I hold back blogging anything reffering the USA team during the preparation matchups since even if they won or loose it wouldn’t have counted and also it seems that their play would be very different from the real deal. Well the real deal came through and was pretty different indeed.
During the preparation games, team US looked a bit lackluster, specially trying to play small. Brazil and Argentina were close calls, at least the closest you would expect for a USA Team full of potential full of hall of famers and NBA star champions.
Not to take anything away from Argentina, which featured Spurs’s guard Manu Ginobili which is a solid star on a team that finished No 1. overall during this year regular season, and came 2 games from the NBA finals. But Luis Scola isn’t really a dominating force in the NBA, nor Lucioni or Varejao and Nene in Brasil.
If stars like LeBron, Melo and Kobe should take their roles more seriously and make the right moves to make the zone defense collapse and also defend like they know how to the critics of the size will quiet down dramatically. From LeBron chase down blocks, to Mello aggresiveness on the boards, there are many missing pieces that have make team USA look a bit conformist with the way they have played against countries with lesser stars.
US needs a bit more killer instinct and gain a dominance that can make them match the first dream teams including the Dream Team 2 and 3 which average a 30+ lead difference over the rest of the world.
Why is this important? Well, most international teams are also not so sure this team is as unbeatable as the earlier ones. Batum from France reffered them as beatable and other voices seems to believe the weakness in the middle could make their invencitibility shaky. Even Charles Barkley have talk about this team versus the 92 Dream Team saying they couldnt match David Robinson and Patrick Ewing in the middle would dominate the boards while team USA age, specially Kobe’s age is a bit past prime compared with Jordan, Pippen, Barkley and Co.
So uncertainty aside, does the USA Team has a real inmediate competition? The answer is not really, and their competition should be against other USA Teams and other Dream teams. Remember Dream Team 2 with Shawn Kemp dominating the boards and dunking on half of the Australian squad. Or the unstopabble center trifecta of Shaq, David Robinson and Hakeem Olajuwon? After reviewing those games, I came to see that one missing piece was the full court game these teams played. From rebound to dunk, the ball touch the court very seldomly. Having full court passes and fancy alley oops being drop every two or three plays. This is something that Team USA needs to remember and bring back to their game. To do this, rebounds, traps and blocks needs to be brought back, with a special request to cut back on the love of the 3 point line.
In my opinion, Team USA still needs to become more a team and a full court game with more penetration in mind and less of a half court shooting team.
Hunger games – my version
Today I have been dreaming about a distopian world were we live in a futuristic prision state. Thanks because I was listening to No Agenda. A podcast that is increasily becoming more depresive, also a less related trans-government ban on the mermaid discovery.
The dream was interesting, hot girls as prisionmates, super strong enforcerers. And a series of futuristic pleasures to spend time while we are retained.
Also escaping this artificial world throught he thick isolation through an uatomated and efficient prision. Let some bad guys be able to understand the system to be able to escape, except in my dream an update wasn’t detected and resulted in a casuality in my movie-like dream.
Funny enough there was plenty of sex, I guess when u can’t do much inside prision, and hot mixed cellmates, sex is something that serve as one more distraction.
Usually you get some penalties that are some kind of torture, like advanced psycological weapons that don’t shoot anything but then the target experience a lot of emotional and mental breakdowns and extract their memory into the shooters to be able to know all the details of a possible plan.
So doing a run out of prission was interested as we got caught and then torture in a stargate portal-like tie to face a bunch of enforcerers with special tools to provide some kind of psicological whips that emulate experiences. My friends descide to rescue me, and they go to fight them but unfortunately one of my friend gets beat to death as they finally get me off where I was tied and brought back.
Till the next dream, I think this was one of the more complex and creative dreams I’ve been with.
Hunger games – my version
Today I have been dreaming about a distopian world were we live in a futuristic prision state. Thanks because I was listening to No Agenda. A podcast that is increasily becoming more depresive, also a less related trans-government ban on the mermaid discovery.
The dream was interesting, hot girls as prisionmates, super strong enforcerers. And a series of futuristic pleasures to spend time while we are retained.
Also escaping this artificial world throught he thick isolation through an uatomated and efficient prision. Let some bad guys be able to understand the system to be able to escape, except in my dream an update wasn’t detected and resulted in a casuality in my movie-like dream.
Funny enough there was plenty of sex, I guess when u can’t do much inside prision, and hot mixed cellmates, sex is something that serve as one more distraction.
Usually you get some penalties that are some kind of torture, like advanced psycological weapons that don’t shoot anything but then the target experience a lot of emotional and mental breakdowns and extract their memory into the shooters to be able to know all the details of a possible plan.
So doing a run out of prission was interested as we got caught and then torture in a stargate portal-like tie to face a bunch of enforcerers with special tools to provide some kind of psicological whips that emulate experiences. My friends descide to rescue me, and they go to fight them but unfortunately one of my friend gets beat to death as they finally get me off where I was tied and brought back.
Till the next dream, I think this was one of the more complex and creative dreams I’ve been with.
Dreaming of code
Funny thing today, I actually dream of geeky stuff, basically trying to get more and more into this project I have started dreaming about alternatives. Today I was dreaming I was going to teach a class or a conference about ODF services joining them with webservices. To be honest I wasnt fully sleep I was more like about to fall asleep again but I read something related before shutting down so it was one of the things I start thinking as I was sinking asleep again.
So the dream was about joining the ODF framework with webservices to generate something cloud base about the OpenDocuments. Is an interesting thought about improving ODF adoption.
One thing that I also remember and tried to improve was to advance the work done on the www-at-odf.
Accidents happened
Well this pasf dream has been a new one on the scale of weirness. I guess I only remmeber the accidents but I have 2 kinda odd accidents. The funny part its that made me remember yesterday dream that also included another accident. So I was in my parents house with them and my brother, which is not as usual to dream myself in my home environment.
So first and most scary one was that I got attacked by the killer spider. While I was cleaning the room I tried to get rid of some of the dust acumulated on the room between the toys. As I was dragging this rather thick bed of duste down the floor, a spider comes out and threw a web back to where the toys were. I tried to kill it by the swing of the book, will blow the spider away and will get lost to my eyes since the background was as dark as the spider. Not only that but the spider have no problem webing and crawling back to the toys which was closer to me until eventually is over me and I made a clear target for an attack.In the end I didnt got attacked but definitely frustrated and a bit scared.
My second accident was even more odd, I think I was close to peen. I was being called but I have a very sharp urge to pee. I dunno how I resolve in my mind but I make it fine to pee on a position the stream will go straight to a sewer. However I miss handle myself and my whole clothes gets damped. Since I was back home, I could just wash it. However I lost the shorts and dont get it back till later on that dream.
The reason why I was called was because my dad couldnt find the car and wonder where I put it. I was remembering what i did last night but couldnt remember much except that the car should be there.
Dreamology 101
Today I have a double dream, after a long night of movies and partying my dreams were pretty good. Both related to high school days, however the last one is the only one I kinda grasp. There was some fun about this dream, but I cant really get the details.
As I woke up a friend of mine told me about trying to achieve lucid dreams, which is when you realize that they are dreams. Firt I learn about lucid dreams talking with my ex gf Irina a few months back when she told me she was experience a lot of lucid dreams.
So what could you do with lucid dreams?
Well, I would for start gain self awareness. Which is great! Read on for the benefits.
So my friend shared me a 9gag image about steps to gain Lucid dreams, and what surprise me is that I am already somewhat half way there. So what would be needed to achieve this is only pay more attention.
So read on and let see if I can achieve these lucid dreams.
OpenData and XML
I have been working with XML for a while, OpenOffice is full of XML, from the XCU to the filetype OpenDocument Format, worked as an umbrella format for many other types of XMLs, including popular w3c proposals like the Dublin core as well as other URIs and schema.
OpenOffice actually has an XForm editor, that is somewhat misleadingly named as XML document.
A few days back I gave a talk on Bitcoin which turned me on to check out OpenData initiatives as well as the importance of open standards. Looking at the local OpenData initiative I found it a bit odd that the implementations were so shallow. As they focused more on systems than on actual key elements like defining structured data and implementing interactive APIs for it.
This sent me to research defined standards for common organizational logic including geospatial, e-business, legal and financial standards. Adopting these standards play an important role and also a good way to produce code that can help the OpenOffice platform as well as systems built for it.
The importance of XML and the lack of awareness of the importance of interoperability for data is something key to the OpenData movement as well as increasing the knowledge of productive stacks that can generate interactions with it. Not just to create, consume, and convert but also to standardize on it and create the business cases for it.
This pulled me into looking back into my own domain of standard. The OpenDocument format and OpenOffice XForm as a medium to expand the applications and interaction of the suite to generate more compatibility with this.
Looking at this, I will work on generating new and exciting projects aimed at creating the extensions, components and filters for making OO a more intelligent platform designed for OpenData improvement.
Dream Teams: 2012 vs 1992
Is that time again when the whole league come back into one to assemble the best team that the generation can provide. The 2012 Dream Team are full of tallent, and great achievements. But how does it match vs the greatest team ever. The answer is a bit thought provoking.
Yes many people will say, there is just no match, hall of famers versus respectable stars. Dominating contest vs just enough star power. And who will forget the old Jordan vs Kobe comparisions. However!! a match by match can draw a more interesting picture. And even the skillsets might be pretty different.
These teams are very different from each other, from the style of play to the way they generate points. The 92 team had a strong presence, while the 2012 has speed going for them. But ler see how exactly do they measure.
1992 was an interesting year, Jordan and the Bulls had just beat Clyde Drexler of the Blazers in 6 and both players were at peak. While Magic has already been a year out of the NBA while Bird had back problems. Then is the not so much star players like Christian Lathener which was introduced as a College star. The twin towers with Patrick Ewing and David Robinson looked strong as well and very dominant in their position. As well as Barkley and Malone at the powerforward. All in all the team was very well balanced even with an injured Bird.
2012 team is a different story all together, many players had bailed out with injuries and operations, such as 2 of the big 3, last year MVP and other potential stars.With a lack of big men Chandler is the only natural C player on the Team, making it the biggest handicap of the team. However this team is clearly fast, with point guards like CP3 and Russel Westbrook with huge speed. Lebron freak train as well as Griffin huge vertical leap. Kevin Love and Durant with his great shooting range standing at a near 7 foot height does make this an interesting matchup.
Jordan vs Kobe
This will probably be the matchup of the century, as the great one takes on someone that actually has design his game on his footsteps. But 92 Jordan is much more agressive than 2012 Kobe so Jordan will have the upper hand on this one, the only question is, by what far.
Jordan’s will is something that Kobe will also have to face as well as his tenacious defense and traps with Scottie Pippen, who has also schooled Kobe in the past.
King vs Magic
This is a rather odd comparison, since LBJ is more of a combination of Magic in a body more like Malone with the speed of Pippen. But LBJ passing hability even thought would come short to Magic, Lebron can make it out on speed and athleticism, that can’t be match by any 92er.
Love vs Bird
This is also a matchup that is unexpected since Bird is not at his prime and Love is. And like Bird, Love is a PF with a great aim at 3ptr land. Larry legend will have a tough time running up and down the court guarding this threat from away from the paint.
And like that, the 92er big three will face their matchups. My guess is that Jordan will eat Kobe’s lunch, but LeBron and Kevin will be able to handle the eighties legends Magic and Bird.
Point Guards
2012 has plenty of guns on this department, from Russel Westbrook, Harden, Derron Williams and the great CP3. Would be interesting going against Magic or Stockton. Sure, stockton was one of the smartest point guards ever. But CP3 is also another all time great, and even if they are usually ignored, CP3 always comes back with a vengance.
Power forwards
Just like Love and Bird, another tall and big time shooter is Kevin Durant and matching up against Mullin, Bird and company on the 3point land is a bit less than optimal for power forwards. However the high fliying skillset of Griffin against people like Christian Leatner will prove not to be a problem. I think the real test come when real power forwards like Malone and Barkley will things get tougher. I think the rebounding battle is won by the 92ers which could become the key to the game. That is however, if there is any chance of missing from the 2012ers.
Centers
This is the last department where 92ers have a clear advantage with Patrick Ewing and David Robinson while the only true center from 2012 is Tyson Chandler. I will have to think that either Kevin Love or Durant might come to help but won’t be living that much of it.
So what do you think? Will 92 win and by how much against these matchups.
Ideas, thoughts and Free Software 