text:
Yes, a black flag in my case.
He asks, "Does anybody else feel like waving a flag after reading this?"
No. I feel like marching in protest. That didn't make me feel more patriotic. It made me feel more willing to express my frustration with the telcos.
Unless he meant a white flag. In which case I have to say, definitely no. That did not make me want to surrender. Of course, I'm not a telco -- maybe reading that would make them want to surrender -- price-gouging surrender monkeys that they are.
He asks, "Does anybody else feel like waving a flag after reading this?"
No. I feel like marching in protest. That didn't make me feel more patriotic. It made me feel more willing to express my frustration with the telcos
Uhh... Have you ever been to a protest?
I, for one, have waved the red flag [wikipedia.org] in several protests and would be willing to do so for this too, I guess. I have also seen a black flag [wikipedia.org] waved in some protests and am sure that it would fit in those too.
Not that there is an issue about net neutrality where I live. Government regulates companies enough that ISPs couldn't threat net neutrality without putting a lot of effort into making it very clear what it's all about and in such case the competition would take care
I was going to go to a protest and then I found out they weren't serving ice cream.
As long as a competitive, free market is ensured, this won't happen.
If a ISP starts filtering, people will move to the next.
Of course, things may turn out very different if we allow dominant market positions to be built in the ISP market.
(But this won't happen, right? Just as we never let any dominant market position arise in the OS market, or in the microprocessor market. Now sorry, gotta rush back to my cave).
You're kidding, right? The competition is already long dead.
Some parts of the country don't even have 2 options. The company I work for, we do tech support for multiple cable companies across the U.S. Some areas, speeds are as low as 256kbps down/128kbps, and that's all that's available. No DSL.
You think that's bad? Some of us have to use string and cans you insensitive clod!
In all seriousness though, some areas don't have real broadband at all, besides satellite. And in some of those areas the phone lines are so old and degraded they max out at around 24kbps down. (And of course, we can go really extreme and bring up the places that don't have any communication lines at all, but then those places usually don't have any other modern amenities either so they really don't count.) But sadly, the max 24kbps down is more widespread than you might think. In fact, where I call "home" right now (about 20 minutes from Columbus OH) up until very recently that was precisely the case. There's still no DSL or cable available, but someone was nice enough to set up a short-range (signal reaches up to about 3 miles or so) wireless ISP that is passably good.
In my neighborhood I have a last-mile fiber provided by a government-regulated monopoly, to which I pay a government-established fee (small).
The monopoly cannot provide uplink services; these are provided by a ton of ISPs over the monopoly's fiber. I know of about 5-6 such ISPs, and I am sure there are at least a few dozens.
I am paying a total of about $40 a month for 100Mbps.
Of course, things may turn out very different if we allow dominant market positions to be built in the ISP market.
That totally hasn't happened.
As long as a competitive, free market is ensured, this won't happen.
And other assorted Fairy Tales by Slashdotter brasselv, with an intro by Ayn Rand.
A free market is not possible anywhere at any time. Some markets are free enough to render this distinction not terribly important for the most part, but the telecom/ISP market is almost the polar opposite of those relatively free markets in this regard.
As a medical doctor, I recommend that you begin a course of irony supplements, stat.
Where do you live where it is possible to just "switch" to a different ISP?
Everyone I have lived (save one place) has only had one option for high speed internet. One cable company which was granted a sanctioned monopoly to service the area. If you didn't like the way they did business your options were limited. DSL for a majority of locations is not nearly as fast as cable- if you live close enough to the service station at all. If the only other option is dialup and you are protesting slow speeds on non-a
As long as a competitive, free market is ensured, this won't happen.
See, this is the kind of silliness that has gotten us here.
The "competitive, free market" is code for siphoning wealth from the productive middle and working classes and giving it to anti-national corporations who are openly hostile to the very notion of Democracy.
It's a fiction that's been created by (guess who?) the corporate interests that are the only ones to benefit from the kind of lawless laissez faire we've been subjected to. They
As long as a competitive, free market is ensured, this won't happen.
If a ISP starts filtering, people will move to the next.
Of course, things may turn out very different if we allow dominant market positions to be built in the ISP market.
(But this won't happen, right? Just as we never let any dominant market position arise in the OS market, or in the microprocessor market. Now sorry, gotta rush back to my cave).
Good, because you have obviously been in it way too long and there is little hope of your ever b
If a ISP starts filtering, people will move to the next.
I think many people miss the real danger here. Yes, if your own ISP is doing stuff you don't like (filtering, throttling, prioritising, spoofing, whatever) then you can change them -- in a fair market, at least. So that sort of thing generally won't be in their interests.
But what if it's not your ISP? What if it's a backbone provider, or some other middleman?
Suppose an upstream provider threatens to throttle traffic bound to/from Amazon (say) unle
Municipalities do charge them. We just charge too little, and don't ask for much service in return. The last time my city "negotiated" with the cable company, I don't recall it being big news, and I certainly don't recall there being much public debate over what the terms should be.
For me, it's 8 years until the current contract is up. And yes, I'm going to make a stink.
Instead, make infrastructure part of building codes and get community builders mandated to run decent fiber (not FiOS) drops to each residence.
Doctorow makes a great point about the abuse and monopolistic attitude that telcos have had for decades-- all bought and paid for at the Legislative Market. These stinking thieves do indeed put out capital for infrastructure, but they're only beholden to shareholders, not ratepayers in their captive markets.
Uh, no.
See several projects, including http://www.llccp.net/asp/Site/LLCCP/AboutLLCCP/Introduction/index.asp [llccp.net] among others.
And personally, I believe the 'free market' is a sham for 'do what I want cause I got the gold'. Utilities were granted many qualities in exchange for a monopoly. Now that monopoly has turned against us, almost uniformly.
And the monopoly the utilities have was in every case granted by the state. The free market doesn't enter into it. Arguably, some things are naturally best managed by monopolies. Online services, outside of maybe - and it's a stretch - the cables that carry them, are not best served by a monopoly. Every time someone argues that the free market is responsible for monopoly misbehavior, my blood pressure goes up ten points. Free markets imply competition, which is distinctly lacking in the telco context thanks to government intervention.
Oh that's BS and you know it.
Monopolies inevitably become excessive. Free markets are just another buzzword for leave me alone, I want to suck as much out of something as I can without regulation or pesky rules to get in my way.
The states comprised 47 different authorities that the monopolies had to deal with, so they lobbied moving things to a federal level so they only had one jurisdiction to bribe. Now the state utility authorities are almost toothless when it comes to regulating the re-formed giants that are Verizon, Quest, AT&T, etc.
These guys are very interested in TOTAL domination of their markets and they know they have the cost barrier points in their favor, signed-sealed-and-delivered by the FCC and the Congress. After all, they PAID FOR IT. Go ahead, check out the records of how much the utilities have spent on lobbying and campaign contributions (yes, legal bribes).
Monopolies inevitably become excessive
Funny, I don't remember my power company becoming excessive at any point. I remember prices going down once...
You see, many utilities are best served by local monopolies. If you don't like it, you're welcome to start your own power company... but don't look to me for help when you go bankrupt before you have customers.
Now, if internet service were run as a utility, and a minimum connection speed were mandated, then prices wouldn't be so bad, and it wouldn't matter so much if there were only one choice.
How about the opposite... how anout as municipalities, we band together and start charging them rent
If government stood for the general population rather than for businesses, we wouldn't have the DMCA, eternal copyright, overly lax banking regulation, or the inability to erase consumer credit card debt via bankruptcy court.
So as nice as your idea sounds, I'm afraid it's pretty much just fantasy.
Or -- and this is just me here -- we could try encouraging a way of doing business that *doesn't* screw *anybody.* The basis of trade is mutual profit, as in, both parties get more out of the trade than they lost. Each has what the other wants. Quid pro quo.
People are too ready to tear others down to get what they want. It's time to adopt the mindset of building each other up: the businesses and the customers alike. Things work better that way.
You can call me a dreamer. But I'm not the only one.
I don't think I've ever heard an argument that was serious for the other side of this issue. Am I just ignorant? Or is this a non-issue that people like to discuss?
Regardless, censorship is a scary thing. Fortunately, the internet is probably bigger than most blacklist-based censorship attempts, and I don't think we're in such a bad position that people would tolerate anything more restrictive (whitelists or graylists). The great firewall of china is obviously the exception to this.
The great firewall of china is obviously the exception to this.
Actually, it is not. Speaking as somebody that has been to China and seen the poorest parts, and the most affluent areas, I can assure you, that you are wrong.
The average Chinese person does not understand what the "Great Firewall" is. Those that do understand (which is a small percentage of the population), also know the ways around it. The firewall itself is largely ineffective against anybody with a reasonable level of skill. Personally, I think the firewall was created to maintain an image.
What is more effective, and instills more fear, are the government workers that are actively looking for undesirable (local) content and then "censoring" it. Of course, China's censorship can get pretty hands on.
Even with such hands on censorship being performed, the people are fighting back making sure the information is getting around. The milk contamination is a great example. Not only were people still able to get their hands on foreign articles, but there was movement inside the country to disseminate the information and confront the government. It took time, and you most likely did not hear much in the foreign news.
The Chinese people are not willing to "tolerate anything". If anything, the tolerance you speak of is just ignorance. Those that understand they are being censored, are by no means taking it lightly.
From my experience, for every regulation or law in China, there are 10 different ways to get around it. 100 ways if it involves bribes.
"I don't think I've ever heard an argument that was serious for the other side of this issue."
Over here in the states, the counter arguments generally run something like, "Good day, Senator So-and-so. Here's a pile of cash the size of Rhode Island. We would encourage you to let ISPs run roughshod over consumers. Sound good?"
Cory Doctorow is working his ass off to come out of obscurity.
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/14/why-publishing-shoul.html [boingboing.net]
It's a shame that he's turning into a loudmouthed pundit rather than an author I'd care to read.
I drove down the highway today and was stuck in traffic for a long while. There were lots of cars zipping in and out, but the main problem was a group of long-haul trucks taking up a mile of roadway. The amount of road we have is finite, so the addition of these large trucks is fine for a few, but once you start getting more than a handful of trucks on the road, all traffic is affect.
But Net Neutrality is a tough issue. Yes, clearly, as users we want as unfettered a line as possible. However, the ISP also needs to balance the needs of all the users against the needs of certain special users.
If it weren't for some users flooding the network with massive filesharing packets, this would all be a non-issue. Actually, for most users it still is since most users are not affected at all by bandwidth strangling.
the ISP also needs to balance the needs of all the users against the needs of certain special users.
As youtube and hulu and other online distribution sites like itunes or steam or the playstation store get more and more popular, "all of the users" need more bandwidth. Either that, or more and more users become "special".
Either that, or more and more users become "special".
Until they're all special. And then we hug.
That's not what net neutrality is about. That's QoS or usage tiers. What net neutrality is about is making sure that toll road owners are not charging more for trucks carrying company A's stuff than trucks driving company B's stuff. ISPs want to be able to degrade performance from certain internet services, such as Skype and Hulu, in order to "encourage" you to use their own services. That is, unless those services pay your ISP an extortion fee.
In other word, net neutrality is about not discriminating against the source of the traffic. It says nothing about discriminating based on the type of traffic and amount. Comcast should not arbitrarily degrade my Skype traffic because they prefer me to use their VOIP service and Skype refuses to pay them a kickback. I should be able to choose how I use my connection, so long as I am not infringing upon other users.
If it weren't for some users flooding the network with massive filesharing packets, this would all be a non-issue. Actually, for most users it still is since most users are not affected at all by bandwidth strangling.
So hulu, youtube, and itunes (not to mention spam) are going to go away if filesharing is turned off on the entire Internet? Riiiight.
At the same token, if government (or corporations for that matter) fail to provide for more than a single lane of traffic, then there are going to be traffic jams. However, if the road is wide and broad, then the line of long haul truckers are no longer an issue. Likewise, if there is fiber to every home in the US, suddenly the packet hogs are no longer an issue.
The US has continuously fallen behind [slashdot.org] in broadband rankings, as corporations wallow in their greed [nytimes.com]. The fact is, government (as Cory starts to all
Didn't Google buy up all the dark fiber lines to build out a monopoly when the economy turns around?
Labled as "troll", but what about it? Didn't Google buy up scads and scads of "dark fibre"???
Didn't Google buy up all the dark fiber lines to build out a monopoly when the economy turns around?
Parent was referring to the somewhat recent Google April Fool's joke, not actually trolling. See: http://www.google.com/tisp/ [google.com]
My God Slashdot, have we gotten to the point where people just mod as "Troll" anything they don't understand?
If this is about phone companies, then I think I'd rather just end the monopoly they enjoy anyway. Asking a committee or government to decide what forms of Internet access are equal to others (and thus require neutrality) is just asking for trouble.
End the monopoly and let me pay my own way.
Paying $/Gig is all well and good, but that usually isn't what tiered pricing is. Tiered pricing usually involves a minimum price that's unreasonably high for the amount of data included, and then very expensive chunks of overage. (Just like old cellphone plans, or the texting plans that are widely being objected to). Now if someone offered me unfiltered, unfettered, (meaning I can serve whatever the hell I want, for example) internet access, at 20/20 or better speed, with static IP, for $2/Gigabyte tran
Tiered pricing usually involves a minimum price that's unreasonably high for the amount of data included
THAT is a problem that arises when there is no competition. I absolutely believe we MUST move away from unlimited. It's insanity to keep it.
Businesses pay for their bandwidth in tiered pricing packages sometimes combined with metered billing. The difference is, there is PLENTY of competition. Colo A charges 180$ per Mb/s (symmetrical) on their bottom tier which is up to 10 Mb/s. Colo B charges 75$ pe
"(Oh! We have NO IDEA if we're going to use 10,000 minutes a month, or 50 minutes a month - therefore telecoms can't charge us by the minute!) How absurd."
Almost everybody understands the concept of a minute and how long it feels like. If they use 100 minutes in a given day, they know it's not 15 minutes and they know it's not 500 minutes, even if they didn't time themselves. But most internet users don't have any idea of what it means to download a gigabyte or 100 gigabytes, if they even know what a giga
I don't know how many games I'm going to download over XBox Live, PSN, and Steam (and yes, I use all three) in a given month, and I don't know how many hours of Hulu I'm going to watch in a given month. I also used to use an MSDN account quite extensively. So no, I don't know how much internet I'm going to be using. The ISP doesn't really give me a convenient way to find out, either (since they'd rather hit me with overage fees).
My problem with tiers is that they're inevitably structured so that its inconvenient or impossible to use my connection for entertainment without hitting their overage fees. In other words, the point of the tiers always seems to be to prevent or discourage me from using services that compete with the cable companies', and that justifiably pisses me off.
I dislike Cory. I hate Creative Commons. I detest copyright, public-use rights, public utilities, and anything related to non-market forces for real property. Intellectual property is a dying term, long dead in my dictionary (note, I am a writer and I get paid to write).
I want to see municipal allowances for duopolies destroyed. Let residents who own property rent it to whoever wants to take the time to rent it. Let competing companies, even at the local level, battle for access to the last mile. They'll get good international uplinks, they'll battle each other on service and price and performance.
Today, we have public funding across the board, regulations that restrict competition, and people afraid of seeing 500 internet lines over their house (note, they won't).
Cory should roll over and retire. He's a geek's dream, and a capitalist's nightmare. Capitalism will save the web, net neutrality won't.
And yet, he continues to be a successful writer and sought after futurist.
People pay money for his stuff. There's a market for Cory's works and thoughts. He's good at making it happen.
I'd say Cory is a capitalist's vindication -- he positions his stuff to build wealth from it, and doesn't rely on government intervention to do it. He uses his own methods and madness, and it works in the market he plays in.
Some of us *enjoy* reading what he writes. I do. I suspect I wouldn't read anything you write.
What, you're not big on Ayn Rand fanfic?
Today, we have public funding across the board, regulations that restrict competition, and people afraid of seeing 500 internet lines over their house (note, they won't).
That's right, they'll see one or none. Because no one is going to build out the infrastructure if they can't be assured they'll have a near-captive market.
It's the natural barriers to entry that make monopolies in telecom exist. It's the regulation of monopolies in telecom that should prevent those monopolies from abusing their position.
Competition is not the natural consequence on unregulated markets. Monopolies are the natural consequence of unregulated markets, since there is no such thing as an ideal free market.
Even the Austrian school of economic theory recognizes the need for intervention to keep monopolies from limiting the efficient allocation of resources, and that monopolies are the natural result of largely imperfect markets (like this one, where the huge *natural* barrier to entry makes it so).
Of course, you may be perfectly fine with serial monopoly, but in that case you must be unfamiliar with the sunk costs involved in serial monopolies, which represent inefficient allocation of resources.
We've been over this before, I'm just not sure if you recall the discussion.
I'm not a supporter of the Austrian school, but
Even the Austrian school of economic theory recognizes the need for intervention to keep monopolies from limiting the efficient allocation of resources, and that monopolies are the natural result of largely imperfect markets (like this one, where the huge *natural* barrier to entry makes it so).
is, I'm pretty sure, flat-out wrong. According to the Austrians true monopolies only arise if government mandated or protected. Thus intervention in the marketplace, according to them, by the government is what gives rise to monopolies, not that intervention must stop them.
Monopolies are the natural consequence of unregulated markets, since there is no such thing as an ideal free market.
is a non sequitur; the conclusion is not following from the premise in any way I can see.
"give them 60 days to get their wires out of our dirt and then sell the franchise to provide network services to a competitor who will promise to give us a solid digital future in exchange for our generosity."
What generosity? The city owns the land they're using, not you.
In exchange for the huge capital outlay of installing the infrastructure, the city gives them certain rights. It's a win-win.
Let's see if I can summarize the gist of most Slashdot articles recently:
- Screw any internet provider that wants to cap any users or charge a lot more for heavy users.
- Screw any internet provider that wants to give more weight to some traffic over others.
- Give me my P2P
Sorry, something has to give. It's basic economics.
Cheap internet. Open internet. No usage caps.
Pick 2.
Cheap internet. Open internet. No usage caps.
It's entirely possible to provide three. The actual triangle is "Cheap, fast, good. Pick two." In this case, I'd rather see "good" as a given, and let people decide between "fast" and "cheap". That way, the average consumer would have a cheap connection that's open and has no caps, but might be a little slow. Then if you want to use BitTorrent on that connection, it works, but it's slow. If you want 20Mbps speeds, to increase your BitTorrent performance, or enable faster NetFlix downloads, or upload family movies faster, or whatever, you pay extra.
This isn't about throttling types of traffic, this is about throttling based on the source of the traffic. To copy an analogy from up above, net neutrality isn't about tollbooths charging more for trucks than cars; this is about charging more for trucks owned by Staples than trucks owned by Office Max.
What generosity? The city owns the land they're using, not you.
Who owns the city? Last time I checked I thought the idea was the public owned everything and the city was the "property manager" supposedly operating in our best interests.
Sorry, but you make it sound like it is operating in an ideal fashion with no corruption or nepotism involved at any level.
In exchange for the huge capital outlay of installing the infrastructure, the city gives them certain rights. It's a win-win.
A win for the city officials. A win for the company. A big loss for the citizens.
There is not enough competition, and that is a problem. It's not like gas, electric, or water. I'm tired of people equating the two, since the Internet is far different than other utility. It *has* become as important the other utilities, but it is not the same.
- Screw any internet provider that wants to cap any users or charge a lot more for heavy users.
I share your sentiment. This is a stupid and shortsighted mentality. Unlimited must be removed for any sanity to be introduced back into the system. I am vehemently opposed to caps, but I am in favor of a different pricing model that includes throttling once you have reached your agreed upon "cap". Basically, I want to be charged at home the same way I am charged at my data center for bandwidth. There is no technical reason why it cannot be accomplished, it's all just opposition from the MBA's and POS executives.
- Screw any internet provider that wants to give more weight to some traffic over others.
What are we talking about here? QoS based on traffic type or traffic source?
QoS is a technical solution that can work well when implemented end-to-end. Nothing sinister about it. Voice traffic, Real time gaming traffic, etc. need to get there first before somebody's FTP and torrent traffic. Most people don't have a problem with that.
Where is gets very concerning is when companies "penalize" traffic because it directly competes with one of their own products and services. The Internet, as a utility, has become to important to be malevolently twisted in such a damaging way.
Local telephone companies are not degrading, stopping, or interfering with your communications if it interferes with their business, or the business of their affiliates. Like another poster stated, it would be like being put on hold when calling Pizza Hut with a message saying, "Press 1 to be connected to Domino's our preferred pizza partner". I paraphrased, but I think you get the point.
The Internet is special, in that it has an unprecedented amount of information concerning every little tidbit of communication passing through it. It can certainly be abused, and there are people drooling to do so.
I fully support the idea of net neutrality. ISP's should stick to ONLY providing the Internet. Nothing more allowed by law. Traffic shaping based on the source of the traffic, or it's content should be disallowed by law in the strongest language possible with very serious consequences. In return, the ISP's get blanket immunity for all traffic passing through their networks.
This whole circus where bandwidth "abuse", P2P, and Piracy are being mixed up with the Net Neutrality debate is just bullshit designed to distract us and create inflammatory environments in which intelligent dialogue becomes impossible. Which is what Big Media and some the ISP's want.
Net Neutrality is about ONE THING ONLY. Making sure the source and content of a communication is never used to give preferential/detrimental treatment based on financial motivations. That's it. It's in our best interests as a society, all societies, to make it happen as quick as possible.
Sorry, something has to give. It's basic economics.
Cheap internet. Open internet.
In 1994 I worked for a company setting up an ISP. We called in the phone company to order 50 lines. (Dial up was all there was then ). The company was not happy, especially that we were ordering business lines, with a low cost, 15 cents for each outgoing call but no cost for incoming calls .
As an ISP we only had incoming calls. They had no choice, since phone systems had to sell lines to anyone ( oh the joys of regulation! ). Had the phone version of net neutrality not been in place, the phone companies would have throttled or taken over the internet - and we would not have the open net we have now.
Bookwormhole.net [bookwormhole.net] -- over 11,000 published book reviews.
Take filtering: by allowing ISPs to silently block access to sites that displease them..
Does anyone know of an ISP that is actually blocking a competitor's site?
ISPs would also like to be able to arbitrarily slow or degrade our network connections depending on what we're doing and with whom. In the classic "traffic shaping" scenario
Careful! Some QoS is good! I *want* my ISP to QoS VoIP traffic. If they QoS their internal VoIP traffic, but not traffic that goes outside their network, it that their fault? Will stupid laws prevent them from providing quality VoIP services within their network? What if the ISP routes VoIP traffic to special links? Is this a form of QoS that violates the spirit of the Internet?
Finally, there's the question of metered billing for ISP customers.
I think it is unfair for me to have to pay more for my bursty usage just because some guy wants to torrent 24/7. If you want more expensive Internet service, then by all means, pass a law that prevents capping. The funny thing is that a law like that will just help the big telcoms that have plenty of peering. The smaller, local ISP's will die because they won't be able to support the costs of their transit links.
The truest form of "'Net neutrality" is for We the People to force the telcos - at gunpoint if necessary - to sell us back the "wires" and shared public infrastructure that they built for us. Cory seems to have *almost* identified the problem, but not quite, and so doesn't identify the correct solution.
The telecom industry should have been nothing more than contractors to the public interest, just as road construction crews are contractors; we don't allow road crews to retain ownership of the asphalt they lay down, and neither should we have allowed AT&T and its imitators to own the telegraph wires and everything else that has followed. We should have paid them ONCE for that work, and then perhaps kept them on as maintainers of that network, but at no point should they have been allowed to own the wires. That is where we screwed-up. Those wires belong to all of us, just as do the roads and the "airwaves" and the air we breathe. Those are all things shared by everyone that lend themselves perfectly to a bit of socialism... in this case public or (*gasp!*) "state" ownership.
The result of public ownership of the wires would be the inability of the telcos to blackmail us - or each other - for right of access. We the People would be in the driver's seat; if we didn't like the antics of one or more telcos, we could use our ownership of the wires to force them to shape up or ship out.
In Canada, back in the good ol' socialist days of a Single Phone Company, if Bell did something greedy and stupid, all you had to do was call up the CRTC, (the Canadian Radio & Television Commission) and lodge a complaint. I'd done it a couple of time, and the problems magically vanished. That was back when I didn't mind paying taxes quite so much, because my government was actually doing something useful.
Then the Public Relations people for some greedy corporate start-up told everybody that a single phone system wasn't competitive and that we were in danger of all becoming communists or some stupid air-head shit, and the idiot masses were manipulated into pressing for Bell's system to be opened up to the glories of competition. And because people are fucking stupid in large numbers, easily swayed by emotional messages, I now have several awful phone services to choose from all of which charge too much and calling the CRTC no longer holds the kind of wonderful powers it once did.
Overarching governmental powers don't fit well for every situation, and in some cases they are downright bad. But when it comes to vital systems, like communications and medical care, I want a really big hammer to smash greedy, lazy, stupid assholes with. I USED to have that big hammer AND an efficient, affordable phone system, and now I don't. So thank-you very much for making my life that much more crappy with your stupid social experiment which I told you was going to fail back when you first jumped on the bandwagon in the heady, wide-eyed days of your first year at some ass-hat university where your young minds were molded. You know who you are.
Information is the inverse of entropy.


text:
BATON ROUGE — A resident of Ruston who formerly oversaw a Louisiana chapter of Ducks Unlimited has been elected to serve as the next chairman of the state Wildlife and Fisheries Commission.
BATON ROUGE — A resident of Ruston who formerly oversaw a Louisiana chapter of Ducks Unlimited has been elected to serve as the next chairman of the state Wildlife and Fisheries Commission.
The board regulates hunting as well as commercial and recreational fishing in Louisiana.
Ronny Graham, a general contractor who's currently chairman of the board of Lincoln Builders, said his top priority will be enhancing the public's hunting and fishing experience.
"I hope to leave the commission and the state's natural resources better off than when I started," Graham said in an interview Friday.
Formerly vice chairman of the Wildlife and Fisheries Commission, Graham was appointed three years ago by Gov. Bobby Jindal.
While he said his experiences with Ducks Unlimited and his company have provided him with more knowledge about north Louisiana, Graham said he also wants to focus part of his tenure on building upon the economic-development aspects of south Louisiana.
"That area represents billions of dollars, and it's all about the natural resources," he said. "That's something we'll strive to improve, and we all want to make sure it's there for our children and grandchildren."
Adam Einck, public information officer with the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said the leadership changes were ratified last week and took effect immediately.
Mike Voisin of Houma is the commission's new vice chairman, replacing Graham in a position that has traditionally served as a stepping-stone to the chairmanship.
Voisin is chief executive of Motivatit Seafoods in Houma and an active participant in oyster-related policy making in Baton Rouge and Washington, D.C. Last year, he received an honorary doctor of commerce degree from Nicholls State University in Thibodaux.
"We are known around the world and country for our tremendous seafood and wildlife resources," Voisin said in a statement on the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries' website. "It is critical that they are managed in a sustainable manner for our enjoyment today and future generations to come."
As the new chairman, Graham is taking over the gavel from Ann L. Taylor of Luling, who was born and raised in Houma before moving to St. Charles Parish. She is co-owner and marketing director of Louisiana Sportsman Magazine.
Graham's background includes a stint on the conservation programs committee for Ducks Unlimited, and he once served as chairman for the Lincoln Parish Ducks Unlimited chapter.
Graham's term as Wildlife and Fisheries Board chairman ends in 2016, while Voisin's term is scheduled to expire in 2015. Taylor's term ends next year.
Jeremy Alford can be reached at email@example.com.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
I expect you to... REBOOT!
Great selling point!
Why not just produce photoshop images of what you say it looks like? No one is going to see the real thing anyway (apart from your own staff).
No one is going to see the real thing anyway (apart from your own staff).
You must be a CEO to consider each and every last customer to be a no one.
Except for a handful of people, who's going to see it? If there are more than a couple people in a datacenter you're doing it wrong. Rack the equipment (preconfigured), plug in the cables and switch it on. From that point on no one should touch it until it breaks and needs to be RMA'd or scrapped.
How much money are you going to invest in beautifying a space that very few people will see?
For those rare and momentous events when a VIP or CEO drops by. I jest you not, I worked in a center where they spent days aligining all the screw heads to the same direction in every rack. The one thing Thinking Machines got right was "blinkin lights." Give the CEO/VIP something to comment on, and they will be happy.
Wow, you worked at a ghetto Data center. we used brushed aluminum rack screw cover track that is sold for the Home AV industry. Far cheaper than wasting days of your tech's time.
I jest you not, I worked in a center where they spent days aligining all the screw heads to the same direction in every rack.
Wow I thought only the craziest show car guys did that (fun fact: This tends to cause every torque setting to be wrong, and on cars, torque settings are generally important.)
New customers.
Ceterus parabus, many corporate senior management being toured around a volcano-lair-datacentre will pay a bit over the odds for co-lo when the alternative is some random industrial park warehouse.
It's called marketing & presentation.
Of course being Swedish, the whole thing will probably be assembled with an allen key...
Hey! At least we don't take "what a small package" as an insult!
Some assembly required.
Once up if it lasts as long as you want to keep it when what's the problem?
Any of those folks that don't see through it, don't deserve their job. It's one thing to pay for extras that improve reliability and stability and quite another to pay to make it pretty.
It's one thing to pay for extras that improve reliability and stability and quite another to pay to make it pretty.
Which is why no one every buys Apple.
Consumer mindset is universal. The thought processes involved in large corporate acquisitions are vulnerable to the same appeal to aesthetics, if the decision rests with (or is highly influenced by) one or two "prime mover" individuals.
You're talking like an engineer. Engineers don't make decisions on this scale. Vice Presidents and other pointy-haired typ
From that point on no one should touch it until it breaks and needs to be RMA'd or scrapped.
Reminds me of the old joke about the best Server Admin being a German Shepard and a sysop. The sysop is there to feed the German Shepard, and the German Shepard is there to make sure the sysop never gets near the server.
Oddly, the linked article goes gaga about the inflatable tent next to the steel enclosed portable data center. So put a few rounds thru the inflatable tent to get rid of those pesky sysops, and then do what you will with the data center. Why make it out of bullet proof steel?
You didn't take notes during Master Villain class did you? OF COURSE they will all aim for the red shirts in the inflatable, ALL of THEM, while you make your clean getaway in the bullet proof escape pod in the back away from the deadly crossfire.
Damn I used to work about 5 minutes walk away from this in Kista - I might have to pay them a visit for a laugh.
As to who will see it, it is positioned right next to and visible from the E4 which is the main northbound road from Stockholm and its also very near to the new Kista convention center; so I guess they can wangle a few visitors every now and then in various ways. Personally I think its great to see companies doing things in non-conventional ways - and I wouldn't mind my it center being modelled ar
Aesthetically pleasing design isn't a priority: Very few people will ever see the data center(s) they use, let alone care what they look like. This is like saying "My neighborhood has the best looking sewers!" Well, that's cool... but nobody is going to crawl down a manhole to check them out. So props for being all creative and stuff, but why don't you work on something the general public might actually see?
Well in the linked story they say:
Bahnhof joins a growing number of providers seeking to provide faster and cheaper deployment of IT capacity through the use of factory-build modules that can be installed quickly and expanded as needed based on the customer's needs.
So these are likely to be short term deployments of data centers for special events (olympics, Military operations, Disasters, etc) or short term expansion centers for companies waiting for their new headquarters to be built. They roll in on trucks set up operate without looking too ugly, then roll out again some time later.
Just don't make the pod bay doors voice-activated.
Just don't make the pod bay doors voice-activated.
I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
At a company I used to work at the server room for the entire company was located in the basement... directly under a pretty fountain in the reception.
One day the base of the fountain cracked. The water leaked through the floor directly onto the servers below, thoroughly soaking every server.
Several computers in nearby rooms also managed to get fried, thanks to a surge of 230V flowing out of the room via CAT5 cables from the switches in the server room (before the CAT5 cable cores melted just like a fus
Ethernet is a balanced, isolated line. That's why there are never an issue with ground loops. Contary to the etherkiller legend, 230V shouldn't actually fry a computer on that port. It'll burn out the transformer in the network card, though.
I worked in an Australian Data Centre back in 2006. One of my daily task was to walk the floor looking for red lights and general physical security patrol.
Mostly I would spend my time studying the various case designs from server hardware vendors; sun hardware and racks was unmistakably the coolest looking gear. Something like alien cyberpunk is how I would describe their purple mesh design. HP has always lacked aesthetic flair to their chassis externals. Grey plate with lights. Boring! Dell had a more indu
The design features a spacious double-wide module built with bullet-proof steel that will house servers, which attaches to "The Dome," an inflatable central vestibule that houses security staff.
So the servers get bullet-proof steel, while the human security staff are protected by 'inflatable' walls?
Don't think I would fancy my chances in a physical attack...
Bet you money the steel is not AR-50 bullet proof. Hell I'm betting an AR-10 can easily punch holes in it.
The inflatable building crap again? These things are a major Fail.
Use shipping containers. works better, you can do more with them and easily modular. Oh and they are cheaper to transport to the site and set up.
This reeks of those home security commercials. "Hello, this is Wolf Home Security, is everything all right?" with a background of dimmed red lights in a war room. Anyone whose ever worked in a secure environment or a war room will tell you that all the commercial theatrics deployed around their work area made/will make them crazy. It might look cool, but its not functionally sound.
Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong.


text:
PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (AP) Josh Eleby had 15 points to lead five Prairie View A&M players in double figures as the Panthers overwhelmed Arlington Baptist 91-38 on Tuesday night.
All 12 players who saw action for Prairie View A&M (2-1) scored. Jules Montgomery and Louis Munks had 13 points each, Rasi Jenkins 12 and Jourdan DeMuynck 11.
Josh Green scored 12 points for Arlington Baptist, an Association of Christian College Athletics member school that classified the game as an exhibition. The Patriots' record remained 1-1.
The Panthers shot 54.7 percent (41 of 75) from the floor, had a 53-39 rebounding edge and outscored Arlington Baptist 62-26 in the paint.


text:
When his parents kicked him out of their home for his gang lifestyle, Marco Lopez found a refuge in Segundo Reynoso, Palatine police say.
The Palatine father opened his doors to the 17-year-old, welcoming him into his family's home on the village's northeast side, police said.
But Reynoso, 38, grew concerned about Lopez's influence on his teenage son, authorities said. He eventually blocked Lopez from staying at the home, which police said angered the reputed member of a Chicago street gang.
Early Wednesday, prosecutors said, Lopez entered the Reynoso apartment and opened fire on the father and his son, Luis, 15, who belonged to the same gang. Both died a short time later.
Lopez was charged Friday with two counts of first-degree murder. Judge Jill Cerone Marisie ordered Lopez, who has a lengthy arrest record, held without bond. He could face life in prison if convicted because of the circumstances of the crime.
Lopez and Luis Reynoso knew each other for years but recently had a falling out, police say. The two were arrested in connection with a string of burglaries, and Lopez feared that Luis had become a police snitch, police and prosecutors say.
Police say Luis Reynoso did not inform on Lopez.
Those suspicions, however, may have driven Lopez to gun down the boy and his father, while Luis' two younger sisters slept nearby, prosecutors suggested Friday in bond court.
The prosecution also has a witness whom Lopez asked three or four weeks ago if Luis was an informant, Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Maria McCarthy said in bond court.
In recent days, Lopez had been staying with two friends in a Palatine apartment, McCarthy said.
On Tuesday night, Lopez took out a revolver that he had brought with him and told his friends he was going out to handle something, McCarthy said. He added, "Don't trip" -- gang slang for don't tell anyone, she said.
Shortly after midnight, Lopez entered the Reynosos' apartment on the 1900 block of Green Lane North, shot Luis three times in the chest and his father once in the eye, McCarthy said. Luis' mom was at work at the time of the shootings.
The bullet went through Segundo Reynoso's chest and lodged in his shoulder. He collapsed in the hallway outside the apartment in the Baldwin Green complex.
Several witnesses saw Lopez fleeing the apartment, police said.
A short time later, Lopez returned to the apartment where he was staying -- this time without the gun -- told his friends he had taken care of things and again said, "Don't trip," McCarthy said.
Lopez has three pending juvenile court cases and has been arrested in a fourth case in which he hadn't yet appeared in court, McCarthy said.
The charges include felony theft last April, possession of controlled substance and criminal trespass last May, and criminal damage to property last October after a police officer saw him writing gang insignia on an apartment building, authorities said.
In the pending case, Lopez admitted he took a television and other items from an apartment that was ransacked in January, McCarthy said.
In addition, several bond forfeiture warrants have been issued for Lopez for failure to appear in court, she said.
Palatine police said many residents of Baldwin Green came forward to help with the investigation, angry that a father and son had been senselessly killed, leaving behind a mother and two daughters, ages 5 and 7.


text:
Longmont is a community of caring and compassionate people. When something affects an individual or group, it affects all of us. Homelessness is one of the things that has affected all of us for some time now. The recent death of a woman reported by the Times-Call as being homeless or "a transient" has again brought the issue to the forefront. The premature death of this woman is unfortunate. And it is even more unfortunate that the support provided to her by many different organizations was not enough to save her life.
As the collaborative partnership formed in 2000 to reduce and ultimately eliminate homelessness in our community, we at Longmont Housing Opportunities Team -- more than 50 members strong -- implore the press and other community members to be discerning about how you represent people who appear to be homeless. For the sake of vulnerable members of our community, all those working hard to help them and the community as a whole, we ask that you establish a foundation of fact before disseminating information about those who may or may not be homeless and situations that may befall them.
In an ideal world, our community would understand the complex and diverse reasons why some members of our community (not all of whom are homeless) are seen on the streets. For some, it's situational financial hardship or generational poverty, for others a struggle with addiction, while others wrestle with mental health challenges. Still others may be fleeing from violence in their homes. It may be a combination of these things or other complex, multifaceted reasons. Not one of these situations has a simple solution.
Recognizing that this is a true communitywide issue -- and not the responsibility of any one individual or agency -- members of LHOT have been working for more than a decade to implement strategies to help those who are homeless or who are at risk of becoming homeless in Longmont. We have established a system of care including human service agencies, mental health services, substance abuse treatment, health care, affordable housing and more with the goal of getting people off the streets and into sustainable housing.
While we are still working toward our ultimate goal, we are happy to say we have made great strides through collaboration and cooperation, and have a long list of accomplishments. Just one of those is the establishment of a system to provide emergency cold weather sheltering that has been in place for years now. In fact, in the true spirit of collaboration, when one organization could no longer provide this service, we worked together to come up with viable, supported alternatives. Since this transition, there has been no loss in the amount of shelter space available, with our faith communities taking over where the other organization left off.
It is vital that we continue to work together, as a team, on issues of homelessness in our community, rather than pointing fingers and implying that any individual or group is culpable when unfortunate incidents or tragedies arise involving those who are homeless or on the fringes.
If you are interested in being part of the solution, we invite you to get involved with LHOT. Learn about us, the deeper issues, and the work we do. By doing so, you will gain invaluable insight into the difficult challenges our community is facing, and can make real and meaningful contributions to help solve the issue of homelessness, ultimately helping to make this a better Longmont for all of us.
The Longmont Housing Opportunities Team meets from 9 to 10:30 a.m. every fourth Wednesday at 309 Atwood Street. For more information, visit lhotonline.org.
The Longmont Housing Opportunities Team Steering Committee is Sarah Buss, Boulder County Housing and Human Services; Craig Earhart, Longmont's deputy public safety chief; Kathy Fedler, city of Longmont's CDBG/Affordable Housing Division; Barb Guastella, Mental Health Partners; Greg Harms, executive director, Boulder Shelter for the Homeless; Jackie List, executive director, Safe Shelter of St. Vrain Valley; Donna Lovato, executive director, Inn Between; Michael Reis, executive director, Longmont Housing Authority; John Rostykus, First United Congregational Church of Christ; Edwina Salazar, executive director, OUR Center.


text:
From NBC's Athena Jones
After weeks of high-level meetings to review his administration's strategy in Afghanistan, President Obama said he would announce his troop decision soon and declared his intention to finish a job that began more than eight years ago.
The main goal in the region remains the same: to destroy and dismantle al Qaeda and prevent the group and its extremist allies from operating effectively. After Thanksgiving -- and likely as soon as Dec. 1 -- the president plans to explain the rationale behind his decision to send what it expected to be thousands more troops to Afghanistan.
"After eight years, some of those years in which we did not have I think either the resources or the strategy to get the job done, it is my intention to finish the job," Obama said today at a joint news conference with India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. "And I feel very confident that when the American people hear a clear rationale for what we're doing there and how we intend to achieve our goals, that they will be supportive."
During the campaign, then-candidate Obama frequently painted Afghanistan as the good war, a war of necessity, arguing that too much focus on a war of choice in Iraq had robbed the effort in Afghanistan of vital resources. His troop announcement, which could come in the form of a primetime address, will include discussion of the obligations of the broader international community in defeating extremists in the region and about helping to make sure the Afghan people are ultimately able to provide for their own security.
Pakistan will play an important role in any strategy Obama announces, and the president acknowledged that the United States had focused too much in the past on military assistance to the country -- to the detriment of helping it develop the kind of civil society necessary for a country to thrive. Obama said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had made progress in helping to refocus energies in that area, and he talked about the important progress Pakistan has made in recognizing the threat of extremism.
"Pakistan has an enormously important role in the security of region by making sure that the extremist organizations that often operate out of territories are dealt with effectively," he said.
He added that recent efforts by Pakistan's military to combat extremists in the Swat Valley showed a realization that "extremism, even if initially directed to the outside, can ultimately also have an adverse impact on their security internally. So my hope is that, over time, what we're going to see is further clarity and further cooperation between all the parties and all people's of good will in the region to eradicate terrorist activity."
Before the brief Q&A with reporters at today's press conference, both President Obama and Prime Minister Singh made statements about the importance of the U.S.-India partnership on issues ranging from the global economic recovery and trade to climate change. Obama stressed the need for the two countries to work closely together on nuclear non-proliferation and counterterrorism.
Obama said the fact that the first state visit of his presidency is from India's prime minister "reflects the high esteem" he and the American people place on Singh's leadership and the importance of the partnership between the world's two biggest democracies, a relationship he called one of the "defining partnership of the 21st century."
The president said he had discussed his Afghanistan review with Singh, and he thanked the prime minister for India's contributions to the Afghan people.
"It is important for the international community to sustain its engagement in Afghanistan to help its emergence as a modern state," Singh said during his opening statement. "The forces of terrorism in our region pose a grave threat to the entire civilized world and have to be defeated."


text:
What: WAHS Players present "I Remember Mama"
Where: WAHS Black Box Theater
When: Thurs., Fri., Sat. Nov. 21, 22, 23 at 7 p.m. and Sun. Nov. 24 at 2 p.m.
Reservations: Not needed
A play that offers both drama and comedy, "I Remember Mama," will be presented later this week through the talents of Wallenpaupack Area High School students.
A play that offers both drama and comedy, "I Remember Mama," will be presented later this week through the talents of Wallenpaupack Area High School students.
Based on a Norwegian immigrant family in 1910, the Hanson family's eldest daughter writes a book about her family. Drama teacher, Alison Hoffman says the play goes through the, "silly quirks," of the family and looks at some of the family's struggles as an immigrant family in 1910.
Seniors and the show's leads, Marissa Rossitto and Morgan Miller have acted together before, and both students say they are excited. Rossitto, who has plans to pursue acting after she graduates, says she is pleased with her role as Marta because she enjoys playing a motherly figure.
Since a show like, "I Remember Mama," hasn't been produced in the school for awhile, to prepare, the students have studied their characters' backgrounds by looking at features that include accents. Miller says she enjoys playing characters that have a strong connection with others. As Katrin, she has a connection with everyone because she grew up with the characters. But, a challenge to her role is that she narrates the entire show and she is in many of the scenes.
Through the years, the students have worked together, even playing a mother and daughter. When the students first started in the plays, they were part of the ensembles, which were good, Rossitto says because they had freedoms to create their own characters. But now, depending on given circumstances, they have some limitations. As members of ensembles, Rossitto says that experience set them up to tackle larger roles. Miller adds that while in the ensembles, they developed character profiles that helps them today.
Rossitto is facing a new challenge however, she says, because she has never had such a large role in a fall production, where it is primarily straight acting without singing and dancing. With many lines, Rossitto will also delegate responsibilities to her children. Because she has to give the actors directions, Rossitto is worried she may ruin a scene.
With the show having both drama and comedy, Rossitto says she has to remember that her performance has to, "walk the fun line," throughout the production. Now that she has memorized her lines and some acting techniques, the hard part, she says is putting it all together to make the show, "look awesome."
For Rossitto, simply, she says the best part of participating in drama is, "performing." While performing on stage, the creative freedoms and the rush of energy that she gets, makes for a "thrilling experience," she adds.
As for Miller, she too greatly enjoys performing, but also the overall experience from start to finish, "until you get a perfect picture show." Being able to be in someone else's shoes, Miller likes and she thinks that is part of why she wants to work in the sociology field.
Theater, Rossitto says, can relate to all careers and by participating in the production of plays, later on, it will help students.
"I Remember Mama," will be presented in the Black Box Theater at the High School, which Rossitto says has "a special homey feeling that you can't beat." In the Back Box, Rossitto says students learn to like one another because of the smaller space. By working so closely with others, she says students prepare for their spring musical, which will be special this year, because students will be "flying in the air."
Aside from everyone working well together and producing good plays, Rossitto says everything works because the WAHS players are, "a very special group of people who strive to put on the best show we possibly can." Calling Hoffman a, "fantastic director," she adds the students go through a, "very intense and rigorous process," that ultimately leads to a fun experience.
Performances of "I Remember Mama," will occur November 21st, 22st, 23rd at 7 p.m. and November 24 at 2 p.m. in the Black Box. Reservations are not needed.
See the photo galleries online for some photos of the students rehearsing.


text:
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Difference between revisions of "Muang Ngoi Neua"
Revision as of 07:07, 11 November 2009
Get in
The village is only accessable by river. Take the public boat from Nong Khiaw (daily 11:00 and 14:00, 20.000 kip) or charter one in Luang Prabang or Muang Khua.
See & Do
Get out
Take the morning boat to Nong Kiau (10:00 20.000 kip) or charter a boat to Muang Khua or Luang Prabang. Ban Muang Ngoi tours also offers 1 day guided jungle treks back to Nong Kiau.


text:
Joel Quenneville surveyed the media throng gathered around him after the Blackhawks' morning skate and marveled at the attention his team is receiving. "It's maybe multiplied by two," the coach said of the number of reporters and cameras surrounding him before the Hawks' 5-3 victory over the Wild before a crowd of 21,836 Tuesday night at the United Center. "It has been a fun start to our season. The guys are approaching each and every game as a new challenge. Our opponents every game have been excited about playing us as well. "Our four or five last games have been great games. We've been fortunate in some of them but I still like the way we've been playing." Quenneville likely remained more than pleased with the Hawks' effort as they ran the longest streak to start a season without a regulation loss in NHL history to 23 games and also set a Hawks franchise record with their 10th victory in a row. They also extended their string of games with at least one point dating to last season to 29 — second-most in league history. At 20-0-3, the Hawks have piled up 43 of a possible 46 points this season. Before the game, the organization honored Hossa for playing in his 1000th career NHL game Sunday against the Red Wings in Detroit with a pregame ceremony. The crowd chanted "Hossa, Hossa, Hossa" and perhaps sparked by that warm moment, the Hawks' offense exploded to put on quite a show. Bryan Bickell had two goals while Brandon Saad, Marian Hossa and Patrick Kane also scored. Jonathan Toews and Saad each had two assists as the Hawks raced to a big lead and goaltender Corey Crawford held it to improve to 10-0-3 on the season. Devin Setoguchi scored to put the Wild in front early on but it was nearly all Hawks after that as they chased starting goalie Niklas Backstrom in favor of Darcy Kuemper to start the second period.
NHL Headlines
Blackhawks streak reaches 23 with 5-3 victory over Wild
Chicago Tribune | Mar 6


text:
NFC South: Saints Ready to March After Close Call (Sports Network)
(Sports Network) - New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton probably had to wipe some sweat off his brow after a gut-wrenching win at Dallas on Thanksgiving.
Payton's team rode the Cowboys to a 17-0 lead and before it was over, found itself staring down a 27-23 deficit at the two-minute warning.
Enter safety Malcolm Jenkins.
Jenkins, selected in the first round of the 2009 draft to be the Saints' next star defensive back of the future, made the play of the day and one that could springboard New Orleans to another magical run. The former Ohio State star, who appeared in 14 games his rookie season and has made 10 starts in 2010, tracked down Cowboys wideout Roy Williams late in the game and stripped him of the football, giving the Saints possession deep in their own territory with a few minutes to go in the contest.
Saints quarterback Drew Brees, the newly-crowned Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year, was appreciative of the turnover and subsequently led his team on a five-play, 89-yard drive culminated by a 12-yard touchdown pass to Lance Moore with 1:55 remaining. Unfortunately, there was enough time for Dallas to take back the lead, but the Cowboys missed on a game-tying field goal try.
Payton was both relieved and happy in so many words after the game.
"It's a credit to our team's fight by hanging in there the way they did and getting this win," he said. "I was proud of them."
Brees threw for 352 yards with a touchdown toss and interception, and has hit the 300-yard mark in passing five times this season. A big reason for the Saints' Super Bowl-winning season last year, Brees was able to extend New Orleans' season-best winning streak to four games and keep the Saints one game behind surging Atlanta for the NFC South lead.
New Orleans racked up a season-best 414 yards of offense no thanks to the ground game, however. The Saints had just 81 yards rushing, with Julius Jones gaining the most with 45 on 10 carries. Reggie Bush wasn't much of a factor in his first game back from a broken leg suffered in Week 2, as he recorded one catch for 12 yards and one carry for one yard.
NFC South: Saints Ready to March After Close Call (Sports Network)
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Collegiate Radio Amateur Wins Radio Club of America's "Young Achiever Award"
Amateur Radio Case Attracts Attention of FCC Commissioner
A New QST QuickStats Poll Has Been Posted
Third Public Test of FT8 "DXpedition Mode" Set for May 5
New York Club Receives Maxim Society Plaque
ARRL Suspends Registration for Emergency Communications Course, as Online Platform Announces Shutdown
Second 3Y0Z Bouvet DXpedition Attempt Unlikely for 2018 – 2019 Austral Season
Deadline Approaching to Submit Philip J. McGan Memorial Silver Antenna Award Nominations
Former Orange Section Manager, Veteran ARRL Volunteer Sandi Heyn, WA6WZN, SK
New Book, Portable Operating for Amateur Radio, is Now Shipping!
ARRL Website, Some Services to be Down Briefly on May 1
The K7RA Solar Update
Look for "Ham Radio 2.0 — Innovation and Discovery" at Hamvention®
The ARRL Letter Delayed
Logbook of The World has Online Status Monitor
JK Antennas Donates 40-Meter Yagi Antenna to W1AW
FCC Releases Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Small Satellites
Annual Armed Forces Day Crossband Communication Test Set for Saturday, May 12
New ARRL Santa Barbara Section Manager Starts Early
The Doctor Will See You Now!
International Amateur Radio Regulatory Developments Announced
D-STAR ONE Phoenix Declared Lost, More D-STAR CubeSats Planned
GR9RW will be Royal Wedding Special Event Call Sign
FOC 80th Anniversary Challenge Set for May
New 630-Meter Band Reported "Very Busy"
The Royal Mint to Host June Amateur Radio Special Event
Frank Victor Tarkington, W3KLQ, SK — Installed First TV in the White House
Hams on Dominica Conduct "Preparedness" Field Day in Advance of Hurricane Season
ARRL Raises Amateur Radio's Profile at 2018 National Association of Broadcasters Convention
ARRL Field Services and Radiosport Manager Norm Fusaro, W3IZ, reports that the current 4B4B DXpedition to Revillagigedo has been approved for DXCC credit.
The K7RA Solar Update
W6NBC Wins the April QST Cover Plaque Award
W5KUB to Stream Hamvention® 2018 Worldwide


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Hollywood's scruffy authenticity shares enough DNA with New Orleans to consider the two cities distant (OK, very distant) cousins. And it makes perfect sense that our burg's Mardi Gras festivities would offer music that is right on the cutting edge of the Louisiana sound.
Take, for example, the Stooges Brass Band, which is booked to perform a free show at 7:30-9 p.m. on Fat Tuesday (Feb. 12) at the Hollywood Beach Bandshell. The Stooges recently have sold out some of New York City's hottest rooms, including the Cutting Room, Brooklyn Bowl and Webster Hall.
But this week the band has gotten a completely different referendum on the popularity of the musical gumbo it serves (equal parts Big Easy brass, funk and hip-hop) while performing as the Super Bowl Week house band on ESPN's "SportsNation." Get a sneak peek at what the Stooges Brass Band will be cooking at 4 p.m. daily on ESPN2. (Below, the band is seen performing where they seem most comfortable, the streets of New Orleans.)
Hollywood's major Mardi Gras concert will be Feb. 9 from 6 to 11 p.m. at the ArtsPark on Young Circle. The free event, curated by the Rhythm Foundation and called Hollywood ArtsPark Experience: New Orleans, will feature the brassy funk-rock of the Crescent City's own Bonerama, T-Broussard & the Zydeco Steppers, and the Bad Apples Brass Band.
For more information on both shows, go to RhythmFoundation.com or call 305-672-5202.
Get daily updates on South Florida entertainment and things to do at SouthFlorida.com and on Twitter at @BenCrandell.


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By Avi Salzman
Nymex-traded crude oil futures slid by $3.75 per barrel today, or 4.1%, to $88.14. It was the commodity's largest percentage decline since Dec. 11 and largest point drop since May 4. Oil is now at its lowest level since early August and is down about 20% off of its 52-week high of $109.77 per barrel, which it hit in February.
And here's the strange thing: the government said inventories fell. Domestic stocks dropped by 482,000 barrels last week, according to the Energy Information Administration. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected oil stocks to rise by 1.5 million barrels.
Traders may be more spooked by demand concerns, as Chinese and European factory data has showed more contraction.


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Proudly Made in America
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I tried this in my all mahogany warmoth LP and I wasn't that happy with it. I feel like in a brighter guitar it would sound much better and be very versitile, but I haven't tried it yet. The good thing about this pickup though is it's a great pickup for magnet swaps. If you're not happy with it, swap in an alnico 5 and you've got the Custom 5. Put in an A2 and you've got the Custom Custom. And for awesome power and tone try an A8. But in the right guitar you may not even have to do anything to it. It just didn't work for me in my guitar.
Warmoth Guitar Products
Copyright © 2018 Warmoth Guitar Products. All rights reserved.


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By Chris Whitaker
The Americus Times-Recorder
AIKEN, S.C. — When it comes to Georgia Southwestern
athletics, not many people know more than Ricky Burgess.
No wonder, he's been the "Voice of the Hurricanes" for more than 30 years.
He has seen some of the best moments in the school's athletics history. He's seen the men's basketball team beat Southern Tech (now Polytechnic) in 1985 to earn its first trip to the NAIA Tournament. He watched the women's team make the Final Four the next year. And one year later, the football team, led by Jimmy Hightower, beat West Georgia 7-6.
Burgess said this weekend's run by the baseball team ranks right up there with those sports moments.
"If we could have pulled it off, it probably would have topped them," he said. "I really think we played the best baseball of any team in the tournament — pitching, defense and hitting. We deserved to win, and the way we lost — getting the go-ahead run thrown out at home, they score on a squibbler with two outs and then we have two on with two outs and the tying run and winning run on — was tough. We deserved better, and we had some tough breaks."
Before joining NCAA's Division II, the Hurricanes were playing for conference championships regularly in all the major sports; its men's tennis team was national-runner up in 2001.
"We were in the hunt every year in every sport seemed like," said Burgess. "I don't know how many more opportunities we'll get because the Peach Belt is so good.
"Back then, there were 32 districts, and you had to win to get in. There were no at-large berths."
Since becoming a member of the Peach Belt, GSW has struggled for success. The men's basketball and softball teams played in their first conference tournament game in 2009, and the women's basketball team came the closest to advancing this season when it lost 60-59 to Georgia College in the first round.
That was until the baseball team came along with its 10 seniors out to prove to the conference and everyone else who doubted what they could accomplish this season.
"It's probably been magical," said senior Bud Long, who was the lone Hurricane selected to the All-Peach Belt Team. "Nobody gave us a chance the whole year. There was no pressure at all; that's the way I looked at it.
"It was disappointing we lost (Sunday) night and in the fashion we lost, a trickler down the first-base line. I think it was great just for the team and for the next couple of years. People will start to recognize Southwestern and will be able to play with the top dogs. Everything's still sinking in."
The baseball team is the second GSW team to have a winning record at 29-19; the men's basketball team was 16-13 in 2006-07.
In comparison to the other Peach Belt schools, GSW has the least amount of scholarships. Burgess said McLain did an incredible job this season with less.
"I think when you look at what resources Coach McLain has compared to other schools, I think he deserves coach of the year to go .500 in the conference and making the tournament championship game. When you look at what GSW puts in baseball against the schools we're competing against, he deserves it.
"We were a big fish in a little pond in the NAIA in the Southern States Athletic Conference and was always competing for a championship. The Peach Belt is so good and so competitive, I don't know how long it'll be before we get another chance."
GSW is still in the process of building funds for its sports program. Athletics Director Jaclyn Kaylor said the university's scholarship money comes through enrollment fees, the Hurricane Club, fundraising and private donors.
GSW has five scholarships that go toward student-athletes, including the Evan Bozof scholarship, which is for a baseball player. Long was the recipient this year.
"We're obviously still smaller than everybody else," said Kaylor. "That's something that will always be an obstacle for us. We are truly making the most of what we've got. We're not in Columbus where we have Synovus, Aflac or corporate sponsors giving us money. We depend on smaller donors, and we try to find as many as we can."
Kaylor said another ingredient that can lead to more scholarship money is what the baseball team did this season — win.
"We played so well this year, and all our teams are doing better," she said. "The more we win, the more attention we attract to ourselves and helps the school grow. The more they hear about GSW and remember it, they'll see what we're all about.
"Things will turn around. It will take us longer than it would Columbus State or Augusta State, who's been a perennial powerhouse for years. We're finally seeing the scales tip in our favor, and our time's coming."
Kaylor echoed Burgess' comments about McLain and his staff.
"With what he had to do and had to work with, and if you compared our apples to other people's apples, he and his staff did an amazing job," she said. "I couldn't be more proud of the team and how it played this year."
McLain understands his, as well as the other coaches' budgets may not be comparable, but he deals with it.
"It's difficult when you don't have what everybody else has," he said. "It's frustrating at times. You can either feel sorry for yourself and do nothing or realize where you're at and what your limitations are and you figure out a way to be successful."
PHOTO BY: Milledge Austin/USC Aiken Sports Information


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*Manufacturer's suggested price. MSRP may be different in California. Taxes, freight, setup, and delivery not included. Optional accessories and attachments not included. Equipment, models and prices may vary by dealer. Product options and accessories may not be available in all regions. Product features are based on published information at the time of publication. Product features are subject to change without notice. Contact your local John Deere dealer for more information.


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Sirata Beach Resort And Conference Center has earned a 3 Green Eco-Leaf Rating by completing the comprehensive Online Environmental Self-Audit. The 3 Green Eco-Leaf Rating indicates that Sirata Beach Resort And Conference Center's environmental efforts are considered to be "Very Good" when compared to the efforts of the lodging industry as a whole. The Online Environmental Self-Audit was completed on June 11, 2010 by Gregg Nicklaus - Owner, CEO. More information on the specific details of the environmental audit completed by Sirata Beach Resort And Conference Center is available by request to email@example.com
Sirata Beach Resort And Conference Center is located in the city of Saint Petersburg. There are a total of 61 properties represented by iStayGreen in Saint Petersburg. 10 properties are listed as environmentally friendly. 5 properties have completed the iStayGreen Environmental Self-Audit and been awarded the Green Eco-Leaf Rating.
For detailed information regarding environmental measures currently employed by Sirata Beach Resort And Conference Center please contact the property directly or email iStayGreen.org.
To earn a Green Eco-Leaf Rating Saint Petersburg lodging establishments must complete a comprehensive 70 point survey which evaluates the eco-friendliness of the properties such as Sirata Beach Resort And Conference Center in areas of conservation of energy and water, sustainability of operations, pollution, carbon emission, recycling, and environmental education and promotion.


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McHENRY – Ray and Judy Widhalm of McHenry celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with a family dinner.
Judy Barwig and Ray Widhalm were married June 1, 1963, at St. Mary's Catholic Church in McHenry.
He was a central office technician and retired from Ameritech in the fall of 1994.
She was a secretary for School District 15 until her retirement in 2000.
They enjoy traveling, gardening, going up north to their cabin with the family and spending time with their grandchildren.
They have two sons, Michael (Sharon) Widhalm and Kevin (Kara) Widhalm; and a daughter, Lori (Bill) Nickels.
They also have seven grandchildren, Erin, Ryan, Madison, Samantha, Jack, Deegan and Reese; and two stepgrandchildren, Ben and Blake.


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|Starring: N/A
|Stashed: 33 times
|Director: N/A
|Added May 1, 2013
|Studio: SOD
|Rated 10 times
|Length: 1:02:06
|Niches: Asian, Big Boobs, Big Cock, Cream Pie, Cumshot, Gonzo, Interracial, Japanese, MFF, Outdoors, Small Tits, Straight Sex, Threesome


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TAIEX edges up 0.1 percent
The TAIEX was little changed yesterday in thin trading as many investors took to the sidelines, hedging their bets until heavyweight firms on Wall Street report their fourth quarter results, dealers said.
However, with the local market awash in liquidity, investors targeted small and mid-cap stocks, which helped the broader market edge above the previous closing level, they said. The weighted index closed up 7.51 points, or 0.10 percent, at 7,819.15, on turnover of NT$76.08 billion (US$2.62 billion).
Settlement rules ammended
The Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday that data processing service providers can now entrust banks to perform cross-border foreign exchange settlements for local firms trading overseas.
Department of Commerce Director-General Reed Yu (游瑞德) told a press conference that the ministry amended regulations in October last year after meetings with the central bank, the Financial Supervisory Commission and the Ministry of Justice, allowing data processing service providers to settle foreign exchanges for smaller online sellers.
According to a report by the Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (產業情報研究所), Taiwan's e-commerce market totaled NT$660 billion last year with an annual growth rate of 17 percent. The market is forecast to grow further to pass the NT$1 trillion mark by 2015, the report said. China is currently the largest market for Taiwanese online sellers, followed by Hong Kong and Macau, the report said.
Acer's shipments fall 9.7%
Acer Inc (宏碁) shipped 33.49 million PC units worldwide last year, down by an annual 9.7 percent, making the company the fourth-largest PC vendor worldwide, market information advisory firm International Data Corp (IDC) said yesterday. IDC said in a report that Acer's market share fell to 9.5 percent last year from 10.2 percent a year earlier.
Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) finished last year as the world's fifth-largest PC vendor, with shipments increasing by an annual 17.0 percent to 24.13 million units. Asustek accounted for 6.8 percent of global shipments, up from 5.7 percent.
Coretronic shipments rise
Coretronic Corp (中強光電), which makes backlight modules for flat panels, reported on Thursday that its consolidated revenue grew 3 percent last month to NT$5.66 billion from November's NT$5.5 billion.
In the fourth quarter of last year, revenue dropped slightly to NT$16.57 billion from NT$16.59 billion in the third quarter. Last year, the company accumulated NT$67.63 billion in revenue, down 12.25 percent from NT$77.06 billion in 2011. Corectronic shipped 68.53 million backlight units last year, up 9 percent from a year ago, while shipments of projectors decreased 18 percent year-on-year to 1.08 million units.
The firm expected backlight shipments to rise slightly this month, while shipments of projectors will fall more than 10 percent because of seasonal factors.
Inotera secures NT$10bn loan
Inotera Memories Inc (華亞科技) said on Thursday that it has obtained NT$10 billion in syndicated loans from 12 banks led by the Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行). The loan will be due in three years.
Inotera, a DRAM joint venture between local memory chipmaker Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) and US memory chipmaker Micron Technology Inc, said the fund will help strengthen its operations in the medium term and will help it upgrade technologies.


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My Angel, how wonderful it is to see how a very beautiful cat princess developed out of that tiny cat baby you once were. We are so glad you and your siblings found your furrever human family when your mom abandoned you. How nice it must be to live on an island with a climate that is just purrfect for kitties.
Congrats on being our elegant and fluffy cat of the day:)


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Hume Highway could see B-triple trucks
The NRMA has raised safety concerns about a proposed trial of larger three-trailer trucks on the Hume Highway between Sydney and Melbourne.
The New South Wales Government is considering a trial of B-triple trucks, which are about 36 metres long - 10 metres longer than the B-doubles that currently ply the Hume Highway.
The state's Roads Minister Duncan Gay says a trial would not begin until 2014 at the earliest.
This is due to the construction of a dual carriageway along the entire length of the highway, which is due to be completed next year.
It is being considered as part of a national plan to increase the use of B-triples, which are already used in western New South Wales and other states.
However, NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury says there have already been serious truck safety issues on the highway, and the heavier B-triples will do more damage in a crash.
"The Hume Highway has already been upgraded and those crashes occurred on the upgraded sections of the Hume Highway," he said.
"It's important to remember that B-doubles can actually go straight through crash barriers, so there is an obvious safety risk there.
"The trucks that are on the Hume Highway already are causing safety issues."
'Safest trucks'
But proponents say bigger trucks mean fewer trucks.
Australian Trucking Association spokesman Bill McKinley says the large trucks will never be seen on suburban streets.
"B-triples are what you call long-haul combinations. They're a combination you use to deliver freight from a distribution centre on the outskirts of Melbourne to a distribution centre on the outskirts of Sydney," he said.
"The combination is then broken up and the individual parts then go to their destination."
But the proposal comes in the same year as road authorities cracked down on rogue trucking companies, in response to a crash on the Hume Highway at Menangle in January, when a B-double crushed a car, killing three people.
Authorities subsequently found widespread issues within the trucking industry, including trucks found to have tampered speed limiters.
Mr Gay says the industry is now being more stringently policed.
"Currently, nearly half the state operates B-triples. All of the western division of NSW operates B-triples and this mania about monster trucks in not the case," he said.
"These are the safest trucks on our roads."
Victoria's Acting Premier Peter Ryan rejected safety concerns about introducing triple-trailer trucks on the Hume Highway.
Mr Ryan says the Victorian government will closely watch the results of the trial, but he does not believe the trucks are inherently dangerous.
"I think the issue is around driver behaviour as opposed to the safety of the vehicle per se," he said.
"And I think issues around driver behaviour are just as pertinent whether they're driving a golf cart or whether you're driving a B-triple.
"We in Victoria will watch this with interest and we will see what eventuates.
"I know that the Transport Minister and the transport industry are always in conversations about the means by which they can better achieve efficiencies of movement."
Topics: road-transport, states-and-territories, government-and-politics, road, australia, nsw, vic
First posted


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mouthwash always works for me, never affected the rubber.. a lot easier (and cheaper)to get a hold of than piss-off etc
socks may get on your tits, moving about in the boot etc, cant see this bothering goatboaters though
swiggy wrote::lol: I have numb sinuses from surfing lots of dirty east coast spots and not draining the water out, doesn't bother me. Seriously though I always have it in a plastic tub that seals, so it really doesn't make the car damp/smell. I do try to take it out and rinse if theres no waves for a few days, but if I'm surfing consecutive days I can't be arsed. I wear my suits out before they have a chance rot, so its not like I'm shortening the life really..
Poo Stance wrote:I find the smell of putting my boots on more of an issue than the cold. The threat of puking is one open nostril away.
Archy_is_God wrote:swiggy wrote:
A few guys round here tip a hot water bottle/flask of warm water into their suits before putting them on.
ATTMFKH wrote:
Neoprene is not alive preeeecious
dermo909 wrote:
How certain are we that this stuff does'nt kill neoprene?
Neoprene is the trade name given to synthesized polychloroprene by the DuPont corporation. It is resistant to chemicals because of its inert chemical formula that renders the compound stable when acted upon by outside forces.
Neoprene does degrade when exposed to natural elements such as sun, ozone, temperature changes, burning and weather. Designed as a substitute for rubber, the formula does not react to oil and many other chemicals. Further, it exhibits a resistance to physical wear from flexing or twisting.
cameltoe wrote:Stick them on the washing line to freeze for a couple hours.
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2011 Kia Optima SX. Click image to enlarge
|More Kia Optima reviews on Autos.ca
Manufacturer's web site
Review and photos by Chris Chase
Photo Gallery:
2011 Kia Optima
Magentis was a really awful name for an 'okay' family car. Kia Canada replaced both in 2011, adopting the Optima badge that has been used in the U.S. for years, and sticking it on a brand-new design that makes it very easy to forget the bland Magentis ever existed.
The 2011 Optima is an improvement across the board, but nowhere is it more obvious than in the top-trim SX model. This car takes the EX Luxury + Navigation model and adds unique bumpers and grille, paddle shifters for the six-speed automatic transmission, sport suspension, sport seats and a rear spoiler. Which is all fine and well, but the real point of the SX model is the engine, a 2.0-litre, turbocharged four-cylinder that makes 274 horsepower and 269 lb.-ft. of torque.
2011 Kia Optima SX. Click image to enlarge
Given the close mechanical relationship that exists between the Optima and the Hyundai Sonata, it's not surprising that this is the same turbo motor that powers the Sonata 2.0T. It's a terrific motor – smooth, strong and, when you're not driving with your right foot nailed to the floor (more on that later), efficient.
This version of the Optima is the best example of the divergent marketing philosophies of corporate cousins Hyundai and Kia, with the latter claiming to aim for the sportier end of the market segments that both brands compete in.
When many automakers put the words 'sport' and 'suspension' next to each other, I wince, particularly when the car in question is a family sedan with sporting pretences. I'm picky about the way a car rides, and I find that most sport suspensions simply sub stiffer springs. It's an approach that makes a car feel cheap, and makes the company selling it look cheap for not wanting to do a proper suspension upgrade.
It's emblematic, then, of Kia's quest for legitimacy that the Optima SX doesn't take the easy route to a sporty chassis. Yes, the springs are stiffer than in lesser Optima models, but the dampers (often mistakenly referred to as shock absorbers) are tuned to match, and the sway bars, tasked with limiting body lean in turns, feel stronger. The ride is firm, but never punishing, and handling is well-balanced up to about eight-tenths of the car's abilities, after which point tires begin to wail and understeer becomes apparent. The result is a car that can almost legitimately call itself a sport sedan – or, more appropriately, a proper sporty family sedan – at least when judged by its suspension alone.
2011 Kia Optima SX. Click image to enlarge
The Optima SX's sport sedan aspirations are let down by its steering and brakes. The steering wheel is numb and tells the driver little about what's happening under the front wheels. It's not all bad: the electric power assist provides the right amount of help at the right time. The wheel spins easily in parking lots, but gets satisfyingly heavy at highway speeds. There's not much to say about the brakes except that while they haul the car down from speed effectively, the spongy pedal doesn't encourage hard running.
Engine noise is next-to-nil, which could be seen as a negative to an enthusiast. The engine is no sing-song six-cylinder, but it's not unpleasant to listen to. It's just that you have to flog the car in order to hear much of anything from under the hood. There's more road noise in this car than in the EX Luxury model I tested earlier in the year; blame the SX's bigger tires – 225/45R18s, up from 215/55R17 – for that. The suspension does a good job of keeping those big wheels and tires in touch with the road, even over rough surfaces, and keeps wheel impact noises to a reasonable level; a BMW with the M Sport package is noisier over potholed, pockmarked pavement.