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- sport - England Expects...  Well, it was The Sun, what did you expect? (Source: majorleaguesoccertalk.com) A quick re-examination of the English Expectation Cycle:
The way I see it, there are two issues here: a) were England cheated? and b) did England deserve to lose? My answers: Yes and yes. Let's begin with the part on losing. It's becoming painfully clear that England are just not that good (even if shorn of Ferdinand, Hargreaves, King, Scholes, etc), and are probably not in the top ten of the world (FIFA generously put them at eighth). Clearly, in terms of teamwork and technique, they aren't even in the top thirty, from what I've seen in the tournament so far, but they do still have some brilliant individuals (on their day). Given that England are probably somewhere between the 8th and 16th best team (cutting them some slack), then a Round of 16 exit is just par for the course, i.e. they have achieved more or less what could be expected of them, especially as they lost to a higher-ranked German side (Argentina are just seventh and Greece 13th, so take it with a grain of salt). In other words, it's the public's own fault for making England out to be what they aren't. The manner of the defeat was another thing altogether, as England made Germany look better than they had any right to be.
Summing up, Germany's goals were mainly due to England being some combination of slow and silly - pensioner slow and schoolboy silly. David James was slightly disappointing too, for while he can't be blamed for letting in any of those, all of the goals, except perhaps the last one, were savable. In other words: England no good. Sepp Blatter vs. The Eye of Tech... However, if past World Cups and Euros are any indication, the representative image (and video) for English fans will be this, which brought up the spectre of 1966 (the coincidence was not lost on Ladbrokes, who paid out on their "Geoff Hurst special"):  FIFA: Nope. Not over the line (Source: Redandwhitekop Forums) It must be said that this isn't even a close decision, where FIFA president Sepp Blatter's "ten different experts will have ten different opinions on what the decision should have been" applies. Most anybody with two eyes, and standing within twenty metres, would have seen the ball go over the line. Thousands of fans there did. Millions of viewers all over the world did. But the referee and his linesman didn't, and that's all that counted. However, I'm now of the opinion that the match officials shouldn't shoulder the bulk of the blame for such incidents; It's something like ordering three men to watch twenty-two starving chickens squawking their way around a ring in real time, and note down exactly which fowl pecked which. The referees shouldn't be the ones put on trial. The FIFA argument against video evidence falls along the lines of a) it's too expensive, b) it takes too much time and c) it diminishes the human element and reduces the "fascination and popularity of football". a) is patently bullshit for the top levels of football, and even if it is true for lower/grassroots football, it must be noted that such matches seldom have three FIFA-approved officials, a well-marked pitch, goalposts, or even a proper ball. As for b), the time taken by players arguing obviously erroneous decisions (as Mexico did when Tevez's goal was allowed despite being miles offside) far outstrips what a video replay would take. Ironically, the match officials (and the audience) in the Argentina-Mexico saw their mistake staring at them from the JumboTron at the stadium, but couldn't legally rescind their decision according to FIFA rules. c) actually makes sense in a twisted sort of way, if one considers that promotions like the World Wrestling Entertainment would be less popular if the wrestlers went about their jobs honestly. It is probably true that the mistakes evoked stronger emotions and reactions than even the most beautiful of moves. But is that the point of sport? Anyway, even if video evidence were used to banish only the most egregious miscalls (the Carroll blunder deserves a mention), there would still be plenty of drama left to mine. Behold:  Assassination scandal at the World Cup! (Source: worldcupblog.org) Here's where a GIF animation might not tell the whole truth: if one looks closely, the Chilean player's knee does brush Torres' right foot, which led to that foot hitting the back of his left calf... which was the signal for a sniper to take the poor guy down from the stands. Note the telltale unnatural "archer bow" [I would have put Rooney's superman dive against the Germans up, but as with the rest of his performance, it was substandard]. There's also always innovation, and following on the heels of such breathtaking tricks as the Zidane 360, the Ronaldinho elastico and the Blanco bounce, South Africa 2010 has seen... the Heskey stepover-cum-shoulderdrop:  Defender guaranteed to be flummoxed And of course we get the lighter side of the beautiful game, such as when a cameraman gets too close to celebrating players:  Because one good hit deserves another ...That Every Ham Shall Do His Duty Do not concern yourselves. Mr. Ham is putting together a PETA wet affairs team now.
- sport - - FARK.com In this eventful week or so, North Korea upset Brazil and won the World Cup, various areas in Singapore got flooded (if I had a penny for each time it rained when I visited Sim Lim, I would... have an advance on a visit to a washroom), and I attended another wedding. Alright, North Korea probably didn't resort to time-delayed video editing, but broadcasting their getting wiped 7-0 in their second match against Portugal didn't make for the best propaganda. It was probably a calculated gamble given their respectable showing against the Brazilians, but unfortunately for them it became the biggest omelette in superior racially-pure faces since Jesse Owens won four golds in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Probably bigger. There has been no word if the 3-0 defeat to the Ivory Coast (eliminating both teams) was shown also live in the Workers' Paradise, but one has sympathy for the returning North Korean footballers, other than the few who are based in Japan. Hopefully they're not of the Uday Hussein school of football management. If the footballers are lucky, the Dear Leader will be focused on getting US$65 trillion from the accursed imperialists. Good luck with that, especially with said imperialists having mucho debt and oily seas on their hands, even if Chinese workers finally demanding increased wages (Honda strikes in China at the same time as Honda strikes against Denmark, heh heh), and the yuan being allowed to rise, should allow them to correct their trade gap. By a bit.  In which the chest-to-face nerve is pinched (Source: Pesfan forums) As for the Ivory Coast, they provided a prime example of how to win a skirmish, but lose both the battle and the war. Two goals down with a few minutes remaining, Keita had the bright idea of deliberately running straight into Kaka, then falling to the ground clutching his face. Sadly, the referee got conned and sent Kaka off - but the Ivory Coast didn't have any time to make good on their extra man advantage, and ended up ruling one of Brazil's better players out of their last group game, not to mention pissing the already-qualified Brazilians off; Which would be fine, except that the Ivory Coast needed Brazil to beat Portugal to have any hope of advancing. Oops. (Brazil and Portugal ended up playing out an entertaining 0-0 draw). [Quick historical aside: Brazil was once a Portuguese colony, about the time that Malacca was one too, and Singapore wasn't all that far from being taking on an Iberian, or even Dutch, flavour - see, history can be fascinating!] It wasn't as if the samba boys were shy about falling over easily either, and frankly it's getting ridiculous that some of the best players in the world have to resort to such deception - or is this part of the reason why they're among the best? It's certainly safer to try flashy moves when they can be parlayed into a foul whenever they don't work out. Then again, defenders also get away with a lot of shirt-pulling... Admittedly the Brazilians also displayed a lot of what makes them many peoples' second team, with Fabiano outdoing Maradona with a double-Hand of God for his second goal. Still, I wouldn't begrudge them a sixth World Cup victory, unless they meet England.  The cheeky Busquets Peekaboo trick (in context) England... got better and scraped through behind the USA (what if...), which is not saying much given how painful they were to watch for their first two matches. Rooney seems to be offering himself up as the scapegoat by sniping at the English fans after a combined poor individual and team performance, and they now meet the Germans next. All according to script. An Anglican bishop, who recognized the magnitude of the task before the Three Lions, has even penned a special prayer for the team, even as he admits that it might be too much to ask God to have them actually lift the trophy. He could perhaps ask for some tips from the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil, who seem to have less trouble with World Cup glory (and better fashion sense to boot)... At least England's still unbeaten and in the mix, which is more than can be said for the finalists of four years ago, France and Italy. I once commented on how current teams are superior to past ones, but have probably underestimated the effect of team spirit and camaraderie; It should be reasonable to expect national representatives to put aside any personal misgivings, especially on such a public stage, but the French in particular have shown how a collection of unmistakeably talented players can wither miserably. Contrast to say the South Koreans and Japanese, who man for man are not quite up to them, but who have both made the next round. With the Liverpool manager job now open, I found myself wondering if outgoing French coach Raymond Domenech might be interested in it, but was immediately ashamed as that would certainly constitute inhumane punishment. Special mention goes to the Kiwis, who bow out undefeated, and to a lesser extent the Swiss, Aussies and South Africans, who got four points, which might have been enough to get them through (even three is possible, in a group where one team wins all three of its matches, and the remaining teams get a win and a loss against each other). On the betting front, I expect the bookies to be cleaning up, what with all the upsets and the tendency of people who know next to nothing about football to wager on the "favourites". Somehow nobody ever admits to making a net loss, though. Shrug. In non World Cup stuff, I finally got about setting up Remote Desktop for my lab computer. For some reason to be further investigated, SoC-VPN (based on OpenVPN) apparently doesn't work well on dual-boot systems (Props to Technical Services for this info), and even after I got it running on my netbook, I couldn't immediately ping my lab PC. As it turns out, the IP address of the lab PC isn't automatically routed through the VPN's gateway - where they gateway IP is of the form A.B.C.D, the lab PC's IP is of the form A.X.Y.Z; The solution then is to simply use the command: route -p add [IP of remote computer] mask 255.255.255.255 [IP of gateway] to force the proper route. It's always slowest the first time... Also, Mr. Ham finally got a YouTube comment! Yes!
- sport - The Cup Runneth Over Nominal holidays plus few posts equals the World Cup, although I haven't been watching that many of the matches; Of the third of the matches gone so far:
And what are the impressions? The first unavoidable one is the vuvuzela, or in other words, the "what *is* that unholy buzzing noise in the background oh stop it stop it please" wind instrument. It has proven to be hugely divisive, with most foreigners seemingly annoyed by it, and most of the natives insisting that it is an integral part of their footballing culture. One suspects that the South African fans feel that with sufficient numbers of vuvuzelas blowing, anything can happen on the pitch (such as an opposition player collapsing from a cerebral hemorrhage at a critical juncture in the match). As one can surmise from their results so far, this hasn't quite happened.  Zidane demonstrates defensive tactics against the vuvuzela in 2006 (Source: Redcafe.net [click link for lots more funnies]) Or maybe the criticism is really a neocolonialist shtick by The Man to keep the (tip of the) continent down (a sentiment expressed in the original lyrics [Youtube] of the official World Cup theme song, Waving Flag: "So many wars, settling scores/Bringing us promises, leaving us poor/I heard them say, love is the way/Love is the answer, that's what they say/But look how they treat us, make us believers/We fight their battles, then they deceive us"), and that the vuvuzela is high art after all.  The discipline, the rhythm, the unimpeached order - C'est magnifique! (Source: Redcafe.net) Like the vuvuzela, the football has tended to be... monotonic. The goals per game ratio, even after being rescued by the five between Argentina and South Korea (which included perhaps the simplest hat-trick I can recall seeing in an international game since Klose's against Saudi Arabia), is a paltry 1.85, far lower than even the notorious Italia 90 (2.2 goals/game) that prompted the banning of the back-pass. This might be partly attributed to the gap closing between different confederations, as well as the realisation that a very fit and well-drilled team, coupled with a defensive gameplan, can be very difficult to break down; Kudos to North Korea, even if they scuppered my hopes of a goalfest. Not that this Brazil are an exceptional vintage, but when you have a wingback that can score from the byline, you're always in with a shout. Back to the beginning - the opening ceremony, I felt, was enjoyable. Not quite on the scale of China's, of course, but so much more personal, with the slightly different variations in outfits for the performers a nice touch. A vuvuzela-powered South Africa then got a credible draw with Mexico, but after the adrenaline wore off it was back to status quo with a drubbing by Uruguay, who held France in their first match. And the French - I've never been a big fan, so after qualifying through the infamous Hand of Frog goal against Ireland, and getting beaten by China (a team which Singapore, no disrespect intended, has been known to hold their own against)... let's just say that I wasn't exactly rooting for them, even with Evra captaining the side (counterbalanced by Gallas' utter pettiness). As a bonus, it was a new United signing, Javier "Chicharito" Hernández, who scored for Mexico against them. South Korea were hardworking as usual, with perhaps half a dozen spare lungs among their starting eleven (one exclusively belonging to captain "Three Lung" Park Ji-Sung). Don't know much about Nigeria other than that they have supposedly got a decent goalie. I realise that I might, on the other hand, know too much about England. In particular:
It's so fun to be an England supporter.  Spilling over into soccer The final match of note was Spain being upset by Switzerland, as they go back to their usual ways after the aberration that was Euro 2008. Wouldn't quite mind seeing them miss out, if it means reduced prices for some of their guys in the post-World Cup transfer spree. Devils May Care This looks like as good a time as any for my season review of Manchester United. Runners-up in the league, quarter-finals of the Champions League and winners of the Carling Cup isn't horrible for a team stripped of the Best Player In The World (who fittingly got nothing at Real Madrid) - except to fans spoilt by perpetual success. Goalkeepers Edwin van der Sar - 8/10. Typically reliable. Getting on 40 years of age, but still by some distance top dog between the posts for United. Which is not all that good. Dutch captain several years back. Ben Foster - 5/10. File under "promising but cracked", which is not too unusual for goalies at the pressure cooker of United. Should be happier at Birmingham, at least for now. Tomasz Kuszczak - 6/10. Did everything right the few times he was called upon, but won't be given the chance to make the next step up. A pity, but probably not in the very top rank of keepers that United deserve. Defenders Gary Neville - 5/10. Still has a decent cross left on him, and probably few love the club more, but he's 35 which can be a bit of a bother when some whippersnapper half his age duels him in a footrace. One more season. Maybe. Patrice Evra - 8.5/10. Worth maybe half an extra winger on the left, has a deceptively good leap, and more obviously good dribbling threat. You'd never know he's already 29 years old. Too bad he has to captain France. Rio Ferdinand - 6.5/10. Not his best year, as he played just 13 league games. Still, he's English captain for a reason, and that reason is not his gammy back. Wes Brown - 6/10. Supposedly has played nearly half of United's league matches. I would have guessed less than ten. Not being noticed is not necessarily bad for a defender, though, even if not very good. Nemanja Vidić - 8/10. Next Real Madrid target, which means he's done well. Quite the monster, with an allergy to forwards with true pace. Perhaps United's only remaining legitimate corner kick threat. Fábio/Rafael - 7/10. Lumped them together since I can't tell them apart. Great at going forward, not so great at defending, silly against Bayern Munich, but chockful of promise. The new Nevilles, surely. John O'Shea - 6/10. Living off his Figo nutmeg, no-one expects much more than a square pass from him anymore. But that's his job description, and he does it ok. Jonny Evans - 6.5/10. Done alright most of the times he's stood in for Ferdinand, but he's not quite Rio yet. But he's just 21, which is like 17 in central-defender years. Should make it at United. Midfielders Owen Hargreaves - Injured. Anderson - 5.5/10. Slightly underwhelming, his near-inability to score is a concern for an attacking midfielder. More worryingly, he appears to have butted heads with Ferguson, a move that few United players ever recover from. Future hangs in the balance. Ryan Giggs - 6/10. He's 36 and still one of United's top attacking players, and when he's in the mood he can still breeze past players without even speeding up. Unfortunately, he'll be 37. What I would give for a 20 year-old Giggs! Park Ji-Sung - 6.5/10. The South Korean captain is still slightly underrated. He may not have the flair, but he seldom lets United down. Michael Carrick - 5/10. Uh oh. Appears to need a Scholes in his pomp beside him. His half-hearted challenge on Ivica Olic was symbolic of his campaign. If he doesn't find a way out of his funk, United could well be in trouble. Nani - 6.5/10. Blossoming after Ronaldo's departure, he may actually be better with tricks than the BPITW. Add some footballing brains, and Ronaldo won't even be missed that much. Unfortunately, his best position appears to be right wing, the same as with Valencia. Paul Scholes - 6/10. Turned down an England call-up, so it's not as if Capello didn't try. Can still drop breathtaking fifty-yard passes on a penny, but has lost possession in some very dangerous situations. Thankfully his resistance to yellow cards is still working well. Darren Fletcher - 7.5/10. Few would have expected that he would one day be the best United central midfielder, but that's what he is now. Also became Scottish captain. Well done! Antonio Valencia - 7/10. Just think of what he would be had he grown another leg and learnt another trick. Possibly faster than even Ronaldo, he could become absolutely fearsome if he expands on his "I'll pretend to go left and then push the ball right/up and run very very quickly after it" repertoire. Darron Gibson - 6/10. Moved up from 5.5 as recognition of those games where his long-range shooting seemed to be the only solution. As with Valencia, he would be much better if he developed an alternative to "I'll bring the ball to the centre and smack it very very hard towards the goal". Forwards Michael Owen - 6/10. The new Number Seven appeared in 19 league matches despite an injury in March, and scored against City. That got him his six-point rating, since he's neither fast nor prolific any longer. Dimitar Berbatov - 5/10. Ahem. Yes, he can do stuff like this once or twice a year, but unfortunately the overriding image I have of him is a guy who's strolling leisurely while the rest of the team is sprinting their hearts out. It's gotten so bad that he can surprise defenders by actually running. The statistics paint a better picture, but to me there's something missing here. For example, I would much rather have Tevez or a fit Saha back. Wayne Rooney - 7/10. The big one. His talent is undoubted, and he's gained the knack of scoring consistently, but is it just me who feels that his passing is actually not very good? If he fixes that, cuts down on the lobbing, and gets a top striker who actually runs as his partner... watch out, world! Welback/Obertan/Macheda/Diouf - 5.5/10. The supporting cast has been pretty muted. If, touch wood, Rooney gets injured for any significant length of time, United could have a real problem. Owen/Berbatov, even with Nani and Valencia, isn't the scariest of propositions, nor is both of them, or one of them with any of these. On a slightly random note, how would United do in the World Cup? Assume that a clone is created for each player who is also needed for his national team. Actually, I would expect that they - as well as other top club sides - would be a shade better than the best national sides, not least due to all the time they have to train together (years, versus weeks for even the World Cup). Perhaps we might one day see some top clubs against the top nations to settle this question.
- academics - Last semester went well, with an A in Speech Processing, and the qualifiers passed, though I could have stood to do better in both. This means that I'm now officially a Ph.D. candidate, which is a teeny bit scary, and also that I get a raise, which is not at all scary. The department might reconsider their current modus operandi, though, as the results for normal modules were released on the afternoon of the 31st, with no indication of the qualifier results; this probably led to a deluge of emails, which led to a notification that the qualifier results had been sent out - by snail mail. One mostly-sleepless night was enough for me, and a few days passed before one of my advisors kindly broke the news, which was a nice gesture even if the envelope arrived in my letterbox just hours later. The good news led me to be a little profligate, as I happily scoured the Bugis area for components required for my D.I.Y project (sneak preview of some previously-acquired parts follows), after lunch and chit-chat with smk and kkok. Visited the new Alumni House for the first time, where they were still installing plaques.  Mostly from Amazon.com Three Miles In No Shoes It's not often that I'm up at six on a Saturday morning (while it's often that I'm still up at three), but that was necessary if I was to make it to the Bare Your Sole charity walk at East Coast Park, which I signed up for on a whim a couple of months back. Strangely, it was easier to get me to donate and suffer inconvenience, than to simply donate (remind me to respond to the NUS Annual Giving event someday) The idea here is to experience what the poor and unshod have to endure on a daily basis, and after a bit of standing around and listening to the football banter between the ostensibly Man Utd and Liverpool-supporting emcees, the walk began at perhaps fifteen past eight. Turns out that going barefoot, even on roads, isn't that painful. Spotted one participant sporting a pair of Vibram fivefingers, which might defeat the whole purpose.  Rain from a distance There was a drizzle about an hour into the walk, but thankfully most of the rain stayed out at sea.  The end! As they say, walk a mile in the other guy's shoes; if it doesn't work, at least you'll be a mile away, with a free pair of shoes. On a more serious note, the walk did make me appreciate my shoes a lot more. It's easy to take stuff for granted. Like alvin's carpooling for basketball the next day made me appreciate private vehicles - can't recall the last time I actually got a seat on the MRT. Speaking of the MRT, there's been a big hoo-hah over a Swiss guy spray-painting graffiti on a carriage or two. Myself, I don't think it looks that bad, but this is the Singapore that got all worked up about some artistic graffiti on postboxes. Take fun seriously, indeed. Back to the MRT vandalism, part of the concerns were on the security side (what if he were a terrorist installing a bomb?), but frankly I would feel that a terrorist packing a reasonably-sized bomb would have no trouble getting onto a train at rush hour anyway. Face it, people desire too much convenience to ever be truly secure. Do spare a thought for the buttocks of the Swiss fellow. Thought of popping round Hong Lim Park to take in the Overpriced World Cup Package Boycott event, but then the sleepiness kicked in. Ends Things inevitably come to an end - Dr. Goh Keng Swee passed on lately, the Dr. Money column in the New Paper stopped, my handphone ringtone got changed from the default Nokia tune (which does forestall a lot of unnecessary checking), and the Keep Rafa At Pool campaign finally failed. Here's to Benitez, a manager loved by discerning Liverpool and Manchester United fans alike.  (Source: Redcafe.net)
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