[Tom Sefton]

Utterly baffled. What Tim is quite eloquently saying is that in spite of all the reasons you are giving for futball not being popular in NA, it already is. No, the World Cup isn’t like watching MLS, and on a week to week basis it’s likely that hockey or basketball or NFL is more popular than MLS, but that’s not the title of this thread is it? The World Cup is huge, and aside from the Olympics is the worlds biggest and most watched sporting event.

Also, this World Cup has already seen more goals, more wins and has adopted goal line technology compared with the last one. Futball is adapting, is getting faster and more goals are being scored. Aside from slowing the play down whilst 60,000 people and 2 referees watch a replay 2 times to decide the minute decisions of a game, what else should be done? Rugby has tv replays for big decisions and many pros and fans are getting very tired of them….

Anyway – back to watching. Another great game between Colombia and Ivory Coast just now, a stunning goal from Tim Cahill last night and England are waiting to slip up at the last minute against Uruguay!

[Tom Sefton]

Ah well, we’ll send your thoughts off to the sports governing bodies and see what they think about removing the offside rule. Perhaps we could sketch some ideas out for how the new rules would work and then they might have a clearer idea of how football could be played instead. There are only a few billion people to convince, but it might work.

🙂

[Tom Sefton]

They’ve tried the penalty box shtick with junior football. It just doesn’t work. Kids still lurk around and don’t move or use athletic ability to try and succeed. They just wait for the ball to come anywhere near them so they have a chance to score. Games slow down and consist of longer passing, slower movement, worse technique but occasional high scoring games where everyone can marvel at the 7-6 scoreline. You are missing the point, that the offside rule isn’t to stop scoring goals, it’s to speed the game up. If one player constantly stands on the edge of the penalty box, not altering their movement, the entire defence would sit at the same line on the pitch and the game would be contested over a larger portion of the pitch but with longer passing.

I can see how a proper non-corrupt committee would help evolve football through the use of video referees and proper referrals for diving/simulation after the game to involve lengthy bans, but I can’t see that ensuring every game has 12 goals just to entertain a North American audience would be a good idea. Football is already the biggest sport on earth – it doesn’t need to much modification, just an equality of refereeing decisions.

Maybe to reach a wider worldwide audience so it is a true World Series, Baseball could adapt its rules instead?

The other interesting thing would be the use of the draft system – I’d love to see how Premier League teams would cope with a draft….

Either way, give Rugby League a chance.

[Tom Sefton]

Yeah that’s not anywhere near what the offside rule is about. It’s actual use is to make the game faster. Without it, strikers could literally goal hang and stand around in front of the oppositions goalkeeper waiting for the ball to come their way. This would force the defenders to sit deeper and make the game even slower. A defence rushing out to catch players offside makes players move around more and ensures that more skill is required for the final pass.

The only way it applies is for forward passes. Not sideways, or backwards or shots on goal. A fast striker that runs through on goal doesn’t need to wait for anyone to catch up!

[Tom Sefton]

Great game tonight with Spain v Holland though. 6 goals.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, for any Americans who just can’t stand football, try watching Rugby League. Faster, exciting, insanely tough, brutal and full of enormous athletes who run into each other at sprinting speed for 80 minutes.

There is also Rugby Union – England v New Zealand tomorrow which should be a belter.

[Tom Sefton]

I’ve just had a read through this thread and what a wonderful example of cow-ism it is. Brilliant work Mark! Some excellent tips in there that I don’t mind saying, I’ll be using in the future too. Splendid.

[Tom Sefton]

The Pegasus P2 thunderbolt series of RAID drives are well priced, as are the ProMax, LaCie and GRAID brands. For around $2k you will get 8tb of storage that is capable of around 450MB/s in raid 0. Long term it’s worth buying the 6 or 8 bay versions and running at raid 5 or 6 for a good balance of speed and safety. An 8 bay version in raid 0 would be achieving nearly 1000MB/s.

Unfortunately with the new Mac Pro, there isn’t the option to expand internally, and editing any projects from your system drive for an extended period of time isn’t the best idea. Thunderbolt storage is the way to go.

[Tom Sefton]

Whichever way you work it, unless your projects are very short and you have quick turnaround times before dumping your project files to a long term storage device, RAIDs are cheaper and can offer faster performance dependent on your configuration. You can’t expand the internal SSD in a new Mac Pro and for what I’ve seen from some of the GRAID, LaCie or Pegasus RAIDs, they aren’t overpriced at all.

[Tom Sefton]

I have no experience of any shoots of the magnitude of a car ad and probably no right to criticise. That said, I got bored real quick. I can’t understand the concept of linking a car that costs over £130,000 to the convenience of having an iPad in the back seat, and that it’s worth making a bad looking advert to highlight the possibility of duplicating it in that same back seat. It’s like an idea that a contestant in the apprentice came up with. I can almost hear Alan Sugar whining about it.

[Tom Sefton]

No, OSX is.