Waxy.org
Waxy.org is the sandbox of Andy Baio, a journalist/programmer living in Portland, Oregon. I work on Kickstarter, created Upcoming.org, made an album, and some other stuff too.

Contact Me: log@waxy.org or waxpancake on AIM

Olympics 2004 on Usenet

Posted Aug 24, 2004

As predicted, many of the Athens 2004 Olympics events are being digitized and uploaded to the Internet. The quality is good, often ripped from HDTV and international sources. (Many of the clips are from Brazilian television, with commentary in Portuguese. Those darn Brazilians again!)

To judge the video quality, here's a sample clip of yesterday's controversial judging of Russia's Alexei Nemov, in which the audience's vocal protests shut down the Men's Gymnastics High Bar Finals for a full ten minutes.

Video: Alexei Nemov - Male Gymnastics High Bar Finals (Sample) (.MPG, 25MB)

Like Yahoo's Most Popular, there's an emphasis on women's beach volleyball and women's gymnastics. But many other events are represented, as well. Below is a list of every event posted to the alt.binaries.olympics Usenet newsgroup since the Olympics started on August 13.

2004 Olympics Opening Ceremony
Artistic Gymnastics Women, All Round Finals
Artistic Gymnastics Women, Team Finals
Basketball Men's, 15th August 2004, USA vs. Puerto Rico
Basketball Women's BRAZIL vs NIGERIA, Aug 20th
Basketball Women's, Aug 16th - BRA vs. GREECE
Basketball Women's, BRAZIL vs AUSTRALIA, Aug. 22nd
Basketball Women's, Brazil vs Japan, Aug 14th
Basketball Women's, BRAZIL vs. RUSSIA, Aug 18th
Beach Volleyball Men's, BRA vs USA, Aug 19th
Beach Volleyball Men's, BRA vs. CUB, Aug 17th
Beach Volleyball Men's, BRAZIL vs SWITZERLAND, Aug. 22nd
Beach Volleyball Men's, Semis - BRAZIL vs SWITZERLAND, Aug 23rd
Beach Volleyball Men's, USA vs. Australia
Beach Volleyball Women's, Australia Vs Bulgaria - Highlights
Beach Volleyball Women's, BRA vs BRA, Aug. 22nd
Beach Volleyball Women's, BRA vs. ITA, Aug 17th
Beach Volleyball Women's, BRAZIL vs AUSTRALIA, Aug. 23rd
Beach Volleyball Women's, BRAZIL vs. CUBA, Aug 19th
Beach Volleyball Women's, BRAZIL vs. GERMANY, Aug 19th
Football Women's, BRA vs. GRE, Aug 17th
Football Women's, BRAZIL vs MEXICO, Aug 20th
Gymnastics Women's, Apparatus Finals - BALANCE BEAM, Aug 23rd
Gymnastics Women's, Apparatus Finals - FLOOR, Aug 23rd
Gymnastics Women's, Individual All-around Finals
High Bar Finals Men's, Aug 23rd
Rowing Men's, Eight Prelims
Rowing Women's, Eight Prelims
Swimming Men's, 200 Meter Freestyle Prelims
Swimming Women's, 100 Meter Backstroke Prelims
Swimming, Aug 20th
10m Platform Women's Semis, Aug 21st
Tennis Doubles Men's, Finals. First EVER Gold Medal for Chile, Aug. 21st
Trampoline Men's Semis, Aug 21st
Volleyball Men's, BRA vs. ITA, Just Tie-breaker set, Aug 17th
Volleyball Men's, BRAZIL vs RUSSIA, Aug 21st
Volleyball Men's, BRAZIL vs. NETHERLANDS, Aug 19th
Volleyball Men's, USA vs. Italy
Volleyball Women's, BRAZIL vs GREECE, Aug 20th
Volleyball Women's, BRAZIL vs KOREA, Aug. 22nd
Volleyball Women's, BRAZIL vs. ITALY, Aug 18th

12 Comments (Add Yours)

Aug 25, 2004
6:29 PM  
Tom wrote:

Hey, what newsgroups are these posted in? I dug around but my usenet foo is weak. Thanks.


Aug 25, 2004
6:33 PM  
Andy Baio wrote:

They're all in alt.binaries.olympics.


Aug 25, 2004
8:42 PM  
Tom wrote:

Thanks Andy. My Usenet foo is not so weak. It's the Comcast news servers that have the weak foo.


Aug 26, 2004
6:42 AM  
newbie wrote:

How do I connect to Usenet?
using what software?


Aug 26, 2004
8:15 AM  
Andy Baio wrote:

Usenet is a network that predates the Web, and is more difficult than your average Kazaa-like P2P application. There's a good tutorial at Slyck.

Personally, I recommend using the web interface for Easynews. I wrote about it a couple years ago.


Aug 28, 2004
11:48 AM  
Di wrote:

I tried searching on alt.binaries.olympics for indoors volleyball, but I couldn't find anything... Any help? I've been searching for those everywhere...


Aug 28, 2004
12:06 PM  
Di wrote:

ok, forget about it, I couldn't even sign up to Usenet...


Aug 28, 2004
12:50 PM  
Di wrote:

Do you know anywhere else where I can find indoor volleyball matches from the Olympics??


Aug 29, 2004
5:27 AM  
Aliroe wrote:

Any torrents on gymnastics out there? Suprnova.org has one of Paul Hamm, one on the Female indiv all around finals but no men at all. This saddens me.


Dec 2, 2004
10:08 AM  
Nikole Jolie wrote:

Nice tutorial. I found it very helpful. Thanks.


Feb 27, 2006
1:50 AM  
Goob wrote:

Looks like I'm almost two years too late for the files =) If anybody knows of ANY PLACE where I can get my hands on the entire opening ceremony during the Athens games, please do share that info with me. I've been dieing to see the Cube Man again ever since the Torino games came on.


Apr 10, 2006
6:34 AM  
talor wrote:

I tried searching on alt.binaries.olympics for indoors volleyball, but I couldn't find anything... Any help? I've been searching for those everywhere...


 

Leave a comment





Waxy Links
Ads via The Deck
September 1, 2010
Bear's Double Rainbow ad for Microsoft — also: meet Bear (via)
First details on Telltale's episodic Back to the Future game emerge — they also secured rights to make games based on Jurassic Park
Cee Lo Green's official video for F**K YOU — even better than the typography video, I'm perfectly content to have this song stuck in my head 24/7
Slate interviews Innocence Project cofounder about false convictions — over 250 people have been freed by new DNA evidence, many of them with false confessions
Unreal Engine 3 tech demo Epic Citadel for the iPhone/iPad — impressive tech demo, now available for free
GameSetWatch covers Assembly 2010's PC demo contest — if you have the hardware, I highly recommend trying out the two winners yourself
Apple announces Ping, a social network built into iTunes — their first foray into social, finally; seems inevitable that app/location/TV/music sharing will follow
August 31, 2010
All four issues of Daniel Raeburn's The Imp available for free download — highly recommended, covers Daniel Clowes, Jack Chick, Chris Ware, and dirty Mexican comics (via)
Eclectic Method's 8-bit Mixtape — not particularly great music, but the visuals make it (via)
Vanity Fair's glimpse into the day in the life of the President — long, must-read look at the insane complexity of today's political landscape
Lanyrd, social conference directory — brilliantly executed social event discovery; it should be pronounced "La Nerd"
Copyrighting Fashion — a new bill would subject fashion to copyright, but at what cost?
Tom Scott's Evil hack shows phone numbers exposed by Facebook users — culled from public "lost my phone" groups
Unhear It — replace one earworm with another
August 30, 2010
Stay Free's Illegal Art mix tape — the files all moved here
Mads Peitersen's paintings of gadget anatomy — love the iPhone guts (via)
Hark! A Vagrant's Nancy Drew covers — previously: the Gorey covers
Markov chaining Kickstarter blurbs — this also doubles as a Kickstarter project idea generator
Pomplamoose teams up with Ben Folds & Nick Hornby — Hornby wrote all the lyrics for Folds' new album (via)
The Wilderness Downtown — an HTML5 music video for Arcade Fire with some fun geo integration
August 29, 2010
Swarmation — like musical chairs for pixels (via)
August 28, 2010
Disney remixes old cartoons into "Blam!" — truly awful
August 27, 2010
PieLabPDX food cart makes customers play games to buy pie — they had to win a game of Rock Scissors Paper to get their choice
Dirpy — convert YouTube videos to MP3s with surprisingly deep transcoding options
Indie Game: The Movie interviews Adam Saltsman on Canabalt — every one of these shorts gets me more excited for the full-length film
August 26, 2010
Jerry Stiller Unscripted — an adorable encounter with the owners of the Costanza house
Members of Paramore, New Found Glory, and Relient K cover "Bed Intruder Song" — the original broke the Billboard Top 100 (via)
Happylife — prototype device ambiently shows a family's collective mood (via)
"Learning to Be Me" by Greg Egan — a better-written short story with a similar theme as "Where Am I?"
"Where Am I?" by Daniel Dennett — short sci-fi story from 1978 about where consciousness resides (via)

Andy Baio lives here. Some rights reserved, for your pleasure.