De 5e man (in Dutch, partly English)
Highlight: With the use of a computer program, the effectiveness of each player and team is being measured, which results in a most valuable player / team listing.

Website: Castrol index (in English)
Highlight: With the use of 16 camera's in each stadium, recording 25 pictures of each player per second everything in the match is being captured. This produces a lot of data producing e.g. a heat map to show where each player spent his minutes on the field. (See: 'Match tracker')
Please note that their 'Best 11' is completely different for what the '5e man' website comes up with.

Website: BBC-Sport Euro 2008 (in: English)
Highlight: Virtual replay. It's amazing. Replay all goals from many different perspectives, including different camera positions, all player's, the referee's and even the ball's perspective.
Another site on the BBC-page delivers you stats, stats, stats...

Website: NOS EK 2008 (in: Dutch, update: only available in Holland due to copyrights)
Highlight: Watch the matches live via internet.

News Stories in Photographs

A couple of days ago I came across a new-in-pictures website. From their website:

The Big Picture is a photo blog for the Boston Globe/boston.com, (...) intended to highlight high-quality, amazing imagery - with a focus on current events, lesser-known stories and, well, just about anything that comes across the wire that looks really interesting.

Today they had a story about Sudan. It's just a brief introduction to the problems

Just the general facts about the conflicts are overwhelming - drought, desertification, overpopulation, ethnic tensions (ethnic Arab vs. ethnic African), religious conflict (Islamic north vs. Christian south), political clashes (Islamic sharia rule vs. authoritarian government), border issues, multinational interests (Chinese economic interests, US interests) - and - the fairly recent discovery of a half-billion dollars worth of oil reserves, and there's no end to the ongoing causes of conflict.

followed by beautiful and 'uncomfortable' pictures.
Like the article says:

News coverage often tries to explain the causes, the groups involved, the political and military solutions. What isn't seen as often are the faces of those involved - the displaced, the antagonists, the survivors, the leaders, and the followers. These are some of the faces of Darfur and Abyei, Sudan, photographed where they are today, some very far from home.

---------------------------------------

The rest of the stories / photographs is amazing as well. It's very diverse (concentrating on the lesser known problems in the world). But there are also 'lighter' articles. There are always great photographs involved. Just to give you an idea, I really like this one:

Chaiten Volcano still active