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F1 coverage on NBC Sports is pretty good!

March 17, 2013 by

This post has to do with Formula 1 racing coverage. Skip it should this not be your thing.

At the end of last years’ season, Speed Network lost the contract for US coverage for the 2013 season to the unknown (to F1 coverage) NBC Sports network. As I (and many others) had come to appreciate and respect the Speed coverage of F1, this change was met with trepidation. It was actually a point of conversation and bonding at the F1 race I attended in Austin last year (‘I hope they keep the Speed TV team’ was the predominate theme).

NBCSports kept 3/4 of the team, and the one not carried forward was Bob Varsha, their play by play guy with an encyclopedic memory of F1 races and politics. He ‘retired’, and I hope his life goes forward in a good fashion. Bob was terrific, and his replacement (Leigh Diffey, who covered a race or two every season) is quite good. Carried forward were the excellent David Hobbs, Steve Matchett and track-side reporter Will Buxton (who has no wikipedia article yet). I see that as a huge nod to the fans, as there have to be a lot of people who could do the broadcast job, but there was concern at NBC about the audience who liked and respected these TV personalities. Good for NBCSports for keeping them on.

The new NBCSports coverage for the first F1 race this season was quite good, and that that despite challenges! NBCSports not only covered the usual practices, but, when qualifying was delayed by rain, showed all of qualifying off-schedule before the Australian GP! It was a good race, and the Twitter coverage was, IMHO, better than the Speed effort

Kimi Raikkonen admitted that it was "not too difficult" at the front, and that managing his tires was easy http://t.co/X13TaZnYyr #F1onNBC
March 17, 2013 2:53 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@F1onNBCSports
F1® Racing on NBC
. An embarrassment of riches in F1 coverage.

A good race, covered well. Thanks.

 

Update: fixed the title, it is of course NBC, not nbs…


Filed Under: Racing

Dumb American Speedometers: Ford Mustang

March 13, 2013 by

The other day my lovely wife bought a Ford. It’s nice. (They sold her a car that’d already been sold; then made up for it by giving her a car with more options than the one she originally tried to buy and eating the difference. Thanks Ford!).

While she was beating the dealer until they cried negotiating I looked at the other show-room vehicles. And I found the Ford Mustang (genes and all).

I was thinking Steve McQueen, and Bullitt. Really.

The drivers’ door wouldn’t close (on the showroom floor) and then I saw the dash:

2013-Ford-Mustang-Shelby-GT500-speedometer
Seriously, nobody in the US (or Canada, eh), needs 1/2 of this speedo. Yes, there’s a stretch or two of Texas highway that are 85, but 220? Drop this car out of a C-130 and it wouldn’t do 220.

I get marketing. You want to sell this car as a True Sports Car with a lot of Speed!!! Here’s the thing: as my eyes slowly age I don’t want to have to squint at the 1/2 inch to discern the difference between 35 and 45 while knowing this bad boy won’t go over 160, and never near 220. I don’t need a big HUD to tell me, but this display is just dumb.

Thanks,

a guy who’d buy a Mustang but not one with this silly detail in it.


Filed Under: Amusements, Racing, Rants

Some studies that I like to quote

March 12, 2013 by

Wow! Very nice.


Filed Under: Amusements, Humorous, Medical, Medicine

Talk Like A Healthcare Management Robot

March 9, 2013 by

My good friend Dr. Richard Winters has skills: doctoring, parenting, professional coaching, and computer coding. Add his dislike for mumbo-jumbo and his skills with javascript, and you get:

Talk Like A Healthcare Management Robot

Instructions: Click the button. Learn to talk like a Healthcare Management Robot.

via Talk Like A Healthcare Management Robot.

This is the most recent one I got: “Our clinical organization needs to transform physician-centered healing missions around value-added architectures.” Everyone in medicine can imagine someone saying that unironically.

I do like how he gets the point of the exercise across:

Be careful though. If you talk like a robot, physicians won’t listen.

Amen!

Now, go there, click, and laugh. This has already surpassed the Dilbert mission statement generator in my book.

Thanks, Rick!


Filed Under: Amusements

The latest Russian asteriod

February 17, 2013 by

First, thank goodness no-one was killed outright, though I did read someone had a spine injury. Recovery hopes for all.

Second, the whole town could have been immolated from the force of the explosion, but the detonation happened just high enough only some came to the surface.

Lastly, had that happened, and we didn’t have dash-cam video to explain it, would Islamists have been the first blamed? Russia has had a bad time with them (though the US led war has seemed to concentrate their attention on us), but there’s no love lost. Nobody predicted this asteroid, so there wouldn’t have been an extraterrestrial source to blame. A million dead (Russians, sorry I’m not good at current old-USSR nomenclature) would be motivation for reprisal…

The curse about living in interesting times has landed on us, and we dodged a bullet this time.

 

Update: this is at least somewhat because I have read Tom Clancy’s Sum of All Fears


Filed Under: Current Affairs

Punctuation?

February 15, 2013 by

From my lovely wife the other day…

IMG_0850

I posted this to Twitter earlier, but realized I wanted it on the blog, too.


Filed Under: Family

Press Ganey, meet Wong-Baker

February 10, 2013 by

For those not actively engaged in the practice of medicine, this will mean nothing to you. For those of us in the trenches:

IMG_0847

I cannot wait for the day the government realizes this misguided effort is costing them Billions (and harming patients and providers).

 


Filed Under: Amusements, Emergency, Policy

Fort Worth Officer Shot by Drug Suspect Released From Hospital | NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

February 7, 2013 by

A Hero to me

A Fort Worth officer who was shot three times last week in Haltom City by a drug suspect left the hospital Thursday afternoon.

Officer John Bell was shot in the right eye socket, right hip joint and left hand on Jan. 29 while assisting Haltom City police.

Dozens of Bell’s colleagues stood at attention outside Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital and clapped and cheered as he got into his car with his wife, Barbara.

“A whole lot’s been made out of this, and I’m really humbled by it,” Bell said minutes after he was discharged. “Everybody’s so nice and saying, ‘You’re a hero.’ I don’t really consider myself that.”

via Fort Worth Officer Shot by Drug Suspect Released From Hospital | NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth.

Want to know how Fort Worth cops approach life? Watch the video.


Filed Under: Current Affairs

Fort Worth designated 300th International Safe Community | City of Fort Worth, Texas

February 7, 2013 by

Very nice!

Fort Worth designated 300th International Safe Community

Posted Feb. 8, 2013

Fort Worth will be formally designated an International Safe Community by the World Health Organization during the City Council meeting at 7 p.m. Feb. 12. With this designation, Fort Worth will become the 300th international Safe Community, the 23rd in the United States and the second in Texas.

via Fort Worth designated 300th International Safe Community | City of Fort Worth, Texas.

Read the whole article. Fort Worth has worked had, and it’s paid off!


Filed Under: Announcements

So God made a farmer Dodge Ad

February 3, 2013 by

Best Super Bowl ad this year

I miss Paul Harvey.


Filed Under: Announcements, Sports

Chris Kyle, America’s ‘most lethal’ sniper, dead in a range shooting

February 2, 2013 by

Odessa, TX born Chris Kyle who survived four tours in combat zones. Allegedly murdered at a shooting range, with another.

A decorated former Navy SEAL who authored the book “American Sniper” was one of two people shot and killed at an Erath County shooting range, according to a newspaper report.

The Stephenville Empire – Tribune reported Saturday that Chris Kyle and another man were shot and killed at a shooting range at Rough Creek Resort and Lodge in Glen Rose.

The newspaper reported that Eddie Ray Routh was arrested in connection with the fatal shootings.

via _storysmartredirect.

There will be more to this story. None of it will bring him back.


Filed Under: Announcements

IRS: Cheapest Obamacare Plan Will Be $20,000 Per Family | CNS News

February 1, 2013 by

“Affordable” Care act.

Under Obamacare, Americans will be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS.

The IRS’s assumption that the cheapest plan for a family will cost $20,000 per year is found in examples the IRS gives to help people understand how to calculate the penalty they will need to pay the government if they do not buy a mandated health plan.

The examples point to families of four and families of five, both of which the IRS expects in its assumptions to pay a minimum of $20,000 per year for a bronze plan.

“The annual national average bronze plan premium for a family of 5 (2 adults, 3 children) is $20,000,” the regulation says.

via IRS: Cheapest Obamacare Plan Will Be $20,000 Per Family | CNS News.

Unbelievable. Enjoy the Sticker Shock.


Filed Under: Policy

Feds get specific on ACA individual mandate rules  : ACEP NEWS

January 31, 2013 by

After years of legal wrangling and a showdown in front of the Supreme Court, the federal government has finally begun to implement the Affordable Care Act’s controversial individual insurance mandate.

Starting on Jan. 1, 2014, Americans will have a choice: Buy basic health insurance, qualify for an exemption, or pay a penalty when filing federal income taxes, according to proposed regulations issued Jan. 30 by the Treasury Department and the Health and Human Services Department.

via Feds get specific on ACA individual mandate rules  : ACEP NEWS.

Go and read all the exclusions. For an incredibly intrusive and expensive mandate there sure are a lot of people that still won’t have to be covered.


Filed Under: Policy

Siri and the Three Laws of robotics

January 31, 2013 by

I’d have been much happier had they just come out straight…

IMG_0826

 

So, our future mechanical overlords will at least have some sense of humor…

Update: And, from Twitter via @whatImeantwas1 :4th Law


Filed Under: Amusements, Web/Tech

BS Study*: Doctors Feel Patients’ Pain | Empathy | LiveScience

January 29, 2013 by

Been a while since I pulled out the BS flag, and this seems entirely appropriate:

Good doctors really do feel their patients’ pain.

Hmm. ‘Good’ doctors?

A study, published today (Jan. 29) in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, shows that when doctors see their patients experiencing pain, the pain centers in the physicians’ own brains light up. And when the doctors give treatment to relieve pain, it activates the physicians’ reward centers.

The doctors were then instructed either to use an electronic device that they believed would relieve the patients’ pain, or to withhold the pain relief. In response, the patient-actors either grimaced in pain or maintained a neutral expression to suggest their pain had subsided.

via Doctors Feel Patients’ Pain | Empathy | LiveScience.

Umm, what? These ‘good’ doctors were told that an electronic device would either relieve or not relieve pain, and then they reacted to their patients’ acting with activity in their own pain or reward centers by fMRI.

My first question: did these docs really buy into this magical electronic pain-relieving device, and if so, why? I have to wonder if it was their amusement areas lighting up and not their pleasure centers…

Second, at no time is ‘good’ established in this article. Were there a subset of docs whose fMRI’s didn’t change, and thus they’re ‘bad’?

Not buying it (would buy one of those magical electronic pain relievers, though).

 

*I say this is a BS study based on this writeup. If it’s something else entirely, okay, but this is just awful.


Filed Under: Amusements, Medical, Rants
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