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Hand of God, Goal of the Century

June 1st, 2010

Hand Of God Goal

With the FIFA World Cup 2010 just around the corner, I continue  my series of articles revolving around the ‘Beautiful Game’.

The 1986 FIFA World Cup Quarter Final between England & Argentina may have played the key part in making them bitter rivals on the field.  Four years prior, the Falkland wars had been fought between UK and Argentina in which Argentina had surrendered.

The Quarter Finals  included two of the most famous goals in football history, both scored by Diego Maradona.

His first, was the Hand of God goal, in which Maradona scored with an illegal, but unpenalised, handball. His second,  saw him dribble past six England players, and in 2002 this was voted Goal of the Century by FIFA.com voters.

Argentina won the game 2–1 and went on to win the 1986 World Cup with a victory over West Germany in the final.

Hand Of God

Six minutes into the second half, Maradona cut inside from the right flank and played a diagonal low pass to the edge of the area to team-mate Valdano and continued his run in the hope of a one-two movement. Maradona’s pass, however, was played slightly behind Valdano and reached England’s Steve Hodge, the left midfielder who had dropped back to defend.

Hodge tried to hook the ball clear but miscued it. The ball screwed off his foot and into the penalty area, toward Maradona, who had continued his run. England goalkeeper Peter Shilton came out of his goal to punch the ball clear. However, Maradona reached it first, with the outside of his left fist. The ball went into the goal, and the referee  not having seen the infringement, allowed the goal!

At the post-game press conference, Maradona claimed that the goal was scored “un poco con la cabeza de Maradona y otro poco con la mano de Dios” (a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God), coining the phrase “Hand of God”.

Goal of the Century

Just four minutes after the Hand of God goal, however, came The Goal of the Century, so called because it is often claimed to be the greatest individual goal of all time.

Héctor Enrique passed the ball to Maradona some ten metres inside their own half. Maradona then began his 60-metre, 10-second dash towards the English goal, passing four English outfield players.

Aftermath

The game added hugely to the rivalry between the two teams in England where they felt that they had been cheated out of the competition by Maradona’s hand ball.

Meanwhile, in Argentina, the game was seen as revenge for the Falklands War.

The former Argentinian player Roberto Perfumo stated that “‘In 1986, winning that game against England was enough. Winning the World Cup was secondary for us. Beating England was our real aim”.

Reference:

Wikipedia

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Total Football

May 28th, 2010

Total Football is the concept of a influential tactical theory of football in which any outfield player can take over the role of any other player in a team (except the goalkeeper!). It was pioneered by Dutch  football club Ajax from 1969 to 1973, and further used by the Netherlands National Football Team in the 1974 FIFA World Cup. It was invented by Rinus Michels, a famous Dutch football trainer/coach (who was the coach of both Ajax and the Netherlands national team at the time).

The Dutch eventhough used this theory to much effect in the 1974 FIFA world cup, they lost in the final to West Germany.

In Total Football, a player who moves out of his position is replaced by another from his team, thus retaining the team’s intended organizational structure. In this fluid system, no player is fixed in his nominal role; anyone can be successively an attacker, a midfielder  and a defender. The only player fixed in his nominal position is the goalkeeper.

Total Football’s tactical success depends largely on the adaptability of each footballer within the team, in particular his ability to quickly switch positions depending on the on-field situation. The theory requires players to be comfortable in multiple positions; hence, it places high technical and physical demands on them.

Reference:

Wikipedia

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Treskilling Yellow

May 26th, 2010

The Treskilling Yellow is a postage stamp of Sweden issued in 1855. It is considered as the most expensive stamp in the world auctioned at a price of $2.3 million till date.

It is also considered as the world’s rarest stamp.

The name is derived from the denomination of 3 skillings (Scandinavian Monetary unit) of the stamp.

The normal three skilling stamp  printed in Sweden is colored green while the eight skilling stamp was printed in yellow. However, due to an unknown error (but most likely the three skilling plate was accidently replaced by an eight skilling one), the three skilling stamp was printed in yellow, creating the Treskilling Yellow Stamp.

In the 1970s, the Swedish Postal Museum caused controversy by declaring the stamp to be a forgery, but after examination by two different commissions, it was agreed that it was a genuine error.

History

The only known copy of the Treskilling Yellow was discovered by a schoolboy named Georg Wilhelm Baeckman in 1886 while going through his grandparents’ attic.

To this date, this is the only copy known in existence and is worth about $80 billion/pound by weight – one of the most expensive objects in the world!

References:

http://www.famousstamps.org/treskillingyellow.htm

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Jabulani

May 20th, 2010

jabulaniThe Adidas  Jabulani is the official match ball for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The ball was unveiled in Cape Town, South Africa on December 4, 2009.

Jabulani  means “be happy” in Zulu.

Design

The ball is constructed using a new design, consisting of eight (down from 14 in the last World Cup) thermally-bonded, three-dimensional panels. These are spherically-moulded from ethylene-vinyl acetate  and thermoplastic polyurethanes. The surface of the ball is textured with grooves, a technology developed by Adidas called GripnGroove  that is intended to improve the ball’s aerodynamics. The design has received considerable academic input, being developed in partnership with researchers from Loughborough University, UK.

Colouring

The ball has four triangular design elements on a white background. Eleven different colours are used, representing the eleven players on a football team and the eleven official languages of South Africa.  For the final to be held in Johannesburg  on 11 July, a special match ball will be used with gold panels. The ball will be called the “Jo’bulani”, playing off the Johannesburg nickname of “The Golden City”.

Manufacturing

The balls are made in China, using latex bladder made in India, thermoplastic polyurethane-elastomer from Taiwan, ethylene vinyl acetate, isotropic polyester/cotton fabric, glue and ink from China.

World Cup ball history

From as far back as the Telstar used at Mexico 1970, the first ever adidas FIFA World Cup ball, adidas have been dedicated to propelling football technology into the future, always innovating and never settling for the ordinary.

The distinct 32 white and black leather panels that comprised the Telstar made it the roundest ball of its time. Meanwhile the Tango used at Argentina 1978 was so futuristic that it formed the blueprint for the next five FIFA World Cup footballs. The 2002 and 2006 editions of the FIFA World Cup ushered in football revolutions in their own right, showing adidas’ ability to keep ahead of the game, in a world in which technology is changing faster than ever before.

Reference:

1] Wikipedia

2] FIFA

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red ring of death

May 18th, 2010

Those having a X-Box 360 gaming console will dread one thing more than playing those gory games…the so called ‘Red ring of death’.

The X-Box 360 gaming rig has a way of displaying the technical problems that it can encounter over its lifetime. Many of the issues can be identified by a series of red lights flashing on the power LED of the console; the three flashing red lights nicknamed as the Red ring of death being the most infamous.

The Xbox 360’s ring is divided into four separate quadrants. Each division turning red indicates a separate problem, all with a different way of resolving the issue.

Under normal operation, the power LED is illuminated with green light.  Three flashing red lights around the Xbox 360 power button represent an internal problem that requires service.  Warning signs may include freeze-ups, graphical problems in the middle of gameplay, such as checkerboard or pinstripe patterns on the screen, and sound errors, and the console only responds to pressing the power button to turn it off.

This error code is usually caused by failure of one or more hardware components, although it can indicate that the console is not receiving enough power from the power supply.

The 3 flashing lights error code is designated as ‘General Hardware Failure’.

Causes of the hardware failure

Reports say the problems may have started in the graphics chip which was designed in-house by Microsoft.

One possible cause of the General Hardware Error may be cold solder joints.

Another report blames the problems primarily on the use of the wrong type of lead-free solder, a type that when exposed to elevated temperatures for extended periods of time becomes brittle  and can develop hair-line cracks that are almost irreparable.

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Peak of Eternal Light

May 10th, 2010

Peak of Eternal Light (PEL) describes a point on a body within the Solar System which is eternally bathed in sunlight. This is due to both the bodies’ rotation and the point’s altitude.

Peaks of Eternal Light would be advantageous for space exploration and colonization due to the ability of an electrical device located there to receive solar power regardless of the time of day, and the relatively stable temperature range.

Based on images from the Clementine lunar mission, a team from Johns Hopkins University determined that four locations on the Moon  along the rim of the crater Peary are candidates for Peaks of Eternal Light. This crater lies near the north pole of the Moon.

The existence of peaks of eternal light on Mercury has also been theorized, but due to the lack of detailed mapping, no Mercurian peaks have been positively confirmed or ruled out as such.

Reference:

Wikipedia

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Mercedes-Benz Classic Centre

April 19th, 2010

The Mercedes-Benz Classic Center in Fellbach is the port of call for owners and prospective buyers of the company’s classic automobiles from all over the world.

Being the largest corporate department for historical vehicles, the Classic Center offers a comprehensive range of services – for all classics from the Benz, Daimler, Mercedes and Mercedes-Benz brands.

The Center is situated in Stuttgart.

At the Classic Center, an extensive range of model cars, accessories, literature and watches is on offer, as well as the opportunity to drive Mercedes-Benz classics.

There are cars as early as 1900′s that can be acquired, of course at a price!

The Classic Center is the only place where spare parts of any Benz car ever made can be procured.

Reference:

http://www.mercedes-benz-classic.com/

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ICD Vega Android tablet

April 8th, 2010
Vega Tablet

Vega Tablet

Android’s progressive spread to non-smartphone devices continues, with the latest manufacturer to jump on the open-source Google bandwagon to be Innovative Converged Devices (ICD).  The ICD Vega will initially have a 15.6-inch 1366 x 768 resistive touchscreen, paired with NVIDIA’s Tegra chipset, Android 2.0, integrated WiFi b/g/, Bluetooth 2.1 and 3G WWAN data, with the company expecting to ship the tablet in the first half of 2010 across hroughout North America, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.

Reference:

http://www.slashgear.com/icd-vega-15-inch-android-2-0-tablet-arrives-2010-1363451/

http://convergeddevices.net/products/vega.html

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Belka and Strelka

April 6th, 2010

Everyone knows about the dog Laika, when it became the first living creature from earth to fly into space and orbit our planet in 1957.  Unfortunately it did not return back to tell it’s tale. it died within 7 hours in space flight.

This short article is about the dogs Belka and Strelka. They were the first Earth-born creatures to go into orbit and return alive.

On August 19th, 1960, they spent a day in space aboard Sputnik 5 before safely returning to Earth. They were accompanied by a grey rabbit, 42 mice, 2 rats, flies and a number of plants and fungi. All passengers survived.

Strelka went on to have six puppies. One of the pups was named Pushinka and was presented to President John F. Kennedy’s daughter Caroline by Nikita Khrushchev in 1961. A Cold War romance bloomed between Pushinka and a Kennedy dog named Charlie resulting in the birth of 4 pups that JFK referred to jokingly as pupniks!

An animated Russian feature film called Star Dogs: Belka and Strelka  has been released in March  2010.

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Epic of Gilgamesh

April 5th, 2010

The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from Mesopotamia (Iraq) and is among the earliest known works of literary writing. It is considered the greatest surviving work of early Mesopotamian literature.

The earliest Sumerian versions of the epic date from the Third Dynasty of Ur (2150-2000 BC)

The most complete version existing today is preserved on 12 clay tablets from the library collection of 7th-century BC Assyrian  king Ashurbanipal.

The story revolves around a relationship between Gilgamesh, who has become distracted and disheartened by his rule, and his close companion, Enkidu. Enkidu is a wild man created by the gods as Gilgamesh’s equal to distract him from oppressing the citizens of Uruk. Together they undertake dangerous quests that incur the displeasure of the gods. Firstly, they journey to the Cedar Mountain to defeat Humbaba, its monstrous guardian. Later they kill the Bull of Heaven that the goddess Ishtar has sent to punish Gilgamesh for spurning her advances.

The latter part of the epic focuses on Gilgamesh’s distressed reaction to Enkidu’s death, which takes the form of a quest for immortality.

It is generally accepted that Gilgamesh was a historical figure, since inscriptions have been found which confirm the historical existence of other figures associated with him

Reference:

wikipedia

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