London 2012 Olympics

BBC news is now rambling on about the ceremony, calling it "breaking news".

If only I could get up I'd switch this off.

Have you no got rope ? When I've lost the will to move (or am two bottles of Blossom Hill down) I use rope to drag my useless shell towards the Samsung.

Do we have confirmation that the sheep are all okay, that's what want to know.

The overwhelming majority ended up in pita bread and sold to the exiting crowd.

I think we invented WWW but the Yanks got the Internet.

but we invented the computer, so they can still suck it :-)

I really enjoyed that except Paul McCartney at the end

let the queen listen to sex pistols is the best moment

Revisionist history is easy, anyone can play that game.

Like many great inventions most of this stuff was invented by several people around the world, independently at the same time. Because smart people tend to have similar ideas given similar inputs (what has come before).

That we invented the computer wasn't known to others because it was a national secret, and then someone else also invented the same thing.

So being first is kinda irrelevant... many people were on the same path.

This is where credit should be given to the real people who broke ground like Turing. He really did do something no-one else considered in his definition of logic. He was the shoulders upon which those who "invented" the computer stood on.

And frankly, the web was an obvious thing. Basic versions of hyperlinks had already been designed. TBL is wonderful and deserves credit, but only for adding embeddable images into documents.... but again, does anyone think this is truly inventive?

Not knocking achievements, or giving them to anyone else... but most of these things are collaborative things and are only possible because of what came before.

The only reason we have to put TBL front and centre is because of US propaganda (and it is propaganda) trying to make claims which are unfounded. Even the core concept of routable telephony had been invented before ARPANET started their work, and even though ARPA get the claim there were multiple independent bodies working on packet switching over self-healing routable networks at the same time.

The internet and web were not invented by any one individual or any one country. Science is a result of collaboration.

Rant of the day.

Yep I thought it was really good except Macca doing his best to ruin it at the end. The only good thing about these old dinosaurs performing is the outside chance they croak it on stage

Yeah and nice to see Tim Berners-Lee there. It would have been nice to focus more on science than popular culture. Should have given a shout out to Charles Darwin too :)

No brian blessed, no Tardis? Hardly a celebration of Britain's finest achievements.

They did at least dedicate the whole of the 1st half to JRRRRR Tolkien's famous Lord of the rings cycle, thought all hobbits and no baddies.

You mean Faul?

Hi tynan

did anyone actually on here get tickets for this?

I imagine that 99% of it was totally incomprehensible from the stadium seats, even more if you happen to be one of the few forrins not moonlighting on the security staff and perhaps don't have a tattoo of Brunel on their left buttock... As a ceremony i thought the recorded interludes were a bit odd but then, Boyle is a film maker and it was less about spectacle than narrative.

Personally, it seemed overly nostalgic and I can't say i thought it was a compelling representation of modern Britain but hey ho-someone will come along and fling incredulous spittle at me for not being patriotic enough to buy into this bewildering fanfarade of chutzpah.

Critical mass response seems eh... disproportionate.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/07/27/london-olympics-the-most-embarrasing-opening-ceremony/

Turing and Flowers were expanding upon the work of the Polish engineers who in 1938 had developed code-breaking machines to figure out Enigma rotor settings (which is fairly simple a task once you know that an Enigma machine never encodes a letter as itself). Turing's development of these (the 'bombes') were operational in 1939

ENIAC was not a co-incidenal invention. Work on it started in 1943, by which time Britain had a working Collossus machine, all of which were digital, electronic, programmable computers.

Zuse in Germany had an electromechanical computer in 1941 and Atanasoff in USA had an electronic digital, but non-programmable device in either 1939 or 1940. ENIAC was based upon this device.

But we trump them all if you stretch the point with Babbage who designed (but of course could not produce) a working, mechanical, programmable computer in 1823.

Things we invented that benefitted the world are numous though. Industry, steam engines, trains, iron ships, trade unions, state healthcare, radio, television, the jet engine, sandwiches, wellington boots, toasters, licorice allsorts, thermos flasks, flushing toilets, tin cans, vaccination, the printing press, the electric kettle, the light bulb, radar, bicycles, the decimal point, postage stamps, tarmac, hypodermic syringes, several sports - e.g. football, cricket, rugby, tennis, baseball, and the modern olympics themselves.*

it is estimated that over 50% of all things in modern use were invented by the British.

*Things off that list were pulled off the internet. it may be wrong

I really enjoyed that except Paul McCartney at the end

You mean Faul?

Hi tynan

No, that wasn't tynan.

*Things off that list were pulled off the internet. it may be wrong

As I said, revisionist history is easy.

The site I was looking at had some strange claims.
America inventing the car, penicillin, Norway inventing the jet engine, and a proud German emphasising their country's invention of Gummi Bears, and claiming they invented beer, which will come as a surprise to the ancient Mesopotamians.

The whole thing was amazing - I was gripped from start to finish (ok, I admit, I did load the dishwasher when some of the teams were coming out).

Wow, a proper gay-friendly Olympics to boot.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/london-opening-ceremonies-end-with-traditional-lig,28964/

The overwhelming majority ended up in pita bread and sold to the exiting crowd.

They fucking well had no seasoning......blandness rules.

I thought it was ok but I was drinking and have no opening ceremonies to compare to.

Nice to see all those empty seats in the swimming pool. Presumably they're the Barclays allocation, and bankers don't get out of bed for anything less than a global economic meltdown.

Everyone with tickets is out watching Cav win the road race.

No brian blessed, no Tardis? Hardly a celebration of Britain's finest achievements.

They did at least dedicate the whole of the 1st half to JRRRRR Tolkien's famous Lord of the rings cycle, thought all hobbits and no baddies.

There was Tardis on the side of the House and I am sure I also heard the Theme music.. though its a pity that the Tardis take off sound was not there as well; though it may well have been. I was at rehearsal one and saw stuff on the night I d not seen then.

Harvey Goldsmith was right , when he said this morning on TV, that you had to be there to see or hear it all properly. There was even a Sid James Carry On clip

AND I WAS THERE, THE SHOT OF PETER CARTER TALKING TO JUNE JUST BEFORE I JUMPED OUT OF THE PLANE!

They should've included the KLF to do the Dr Who bit. That would've mixed the theme in good and proper.