鐵達尼號撞冰山之謎

上月遊船河，原來適逢鐵達尼號撞冰山沉船，認真大吉利是。當年電影一出主題曲成為大熱，傳聞各郵輪皆禁播該曲，不過看來已解禁。而該船因何故撞上冰山，一直以來眾說紛云，最近在Netflix看了它推介的一套2012年的紀錄片Titanic Final Mystery，似乎找到合理解釋。一直以來，最令人不解的是，船上有兩位船員專職觀察航行方向有否冰山之類的危險，視野足以讓船長有三十分鐘改變方向，所以矛頭一直指向船員船長失職。本片指出真正原因其實是海上冷暖空氣造成了海市蜃樓般的現象，令觀察員的視覺出現誤差，到撞冰山前一分鐘左右才發現及警報，船長立即扭軚也來不及；更不幸的是其實原來正面撞以該船的設計反而不會沉沒！唯有概嘆一句：人算不如天算。不過以上連結的評論似乎對本片結論有所質疑，並建議讀者參考其他紀錄片，有機會真要看看。

Sports highlights: Triple Crown of Motorsports

For the recent years that I have been following auto racing, F1's Monaco GP, IndyCar's Indy 500 and NASCAR's Coca Cola 600 (at Charlotte) always happen on the same Sunday. I guess you can't have a bigger day than this for US motorsports fan (even though only the first 2 is really part of the "Triple Crown" with the third one being 24hr of Le Man) I knew I won't be home the whole day so I recorded all of them and started watching the first one in the morning. It has been a long time that I saw Kimi Raikkonen leading a F1 race. Too bad his Ferrari team decided to pit him too early and have him lost time in traffic so the 2nd place (aka Ferrari's #1 man) Vettel could build a big lead and remain in the 1st place even after he pitted. That's basically the gist of the race. Then it was time to watch Indy 500: the polesitter Scott Dixon was involved in a freak accident in which his car became airborne and smashed at the wall but fortunately he walked away unharmed. The beloved "newcomer", 2 time F1 champ Fernando Alonso did very well and led quite a few laps but his engine blew and ended his day prematurely. Finally it came down to 3 time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves and the driver who "almost won it" a few years ago, Takuma Sato. Both had fast cars this Sunday. Castroneves passed Sato but was overtaken again late and Sato never looked back. The race wasn't decided by fuel saving strategy like last year when Alexander Rossi won it. However, fuel-saving was the race-winning strategy for Coca Cola 600 later that night (really late!) 2 of the stage winners, Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr really dominated most of the race but they pitted at lap 368 while Austin Dillon stayed out and gambled with the fuel, along with Jimmie Johnson. Dillon was the "last car standing" (Johnson ran out of fuel) and didn't caught by Busch and Truex (who finished 2nd and 3rd) Finally able to made his very supportive grandpa and car owner Richard Childress proud. (You need both luck and the silver spoon to win a race at this level!) My recording actually ended before these "thrilling" last lap because there was a lengthy rain delay :(

八卦掌 vs MMA

繼太極師傅挑戰MMA教練的Epic FAIL視像成為大熱後，又傳出八卦掌李姓師傅不敵MMA好手的片，後者董建（和香港前特首差一字:）的師父則是散打冠軍仲叢陽，仲又被稱為「少林梅花樁第一人」，不過從片中可見董出拳腿都不太有少林功夫的影子，至於李的八卦掌功力如何，也無從印證。