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Ogg vs H264 - Round One
- 02/19/2010
- Categorized in: Choosing a codec, Encoding your video
This article is presented in reverse order, newest on top, oldest on the bottom. I've briefly summarized the goal and procedure, but you can read from the bottom up to get the background.
Briefly, the goal of the exercise was to compare the quality of Ogg Theora with H.264 using two test files -- one SD, the other HD - that I've used over the years to compare codecs. I encoded to my standard parameters, which are:
- SD - firstname.lastname@example.com fps@ 500 kbps, 468 kbps video/32kbps audio, maximum quality parameters. For H.264, this meant High Profile, CABAC enabled, B-frame interval 3, all quality options enabled.
- HD - email@example.com fps@ 928 kbps, 800 kbps video/128kbps audio, again maximum quality. The lowest data rate that I could achieve for Ogg was 928 kbps for video, so I used that file.
- I used Sorenson Squeeze to produce the H.264 files. I used Xiph QuickTime Components to produce the first set of Ogg Files, presented on the bottom of this page. Then, after learning that there was an update to the codec, I used ffmpeg2theora on the Mac to reproduce the results. Specifically, I used verson 0.26, dated 2/5/2010, downloaded from here. My command string for the SD file was (ffmpeg2theora SD.mov --videobitrate 500 --optimize --keyint 300 --audiobitrate 32 --channels 1), for the HD file it was (ffmpeg2theora HD.mov --videobitrate 900 --optimize --keyint 300 --audiobitrate 128 --channels 2). For a general overview of how I encoded with Squeeze, check out this tutorial here.
I called this article Round 1 because I knew from the start that it would involve multiple tries to get things right. I appreciate all the feedback that I got during this process and enjoyed the dialog. Here's where we are.
I've created a comparison file using the 1.1 Thusnelda release and using the command line argument supplied by Gregory Maxwell.
ffmpeg2theora -V 500 -k 300 -d 99999 (the only additions provided to the commandline above is -d 99999 to remove the buffering constraint).
I encoded the file and then compared it to a file that Greg had encoded using the encoded H.264 file as the starting point. When I noticed that his quality was better than mine, I loaded both files into MediaInfo and found that he was using a later code version. This also was clear when I read KeyJ's review and the associated comments. So, rather than test beta code ad infinitum, I decided to stop here.
I've pulled some images from the three files; here's the display order in each image. The Ogg file I created is always on the left, the H.264 file in the middle, the file Greg created from the H.264 file on the right. You'll see that the upcoming release has lots of promise and I look forward to seeing it. The images are in PNG format (as suggested) and you can see them at 100% by clicking them.
Some other notes:
- You can draw your own conclusions regarding quality. Clearly, Thusnelda 1.1 retains less quality than H.264, but the new version shows lots of promise, even encoding from H.264 source.
- I'm aware that the audio on the test files is sub-standard. I am drawing no conclusions about audio quality, but it's necessary to ensure that sound synch is maintained through to the end.
- I'm aware that there are other techniques for producing the Ogg file. Greg is highly respected and works for Xiph, so I decided to go with his recommendation.
- I didn't include the HD file because of time constraints.
- I know it's unfair to compare a file encoded from H.264 encoded video to a file encoded from the original source. I'm sure I could have gotten the code base that Greg used, and encoded using the original source file, but I wanted to wait until Ptalarbvorm is released. I included Greg's file only because it showed improvement over the Thusnelda 1.1 file encoded from the original source material.
You can also play the files themself via the links below.
Here are the video files (Chrome, Firefox and Opera only, for Ogg, Safari and Chrome for H.264)
Thusnelda 1.1 - Greg's recommended encoding parameters
Older material:
The tests presented below are in two parts. The tests on top are with the latest Thusnelda 1.1 build; below with the previous codec. Thanks to Andraz for pointing out the codec update.
The goal of the exercise was to compare the quality of Ogg Theora with H.264 using two test files -- one SD, the other HD - that I've used over the years to compare codecs. I encoded to my standard parameters, which are:
- SD - firstname.lastname@example.com fps@ 500 kbps, 468 kbps video/32kbps audio, maximum quality parameters. For H.264, this meant High Profile, CABAC enabled, B-frame interval 3, all quality options enabled.
- HD - firstname.lastname@example.com fps@ 928 kbps, 800 kbps video/128kbps audio, again maximum quality. The lowest data rate that I could achieve for Ogg was 928 kbps for video, so I used that file.
- I used Sorenson Squeeze to produce the H.264 files. I used Xiph QuickTime Components to produce the first set of Ogg Files, presented on the bottom of this page. Then, after learning that there was an update to the codec, I used ffmpeg2theora on the Mac to reproduce the results. Specifically, I used verson 0.26, dated 2/5/2010, downloaded from here. My command string for the SD file was (ffmpeg2theora SD.mov --videobitrate 500 --optimize --keyint 300 --audiobitrate 32 --channels 1), for the HD file it was (ffmpeg2theora HD.mov --videobitrate 900 --optimize --keyint 300 --audiobitrate 128 --channels 2). For a general overview of how I encoded with Squeeze, check out this tutorial here.
I know that mpeg2theora comes with multiple post processing filters that I didn't try because that can turn hours of testing into weeks. If anyone has any good input on which switches produce the best results I'll be glad to give them a try. Just let me know in the comments below.
Here are the files as they sit on my server to verify the file sizes and bitrates. I try to get the file sizes within about 5-10%.
The files aren't protected in any way, so after viewing them, you should be able to save them to your own systems.
The Files - Thusnelda 1.1:
Click the links below to view the encoded test files, which will open in a separate browser window, facilitating a side by side comparison. The OGG clips are playing in Firefox but not Chrome; if someone can look at the HTML and figure out why, please let me know. Both Safari and Chrome play the HTML files, but not Firefox which doesn't support H.264 within HTML5. IE won't play any of these.
This is the second set of Ogg test files; the initial files are below:
SD - Ogg 1mbps - Thusnelda 1.1
I'll let the videos and still images speak for themselves. Note that I did use two different encoding tools, the Xiph QuickTime encoder for the encodes below, and ffmpeg2theora for the most recent encodes. As before, click each image to view it in full screen.
Still Image Comparisons
Original Ogg Comparisons
These comparisons used the pre-Thusnelda 1.1 codec are are superceded by the findings above.
I understand that there's code that would play the videos in more browsers (and fall back to Flash for the H.264 files). I'll do better next time.
Still Image Samples
Here are some sample images grabbed from the clips, beginning with SD comparisons. I'll start with a low motion scene, then move to higher motion. In all instances, click the photo to view the original in a separate window. In the SD comparisons, I created three files, two at 468 kbps as described above, the other OGG file at 1 mbps, more than double the data rate of the H.264 file. In the first low motion sequence, all the images look pretty good, and Ogg is competitive even at 468 kbps.
In the second clip, there's a lot more motion, but the background has little detail. We see that Ogg suffers at the comparable data rate, but that the 1 mbps clip is about the same in quality as the H.264 clip. The H.264 clip has much better color fidelity and clarity, but that could probably be corrected by boosting contrast and saturation before encoding to Ogg format.
The third clip contains both high motion and high detail, a skateboarder coming to rest after a great run, framed against a chain link fence. Here we see that the H.264 clip retains superior detail to even the 1 mbps Ogg clip.
Let's move to the HD samples. Starting with a low motion sample, you can see that the difference between the two technologies is very minor.
Here's a higher motion clip, a closeup of a very talented piano player. Fast moving fingers, a noticeable difference in quality.
Here's a higher motion clip. In this clip, the ballerina (Coppelia, actually) is walking across the stage, so the image pan is pretty significant. Lots of motion, some detail, very noticable difference in quality.
Here's Beth the ballerina, coming down from a jump. High motion, neither clip looks particularly great, but H.264 is clearly superior.
That's it for the samples, see the next page for some closing thoughts and considerations.
Comments (79)
which exact version of Xiph QuickTime Components have you used?
According to http://www.xiph.org/quicktime/ the last version was released on 14.6.2009
Theora "Thusnelda" 1.1 was released on 29.9.2009 (as stated on http://www.theora.org/news/).
Since the major improvements to Theora encoder happend in that 1.1 release it seems that you were comparing to the previous generation of Theora encoder.
Hi Jan, thanks (once again) for this analytic work you do.
re: "The OGG clips are playing in Firefox but not Chrome; if someone can look at the HTML and figure out why, please let me know. Both Safari and Chrome play the HTML files, but not Firefox which doesn't support H.264 within HTML5. IE won't play any of these."
Although the WhatWG's "HTML5" proposals specify a VIDEO tag, the only codec-resolution is hierarchical: a list of video files compressed with different codecs, which the user-agent is expected to resolve. In practice, Apple browsers and Google browsers for Windows work with H.264, while Firefox (and beta Opera) use Ogg Theora.
Put another way, there is no "'HTML5' video" implementation, only VIDEO/Theora and VIDEO/H.264 implementations.
For current Theora encoders, Chris Blizzard and Chris Double of Mozilla have been tracking this:
Got it. The Ogg file itself will play in Chrome if I load it directly, but not via the HTML.
Any more specific leads to encoding tools would be appreciated. I tried the two listed into Mark Pilgrim's excellent Dive into HTML5, but neither was able to produce a file at my target configuration. As mentioned below, I'll try mpeg2theora on the Mac and see if that works.
Thanks for weighing in.
I can see how you would jump to that conclusion John, but actually Theora works in all but one of the browsers that implement the video tag, including both the Google browsers, Chrome and Chromium. The only browser vendor that didn't implement Theora as a baseline interoperability codec when they added the video tag was Apple and indeed their refusal to support a single codec that could be guaranteed to work in all browsers is why Theora was removed from that role the spec.
The more prosaic reason why the Theora pages linked above aren't working is the lack of a closing quote after the type=video/ogg part of the video tag. This stops it working in Chrome and Safari as the rest of the page gets eaten. Strangely in Chrome, you can't even see the video tag when you view source because of this, which meant I couldn't see where the video files were hosted when I was looking at this earlier.
It's been a while since I was paying close attention to theora, but at the time ffmepg2theora (http://v2v.cc/~j/ffmpeg2theora/) was the best bet when needing general purpose encoder.
Your images show that the newer Theora version 1.1 (a.k.a Thusnelda) is noticeably worse than the older version.
This is the opposite of what you would expect (as there was a significant improvement) so either you've simply got the two sets of images mixed up, or you've done something very wrong with your 1.1 encodes.
I agree that the new results show no improvement. I attributed it to the fact that I used different encoders, and that different encoding tools often produce different results. For example, with the previous version of the codec, ffmpeg2theora produced poor results that exhibited lots of dropped frames, while the Xiph QuickTime version worked pretty well. I saw definite improvement in the two ffmeg2theora versions, but the Xiph output was still better.
Not sure what I could have done wrong - is there any way to analyze the encoded file and see what version of the codec is used?
Anyway to get Xiph QT components updated to Thusnelda 1.1? That would give us an apples vs apples comparison.
The use of XiphQT or ffmpeg2theora shouldn't really make a big difference since they are both using libtheora to do the actual encoding.
It appears the maintainer of XiphQT hasn't made a release since 1.1 Thusnelda, which is a bit unfortunate. Someone asked about it on the Theora mailing list recently and it just petered out. They really should fix that:
Personally, I would forget about Theora 1.0. it was broken in several important ways, and just try and get a representative 1.1 encode with ffmpeg2theora as it makes it easy to state what you did and let others try it themselves.
The Theora clips don't seem to be linked from your article at the moment, but the audio seems surprisingly poor on all these clips (e.g. even the HD H.264 clip of the blond gentlemen talking about surgery sounds like an mp3 from the 90s despite being high bitrate AAC), but even more so on the Ogg clips that I found by guessing at URLs.
Normally bad Vorbis is a result of using the ffmpeg encoder rather than the libvorbis one, but the process you've described wouldn't make this possible (ffmpeg2theora only uses ffmpeg decoders) so I'm a bit stumped.
Even if the originals had dodgy audio (and posting the original files would be helpful in helping people guage quality, rather than assuming that an H.264 artefact is correct, just because everyone knows that H.264 is better.) I'd expect Vorbis to do at least as well, and probably better at low bitrates than AAC. Instead it sounds actually painful even at 128. Hold that thought, the HD ogg clip that I thought had a high audio bitrate actually only had 32kps, 32Hz mono audio (currently at doceo.com/HD.ogv and apparently only 430kbps for video too yet looks, at a glance, similar to your screenshots that say 800 or 900kbps) . It still sounded much worse than I'd expect with those settings though.
I'm just confused now and don't really want to go digging through files to check bitrates, so I'd recommend:
- just forget about Theora 1.0, it was broken, particularly for hitting bitrate targets rather than quality targets
- use ffmpeg2theora and post the command line you use
- post the originals as well as the encodes
- check your links, the test videos seem to have disappeared
- maybe just ditch the audio if you're not interested in comparing them on that front (it seems to be widely considered a tie)
- I believe the H.264 video you're producing won't work on iPhones since you use CABAC. Might be worth mentioning since one of the big talking points recently is about what will and wont work on iPhones?
Thanks for your note. All the links appear to be working. Not sure what's up with your results.
Agreed the audio isn't optimal - not assessing that in these tests.
How are you computing bitrates on the files that you're viewing? I've added the file sizes to the main article (or will in a minute).
The command lines that I used are in the article already (see third bullet point)
Files won't play on iPhones or iPods. Neither will H.264 video on YouTube. Neither will Ogg. Not sure why that's relevant.
Source files at 6 GB in size (raw formats) so impractical to post them. If you'd like to send me FTP information off list (firstname.lastname@example.com) I'd be glad to send the files to you.
Hi Jan,
As I mentioned in my reply to John above, due to a single missing quote Chrome was eating part of the page in view source, which confused me as to where the videos were to be found. I just guessed based on the H.264 examples.
The one file I found (HD.ogv) was reported by the default Video app in Ubuntu as 463kbps video bitrate and 32kbps mono audio. Since the audio seemed in the right ballpark, I assumed the video bitrate was correct too. However, I just downloaded the file again and ran oggz-info on it. This revealed the video bitrate to be over 1000kbps so the Ubuntu Video Player was reporting that wrongly (and a simple size/time calculation shows the higher value to be more likely). Oggz-info does however confirm the low bitrate of the audio.
Sorry for the confusion earlier,
No worries, I appreciate the input. I think I've fixed all the HTML, though the files aren't playing on all browsers that they should be on all OS.
Does Oggz-Info tell you what version of Thusnelda was used to create the file?
The related Oggz-comment will show the comments embedded in the file, which usually include the encoder version and the application used e.g. your files show:
$ oggz-comment -l HD.ogv
Theora: serialno 1321572250
Vendor: Xiph.Org libTheora I 20081020 3 2 1
Vorbis: serialno 1911018872
Vendor: Xiph.Org libVorbis I 20090604
ENCODER: XiphQT, CAVorbisEncoder.cpp $Rev: 12399 $
$ oggz-comment -l HD1_1.ogv
Theora: serialno 0720323403
Vendor: Xiph.Org libtheora 1.1 20090822 (Thusnelda)
ENCODER: ffmpeg2theora-0.26
SOURCE_OSHASH: 82b2cdaec8f30c8c
Vorbis: serialno 1158945499
Vendor: Xiph.Org libVorbis I 20090709
ENCODER: ffmpeg2theora-0.26
SOURCE_OSHASH: 82b2cdaec8f30c8c
It might be interesting to see if
--soft-target and/or
--two-pass enable Thusnelda enough wiggle room to prevent the sudden drops in quality. The encode you've done is basically CBR, soft target lets it stray further from that set bitrate for the easy or difficult frames, just as you set the max bitrate constraint to 200% in your Squeeze tutorial. The --two-pass mode goes even further in that direction and is completely VBR.
Tried the soft target, but low motion sequences looked bad (high motion did improve). I see there's a way to set a minimum bitrate with a -v setting, but can't figure out the syntax. would like to set minimum at 300 kbps to see what it looks like. Here's where I am - can anyone tell me how to add a mimimum target of 300 kbps.
ffmpeg2theora SD.mov --videobitrate 500 --soft-target --two-pass --optimize --keyint 300 --audiobitrate 32 --channels 1
Here's what the wiki says:
Soft target also allows an optional -v setting to specify a minimum allowed quality.
I tried that, but the command line encoder keeps acting like I'm setting the quality option.
I think the minimum level set by -v is quality (0-10) not bitrate as why would you want the encoder to use up all 300kbps if it's confident it can get the required quality with less bits. Obviously if this minimum is set high enough compared with the bitrate, it's going to be roughly the same as just specifying that quality. Relatedly you might want to try quality level minus two for Vorbis which should come out at around 32kbps.
There is some kind of post-processing in Theora I believe, but I think the new settings in ffmpeg2theora are actually post-processing the decoded output from ffmpeg before it is given to libtheora. So technically you'd then be giving the two encoders different inputs.
I think --soft-target and --two-pass might be mutually exclusive, I assume the latter wins.
Why did you not use x264 to encode H.264 in these comparisons? It is free and open source, and is widely recognized to be the best encoder available for H.264.
Great. Can you point me to a comparison? Which encoding tool would you use to produce the best results?
i hope the author realize that the method she/he used will not produce variable bitrate product for ogg. set a bitrate, in my experiences, is not the way to produce variable bitrate ogg files, and consequently, the motion pictures gets blurr.
you should us quality controler, 5==>450kbps, 8==>800kbps.
Thanks for your note - please send a complete string along and I'll give it a shot. here are the two I'm currently working with:
SD file was - ffmpeg2theora SD.mov --videobitrate 500 --optimize --keyint 300 --audiobitrate 32 --channels 1 (I've also experimented with two-pass since then with no benefit, but if you think that would help, add it.
HD file was - ffmpeg2theora HD.mov --videobitrate 900 --optimize --keyint 300 --audiobitrate 128 --channels 2.
Thusnelda Ver 1.1 (theora) keyint by default is 64 not 300.
Same for ver 1.2 Alphaffmpeg2theora
Why don't you simply ask the developers at Xiph.org how to use their codec properly? Clearly they get better results than you do. Please do not use Quicktime, as Apple are a member of MPEG LA, so they have a self-interest in promoting h264, and are actively against Theora. A year ago, Xiph.org did make a Quicktime plugin for Theora, but that is ancient history now and is not in any way representative of Theora's current performance.
"Thusnelda" was a development project funded by Mozilla that started in January 09, and it produced version 1.1 of the Theora codec towards the end of September 2009. The "Thusnelda" project has therefore finished now. Theora version 1.1 is significantly improved over earlier versions, and it is far better than any version for which there is a Quicktime plugin available.
As for the "cost" of conversion of videos, it is only a matter of CPU time. The openvideo.dailymotion.com website has already converted over 300,000 videos to Theora, so it cannot be all that expensive. Examine some of the recent videos on that site to find samples of Theora encoding that is entirely competitive with the equivalent h264 videos on the main dailymotion site.
Ongoing development of Theora at Xiph.org is now underway with the development codename "Ptalarbvorm". Ptalarbvorm is the successor to Thusnelda, if you will, and it is in the early experimental stage at this time. Nevertheless early results are very encouraging, as an experimental build of Ptalarbvorm has been able to produce a video clip at 367 kbit/s with the same objective quality as Youtube h264 at 499 kbit/s.
The problem is simple, setting a bitrate will NOT generate variable bitrate videos with ffmpeg2theora, he should have used the quality number instead. This is a huge mistake in methodology.
Tried the quality level - needed to go to 3 to get to the target overall data rate. Note that the file might have data spikes that would make it unacceptable for wireless or other transport.
High motion segments looked better, low motion segments really suffered. I'll post the file tonight.
Why do your comparison images have a levels issue? It looks like the H.264 ones have been through a TV-PC levels conversion while the Theora ones haven't. Since both formats use the same colour space, neither one should have "much better color fidelity"
Thanks for weighing in.
From what I've seen of the other tests, they either used cartoons, talking heads or very easy to compress clips at high data rates. I mean, Chris Dibona of YouTube claims that Ogg is inferior and someone from Xiph attempts to prove him wrong with a comparison of cartoon footage? Are you kidding me? If you have any tests with comparable footage at comparable data rates, I'd like to see them.
According to Ars Technica, "DailyMotion has acknowledged that its Ogg streams have some technical deficiencies compared to its current Flash-based video streaming solution, but is confident that it's the best approach in the long run. (http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/07/de...). That was before Thusnelda 1.1, but so was Xiph's cartoon related post.
And I did "ask Xiph" for their help. I went to their web site and used encoding tools that they listed (three of them in fact), including the QuickTime tool. I don't have to call MainConcept or Dicas to learn to use H.264 or contact Sorenson or Telestream to learn how to use their encoding tools. Part of the responsibility of those developing new technologies is to make it usable. The most functional encoding tool for Ogg is a command line utility that's inadequately documented on its own site and incompletely documented at others.
My only agenda when I started this process was to objectively assess the quality of the Ogg codec and how it compared to H.264. It would have been a much bigger story if Ogg was better than H.264, a real man bites dog. Unfortunately that's not what I found.
I've been completely transparent with my procedures and have updated my results once already and will do so again if someone can show how to improve the quality. I've offered to send my source files to anyone who wants to try to encode them -- all I ask is that they share their procedure with me so I can duplicate their results. If you want the files, send me an FTP address and I'll start uploading, or a snail mail address and I'll send the files.
Or, just tell me which tool to use, and which settings to use to produce the optimal results at the settings that I've defined. I'll give it another shot here and let you know if it bears fruit.
easy, set quality number "-v 5" and "-v 7" rather than "-videobitrate 500"
also, find an original VOB file please, i hope your original file is not already compressed in some format already
The original footage was all first generation DV, deinterlaced and scaled to 640x480, then saved into an uncompressed format.
And I did "ask Xiph" for their help. I went to their web site and used encoding tools that they listed (three of them in fact), including the QuickTime tool.
Don't use the Quicktime tool, it is ancient. It is not Xiph's job to update Quicktime, just as it is not the job of MPEG LA to update h264 codec in Adobe Flash. If you use the aging Quicktime tool at Xiph.org website, you will get horrendous results that are not at all representative of Theora.
As far as I know, there is no available software for Quicktime that implements an even remotely capable version of Theora.
If you are at all truly interested in getting a fair and objective contemporary comparison of Theora vs H264, you probably shouldn't be using any Apple platform at all.
Listen to yourself. If video producers can't get a good result with Theora on the Apple platform, you're bound for failure. If Microsoft can produce a respected product on the Mac, so can Xiph.
If the QuickTime component tool was so odious, Xiph should pull it from their site, or at least inform potential users that they could get "horrendous" results.
Xiph isn't in the business of making Quicktime plugins, Xiph researches codecs. Quicktime is an Apple product, not a Xiph.org product.
Unfortunately, Apple have absolutely zero incentive for enabling good performance of Theora on Apple platforms, considering that Apple is a member of MPEG LA. Sorry, but that is just the way it is.
I'm just saying the same information as post #1 ... try not to shoot the messenger, OK?
Xiph better be in the business of making Ogg succeed, or the entire effort is a total waste of time. A significant percentage of video production and encoding takes place on the Mac. If Xiph or other Ogg promoter can't make a tool that works well on the Mac, the codec won't succeed. Period.
Turning that around, people like using Mac tools because they're typically easy to use and work well. The Quicktime-based encder was the third tool I tried, after ffmpeg2theora on Windows (with Thusnelda 1.1), which dropped too many frames, and FireFogg, which couldn't meet my data rate targets. These were the tools recommended in Dive into HTML5 and the Jilion folks I spoke with.
So, I turned to the Xiph web page, used a tool they recommended and it actually produced a file that met my target specs and played without dropping frames. Hallelujah. Then I find out it's using an out of date codec (yes, I actually did read the first note) and reproduced all my tests, using a command line tool on the Mac. Perhaps you didn't notice that I redid the tests? So, I'm not shooting the messenger, but pointing out that I heard it the first time, and draw no conclusions from those tests.
Xiph better be in the business of making Ogg succeed, or the entire effort is a total waste of time. A significant percentage of video production and encoding takes place on the Mac. If Xiph or other Ogg promoter can't make a tool that works well on the Mac, the codec won't succeed.
This is a real problem, becase both Apple and Microsoft are members of MPEG LA, and they both have a vested interest in everyone using h264 and not using Theora. Apple and Microsoft are both better off if people's experience with Theora is bad, and that people believe that Theora cannot produce competitive quality.
Meanwhile, Xiph.org's interest is in producing reference codecs that are as platform agnostic as they can possibly be.
Perhaps the best thing would be for an enthusiast of video on the Mac platform to establish a project, perhaps hosted at Sourceforge or at Google Code or somewhere like that, with the aim to produce the latest and greatest Theora codecs as a Quicktime plugin. It seems to be clear that without such an effort, for most Mac users Macs are simply not going to be able to produce competitive quality Theora-encoded videos such as for example some that are available at openvideo.dailymotion.com.
I disagree with your fundamental assumption. If you follow the links from this page (http://www.mpeg-la.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/FAQ...), you can download an attachment that contains a list of patents. it's 47 pages long, and companies like Philips and Panasonic have multiple pages worth of patents. Apple has ONE, while Microsoft has over 60. Sure, Apple's could be the most important patent there is, and they could be drawing a totally disproportionate share of revenue from the patent pool, but even if that's the case, you're assuming that Apple, who reported close to 10 billion in revenue last quarter, is guarding revenue from MPEG-LA like a pensioner and his social security checks.
If a codec becomes important to their customers, I'm sure Apple will do everything they need to make it accessible on their platform. Heck, you can encode VC1 on the Mac quite successfully with a number of encoding tools.
Since you brought up DailyMotion, 'd love to hear from someone there about:
- their current stance on Ogg's quality vs. H.264 - the last time they weighed in, they " acknowledged that its Ogg streams have some technical deficiencies compared to its current Flash-based video streaming solution" (http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/07/de...).
- how they encode their files
- what encoding parameters they use (resolution, frame rate, data rate, etc). I'm guessing someone can get this information from one of the Linux Ogg analysis tools; I'd love to know.
This articel you linked on arstechnica:
Has the following title & byline:Decoding the HTML 5 video codec debate
By Ryan Paul | Last updated July 5, 2009 4:30 PM
The date of July 5 2009 means that any quotes in that article from Dailymotion about the "current" state of Theora refer to the sate of play back in July, 2009. That means they are talking about Theora 1.0 or earlier. Everyone knows Theora 1.0 was considerably behind h264, as the poor quality of the old Quicktime plugin for Theora will demonstrate.
AFAIK, the video on Dailymotion is largely user-contributed:
Given that fact, most of the content on the openvideo.dailymotion.com is probably transcoded fromthe main dailymotion.com site. If that is the case, since most user-contributed videos will probably be in mp4 format, then the Theora videos transcoded from that are necessarily going to be lesser quality. As you are no doubt aware, you have to encode from uncompressed higher-resolution video down to each format in order to be able to compare them fairly. Dailymotion is therefore probably not a good place to get videos for comparison purposes from.
Even so, every now and then, you do find a high-quality Theora video on the openvideo.dailymotion.com site. These are probably encoded from a significantly higher-resolution source. When you do find such a video, posted recently, you can compare it with the same video encoded in h264 on the main dailymotion.com site. Such videos are quite comparable in quality, but they are reasonably rare. They do however nicely illustrate what CAN be achieved recently with Theora comapred with h264.
I have no real idea why Apple are strongly opposed to and biassed against Theora, but there is absolutely no doubt that they are. They were one of the main objectors who recently prevented Theora from becoming the agreed standard codec for HTML5.
I know the Ars site was dated, that's why I was asking for their "current stance." Sorry that I didn't make that clearer.
ASAIK, Apple is against Theora because there may be submarine patents that could effect usability - that's been their public stance anyway. They're also H.264 proponents because it's the format they've chosen for all their devices, and it's worked well for them in those huge markets.
Just for the record, I am not going to respond to any comments here on the existence of submarine patent claims on Ogg.
Still, it's a very long way to go from H.264 proponent to making sure that you can't produce high quality Ogg encodes on the Mac. QuickTime is a well documented interface, and there are lots of very high quality plug-ins that video producers use every day, including to VC1 and VP6, both formats that Apple totally has no interest in. Do you think there's a hidden Ogg flag that tells quicktime to degrade the quality of any file produced in QuickTime to that format? Seems pretty out there to me.
The problem with using comparisons from a site like DailyMotion is that you don't know how each file was encoded and since its user submitted, it's tough to track down the producers and ask. I'm gonig to post my final quality comparisons in the next day or so (once I learn from Gregory Maxwell when 2.0 will be out) and that will be the end of this.
Thanks for your comments, I've learned a lot from everyone.
There are three obvious problems with Apple's logic when it comes to Theora and patents.
The first problem is that h264 itself is patented. So Apple are trying to argue that there might be patent trolls out there when it comes to VP3/Theora, while simultaneously ignoring the fact that there ARE petent trolls when it comes to h264. As you point out, 47 pages worth of them.
The second problem is that VP3 itself was patented. It was patented before h264 was. In order for there to be a successfult patent troll against VP3/Theora, someone has to hold a valid, OLDER patent against the same technology. If someone does in fact hold a valid, older patent against the same technology, then the USPTO has made an error, because in that case the USPTO should not have awarded the same patent a second time later on to VP3 technology. If someone does in fact hold a valid, younger patent against the same technology (perhaps one of the ones in the 47-page-long list you mentioned), then the VP3 patent would prevail because it is older.
The third problem is highlighted by the last paragraph. Despite Apple trying to claim that there might be a patent troll out there with a valid patent against Theora/VP3, and thereby effectively "telegraphing" their desire for someone to come forward with exactly such a claim, no-one has. Therefore it is fairly certain that no-one actually does hold a valid patent against the patented technology in VP3. Furthermore on this same line of reasoning, if there WAS patentable technology in VP3 that was not covered by the patents for VP3, then why didn't On2 apply for another patent over that technology as well at the same time as the patents for VP3 that they do hold?
Apples claim about patents and Theora/VP3 is obviously flawed on several fronts.
The bigest reason why the 1.1 clips have surprisingly poor quality is because these are stricly buffer constrained encodes. The ffmpeg2theora commandline given imposes constraints roughly equiuivlent to an x264 encode with --vbv-bufsize 5000 --vbv-maxrate 500.
The buffer constraint means that user with a very bandwidth limited connection can playback without stalls and excessive buffering. So it's a good thing to have if you're streaming But— its absolutely brutal on the quality and it's not a restriction that your h264 encode has been subjected to.
I'd really like to have the option to try transcoding the files myself. It's very unfortunate that the files haven't been made available.
The "color fidelity" issue is because the software being used here managed to mishandle the colorspace (BT.601 vs BT.709) and lumanance offset. Generally if the color/contrast differ between encodes you've done something wrong with your test... the manner in which lossy codec manipulate image data should not generally influence color or contrast.
I did a quick one-pass non-buffer constrained 500kbit/sec reencode of the SD h264 file:
The transcoding obviously hurts quality, so this isn't suitable for comparison but it does demonstrate the instantaneous bitrate constraint is hurting things.
Sorry I wasn't clearer - I used the same raw source footage for both clips, I didn't encode to H.264 and then Ogg. That would be nonsense.
Impressive. What encoding tool, what encoding parameters?
ffmpeg2theora -V 500 -k 300 -d 99999 (the only additions provided to the commandline above is -d 99999 to remove the buffering constraint).
Two-pass also disables the buffer constraint by default, but I wanted to make it clear the the improvement is from removing the buffering constraint, not from switching to two-pass. If you're not live-streaming two-pass is highly recommended. Many other encoders use a significant amount of lookahead in one-pass mode, while in one pass theora is a live-streaming-sutiable zero latency encoder. The only way to do a apples to apples comparison is to either run both encoders as two-pass or both as zero latency, and make sure to use the equivalent buffering constraints on each.
Thanks - SD file looked better in most places, worse in others.
should I add an audio bitrate switch to set that a 32? Seems like it was around 50, which could confuse folks who look at both files.
What about for the HD file - that was the more challenging encoding config.
Once I get both of these done I'll post the files (but probably not the comparison images tonight).
Thanks for helping out.
It will be the same story for the HD file, unfortunately since I do not have the source material I didn't bother trying the second encode. ... it would be insanely unfair to compare h264 transcoded to theora against the h264. I only posted the one file to point out what a huge difference the instantanious bitrate constraint can make.
The audio in these files is pretty bad. It sounds like its being transcoded from a low bitrate mp3. I can only assume the original sounds that bad, since both the h264 and Ogg/Theora file are worse than I'd expect at the respective bitrates. I'd personally leave the audio out on all of them.
Yeah, audio is bad, I don't draw any conclusions about audio quality from the file, just video. Send me your address, I'll send you the source files. Be interested to see what you can do with them.
Hey Greg:
I analyzed the file that you encoded and noticed that it had been encoded with ptalarbvorm. Notably, I couldn't match the quality that you produced from the H.264 stream when encoding from the original file.
When will this be ready to go? If soon, it really doesn't make sense for me to spend any more time messing with the current code base. Once available, I'll redo and repost and you're welcome to check my work to make sure that it's fair.
Please let me know.
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text:
These cooler temperatures and shorter days alleviate some of the stress on landscapes. This makes it an ideal time to prepare lawns for next year. "As the season moves toward winter, keep adding days between irrigations," explains Julie Breckenridge, water conservation manager of Washington County Water Conservancy District. "This will encourage the roots to grow deep, which allows lawns to survive the extreme environmental stresses typical of our climate. Developing a healthy lawn now will bring a better, easier to manage lawn next summer."
Breckenridge cautions, "Remember the amount of time always remains the same each time you water. It is the frequency of irrigations that changes with the seasons." Some controllers have a budget option, which decreases the amount of time but not the frequency. It is better to not use this option on the controller and manually make adjustments to the frequency.

subset: commoncrawl


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Egyptian Health Department is offering people a chance to get rid of that old television or computer collecting dust in the garage with its series of Electronics Recycling Collections.
The first event will be held at the Shawneetown Town Square 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, May 17. The following day, Saturday, May 18, it will be in Carmi at the Carmi Township Yard on Burrell Street, according to a release from Egyptian Health Department.
Landfills cannot accept most electronics, so this is an opportunity to dispose of these items safely and legally. Also, there is no fee to drop off items. Examples of items to bring are computers, televisions, printers, fax machines, scanners, DVD/VCR players, copiers, cash registers and cell phones.
Items that cannot be accepted are appliances such as refrigerators, air conditioners, and dishwashers or anything containing liquid.
Anyone with questions may contact Dan January at Egyptian Health Department at 618-273-3326 ext. 2712.
Location, ST | website.com


text:
Dr. Robert Miller gives an introduction to survivorship and life following cancer treatment.
More Information
Survivorship: Next Steps to Take
If you are having trouble watching videos, you may need to download and install the latest version of Adobe Flash Player. To see additional videos, visit and subscribe to Cancer.Net's YouTube channel.


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Preview: Game #25 Leafs @ Bruins - The Punk Test
Cam Charron
March 07 2013 03:55PM
That video is from the last time the Toronto Maple Leafs won against the Boston Bruins. That was back on March 31st… 2011 which amounts to a seven-game losing streak against the Northeast Division rivals. They've been out-scored 37-10 and shutout three times. In that span of time, Boston has been the best team in the Eastern Conference.
The Bruins, it can be argued, are the franchise the Leafs are trying to model themselves off of. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Boston Bruins are. In traditionalist hockey quarters, they're a team that's thrived on thuggery and toughness. When you pay closer attention to how they've built their team, you find that each player addition comes as the way of a methodical decision-making process.
Not to say the Bruins aren't tough. Steve wrote a classic post called "The Punk Test" where he described the way the Bruins like to set the tone against each opponent:
Milan Lucic steamrolled Ryan Miller, and while Miller has struggled of late, he is still considered not only Buffalo's starting goaltender, but one of the best goalies in the world. The Buffalo Sabres response: nothing. Well, not quite nothing. They said stuff.
It almost looks like Lucic is wearing Miller's mask like a parrot.
"I just stuck around because I just want to say what a piece of s*** I think Lucic is," a severely pissed off Ryan Miller told the media after the game. "Fifty pounds on me, and he runs me like that. It's unbelievable. Everyone in this city sees him as a big, tough, solid player. I respected him for how hard he played. That was gutless. Gutless, piece of s***."
Whether or not what Lucic did was an act worthy of a suspension is another story. The key factor here, at least in regards to the punk test, is that the Sabres did nothing. The Boston Bruins got away with not just bullying and running over their goalie, but knocking him out of the lineup for an undetermined amount of time.
It's a stylistic matchup people expect, but really, the secret behind the Bruins is that they can get away with that sort of stuff because they have a formidable hockey team. Patrice Bergeron is one of the top two-way players in the game. David Krejci is an excellent secondary centreman and would be a number one centre on most teams. Nathan Horton, Brad Marchand and Tyler Seguin complement a skill game.
I read a great post at Pension Plan the other day written by 1967ers titled 'On Fighting' where he really hit a nail on the head with this line:
I can imagine the scenario in which having fighters in your lineup would work exactly as the supporters say it should. The problem I have is that I don't see much of anyone out there capable of playing the role as envisioned.
Milan Lucic is that sort of player. You know he's crazy enough that if pucks aren't going in the net, he's going to take it out on somebody. I think Lucic is a better player when he sticks to scoring goals, but the volatility that's made him one of Boston's top penalty minutes men and fighters over the last four or five seasons has the effect of making a hockey team stock itself up with fighters every time they go in to play him.
And just look at the effect: Toronto added Frazer McLaren. Buffalo added John Scott and Steve Ott. Montreal brought in Brandon Prust. The Bruins Stanley Cup win in 2011 set back fourth lines about a generation.
Broadcast Info:
Puck Drop: 7:00 PM EST
By the numbers:
|Fenwick Close
|55.81% (2nd)
|44.79% (27th)
|5v5 GF/60
|5v5 GA/60
|5v5 GF/GA Ratio
|1.14 (11th)
|1.16 (9th)
|Team Shooting %
|Team Save %
|Team PDO
Special Teams:
|PP Success
|15.9% (21st)
|17.6% (14th)
|5v4 GF/60
|5.9 (14th)
|5.5 (17th)
|5v4 SF/60
|49.1 (12th)
|48.4 (13th)
|PK Success
|91.6% (1st)
|82.9% (13th)
|4v5 GA/60
|2.7 (1st)
|5.7 (13th)
|4v5 SA/60
|36.8 (1st)
|44.4 (9th)
Numbers via Behind the Net's Team and Fenwick pages and NHL.com
Boston's goaltending has been pretty sub-par this season as Tuukka Rask is struggling to replace Tim Thomas' historically-good stretch over his time with the Bruins. Rask is a capable goaltender and he's certainly better than what his .920 even strength save percentage shows.
That said, the Leafs will get to face Anton Khudobin and his Gustavsson-esque .896 EV SV% tonight. Goaltending has been the reason why the Bruins haven't converted their puck-possession into wins thus far, so the Leafs probably have a chance against the lesser of the two keepers.
One place Boston has really thrived is on the penalty kill. They're first in the NHL in all penalty kill categories which are effectiveness rate, goals against per 60 minutes and shots against per 60 minutes. They're effectively limiting chances against their goaltenders and, having watched their last game against the Capitals where the Bruins blew a 3-0 lead, I was impressed by how quickly the Bruins turned entries around.
Chris Bourque was waived today by the Bruins. Not sure who comes in for the Bruins, but here was their lineup last game:
Brad Marchand - Patrice Bergeron - Tyler Seguin
Milan Lucic - David Krejci - Nathan Horton
Jay Pandolfo - Chris Kelly - Rich Peverley
Shawn Thornton - Gregory Campbell - Daniel Paille
Zdeno Chara - Johnny Boychuk
Dougie Hamilton - Dennis Seidenberg
Andrew Ference - Adam McQuaid
Anton Khudobin
Tuukka Rask
UPDATE: (h/t to Steph - Jay Pandolfo is going in for the Bruins tonight)
The defence is interesting since Chara is a big minutes man and sees a couple of different partners over the course of the game. There's nothing too notable about the usage of the forwards: having three good lines means that they can shelter their fourth line and not worry about taking away ice from anybody else. Chara and Boychuk will see the tough forward match ups, and generally Claude Julien tries to get Dougie Hamilton against inferior opposition. It will be interesting to see if Hamilton matches up at all tonight against Nazem Kadri.
The third line in Boston has been taking some heat for limited scoring. Last season, Chris Kelly had 20 goals and was a +33. Rich Peverley had 11 goals and was a +20. This season, Kelly has one goal and is a minus-7 while Peverley has three and a minus-8.
This is part of the reason why plus/minus irks me as a stat, because it's not at all predictive of the future. Kelly and Peverley led the NHL in PDO last season with a 1.056, while this year the two are down to .961 and .924 respectively. They're doing their job against tough opposition but pucks just aren't settling themselves for them. That'll happen, and the PDO (and their plus/minus) will come around.
Leafs lines:
James van Riemsdyk - Tyler Bozak - Phil Kessel
Clarke MacArthur - Nazem Kadri - Leo Komarov
Nik Kulemin - Mikhail Grabovski - Jay McClement
Frazer McLaren - David Steckel - Colton Orr
Dion Phaneuf - Korbinian Holzer
Carl Gunnarsson - Mike Kostka
Cody Franson - Mark Fraser
James Reimer
Ben Scrivens
Leafs did not skate this morning, so no clue as to whether Matt Frattin draws back into the lineup or if Ben Scrivens gets the start in the back-to-back.
Lines Info via Left Wing Lock
March 07 2013, 07:28PM
Ive been a leaf fan 48yrs. This is first comment posted anywhere ever. Like the look of the leafs this year.But....
Why is Dion beginning to remind me of Aki Berg? His play has been just awful. Watched coming up and playing for years. What the hell happened? Did he lose his heart? If a captain is supposed to lead by example then we need a new captain.


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The Alpine bagel may very well be the best bagel on planet Earth! Chances are, if you want a particular bagel, Alpine will have it, among the basics: Plain, Onion, Blueberry, Spinach Parmesan, Poppy Seed, Sun-Dried Tomato, Onion, Jalapeno, Banana Walnut, Apple Cinnamon Raisin, Sesame, Whole Wheat with a new specialty every day. Bagels are baked fresh daily, and the wide variety of sumptuous spreads are made with delicious lowfat cream cheese.
Offerings also include: bagels with eggs and/or ham, sausage or bacon for breakfast; bagelwiches for heartier fare, and the list goes on from there.
Tennessee Vacation eGuide
The 2016 eGuide gives you instant access to Tennessee's irresistible attractions and destinations. Peruse venues online, then put in your order to get a free guide delivered to your doorstep.


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They should be getting underway soon. Do you have any dates and any info on who's skating in them?
They should be getting underway soon. Do you have any dates and any info on who's skating in them?
Joe look under USFSA Regionals and Sectionals.
3 of the 9 U.S. Regional Championships are this week and the qualifying skaters will advance to the Pacific Coast Sectional (Nov. 14-18 near Seattle). Links to USFS' event pages with results so far...
Southwest Pacific Regional (Oct. 5-8, Culver City, CA):
Central Pacific Regional (Oct. 5-7, Oakland, CA):
Northwest Pacific Regional (Oct. 5-7, Spokane, Washington):
...to Central Pacific Regional on Saturday. I'll post a report on my site, codeofpoints.com.
one of the kids from Alaska made it to the Pacific? I'm not sure if I'm completely correct, but it's good to see Alaska make something...
I'm still cheering on Ashley Wagner even if she did switch rinks
Thanks guys for the information.
I think Ashley Wagner has a bye to the Nats already. Not sure though. Do the featured skaters in the latest USFS MediaGuide all have byes?
I'm thinking about Rohene Ward. He will have to skate in a Sectional to qualify. Am I correct?
Does Adam Rippon have to skate a Sectional to qualify for Junior Boys?
No. The top 5 seniors from 2006 Nationals receive automatic byes to 2007 Nationals (of those who registered to compete this season). They are:Do the featured skaters in the latest USFS MediaGuide all have byes?
Ladies - Cohen, Meissner, Hughes, Taylor, Liang;
Men - Weir, Lysacek, Smith;
Pairs - Inoue/Baldwin, Nam/Leftheris;
Dance - Belbin/Agosto, Gregory/Petukhov, Matthews/Zavozin, Navarro/Bommentre.
I'll summarize the skaters with byes through Regionals and/or Sectionals in a separate post.
Ward has elected to compete first at Upper Great Lakes Regionals (Oct. 17-21, Richfield, Minnesota) even though there are 4 or fewer senior men and then he will compete at Midwestern Sectionals.I'm thinking about Rohene Ward. He will have to skate in a Sectional to qualify. Am I correct?
Yes, Rippon will first compete at South Atlantic Regionals and should qualify for Eastern Sectionals.Does Adam Rippon have to skate a Sectional to qualify for Junior Boys?
From USFS:
Central Pacific Regional, Oct. 2-7, Oakland, Calif.
Northwest Pacific Regional, Oct. 4-8, Spokane, Wash.
Southwest Pacific Regional, Oct. 4-8, Culver City, Calif.
North Atlantic Regional, Oct. 9-15, Jamestown, N.Y.
Eastern Great Lakes Regional, Oct. 11-14, Ann Arbor, Mich.
Southwestern Regional, Oct. 11-14, Arvada, Colo.
New England Regional, Oct. 16-21, Marlborough, Mass.
South Atlantic Regional, Oct. 16-21, Aston, Pa.
Upper Great Lakes Regional, Oct. 17-21, Richfield, Minn.
Pacific Coast Sectional, Nov. 14-18, Mountlake Terrace, Wash.
Eastern Sectional, Nov. 15-18, Alpharetta, Ga.
Midwestern Sectional, Nov. 16-18, Birmingham, Ala.
U.S. Junior Championships, Nov. 28-Dec. 2, Strongsville, Ohio
State Farm U.S. Championships, Jan. 21-28, 2007, Spokane, Wash.
Last edited by Sylvia; 10-06-2006 at 08:31 AM.
I'm not sure that Ashley Wagner is competign in NWP regionals...She changed to WFC wich is in Mid-Atlantics. I could be wrong though....
I can't remember what Sr. Ladies from Alaska are still skating, but Christina Gordon from Fairbanks has made it to Nationals before and I think that there may be 2-4 other Sr. Ladies back home.
Back when I was skating Novice and above in AK, there were only two other girls who were in the same testing level and one stopped competing. Once I moved up to Jr. I had to go outside the state to compete - made it very difficult and $$$$
How does the US system work? You go to regionals and you have the qualifing round. How many of these skaters go to the final round? Then how many in the final round go on to Sectionals? Does only the first place winner in Sectionals go on to Nationals?
If there are enough, as is sometimes the case for juvenile and intermediate ladies in large regions, then they have to do two cuts. There's a middle round in two groups in which the intermediates do their SPs and the top skaters from each group move on the the final round for LPs; juveniles only have one program so in these large regions they may have to perform the same program three times if they reach the final round.
The standard has been that top 4 advance from regionals to sectionals (novice and above) or Junior Nationals (juvenile and intermediate), and top 4 from sectionals to Nationals.Then how many in the final round go on to Sectionals? Does only the first place winner in Sectionals go on to Nationals?
As of last year, there has been a proportional representation rule so that larger regions get to send more than 4 skaters to Junior Nationals.
And for events other than ladies singles, in which there may not always be 4 entries within a region, there's a "fill-up rule" that takes skaters from other regions in the sections to fill up the sectional competition, that sometimes has applied to Nationals as well.
If there are 4 or fewer skaters/teams registered for the event, they have the option whether to compete or simply to advance to the next competition.
I haven't memorized the current rules exactly and my rulebook is at home. But basically the answer is that if there are at least 4 skaters/teams registered to compete within the region or section, then 4 will advance, and in certain situations more than 4.
when I said rinks I meant regions... I'm not really familiar with how it all works...
I've seen Keegan skate and I'm not sure if he's the one my aunt mentioned... apparently it was in the newspaper or something (like I have time to read that stuff lol )
I want to say it was a girl.... but then again I wasn't the one who read the blurb...
Thanks Sylvia and gkelly. All this sounds like 'ifs and only ifs'. I'll savor all this and watch closely for results.
Thanks Sylvia for the links. Do you know if there is any board disscusion about regionals?


text:
NOAA is making changes as it moves into the 21st century.
In a press release on Thursday, officials said they are going to modernize marine operations by replacing nine research ships and refurbishing a tenth in the next 15 years.
NOAA's Office of Marine and Aviation Operations looked at the 19 ships currently in the fleet and determined that 10 would reach the end of their service lives during the next 15 years.
The new plan will systematically replace or upgrade the fleet.
Hiring freeze result of Trump team's review of federal agencies
Hiring freeze result of Trump team's review of federal agencies
The fleet supports a wide range of marine activities, including fisheries and coastal research, nautical charting, and long-range ocean and climate studies.
For more information: NOAA Fleet
Photos of the amazing, moving, important and amusing things happening in the federal community.
A daily update of important moments in the history of the U.S. government.


text:
Was: $
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Warrior Bonafide ice hockey pants are very similar to the top end Franchise, but include a different liner and less stretch panels. The Bonafide has 2-ply stretch panels in the upper hip areas and crotch region for great mobility. The Bonafide is constructed with the same durable 420-denier nylon shell as the Franchise. You can find Warrior's SpineTek™ Back Protection System, as well as the moisture wicking V-Tek liner featured on the Bonafide pant.
- Model Year: 2012
- Model Number: BONPAS1
- Heritage: Warrior Bonafide 2011 pant
- Level of Play: Ideal for intermediate to advanced level of play
- Warrior Sizing Guideline:
Pant Size / Waist Measurement
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Medium / 32" - 34"
Large / 34" - 36"
- Exterior:
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- Protection
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- Overlapped hip pads for added slash protection
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- Fit
- V-Tek micro-mesh moisture-wicking liner
- 2-ply stretch panels in upper hip areas (front and back) and crotch area - Offers increased stride mobility
- Polyester stretch tricot zippered leg gussets - Allows for a customized fit, giving the player the option of having a looser fit in the bottom of the pant
- "Ready for action" forward canted design to follow body's natural skating motion
- Front lace closure
- External nylon belt closure with padded belt cover
- Suspender buttons


text:
Storage Bowls with Feeding Spoon
These bowls are made of tough break resistant polypropylene and sized to fit a child's grasp. The bowls are dishwasher, microwave and freezer safe. Bowls are conveniently sized, just right for dry cereal and baby foods. The tops keep snacks fresh until ready to eat. These bowls are great to use as snack cups for travel as well as storage. The bowls/cups are not intended for use with liquids. These bowls come complete with a uniquely designed long handle spoon which helps make feeding time easier for mom and baby. This spoon has an easy-slide bottom to ensure smooth movement over any dish surface. Its long handle design makes reaching the bottom of taller baby jars and storage bowls convenient and clean. No more messy finger tips as with other shorter "baby" spoons. All Nûby™ products are made of safe, durable, nontoxic materials and exceed all government safety regulations and standards.
Features at a Glance
Indicates if food is right temperature for child


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For a foodie, the advent of fall means soup and chili season has arrived.
Spicy tortilla soup is a good step between soup and chili. It's spicy like chili but is a soup so it's not as thick.
I used less chili powder and cumin than the recipe suggests. Spices in a recipe usually can be adjusted for an individual's taste.
If you've cooked much with spicy chili peppers such jalapeno, you know there's a risk of slight pain. Contact to the skin can cause a burning or stinging sensation.
It happened to me while prepping this dish. It was slightly painful after exposure but was more painful when the burn came in contact with water. The sting is temporary but an annoyance.
If you get a pepper burn, vegetable oil seems to be the best treatment. WebMD suggests washing the area with soap and water and then putting a large amount of vegetable oil on it for at least an hour. If the pepper burn is on your hands, dipping your hands in vegetable oil for an hour is suggested.
It's best to wear gloves when preparing spicy peppers to avoid skin contact.
And never, never, never rub your eyes while working with peppers.
Between the pepper sting on my hand and the onions causing my eyes to water, this recipe was an interesting cooking experience.
My mom once told me if you put a wooden toothpick in your mouth while cutting onions your eyes won't water as bad. The trick didn't work this time.
Another trick I've heard is to chill the onion before cutting it.
One thing is for certain, after chopping onions and smelling the spices and peppers going into the soup, my sinus were wide open.
All the trouble was worth it because the result was a slightly spicy and tasty soup, perfect for a fall afternoon.
If fresh corn on the cob is not available, drained whole-kernel corn from a can would work.
The recipe calls for a lot of fancy toppings, which I didn't use.
I topped my soup with some cheese and corn chips. A nice dollop of sour cream is a cooling touch, especially if you make a spicier soup.
On this adventure, wear gloves, watch out for onions and enjoy your soup.
Becca Owsley can be reached at 270- 505-1741 or firstname.lastname@example.com.
Spicy Tortilla Soup
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium size yellow onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and diced
1 pablano pepper, seeded and diced
Kernels from 2 ears of fresh corn
4 Roma tomatoes, finely chopped
1 15-ounce can of black beans, drained and rinsed
2 tablespoons ground cumin
2 tablespoons chili powder
4 cups of chicken stock
Salt and pepper to taste
Tortilla chips for garnish
Optional garnishes:
Sliced avocado
Chopped cilantro
Plain Greek yogurt
Sliced radishes
In a large pot over medium heat add the olive oil for a minute. Add the onion and garlic and sauté for about 5 minutes. Add the corn, peppers, tomatoes, beans and spices. Cook for a minute. Add chicken stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 45 minutes.
Pour soup into bowls and garnish with a healthy spoonful of plain Greek yogurt, sliced avocado, sliced radishes, cilantro and tortilla chips.
Source: www.dishingupthedirt.com
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Where hockey's new numbers get it wrong
Cam Charron
June 09 2014 12:47PM
Like a lot of people, I've become increasingly concerned with the importance placed on several of these newfangled stats that take away from my enjoyment of the NHL game. Hockey was a better sport before all the bookkeepers came along and started siphoning out the fun by cataloguing everything and determining the best players in the game based on who scored goals and made assists.
'Goals' is a very poor stat that has been taken far too seriously by some of the newer analysts. You keep hearing people talk about 20-goal, 30-goal and 40-goal scorers as if every ten goals to reach some imaginary plateau is what separates players from others. But what about the players who don't play to score goals in the first place?
Take a defenceman, for instance. Many defencemen, including the speedy and shifty ones, don't play close enough to the opposing net to score a goal. The best goal scorers from the defensive position in these playoffs are Drew Doughty, P.K. Subban, and Jake Muzzin, all with five. If you're a proponent of the 'goal' statistic, do you mean to say that Muzzin is just as vital to the success of the Kings as Doughty? Anybody who watches the games would be able to tell you that Doughty's vital defensive contributions, that can't be counted, are more important for this team up 2-0 in the Stanley Cup Finals.
Then there are forwards who pass the puck rather than shoot. Many players can play on my team despite having very limited goal totals. Joe Thornton, for instance, scored just 11 times last season, as did Mikko Koivu. They were both centremen on playoff teams, need I remind you, while league leader Alex Ovechkin and his 51 goals didn't even make it.
Clearly, "goals" are not a perfect way to judge players, but what about teams, even? The Stanley Cup is being contested this week between Los Angeles and New York. The Kings were 25th in goals for this season, while the Rangers were 18th. Better, more offensive teams, like Chicago, Anaheim, Boston and Colorado, met early playoff demises, despite their "goals for" statistic telling us otherwise. Let us not forget the Presidents' Trophy-winning Bruins, who were 3rd in the NHL in goals, were eliminated in the playoffs by 21st ranked Montreal, despite the Canadiens scoring nearly 50 fewer times.
It's replete with examples and the evidence is clear: goals are an awful way to judge players and teams because the statistic lacks so much context. I long for the days when we could watch a game, and determine the winner based on how the teams played the game. Hopefully this desire to count "goals" is simply a trend, as these numbers can not tell me anything I don't already know about the game of hockey.
And the award for bitterest, most venom-dripping column goes to...
June 09 2014, 01:07PM
Haha, I thought it was hilarious.
June 09 2014, 11:43PM
@Cam Charron
Wow. That was FAST.
Seriously though, nice job of summarizing PDO and it's uses. I can see how a series of articles like this one could really be a great tool for people wanting to get into advanced stats or even just statistics in general.
Except for maybe the one guy who commented on the linked article. It's always surprising how many angry, ignorant jock stereotypes there are out there and how oh-so-desperate they to believe that the game they play is one of heroism and magic; where men are men and the boys are culled through violence.
The saddest part is the hatred they react with when presented with data by someone endeavoring to detect patterns in the game, sometimes for no reason other than for the sake of doing so; their sad, small little egos can't withstand the idea that their "heroic" contribution to their sport can actually be reduced to a series of learnable actions and proccesses determined by if-then scenarios and limiting deviations from those behaviors.
Saddest of all is the tired, old cliche that they all seem to use: "Have you ever even PLAYED the game, nerd?"
That's some quality satire right there.
When has scoring a lot of "goals" ever *really* proven to lead to winning?
Kessel is awesome. And he scores a lot. I could care less about what your fancy advanced stats say about him.
PDO sucks Corsi sucks Fenway sucks Anybody sucks Everybody sucks
isnt pdo when you kiss your girlfriend passionately in public
This comment wins everything
Depends on if you have a girlfriend :-)
And no, that would be PDA (public display of affection)
June 11 2014, 11:36PM
@Sham Balogne
"troll," with a lowercase t.
*Yawn*. This troll's boring antics are making me so sleepy. Same tired writing style. Same pathetic taunts. Same decrepit routine of propping his own comments while simultaneously trashing the ones calling his own posts out. Same old mask he carves for himself by creating new forum identities and hiding behind them.
NM00 recently offered the troll a Dark Knight quote. Let me offer the miserable, little troll a challenge in the form of one of my own:
"Just take off that mask and let him come find you."
June 09 2014, 03:23PM
When I first started reading the article I couldn't get a scene from The Matrix out of my head. It was the one where Cypher, over dinner at a restaurant within The Matrix with Agent Smith, is striking a deal to have have himself re-inserted into The Matrix in exchange for his betrayal of humanity and he says, "Ignorance is bliss...I don't want to remember nothing. Nothing. You understand? And I want to be rich. You know, someone important. Like an actor."
PDO sucks Corsi sucks Fenway sucks Anybody sucks Everybody sucks
isnt pdo when you kiss your girlfriend passionately in public
Wow, I think scott13 kinda missed the point regarding individual PDO. I agree that comparing Booth's individual PDO with Bolland's individual PDO is pretty fruitless but comparing Booth to Sestito or Burrows? I think its a reasonable luck metric in the context of teammate comparison. As for team PDO... if you have enough data, I'm inclined to agree with scott13. I mean, in the short run, its safer to assume its luck but a season or two with an elevated PDO? That would be a great team, not a lucky one, right? Like, I'm guessing Boston has had an elevated PDO for a couple years now but that would be due to talent not luck, right? What do you think Cam? I'd love to see an article from you discussing the most useful applications of PDO.
Booth is an interesting example for this thread, and probably supports Scott's critique somewhat. Booth's PDO was about even this year, but there's a weird split: very high save percentage "canceling" a low shooting percentage. One of Scott's main points seemed to be that it would be more useful to look at the two stats separately, and to put them in the context of career norms -- in this case, that would mean focusing on Booth's shooting percentage this year, which was below his career average and almost five percentage points lower than his 31-goal season.
I still like combining the two stats into PDO as a sort of shorthand, especially when looking at guys like Edler who suffered from lows at both ends. It's not very useful in isolation. In Booth's case, there's a good chance he'll end up with similar PDO next year by getting worse goaltending while he's on the ice (just through regression, if not goalie quality) and a better shooting percentage -- which would likely mean more goals, and a worse +/- (which only matters when debating with people who still value +/-).
June 10 2014, 10:35PM
Spot-on article. Numbers all over the place are ruining hockey and baseball, my favorite sports. Numbers coming out of digestive vents of basement-dwelling dweebs mean absolutely nothing because not a single one of them is predictive. You don't have to provide 63 random, made-up statistics for me to understand the game, numb-nuts, because I just watched the whole thing, and after 35+ years of viewing games on TV and in person I feel I have an adequate grasp of the just-concluded proceedings to not require your services. (PS, as a new poster, I followed above request to "pretend Mom is looking over shoulder" resulting in this version, which is much milder than what she would have said)
All. Hail. King Corsi David of Fenwick
June 12 2014, 08:33PM
@Sham Balogne
"-39"s and "44 years" and "shills", oh my!
Oh, no...wait...the other thing...
June 09 2014, 09:33PM
Which Simmons article did I miss which bashes some stat or another??
But seriously, all stats today fully suck with what will be available in the next three years.
Edit : Well, I missed the first link. After spending 20 minutes reading a pretty awesome rebuttal by Eric, I think they are just having a violent agreement, though Scott might not want to admit it.
Wow, I think scott13 kinda missed the point regarding individual PDO. I agree that comparing Booth's individual PDO with Bolland's individual PDO is pretty fruitless but comparing Booth to Sestito or Burrows? I think its a reasonable luck metric in the context of teammate comparison. As for team PDO... if you have enough data, I'm inclined to agree with scott13. I mean, in the short run, its safer to assume its luck but a season or two with an elevated PDO? That would be a great team, not a lucky one, right? Like, I'm guessing Boston has had an elevated PDO for a couple years now but that would be due to talent not luck, right? What do you think Cam? I'd love to see an article from you discussing the most useful applications of PDO.
June 09 2014, 10:04PM
@Doc, The real point is that Alex Edler's PDO is a useful thing, as it is very low (.938).
Where there is disagreement is that Erik is saying "That is very low, thus he was unlucky"
Scott is saying "It is very low and much lower than his career average , thus he was unlucky". He maintains that we should factor in baselines for players before looking at their luck. For example, Henrik has had many years in a row over 1.0 PDO, thus his recent year of 1.0 PDO would be considered lucky.
Note: They were talking about teams, which have a lower variance, but exceptional player-cases are still significant, in my opinion.
June 09 2014, 10:32PM
Won't somebody PLEASE think of the Corsi?!
Lame witha capital L.


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World > Countries > Montenegro
Montenegro, a jumbled mass of mountains, with a small coastline along the Adriatic, borders Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia. It is roughly the size of Connecticut.
Republic. Montenegro, formerly part of Serbia and Montenegro, gained independence on June 3, 2006.
The first inhabitants on the Balkan peninsula were the ancient people known as the Illyrians. The Slavic people followed in the 6th and 7th centuries. What is now Montenegro was the Serbian principality of Zeta in the 14th century. The principality was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire from the 14th to the 19th century, though this mountainous region managed to evade tight Ottoman control. It then became a principality within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and in 1878 achieved independence. In 1910, Prince Nicholas I proclaimed himself king. During World War I, Montenegro fought on the side of the Allies and was defeated by Austro-German forces. Nicholas was forced to flee the country and Montenegro was annexed to Serbia, then called the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and renamed Yugoslavia in 1929. After World War II, Yugoslavia became a Communist republic under Josip Tito. Tito's tight rein kept ethnic tensions in check until his death in 1980. Without his pan-Slavic influence, ethnic and nationalist differences began to flare, and by the 1990s Yugoslavia started to disintegrate in a brutal ten-year civil war. In the war's aftermath, Serbia and Montenegro were the only two remaining republics of Yugoslavia, and in Feb. 2003, they formed a new state, a loose federation called Serbia and Montenegro. The arrangement was made to placate Montenegro's restive stirrings for independence and stipulated that Montenegro could hold a referendum on independence after three years. In May 2003, Filip Vujanovic, a strong advocate of Montenegrin independence, was elected Montenegro's president.


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S - StandardO - Optional- Not available
*Dependent on radioisotope characteristics and storage phosphor crystal size coated on the screen.
Left, 14C-labeled rat; center, 35S-labeled sequencing gel; right, 14S-labeled 2-D PAGE gel.
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The Personal Molecular Imager System is the most flexible isotope imaging and laser scanning system available, offering radioisotopic imaging using your choice of storage phosphor screen. The PMI™ system accommodates both large (35 x 43 cm) and small (20 x 25 cm) storage phosphor screens, as well as a wide range of storage phosphor screen types for the quantitation and imaging of 32P, 33P, 35S, 14C, and 3H. It supports the use of Kodak (BaFBr:Eu) screens, which can be used with standard autoradiography cassettes. The PMI System is also compatible with screens from other suppliers.
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(November 29) Today we're celebrating . . . Electronic Greetings Day
Electronic Greetings Day
One of the most popular online services are Electronic Greeting Cards. And whether they're called eGreetings or eCards, you can easily send birthday wishes to holiday greetings to friends and family from the comfort of your computer.
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Good Morning, City
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Michael Douglas to Star in Anti-Insider Trading Ads
Written by Pat's Papers | Tuesday, 28 February 2012 10:27 AM
Greed is not good. Michael Douglas is on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today. The FBI has asked him to lead a public education campaign about insider trading. And he's agreed. The Journal says investigators are actively working on insider trading cases against 120 people on and off Wall Street.
SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
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text:
Debates of May 3rd, 2012
House of Commons Hansard #116 of the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was environment.
- Question Period
- Government Response to Petitions
- Committees of the House
- Commissioner for Children and Young Persons in Canada Act
- Petitions
- Questions Passed as Orders for Returns
- Jobs, Growth and Long-Term Prosperity Act
- Kitchener Rangers
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- Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
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- The Budget
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- Status of Women
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- The Environment
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- Finance
- Freedom of the Press
- Presence in Gallery
- Business of the House
- Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act
- Canada Labour Code
Foreign Affairs
Oral Questions
2:50 p.m.
Paul Dewar Ottawa Centre, ON
Mr. Speaker, today, SNC-Lavalin will face its shareholders engulfed by scandal. Money laundering, fraud and corruption are among the shocking allegations facing the company.
A distinguished member of this House once said, "High ethical standards for Canadian enterprise are not up for negotiation". Do members know who said that? It was the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Will the government be reviewing its business with SNC-Lavalin?
Foreign Affairs
Oral Questions
2:55 p.m.
Calgary East
Deepak Obhrai Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs
Mr. Speaker, these are very serious allegations being made against this company and the government will do everything it can to support this investigation.
Canada is party to a number of international agreements and we have strict laws for companies in Canada. Other governments expect Canadian companies to respect the rules both here in Canada and when operating abroad.
Foreign Affairs
Oral Questions
2:55 p.m.
Hélène Laverdière Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
Mr. Speaker, problems are resurfacing at SNC-Lavalin. Questions were raised when the company built a prison for Gadhafi. Now we have learned that the problem could be much bigger. There is talk of millions of dollars in bribes to senior managers in North Africa. In addition, Swiss authorities were the first to take action.
My question is simple. Were the Conservatives asleep at the switch or did they have their heads buried in the sand?
Foreign Affairs
Oral Questions
2:55 p.m.
Calgary East
Deepak Obhrai Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs
Mr. Speaker, as I just said, these are very serious allegations being made against this company and the government will do everything it can to support this investigation.
I will repeat again that other governments expect Canadian companies to respect the rules both here in Canada and when operating abroad.
Status of Women
Oral Questions
2:55 p.m.
Roxanne James Scarborough Centre, ON
Mr. Speaker, last year, Canada was shocked to learn of the case of Shaima Jastaina, a Saudi citizen who was arrested for the simple act of driving a car. Saudi Arabia remains the only country in the world where women are not allowed to drive, a routine act for most women in any democracy.
Today we have been informed that the 10 lashes sentence received by Ms. Jastaina has been dropped.
Would the parliamentary secretary please update this House on Canada's reaction to these latest developments?
Status of Women
Oral Questions
2:55 p.m.
London North Centre
Susan Truppe Parliamentary Secretary for Status of Women
Mr. Speaker, we are extremely pleased by reports that Shaima Jastaina's sentence has been dropped.
From the outset, Canada has fully supported the cause of Saudi women. In fact, during his trip to Saudi Arabia in March of this year, the Minister of Foreign Affairs raised this important issue with the Saudi foreign minister and the president of the Human Rights Commission.
We continue to call on Saudi authorities to review their position on the driving ban and implement the necessary reforms to ensure equality among all their citizens.
Science and Technology
Oral Questions
2:55 p.m.
Ted Hsu Kingston and the Islands, ON
Mr. Speaker, the budget's language says to cut funding for research at NSERC but to protect industry collaborations, scholarships and discovery grants. However, there is not much left to cut at NSERC. So, the RTI grants will be cut, the source of funding to repair and purchase medium-sized equipment.
Researchers are furious. It is like sending a carpenter to work without a hammer.
Why did the minister force cuts to funding used to fix and buy needed equipment?
Science and Technology
Oral Questions
2:55 p.m.
Gary Goodyear Minister of State (Science and Technology) (Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario)
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to say that this government has provided investments for science and technology, including equipment, at record levels. Never in the history of our country have scientists in Canada seen so much funding for research, for the buildings in which they work and for the equipment they use.
We have a brain gain because scientists around the world want to do their research here.
The real question is whether the opposition will vote for this kind of support in the budget.
The Environment
Oral Questions
2:55 p.m.
François Choquette Drummond, QC
Mr. Speaker, Canadians are increasingly worried about the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing in the shale gas industry. Even though this is mainly a provincial matter, the minister has confirmed that the federal government has some responsibilities under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. That is exactly what the Conservatives want to eliminate by attacking environmental impact assessments in their budget.
Does the government realize that it has a duty to protect the public from the harmful effects of shale gas?
The Environment
Oral Questions
2:55 p.m.
Peter Kent Minister of the Environment
Mr. Speaker, that is false, absolutely false.
I would remind my colleague that the primary responsibility for shale gas rests with the provinces and territories except, as he said, where it might be found on federal land. We are continuing to accumulate data and the latest scientific information on this legitimate resource practice. We will continue to work with the provinces and territories.
National Revenue
Oral Questions
3 p.m.
John Weston West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Mr. Speaker, our government is committed to the fair and equitable tax treatment of all Canadians. Our Minister of National Revenue has been working hard to ensure that Canadians are treated in a fair and respectful manner by CRA. It was this government that introduced the taxpayer bill of rights as well as the Office of the Taxpayers' Ombudsman to provide Canadians with a clear statement of their service rights and a venue to voice concerns.
I understand that the minister has recently become aware of some troubling videos that do not meet our high expectations of CRA staff. I would ask her to inform this House of the steps she has taken to address this.
National Revenue
Oral Questions
3 p.m.
Gail Shea Minister of National Revenue
Mr. Speaker, I was recently made aware of some very troubling videos that have been made using CRA resources. I find these videos totally disrespectful to Canadian taxpayers. This is certainly not how CRA officials are trained.
I have asked CRA senior management to investigate and take appropriate disciplinary measures immediately. I have also asked the Taxpayers' Ombudsman to review all CRA training videos and to ensure that they respect taxpayers' rights.
We demand professionalism from CRA employees and this type of behaviour is completely unacceptable.
Oral Questions
May 3rd, 2012 / 3 p.m.
Glenn Thibeault Sudbury, ON
Mr. Speaker, this week, the Minister of Finance said that government would not mandate the use of the banking ombudsman for dispute resolution. This goes against the clear best practices laid out by the World Bank and even G20 consumer protection finance principles that he signed. Instead, banks will be allowed to police themselves, leaving the ombudsman no choice but to close its doors. With this decision, the minister is creating a race to the bottom.
Why are the big banks being put ahead of consumers and small businesses? Will the minister reconsider his decision?
Oral Questions
3 p.m.
Jim Flaherty Minister of Finance
Mr. Speaker, it is the requirement now that all federally regulated financial institutions, the banks, have a dispute resolution process. We passed legislation with respect to that. All of the banks do have a dispute resolution process and we are formulating the regulations. As the government, we will make the rules and we expect the banks to follow.
Freedom of the Press
Oral Questions
3 p.m.
Jean-François Fortin Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
Mr. Speaker, May 3 is World Press Freedom Day. According to UNESCO, it is a day to alert the public and make people more aware of this cause. And so, I am sounding the alarm. A new code of conduct has been imposed on CBC, requiring journalists to support ministers in their accountability to Parliament and Canadians. If journalists fail to abide by this new code of conduct, they may be subject to disciplinary measures up to and including immediate dismissal. This reeks of totalitarianism.
How can the government justify the fact that it is secretly trying to make CBC the new Pravda? I am asking the government to allow CBC to maintain its independence. The government already has Sun TV News.


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Reviewed By Raymond T (FAIRFIELD, CA) Reviewed for a 2010 Toyota Highlander —3/18/2016 6:00 AM
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Reviewed By david t (Las Vegas, NV) Reviewed for a 2013 Toyota 4Runner —12/20/2015 12:17 PM
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Excellent product and high quality construction. Relatively low profile construction minimizes noise on the highway. The only issue I have had is that the tumbler in the locking mechanism is a little finicky and takes some effort.


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Neighborhood Clean Up 2014
UDM Law School's Community Service Committee held its kickoff service project—Neighborhood Cleanup Day on April 24 (photo gallery). More than 30 students, faculty, administrators and staff gathered to beautify the Law School's surrounding neighborhood.
Enthusiastic and hard-working volunteers picked up more than 30 bags of trash and debris and the difference was notable. Professor Julia Belian commented, "Watching the whole neighborhood of UDM Law pitch in to clean up our little slice of the earth was great. Even better was the sense of ownership it developed. I kept hearing students say things like, just wait until the next time I see someone throw a cigarette butt in this courtyard!"
Even though it is a busy time of the year at the Law School, volunteers came out in force to make a difference, give back and serve our community. Following the cleanup, volunteers were treated to a wonderful cookout to recognize their service. Students were also entered into a drawing to win a private study room at the clinic during finals.
This was the first of many service projects planned by the Community Service Committee. Future projects include a service day with the Belle Isle Conservatory, hosting a cookout for local veterans, packing art kits for Detroit youth, clearing vacant lots in Detroit and hosting a holiday party at a Detroit elementary school.


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By MIKE SAWYERBirmingham, Ala.
As a young mayor in Alabama back in 1987, I attempted to enforce an 1896 state law that prohibited the sale of tobacco to minors. The only supporting religious letter I got wasn't from a local Southern Baptist member, but from a dear Mormon Church couple that lived a 100 miles away.
While continuing to promote health, I firmly believe that our bureaucrats, politicians, and nonprofit health professionals will never equal what the Mormon Church of Utah has done by protecting their members from the "dead end" destiny of Tobacco Road.
An Internet search with "Utah and tobacco" yields the most "tobacco-less" state.
A Mormon president may be stronger medicine than previous non-Mormon presidents to reduce the painful 450,000 tobacco caused American deaths per year.
I've never entered the door of a Mormon church with my Master of Divinity degree.


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PRICE-David Wayne Ceal, age 52, passed away peacefully on June 10, 2011 at his home while surrounded by his loving family.
He was born Nov. 8, 1958 in Price, Utah to George Henry and Dora May Gragg Ceal.
Dave was a lifelong resident of Carbon County where he was a Clamper for many years. He worked for many years as a dedicated warehouse manager for Kraync and Community Motors prior to his illness. He loved working with his hands and his passion was for fast cars. He enjoyed bowling, golfing and shootin' pool.
Survived by sisters, Lenore (James) Pendleton, Patsy Pilling and Scott Manchester; sister-in-law, Rosetta Ceal, special caregiver, Kathy Pendleton; all of Price; and many loving nieces and nephews.
Preceded in death by his parents, brothers Samuel and James Ceal.
Graveside service, Wednesday, June 15, 2011, 11 a.m., Cliffview Cemetery.
Arrangements entrusted to Mitchell Funeral Home where friends are welcome to share memories of Dave at www.mitchellfuneralhome.net.


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Hinkley Lighting is driven by a passion to create lighting fixtures that help customers achieve the very best vision of their home and style. Hinkley Lighting began in 1922 as a small family lighting company and has developed into one of the most well respected designers and manufacturers of high-quality lighting fixtures in the world. Hinkley Lighting continues to focus on strengthening the values upon which its reputation has been founded for its almost 90-year history: quality, variety, design, craftsmanship and superior materials.
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U.S. Forest Service Wants You to Get in Where You Fit In!
Every fall, nature puts on a dazzling show across America's great outdoors for all of us to see.
Whether you're an adventurist or someone who just likes a good road trip, national forests are the places to be this time of year. Read more »


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The Bike Athletic Company opened its doors in 1847 under the name the Bike Web Company with the original athletic supporter designs. These designs were created to give support to bicycle jockeys who had to navigate the heavily cobbled streets of
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Bike Underwear Quality
For 130 years, Bike underwear products have been enhancing athletic performance on fields and courts because of their dedication to innovation and leading-edge design. Professional athletes and weekend warriors alike have learned to trust the Bike underwear to offer only the greatest quality products. Every product is extensively tested and recommended by professionals. Bike underwear is offered in many collections, including:
Bike underwear is one of the top 50 brands for sports, according to Sporting Goods Business. The brand is trusted by athletes and coaches alike. With a reputation for producing excellent products that has been developed over more than a century, Bike revels in its reputation as foremost supplier of athletic protection for men.
Bike at Freshpair
We carry numerous selections of Bike Underwear including their Active Support and Performance Elite lines. We also carry a large selection of Big & Tall offerings from Bike Underwear. Here at Freshpair, we see Bike as an essential brand for athletic men seeking protection for their assets. Look through our large collection of Bike Underwear and don't forget we offer free shipping!
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