Coming soon: The bicycle as a metaphor for a nuclear reactor

There are similarities between bicycles and nuclear reactors and I'll be exploring these soon. Until then, this thought provoking article is worth reading:
The Fukushima Nuclear Accident - Part 1
Béla Lipták Talks About the Safety Processes Used at the Fukushima Plant

Hooked on Twitter

Twitter is very simple: anyone can join, follow others and post tweets. Each tweet has a restriction of 140 characters, but this can include a link to a website or image so more detail can be included. As well as posting one's own messages, users can also retweet the messages of others, or quote and add to a message.

It's quite remarkable what such a simple premise can lead to.  Since joining Twitter, I have started following some well known personalities, people I know, and also complete strangers. I have interacted with these people by reading their posts, but also by writing messages to them. Some have replied; not just the people who know me, but also international rugby players and strangers.

Some of my messages have also been retweeted to be read by a wider audience than my immediate followers. I've also used Twitter to give updates on rugby games I have been watching, and have enjoyed seeing what others are saying about the same game. It's not the same as watching in a pub or stadium, but it's more fun than just watching alone in front of a TV.

When I joined Twitter about a year ago, I had no idea I'd get so hooked.  Thanks Jack.

Rugby referees have too much power

Today's Rugby World Cup quarter final match between South Africa and Australia was dominated by one man: Bryce Lawrence the New Zealand referee. During and after the game his name dominated twitter in South Africa. Not many comments were complimentary!

Before the game Lawrence had come in for criticism for the way he handled the recent match between Ireland and Australia which Ireland won. It looks like he had decided to reverse his poor decisions against Australia in that match by ignoring many of their transgressions in today's match. Hands in the ruck and high tackles by the Australians were ignored while South Africa got penalised at every opportunity. In the 71st minute he gave a match winning penalty to Australia after the assistant referee told him a South African player had tackled a player in the air at the line out. The commentators were of the opinion that the player had just fallen over after his team mates had not supported him.

At numerous times in the game he played advantage for Australian transgressions, but called 'advantage over' with no real benefit for South Africa. Other referees allow play to go on, but go back for the original penalty if nothing comes of the advantage.

Referees should not be interpreting the laws of the game. They should be consistent and should be held to account for their failures.

Maybe it's time for a change of the laws: Penalties should only be given for dangerous play and deliberate actions which prevent the opponents from scoring. All other transgressions should be penalised with a free kick.

There is no shame in losing to Australia, but the manner in which South Africa lost today after dominating ball possession and territory leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Bad referees should not be able to influence a match to that extent.

Does Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu have a point?

Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu has been suspended from all forms of rugby by the International Rugby Board pending a hearing because he used Twitter to criticise the referee after the game between South Africa and Samoa. Calling Nigel Owens a racist is clearly not on, but he also said he was biased. I’m not going to defend him calling anyone a racist without evidence, but let’s see whether his argument of bias holds. I’ll also look at his claim that tier 2 nations were given less rest time than the tier 1 nations.

Owens is Welsh, and Wales were playing in the same group as South Africa and Samoa. Using referees from countries playing in the same group inevitably leads to questions of bias, and the IRB should prevent this from happening.  

Before the game I realised the ref was Welsh, and as a Springbok supporter tweeted: “Best result for Wales is a win for South Africa. Does Nigel Owens realise that? #rugby #gobokke!”. Ten minutes into the game Owens got in the way of the Springboks and I tweeted: “Nigel Owens: "Sorry I won't do that again". Get out of the way ref. #gobokke #rugby #RWC2011”. At the end of the first half a Samoan was running towards the try line, looking for someone to pass to. The ball hit Owens, and I tweeted: “Nigel Owens gets involved again. Samoa was running towards the line, but ran out of players to pass to. #gobokke #rugby #RWC2011”. As the ball had hit him, Owens stopped play and then called time on the half. If the ball had not hit him, it is possible that Samoa could have scored, and a scrum at that point may also have led to Samoa scoring.  A good piece of play came to nothing, and the players left the field. I didn’t hear whether Owens said anything to the Samoans after getting in their way.

These two events, an apology to South Africa, and preventing Samoa scoring looked biased to me, and I was hoping for a Springbok win. A later tweet of mine read: “I'm not complaining, but Nigel Owens does appear to be favouring SA. #gobokke #rugby #RWC2011”.

It looks as if Sapolu has a point about bias.

Sapolu has been complaining loudly on Twitter and in interviews that the tier 2 nations had less time to recover between matches than the tier 1 nations.

The table below shows the rest period that the various countries had during the pool games.

Country	Rest 1	Rest 2	Rest 3	Mimimum	Average
New Zealand	7	8	8	7	7.7
Scotland	4	11	6	4	7.0
France	8	6	7	6	7.0
England	8	6	7	6	7.0
Australia	6	6	8	6	6.7
Italy	9	7	5	5	7.0
Ireland	6	8	7	6	7.0
South Africa	6	5	8	5	6.3
Wales	7	8	6	6	7.0
Argentina	7	8	7	7	7.3
Tonga	5	7	10	5	7.3
Romania	7	7	4	4	6.0
Fiji	7	8	7	7	7.3
Namibia	4	8	4	4	5.3
Japan	6	5	6	5	5.7
USA	4	8	4	4	5.3
Samoa	4	7	5	4	5.3
Canada	4	9	5	4	6.0
Georgia	4	10	4	4	6.0
Russia	5	5	6	5	5.3

There is a large gap between the average rest periods for Namibia, Russia, USA and Samoa (5.3 days) and New Zealand (7.7 days). It is interesting that Fiji, Tonga and Argentina have an average of 7.3 days between matches.

The ability to recover between matches depends on the rest time between games, and looking at the shortest rest periods for the teams shows that of the teams playing in the 6 nations and tri-nations tournaments, only Scotland had a 4 day rest period while most of the tier 2 nations had a 4 day rest. Namibia and Georgia had two rest periods of only 4 days.

The graph below shows the minimum rest days between matches during the pool stage of the tournament.

It isn’t fair to allow some teams a longer rest period than others, and the scheduling of matches during the World Cup needs to be reviewed. It appears that the schedule is dictated by TV broadcasters rather than fairness.

The IRB is bending down to advertisers and broadcasters, not acting in the interests of players and supporters.