Superbowl XLIX

Bill Simmons covers the insanity that was the last few minutes of Superbowl XLIX, a column made all the better by Simmons' rabid New England fandom:

And then everything went numb. For like three minutes. Couldn’t react. Couldn’t feel anything. People were yelling in disbelief all around me … I couldn’t move. They showed the replay. The football bounced off Kearse’s hands, Ryan’s hands and back up into the air. As Kearse fell on his back and tried to find the ball, safety Duron Harmon jumped **over his head**. Naturally, the football plopped back down off Kearse’s left leg and then his right leg, buying him time to tip it with his right hand, then it fell into his hands as he remained on his back. Also, he gave birth to a nine-pound baby just because everything else wasn’t unbelievable enough.

Hopefully the fan-cam sideline video linked in the article is still up on YouTube. I watched it about 15 times - the pre-snap movement, the pause, the speed after the snap, the uncontrollable joy from the NE players when they realised what happened, and the *massive* roar of the crowd.

Who said the Superbowl was boring due to non partisan crowds?




All Hail The Internet Archive

Andy Baio celebrates The Internet Archive, and in particular the ever growing software emulation library:

The Internet Archive is a chaotic, beautiful mess. It’s not well-organized, and its tools for browsing and searching the wealth of material on there are still rudimentary, but getting better.

But this software emulation project feels, to me, like the kind of thing Google would have tried in 2003. Big, bold, technically challenging, and for the greater good.

This effort is the perfect articulation of what makes the Internet Archive great — with repercussions for the future we won’t fully appreciate for years.

Don’t miss the 2300 strong MS-DOS game library. Prince of Persia! Castle Wolfenstein!