The longer you stare...

Recently started noticing that the longer I look at something, the more it looks wrong. When you spend a lot of time obsessively checking little details, eventually you seem to not help but pick up errors elsewhere (although maybe not in your own blog). For instance, sometimes people spend hours debating whether it is spelled focuses or focusses. Interesting that for some physicists, in their theories about the Big Bang and the creation of the world, it's the inconsistencies in the starting configuration that help to drive things forward. If everything was the same, then how would gravity work? How would galaxies form? Even at the most basic level, the theory goes that the very slight skew for more matter than antimatter means there even is a universe in the first place. It's always comforting to get some perspective from the realm of science. Errors, inconsistencies... they actually lead a lot of the time to creativity. Sometimes, words don't even seem like words any more when you stare at them enough. You aren't even sure if it's a right spelling or not... even at the higher level you aren't even sure if it's a real word. Sometimes, it even happens with people. The longer you stare, the more you notice what is wrong. Maybe it's something with their face, maybe it's as tiny as the way they pronounce a single word. I hope that the perspective eventually changes, with words, people and ideas that we don't dwell on the errors but look to the possibilities for creation.

Why the video replay system is unfair

Humans make errors. We make errors for a variety of reasons. Referees are human too. At least I think so, but if you believe the people in Sydney FC's ultras, the Cove, some referees deserve to be beaten, and their wives are quite promiscuous.

Video doesn't lie though, as long as you've got the right angle and showing it at the right speed. The amount of times a crucial run out decision is too close to call because they are missing the definitive frame is uncanny. Then there are the times that a catch or try looks good at normal speed, but when you slow it right down, it looks like he's dropped it. But every now and then, there is a decision made by an umpire and then you see the replay and it's just amazingly wrong.

That's probably why at the football and the cricket, for controversial decisions, they will not show the video replay. When you were watching at home, before there were third umpires, there was nothing more frustrating than seeing that your team was robbed. So, it had to be that we have video replays.

The video replay system in rugby league is unfair though. The referees can only refer a decision if a try may have been scored. This ignores the fact that the lead up phases to scoring a try are just as important. It's cause and effect, by just focusing on one element of play, it is ignoring the vast majority of play where dubious calls may have happened. And if the video replay system in rugby league is an admission that human error can happen, and that video referees can be used, surely it should be able to applied to the whole game.

Of course, you could just say that if you were able to have video replays all the time, it would just slow the game down too much. Maybe there could be a challenge system like NFL and tennis. Besides, the chicken wings and grapple tackles do enough of the slowing down anyway.

But the real doosy is how phantom goals like this happen http://play.hupo.tv/tv/3728496.html or decisions like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jfCLUIK0CU