RyeBlog

We have added the Torino Olympics Medal Count (powered by Yahoo) to the sidebar of RyeBlog.

If you don’t want to see the medal count - just don’t expand the menu. (This will allow you to avoid “spoiling it” if you are planning on watching the games and you realize that your favorite country didn’t get any new medals that day so therefore you know that athlete X will not win…)

Another less cool way of viewing the medal count involves Google. Simply searching for “medal count” on Google http://www.google.com/search?q=Medal+count (or anything roughly related to olympic medals will also work) and the current medal count will show up in a little box above the search results.

Update:
You probably want to rely on my medal count - Google doesn’t know how to count, apparently:

Have you ever “salvaged” something abandoned by somebody else, and felt like you found some kind of treasure? If so, then you will love the spirit of this website. GarbageScout.com is a Googlemaps mashup in New York City that works like this:

If you see something cool in NYC being thrown away

1. Take a picture of it
2. Send a text message with the picture, title, and location to the website (i.e. old TV@7th and broadway)

The rest is history. The website will update with little garbage can icons all over the map of New York. The most recent ones have flames coming out of them to indicate that they are “hot” - not that they are warming homeless people.

This is a healthy outlet for that part of you that - even though you don’t need it - really wants to take home that old computer monitor you see on the street. By submitting it to the GarbageScout - you will effectively have “given” it to someone who wants it without having to actually do anything yourself.

GarbageScout.com

In pair figure skating, Americans Rena Inoue and John Baldwin landed the first Triple Throw-Axel in Olympic competition. In the replay, you can easily see Inoue’s movements - thanks to a new feature of the Torino Olympics. Open space.

The general lack of crowds at the pairs figure-skating competition was hard to ignore. Large gaps of lower-section seating was completely unclaimed. Entire rows of expensive seats behind the judges are completely empty. It made the games feel a little cheaper - like a UVSC (or high-school girl’s) basketball game. Torino is supposed to be a bigger city than Salt Lake - so where are the crowds?

If you look closely, most of the “spectators” in this shot are actually ushers.

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