With disruption from two major sporting events and fewer slam-dunk franchise pics, the overseas numbers weren’t expected to duplicate 2007’s stunning performance. But a variety of films that weren’t sure bets — notably “Mamma Mia!,” “Sex and the City,” “What Happens in Vegas” and “Kung Fu Panda” — managed to dazzle outside the U.S.

TorrentFreak is reporting that “Atlantis” was the most pirated television show for the week of of Aug. 17-24, unseating the Olympics opening ceremony and “Weeds” as the most popular show downloaded by BitTorrent users. (SyFy Portal points out that downloading shows through unofficial means is illegal, and does cost studios.)

The Beijing Olympics have closed and a dizzying torrent of fresh programming is unleashed on the airwaves: some of our favourite programs are returning (Australian Idol, Dancing with the Stars), and new shows are making their small-screen debut (90210, The Strip).

New Zealand hockey manager Kevin Marr was ordered by International Olympic Committee officials to watch the must-win match against Germany from the grandstand as punishment for three players wearing black undies beneath white shorts in an earlier game. Under the Olympic field hockey rules, shorts and undies must be the same colour.

As it turns out, Akamai is actually used for some, but not all of the cached content used on NBCOlympics.com — it hosts the “static” content such as the .JPG files and HTML. However, for all the heavy lifting, such as the streaming video, it’s all going through infrastructure hosted by Limelight Networks.

There were scores of critical questions posed to the organisers on Friday dealing with touchy topics such as Tibet, protest parks, ticket scalpers, the hissing of Japanese competitors by Chinese audiences, the Falun Gong and doping. Journalists have previously accused the organisers of lying and refusing to answer questions.

Central to all of the strange happenings at the Beijing Olympic Games is control. Chinese officials want to minimise anything that will affect the image presented to the Games’ 4 billion television viewers, but by doing so, have exposed themselves to enormous criticism for trying to present a falsely pristine occasion.

The protesters abseiled down the front of the building and hung a banner reading “Free Tibet” in Chinese and English. Chinese security officers tried to stop journalists from filming the event.

The rare outburst by Wang Wei matched the severe tone of the world’s media, which has been frustrated by China’s promises of media freedom while encountering continued internet censorship, internal blackouts on Chinese reporting, harassment, detention, obfuscation and, repeatedly, lies.

The uncomfortable reality emerging from the duplicitous Lin Miaoke/Yang Peiyi incident, apart from any moral or aesthetic considerations, is how it represents a microcosm of China’s own two-faced approach to the Olympics and, indeed, the world in general.