U.S.A. or CHINA

[Arijit Daripa]

U.S.A or China.
Which country will be at the top of the Medal-List of Olympics 2008.

Your guess is ? ? ? ? ?
              C H I N A
              U . S . A

[ August 15, 2008: Message edited by: ARIJIT DARIPA ]

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

I'll guess USA since this site is located there

[Jesus Angeles]

How do they compute it?

USA currently has more medals (gold+silver+bronze)

China seems to have more if weight is considered( gold weight more than silver).

On the list, China is ahead.

[Pat Farrell]

Yeah, but if Phelps was a country, he'd be about sixth on the list.

[Jesus Angeles]

If it is a tie, they will decide the winner based on the alphabetical sorting order; therefore 'C'hina wins over 'U'SA.

[Arijit Daripa]

Originally posted by Pat Farrell:
Yeah, but if Phelps was a country, he'd be about sixth on the list.

Very well-said Pat.
For me you have said THE SENTENCE OF THE MONTH.

[Pat Farrell]

Originally posted by Jesus Angeles:
If it is a tie, they will decide the winner based on the alphabetical sorting order; therefore 'C'hina wins over 'U'SA.

Which language do you base your alphabetical order?

And since Chinese is not an alphabetical language, how does one do that.

Hint: when the countries marched in the opening ceremony, they were ordered by the number of strokes in the idiograph that names the country.

[Mandar Khire]

I say China, because i am Asian.

[Jesus Angeles]

Originally posted by Pat Farrell:


Which language do you base your alphabetical order?

And since Chinese is not an alphabetical language, how does one do that.

Hint: when the countries marched in the opening ceremony, they were ordered by the number of strokes in the idiograph that names the country.

In that case, 'U'SA wins. They simply reverse the typical alphabet order, because, it is an extra effort to google china's alphabet order.

[Chris Seifert]

Originally posted by Pat Farrell:


Which language do you base your alphabetical order?

And since Chinese is not an alphabetical language, how does one do that.

Hint: when the countries marched in the opening ceremony, they were ordered by the number of strokes in the idiograph that names the country.

Where did you hear about that? Do you subscribe to any interesting feeds to keep up on and further develop your understanding of these issues?

[David O'Meara]

Which part?

[Chris Seifert]

Originally posted by David O'Meara:
Which part?

If this was in response to my question, I was interested in where the poster had heard about where the parade ordering had been done. I have an interest in unicode, linguistics and internationalization and am therefore interested in any good sites, groups or RSS feeds that might discuss issues related to those subjects. Should you happen know of any such places I would appreciate that information as well. I'm currently working through Korpela's "Unicode" book and am just starting to think about these issues.

[Jesus Angeles]

Originally posted by Chris Seifert:


If this was in response to my question, I was interested in where the poster had heard about where the parade ordering had been done. I have an interest in unicode, linguistics and internationalization and am therefore interested in any good sites, groups or RSS feeds that might discuss issues related to those subjects. Should you happen know of any such places I would appreciate that information as well. I'm currently working through Korpela's "Unicode" book and am just starting to think about these issues.

Did you watch the Olympics opening?

The countries paraded 'not' in a to z order, but in some chinese order. That is what Pat was saying if I am not wrong.

[Chris Seifert]

Originally posted by Jesus Angeles:


Did you watch the Olympics opening?

The countries paraded 'not' in a to z order, but in some chinese order. That is what Pat was saying if I am not wrong.

Unfortunately, I did not. I have 3 kids under the age of 4 and got rid of any sort of any sort of live TV. However, I recently read the collation section in Korpela's unicode book and wanted to continue my education in this area via some sort of feed(s). So, I thought I would ask. Thanks for your response.

[fred rosenberger]

The countries paraded 'not' in a to z order, but in some Chinese order.

Almost. Greece, by tradition, enters first. The host country enters last. The rest enter (usually) alphabetically. Since 'alphabetical' doesn't make sense with the written Chinese language (as I understand things), they employ a different schema - the number of strokes used to create the characters in the names.

This caused Australia to enter almost last for a change.

[Sri Anand]

looks like this time it is china

[Santhosh Kumar]

Total medal count wise, USA but gold weight wise China.

[Sri Anand]

Yes even count wise china is not too far.., We will have to wait till end to see whose count is more. Its hard for US to catch up china in gold the difference seems huge

[Marc Peabody]

Originally posted by Raghunandan Mamidala:
Yes even count wise china is not too far.., We will have to wait till end to see whose count is more. Its hard for US to catch up china in gold the difference seems huge

Expect 2 for basketball, 1 for softball, and possibly one for baseball as well.

[Sri Anand]

That makes only 4 , China could win few more too... thats reason its hard to catch up with a diference of almost 20 in gold

[Arvind Mahendra]

Its not going to be the same with U.S. coming in at no.2 for the first time in a very long time since USSR and West Germans used to dominate the playing field(very briefly). It seemed the U.S. would always be invincible. Is the IOC Olympic chairman going to declare this as 'the Best Olympics ever' too.?

[Pat Farrell]

Why does the media obsess over number of medals won? I believe this was started as a cold war thing, with the US versus the USSR. But then, Hitler in 1936 used the Olympics to claim that Germany was superior to all other countries. Actually, Germany is a pretty cool place, but not under Hitler.

I thought the Olyplics was to have good honest competition for fun.

Not to sell soda pop or claim that my God is better than yours.

[Ulf Dittmer]

True story about the 1936 Olympics: They were the first to have the torch relay from Greece to the host country. Didn't used to be done before. A Nazi legacy, if you will.

[Frank Silbermann]

China, for sure, will have the most Olympic medals. Even if the U.S. wins more, they won't be able to keep up with all the pirated copies.

[Sri Anand]

Are there are any countries that allow imported players(I mean from other countries) to represent at Olympics ?

[Paul Clapham]

Originally posted by Raghunandan Mamidala:
Are there are any countries that allow imported players(I mean from other countries) to represent at Olympics ?

Well, sure, there's lots of those. But the rules require those people to be citizens of the country they are competing for. There's nothing wrong with having immigrants on your team.

[Gregg Bolinger]

Originally posted by Paul Clapham:
Well, sure, there's lots of those. But the rules require those people to be citizens of the country they are competing for. There's nothing wrong with having immigrants on your team.

Yea, pretty much the entire USA team is made up of immigrants. Maybe not directly but descending from at least. But they are all American citizens.

[Frank Silbermann]

Originally posted by Gregg Bolinger:
Yea, pretty much the entire USA team is made up of immigrants. Maybe not directly but descending from at least. But they are all American citizens.

Actually, that's a myth. The original inhabitants are those who were present on the day the government was incorporated.

After all, countries are political entities, primarily -- not mere land masses.

[Arvind Mahendra]

Originally posted by Frank Silbermann:
Actually, that's a myth. The original inhabitants are those who were present on the day the government was incorporated.

After all, countries are political entities, primarily -- not mere land masses.

I think what Greg was trying to say is that America is by and large a land of immigrants, so its reasonable to think that the majority of the athletes competing on behalf of the U.S. would not be direct descendants of the original settlers from England. In any case that issue(defining 'American') is immaterial in this thread and best left untouched because it might be a sensitive one.

[Pat Farrell]

Originally posted by Frank Silbermann: Actually, that's a myth. The original inhabitants are those who were present on the day the government was incorporated.

Inhabitants of what political place on which of the many days the government was incorporated?

For example, if you lived in Detroit, Virginia on July 4 1776, did that count? Or did you have to be in what was later considered Virginia (Michigan and other areas were called the "Northwest territories" in the late 1700s.

Apparently there are a fair number of "native americans" whose cultural history says they have always been in the America, and they don't like this new idea that their ancestors came over from Siberia about 10,000 years ago.

What day do you use? The day the English claimed parts of the original 13 states? when the Spanish claimed it in the early 1500s? When Lief Ericson vistited in 900 AD or so?

[Sri Anand]

Each country gaurds its area. and people born in that piece of land are citizens of the that country.Does it matter where your ancestor lived,There is no confusion here.Centuries ago it was different and its different now.
If suddenly it becomes a fact that people can live and survive on moon, not sure how each country will claim its piece of land.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Originally posted by Raghunandan Mamidala:
Are there are any countries that allow imported players(I mean from other countries) to represent at Olympics ?

Germany has a recent German citizen (women's gymnastics.) She is a German citizen now though not from another country.

Originally posted by Frank Silbermann :
Actually, that's a myth. The original inhabitants are those who were present on the day the government was incorporated.

In the case of the USA, I think the two statements are equivalent. After all there isn't anyone alive old enough to be here when the USA was incorporated . For newer countries, you raise an important distinction.

[Ulf Dittmer]

Germany has a recent German citizen (women's gymnastics.) She is a German citizen now though not from another country.

I think her case is comparatively uncontroversial; she' been living in Germany for a long time, and has a German husband.

Much more debatable would be cases like Chris Kaman (an NBA player of US citizienship), who applied for and got German citizenship just in time for the Olympic basketball qualifications tournament. (This was perfectly legal, though - Mr Kaman has German grandparents, and as such is entitled to German citizenship.)
[ August 25, 2008: Message edited by: Ulf Dittmer ]

[Frank Silbermann]

Originally posted by Pat Farrell:

Inhabitants of what political place on which of the many days the government was incorporated?

For example, if you lived in Detroit, Virginia on July 4 1776, did that count? Or did you have to be in what was later considered Virginia (Michigan and other areas were called the "Northwest territories" in the late 1700s.

Apparently there are a fair number of "native americans" whose cultural history says they have always been in the America, and they don't like this new idea that their ancestors came over from Siberia about 10,000 years ago.

What day do you use? The day the English claimed parts of the original 13 states? when the Spanish claimed it in the early 1500s? When Lief Ericson vistited in 900 AD or so?

The definition is kind of fuzzy, like most concepts (e.g. the color "red" -- at which exact wavelength of light do you begin?). But I suppose anyone whose ancestors were here before the Constitution was ratified would count as a regular American. Of course, then you have to ask about people for whom only _some_ of their ancestors were here at that time.

I would be even more liberal and say that if, for all your ancestors who re-patriated to America from somewhere else, everyone who has ever met them is dead already, then your family has been here long enough for you to be considered a "regular" American for all practical purposes.

As for those Native Americans who claim their ancestors have _always_ been here (who reject the idea that their ancestors came from Siberia over ten thousand years ago), well, we can put that idea in the same category as six-days-and-rested-on-the-seventh Creationism. (Even "intelligent design" is more compatible with science than that.)

[Sri Anand]

Future Generations of Nomadic people who settle in a particular country are definately citizens of that country.thats widely accepted 10000 years way too long dont you think they can claim that the piece of land is theirs.

[frank davis]

Its always fun to point out that DNA and artifact evidence shows Europeans were in North America 10-20,000 years ago:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/columbus.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutrean_hypothesis
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1406/segments/1406-4.htm

There was some more recent DNA evidence this year, but my quickie google lookup missed it.

[Pat Farrell]

Originally posted by herb slocomb:Its always fun to point out that DNA and artifact evidence shows Europeans were in North America 10-20,000 years ago

But aren't the Europeans just Africans who walked a bit north?

[Frank Silbermann]

Originally posted by Raghunandan Mamidala:
Future Generations of Nomadic people who settle in a particular country are definately citizens of that country.thats widely accepted 10000 years way too long dont you think they can claim that the piece of land is theirs.

In most places in America, when Europeans found Native Americans whose ancestors arrived in the New World ten to twenty thousand years ago possessing any given pice of land, it was only because they conquored/extirminated/drove out earlier Native American settlers whose ancestors also arrived in the New World ten to twenty thousand years ago.* In a great many cases, more recent arrivals from Europe then did the same to them.

As for claiming land, anyone can claim anything they please. In recent decades, however, there has been an anti-war ideology that discourages the use of force to change boundaries and land ownership -- in effect, always favoring the status-quo.

(*In a similar manner in Eurasia, the Mongols drove west the Slavs who drove west the Teutons who drove west the Celts who killed off or absorbed the Basques. Or you can talk about the Aryan conquest of the Dravidians.)

[Arvind Mahendra]

Originally posted by herb slocomb:
Its always fun to point out that DNA and artifact evidence shows Europeans were in North America 10-20,000 years ago:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/columbus.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutrean_hypothesis
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1406/segments/1406-4.htm

There was some more recent DNA evidence this year, but my quickie google lookup missed it.

Its just as fun to point out that winners usually get to write history and rewrite the past.

[frank davis]

Originally posted by Arvind Birla:

Its just as fun to point out that winners usually get to write history and rewrite the past.

Maybe you're suggesting that all the sciences dealing with past aren't based on science at all?