My friend Steve wrote about Floyd Landis and doping. Steve does IronMan - he's the real deal. Reading Steve's blog reinforced how disappointed and disillusioned I am about atheletes and sports. I'm not sure these guys have no gifts, but I do think that sports and spectators reward dopers. Our expectations are inconsistent with physical limitations. We expect constant unrealistic progress year after year. Higher jumps. Faster times.

I feel bad for Floyd Landis. For the sport of cycling. I feel bad that when a guy makes up eight minutes in what looks like an incredible effort, that I can't just celebrate the achievement. Instead, I have to wonder if he shot up testosterone and if, a few weeks later, I'll watch them take his prize away.

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Floyd Landis & Doping in Cycling

What a shock and dissappointment! I'm waiting to hear the results of the B sample, but I honestly can't take this anymore. I'm tired of seeing my heros of cycling turn out to be fakes and cheats. I used to admire pro cyclists as superheros because they seemed superhuman. Now it seems to be turning out that they are not super in any type of way. Maybe you could actually take any person off the street, dope them up enough and maybe they could ride in the pro peleton. Maybe these athelets have no gift whatsoever. Its just sad.

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/news/story?id=2532396

http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm?g=6C3D6A3F-30A8-45AB-951E-6997C3D2C4C8&f=&fg=copy

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/news/story?id=2532396#

 

Slim Devices announced a new high-end network music player targeted at audiophiles. The "Transporter" is priced at $1999 and boasts a high-end DAC, isolated power stages, a highly accurate clock, and a button and knob-based interface. The Transporter has a variety of analog and digital inputs and outputs, most notable of which are the balanced outs and the digital inputs. By adding digital input - and enabling the use of the Transporter as an outboard DAC - Slim is essentially positioning the Transporter not only as a digital music player, but also as an outboard DAC.

The Transporter's knob is also worth mentioning. Slim has gone with a "haptic" knob, which provides force feedback. As the user approaches the end of a scrollable list, the knob begins to provide resistance. BMW uses a similar knob in its iDrive system. I've used it a bit in a friend's car, and it is a clever and very tactile experience.

I'm pleased to see Slim increase its product line. I own a couple of Slim's Squeezebox players. I prefer them over Sonos and Roku because of their built-in support for the open source FLAC lossless compression format. I also like the fact that Slim's server runs as a Windows service, and provides a decent web UI for selecting music.