NBC hits ratings gold, best ever – despite extensive online features, streaming events

NBC’s London Olympics ratings defy expectations NBC’s ratings are on track to outdistance numbers from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which many TV industry executives had figured would be a high-water mark. The last Summer Olympics to consistently attract such large crowds were the Montreal Games in 1976 — long before cable TV networks began splintering the audience. Wow, …

The Key To Winning Gold, In Anything

As the Olympics begin to wrap-up and I take a Yoda-moment to reflect on the dedication and drive required to, not only be an Olympic athlete but to win gold in such prodigious company, my thoughts gravitate to an interview I watched with Michael Phelps’ coach, Bob Bowman. Bowman revealed how during training, he would …

Is there prize money given with olympic medals?

There’s no pay from the IOC (International Olympic Committee) when they win a medal. But many countries Olympic committees pay their athletes for winning medals. Among them, The U.S., Russia, Canada, China & Italy and many more countries. $20K-$50K per gold medal is typical in bigger countries. The smaller countries actually tend to pay more, …

Orange County has become a dominant location for Olympic athletes to live/train

There seems to be a competition between San Diego (who is sending 80 athletes) and Orange County, for the king of the Olympics:   If Orange County was a nation it would have ranked among the top 10 in gold medals at each of the past two Summer Olympics. At the 2004 Games in Athens, Orange …

Art exhibit – the native americans who survived the Spanish Colonial period

Here is a new exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art: Children of the Plumed Serpent: the Legacy of Quetzalcoatl You may remember the name Quetzalcoatl as the so-called white-bearded God in Atzec lore. Which Hernán Cortés was supposed to represent and then use to his advantage when he conquered the greatest empire …

San Diego takes the lead in craft beer breweries

Not since Prohibition have there been this many craft beer breweries. It’s a small business revolution and I am lucky enough to live next to one, San Diego: This year’s World Beer Cup lived up to its international name, with winners coming from all corners of the globe — including San Diego County, where breweries …

A different kind gold rush – scientists pay for meteorites, $1,000 a gram

In the Gold Rush town of Rescue, Brenda Salveson, a wife and mother of two, read a local news article about the meteorites. The area scattered with them, about three miles wide and 10 miles long, included Henningsen Lotus Park, where she walks her dog every morning. She noted what to look for: a rock …

More women in Computer Science – a simple solution from Harvey Mudd

An interesting story from the New York Times shows how current president of Harvey Mudd College, Maria Klawe, turned her school into a computer science powerhouse for women. She started her work in 2006, amidst a big downturn in female computer science graduates. “As recently as 1985, 37 percent of graduates in the field were …