Entries Tagged 'product warnings' ↓
September 16th, 2011 — ethics, product warnings
… Coverage of women’s sport makes up 9% of all sports coverage in Australian television news and current affairs, while male sport makes up 81%.
Horse racing alone receives more airtime that all women’s sport combined, making up the other 10% of all coverage. …
Damien Johnson – Women deserve fair go in sports pages
(via Australian Gymnastics Blog)
Evidence that women should boycott “old media”. And dominate “new media”.
Lauren Mitchell fan page
… A new survey … by the Pew Internet and American Life Project corroborates numerous other studies that show women dominating social media websites. This is particularly the case with Facebook and Twitter usage. …
… the social Web is now ruled by estrogen. Women make up over half of all social media users at fifty-six percent, and they hold sway over emailing, instant messaging, blogging and photo sharing, as well. …
Smedio – Women are taking over the Social web
Females dominate the Gymnastics blogosphere, too.
July 6th, 2011 — product warnings
MacBook Air in the Krankenhaus.
July 6th, 2011 — Gymnastics, Magazines, product warnings
The “Looking to London” edition.
Available FREE on one of those annoying digital edition formats.
It’s available here.
July 1st, 2011 — product warnings
People are spending more time inside mobile applications on average than they are on the web, according to an analysis from Flurry, a mobile analytics firm. …
Read more …
It’s been a couple of years since the last update of this site. Any update would be mainly to improve the experience on phones and tablets.
Leave a comment if you have an opinion on this.
via @JasonShen
June 16th, 2011 — bars, Gymnastics, horizontal bar, product warnings, rings, safety
This is a follow up to the post on single point of failure industry standard apparatus cable floor attachments.
Ricky points out that it’s not only the floor plate we need to consider, but the entire tie-down mechanism.
The most frequent mistake made in gyms is when some well meaning maintenance person decides to use a threaded quick link like this one:
Yes, that’s the same kind used in the new installation pictured above. Safe when used properly. Safe when threaded only once.
But in my opinion, if you’ve got those in your gym, replace. It’s possible for the threads to get stripped after repeated use. Likely you’ve seen Quick Links fail. They are untrustworthy.
UPDATE: Here’s an example of one of those Quick Links having failed.
Of the better alternatives, mountain climbing carabiners are light, strong and widely available. Get locking carabiners, just in case.
Locking carabiners have the same general shape as non-locking carabiners but have an additional sleeve securing the gate. These sleeves may be either threaded or spring-loaded twist-lock. …
There are two main kinds:
• Twist-lock
• Screw-lock
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Other suggestions:
George and Ian upgraded the attachments at Phoenix Gymnastics, Edmonton, by adding floor plates with multiple bolts, rather than just one. GREAT.
(Those still worry me when attached to a wood floor – on basketball floors, for example. I’ve seen the entire floor plate, with 4 flimsy wood screws, pull out at the same time.)
Tim Douglas linked to a new-to-me technology they’ve used called – Chemical Anchoring (PDF)
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Update.
Greg Jackson has some cautions regarding the climbing carabiners:
In rock climbing, we use very similar anchors and bolts too. I have installed quite a few of those in far more uncomfortable positions than standing on a gym floor.
The most important part of the system is proper installation – especially in relatively soft concrete. It’s common for people to be too casual while drilling the hole. You must keep the drill straight so that you don’t flute the hole and, for some anchors, you must ensure that you’ve drilled to the proper depth.
If you’re going to use two anchors, they must be at least 10 times the diameter of the anchor away from each other or from an edge, otherwise the concrete will “dinner plate”.
Chemical anchors have been used for ages. The French climbers have been using them in their famous limestone cliffs for decades.
The quick links are plenty strong if closed properly with a wrench; use Loctite Blue to seal the threads. Don’t use Loctite Red as you’ll need a blow torch to break the seal.
DO NOT use an aluminum carabiner, they will wear very fast with the repetitive movement against the sharp steel edges of the anchors. In permanent carabiner installations on rock climbs, steel quick links are used. A steel carabiner is usually huge and quite expensive as they’re used mostly for rescue and not climbing as they’re too heavy.
… So, there’s no perfect alternative to the threaded Quick Link, so far as I can see.
Decades ago we tried these U-bolts, hoping they were more reliable than the Quick Link.
I’ve never seen one fail.
Leave a comment if you’ve anything to add to this discussion.
May 19th, 2011 — Blogs, Gymnastics, product endorsements, product warnings
The GYMNASTICS at the 2011 U.S. Women’s Junior Olympic National Championships was excellent.
The EQUIPMENT, supplied by Whitey Anson of AAI, was perfect.
The coaches are there for the competition. I heard no complaints.
…. But here’s where I found the meet lacking:
• scant media coverage
• no LIVE blog (only one gym Mom was tweeting)
• no LIVE scoring
• no dedicated home page for the competition
• Mr. Video Online was not there. So no videos of the meet are available.
Coach Jason MacDonald did post some routines on Gymnastike. Thanks.
The City of Long Beach is wonderful destination. The arena superb. But I wasn’t impressed with the set-up.
Please leave a comment if you agree or disagree. I’ve not been to JOs in 3 or 4 years, so I’m not sure how this one compared.
The set-up for the Men’s JO Championships in the same venue, a week earlier, was much more impressive, IMHO.
… I’m responsible for Social Media at the next big meet in North America. We’ll try to do better.
April 15th, 2011 — Blogs, photos, product endorsements, product warnings
Tumblr is a microblogging platform that allows users to post text, images, videos, links, quotes and audio to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. Users can follow other users, or choose to make their tumblelog private. The service emphasizes ease of use …
Tumblr makes a painfully limited alternative to WordPress, but a fantastic alternative to Twitter.
People love it.
As of January 7, 2011 Tumblr included more than 2.6 billion total posts and nearly 12 million total blogs. …
Gymnastics Tumblrs (there are many) pass on interesting videos and photos. This one of the Russian women’s team, for example:
I tracked back that image to see where it had come from via WHAT MY REVERIES ARE MADE OF and aliyamustafina and It’s About Artistic Gymnastics. And others on Tumblr.
Turns out it was originally taken from AliyaMustafina.ru. (not online as I post)
Tumblr looks like fun. But very quickly the original source of material will be lost.
It’s free if you want to try it – Tumblr.com
April 8th, 2011 — pits, product warnings, safety
For fun I’ve been reading some articles from “content mill” or “content farm“ sites mentioning gymnastics. They are hard to avoid in 2011.
Low quality crap written to get a high Google ranking, pushing Google ads deceptively.
The best known (and most banned) is eHow.
Here’s an amusing one from All Expert Articles:
… There are plenty of fresh and also enjoyment toys in a gym. Nevertheless possibly the almost all fun doll in the health and fitness center is actually a stuff security gap.
There’s 2 varieties * a shed memory foam hole and also a resi-pit. A loose polyurethane foam hole is a lot like a major, enormous pool area filled up with quite gentle space-age foam hinders alternatively of water. Resi-pits resemble major big soft cushions, generally one yard thick developed down into the floorboards. …
How to Have Fun With Gymnastics by ElenovskajaMedlents
It seems to have been written by a computer programed to include key words at any cost: nudists, Huge Playthings for ladies, etc.
Don’t Let Anybody Wreck Ones Gymnastics Enjoyable
related – Read Write Web – Content Farms: Why Media, Blogs & Google Should Be Worried
March 10th, 2011 — product warnings, Trampoline
The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) has brought a disciplinary suit against Gymnova, a Marseille (FRA) based company specialising in the design, manufacturing and distribution of gymnastic apparatus.
The incident occurred at the Trampoline World Championships in Metz (FRA) in November 2010, when as the official supplier, Gymnova is accused to have delivered trampolines of a poor quality. …
FIG
Merde.
Gymnova is the official equipment supplier for the 2012 Olympics.
(via Gymnastics Examiner)
March 8th, 2011 — Gymnastics, product warnings
I can’t think of anyone online who complained more vociferously than I in the past about the Artistic Gymnastics World Cup events.
They’ve been lousy for decades, despite those years when Hardy Fink and the Men’s Technical Committee tried in vain to make improvements.
So when the first in the latest revamp – American Cup 2011 – was interesting and entertaining, I want to be positive.
Let’s give it a fair shot.
… That how I felt until I read Nora’s post on THE ALL AROUND – Editorial: FIG Masters Time Travel
We’ve got problems.
March 5th, 2011 — product warnings
Actually, I like Elfi Schlegel and have found her personally to be interesting, knowledgeable and dedicated.
But every NBC gymnastics broadcast I feel the same way … she’s dead weight, adding almost nothing to the commentary.
Of the three regulars, only Tim Daggett tries to earn his pay cheque.
One day Alicia Sacramone should replace Elfi.
(via Defying Gravity)
February 24th, 2011 — Gymnastics, humour, product warnings
eHow is an online how-to guide with more than 1 million articles and 170,000 videos offering step-by-step instructions on how to do things.
It’s much criticized as a “content mill” or “content farm“. Low quality crap written to get a high Google ranking, pushing Google ads deceptively.
Hows that working out for them?
eHow got the #1 rank for a Google search = “Gymnastics Coach”.
(I reset the Browser so there was nothing in the cache or history.)
Sage advice from eHow:
… Encourage your gymnasts to stay on their toes at all times by using the balance beam. Instruct each gymnast to walk across the beam at the beginning of practice. Once your practice is finished, ask them to do a simple handstand or flip on the beam to demonstrate the necessity for balance.
Why doesn’t Google rank content farms lower?
… Maybe they like all that Google ad revenue.
In Bing eHow was #1, as well. (And Bing results are consistently worse for me on any specialized search term.)
Check in your own browser. My results might have been personalized by location.
The new Duck Duck Go browser filters out all eHow results. This site was #1 there.
Wikipedia has blacklisted all eHow articles.
February 18th, 2011 — ethics, product warnings
Is Facebook a good place for kids? U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama doesn’t seem to think so. She says she’s happy her daughters aren’t using the popular social networking service.
Obama’s daughters, Sasha, 9, and Malia, 12, aren’t allowed to use Facebook for security purposes. …
Michelle Obama Doesn’t Want Her Kids to Use Facebook
That’s a no-brainer. If I was the President, I wouldn’t want my kids on Facebook, either.
Here’s a more worrying story for gymnastics coaches:
This 24yr-old teacher from Georgia was asked to resign after posting photos like this from her European summer vacation: Cafes in Italy and Spain.
Georgia is the Bible Belt. But this is pretty tame compared with photos I see everyday of gymnastics coaches.
Andrea thought her privacy settings were on MAXIMUM (only friends could see her posts) but somehow the pictures got out. One of her students called the school to complain.
CBS Sunday Morning – Did the Internet Kill Privacy?
Though she resigned, Andrea’s now suing.
As for me, I’ve now got a public Facebook (minimum security) and a private Facebook (maximum security).
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Hmm. Nabieva’s Facebook profile photo.
Actually, she’s changed it several times since. I don’t know how long that one was up there.
