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Has any one tried this http://www.hot-racing.com/index.cgi?...TE12GX01;c=430 looks like it would work well.
I just bought my second one. This tranny is highly recommended.
My Black & Blue Rally is faster than your color...
I am using that gearbox and I really like it.
Sl4sh MM2
T-Maxx 3.3
Summit 1/10
Sl2sh VXL
I just got my first one in today. I've always wanted to try one. Since I was working on a new build I went for it. Many good reviews. I can't wait to install the innards and put it to use.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S III ~ using Xparent Green Tapatalk 2
Weak Revenge
Strong Forgive
Intelligent Ignore
Has any one tried it with the flm sealed diff?
I have this tranny in one of my Slash's and the proline tranny in the other. And I prefer the Hot racing tranny, runs about 15 degrees cooler. It has held up just fine for over 3 months now.
I have not tried the FLM sealed differental ...... I run a Castle SV2 5700kv with 18/90 gears and stock Traxxas diff and a aluminum idler. Battery power is 2s @5000 mah and on occasion 3s.
Untill proline has a better gear selection I will stay with the hot racing tranny for race track use......
"enjoy your ride"
My Black & Blue Rally is faster than your color...
Buy it from Swami-rc. I prefer their wheelie bars and recommend them.
I prefer the FLM diff because it is sealed with rubber gaskets and has held in my 30k fluid during the race season. So, it's tunable with different weight fluids. I started with 5,000 and ended up with 30,000 as optimal on my track.
I think the perfect setup is: FLM transmission case, swami wheelie bar, and a stock diff filled with Bad Horsie diff grease. Cool temps and great hookup. I've used this setup for a few years with good results.
My Black & Blue Rally is faster than your color...
Very nice for the price. You will not get as much cooling as a full alum box, but more cooling than the stocker. I give it 1.9 thumbs up.
Ya can't polish fertilizer...
If your going to be racing I would go with the Proline tranny or use stock gear case with the new MIP diff coming out and the STRC topshaft so you can use B4.1 slipper setup. If your just bashing the the Hot Racing tranny case would be ok.
It is thicker than lithium grease we usually put in the diff case so it doesn't heat up and leak out. I think it gives the truck better wheelies and more traction.
My Black & Blue Rally is faster than your color...
That makes sense, the grease being thicker allowing less differential slippage and then both rear wheels hooking up more equally with straighter starts under fast acceleration.
I do have a spair stock Traxxas diff and will give that a test today if my LHS has some of that "Bad Horsie diff grease". If they don't have it I guess it will be a on line search.
Thanks again......
"enjoy your ride"
I purchased 3 little tubs months ago and have yet to use it. I keep forgetting its in my RC parts stash. LOL Prolly on one of my next orders i'll buy a spare diff and slap some of this in there. It's some ewie gewie stuff.
Bad Horsie Diff Locking Grease
Weak Revenge
Strong Forgive
Intelligent Ignore
It sounds like this stuff is very thick like wheel bearing grease. Being that thick, does it cause motor temps to increase as well? Or is it not a big concern?
And thanks for the link....
Last edited by orca44; 10-03-2012 at 02:29 PM.
"enjoy your ride"
It's thicker than wheel bearing grease and seems more resistant to heat so it doesn't spin out of the cracks in the differential. I should buy stock in the company. Lol
My Black & Blue Rally is faster than your color...
LHS does not have in stock so had to order on line and have it by Friday.....
We race Friday night on a clay indoor track.... I may get lucky and get it Thursday and if so I will be able to practice on the track Thursday afternoon......
A little pricey for .5 oz, but enough to do about 3-4 diffs.
"enjoy your ride"
Yes that makes me feel much better.... At least free shipping and no sales tax.
"enjoy your ride"
Looks nice, a few questions:
* Does it change the stock toe it?
* Does if allow you to do adjust anti-dive? And what is the stock anti-dive angle it comes with?
* The motor looks exposed, can you fit a wheelie bar bracket onto it?
* How does it compare weight wise with the stock plastic tranny case?
* It does not change the stock toe in
* Don't know the answere to anti-dive
* I have the RPM wheelie bar and motor protector on mine
* The only added weight is the metal motor mounting plate which can't be more than a gram or two. I didn't weigh mine.
But the metal plate with heat sinks droped motor 10 to 15 degrees.
My motor temps use to be at 160 degrees and now run at 145 to 150.
"enjoy your ride"
Cool, many thanks.
In terms on the anti dive, are the a-arm mounts totally separate from the tranny? A pic of how it attaches would be nice This tranny case is looking VERY tempting for racing.
I'll email to Hot Racing anyway to see if they can answer the anti-dive quesrtion.
Thanks again
Yes the A-arm mounts are seperate from the tranny and are bolted up from underneath the case.
Anti-dive is the forces of inertia and mechanical resistance that the brakes create thru the front suspension. On most chassis, the lower control arms are level front to back. The uppers usually have about 2 degrees of angle front to back, higher in the front. This is called anti-dive, because thru the braking force on the front suspension, the chassis will resist dive (weight transfer to the front).
Weak Revenge
Strong Forgive
Intelligent Ignore
Perfect! Thanks Ordering one now
Last edited by cunawarit; 10-09-2012 at 02:01 PM.
Last edited by O.G.; 10-09-2012 at 05:40 PM.
My Black & Blue Rally is faster than your color...
Thank you very much for the anti-dive information.....really...I did not know.
The Bad Horsie grease I ordered didn't get shipped untill yesterday.... Hope to get it by tomorrow so that I may put it to use on Thursday, my pratice day at the race track.
"enjoy your ride"
Thanks for the pics and info. Might need to order one.
Slash 4x4
Stampede 4x4
Stampede 2WD
Is that an rpm motor mount with an rpm bumper?
My Black & Blue Rally is faster than your color...
I have some close-up shots of the HR tranny install and arm mounts on my OG basher build. I used mine with the STRC lcg rustler chassis kit.
My Black & Blue Rally is faster than your color...
I had to get another long spacer and screw also....
Which differantial did you use in the Hot Racing tranny case? And will you have a gear cover that nice looking clutch and who makes it?
Yours looks so nice and clean...almost hate to see ya get it dirty.......Not!!!
Last edited by orca44; 10-11-2012 at 07:33 PM.
"enjoy your ride"
Is that a Hot racing clutch?
What brand of shocks are thoes and springs?
Last edited by orca44; 10-12-2012 at 11:12 AM. Reason: added content
"enjoy your ride"
It is ment for the stock mount...
I sourced my spacer from a electronic supply house. I used circuit board stand off's. They come in aluminum or plastic and are hollow in the middle, mine will use a 3 mm screw and just cut to length.
"enjoy your ride"
I know this is an old post, but do the gear cover fit on these transmission cases? I see a lot of pictures with aftermarket transmission cases, but no gear covers. I would like to install my RPM cover on it.
1/10 Rustler VXL
I have a RPM gear cover on mine with a 90t spur and seals up with no issues.
"enjoy your ride"
Awesome! Thanks for the info. Going to pick one up. You guys think there is a huge difference between this and the FLM ones? I can see the price difference, but not sure if its worth dropping that much money if this one does a similar job in cooling the motor.
1/10 Rustler VXL
My motor temps droped almost 15 degrees, motor temps now stay in the 130 degree range and use to be close to 160.
I have a Castle SV2 with a 5700 kv motor and run 2s 955 of the time.
"enjoy your ride"
Thanks for the info. Will be purchasing the case for sure.
1/10 Rustler VXL


text:
Key advisers to President Obama and Republican Mitt Romney have been meeting with Harvard University students today before a forum tonight where they will talk publicly about the recently completed general election campaign.
David Axelrod and Jim Messina, the top figures in Obama's winning reelection campaign, and Stuart Stevens and Eric Fehrnstrom, two senior advisers in Romney's losing campaign, were set to speak for about 90 minutes in a forum moderated by David Gregory, host of the NBC News program "Meet the Press."
The forum, being held at the Kennedy School's Institute of Politics, is titled, "War Stories: Inside Campaign 2012."
The IOP has held such a forum every four years since 1972. During the day, sessions are open to students and reporters, but they cannot be reported about until a formal transcript is released - often months later.
The evening forum has traditionally been open for immediate news coverage.
In one of the sessions after the 2000 election, Bush adviser Karl Rove admitted that the staff for Democratic candidate Al Gore did a better job during the campaign generating local news coverage.
"We have a special office in the White House who is supposed to duplicate the Gore campaign's local media coverage," Rove said at the time.
The conversations came the same day Romney traveled to the White House for a private lunch with Obama in the president's private dining room, just steps from the Oval Office. Romney left after more than an hourlong meeting, and the president's staff later released a photo of the two men shaking hands in the Oval Office.
The two dined on turkey chili - the same meal Romney served up at his June 2, 2011, campaign kickoff - and Southwestern grilled chicken salad.
"Governor Romney congratulated the president for the success of his campaign and wished him well over the coming four years," the White House statement said. "The focus of their discussion was on America's leadership in the world and the importance of maintaining that leadership position in the future. They pledged to stay in touch, particularly if opportunities to work together on shared interests arise in the future."
The forum also came the day after Stevens offered his own take on the election in an op-ed column for The Washington Post.
"I appreciate that Mitt Romney was never a favorite of D.C.'s green-room crowd or, frankly, of many politicians," Stevens wrote. "That's why, a year ago, so few of those people thought that he would win the Republican nomination. But that was indicative not of any failing of Romney's but of how out of touch so many were in Washington and in the professional political class. Nobody liked Romney except voters. What began in a small field in New Hampshire grew into a national movement. It wasn't our campaign, it was Romney. He bested the competition in debates, and though he was behind almost every candidate in the GOP primary at one time or the other, he won the nomination and came very close to winning the presidency."Glen Johnson can be reached at email@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.

subset: commoncrawl


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Discussion in 'The Howard Stern Show' started by SiriusDawg, Dec 13, 2012.
Unions killed HOSTESS, oh wait...they didn't
George W Bush did
Video killed the radio star...
You have to give it up to Roger Ailes. How he got half of America's working class to turn against organized labor, I'll never understand.
God, gays and guns for starters....
alert: op is liberal libtard who believes the lying lamestream liberal media
the libby liberals stole christmas so we can't have ho ho's.
gov christy vows to bring back ho hos for america!


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SONOMA, Calif. – The post-race party was a blur after Martin Truex Jr.'s first win in 2007. The celebratory cool-down lap, the burnouts, the drive to Victory Lane all happened so fast.
So he planned to savor every minute of his next win.
He just didn't think it would take 6 years.
Truex snapped a 218-race winless streak Sunday with an easy victory on the road course at Sonoma Raceway. It was only the second win of Truex's career, but it put Michael Waltrip Racing in Victory Lane for the second year in a row after Clint Bowyer won here last season.
"I was a freaking mess. It was terrible," Truex said. "I had to stop and start doing donuts because I couldn't think about what I was doing. I tried to key the radio once, and I couldn't even talk."
Truex blew out his rear tires, tried to wave to every single fan he saw, and took a slow drive around the picturesque road course on his way to Victory Lane, where the MWR crew was waiting to drink from the winner's enormous wine glass.
"I told them on the radio, if they're waiting on me, too bad. I'm taking my time," he said. "You can't explain the feeling. When it's been that long and you worked so hard and you've been so close ... when you think at times, 'Man, is this ever going to happen again?' You can't explain the feeling. It's pretty surreal."
Truex worked his way to the front and used strategy to stay with the leaders. He then pulled away after the final restart and built a healthy lead of more than 6 seconds over Juan Pablo Montoya, who was running second until he ran out of gas on the final lap.
Montoya, who came into the weekend knowing if he didn't win he would at least have a huge points day, dropped all the way to 34th after having to coast to the finish. He took a shortcut to skip the final turn, drifted to the finish line and parked. He then walked back to the garage, annoyed his Chip Ganassi Racing team never told him to save fuel.
"We've got tools to prevent things like that from happening," Montoya said.
Jeff Gordon finished second a week after he was wrecked six laps into the race at Michigan, but felt like he might have had a chance to win if he had not already committed to pit seconds before a caution came out early in the race.
"I mean, I really do think we had a shot winning this race. We had a tremendous car," Gordon said. "I knew we were screwed. There was nothing I could do; I was hard on the brakes, fully committed. I couldn't turn away from it, I just knew we had to eat it and go on, and that's what we did."
The race got off to an inauspicious start before it even began with a pit road accident, a mechanical issue for Jacques Villeneuve and an oil line failure for Bobby Labonte.
The accident occurred as the cars were headed onto the track and David Reutimann stopped his car on pit road. Alex Kennedy stopped behind Reutimann, and Paulie Harraka slammed into the back of Kennedy.
The damage wasn't significant enough to prevent Harraka from making his Sprint Cup Series debut. But it was a short-lived race for the first driver to advance from NASCAR's diversity program into a Cup race – Harraka spun and crashed his car six laps later.
Meanwhile, a parts failure caused Labonte to dump oil all over pit road before the race and he was forced to take his car to the garage for a quick repair. Labonte made it onto the track for the green flag, but his engine failed on the first lap.
"It blew up, dude," Labonte said on his radio. "Something in the bottom engine because it had no oil pressure."


text:
Peep Squeal Buzz
You really do bring them home in a box, like they're dinner. I have 41 chickens in my basement right now. More photos of them later.
Our fair city gives away compost every year. They charge $10 if you want them to dump a big scoop in the back of your truck. I'd say that's a good deal.
The two glowing orbs were a surprise. I'm not sure if I'll be able to use them in the garden beds. Also, you should have seen my bathtub that night. It looked like I had unloaded the entire contents of the truck into it.
My boys worked really hard tearing apart the remaining bits of our shed that was blown to bits.
Boys and hammers, they go together like pie and ice cream.
They took out all the nails and reused them to build.......
this lovely raised bed. I have to tell you, it drives the Architect crazy not to use pretty wood that's perfectly straight, but repurposing what we have is FREE and since we are the cheapest people in the world right now we find ourselves saying, "that'll do" quite a bit.
We bought two beehives this year. Preacher was fascinated by them and has already been stung a couple of times because he tries to catch them as they fly out of the hive. Silly dog. This is the hive that we put by the orchard.
We have one very active hive and one hive that we are certain all the bees are dead. We'll buy a new queen and try to split the good hive. I say that like I know what I'm doing, but in fact this is all new to us. We'll be attending a bee conference this week to learn as much as we can about bees and honey. This is the active hive, we put it back by Ramone's old vehicles in hopes that our honey will have a nice rusty flavor. Do I have to say I'm kidding for you city folk? Okay, I'm kidding, we put it back there so the cows wouldn't be lonely.
Our pond has filled up nicely. Maybe we should get ducks. Do you think ducks would like a mud hold the size of a jacuzzi? No? Well, Preacher loves it.
Preacher also love the pigs. He thinks we got them just for him. Today, he got in their pen, lined up an ate a meal with them. It was weird, our dog thinks he's a pig.
Isaac, my 7yo, took these photos.
He was trying to make it look like he had a giant hand reaching out to touch the pigs. He's a very goofy little boy, or did you already guess that?


text:
Gold Medal 1203 Shav-A-Doo Sno Cone Ice Machine
by Gold Medal | Item #: 164447 | Model #: 1203 |
Financing available! Click here.
- $ 476 00 476.00
10% non-member fee may apply.Join now!
- Shipping
- Enter ZIP Code for shipping options
- Estimate arrival
Delivery estimates, taxes, and fees are based on ZIP Code. Club Pickup orders are based on your club's current price and item availability on the day of payment.
About this item
- 1/4 hp motor
- 6.1 amps
- Partial door
- Removable sno pan
The new Shav-A-Doo has an attractive blue and silver heavy duty cabinet. Its removable sno pan helps with easy cleanup. The momentary switch is an added safety feature: the machine will not run unless you push in on this button while pushing down on the pusher handle. This product is UL and UL Sanitation listed.
- Easy to operate
- Momentary switch is an added safety feature
- Attractive blue and silver heavy duty cabinet
- Removable sno pan makes cleaning easy
- Drain hose
- Partial door
- Sno dipper included
- 2-300 pounds of ice an hour
- UL and UL Sanitation listed
- 1/4 hp motor
- 60Hz
- 6.1 amps
- 15 amp plug - 5' long
Assembled Country
Assembled Size
Component Country
USA And Imported


text:
Planning and Permitting Resources for Renewable Energy Systems
Background Information
In 2011, the Legislature increased California's Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) from 20 percent by 2010 to 33 percent by 2020. The law expands the RPS to include all electricity load-serving entities in the state. In addition, Governor Brown's Clean Energy Jobs Plan calls for an increase of in-state renewable generating capacity by 20,000 megawatts (MW) by 2020. This goal includes 12,000 MW of energy located "on-site" or close to where energy is consumed (20 MW and smaller) and 8,000 MW of large-scale renewable energy capacity.
These new goals will significantly increase renewable energy project development of all sizes throughout the state, most will require involvement of local land use authorities. In addition to the Energy Commission's Local Government Assistance effort, the Energy Commission is providing web-based tools to help ease incorporating renewable energy into the planning process and streamline permitting of renewable energy projects. These tools include:
- Planning Assistance - Tools, documents, and practices that can assist local jurisdictions plan for renewable energy development,
- Permitting Assistance - Tools, documents, and practices that compliment local agencies' permitting expertise and can assist local jurisdictions to appropriately reduce the time and cost of issuing and obtaining permits for renewable energy development.
- Outreach and Information Gathering - A forum informing state agencies of local governments' needs to accelerate renewable energy development.
- Feedback - Contact Energy Commission staff at firstname.lastname@example.com to add or update any information or notifications contained within this page.
The Energy Commission will use the Integrated Energy Policy Report (IEPR) as a forum to discuss issues that affect the planning and permitting of renewable energy projects, and the possible solutions to these issues.


text:
Now the story of a girl who didn't want others to feel alone in their struggle with an abnormal curve in their spine.
"I was diagnosed with scoliosis and I felt really alone," said Julia Dayton. "And I knew that there were other people out there who had it. So I wanted to get together with them so I formed this, and we meet here once a month."
Dayton started the Curvy Girls support group several years ago for girls like her with scoliosis.
One local spine surgeon said almost nine out of ten scoliosis patients are young women like Julia. He said these types of support groups are great for young people dealing with a medical issue.
"The typical teenager looks at their parents and says, 'Mom, Dad, you don't know what it's like,'" said Dr. Fred Sweet from the Rockford Spine Center. "And so having the support groups where there are other kids having the same thing is really emotionally helpful to help them get through it. Give them advice."
If you want to become involved with he Curvy Girls Scoliosis Support Group (Northern Illinois Chapter), visit their website at www.CurvyGirlsScoliosis.com


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He has been part of Manchester United since the age of 14, after Sir Alex Ferguson personally turned up at his house to offer him a chance to be part of Manchester United.
It was his performance in a game against United's under-15s that alerted Ferguson. Giggs netted a hat-trick, with Fergie watching on.
He was offered a schoolboy contract and told he would have the chance to turn professional three years later at the age of 17.
And on his 17th birthday, 29 November 1990, he was presented with a such a contract, which saw him turn pro two days later.
It turned out to be one of the most important decisions the manager has made in his time at Old Trafford. Giggs made his way through the United ranks rapidly and broke into the first team while he was still 17.
Although he was not a regular feature at this point, he got his hands on his first piece of silverware in 1992, winning the League Cup. It was the 1992/93 season that saw Giggs cement his first-team place out on his favoured left wing. Ferguson protected him during his early years, to such an extent that he was not allowed to be interviewed until he had reached 20.
With the likes of Eric Cantona and Mark Hughes upfront, Giggs was proving himself to be a big part as United began to dominate the early Premier League years. Mesmerising runs and brilliant control had defences running scared as a resurgent Manchester United ran riot. With a strong side and great manager around him, he could only improve, and improve he did.
For many, their outstanding memory of Giggs will see him remembered for that sublime goal against Arsenal in the FA Cup semi-final replay at Villa Park in 1999. Making one of the best defences around at the time look like kids playing in the park, Giggs beat them all before getting into the box and lashing his shot into the roof of David Seamen's net. Probably the best goal of his career and arguably the greatest FA Cup goal ever scored.
And at the age of 39, Giggs showed he still has much to offer United as he struck in Sunday's 2-0 win against Everton, another Premier League goal, meaning he continues an outstanding record of scoring in every season since its creation in 1992, a record that only he can claim to hold, summing up his fantastic and glittering career perfectly. He is already the most decorated Premier League player of all time, and his services to football have been noted by the Queen with his OBE.
Despite the fact he turns 40 this year, it is little wonder Sir Alex continues to give him the chance to stay at the club each year. His experience is invaluable, and with a new generation of youngsters waiting in the wings at Old Trafford, Giggs is a perfect example of what can be achieved at the Theatre of Dreams.
DISCLAIMER: This article has been written by a member of the GiveMeFootball Writing Academy and does not represent the views of GiveMeFootball.com or SportsNewMedia. The views and opinions expressed are solely that of the author credited at the top of this article. GiveMeFootball.com and SportsNewMedia do not take any responsibility for the content of its contributors.
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text:
I'm planning to get a massage from a local therapist that advertises massage for men. He is openly gay in his advertisements and lists erotic massage under his options. I've only had one massage before, so I'm not really sure what to expect. If I ask for an erotic massage is that expected to include a HJ, BJ, or other sexual contact. (That would be great, as I don't really have a regular sexual outlet).
Also what is tipping protol? (I'm in the USA) Are you expected to tip above his posted rates? If there is sexual activity do you add a tip, or is that an expected part of the package?
Thanks for your advice.


text:
ROCKFORD (WIFR) -- Most college students thirst knowledge but one thing they usually don't teach you in the college classroom is that what you do online can come back to haunt you.
Philadelphia based attorney C.L. Lindsay travels the country talking to students about how to stay out of trouble when you go online. Monday night Lindsay was at Rockford College covering such issues as Facebook rights, online privacy, plagiarism and cyber bullying. And Lindsay tells us the single best piece advice he gives at these classes is simply put don't be stupid.
"Which means if you wouldn't do it off-line, don't do it online. 99.99% of the time that's going to keep you out of trouble. So the big example is if you wouldn't print out a picture or a poster of you doing something illegal all over campus, don't put it up on line because it's going to have almost the same effect," Lindsay said.
Lindsay says people think they have a lot more right to privacy than they actually do. So if you are at work don't ever send messages even in an e-mail that you wouldn't want your employer to see.


text:
February 28-29, 2012: Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS
March 1, 2012
The 45th Presidential Advisory Council Meeting was held at the Eisenhower Executive Office building February 28th and 29th. This Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) meeting had a special focus on the impact of HIV/AIDS on women and girls, bringing in experts in the field to testify on the ever growing importance of addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic's impact women. The experts who testified included Gail Wyatt, Gina Brown, Sharon Hillier, Carmen Zorrilla, Dazon Dixon Diallo, Mardge Cohen, Laurie Dill, Linda Scruggs, and C. Virginia Fields. The presenters's topics addressed research, prevention, and policy changes, and greater inclusion of women in the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS).
Wyatt, a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at the University of California Los Angeles, discussed the disparities that exist for women living with trauma and HIV. Issues of trauma and HIV are often separated in the health care field but for many women living with HIV they are strongly correlated. HIV positive women are 2.5 times more likely to report abuse. For African American women, Wyatt suggested there were several facilitators of disparities, including: a lack of mental health services, a societal history that has normalized violence, environmental and social influences, and the media. Wyatt emphasized the need for more comprehensive health care that includes mental health screening in addition to physical exams.
Brown, the Microbicides Research Coordinator at the National Institutes of Health, reviewed the importance in doing research specifically on women living with HIV and men. It is often assumed that research done on men will be replicable for women but there are many factors that differentiate the lived experiences of women and men living with HIV including physiology, hormones, lifecycle, and adherence issues. It is critical that more research be done on women living with HIV/AIDS because many of our past breakthroughs in prevention have come from research, including our understanding of mother-to-child transmission. With clinical research, Brown suggests we can look further into socio-cultural influences, behavioral influences, or lifecycle influences to find ways to prevent infection or transmission.
Hillier, Director of Reproductive Infectious Disease Research at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, discussed the importance of researching new and innovative ways to prevent the spread of HIV infection. Currently, male condoms are one of the few barrier methods proven to reduce infection but many people don't enjoy using them and therefore there is low adherence. Female barriers, like diaphragms and female condoms, also have limiting factors. Diaphragms have not been proven to reduce transmission of HIV. Female condoms are more difficult to find, expensive, and there has yet to be trials demonstrating their effectiveness in HIV prevention. With trials currently taking place around PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) and microbicides, there is potential to find a prevention method that is more discreet, and gives women more autonomy.
Dixon Diallo, Founder and President of SisterLove, confirmed the need for more research when it comes to women's HIV prevention methods, specifically increasing what we know about combination HIV prevention methods. With research we have been able to expand combination HIV prevention methods to include education, medical male circumcision, social and structural change, condoms, and treatment as prevention. We will need to see structural changes to our prevention methods including integration in health care occur that make women's health a greater priority.
On prevention of prenatal transmission, Zorrilla, Professor at the School of Medicine at the University of Puerto Rico San Juan, illustrated the need to fill the gaps of prenatal testing. Women who start HAART sooner have safer pregnancies but currently only 60% of pregnant women are being tested for HIV compared to 95% of pregnant women who are being tested for Hepatitis B. We will need a comprehensive strategy to start getting more pregnant women tested to further prevent mother-to-child transmission.
Cohen, Senior Physician at John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital, stressed that the challenge moving forward will be to understand how women start, stay on, and respond to ART. We know women do worse when it comes to viral submission: women experience excess vulnerability, young women and adolescents have an increased susceptibility, and women generally have poor adherence. We also know that because of many of these factors, women have a larger burden of chronic diseases as they age including both AIDS and non-HIV related diseases. Cohen proposed that a women's health index or score card be created so women can understand more about their health and so providers can become more engaged. The policy implications could mean providing reimbursements for comprehensive care services and venues.
Dill, Medical Director at the Montgomery AIDS Outreach, Inc., addressed issues in the South and the barriers that many women face accessing care. She also provided evidence of programs that have been shown effective in Alabama. AIDS United's Access to Care Initiative has provided a match grant initiative through the Social Innovation Fund to Alabama eHealth that is used for telemedicine in order to help with rural access to care. This program provides high speed video for those unable to access providers in person. The program is just at the end of its first year and covers more than half of the counties in Alabama. This program shows the importance on innovation when it comes to combating the AIDS epidemic in the South, where care is not always accessible.
The final presenters also discussed what needs to change and what they believe PACHA should be advocating for in terms of women living with HIV. To overcome the barriers women with HIV have to face, Scruggs, Director of Programs at the AIDS Alliance for Children, Youth and Families, suggests we have to understand the landscape of women's HIV as an issue of rights, health, and dignity. Scruggs stated that we are at a defining moment to end AIDS and to end the health disparities suffered by women. But in this moment, women and girls have not found their voices in the epidemic, and that is why these testimonies are so important. Scruggs concluded that it is not too late to end AIDS, and now is the time for PACHA to take action.
Fields, President of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS, suggested that three action steps were necessary for women living with HIV/AIDS: First, we need to get more women living with HIV into care by providing housing, family services, transportation, and a continued investment in Ryan White Part D and Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA). Second, there needs to be a greater effort to retain women in care with the expansion of women's centered care and integration of prevention, treatment, sexual health care, and intimate partner care. And last, there needs to be greater government accountability and research for women's needs. Additionally, Fields provided three asks of PACHA. First, a resolution of Office of National AIDS Policy to commit to the above three actions. Second, a resolution of the Office of National AIDS Policy to commit to more specific goals such as care for family planning, rights of women and girls, and investment in care for those who experience partner violence. Third, a resolution with other federal agencies to consider the impacts the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will have on essential services for women living with HIV.
This article was provided by AIDS United. Visit AIDS United's website to find out more about their activities and publications.
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Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN – The Minnesota Twins announced tonight that they will recall right-handed pitcher Trevor May from Triple-A Rochester prior to tomorrow's game at Oakland. May is scheduled to start and will be making his major league debut vs. the Athletics. The 25-year-old made 17 starts for the Red Wings, going 8-6 with a 2.93 ERA (95.1 IP, 31 ER), 91 strikeouts and 37 walks to go with a 1.17 WHIP. May, who will wear uniform number 65, was acquired by the Twins along with Vance Worley from the Philadelphia Phillies in exchange for Ben Revere prior to the 2013 season. The Phillies originally drafted May in the fourth round of the 2008 First-Year Player Draft out of Kelso (Wash.) High School.
To make room for May on the 25-man roster, the Twins have optioned first baseman Chris Colabello to Triple-A Rochester. In two stints with Twins this season, Colabello has appeared in 59 games, hitting .229 (47-for-205) with 13 doubles, six home runs and 39 RBI.


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'Internal' has a broader meaning these days.
After insisting that the Detroit Tigers would seek internal options to replace their steadily-growing ranks of injured regulars, general manager Dave Dombrowski swung a minor deal with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Friday to get another shortstop option.
Dombrowski dealt left-handed pitcher Jose Alvarez to the Angels in exchange for shortstop Andrew Romine, who is expected to split time with either Danny Worth or Hernan Perez.
"We feel comfortable with this being a good solution for us, with the mix of guys that we have," Dombrowski told reporters Friday.
The combination will be attempting to replace starter Jose Iglesias, who is expected to miss most or all of the season with stress fractures in both shins.
The son of former Red Sox outfielder Kevin Romine and the brother of Yankees catcher Austin Romine, the Tigers' new shortstop is primarily a left-handed hitter now, after switch-hitting throughout his minor-league career.
It makes him an ideal platoon candidate to pair with either Worth or Perez, both of whom hit right-handed. For what it's worth, Romine was selected in the fifth round of the 2007 draft, three rounds after the Tigers took Worth.
The 2013 season was the first in which Romine got more than 100 plate appearances with the big-league club. He hit .259 with an OPS of .595 in 47 games — including 28 plate appearances as a right-handed hitter, after flirting with dropping switch-hitting in spring training.
Romine may also be able to run a little bit, as he put up 62 steals in 126 games at Class A Cedar Rapids in 2008, but has swiped no more than 26 in any minor-league season since, and has just three in 74 big-league games.
Alvarez made six starts for the Tigers last season, after coming to the organization on a minor-league deal the offseason before. He earned the organization's Minor League Pitcher of the Year award for posting an 8-6 record, 2.80 ERA and 115 strikeouts in 20 starts at Triple-A Toledo.
While the Tigers used just a MLB-low six starting pitchers last season — Alvarez was the only starter used outside the original five-man rotation — the Tigers made an offseason trade in part to bolster their starting depth in the high minors. Robbie Ray, the key player in the trade that sent Doug Fister to the Washington Nationals, combines with Drew VerHagen and Kyle Lobstein to give the organization enough of a comfort level to make Alvarez expendable.
Matthew B. Mowery covers the Tigers for Digital First Media. Read his "Out of Left Field" blog at opoutofleftfield.blogspot.com.


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Good luck to the aspiring musicians.
Not bad for a bunch of high school kids. Kind of a Perry Como meets Karen Carpenter vibe. They practice in my house with the windows open, so I'm definitely the most popular neighbor on the block.
EDIT: Track two now. Something about grenades.
Last edited by shakin318; 04-23-2013 at 10:09 AM.
Good luck to the aspiring musicians.
The are officially now my favorite alternative metal post-hardcore band!
Show em what you got, keeed! Good luck!
Oh oh oh! Can I tell my joke?
"Shakin jr? Release? I bet it's a gas, gas,gas!"
How'd I do?
Not too bad. Change to, sticks and stones quit breakin' my balls.
this thread needs more pics of shakin Jrs girlfriend.
Good tune. Like a cross between PK's First Communion song... and Psychedelic Bee.
Def. better than a bunch of soft surburban kids doing a Rap pantomime show into a mic whilst waving their pasty white hands in the air with their underwears halfway down their arses.
Love seeing kids dig instruments and showing the discipline to play them. Gives me hope for this world/shakins cane
Lot of anger. I like it
RUINS lead guitarist > Gary Moore.
Their rush released followup Answer Your Phone Mark c/w Caesars Says You Checked Out Yesterday on the Oakum label is topping the local charts
Last edited by Jungle Shift Jet; 04-20-2013 at 09:57 PM.
Before I lay down scratch for the tune, Id like a copy of the lyrics so as we can have a sing along.


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About Alan
I buy lots of CDs -- 700 to 800 at last count -- and go to lots of live music events (usually three or four a month. Unfortunately, I am now hard of hearing and have difficulty making out the words. I depend on lyrics sites to enable me to fully enjoy the music I have purchased, and this often leads to me buying even more.
Does the music industry really want to discourage customers like me?
The primary difficulty is obtaining the high-grade fissile material. Once you have that, the rest is (relatively) easy.
The second difficulty is casting and machining the stuff without killing ourself in the process. If you are lucky, you will die (relatively) quickly (hours to days). If not, you will linger (in a most unpleasant manner) for much longer.
There are many other engineering and logistical hurdles, but nothing a rogue government, bent on having such a weapon, couldn't handle. Any organization smaller than a government would be hard-pressed to find the resources.
out_of_the_blue: Since you obviously don't like this site or the subjects covered, why on earth do you even bother to read it, let alone post comments? Just go find a site that caters to your wants and desires. You will be much happier.
I agree that your examples would fool a large percentage of the population. However, the percentage of phishes I receive with such good headers is in the single digits.
My modest proposal is for email reading programs to alert users when an email's "From:" address does not match the sending domain. Needless to say, there are many cases where this is perfectly normal, so you would need a way to whitelist certain senders/domain combinations.
Good grief, doesn't anyone know how to read headers these days? When you get an email that claims to be from BankOfNebraska, did it actually come from a server at bankofnebraska.com? If it actually came from dsl3241.users.orlando.shadyisp.com, that should tell anyone with half a brain that it is a scam.


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Sponsored By
Exclusive: Video Shows BMW Smashing Into Gas StationStephanie DeMarco says she is still stunned that no one was seriously injured when a BMW smashed through the glass of a Hess gas station convenience store last Thursday on the 79th Street Causeway. Surveillance tape obtained exclusively by CBS4's Peter D'Oench shows some frightening images from the morning of January 3rd.
Car Slams Into North Bay Village Gas StationTwo North Bay Village residents who were inside a Hess gas station convenience store when a car crashed into are saying it was a "terrifying experience" and they'll never forget "people screaming."


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TRENTON — Next week, New Jersey starts the murder trial of an arsonist accused of killing his brother in a 2007 Trenton firebombing, but the defendant likely won't be there.
At the end of a pretrial hearing Monday, defendant Tormu Prall talked about his predicament and his feelings toward Smithson.
"You're railroading me," he said to Judge Andrew Smithson. "You're ruling in favor of the prosecution...You expect me to think you're impartial. You're a fake."
Prall said he will not attend his trial and "my absence is not voluntary," because of the judge's ruling on the evidence at the hearing. Prall has refused to appear at various other court proceedings in the past, and previously said he was a "conscientious objector" and not subject to prosecution on religious grounds.
While on the stand at the hearing, Prall also said he had been sodomized while being transported from Connecticut, where he was originally arrested, to New Jersey in October 2008. He also said he was told by police that "My living situation would be hell" if he did not talk to police.
Prall has been accused of murder, attempted murder and arson related to the September 2007 firebombing of the Wayne Avenue home in Trenton of his brother, John Prall. Tormu Prall's girlfriend was also severely injured in the fire, which occurred the day after an argument between the siblings.
Monday afternoon the judge also shot back, saying Prall should raise his concerns with his lawyer, Michael Dawson. Smithson also said that if Prall does not attend, it sends a negative message to the jury.
"I'm not here to debate this with you," he said "You'll have to talk with Mr. (Michael) Dawson."
Dawson said of his client, "I thought we were on the same page."
Smithson ruled in favor of the prosecution at the hearing, allowing them to submit a series of photographs taken of Prall's hands after he was interviewed by police in October 2008 after his arrest on the murder warrant.
The dispute between the prosecution and the defense went down to whether or not the photos were tainted because of their involvement with an interview of Trenton Det. Edgar Rios and another that has been suppressed from the courtroom.
Rios testified that he saw burns on Prall's hands while helping him remove his hands from his corrections jumpsuit and while moving a handcuff from one wrist to the other, and not during the interview.
"The skin was scrunched up as though they (the hands) were badly burned," he said. "Not as though it had just touched a fire but that his skin was burned."
Lew Korngut, the attorney prosecuting the case, said the photos, and testimony from a burn expert the prosecution may use, should be admitted. Smithson agreed.
Dawson said he wanted to appeal the ruling and asked to stop the trial until he could, but Smithson declined and said Dawson would have until at least jury selection on Monday to file the appeal.
The interview had to be dropped because of another part of Prall's criminal history; he had been indicted after a 2008 apartment fire in Massachusetts. Dawson said New Jersey law prohibited the officers from interviewing Prall without his attorney present because of the indictment, and that tainted the photos as well.


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This brings back memories of when we picketed our COBOL professor christmas party with signs of:
"COBOL raises taxes"
we couldn't have been more right
I wonder if the guy who maintains the COBOL is sitting in an SF jail right now - he'll only tell the Mayor what the name of the right functions are..
They need to update to more advanced frameworks. Like COBOL on Cogs.
> They need to update to more advanced frameworks. Like COBOL on Cogs.
How about Mono on Monorails?
Haskell on Handrails?
BASIC on Beams?
Python on Pillars?
C++ on Conveyors?
GRASS on Girders?
Scheme on Scaffolding?
Lisp on Lintels?
REBOL on Rebar?
Assembly on
Python on a Plane
No, the problem is that someone put a T-800 series Terminator in charge of California!
All the state's COBOL programmers have to work around the clock just to keep that early-80's piece of shit working.
no - the problem is that no one wants to be paid minimum wage to program COBOL
No, the problem is CompSci snobbery and VERY poor textbooks that went thru all sorts of contortions to be GOTO-less.
COBOL-74 had excellent capabilities for creating very structured, COBOL-85 even more. And "88" variables are just wonderful for decomplicating hairy IF statements.
I don't think the problem is in finding programmers who know COBOL. COBOL doesn't take that long to learn, and any decent programmer can pick it up, even those willing to put up with minimum wage.
The problem is most likely in understanding and coping with a huge and antiquated accounting system, which is probably poorly documented and commented, and which has had tweaks and mods jammed in every year to cope with updated financial and legal requirements.
Having used both FORTRAN 66 (it didn't get decapitalized until Fortran 77) and COBOL 77 extensively, they're very roughly equal in structure. COBOL had the PERFORM verb, in all its various forms, and the paragraph system, which introduced some structure to the language. FORTRAN had functions.
The most frustrating thing I found about COBOL was the inability to use functions in any real sense. There were analogs to FORTRAN subroutines (ENTER "FOO" USING BAR, BAZ.", if I remember the syntax correctly), but not functions. There was absolutely no way to take some common operation and wrap it in a function.
Nor do I understand what you mean about the textbooks. COBOL 77 can be written with very, very few GOTOs, in very specific locations. You need them, technically, when using the SORT verb and either feeding data into the sort or taking it out in the program itself (not using USING and GIVING to sort files directly). Using them only in that case was the best way to write COBOL 77. There were no contortions.
Nor were "88" variables wonderful unless you were trying to do exactly what they were good at. They allowed you to name one conditional name to represent possible values of one variable. In any reasonable language, you'd do it with a function, but not in COBOL 77.
I'm not familiar with COBOL 85, having managed to escape from COBOL programming without encountering it. I'm happy to say I've been COBOL free since 1997. I was having a distinct feeling that, once having used the COBOL side, forever would it dominate my destiny.
Now, here's a question: how old are some of those programs? Do you have any reason to believe that they all were written in good COBOL 77 or later? If, as somebody claimed, some of those date back to Vietnam war days, those were in an earlier version of COBOL, one even crappier than 77.
Now, there are reasons why I'd touch COBOL again. Duress. Kidnapping my son or wife and holding them hostage for some COBOL work. Extremely large sums of money. A drink from the Fountain of Youth. That sort of thing. I wouldn't do it for minimum wage. I'd rather flip burgers.
For those of you youngsters who've heard of COBOL or glanced at it, and think you hate COBOL, think again. You can't possibly hate it like I do. You can't really hate something you don't know intimately.
The problem is that the government only sees the option to pay dozens of old programmers to manipulate the COBOL code instead of paying one hacker for a day to write a Perl script to hard wire all the salary data in the database to minimum wage.
If that politician can't think of a creative solution to a problem instead of proposing that it would take a year and a quarter to do something simple, he should step aside.
Instead, though, we're going to line up in droves to put people just like him in charge of our health care.
The problem is that the government only sees the option to pay dozens of old programmers to manipulate the COBOL code instead of paying one hacker for a day to write a Perl script to hard wire all the salary data in the database to minimum wage.
It's probably not that simple. In fact, it is likely that the COBOL payroll system is using flat files on the mainframe or else some old proprietary mainframe database that doesn't even support ODBC (because it predates everything in use today) and is only accessible via terminal or terminal emulation. No offense, but your glib attitude concerning Perl scripting tends to suggest that you haven't had to work with very many legacy systems or at least not mainframe legacy systems (they are finally getting rare now, but they are still concentrated in government and large insurance companies who were the among the first users of computer technologies when they became available and widespread in the decades following WWII). If this type of capability was not built into the system as an option in the first place (i.e. temporarily alter payroll) then it will probably be a royal PITA to accomplish. In fact, there is every reason to suspect that because payroll is (generally) such a well defined problem space that this system is even more rigid than most in its design assumptions. Incidentally, this is why the modern field of software engineering exists. If it were possible to develop flexible and powerful systems via hacking and ad hoc scripting then we never would have delved into databases, OO design, and functional analysis in the first place (and if people could manage themselves then we wouldn't need any managers). So it is either manage the payroll manually (which the system was built to handle because managing it by hand hasn't been feasible for decades now) or come up with some other system which doesn't involve the automatic payroll processing system (i.e. some other political alternative).
I'm surprised by the number of people posting who seem to have no experience working with legacy IT systems (COBOL or otherwise). Here's a quick primer:
First of all, there is generally no system architecture in legacy contexts. Rather, a set of interdependent applications will have grown into a system over time.
COBOL applications in particular are not built on RDBMS concepts and changes to back-end data must be made programatically or disaster is likely to ensue. In many cases, no living person will know all the tables that should be changed to update a particular value safely.
Here, the governor wished to cut the salaries of a broad category of employees which probably has no representation in the system. You can't just do a "update pay set rate='crap' where job_type not like '%critical%'" sort of approach. You would probably have to go through and re-classify many thousands of job types one-by-one to a new pay grade code, except that this would screw up benefits issues that weren't part of the pay cut.
To subsequently reimburse back pay, as the governor promised, you would have to keep track of the old pay grade in a system that almost certainly does not track history. Then you'd have to build in a method for accounting for back pay.
Bearing in mind there are no test suites for these changes, it's easy to believe it would take a while to implement them.
More accurately, to program in cobol, you wouldn't have to pay me a salary, you'd have to pay compensation for mental pain and anguish.
If I was in charge of programming the new pay system, I wouldn't be too worried about me making minimum wage...
the problem is nobody in IT wants to hire old people.
You are right and the situation is even worse with more engineering oriented firms. Age discrimination in software/hardware is rampant and out of control. Partly it is institutional but often it is that the average 35 year old manager isn't even aware of his prejudices.
Sure they do. When I do a job search for IT positions, nine out of ten are for "senior" level positions. Nobody is hiring junior or just normal engineers. Seniors only.
Usually "senior" means 5+ years experience with some piece of technology invented six years ago, though.
So to get a job in IT, you can't be old, you can't be young, and you must have started working with every one of the latest technologies professionally on the year it was invented (before most businesses even used such technologies).
I can't believe anyone can find a job with those requirements. Perhaps the mass of positions advertised these days are just a ploy to allow more H1Bs and outsourcing.
They lie in their requirements, you lie on your resume, balance is achieved.
You made that post that from work, didn't you?
I know plenty of people with damn near zero experience in anything who have jobs with web 2.0 type companies. In certain market segments, especially web 2.0 and even more especially social networking, having anything at all that you can sell yourself as is enough to get in the door, because they're so desperate to hire people. Know a little CSS design, maybe can sell yourself as having done some amateur social-network analysis, and can write a PHP script? Sold!
I exaggerate only slightly. Especially in the SF Bay Area, the fact that Google has hired ten thousand people in the past year alone has really put a drain on the availability, to the extent that most other companies will hire anyone they can in good conscience justify as "probably not terrible".
No, the ideal cadidate is still a 22 year old college graduate.
All you need is 25 years of Java and
That's a global problem. Companies want people with 5+ years of professional experience with technology that has been out for 3- years, flexibility (both in hours and location, meaning you work 48 hours a day, 8 days a week and have no problem being shipped off to their office in Abu Dhabi), can poop out perfect code while writing reports in at least 3 languages, have a masters and at least 10 years of professional experience but ain't older than 25, and don't ask for more than 2500 USD a month, tops.
And then they go around and lament that we have not enough IT people. There are IT people on the market, but you have to pay their value and you have to step down from unrealistic expectations.
I can code in COBOL. It seems unlikely, however, that Califorina can afford my fee.
Why would you need a programmer to change people's pay in the system? Oh, wait; you don't. This is just more politics...
Job security? They(the bureaucrats) didn't know that it could be done without a programmer, so the programmer did it so they'd need a programmer.
I've seen how government applications are coded. The majority are either built by someone that can program but not engineer software and the rest are built by the lowest bidder. I find it perfectly feasible that a simple change will break the entire system.
Hell, where I work now we're having problems because a particular CBT REQUIRES a floppy disk. Nobody can get the money to have the CBT code changed. The new computers don't come with floppy drives and the old computers are required to be taken out of service. Emulation software can't be used because it won't pass the "approval process" and putting a floppy drive into a new system voids the maintenance agreement.
Also what is funny here is that dropping the wages wont get very many state workers to quit, they are so entrenched with their vacation time and specialized skills that they WONT go anywhere, they just like to bitch about it. Your average gov't worker is just that, a person who couldn't move on, every once in a while you run a cross a bright star keeping the mess together but they never amount to much as they leave after a couple years anyway.
I have suggested many times that entire departments need to be fired, halved and hire new employees with 20% raises. There is so much bloat in personnel that it is insane, most of the shops have one guy doing the work for 10 people anyway.
Yes, but I would need a high degree of evidence to show me what a pay rate change would require reprogramming.
And I work with a COBOL system.
I work with a COBOL system
How soon can you get on a plane to California?
My honest guess?
There's sanity checks on the data-input screens that prevent you from entering NaN, a negative number, etc, and somewhere along the line somebody added a sanity check to make sure the persons new rate was >= to existing rate. Maybe to prevent a misplaced decimal or something.
And the "6 month solution" that they came up with was maybe to re-enter the employee data into a new record, with new rate, etc.
But really, if I was tasked with this, I'd want a programmer, too. It would be a lot easier to mod these salaries in batch than one-by-one.
I don't either of these require a team of COBOL wizzards as they're making it seem. Surely in the most populous state in the Union there is a single COBOL developer that has touched this payroll system before and can get into it.
Seems to me the people who should get their pay cut are the governor and legislators. They're the ones who haven't produced a budget.
Don't give them back pay either - every day there's no budget is another day they lose a payday - forever. That might encourage them to get their job done on time.
The Governor refuses his salary, so that won't work.
I suspect the legislators are wealthy enough that their per diem cut wouldn't be too much hurt.
Now what *would* work...you know how they choose a pope?
Capping their per diem might hurt them more than removing their salaries. They get both. As of 2007, most legislators receive ~$113,000 per year, and then $162 per diem for each day they're in session (one or both may have gone up this year). Taking away their perks seems to get them moving faster than taking away their salary.
The major fault of the California system is that there is no real changeover. The system is so rigged that it's virtually impossible for any state legislative or House seat to change parties. The state Assembly and Senate are locked in to provide exactly (2/3 - 1) vote for the Democrats, leaving the rest to Republicans. This prevents the Democrats from having complete power (which would result in the populace demanding a new redistricting), but means they only need to get one or two Republicans to cave in to get what they want. This has allowed California to build up a 40% increase in revenues in five years, while at the same time the population increased by 4%, the Consumer Price Index increased by about 19%, and spending increased by 44%. Had the state been capped by the growth in population and CPI (or some other inflation rate), it would be spending only 24% more than it had when Schwarzeneggar was elected, and would have had plenty of money in a rainy-day fund to cover the more than 10% shortfall that it now has.
On top of this, the term limits that were voted into place (including by me) have turned out to be a colossal mistake. The legislature was once a fairly cordial place where most people settled into their seat, keeping constituents happy for a couple of decades, a few finding some ambition and targeting statewide or national office; It's now become a staring contest of ideologues, where no one budges on anything because it affects their chances to rotate into the other house or on to a more competitive office. It used to be that legislators had to learn to compromise because their opponent wouldn't just be there next year or next term -- they'd be there 10 or perhaps even 20 years later, and political memories can go back a very long time.
The current system has survived court challenges, but it's expected that without a new process brought in early, the 2011 redistricting is going to get contentious and end up in court for a drawn-out battle before the court imposes its own solution.
It's clearly 1960s and 1970s code. It probably has the pay rates hard-coded in, rather than using a database, because back then memory was expensive and logic had to be compact.
Sometimes you really do. Often, with really old systems like this, data that ought to be in tables is hard-coded in the system, sometimes in really obscure places. Or the code may only support pay *increases* because nobody thought there'd ever be a pay decrease for a government employee. (Seriously.) If you've ever worked on a project to replace an antiquated system, especially for a utility or government entity, you'd be shocked at what you saw. It's amazing that anything works at all.
Job security? Incompetence? Micro-management? Probably a combination of all three.
Yep I remember my first programing instructor explaining the idea of sentinel. You pick a number that would never come up to mark the end of data input. like 99 for a year. This was only 83 so 99 didn't seem that far away.
When I asked him about that his answer was.
Nobody uses software for that long.
You know I never used sentinels like that in any of my programs after I finished that class. I have to assume that it was a standard method back in the day like using i,j,k for integers in loops. "Fortran defined those as integers be default"
A guess: it's not changing the pay that requires a change in the code. It's keeping track of how much pay each employee is then owed at the end of the political fight.
You see, they're not just going to unexpectedly cut their employees' pay. They're just going to take a short, interest-free loan from them without their consent. How merciful of them.
It's no wonder governments so often get the worst pick of employees. Why would people with choices stay when they could at any time used as political pawns like this?
The programmers of California have created the greatest payroll application of all time. You can only raise salaries, not lower them. Ingenious!
They created the worst payroll application of all time... it takes 50% longer to raise them back!
I need a COBOL programmer, who is your daddy and what does he do?
I have never seen a payroll program that has the wages hardcoded in it... there is no reason that this can't be done... she simply doesn't want to.
I can easily picture a system that encodes rules about pay grade differences derived from huge piles of laws, union contracts, and so forth. Changing everyone's pay to the same low level would violate all kinds of intertwined constraints and validation checks, and thus be rejected. I imagine the time quoted to make this change is due to the need to work around these cross-checks without eliminating them entirely, as most of the time (i.e., when the governor isn't posturing) they are quite useful to help avoid illegal or improper changes.
The problem is this person is lying. Seriously, wages change all the time; probably at least once a year people get reviewed and get raises; you're going to tell me there's a 9 month backlog?
And why on earth would it take 50% longer to raise them back up again? That makes absolutely no sense.
There's only one obvious conclusion: the state controller is lying.
As I understand it, Arnie wants to pay them minimum wage, and then grant them back pay once the budget is passed. That's a whole different calculation, and requires some kind of per-employee escrow account, etc...
If I was a Ca state employee, I'd be pissed. Thankfully, I'm not even a resident anymore.
Since the pay cut is just a way to postpone payments until the budget is passed, the system system needs to issue back pay after the crisis. It's entirely plausible that issuing back pay is more complicated than implementing the pay cut.
It seems that California has a similar budget crisis every single year. Back in 1992 they issued IOUs [nytimes.com].
This is a delicious irony here. It's great. It's almost enough to coin a phrase "Don't attribute reprieve from malice to that which can be explained by incompetence."
We have about 20 Cobol programmers. We still run CISC and what have you. You can have them. Cheap.
OK, no one likes programming in COBOL, but to argue that these systems can't be updated because the language is obsolete is just an all out lie. Plenty of major corporations still use COBOL/CICS because it just works.
Yeah, but do they still have the expertise in house to make any changes?
I've known organizations that had to pull people out of retirement (at 5x their old salary) to maintain old mainframe systems -- for the simple reason that there isn't anyone else left who knows how to modify the system, and if you don't throw cash at the old-timers, they'll laugh at you and go back to their golf game.
If it works, great. If it stops, some companies simply don't have anyone left who can fix it. And then you're SOL.
If (as someone above stated) a programmer is required to update what should undoubtedly be database fields containing salary information, then it sounds like a problem of implementation, and not one of technology/language of choice.
Well, if it's a Vietnam-era bit of software (as TFA indicates) then it's quite possibly an implementation problem. What we currently consider to be "best practices" are likely to all be younger than the code in question. In fact, most of them are probably gleaned from systems just like this.
I wouldn't really be surprised that a system for "which the state made a large investment decades ago and has been keeping it going the last few years with duct tape" isn't really easy to cajole along.
I've been involved in projects to replace legacy applications -- it's sometimes not possible to actually give them all of the functionality because nobody has a detailed list until someone comes along and says "oh, what about feature X, how do I do that?" Then you see a room full of people looking stunned and asking "why is this the first we're seeing of this??". Often, it's a feature which is so fundamentally incompatible with everything else you've been told -- "X can never happen. Oh, except there."
Never underestimate just how bad software of that vintage can be, and just how hard it is to fix or replace it.
Its because of poor coding skills.
Convenient scapegoat there they have.
It's a lot easier to just fire them with the software is what they are telling us.
Seriously if California is in a budget crisis how will they pay firefighters and hospital staff? You can pay everyone full wage now and in 10 months stop paying EVERYONE entirely.
In a business with this kind of budget problem you simply lay people off. People who work for the state are up in arms over this, but I've been laid off a number of times. You just fill out your unemployment insurance paperwork and get like 1/4 to 1/2 your salary after a few weeks, and look for a new job in the meantime.
I'm not sure why unions act like every person should be guaranteed a job. What universe you have to live in for things to be so certain?
I kid you not about this: when I worked in the Los Angeles County Health System, I was paid by both the county and the state bursars. The paperwork for my job stated specifically that I was required to carry out my job EVEN IF THERE WERE NO FUNDS AVAILABLE TO BE DISBURSED TO ME FOR MY PAYCHECK. I have that document somewhere in my vertical archaeological dig of paperwork from the prior century.
I pointed this out to the H.R. person after my employment physical, and she told me "Honey, don't worry about it, the state don't run out of money." I respectfully disagreed, crossed out the line, initialed it, and signed the paperwork. Nobody gave me any trouble, but if this happened nowadays, I bet they wouldn't let me in with that line crossed out.
Don't even get me started about the payroll records and timecard abuse: the department secretary always told me to sign the blank timecard and she would fill it out: I refused to sign it unless I also filled out my hours. When I put in more than forty, she said, "Oh no, don't worry about it, we'll take care of it," or something equivalent to that.
I never saw timecards again from the department.
I'm not sure why unions act like every person should be guaranteed a job. What universe you have to live in for things to be so certain?
I don't know about you, but I live in the richest nation on Earth (which has a government that acts like it owns the universe). We spend more than 5x on our military each year (not counting "supplemental" spending on wars, interest on loans for said wars and other related costs) than it would cost to feed every hungry person on the planet, according to UN figures. The workers of the United States are some of the most productive in the world and we collectively create vast riches--for a tiny minority of people at the top who "own" the factories and businesses from which this wealth is extracted. This is nothing more than organized theft.
Under a sane, rational system all workers would share in the wealth we create. When we discover new techniques that make our jobs more efficient, we would all work less--instead of under capitalism, which results in layoffs and fewer people working more. We wouldn't waste trillions on killing people--we'd spend trillions to create good jobs that serve important needs: like educating people, healing them, building efficient mass-transit and clean, renewable energy sources (all of which create more and better jobs than military spending does).
Instead we live in a world where a handful of parasites lets their own short-term, profit-oriented interests dictate policy for the rest of us. They get to force their pro-capitalist dogma onto us in schools, textbooks and via the media they own, so that people believe that the current system is the way things should be and always will be (just as the Church and nobility once taught serfs and merchants to remain in their places).
There's no reason we can't provide a job, food, clothing, shelter and health care for every single person on the planet--except that it wouldn't be profitable for the people at the top, and they are not going to give up their power and privilege without a fight.
Sure it *sounds* ridiculous to say you can't lower salaries without a programmer, but I bet it is a fairly complex batch program that has to run. You don't want people hand entering 200,000 payroll changes. If it takes 30 seconds (on average) to do each one by hand, that would be 41 weeks for a person to make all the changes. (assuming a 40 hour work week)
Don't forget, the good governator is probably payed by that system too and you know HIS pay ain't going down.
So, not only is it a HUGE number of data entries AND a complex filter on job classification. ALSO mistakes are something you don't want to make on payroll!
Don't forget, the good governator is probably payed by that system too and you know HIS pay ain't going down.
The Governator is getting paid an annual salary of $1 a year. If his pay went down any further you'd probably end up with a divide by zero error somewhere.
"A computer without COBOL and FORTRAN is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup or mustard." --John Krueger
Those of you saying "how hard can it be to write a couple of lines of COBOL" are probably underestimating the problem.
If all they had to do was just lower people's salary to $6.whatever per hour, that wouldn't be the issue. The problem is they have to account for the ACTUAL salary the person should be making, because once the budget is passed they will have to pay all those people back for the salary that's owed.
So, there's a big issue here. They have to calculate their salary like they would anyway, and then pay them minimum wage for the number of hours actually worked (because I'd guess a number of State employees are "exempt"), remember how much they SHOULD have been paid and how much taxes SHOULD have been taken out, record that information, and then print out a check.
In a modern programming language with a modern relational database, no problem. In COBOL with an obsolete non-relational DB, perhaps even one with 80-column mindset? Yeah, right. Good luck with that.
While it's been nearly 5 years since I toiled in COBOL, I can assure you that much of the information infastructure you deal with on a daily basis still runs on legacy mainframe hardware with COBOL programs being fed your charge card data, airline reservations, utility usage, pharmaceutical claim adjudications, etc....
There are plenty of COBOL Programmers out there, the problem is nobody in IT wants to hire old people.
True. Or the "hire" would be at a rate of 50-60% of what that same programmer made previously. I still get soliciations for mainframe COBOL work and the rates and salaries advertised to me are an absolute joke.
The problem is not lack of Programmers. The problem is managers who think a developer needs many years of experience with a specific language or technology to be able to work with it. I am sure many programmers would be willing to work on their COBOL systems, but without the required "10 years of experience with COBOL" on their resume, they would never be hired.
Well, code is code, but I would caution that:
Wow, if this is a COBOL system, you mean no one took the time and energy to document the system and all of its glorious parameters during the ramp-up to Y2K? I'm shocked...SHOCKED to hear that a bureaucracy would waste such a golden opportunity as the Y2K scare to look long-term and decide that hey, as long as we're in the process of vetting code, why don't we document it as well?
And yes, there are already those out there jumping up and down pointing out that fixing a year from a two digit to a four digit format is way different than figuring out how to reprogram an ancient computer language. Gotta love the State Government, home to Silicon Valley, too myopic to even consider upgrading something as non-essential as a payroll system.
Most of the Y2K effort focused simply on alleviating eventual issues with two digit dates by "windowing". No expansion of existing database fields -- as much of the processing in legacy world on a fixed column basis, and lengthening the field was considered "out of scope" -- just a simple if statement to test if it was the 20th or 21st century. And regarding documentation, you're being glib, right? As staffs are downsized, support and application teams siphoned off to India or replaced by imported non-immigrant visa holders, documentation, which never was a top priority, has been given even shorter shrift.
This sounds like a typical "we have to re-write everything" attitude I hear from a lot of programmers who have to work with legacy code.
They have an application that calculates the salary. They don't need to change anything in the existing application, all they need is to "decorate" the app with an additional wrapper that rolls back the salary the appropriate amount.
A rather naive assertion. In legacy systems much of the business logic is embedded deep within the bowels of the code. There may be a "business analyst" who is the overseer, but they are totally reliant on somebody else who can actually read code. And it will be far from straightforward, even for a gifted wizard, as the code in question may be decades old, and littered with patches and interfaces placed on top of all the cruft.
I'll give $3 to the first person who can explain to me why on Earth you need to edit the software to change p
A COBOL-savvy man suffers from a deadly disease and decides to go for cryonics, hoping they will find a cure in the future. A hundred years from now they wake him up. He's relieved and asks: "Thank god, you've found a cure." - "No", they tell him, "we're short of COBOL programmers."
Let's not ignore the rest of the circumstances here -- the Governor is acting on a 2003 California Supreme Court decision (though it is an interpretation of that decision). Another fact is that this is not a pay cut. It is just the amount to be paid for now. Other states that have faced this situation have had to simply not pay anyone at all (effectively furloughing all state workers). Even the Federal government has had this issue. So I'm guessing that the California Supreme Court decision is saying that not paying at all, or furloughing as a means to not pay, is not an option, and that a minimum wage still has to be paid for now, for anyone still on the job.
Then there is the complication that the difference between what people should have been paid, and what they do get paid (minimum wage), be paid back later once the budget is approved and passes. That kind of logic is apparently not yet coded into the payroll system. The problem is more a case that the state has not budgeted to the state IT department the resources to implement, test, and deploy, a system the California Supreme Court decision may require under existing laws (or better yet, upgrade it to an all new system in a modern language on modern computers
This is NOT lowering salaries/wages
This is NOT "vindictively striking out at rank and file workers"
... to get the system to issue payroll checks at a $6.55/hr amount, including doing the correct calculation based on reported hours, including the 1.5x factor for overtime, do all the correct tax calculations, generate all the reports like what goes to the IRS, print the checks
You might think it is as simple as changing "MULTIPLY HOURS-WORKED BY PAY-RATE GIVING GROSS-PAY." with "MULTIPLY HOURS-WORKED BY 655 GIVING GROSS-PAY." but I can assure you it is far, far, more complex than that.
Alternatives that are also unworkable for a quick change include literally changing all the pay rates in the database, then changing them back again later. Substituting a temporary database is also unlikely because this is likely a massive database that contains far more than just names, SSNs, and pay rates.
And are they even sure they have all the source code to all the modules in the system? Do they even have the machine capacity to do several dozen payroll runs in just a couple weeks time just to complete the testing?
25+ years of COBOL, multiple dialects. Pay me what I'm worth, I'll take a vacation from here to do the job. What's the database, if their is one? IDMS, IDS-II? VSAM files? ISAM files? I've done them all, no problem.
Wonder why they can't find any Cobol programmer? There are probably Cobol programmers on the state payroll maintaining this system, but do you want to modify a computer program, so your employer can cut your pay by 75%? Didn't think so.
Manager: I need you to modify our payroll system in order to cut your pay to a mere $6.55/hour. How quickly can you get that done?
Developer: I'll get right on it boss. Let's see, I'll have to modify the payroll routines, reconfigure the database, change out the bit buckets, and scronge the verbliz... That will take me... Er, how long do you think it will be before the state passes a budget?
Manger: Probably in about 5 months.
Developer: It'll take me about 6 months.
Never buy from a rich salesman. -- Goldenstern


text:
Monday, December 31, 2012
Know Your Foe - South Carolina
18 comments:
- Yost said...
Outstanding work, Benny!
- December 31, 2012 2:58 AM
- Dennis said...
Little know fact that your Renaissance coach's full name was Andrew Lloyd Carr. I disagree with him that last years win was a fluke, I imagine he was just stuck trying to get words to fit in that line. I also like the latter part of the song, I just wish he had more time to make it a bit more cohesive. I believe he set it to the tune of Memory from Cats, has passed it on to Dave Brandon and feels it should be sung at pregame by your new costumed mascot.
Not a win in the Horseshoe
Since the days of Bill Clinton
Tress is smiling at this
At the Big House
The last victory there was a fluke
And the car keys begin to shake
All alone in the Big House
Carr can smile at the old days
He won Championships then
He remembers
When Michigan knew what Michigan was
Will the victories come again?
Burnt out fans of RichRod days
The stale cold smell of losing
Denard throws picks, another game is over
Another loss is looming
Hoke's here
We must wait for the big win
We must think of a game plan
And we mustn't give in
When Denard throws
Big wins stay a memory too
But with Gardner we may win
They were so easy with Richrod
But were easier for Spartans
Notre Dame and the Bucks
Beat the Gamecocks
You'll understand what happiness is
Al Borges is not dead
Good luck.
- December 31, 2012 8:18 AM
- 616goblue said...
How could it slip my mind that today is a "de facto Football Friday?" Even with the trilling victories by other schools in the Great Lakes State winning their respective corporate-restaurant-chain bowl games didn't get my maize and blue juices flowing.
Here's to a safe and Happy New Year to the Mzoners out there on the interwebs.
Here's to Yost re-creating such Mzone classics as "the REAL BCS college show down" and "this is your life, this is college life" during the football offseason.
- December 31, 2012 1:47 PM
- Mikoyan said...
Happy New Year to everyone
- December 31, 2012 5:33 PM
- Tom C said...
I got married on the horseshoe.
Columbia has been very good to this ole Michigan boy.
- January 01, 2013 10:45 AM
- Dennis said...
Sorry for the loss Yost. Badly officiated game. Sure didn't look like posession on that TD. I was afraid when you did score you gave them too much time. But, at least you looked snazzy with the matte finish helmets. I think you guys are now the B1G leaders in alternate uni's over the llast few years. Welcome to the Dark Side.
- January 01, 2013 5:42 PM
- Yost said...
Sad but true, Dennis. Ugh.
- January 01, 2013 6:54 PM
- phil said...
I am excited when Maryland and Rutgers joins the Big Ten. With them on our side, the Big Ten ought to dominate the Bowl season!
- January 01, 2013 7:52 PM
- Dennis said...
Yeah, I watched the Rutgers Bowl game and the way they lost and I thought, how B1G of them. Though I will say you guys did actually beat a better Va Tech team last year.
On the plus side I get free Blooming Onion today. Oh wait, I have to actually pay to eat something else there? I'll pass. [insert Denard joke]
- January 02, 2013 8:04 AM
- Dennis said...
Will you Autopsy?
My short version. Winnable game if Denard were able to be a passing threat and/or if your secondary wasn't thin due to injury and pot. If any one of a number of things went differently you win. Heck, you might even win if you didn't get that first down since that seemed to fire up SC.
Or maybe autopsy my song lyrics. :)
- January 02, 2013 2:49 PM
- Ramona said...
First, thanks for the KYF, although reading after the actual game. So the good part was we found a place to watch it in Chicago.. our hotel room. The bad part of course, was not pulling out the win. Still I saw a lot of positive. Jake Ryan is a sophomore?? Strong positive. JT Floyd didn't play? corresponding negative. Defense adjusting nicely after the first quarter, strong kicker, positive... not being able to get touchdowns, troublesome negative that I hope improves next year. Denard Robinson, what more can I say? Star quality! Gardner and Roundtree will be great. So oh well, back to unpacking and laundry, wish we could have pulled out that win in the last what 18 seconds and then KYF would have been SO happy to be wrong! Happy New Year everyone..
- January 04, 2013 11:20 PM
- Ramona said...
Losing to Alabama was NOT a disgrace for this Michigan squad.. and take that ND!
Hail......next season
- January 07, 2013 11:03 PM
- phil said...
After listening to Brent Mooseburger last night, I need a healing picture!!
- January 08, 2013 8:56 AM
- Ramona said...
And.. can someone tell me why the hell we would have played Bama anyway!? 4 of our losses were to top 10 teams... so can't we get some fluff whipped into our schedule? Thoughts??
- January 08, 2013 9:04 AM
- Ramona said...
Oh and excellent lyric writing Dennis.
- January 08, 2013 9:05 AM
- Yost said...
I think Brent was commenting on the healing picture.
Yeah, it turned out to be a tough schedule. But, ND is (or at least was) always on the schedule and had been mediocre up until this year, OSU is OSU, and the bowl we should expect and want to play a highly-ranked team.
As for 'Bama, that's debatable. I for one welcome the tough challenges but that may have been too tough coming so close on the heals of the RR Debacle.
- January 08, 2013 7:24 PM
- Ramona said...
Here's my take on the Brent thing. The sponsors that shelled out bucks expecting an actual second half must have been going crazy, so Brent must have been tasked with trying to make the game interesting to someone. The best he could do was comment on the attractiveness of someone a half century younger than he. If I were Brent I'd have told them to stick it and just live with the fact that ND didn't belong there in the first place/
- January 08, 2013 11:04 PM
- Mikoyan said...
Personally, I'd rather see teams like MIchigan play teams like Alabama as opposed to teams like Eastern Michigan. Builds character and what not. Although I guess if teams like Michigan are playing teams like Alabama, teams like Eastern don't get a team to toughen up on...or something like that...so I don't know.
- January 09, 2013 11:42 PM


text:
Hi everyone,my name is Stacia and I have an almost four year old son with PDD. So I joined this group so that I may be able to learn from other moms who also have kids on the spectrum. For me, accepting that he's different is sometimes difficult for me :(( He's high functioning as far as his motor skills go, and he tries to do it all for himself. But then when it comes down to using the toilet WOWWW!!! That's a major battle. He'll sit or stand to do number 1 but he'll never go number 2.
He's also very speech delayed. So when we go to the playground and the other kids don't understand him they make fun of him. And also when he tend to run behind the 4 and 5yrs old they tend to shout at him and push him and scream "Stop Following Us". Because, he cannot use words to say, I will like to play with you guys, so instead he just runs behind them and follow whatever they do. (which I do understand can be a bit annoying to someone).
But whoever thought that kids can be so mean??? I know it's tough for him having to deal with the fact that Mom and Dad always have a tough time understanding him. But it's really tough for me as mom to cope with all the challenges of raising a developmental delayed kid. I love him so much but I get so tired and sometimes so frustrated. I'm glad I joined this group so that I may be able to vent and also have support from other moms who may be going through what I am aslo.
Welcome to the group. I understand getting frustrated. I have had 3 rough days in a row with my son and I can tell you it takes its toll on me mentally and physically. I love my son very much and it hurts when I watch him watch other kids. I know he wants to play with them and doesn't have the words to express it. I am lucky in the fact his sister is a year and a half older and plays with him all the time. He also has 2 cousins close in age to him. They grew up around him and really don't understand the differences in him. They just consider him someone to play with. My daughter is 4 1/2, my son is 3, my nephew is 3 and my niece is 2 so they only understand playing is fun. I worry about what other kids will say to my son as he gets older but i know that he will always have his sister and cousins to play with. Not to mention 8 other cousins who live within a 10 miles radius LOL. Kids can be cruel but sometimes I don't think they realize they are doing it. I find it more often when it's at a playground where other parents aren't watching their children. What kind of therapies do you have him in? This is a great group. The ladies here have helped me so much since my son was dx about a year ago.
Welcome to the group! I think all of us have been there, its not easy being moms like us. We all have awesome kids though, they make all the hard times worth it! I think it gets easier with time, and with good people to talk to :)
Violet's Mom
He's on an IEP program and goes 3days per week for 2 I/2hrs. We have him in private speech and he goes twice per week for 30mins per session. And he also attends KK for behavioral councelling once per week. He's due to start OT soon. And he's also due to start intensive treatment at KK feeding clinic (we are on the waiting list for this, but they'll call us soon).
Welcome Stacia! This group is just amazing...the support is like no other.
You know, he's only 4....the acceptance will come with time, as will his speech, potty issues, and many other things. Mine is 12 now, and believe me, there are still moments of frustration for both of us!
Welcome, it sounds like you are doing all the right things and being the super mom you need to be to raise a special needs kid. That being said I know how hard it is. To watch things be hard for you child, for him to be rejected by other kids or to have to struggle to understand him yourself. Things will get better as he gets better at communication.
I have found that I have to let my feelings out, express the sadness, frustration etc. in order to move forward and do my best. The women here are so very supportive and understanding. No one "gets" this unless they have been through it themselves. I am glad you found this forum to share and have a community of women who can help support you. WELCOME! XO
My daughter us 4, Sally. She is my 3rd child- my surprise baby, had her at 39 when we at least expected it. I have 2 boys NT, 13 & 16.
I too worry about Sally in those situations. She's overbearing, just loves other kids so much! While that is very cute, I figure its an invitation for kids to be mean.
It makes me a nervous wreck!! The hubby handles those type of situations much better than I. I don't put myself in those settings too often because I figure I'm too overbearing! Lol
Sally went to speech therapy, now she is in special ed preschool- LOTS of improvement on language! I am so thankful to finally see some results. Her behavior has come a long way to- slowly but surely.
She does better with kids older or younger. Children her age notice she's different, at most she would come off immature for her age. It wasn't long ago that I had a cousin come visit, she was the same age as Sally, and the differences in the girls seemed HUGE! Granted, the other little girl handled Sally so well, I fell in love with her, and she was mature way beyond the average four yr old.
Like I said, I don't like those types of settings with her, I try to avoid it. Everyone has they're limits.
Welcome to the group.
This group is wonderful. Full of the best women around!
I joined this group thinking, maybe? Then found out very soon, that this group of women are very loving, very strong, and extremely supportive.
I love this group. Don't know where I'd be without these ladies.
Just hang in there. There is so much support and understanding in this group and also alot of great advice and direction.


text:
Saturday, May 11, is the 131st day of 2013. There are 234 days left in the year.
Today's birthdays: Comedian Mort Sahl is 86. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is 80. Actress Shohreh Aghdashloo is 61. Actress Frances Fisher is 61. Actor Tim Blake Nelson is 49. Actor Jeffrey Donovan is 45.
In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant arrived in New Amsterdam to become governor of New Netherland.
In 1858, Minnesota became the 32d state of the Union.
In 1862, the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia was scuttled by its crew off Craney Island, Va., to prevent it from falling into Union hands.
In 1927, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded.
In 1950, President Truman formally dedicated the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington state.
In 1960, Israeli agents captured Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires.
In 1973, the ''Pentagon Papers'' espionage trial of Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo came to an end as Judge William M. Byrne dismissed all charges, citing government misconduct.
In 1981, legendary reggae artist Bob Marley died in a Miami hospital at age 36. The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical ''Cats'' opened in London.
In 1996, a ValuJet DC-9 caught fire shortly
after takeoff from Miami and crashed into the Everglades, killing all 110 people on board.
In 2012, a Chicago jury convicted Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson's former brother-in-law, William Balfour, of murdering her mother, brother, and 7-year-old nephew. (Balfour was later sentenced to life in prison.)


text:
By Brendan Conway
Where is the bottom for gold-miner funds? With any luck, it was April. The sector's most popular exchange-traded fund hit the lowest point since early 2009 and has since enjoyed a modest bounce.
Not that you'd know it from Monday's trading. Investors are taking their cues from AngloGold Ashanti (AU). As my colleague Ben Levisohn notes in a roundup, there are a number of negative headlines. The company's CEO said negotiations with labor unions will be "tougher than before." He had glum commentary on the price of gold. And so forth.
Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX) is down 1.9% Monday and Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF (GDXJ) is down 2.5%.


text:
PITTSBURGH -- It's hard to believe that today is the last regular-season game for the Hurricanes.
Where did the season go?
It feels like yesterday that Howard Schnellenberger was talking to all of us just before kickoff at the opener on Aug. 30th.
Now it's down to Pittsburgh, at Pittsburgh, in the bitter-cold of Heinz Field.
Miami opened as a 2.5-point favorite, and is now a 2-point favorite, from what I just saw.
To me, this game is so important because it will cast an overall impression on the season. If the Hurricanes win, they'll have rebounded admirably from that ugly three-game losing streak at FSU (expected), against Virginia Tech (not expected) and at Duke (not expected).
A UM victory also would put Miami in prime position for a decent bowl, such as the Chick-fil-A -- and better yet, for a chance to win the Coastal Division of the Atlantic Coast Conference should North Carolina beat Duke tomorrow and should Virginia beat Virginia Tech.
I just don't see Virginia beating Virginia Tech, though it's a rivalry game and it is at UVA. However, if all the stars align for the Hurricane, they would meet FSU again in the ACC Championship Game on Dec. 7 in Charlotte. Can you imagine that?
If the Canes lose, suddenly the 7-0 start is completely overshadowed by ending the season with four losses in five games. The bowl situation becomes murkier, too.
Pittsburgh has won its last two of three games, starting with a 28-21 victory Nov. 9 at home on national television (ABC) against Notre Dame in its coldest home conditions (windy, with temperatures in the 40s) until today (kickoff expected to be in low 30s, dropping to mid-to-high 20s by end). The next week the Panthers lost at home to UNC 34-27. Last Saturday, Pitt beat Syracuse 17-16 on the road.
PItt's total offense and rushing offense are poor statistically. But it has two talented receivers in senior Devin Street (51 catches for 854 yards and seven touchdowns this season) and freshman Tyler Boyd (68 catches for 903 yards and six touchowns). Street, however, hurt his ankle against North Carolina and his elbow at Syracuse and, per Pittsburgh-Post Gazette beat writer Sam Werner, was limited this week in practice. So, we'll see if and how much Street plays today.
The Hurricanes' biggest obstacle in this game is expected to be defensive tackle Aaron Donald, a 6-0, 285-pound senior who is a finalist for just about every national defensive award out there. He is an amazing talent, shedding blocks with ease.
"Aaron Donald has been a one-man wrecking crew,'' Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said.
Donald leads the nation in tackles for loss, ranks 10th in sacks and 11th in forced fumbles. His blocked PAT last week at Syracuse made the difference in Pitt's 17-16 victory.
The question is, can UM's offensive line hold him off? It's very doubtful UM C Shane McDermott can do it alone.
If the Canes can hold off Donald and hold onto the ball despite the cold, they should win this game.
We'll see.
Happy day-after Thanksgiving to all of you. Enjoy the game.