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Friday, April 08, 2011
BALTIMORE, 04-08-11---Pimlico Race Course officials today announced post time for Black-Eyed Susan day, Friday May 20 has moved from 12:15 p.m. to noon.
The Preakness eve card features seven stakes races, six for fillies and mares, headlined by the Grade II Black-Eyed Susan Stakes. Pimlico has partnered with Susan G. Komen for the Cure® for the return of The People's Pink Party.
"The extra 15 minutes will allow the fans to have more time to enjoy the events in-between races and added time to focus on wagering," said Maryland Jockey Club president Tom Chuckas.
The morning features a jockey autograph session and a handicapping seminar. The Black-Eyed Susan Stakes will be televised live on Versus.
The 136th running of the $1 million Preakness® Stakes (Grade I), the middle jewel of the Triple Crown, headlines the May 21 card. First post for the 13-race program is 10:45 a.m. with Maryland's signature race broadcast live on NBC Sports. Preakness day will have nine added money races, including six graded events. In addition to the Preakness, the card will feature the Dixie Handicap (Grade II) and four Grade III races.
Preakness InfieldFEST will include performances by recent Grammy Award winners Bruno Mars and Train. Both bands will play extended sets on the main stage in the public Infield. In addition to the main stage headliners, the day-long multi-celebration festival experience will feature live music on the Jägermeister stage, entertainment and a variety of Maryland-branded food and beverage concessions.
Saturday afternoon features three major Triple Crown prep races. Uncle Mo headlines the $1 million Wood Memorial at Aqueduct. The undefeated Kentucky Derby favorite is the 1-5 morning line choice and will face nine rivals, including two Maryland-based 3-year-olds.
Toby's Corner, from Graham Motion's stable at the Fair Hill Training Center, is the 8-1 second choice. The son of Bellamy Road broke his maiden at Laurel Park last November and won an allowance race at Laurel in January before winning the Whirlaway Stakes a month later.
Toby's Corner finished third in the Grade 3 Gotham Stakes, one spot behind 47-1 longshot Norman Asbjornson from Chris Grove's Bowie Training Center barn. The son of 1998 Preakness winner Real Quiet is the fourth choice in the Wood, with morning line odds of 15-1.
"We are not there with the intentions of beating Uncle Mo," said Grove, Maryland's leading trainer in 2010. "We are going to New York with the intention of seeing how good he has gotten. Our goal has always been the Preakness and the Belmont, not the Derby, so we do not have top peak until the third Saturday in May. We are looking to get the best out of him on May 21st."
Norman Asbjornson finished off the board in his first three outings before breaking his maiden at Penn National in December. The colt followed that win with an allowance score at Parx Racing in January before the big effort in the Gotham where he finished 3 ¼ lengths behind Stay Thirsty.
"It feels like he is getting better," added Grove. "I worked him five-eighths with Eddie C. prior to the Gotham. They worked together and were pretty much head-to-head. This time Norman bested him by about five lengths. What a better stage to show how much he has improved."
Grove has won graded stakes races with Silmaril, Sweet Goodbye and Greenspring but his best Grade 1 effort was a second with Deer Run in the 2002 Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash.
Julian Pimentel, who won two races on the Friday card at Pimlico, has the mount.
With his victory in Sunday afternoon's Grade 1 Florida Derby, Dialed In became eligible for the Preakness 5.5 bonus. Saturday afternoon in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby, Silver Medallion and Anthony's Cross have a chance to stay alive as well.
Last summer MI Developments Inc. (MID), the majority owner of the Maryland Jockey Club, announced a unique bonus program centered around Pimlico Race Course's premier 3-year old race, called the "Preakness 5.5". The program allowed east and west coast based runners to qualify for the bonus in the Grade 1 Preakness® Stakes, the middle jewel of racing's Triple Crown on the third Saturday in May by having the preliminary races at Gulfstream Park, Santa Anita Park and Golden Gate Fields.
Silver Medallion took the Grade 3 El Camino Real at Golden Gate, while Anthony's Cross was victorious in the Grade 2 Bob Lewis Stakes. Both races were Feb. 12. A third colt, Premier Pegasus, won the San Felipe Stakes in March and was eligible but the 8-5 morning line favorite for the Santa Anita Derby is off the Triple Crown trail due to a leg injury suffered Thursday morning.
In addition to the race purses earned in the qualifying events and the Preakness, the owner of the winning horse would receive $5 million and his trainer would get $500,000.
The third Triple Crown prep race Saturday afternoon is the Grade 3 Illinois Derby at Hawthorne. The 7-2 morning line favorite is Watch Me Go ridden by Maryland mainstay Luis Garcia. Garcia was aboard the Kathleen O'Connell trainee when the son of West Arce won the Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby in March and sits 18th on the graded earnings list.
Garcia, who topped the Maryland colony in 2007 with 140 victories, has been a top ten rider in the state since 2003 but has ridden at Tampa Bay Downs since late December. The 26-year-old, who has won 725 races at Laurel and Pimlico Race Course during his career, returns to Old Hilltop next week for the balance of the spring meeting.
Watch Me Go faces 11 rivals, including Joe Vann (6-1), who won two straight at Laurel Park during the winter meeting.
Rosie Napravnik, who broke her maiden at Pimlico as a 17-year old in 2005 and won 259 races in Maryland the following year, will be aboard Pants On Fire in next month's Kentucky Derby. The pair captured the Grade 2 Louisiana Derby last month. She will be the sixth female rider to have a mount in the Derby
Read more articles in the Pimlico category.


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The Minnesota Wild Schedule looks brutal over the next month – in fact, the Star Tribune puts it like this:
"One of the toughest stretches of the Wild's season is here, and the players had better be ready. It starts with a three-game stretch against some of the best teams in the Western Conference -- Calgary, Detroit and Chicago. After that, the Wild plays nine of the next 11 on the road."
The players better be ready? Uh, yeah. They better. I think we will be able to tell if this Wild team is going to make it to the NHL playoffs this year just based on the next few games. Any thoughts Wild Fans?
Let's hope for a home ice win tonight against Calgary Flames to start this tough stretch of schedule off right.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Wild Better Tighten Up the Laces
Posted by MN Wild Freak
Labels: Calgary Flames, Minnesota Wild Schedule
2 comments:
- Cortney said...
Hah, they did well with Detroit and Chicago, not so hot with LA last night...what the heck???
- February 25, 2009 at 12:26 PM
- MN Wild Freak said...
what the heck is right - this team has a lot of it's fans confused.
- March 5, 2009 at 6:46 AM
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subset: commoncrawl


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Not a week after homemade bombs tore through a crowd at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15 leaving three dead and dozens wounded, law enforcement identified Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as the assailants. A few days later, Tamerlan lay dead and Dzhokhar wounded and handcuffed to a hospital bed after being hunted down by a virtual army of police and federal agents who had turned Boston into a city under control.
During the hunt for the Tsarnaevs and in the weeks thereafter, there has been a steady drumbeat of politicians, police officials and "experts" clamoring for more technology, better technology as the silver bullet to identify and track future "lone wolf" terrorists before they act. Facial recognition software, massive surveillance camera networks, databases on suspect individuals and "intelligent video" technology capable of recognizing "abnormal" behavior have all been promoted as necessary measures to prevent the next mass bombing.
A New York Times/CBS poll conducted last month found a majority of those surveyed were in favor of installing more public surveillance cameras and supported curtailed civil liberties in exchange for public safety. New York City has the largest networks of linked surveillance cameras in the United States, a fact which Mayor Michael Bloomberg frequently touts. After the Boston bombings, Bloomberg told reporters "You'll never know where all our cameras are." On the other side of the country, the San Francisco Police Department is seeking to increase the number of cameras it has along the city's downtown thoroughfares and monitor them live. That possibility may seem mundane, but the measure was not implemented after a rash of criticism in the civil libertarian hotbed of the Bay Area. Backpacks will now be banned at the annual Bay to Breakers run.
However, there is scant evidence that mass surveillance has any deterrent effect on determined terrorists - and the actual facts of the Tsarnaev case actually run contrary to the narrative that emphasizes the need for new, more intrusive surveillance technology. The Tsarnaevs were identified as the bombers through a combination of photographs, video and, critically, eyewitness accounts. Their faces were not identifiable through facial recognition software because the brothers were not in any databases of arrestees. Human interaction, rather than technology, led to their arrests. Furthermore, two government databases of potential terrorists failed to flag Tamerlin Tsarnaev's trip to Russia while ignoring the Russian government's warning about his potential radicalization.There are concerns even within the law enforcement community that the Monday-morning quarterbacking of the Boston attacks will result in a rush towards expanded surveillance of public places without consideration for the legal or societal implications. Law enforcement and intelligence agency veterans have warned that a rush to build out surveillance infrastructure could turn the United States into an Orwellian "surveillance state" to rival China. Philip Mudd, a former FBI intelligence adviser, cautioned against the consequences of intensive scrutiny of individuals suspected of terrorism at a conference in Washington, DC last month.
"The question is: what kind of screening do you want in place to get an American into that lens? Before you want to swing that pendulum too far: be careful," Mudd told the Guardian. "If you want to guarantee we find those folks - and by the way, the FBI wouldn't, anyway - there is only so much you can do in an open society to penetrate a closed circle."
Bruce Schneier, a nationally renowned security expert, has long been critical of quick-fix security policies implemented without evidence of their effectiveness. "We do like our technology, and we commonly see it as the solution to our problems," Schneier said in an interview with Truthout. "The thing is, it often is. Technology is always getting better. It can always do more things. It can always do different things."
However, Schneier argues that when it comes to technological improvements, security is one field where the newest and most advanced tool will not always accomplish the goal of guarding against harm. "Security isn't just about increasing technology," Schneier said. "It's about defending against an intelligent adversary who has his own technology. This makes the progression very different. But that's not obvious to the layman who just knows that technology makes things better."Schneier unequivocally stated that large networks of surveillance cameras are not effective deterrents to either crime or terrorism, pointing to several studies of their impact in the United States and the United Kingdom, where closed-circuit television (or CCTV) has a minimal deterrent effect and helped solve relatively few crimes.
Databases of suspected terrorists and "intelligent video" software designed to recognize "suspicious behavior" are also susceptible to human error and flawed algorithms, said Jennifer Lynch, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who works on privacy matters. "There's an assumption that computers and software can do no wrong," Lynch told Truthout. "If no corrections are built in, it could lead to people being targeted incorrectly."Over the past decade, military-industrial giants such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman have invested heavily in surveillance systems and software as Pentagon spending migrates away from traditional weapons systems such as fighter jets and warships.
While the drive for profit from these companies is one factor behind the expansion of the American surveillance apparatus, there are also more subtle drivers in our recourse to technology for a solution to seemingly intractable problems of terrorism and crime. Jay Stanley, a senior ACLU analyst who specializes in technology and privacy, believes the recourse to technology partially stems from deeper psychological urges to control seemingly chaotic conditions. "Technology allows for greater control of people," Stanley told Truthout. "Surveillance is a form of control - just the act of being watched forces people to change their activities." Terrorist attacks, Stanley said, are extremely difficult to predict or forecast, and governments understandably respond to this lack of command with methods that allow them to "say they're doing something" while also increasing their influence.
And while ordinary citizens may not understand the immediate ramifications of implementing policies like blanket CCTV networks and warrantless electronic surveillance, when it impacts their private lives, the consequences become immediate. "When the rubber hits the road and people feel the loss of privacy in their personal lives, they tend to get angry," Stanley said. If the momentum for increased domestic surveillance gathers enough steam, the United States could turn into a dystopian society that will make the cold war-era East Germany depicted in the 2006 film The Lives of Others seem mundane by comparison.
CCTV paired with intelligent video software designed to pinpoint "suspicious behavior" will encourage law enforcement to make preemptive arrests and detentions, a practice which the New York City Police Department is already accused of through racial profiling of young black and Latino men. Electronic communications will be an open book to law enforcement as Fourth Amendment protections against unwarranted searches and seizures are gutted in the name of public safety exceptions.
In truth, many of these changes are already present. The National Security Agency has the capability to eavesdrop on domestic communications, which rose to the level of scandal during George W. Bush's administration but has faded from the headlines since the Democrats took back the White House in 2008. The FBI is pushing to require electronic communications companies to build in wiretapping capabilities to their networks or face serious financial penalties. Military-grade software that stores the biometric information of detained individuals is already in use by the NYPD, and programs that predict battlefield casualties are being re-engineered by private companies for "crime prediction" purposes.
We are at an inflection point as a country, and the Boston attacks may just be the catalyst that transforms the United States into George Orwell's Oceania.


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Brave Kings
|Written by Administrator
|Tuesday, 07 February 2012
by Natalia Pogonina for her
Chess.com Tuesday column
The king is the main piece in chess, and the central object in any players thoughts. How do I protect my own king and checkmate the opponents monarch? While being quite valuable, the king cant boast being mobile enough to fight efficiently in the middlegame, so most of the time its power can be seen only in the endgame.
In other situations the king is not satisfied with the passive role of remaining in the centre, and it bursts into the action! In 2010 the fantastic game Gashimov-Grischuk was played (game of the year according to ChessPro). The Black king walked half of the board to help Black win the point. Such travels require good coordination of the other pieces, as they should be accompanying His Majesty and protecting it whenever necessary.
Here is another absolutely classical example of a kings walk:
Photo by Martin Chrz
In a game against renowned GM Rafael Vaganian at the Snowdrops-Oldhands match I also got to meet a brave king. On move 21, instead of a standard castling, Rafael decided to leave his king in the centre. This was possible due to the knight on d5, who turned out to be a powerful defender. The king was quite safe on d7, and just waiting for the right moment to grab the pawn on d6.
The first interesting option was 16. Qe2, but I have missed it. On move 19 I misevaluated the position and didnt play f4, although it was more promising than 19. Qe2. Black wasnt forced to play Kd7, but the idea looked both strong and beautiful. Mutual mistakes happened on move 28. At some point I decided to settle for a draw and played somewhat inaccurately.
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SpeechControl provides speech recognition for Linux. It allows you to train and build archives of your voice so it can understand you with precision, can install standard models and adapt the model to reduce the amount of work you'd have to do and have a wider range of accuracy, and can share your training information with the online repository VoxForge.
An interface library to access tags for identifying languages.
C++ and IDL Class Documentation Tool


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Ok so I apologize for this rant... but am I the only person who thinks that a huge number of dog owners don't care enough about their dog's social lives?
Lily and I are lucky to live right by Hamstead Heath and we take Tails there every day, either to run in the forest or go to the little 'dog park' area. Tails has made a few friends there and meeting and playing with other dogs is the highlight of his day.
I can't help feel though that so many people just don't think it's important for their dogs to spend time making friends and playing. So many people would rather walk laps of the park with the dog following behind then spend a couple of minutes letting the dogs play together. Maybe this is the cold 'London culture'? Tails is always so sad that his friends can only ever spend 10 seconds hanging out with him before they have to walk off with their owners. I know some people have to go to work and can only spend a few minutes in the park in the morning but... I just think letting dogs play together is such a worthy activity.
Sorry, rant over. This has been bugging me for a few weeks now and I had to get it off my chest!


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Could a daily "baby" aspirin help ensure the safe delivery of healthy babies? Recent research examines what role aspirin may play in both reducing the risk of miscarriage, as well as reducing the risk of developing preeclampsia later in pregnancy. However, health care providers also warn expectant mothers, or those who are trying to conceive, not to start taking aspirin daily before talk to their provider. Chief of Women's Services at Lovelace, Dr. Abraham Lichtmacher explains what this latest research means for women considering getting pregnant.
"The use of aspirin has been recommended for a variety of conditions related to pregnancy complications," says Dr. Lichtmacher. Related to the study of more than 1,000 women with a history of miscarriage, a daily low-dose aspirin (81 mg) was found to slightly reduce the rate of miscarriage, but only for a subset of the study population. Overall, researchers discovered no difference in outcomes for those who took aspirin compared to a placebo. "Early miscarriage may be due to many different reasons. The use of aspirin might be beneficial to reduce the risk due to a small portion of these reasons, but the evidence so far is inconclusive."
Women who suffered a single miscarriage before 20 weeks, who were prescribed aspirin and tried to conceive within a year of the miscarriage, experienced the most notable results. 78 percent conceived and 62 percent had live births, compared to 66 percent and 53 percent respectively with the placebo.
Meanwhile, 7 million women each year face a potentially fatal disorder when they develop preeclampsia. Women with this condition experience extremely high blood pressure, as well as protein deposits in the urine. A task force of volunteer health care providers, which advises government health agencies, found a daily aspirin regime after 12 weeks of pregnancy could reduce the risk of preeclampsia for high-risk women by 24 percent and the rate of preterm delivery by 14 percent. While the findings appear to be good news for women at high-risk, Dr. Lichtmacher says more needs to be investigated. "Although we know a lot more about the disease than before, the exact causes are still elusive, and so the use of aspirin might be helpful in some very specific circumstances for patients who have risk specific factors," he says. "The bottom line, for the average patient who is thinking of getting pregnant, I don't recommend anything beyond good nutrition and a vitamin supplement with folic acid and iron."


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I find it quite amusing that after nearly 3 decades of seeing VR headsets, they still manage to look retarded to this day.
"all you have to do is wear this 30 pound chunk of shit on your face, and you too can look like a moron
Proof of concepts always focus on capability, not aesthetics.
thanks, so how many decades does it take to prove that face mounted helmets are stupid?
thanks, so how many decades does it take to prove that face mounted helmets are stupid?
I'm certain the world will be lining up to try your arm-mounted helmets any day now.
thanks, so how many decades does it take to prove that face mounted helmets are genius
Apparently, approximately 3 decades. But time will tell. It ain't over yet.
apparently you have never worn one of these things, they are heavy, and hurt your eyes, face, nose, and the back of your head, genius? if they are so grand why have they never become popular?
Google for oculus rift.
Because we've had to wait for miniaturisation to catch up to the idea. Just cause something fails once does not mean it will fail always.
ok, they havent gotten any smaller in the last 15 years, someone linked me to the "state of the art" while using newer technology is basicly the same size as what I owned in the 90's
LCD's didnt just pop out of nowhere in the year 2000 ya know
apparently you have never worn one of these things, they are heavy, and hurt your eyes, face, nose, and the back of your head, genius? if they are so grand why have they never become popular?
The reason they never became popular the first time around was that the Virtuality sets were so expensive. They cost tens of thousands of dollars each and were only good if you had a few so several of you could play together as they had no single player games available.
If you happened to get access to an arcade where you could play for free though (Like I did) you could still get seriously addicted to playing them. Whenever someone came in to the arcade and wanted to play but they were the only person I would have to don the other headset. I never remember the helmet being that uncomfortable to wear but I probably would not have cared if it was to be honest. The only thing that pissed me off was how expensive it was to play, I thought we should drop the price but when I found out how much it cost to rent it I understood.
Ultimately we gave it back as to just didn't generate the revenue for the floor space it took up. If you could have got the price down to a level where it could cost more like 50 cents or a dollar I think it might have been more profitable. As it was I think the minimum you could charge to cover the rent of one was about $5 per go and that barely covered the rental even if it was busy every night and all weekend (It wasn't at that price).
The problem with anything like this though is that once one company tries it and fails it poisons the idea and prevents anyone else from trying it for a while afterwards. The other problem is that most arcades started closing during this period as the consoles you could buy at home caught up in terms of technology.
The killer product that has made the idea of these things popular again though is the Microsoft Kinect. Once you take 2 or 3 Kinect style gizmos and throw them around you in a living room it will make it possible to track something like a brightly coloured gun to figure out where you are aiming it. Then a headset to control the visual movement and a simple joystick on the side of the gun to make you walk (so you can stay still in the middle of the room). Nobody previously would have predicted that microsoft could have produced the Kinect and released it for the price they did, that changed a whole lot of things.
Another amazing use for one of these devices now is in racing games. Currently even playing with a nice steering wheel setup the way you look at cars around you (such as when they are overtaking and in your mirror blindspot) is quirky or non existent. A device like this could make driving games seem far more natural.
I don't even see how that (wired) monster is even relevant after Google Glasses.
There's a significant difference between augmented reality (Project Glass) and virtual reality. Augmented reality has a lot more practical uses - You know, in the REAL world - while virtual reality seeks to create an entirely new world from scratch. Sure, some things are relevant to both kinds of headset, but ultimately, augmented reality is to help you with your shopping - while virtual reality will let you slaughter you friends.
There was an hour long video at QuakeCon which is very interesting to listen t
And why do you care what you look like at that particular time? Same complaints about wearing 3D glasses at a 3D movie are just as senseless. Who cares what you look like? People are watching the movie, not you, weirdo.
The state of the art at the moment seems to be this device [oculusvr.com] if you're interested on the subject.
The state of the art at the moment seems to be this device [oculusvr.com] if you're interested on the subject.
Yes, but there are other models that don't make you look like a retard. [vuzix.com] They even work with your smart phone. I use the 920AR [vuzix.com] (Altered Reality) version, it has two dorky looking cameras on the front and the screens aren't as large, but it's lightweight and looks nicer than huge honking device.
Considering that I've been using something like "Google Glasses" for years, I figured they'd have their crap together and on the market by now...
You should watch John Carmack's QuakeCon 2012 keynote. He talks about this at some length (especially the they're all crap perspective). Part of the problem seems to be that the main needed components haven't really been available from a mass market before now. That's changed with smart phones.
While it seems tempting to saying "Just work on what you think you should work on", it also seems risky.
The What Ifs. What if you hire somebody and tell him to work on whatever, and he just posts stuff like this to
Or would the management structure suddenly come into being at that time?
Well, if all they do is fuck around all day then it would probably be discovered fairly quickly in a company as small as 300 people.
Lots of new start ups are doing this type of management scheme. Github is another company [zachholman.com] that just lets people work on whatever, however they want.
I've worked at companies that were structures this way by accident. It was a government contract design and machine shop. The manager was just a laid back guy that got an order and let us figure it out.. The engineers liked designing and the machinists liked building things. We were very successful because we did what we liked.
The best part is that if you have an experienced group you can easily tell which projects are a waste of time and nobody worked on those. This allocated resources very efficiently.
Then one day the contract was up and new management came in and tried to actually manage the place. Everyone with a brain left after 6 months.
What if you hire somebody and tell him to work on whatever, and he just posts stuff like this to
That thought also crossed my mind while reading the valve employee manual [flamehaus.com]. The reason it wouldn't be a problem is that if you're good enough to get hired by Valve, the chances are quite high you'd also be responsible enough not to do that.
Their solution to that?
1) Hire the best people. The best people are always self-motivating: I know if *I* worked at Valve, I wouldn't have time to waste on
2) Salaries are employee-decided. They periodically get a bunch of people together to review your salary. So that means if you waste the company's time, you don't get paid as much as the guy who won the com
Given how much you look around in first person games having to move your head would end up very strenuous and would likely result in some sort of RSI. I'd much rather look at a monitor in front of me and move the mouse a few centimetres when I want to look around.
I also wonder how these headsets will work with movement/aim. With standard first person control where you're looking, the direction you're facing and the point you're aiming at are all the same. With a headset it would be ridiculous to set your
In my opinion, this is the way businesses should be run. Gabe is looking at the 5 to 10 year goal of wearable computing will be powerful enough for virtual reality. I don't know if he is right, virtual reality has been virtually around the corner for nearly decades now. I hope it will be. It pretty much depends on if the processing power of the computer chip continues to follow Moore's Law. And even then, I don't know. Maybe not total virtual reality - more like augmented reality. In any case, we e
I'm really impressed with Valve right now.
While the Valve model is a part of it, you should be directing your praises specifically at Michael Abrash.
Abrash is a long-time graphics and optimization guru (author of Zen of Assembly Language, Zen of Graphics Programming, and two legendary Dr Dobbs series of articles, one titled Ramblings In Realtime and the other Graphics Programming Black Book) that Valve has been trying to hire for a very long time.
This is the guy who single-handedly made the Quake rendering engine, with its software-based perspective-correct texture mapping and lighting, a possibility at the time that it was released. Valve finally succeeded in landing him about a year ago, and he has been investigating the practicality of Virtual and Augmented Reality ever since.
He even writes about some of his findings in his blog, Ramblings in Valve Time [valvesoftware.com]
The headmounted display (HMD) the NYT article leads off with wasn't created by Valve though. It was created by Palmer Luckey [mtbs3d.com]. Gabe helped him assemble a tiny little 8 person corporation to commercialize the design (and probably offered private financing to help make sure it gets off the ground in style, though that has never been publically reported). He may not need the financing though. The Oculus Rift Kickstarter [kickstarter.com] ended a little over a week ago and was phenomenally successful. They're calling it one of the top 10 Kickstarters so far. That same HMD has been credited to John Carmack too, so it's not too surprising the NYT got it wrong.
As for the people complaining about how clunky the pictures look, ever heard of prototyping? That's what that was. Check the Kickstarter page for what the Rift 1.0 kits will look like when they ship this December. You can bet the Rift 2.0, likely to be available commercially next year, will look even slicker.
As for the people complaining about getting sick or eyestrain from it, it may come as a shock, but the past 20 years haven't been completely useless in determining what was wrong with '80s VR. Human vision is now so well understood that a layman can explain the basic issues with VR. It doesn't take an optometrist anymore. More to the point, Carmack has done some real science using the Rift prototype he has and determined that the biggest driver for making VR work (or not) is latency, in both headtracking and the display. Get that roundtrip loop down to less than 20 milliseconds, and human vision (and brain) buys it. It looks like looking at a world, after that, and no longer induces vertigo. The hardware is finally at a point where getting under that limit is feasible.
The biggest reason VR can succeed this time is display technology. Smart phones have driven the costs of conveniently small conveniently high resolution LCD panels into the ground. What was once a ridiculously custom built $50,000 piece of gear is now a $300 piece of gear made of off the shelf parts originally intended for phones. Right down to the sensors. Trackers on a chip have also gotten both very sophisticated and astonishingly cheap. It ain't the '80s anymore, kids.
What does all this have to do with Valve? Valve in general and Gabe Newell in particular believes that this time, VR WILL work, and that the platform of choice to get it off the ground is the PC. PCs tolerate new peripherals better than any other platform, especially since many platforms don't tolerate 3rd party peripherals in any form at all. Good luck creating a 3rd party peripheral for the PS3, for instance. Of course, if Microsoft succeeds in killing the PC as we know it with their own app store, then Valve needs their own platform. Hence, the hardware design interest. If their platform includes ready-to-run Virtual Reality that actually lives up to sci fi dreams, so much the better. The results may ultimately become Yet Another Walled Garden (YAWG. Catchy, eh?), but so it goes.
yea, I had a 300$ one in the 90's and another 300$ one with high resolution TFT's in the early 2000's, delay was well below 20ms and it still boils down that a flickering screen less than an inch from your eye, in stereo will make most peoples heads split in a matter of moments. not to mention even the lightest one I had at only a handful of ounces was still flat out uncomfortable.
your right its not the 80's anymore, but just cause they reduced the issues, doesnt mean the issues are gone.
You whine too much. A handful of ounces is not uncomfortable. I've worn prescription glasses since I was a child, and before high refraction index plastics were available, my glasses weighed a handful of ounces. It's trivial to become accustomed to that weight, to the point it's unnoticeable. Nor is the design of prescription glasses so marvelous that the weight is especially well distributed. Eyeglasses are fashion items, so comfort is very much a secondary consideration. The designers of the Rift wo
hang a few ounces inches from your face and feel the leverage
"Nor does a TFT flicker"
now I know your full of shit, LCD's do in fact refresh, often at 60Hz, which flickers
a flickering screen less than an inch from your eye
I give to you OLED
If it flickers it's at such a rate you don't care.
not to mention even the lightest one I had at only a handful of ounces was still flat out uncomfortable.
An OLED set could literally be no heavier than a normal pair of glasses today, but admittedly it would be outrageously expensive if so.
The Rift has three advantages over existing affordable headsets:
1. Large field of view
2. Low lag when rotating the head
3. Optics that concentrate the pixel density in the center, where vision is best
However, if you move your viewpoint without moving yourself, there still is a disconnect between what you see and what your inner ear reports. This can cause nausea. Palmer has done some experiments with galvanic stimulation of the inner ear. But this is still far awa
... where he goes into more detail of what Areyoukiddingme said.
It's 3.5 hours, but it's really fascinating. Here's a link [youtube.com].
Just get the brain interface developed already! Plug me into the Matrix, I wanna know kung-fu baby.
Yup, I read it whenever the mood strikes but the NYT and its obliviousness is...legendary [youtube.com].
Tech "journalism" is crap and easily swayed by terrible companies to get good reviews. Remember when Rock Star was flying tech journalists to a resort from LAX via helicopter to ensure good reviews for one of their GTA games? Big newspapers like the NYT....and any major regional newspaper, really, don't get much advertising money from companies like EA and Activision, so they have much less incentive to write an article biased towards the company. When you want good reviews you send press releases to tech
they weren't a bad idea. they were expensive. that '90s vr helmet company turned to vuzix.
oculus rift & etc are proving it's not so expensive anymore.
Well played, Gaben, well played.
They're still hiring designers and engineers to get this thing off the ground and it's already revealed? Newell criticized MS for copying Apple ("[T]rying to copy Apple will accelerate, not slow, Microsoft's decline.") yet he really should have copied Apple in this instance rather than go the old MS route. The MS route is to show off a product in the early prototype stages. The Apple method is to show off a functional product. Maybe Newell is trying to attract the attention of potential investors. If not, h
... then he would have ported Half-Life to something other than PS2 (and only after the Dreamcast - Microsoft's console - became an apparent failure...
Irrelevant, the Dreamcast was Sega's console not MS, and they stopped making it two years before HL2 was released. What were the other console options at the time? An under-powered Gamecube or Wii? Remember, HL2 struggled on the original Xbox, porting it to the Wii would have been silly, and now you can get HL2 on the Xbox360 and PS3.
... Newell's last minute support of OS X and Linux reeks of desperation....
You need to decrease the hyperbole, they had a Mac OS 9 port of HL1 that was never released. Obviously they realised that there was no profit to be made in it. Likewise it's on
Irrelevant, the Dreamcast was Sega's console not MS,
Better check the software that thing ran. . . it was XBox 0.5
Regarding Mac OS X . . . Valve started supporting it long after it was obviously profitable. Mid-tier games sold poorly on Mac OS X (until the app store) but top-tier games, as Blizzard demonstrated, raked in a nice profit. I understand this situation with HL 1, but with HL 2 he took preference to MS's platforms and neglected all others (he publicly trashed the PS3 port, blaming dev woes on the system).
Linux geeks are the ideal market for Valve. I
OS X? Huge growth? Last I looked at the numbers it was still in the single digit range where it has firmly been for years. Wake me up when over 10% of PCs are Macs. Sure there's a market, but its not very big. Linux is 1% fwiw. But you know, Microsoft's stranglehold according to you has kept games from other platforms. Nevermind that they were just tiny, insignificant markets. Also honda never quit making 2 door civics and aftermarket parts makers never went out of business. Do you always write about things
Take out the corporate environment and I'd be willing to be that over 10% of PCs are Macs. Percentages don't really matter in this case, anyway. A very tiny, insignificant amount of homes had Macs in 2000. Today, it's a common for a home to have a Mac. That's what I consider huge growth, and Apple's sales data will back that up. Marketshare is a non-factor.
It appears I was wrong about the Civics (I think - I'm pretty sure they halted either the 2-door or hatchback model for a year or two in the Sta
Fair enough. You do realize that anything you post here tends to get picked to pieces right?
Didn't mean any harm there really. Its just sport after a certain point.
Also...you may be correct about macs. Clearly there is a large enough market now for valve to develop steam for it. I think windows is now clearly in the decline. It will persist for a long time, but I think people want something more like android or ios to be their computing experience. I use my tablet and phone far more than my laptop. But my laptop runs lightroom and plays games that my tablet can't. Windows 8 is a desperate move if you want to point out desperation. If they can succeed at moving their
Maybe that headset looks tiny on Gabe, but for a normal sized human that is a monstrosity.
Big Picture looks cool, but the future of gaming is not just a fancy HD interface to an app store.
So far Valve is getting a failing grade on efforts to create a "new" gaming platform.
Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.


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Award honors longtime Wichita Eagle outdoor writer, photographer
PRATT – Mitchell Keeley, a 2006 graduate of LaCrosse High School, was named this year's recipient of the Steve Harper Scholarship. Keeley plans to pursue a degree in wildlife biology at Fort Hays State University and will receive a $1,000 scholarship.
Steve Harper was a longtime outdoor writer and photographer for the Wichita Eagle. He died of cancer in 2000, and a scholarship was established in his name. Over $10,000 was raised from business, organizations and individuals for the program, which is being managed by the Kansas Wildscape Foundation, Lawrence.
More than 20 students from across Kansas applied for the scholarship. Only students attending a Kansas college or university and majoring in natural resource management or photography are eligible. Applicants are judged by representatives from Harper's family, the Outdoor Writers of Kansas, and the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. Judging criteria includes past experience in their field of study, career plans, and academic accomplishments.


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The highest floodwaters are now expected to reach Fort Morgan sometime around 8 to 10 p.m., although that is only a rough estimate. The rise in the river has been gradual and moving eastward slowly, and the speed has varied as the surge passes through alternately wide and narrow areas of the river.
The Colorado Department of Transportation decided about 5:30 p.m. to close off Highway 52 at the Rainbow Bridge river crossing. Riverside Park was evacuated and closed earlier in the day.
The river has already inundated areas of Highway 144 west of Fort Morgan, and the towns of Orchard, Goodrich and Weldona have been evacuated. The Morgan County Sheriff's Office said pre-evacuation orders had been issued for Log Lane Village, telling residents to be prepared to leave.
River flooding is not expected in the Fort Morgan city proper, because it is well away from the river and elevated from the river basin. If significant rain occurs in Fort Morgan, however, localized flooding could occur in the city. That would be caused by filled storm drain lines that cannot discharge into the river due to the high water levels and the pressure of the fast-moving current.
No problems had occurred at either the Fort Morgan water treatment plant west of the city or the wastewater treatment plant to the east, and no such problems are anticipated at this time. The water treatment process is functioning normally and the city's water supply is safe.
The city has established an Emergency Operations Center at the Fort Morgan Police Department and is coordinating efforts with the sheriff's office, the Morgan County Quality Water District and other agencies. Incident command centers with city and sheriff's office officials were established as mobile units that can move as conditions change.
Fort Morgan mayor Terry McAlister and Mayor Pro Tem Ron Shaver spent most of the day at the city's EOC.
"I was impressed with the city staff's response," McAlister said. "I know they have trained and conducted drills for situations like this, but this has been beyond my expectations. They seem to have a good handle on things."
McAlister said he was concerned about neighboring communities, as well as Fort Morgan.
"I think we have good preparations in place, and I hope we'll be able to assist them if the need help," he said.


text: So installed a ds 25 today and unit would not shut off checked all wiring 20 times over. Finally I called general air by the way none of the literature that came with the unit had any phone number at all. Thanks www. The support guy said the control board is no good. So I told him I will remove the unit and return it and get another. He said we will only give you a new board. I told him this is a brand new just out of box and the customer is going to be pissed. He says sorry we will only give you the board. So I say how much labor you going to give me to replace your defective board. He say's we don't give any thing for labor. Now I am really pissed called my supplier hope they can do something but I doubt it. Funny thing is the previous one I installed had the wires for the flush and fill reversed right out of the box. well I just needed to vent thanks ps will never buy another f ing thing from general air. I am going to use Nortec now


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Spinach Salad With Oranges and Warm Goat CheeseServes 4
3 small navel oranges 6 ounces fresh mild Harley Farms Chevre (preferably in log form) 1/3 cup pecans (1 1/2 ounces), finely chopped 1 teaspoon whole-grain mustard 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt Pinch sugar 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 1 pound spinach, trimmed 1 small red onion, sliced into thin rings
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Using a sharp, small knife, cut peel and white pith from oranges. Working over a sieve set over a bowl, cut orange sections free from membranes, letting sections drop into sieve. Reserve juice.
2. Cut cheese into fourths; gently form into disks. Dip into pecans to coat. Set on small baking sheet; bake until heated through, about 5 minutes.
3. In large bowl, whisk 1 tablespoon reserved orange juice with mustard, vinegar, salt and sugar. Whisk in oil until blended. Add spinach, onion and orange sections; toss well. Season with pepper. Divide among salad plates, then top with goat cheese.
-- Harley Farms


text:
Suppose 1.5 percent of the antennas on new Nokia cell phones are defective. For a random sample of 200 antennas, find the probability that:
a) None of the antennas is defective.
b) Three or more of the antennas are defective.
The book does not give a clear understanding of how to solve probability for random sample. I am lost.


text:
Beach Party
J. Michael Floyd
Executive Director of Dining Services
University of Georgia
Athens, Ga.
This year we decided to make our end-of-the-year celebration a Beach Blast. Each dining commons had a different beach theme. We had a Hawaiian beach and a southern California beach, etc. We served food such as coconut fried shrimp and crab legs. The event isn't so much about educating students about new foods; it's more about providing stress release before finals.


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UW-Law alum Chiann Bao was recently appointed Secretary-General of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Center (HKIAC) on April 12, 2010. Bao is a graduate of Cornell University and was a Fulbright Scholar in China. She received her law degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 2007 and her Master of Arts and Arbitration and Dispute Resolution from the City University of Hong Kong. Bao is a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and is admitted to the New York Bar. She is fluent in Putonghua (Mandarin) Chinese.
Bao has considerable experience in the field of international arbitration. She has clerked at the International Code Council (ICC) International Court of Arbitration in Paris, France and worked with several major international law firms, most recently DLA Piper LLP in New York where she was a member of the firm's international arbitration group.
"We are absolutely delighted to have found a candidate of Chiann's caliber to take over the post of Secretary-General," said Michael J. Moser, Chairman of the HKIAC. "Her practical experience in international arbitration and case management will be a tremendous benefit to the HKIAC and our users."
Submitted by Erin Syth on July 7, 2010
This article appears in the categories: Alumni, Articles


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July 17, 2009
Bending the long-term cost curve.
48 comments:
- Big Mike said...
Color me shocked, shocked!
Democrats cannot sell their plan if it includes even the faintest hint of rationing, but cannot control costs unless it plans on curtailing people's access to healthcare. This is news?
Or they could limit malpractice exposure for doctors, but then trial lawyers would suffer. Can't let that happen.
- Hoosier Daddy said...
The CBO is full of shit. Joe Biden said that we need more government spending or we'll go bankrupt.
- Original Mike said...
If I was Elmendorf, I'd start having a staffer start my car for me (while I linger a safe distance away).
Seriously, this man deserves a medal.
- LarsPorsena said...
CBO makes an acute observation of the obvious.
The emperor-has-no-clothes comment by
Elmendorf merits early retirement or separation so he 'can spend more time with his family'.
- Original Mike said...
Per Hoosier: Isn't it incredible? The way to reign in the amount of money the government spends on healthcare is to take on more health care obligations. I know they think this is a sophisticated, clever plan. But in reality, it's just brain-dead-stupid.
- Scott M said...
I don't have time to troll the left-leaning blogs this morning, but who wants to bet that instead of debating his report, the commentators are attacking Elmendorf personally.
Accusations of who's pocket he's really in, who he voted for, etc, etc.
- Kev said...
(the other kev)
Don't worry, Scott, I'm sure AL or HD will drop by with the latest talking points. It's what passes for debate these days.
- Rialby said...
I hope for the sake of America that Elmendorf has never strayed from his wife. Because they will find out and they will use it to destroy him and quash his message.
- Balfegor said...
Per Hoosier: Isn't it incredible? The way to reign in the amount of money the government spends on healthcare is to take on more health care obligations. I know they think this is a sophisticated, clever plan. But in reality, it's just brain-dead-stupid.
The thing is, if they were serious about introducing national health care and engaging in cost cutting, they could already do it with the amount that's going into Medicare and Medicaid. Among the industrialised nations, Japan has the best health outcomes overall, and they spend about as much on health care per capita (on a purchasing power basis) as we do on Medicare and Medicaid.
For a recent year (I did not write down which), we spent $431.2M on Medicare and $329.4M on Medicaid, for a total outlay of $760.6M. With a population of 304M, that comes to about $2,500 per capita. Meanwhile, I was too lazy to find total health spending figures for all Japan (mostly, they seem to be reported on a provincial or municipal basis, probably because the taxes that pay it vary from province to province and municipality to municipality), but evened out, they spend about 8% of GDP on health care. With GDP per capita of about $30K (on a PPP basis), that comes out to $2,400 per capita. And this is with a markedly older population than we have, mind, so they're paying for a lot of expensive elderly care out of that budget too.
The administration is not serious.
- Quayle said...
Time for another teleprompted speach by Obama telling us to remain calm, all is well.
- MadisonMan said...
If you're going to tax health insurance benefits, why not just pay your employees extra and forego covering them with insurance at all. Then the employee can decide: Do I want to spend this taxed income on health insurance, or on something else?
As a State Employee, I don't think I can opt out of insurance unless I'm covered elsewhere, in which case I don't get any of the money the state saves by not covering me. If I'm going to be taxed on this benefit, I'd rather it was an optional, not required, benefit.
- Original Mike said...
I think that's billion with a B, Balfegor, but you're right ("The administration is not serious"). The claims of doing this to save costs is a thin venier. It's about working their way to single payer.
The thing is, even a venier has to at least be credible on its face. The CBO is calling them out on it.
- Original Mike said...
"As a State Employee, I don't think I can opt out of insurance unless I'm covered elsewhere"
I didn't know that.
- David said...
You have to remember that Obama, most of his senior staff and most members of Congress have never run anything. This means that they have almost never been accountable for results. Indeed, a primary skill of national politicians these days is to deflect accountability. No wonder they are designing a cumbersome, expensive, dishonest and ultimately ungovernable system.
- LarsPorsena said...
"If you're going to tax health insurance benefits, why not just pay your employees extra and forego covering them with insurance at all."
Because under Obamacare the business gets taxed an extra 8% because it doesn't offer coverage.
- MadisonMan said...
By the way, I was happy to read about the Coburn Amendment that requires Congresscritters to participate in this plan.
I think that in any debate between incumbents and challengers, the first question should be to the incumbent: What health plan are you using? How are you enjoying it?
Tammy Baldwin, Madison's Representative, has made Health Care For Everyone her raison d'etre. I wonder how she'll enjoy this plan they are passing. If she's not up to using it, she should be dumped.
Original Mike: I could be wrong about the Health Insurance -- haven't had to deal with it for 15 years or so since I started here.
- Scott M said...
So Pelosi and her ilk are suddenly lambasted by reality and sudden they're talking cheerfully about how this is the process and how it's supposed to work? That the next step was bipartisan work on the bill to make it affordable?
Memory must be failing me. These were the same goons that were ramming this thing through as quickly as possible while at the same time locking the Republicans out of much of the language.
Maybe we need a forth branch of government with lifetime appointees who's job it is to report the actual cost of legislation.
- The Drill SGT said...
Original Mike said...
Per Hoosier: Isn't it incredible? The way to reign in the amount of money the government spends on healthcare is to take on more health care obligations. I know they think this is a sophisticated, clever plan. But in reality, it's just brain-dead-stupid.
The short one liner versions:
1. If it's going to save money why do we need to raise taxes?
2. If you have all these great cost savings solutions, why not implement them in Medicare, Medicaid and the VA first?
3. If Fee for service (FfS) is evil, and outcomes based care will save gazillions, let's convert Medicare and Medicaid from FfS to outcomes based payments now.
As I said before, the irony that the Coburn amendment highlights is that Congress is in the FEHBP, like all Feds, and that is just a red/white/blue wrapper around that evil Blue Cross Plan.
- Dust Bunny Queen said...
Expect Elmendorf to "voluntarily" (ha ha) resign shortly. Soon to be replaced with a more compliant liar/mouthpiece.
I wonder if the Obama administration uses the Soprano method of gaining cooperation? Kneecap 'em!! Threaten their families?
- Randy said...
Where did you get those numbers and do you know if they include employer and employee contributions? Although I don't remember some of the details, a Japanese friend and I talked about this a few months ago. His monthly contribution for health insurance for his family is about $700. IIRC, it has a 30% co-pay. The plan is an association group plan - all employers in his industry (healthcare, as it happens ;-) participate in the group plan.
- Dust Bunny Queen said...
Isn't it incredible? The way to reign in the amount of money the government spends on healthcare is to take on more health care obligations. I know they think this is a sophisticated, clever plan. But in reality, it's just brain-dead-stupid.
Told you....it is the Underpant Gnomes all over again.
Phase 1: Collect Underpants
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Profit!
- Jeremy said...
Drill Sgt, re: your #2 point. This is not unlike immigration reform, wherein the "reformers" claim to want to implement comprehensive reform that both legalizes persons here and also tightens enforcement/security. But there's no reason to not increase enforcement/security now if it's really possible. Instead, it's used as a lure to draw broader support. The upshot is that they can't implement cost-cutting changes now because A)they don't exist and B) even if they did, there'd be no motivation for moving on the rest of the reform package. It's galling really.
-The Other Jeremy
- Pogo said...
The numbers will be as horrible as Medicare's have looked for decades, but multiplied by a factor of 5 to 10.
But that misses the point of nationalizing health care. It has never been about savings or a moral imperative for coverage, but about expanding government power.
All else is smokescreen covering that subterfuge, that tyranny.
The little people are meant to wonder what plan covers the most people. The true players are designing how best to take control over as much of your wealth and liberty as possible.
The costs are immaterial. Totalitarianism is always expensive, depending on how much one values freedom.
- Original Mike said...
MadisonMan: I was shocked a couple of nights ago to hear a radio ad urging people to call Tammy Baldwin's office and thank her for her efforts on health care. What was shocking was that the ad was paid for by a group which, from their name, sounded to be a drug company trade group. Didn't catch who, exactly (I'll try and catch it next time). My first thought was, Baldwin's extracting protection money from the health care industry. Or maybe the group's name is just a cover for a single payer lobbying group.
- Hoosier Daddy said...
I wonder if the Obama administration uses the Soprano method of gaining cooperation? Kneecap 'em!! Threaten their families?
Heh. I'm reminded of that scene in the Untouchables when DiNiro playing Capone is giving is 'baseball' speech at the dinner party.
Obama is from Chicago....conincidence....
- Balfegor said...
Where did you get those numbers and do you know if they include employer and employee contributions? Although I don't remember some of the details, a Japanese friend and I talked about this a few months ago. His monthly contribution for health insurance for his family is about $700.
The 8% figure is quoted widely. See here, for example. I don't know whether it is comprehensive, but given that it is comparing against total health care spending in the US, not just government spending, it may well be a significant overcount of Japanese government healthcare spending. For the US spending, I cannot remember the source. But here's something from the CBO that suggests that Medicare + Medicaid + additional government healthcare spending is even higher than the 760M I indicated.
Percent of GDP figures, which are often used for these cross-country comparisons, are a little misleading, because PPP GDP per capita is significantly higher in the US than in most of the other big industrialised countries. So 8% (or 10% or whatever) of GDP in those countries would equate to something more like 6-8% over here.
Re: health care taxation in Japan, I'm not sure how funds are treated once they're taken in as taxes, but there seem to be some pretty massive disparities in the health tax burden, based on where you live. If you scroll down to the table towards the bottom of this wikipedia article, it looks like some municipalities have people paying more than twice as much as others.
- Original Mike said...
Ted Van Dyk makes this claim today (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124779697143755743.html): "Could your health plan be scaled back to catastrophic coverage for all -- badly needed by most families, but quite affordable if deductibles are set at the right levels?"
I wonder if his numbers are right (i.e. could we afford to provide catastrophic coverage for all)? If so, it raises my level of pissed-offed-nness to a whole new level. This would provide real economic security for people, rather than just indulge in some liberal wet dream of prevention (what's the HTML code for disdain?).
- The Drill SGT said...
I wonder if his numbers are right (i.e. could we afford to provide catastrophic coverage for all)?
likely depends on what you include.
heart attacks? effectively we have catastrophic coverage now. all heart attacks get treated. The insurance/Feds pay, or the hospital duns a person who pays or ignores it, upon which the cost ultimately is spread across all insured.
heart transplants? no. the uninsured dont get what are called elective surgery
so some high deductible, rationed catastrophic care should be cheap and doable. will it satisfy all, absolutely not, but it will cover traffic acidents, heart attacks, and babies
what it would do is shift costs around and not create a huge new entitlement
- MJ said...
In other news, the oceans are unlikely to evaporate overnight.
- Jeremy said...
One interesting effect of a catastrophic-coverage-only plan would be on infant delivery. It's not clear how it would be dealt with. It's elective and (often) planned - it's certainly not a catastrophy. I think you'd see a big return to midwifery and home births (or birth clinic births) as scheduled c-section/epidurals just become too expensive. That would be interesting.
-The Other Jeremy
- BJM said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- BJM said...
Did Obama just pull a "Gavin Newsom" on national TV?
How'd that work out for him?
- avwh said...
I live in the Bay Area, and I have no idea what "pulling a Gavin Newsom" means in the context of bending the long-term health care cost curve - can someone enlighten me?
- BJM said...
Riddle me this, how exactly is it possible to bend the long-term health-care costs without rationing and/or restricting access? Obama's "savings" realized by his proposed 30% cut in Medicare Part A only addresses the current numbers, it doesn't include the approx. 70 million Boomers that are about to hit the system.
However, I think this sort of thing and the CBO report was the reason Obama was forced to speak this afternoon. Dems are feeling pressure in their districts.
In spite of the AARP selling seniors out for slice of Obama's insurance pie, word is spreading quickly. My mailbox is running hot with forwards, links, petitions, notices of gatherings and such.
- janemariemd said...
I saw an article somewhere that basically said "it's not the costs it's the demographics", which seemed pretty sensible to me. We know how the Medicare-eligible population will grow in future years, leading to the projections of bankruptcy. Why not increase the minimum age of enrollment (for healthy people)? Why not start with current 62-year olds who expect to enroll at 65--postpone their enrollment a year, and the 61 year olds 2 years, etc, until 70 is the minimum age for enrollment? Delaying entry into Medicare will force many if not most to work longer--if they are able to, wouldn't that be a good thing? I guess this would be called "restricting access", but it would surely decrease the estimated costs in the future. There would still need to be work on utilization of tests and things that could help save money, but this change would perhaps get us a few more years to work on Medicare reforms.
- Ralph L said...
Other Jeremy, I recall hearing some years ago that about 2/3rds of births were paid by Medicaid, even when the parents weren't enrolled.
- former law student said...
Now that a plan is on the table, we can all study it and make suggestions. I have to think that anyone who claims to understand the financial impact at this point is talking out his sphincter.
- former law student said...
Why not increase the minimum age of enrollment (for healthy people)? Why not start with current 62-year olds who expect to enroll at 65--postpone their enrollment a year, and the 61 year olds 2 years, etc, until 70 is the minimum age for enrollment? Delaying entry into Medicare will force many if not most to work longer
At jobs that don't pay health benefits. Have you priced private insurance for 64 year olds lately?
- Scott M said...
I notice you didn't answer a good deal of response to your questions listed below;
Why do you think this?
Has public transportation wiped out private transportation?
Has city-provided tap water eliminated bottled water?
Have libraries obliterated Amazon? Public schools eliminated private schools? Police eliminated private security?
Why would the existence of a public option in this one endeavor above all others destroy private options?
chickenlittle is of course expected to shout "The sky is falling; the sky is falling!" What excuse do the rest of the alarmists have?
Over at the other thread here;
...on basically this same topic.
- janemariemd said...
Many if not most 62 year-olds who work have some health insurance through their employer; the point would be to not support retirement at age 65, which then leads to Medicare enrollment at that age. Many prudent people would consider working longer if pressed to think about it (as perhaps some are doing now in our terrible economy). Remember, if 45 million people are uninsured, in a country of 300 million (15%), then 85% have some health insurance. It is simply a fact that the government would spend less on Medicare in the future if the age of eligibility were increased. That's not to say that the problems of healthcare delivery in this country would then be solved; far from it. Costs will still rise, but at a slightly lower rate.
Encouraging people to work longer would have other benefits--more income tax to be paid, more savings for retirement. Personally, I think about this alot because there is tremendous longevity in my family, so I expect to work to at least age 70 or 75 if possible, so I can (hopefully) have a big enough nest egg to pay for the nursing/long-term care I woulf prefer late in life.
- Jim said...
Neither Social Security nor Medicare were ever designed to care for people for 15-20 years. They were designed to ease end-of-life for 5 years at most.
The problem with these systems (beyond the fact that they exist at all and are government-run, but that's another ideological battle for another day) is that life expectancy has far outstripped the capacity of the system to deal with it.
The real answer to "saving" them is that the "retirement age" needs to be increased to 75 (or so) to bring them back from being essentially government-run pension plans to being the end-of-life palliative measures that they were originally intended to be.
The problem is that any time rationalizing retirement ages arises, the Leftists start screaming about how conservatives hate old people and there goes any possibility whatsoever to actually deal with the issue. They know it's not true, but why should that stop them from using taxpayer dollars from buying more votes for themselves?
Maybe if the Left can be convinced to stop demagoging the issue, then we can "save" Medicare and Social Security. But I'm not holding my breath.
- former law student said...
I notice you didn't answer a good deal of response to your questions listed below
You mean, "Health care is different," and "Amazon (a corporation that provides reading material you can keep for a small payment) does not perform the same function as a public library (a governmental agency that provides reading material free of charge, but you must return it within a reasonable time)?
Consider me floored by such comebacks, I guess.
- former law student said...
Many if not most 62 year-olds who work have some health insurance through their employer; the point would be to not support retirement at age 65
Health insurance costs money, and health insurance for old people costs the most. Requiring employers to provide health insurance to all workers thus creates a disincentive to hire old people.
But most old farts do get health insurance through their employers. In 2007, 2/3 of 55-64 year olds got health care through their employers, 1/5 got it from government, 1/10 bought their own, and 1/8 did without.
Retirement at 65 is already a thing of the past; the war babies retiring now have already had to wait to turn 66 to receive a full SS payout, implemented as part of SS reform during the Reagan administration.
Personally, I think about this alot because there is tremendous longevity in my family, so I expect to work to at least age 70 or 75 if possible,
There used to be tremendous longevity in my family, but the more recent generations are in trouble. Neither of my parents came even close to collecting Social Security, and my sister died in her mid-forties. I would like to live long enough to collect a few payments, but I'm not going to count on it.
- Bruce Hayden said...
The problem with the idea of bending the long term cost curves is that this really doesn't do it. It was designed by a bunch of liberals with no real understanding of markets. And, so, I would suggest that the Democrats are making all the wrong moves as far as addressing the long term problems.
First keep in mind that the 47 million uninsured figure is pretty bogus. A lot of different groups are being combined here, with varying degrees of legitimacy. Let me suggest that few tears are shed from those who spend their health insurance money on beer and those who are here illegally. Adding in the frictional uninsured (those only uninsured for part of the year) and those who are eligible for some government insurance, and you end up with 10-15 or so million hard core uninsured who need to be worried about. And that number could easily be handled by slightly expanding current programs.
So, the "crisis" is really pretty bogus, and I think a lot of us know that. It is cover for something else, and a lot of us think that something else is socialized medicine (which those at the top proposing this are going to exempt themselves from). It is the paternalistic power grab thing that we have seen throughout the Obama Administration.
- Bruce Hayden said...
Yes, health care costs are rising quickly, and will be rising even more quickly if nothing is done. But the question is why?
The answer is not that too many tests are being ordered or that doctors, hospitals, and drug companies are too greedy. Few, if any, health care providers make anything akin to the types of incomes made by many in the securities industries, and yet, the incomes of the later are being protected by this Administration, while those in the former are being vilified and run out of business. The difference, of course, is that a lot of Wall Street, etc. money goes to the Democrats, and a lot of doctors' money has traditionally gone to the Republicans. (And then there are the contingency fee lawyers and malpractice).
Right now, the current system is unsustainable. Medicare, etc. recipients pay for almost none of their care. It is rather paid for by the rest of society, through the taxes we pay on our incomes, and through massive cross-subsidizations by almost everyone else who uses medical care through the setting of reimbursement rates (now) far below actual costs. And both of these trends are running in the wrong direction, with the percentage of those eligible for Medicare scheduled to skyrocket in the next decade, and reimbursement rates being crammed down ever harder.
If we were to truly sever the Medicare and other government insurance problem from the rest of health care, by, for example, eliminating cross-subsidization, and these programs started to pay their own way (however that were accomplished), then I think that we might be able to find a solution.
For one thing, it would hopefully become evident that a lot of our current problems are a direct result of malpractice excesses. Too many tests being ordered? A lot fewer would be ordered if the doctors involved knew that they wouldn't be liable if that 1 in a thousand test hadn't been ordered. And insurance companies might be less willing to pay for the latest technology, if they weren't facing bad faith litigation claims for denying payment.
The problem is that the true costs of Medicare, etc. are hidden from all of us, especially those using the programs. And, as a result, they have no incentive to economize. Rather, you see things like that hip replacement on my 90 year old uncle, who probably didn't last a year after that.
There is going to have to be some sort of limitations placed on government funded health care. But rationing is really the wrong way to go about that, since it still fails to address the differences between supply and demand, and the reasons for it. It is a band aid approach that doesn't really address the problem.
But if we were to truly separate out government funded health care from all other health care, and impose meaningful tort reform, then the cost curves for everyone else would not look all that bad.
Remember though, the Obama Administration's motto, that it is a shame to waste a good crisis.
- Bruce Hayden said...
Now that a plan is on the table, we can all study it and make suggestions. I have to think that anyone who claims to understand the financial impact at this point is talking out his sphincter.
I would second that, in particular, for those supporting the program, and, in particular, those in Congress and the Administration pushing it.
But, I would take probably the opposite lessen from that that FLS probably does. I would suggest that we not spend trillions of dollars on this program until the economic effects of the proposed legislation are much better understood. I suspect that his position would be that we shouldn't criticize it until we do - but (and yes, this is a straw man) if we wait for that, then the program will be implemented WITHOUT that knowledge.
Let me suggest that when it comes to spending, or more likely grossly misspending, trillions of dollars, while possibly seriously impacting the level of health care available to most Americans, then the burden should be on the proponents to fully address all the economic issues up front to most everyone' satisfaction.
And, yet, somehow, the burden seems to be reversed - we just trust these lawyers because, after all, they are lawyers, and are so much smarter than everyone else, and these are especially smart lawyers, since they are Ivy League Lawyers.
My problem here though is that I don't have any reason to believe that these lawyers trying to ram this through so fast have any real idea of the unintended consequences of what they are trying to do.
- Dust Bunny Queen said...
Many if not most 62 year-olds who work have some health insurance through their employer
I love the 'let them eat cake' attitude.
- former law student said...
I agree with Bruce H. in that I don't want to see health care reform enacted until every aspect of the bill has been thoroughly analyzed and the consequences understood. Not everyone will like everything, but people with concerns should get answers.


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I am sorry if these are old news but the 2007 model legacy and outback are getting a whole new look,
both inside & out
all i can say : Ohh My God !! it looks ewen better !!!!!!
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Guest Message by DevFuse
2007 Legacy & Outback get new look
Started by oskar_subaru , Sep 16 2006 06:12 PM
5 replies to this topic
Posted 16 September 2006 - 06:12 PM
Posted 16 September 2006 - 10:33 PM
WOW! and i just spent 10 grand on my 93 legacy! aw!! o well, i love my baby i dont care how she looks, jsut how she drives. But i certainly got a scare when i got home, i heard a knock noise!!! AW!! i freaked, but when u accelerate the noise is gone, so then i just sprayed some WD-40 on the idler, and no noise. WOW! i freaked, because i thought it was a rod.
Posted 19 September 2006 - 03:54 PM
These are JDM models only for 2007. Expect them to be in the US in 2008.
Posted 19 September 2006 - 04:07 PM
What is up with that grill on the OB models? Looks like something off the Chrysler Crossfire.
Posted 19 September 2006 - 04:50 PM
These are JDM models only for 2007. Expect them to be in the US in 2008.
This is correct.
What is up with that grill on the OB models? Looks like something off the Chrysler Crossfire.
I saw a Chrysler Town and Country in it.
The STi grill looks okay on the front, but the other grills are not growing on me.
I guess Subaru wants to make all its cars unappealing to me
Posted 19 September 2006 - 07:21 PM
I don't get it, I thought the last redesign of the Legacy/Outback was great, sleek and sharp and still kinda tough and unique, not as "heavy" looking as the previous gen. What are they thinking? First the "aviator" grill and now this.
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text:
Evolution Hoax
The entire list
Kuşadası TV, July 14- 2008
Vatan, 09 December 2010
Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister of Poland gave the good news of the removal of the visa requirement in the Turkish-Poland Business Forum he participated in DEIK (Foreign Economic Relations Board). Tusk stated that they will take the necessary steps towards removing the hindrance of visa requirement and make pressure upon the authorities in Europe. He also added that Poland is in favor of facilitating the visa regime among neighbours in Europe.


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OK, maybe HATE is too strong a word, and of course to hate something, you first have to love it, but anyway, I hate the way the scroll bars on the left of the screen work in some apps. Specifically, the scroll bar on tthe left hand side. Rhythmbox is a pita {pain in the arse} for this. I Iwould really like it, if when I have a large doc, or whatever, and I click on the scroll bar at the bottom I would really love it, if it just did a page down instead of going right to the bottom of tthe document or whatever. Is this easily fixed?
tia, from Alex.


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Tourists who flock to places like the Adirondacks and Catskills to check out nature's majesty in early October tend to drive more than those who come for a summer getaway or a winter ski vacation.
Nevertheless, local and state tourism officials say the high cost of gasoline likely won't have a negative affect on the fall foliage season.
Michael Green of the American Automobile Association said the price at the pump hasn't impacted tourism this year. AAA doesn't compile numbers based on seasons, but its latest report on Labor Day weekend showed that gas prices, which were at record highs across the country, didn't dissuade people from traveling.
Article Photos
State Route 86 heading toward Wilmington from Lake Placid as seen last week.
Photo/Richard Rosentreter/LakePlacid News
Jim McKenna, president and CEO of the Lake Placid Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism, said people who travel in the fall tend to have a little more disposable income. He said people will still travel, and sometimes it's the retail sector that loses revenue due to the cost of gas.
"Instead of a bottle of wine, it might be a glass of wine type thing," he said.
Green agreed.
"Often times, people make travel decisions months in advance, and the last thing they want to do is cancel that trip just because gas prices are high," Green said. "So what they do is they try to find other ways to be economical and save money, because generally peoples' travel budgets are pretty fixed. What that means is that if gas prices are high, they have to save money somewhere else: Maybe they don't buy that extra souvenir, or maybe they don't go to quite as nice a restaurant.
"I would suspect that those sort of travel habits would be the same during fall foliage, but we don't do any of our own research on that as well."
The Adirondacks are often billed as a drive-to destination for people in nearby metropolitan markets like New York City and Montreal. Green said there's no evidence to suggest that driving trends have increased or decreased when it comes to vacations and trips.
"Driving hours have been pretty much the same in comparison to overall travel," he said. "We haven't seen any huge changes.
"But with that said, travel is up for every major holiday this year. It seems that travel is a bigger priority in people's lives. What we're seeing is that a lot more people are traveling, and this is despite the fact that the economy for many people is not great. What we've seen is some pent-up demand. In other words, people who may have wanted to take a trip last year or the year before have instead decided to wait until this year to take that trip. For some people, even though the economy isn't doing good, they do feel a little bit better about their future, and as a result, they're feeling more confident about spending their money on taking a trip."
McKenna added that modern automobiles often have better gas mileage than those of previous generations.
"How many more gallons of gas are you looking at (for a round-trip from the New York City metropolitan area)?" he said. "You're probably looking at maybe 40 gallons. And if you're looking at 50 cents a gallon more, or a dollar a gallon more, you're looking at under $50. I'm not saying that's not a lot of money - it is - but on a travel trip, it's not that much more."
Green noted that driving is always the preferred mode of travel when people are traveling for leisure.
"It's the most affordable and also the most flexible," he said. "It's generally cheaper than doing anything else, and nothing is more flexible than getting in your car and being able to drive wherever you want to go."
Tom Hyde is owner of Hyde Fuel Co., which has two gas stations in Saranac Lake and one in Tupper Lake. He said he does notice an uptick in gas sales during the fall foliage season, but when prices are higher, customers in general spend less on gas.
"Specific to the season, I don't have any way to analyze that data," Hyde said. "The higher the prices go, we see a decline in volume. The leaf season is pretty short, but we definitely see an increase in traffic, especially weekend traffic. Whether or not higher gas prices will specifically affect that, I do not know."
Eric Scheffel of Empire State Development, which oversees the I Love New York advertising campaign, said his agency doesn't have statistics on the 2012 travel season at this point, but he said the fall generally represents about 25 percent of total travel spending annually. New York's travel industry topped about $53 billion in 2011, a record for the state.
"Tourism numbers are trending up," Scheffel added. "The entire state is doing well. Depending on the time of year, different areas shine. Obviously, the Adirondacks and the Catskills are great for fall foliage. New York City has travel all year round. The Hudson Valley is also great for fall travel. It depends on the place you're talking about and the time of year."
McKenna said his office won't know for about a month how well this year's foliage season did, but for now it is passing the eyeball test.
"I think we're looking pretty good at this point," he said. "We've had relatively warm fall weather to this point, and I think that bodes well."


text:
Featured User Review: Rocky Mountain Flatline Pro Downhill Full Suspension Bike
by DesertCrawler
Price: $2300.00 at Rage Cycles
Overall Rating: 5 of 5
Value Rating: 5 of 5
Bike Setup:
Loaded Precision AMX 785mm bars, Loaded Precision AMX stem, ODI Rogue locking grips, ODI aluminum bar end plugs, MRP G2 chain guide/bash guard, Spike Spank pedals, 11-34T cassette.
Bottom Line:
Excellent value for a very competent downhill rocket. Ridable without modifcation, except maybe the bash guard issue (looks like the bike should have come with the MRP G2 according to online specs).
RMB took care of a warranty issue with the rear triangle very quickly. Thanks go to Rage Cycles in Scottsdale, AZ for handling it seamlessly.
It is difficult to give this bike anything less than 5 chilis. Even though it may not be 100% perfect for every rider as it sits, it is far too good for a rating of 4, and it makes an outstanding platform for an excellent DH rig no matter the skill level or terrain.
Fast, stable, predictable, burly build, well equipped right out of the box. The Boxxer fork and Vivid shock work very well. The I-beam seat is great. The two position direct mount stem (seems to be made by whomever makes the Loaded Precision AMX stem) appears to be well built and the adjustment is a good option.
Once the brake pads were bedded in they seem to stop the bike very well. The Avid Elixirs are not quite as nice as what I am used to (Hayes Stroker Ace) but still work well.
Pedals well considering what it is, just have to stay in the saddle. Changed the casstte to 11-34T to accomodate pedalling steeper inclines even better.
The Maxxis Minion DHF/DHR Super Tacky tires work well in typical AZ terrain, even though the 2.5s are really small.
The DT Swiss wheels seem like a lightweight choice for a DH bike. Mine came with a chain guide that did not have a bash guard. Changed that out before even riding it.
Likely as much personal preference as anything, but the stock bars are somewhat narrow for DH. Swapped them out for wider (31″ / 785mm) Load Precision AMX bars.
The Boxxer fork plastic covers at the bottom of the fork fell off and were lost on the first couple of runs. Not really a RM issue.
Rear derailleur cable seems to be prone to damage, moreso than other bikes I have taken down the same trails.
The RMB pedals are very low-end and literally began to crack into pieces after a dozen runs. Swapped out to Spank Spike, which are a great addition to the bike. Not a big deal since many bikes do not even come with pedals.
My bike did not come with the short cage rear derailleur which is what is on the RMB web site specs forthis year and model. There is no need for a medium cage and it just gets in the way. This will be replaced eventually with the correct short cage derailleur.
Similar Products Used:
First purpose built DH bike, Marin Attack Trail set up for descending and pedaling.
Reviews by community members are the foundation of Mtbr.com. Share your experience with other cyclists by writing reviews for your bikes, gear, and other related accessories. You don't have to be an expert – everyone's opinion counts.
Rocky Mountain Bicycles – Kamloops Trip 2011


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A 21-year-old Watsonville man has been linked to several indecent expsoures in Scotts Valley and other areas of the county.
Noah Holt was arrested about 9 a.m. Wednesday after an investigation by police and the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office, Scotts Valley police Sgt. Mike Dean said.
Holt was arrested on suspicion of sexual battery, indecent exposure, annoying or harassing a minor and possession of obscene material involving children, Dean said.
No more information on the case was available Wednesday night.


text:
A massively parallel GPU read mapper using OpenCL.
Project description
PEANUT is a read mapper for DNA or RNA sequence reads. Read mapping is the process of aligning biological DNA or RNA sequencing reads to a known reference genome.
By exploiting the massive parallelism of modern graphics processors and a novel index datastructure, PEANUT achieves supreme sensitivity and speed compared to current state of the art read mappers like BWA MEM, Bowtie2 and RazerS3. PEANUT thereby allows to report both only the best hits or all hits.
For details about PEANUT, please refer to our scientific paper "Massively Parallel Read Mapping on GPUs with PEANUT" (under review). A preprint is available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.1706.
- A POSIX compatible OS (e.g. Linux, MacOS X, FreeBSD)
- an NVIDIA GPU with up-to-date proprietary drivers (this may change in the future as the AMD drivers become more mature)
- Cython >= 0.19
- Pyopencl >= 2013.1
- Numpy >= 1.7
- Python >= 3.2
Using easy_install, all dependencies will be installed automatically if missing:
$ easy_install3 peanut
When installing manually from setup.py, just execute:
$ python3 setup.py install
PEANUT will be available as a command line tool. To index a reference genome genome.fasta, issue the following:
$ peanut index genome.fasta genome.index.hdf5
To map paired end reads reads.1.fastq and reads.2.fastq onto the indexed reference, use the following invocation:
$ peanut map --threads 8 genome.index.hdf5 reads.1.fastq reads.2.fastq | samtools view -Sb - > mapped.bam
As can be seen, PEANUT outputs hits in the SAM format. Hence, output has to be piped into samtools to obtain a BAM file. PEANUT buffers reads and hits in GPU and CPU memory. The default buffer settings of PEANUT are optimized for a GPU with at least 2.5GB memory and a CPU with 16GB memory (but 8GB should do, too). You can lower both buffer sizes to adapt for weaker systems, e.g.:
$ peanut map --read-buffer 100000 --hits-buffer 500000 ...
This however can reduce performance since the amount of possible parallelelism on the GPU is affected. For further help, invoke:
$ peanut --help
or visit http://peanut.readthedocs.org.
- 26 May 2014: Release 1.1 of PEANUT. Reduced memory usage (at most 1/2 if you are lucky).
- 16 May 2014: Release 1.0.3 of PEANUT. Changed the argument order for the map subcommand to agree with other mappers.
- 7 May 2014: Release 1.0.2 of PEANUT. More fixes for alignment selection in case of paired end reads. Fixed missing import and –query-buffer not being considered.
- 30 Apr 2014: Release 1.0.1 of PEANUT. Improved flag usage in SAM output. Rescaled mapping quality in accordance with the paper. Fixed rare cases of where the wrong mate alignment was chosen as the best aligment.
If you use PEANUT in your publication, please cite the following preprint for now:
Köster, J., Rahmann, S., 2014. Massively parallel read mapping on GPUs with PEANUT. arXiv:1403.1706.
Project details
Release history Release notifications
Download files
Download the file for your platform. If you're not sure which to choose, learn more about installing packages.
|Filename, size & hash SHA256 hash help
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|peanut-1.1.tar.gz (587.4 kB) Copy SHA256 hash SHA256
|May 26, 2014


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David Cross, Actor And Comedian
series: Overheard With Evan Smith
air date: 7/11/13 7:00 PM
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text:
"stupid person, eccentric person," 1920s slang, perhaps a back-formation from dippy. "Dipshit is an emphatic form of dip (2); dipstick may be a euphemism or may reflect putative dipstick 'penis' " [DAS].
Old English dyppan "immerse, baptize by immersion," from Proto-Germanic *duppjan (cf. Old Norse deypa "to dip," Danish døbe "to baptize," Old Frisian depa, Dutch dopen, German taufen, Gothic daupjan "to baptize"), related to Old English diepan "immerse, dip," and perhaps ultimately to deep. As a noun, from 1590s. Sense of "downward slope" is 1708. Meaning "sweet sauce for pudding, etc." first recorded 1825.
|magnetic dip
See magnetic inclination.
A pickpocket: Since he seemed to remind me of a dip I'd helped bust years before (1850+ Underworld)
: Frankie dipped two men on the 37 bus
[fr dipping one's hand into a pocket]
Diphtheria (1940s+)
dipso (1940s+)
To chew tobacco or take snuff (1848+)
Related Terms


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The idea of getting stuck at a railroad crossing is enough to make some people hit the accelerator instead of the brake. But trying to beat the train can be deadly, and deputies are watching those crossings more closely than ever.
A train is winding through Tallahassee at about 30 miles an hour. The engineer says cars try to beat the train every day at almost every other crossing. He's hit one before.
"We came across and hit the vehicle. She got out in time, but it was scary because we didn't know if anyone else was in the vehicle at the time."
Friday, Leon County deputies were riding the train too, hoping to nab drivers who disregard crossing lights and barriers. Deputies say it's tough to catch motorists in the act, unless tragedy strikes.
This sting stemmed from a crash last fall, in which a truck trying to beat the train on Gearhart Road failed. And a five-year-old boy was critically injured.
"It's not like any other crash you work. When you work something as massive as a train colliding with a car, the amount of carnage is something you just can't imagine."
On this run through Tallahassee and on to Capitola, not one car bolted through a crossing. The engineer says that has never happened before.
"It saves maybe two to three minutes. It's not worth it. It's not worth it to try to beat the train."
The Leon County Sheriff's Office worked with CSX Railroad to set up the sting, and Tallahassee motorcycle officers were standing ready to ticket cars.