Olympic Opening Ceremony

[Ghoulish Delight]

I'm assuming the blocks were not free-moving, just the necessary up and down. And yes, they would have to be on a lower level.

[Kevy Baby]

There had to have been some stops built in (natch).

[Ghoulish Delight]

I saw nothing that would necessitate mechanical stops. But I've only watched once.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

I saw nothing that would necessitate mechanical stops. But I've only watched once.

Full top extension. But that is probably a given.

[lizziebith]

I was sure I saw legs before the big reveal...but now that I've recorded it I'll have to watch again to see if that was my imagination or not...

[lashbear]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

I'm still a little perturbed that Bush is there, I still think Bush could have made the point without showing up. He's the first sitting President to do so.

Is this the first time the US President has come to an Olympic Opening ? Truthfully, I never knew that !

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

until somebody can convince me otherwise, I will still believe that the up/down movements of the blocks was mechanized. It was still too perfect an the movements too mechanical to be human-driven. Also, I was watching during the performance and there were times you could see under the "blocks" and there were no feet visible.

ETA:
Australia has 450 athletes out of 20.6 million people: almost 22 athletes for every million in population
China has 639 athletes out of 1.3 Billion people: less than a half of an athlete for every million in population

Well, if you put it like that... but it's still (and always has been, don't get me wrong) a little one-sided that some countries can flood the events with lots of athletes, and others only a few. Makes it seem like a numbers game. "Looky! We won most medals" - "Yeah, but you had 5 times the athletes of anyone else" the only way to avoid this would be to average the scores, to prevent it being sheerly a numbers game. (ie: country A has 1 swimmer, and country B has 5, Country A's athlete times at 3:27 and country B's athletes average out at 3:26 therefore they get Silver. (I'm expecting lots of disagreement over this)

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

So, Kevy, you're accusing China, the Olympic committee, and NBC of flat out lying? .

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

Okay, I acquiesce. We went back and watched the segment again. The announcers did say that it was human powered..

...and we ALL know that the Media (or government) never lies at all..... (I don't believe the olympic committee made a claim one way or the other)

I still think the velocity of the blocks was too smooth to be human. I agree with Kevy that the Flowers were most definately human powered. The only way to know for sure will be a BTS video showing underneath the blocks during the segment.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by lashbear

Well, if you put it like that... but it's still (and always has been, don't get me wrong) a little one-sided that some countries can flood the events with lots of athletes, and others only a few. Makes it seem like a numbers game.

I only watched about 18 minutes of the ceremony (and was incredibly bored by even that so I'm completely in Bush's camp if he had to sit there for all 5 hours) but I believe Costas mentioned that as host country China automatically earns competition spots in every single event at the games without having to qualify.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Just re-watched it. You can definitely see some sort of frame underneath each one when they went to full extension, but I don't think there was ever an angle shown where you could say one way or another whether there were legs/feet.

And I wouldn't assume stops at full extension. Among other things, on some of the close shots you could see that they weren't perfectly aligned when fully extended, and were even wobbling a bit.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Sorry, NBC explicitly said, "No computers, no hydrolics," etc. 100% human powered. All of these people have seen the dress rehearsals. There would have to be a conscious decision to deceive to make that statement and it be computer controlled. And I just don't understand what motivation you're ascribing them to create that fabrication.

Bush is the first sitting US President to attend an Olympics not held in a US city.

[lashbear]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Sorry, NBC explicitly said, "No computers, no hydrolics," etc. 100% human powered.
Bush is the first sitting US President to attend an Olympics not held in a US city.

Well, I'll have to concede that Chinese people have incredible precision (which is the point that they would be trying to make if they were lying) but as it's obviously true, then they've proved themselves to be way more precise than most. It's all about National image, I guess.

....however if anyone got sick on the night, it would be calamitous to say the least, unless you had an understudy for every single position on the grid. This leads me to think that, at the very least, Stoat's right about there being some kind of visual aid assisting them on the night.