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LOUISVILLE — Ever so slowly, one by one, Jeff Lowe places pills from the 10 medications he takes every morning into a cup of applesauce that will help him swallow them. One for muscle spasms, another to prevent blood clots that could be fatal. One for his bladder, another for his bowel.
There's a steroid for pain, an allergy medication, something for reflux, a cough suppressant and more.
A legendary mountain climber renowned for his athleticism, grace and creativity in the 1970s and 1980s, Lowe was credited with an amazing 1,000-plus first ascents. He didn't just do things others couldn't, he did things others couldn't imagine, including an audacious climb on the killer North Face of the Eiger in the Swiss Alps. Solo. In winter.
Now, because of an unknown neurodegenerative disorder with symptoms similar to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), he lives in a wheelchair with a breathing tube in his nose. The disease is slowly killing him, but he is facing death with the same spirit that made him a mythic figure in mountaineering. Maybe the way he faces death will help others live better.
Lowe lives in an apartment here under home hospice care but spent a week in a hospital in January battling pneumonia and a blood clot in his leg. His devoted partner, Connie Self, can hardly bear the thought of losing him, even if the mere act of eating is an ordeal for him.
But Lowe, 63, has a contented light about him, one of peace and amusement. He is letting go with patience and grace. He sees his approaching death as the last adventure in a lifetime spent seeking them.
"He's very interested in the process," says Self, who serves as his translator because his speech has deteriorated to a point nearly impossible for others to understand. "He wants to be aware and awake when he crosses over. He's real interested in what's on the other side of that veil."
A spiritual if not religious man, Lowe believes he had a glimpse of what lies beyond death during his epic Eiger solo in 1991.
"His life as a climber has had a huge impact on how he deals with this," Self says. "Climbing, you do the best you can with what you've got, from where you are, right now. You are focused in this moment on solving this next step, this next move. You're not saying, 'Argh, this shouldn't have happened. Why is this crack ending here?' If you're doing that, all your creativity shuts down.
"When you stay open to possibilities, you stay in the present moment and you keep moving. You can make the best possible decisions when you keep your creativity open and you're embracing reality. That's what Jeff calls it, 'embracing reality' instead of resisting reality."
Lowe typically lets Self speak for him, because when he speaks he sounds a little like a reluctant car starter grinding on a cold winter morning. He keeps a notebook handy if he wants to communicate by writing.
"I wouldn't wish my daily care on my worst enemy, let alone someone like Connie, who I call my better Self," Lowe writes. "Remember, her last name is, in fact, Self. So, when I think of what she does for me by her own choice, I'm astounded by the depth of her love, and that makes my love for Connie expand all the more. She is an amazing woman."
Self, 58, feels the same way about him.
"Jeff is my greatest spiritual teacher," Self says, "because he models for me every day what would be an enlightened response to life."
Man of Metanoia
Lowe, who climbed the Grand Teton when he was 7 years old, not only found new routes to the top, he inspired others to new heights.
"Jeff was known for bringing incredible athleticism to rock climbing, mountaineering, but most notably to ushering in a new age of ice climbing and mixed climbing (snow, ice and rock)," says Pete Athans, a former Boulder climber who has summited Mount Everest seven times. "He had incredible technical skills, and to match it had the passion to be able to push them up all types of terrain that other climbers not only didn't try to do but never thought to do. His enthusiasm and his passion were infectious to the people who climbed with him."
The North Face of the Eiger is one of the most dangerous mountain walls in the world. It even looks malevolent, Eiger meaning "Ogre" in German. The north face (Nordwand in German) is nicknamed with a macabre pun: "Mordwand," the murder wall. It has a vertical rise of 6,000 feet, is ridiculously steep and sometimes overhanging.
When Lowe went there in 1991, his status as an iconic climber was well established but his personal life was a shambles. He was recently divorced and his business, Latok Mountain Gear, was bankrupt. Creditors were hounding him.
He had wanted to climb the Eiger's north face since childhood when he read Heinrich Harrer's classic book about it, "The White Spider," but there never seemed to be the right time until his life had fallen apart. Some wondered if he was going there to kill himself.
"He felt like he needed something to keep all of his attention," Self says. "Climbing can be like a meditation, where everything else falls away and you're so focused for a long period of time that when you come out of that, you usually have a better perspective."
Climbing the Eiger brought a life-changing experience. Pinned down in a snow cave in a storm with spindrift avalanches threatening to bury him, he heard a humming vibration, a sound he couldn't identify. He found himself in an altered state — or was it a hallucination?
"He met himself, and he experienced infinity, experienced the universe in all its grandeur and all its expansiveness, his purpose in it and what he needed to do," Self explains. "Being himself was the most important thing for him to do. It changed everything for him."
Climbers making first ascents get to name the route. Because of what happened in that snow cave 4,500 feet up the Eiger on the eighth day of the climb, Lowe named his route Metanoia, which is defined as "a fundamental change of thinking or a transformative change of heart."
Now he is collaborating with filmmaker Jim Aikman to produce a documentary titled "Metanoia" about his life as a climber, his experience on the Eiger and his physical deterioration with motor neuron disease.
"This movie is the last hurrah," Self says. "It's the last opportunity that we know of for him to share what he sees and what he's learned from this point of view, from mountaintop to wheelchair."
"Starting to say goodbye"
Self first met Lowe 30 years ago when she managed an outdoor shop in California and he came to do a clinic. As a couple, they've been "off and on" for 20 years but inseparable since 2009.
"He says I'm the last woman standing," Self says. "He says it took him a long time to get it right."
The first hint of his disease came when he slipped and fell while ice skating with his family in 1999, hitting his head hard on the ice. That was odd. He was, after all, a man with exceptional balance and coordination. Nobody suspected that fall was a warning. It went unheeded.
A year later, Lowe went for a run and fell after two steps. He got up, ran two more steps and fell again. He quit running but waited a year before going to a doctor. By then he was feeling diminishing sensitivity in his fingers plus tingling in his legs, feet and hands.
It seemed at first like multiple sclerosis, but MRIs showed no scleroses in his brain. Later he was diagnosed with olivopontocerebellar atrophy (OPCA), a shrinking of the cerebellum. Doctors advised him to get his affairs in order because he probably only had a couple of years to live. That was in 2008.
His speech was starting to get bad, but an MRI a year later showed no shrinkage of his cerebellum. It wasn't OPCA after all, but doctors didn't know what it was. They still don't.
"Jeff has an as-yet-not-diagnosed chronic degenerative neurological process," says his primary doctor, Lee Schussman, speaking with Lowe's consent. "It at first did not meet the criteria for ALS, but in my opinion he's getting closer and closer to reaching the diagnosis of probable ALS."
Each day brings steep challenges. At times, Lowe has frightening coughing spells. Sometimes he needs a special breathing apparatus with a mask that helps force air into his lungs, increasing the oxygen level in his blood.
It takes a couple of hours to get him up and functioning in the morning, another hour to eat breakfast. He can write with a stylus on an iPad or computer — he is collaborating with a writer on an autobiography, and on the movie — but the process is painstakingly slow. It takes Self two or three hours to get him ready for bed at night. He has to sleep upright so he can breathe.
As the disease progresses, it will be increasingly hard for him to breathe as his diaphragm weakens. Lowe doesn't feel sorry for himself, but he feels sorry for Self.
"He thinks it's more difficult for me, and there are times when I think so too," Self says while Lowe works slowly on a bowl of cereal he holds precariously on his lap. "He is so well-trained at putting one foot in front of the other, he's just focused on getting the movie done, getting his book done, visiting with family, spending time with his daughter and granddaughter, eating this bowl without spilling it."
Self straightens the bowl.
"He is starting to say goodbye to people, because it is becoming ever more real where this is heading."
Sense of humor shows
The route on the Eiger that Lowe would call Metanoia had never been done. Lowe not only wanted to be the first, he wanted to climb with integrity. He would not place bolts in the rock for protection, which would make the climb easier, and safer, but seemed like cheating to him. He would do it alone, in winter, with protective devices that would not scar the mountain as bolts do.
On the ninth day of the climb, after 18 hours in the snow cave where he had his Metanoia experience, the weather cleared and Lowe made his push for the summit. He was exhausted, running low on food and fuel, anxious to finish the route and reach safety. He was rushing.
A climbing tool came loose from ice he was ascending and he fell 25 feet, hitting hard and injuring a shoulder. He was able to finish the climb but was forced to leave his pack on the mountain because another storm was bearing down on him.
"That's very hard, to leave all your gear when you're an alpine climber," Self says. "You don't want to scar the mountain, you don't want to leave junk behind. For him to leave that was to compromise his climbing ethics and values. At the same time, he wanted to see his daughter again."
The documentary will show climber Josh Wharton chipping the lost pack out of ice on the Eiger in 2011, then returning it to Lowe, which makes for an amusing scene as Lowe removes its contents piece by piece, cracking jokes.
Lowe always had a sense of humor. In the 1970s Lowe and his brothers helped revolutionize the business of outdoor gear with Lowe Alpine Systems, which was based in Broomfield. When Self mentions that Lowe backpacks were the first designed with the understanding that a woman's center of gravity is lower than a man's, Lowe jumps into the conversation and says something only Self can understand.
"He says it was from a lot of careful study," she says.
Life powered by love
Lowe still loves to visit the mountains — in his wheelchair — and reflect on his life. He has amazing memories.
"One of the things he's learned too is that really what it all comes down to is love," Self says. "Love for people, love for the mountains, love for the planet, love for the outdoors."
He's pouring that love into the film and the book. He climbed with style; now he's dying that way.
"People say he's a fighter," Self says. "What Jeff does more is let go. He embraces, 'What's ahead of me.' I don't think Jeff wakes up in the morning with dread, ever. I do sometimes ... I struggle far more with reality than he does. I wish things were different than they are, and he doesn't."
He hasn't given up hope for a remedy that might extend his life. But he is realistic.
"Would he love a miracle? Absolutely," Self says. "What a great ending to the movie that would be."
John Meyer: 303-954-1616, email@example.com or twitter.com/johnmeyer


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The Leadership Institute welcomed Kate Obenshain, writer, speaker, and frequent Fox News guest, to its monthly Wednesday Wake-Up Club Breakfast. More than 90 conservatives came early Wednesday morning to hear her discuss Divider-In-Chief, her latest book, and how President Obama has deceived Americans with his hope and change rhetoric.
Kate specifically focused her speech on young Americans and how the Obama administration has affected them.
As she wrote in her book, "Barack Obama has played young people. He reached out to them with soaring speeches championing unity, and they responded to his call to transcend differences and engage in a new kind of politics. In fact, they responded with more enthusiasm, more genuine hope than any other demographic. And the president repaid their trust with betrayal—becoming not the great united, but the most divisive president in history. He has robbed them of current and future prosperity, perverted their understanding of the value of hard work, ambition, and the American dream, and poisoned their optimism—the very optimism he used to soar to victory in 2008."
Kate has held many distinguished posts from being the first woman chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia to an appointee for Governors Allen and Gilmore on the State Council of Higher Education to chief of staff to Senator George Allen and serving as vice president of Young America's Foundation. She has four children and is a regular on Fox News and in other media.
After Kate's talk, attendees had the opportunity to buy her latest book, Divider-In-Chief: The Fraud of Hope and Change, in person and receive an autographed note.
To listen and watch her full remarks Wednesday, please click here for the video.

subset: commoncrawl


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We spoke to Dave Lister, a member of the English Civil War Society, to find out what is in store for the Living History Day this weekend.
Can you tell us a little bit about the group and what you do?
We are Colonel Edward Montagu's Regiment of Foote from the Roundhead Association, part of the English Civil War Society. We recreate the everyday life of the English Civil Wars. Our display will provide an insight into how the civilians and military went about their everyday business during the 17th century.
How long have you been established?
We have been part of the English Civil War Society for 35 years now, so we have been around a while. We even have a few members that have been in the society and regiment for nearly as long!
What can people expect from the Living History day?
We will have a variety of stations showcasing everyday life during the English Civil War. These stations will include a cooks' area providing examples of the diet of the 17th century, a military area with an officer's post and soldiers demonstrating their duties.
We also have more stations reflecting other areas of civilian life in the 17th century, these include the various crafts such as sewing, spinning and weaving. We also have a scribe – there will even be a chance for you to try out some writing yourselves!
During the day we will be performing a full military drill to demonstrate the weapons used during the English Civil War. There will also be a children's drill where we can teach the young ones how to be a soldier.
Why do you enjoy doing events such as this one?
It's good to interact with the audience; you get to see their reactions to hearing what life was like in the 17th century. It also gives our members a chance to learn new skills from others within the regiment and the society.
The English Civil War Society and Colonel Edward Montagu's Regiment of Foote will be at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds on Saturday 9 February, 10am – 4pm. Visit our website for more information.


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New research on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in soldiers challenges popular assumptions about the origins and trajectory of PTSD, providing evidence that traumatic experiences in childhood – not combat – may predict which soldiers develop the disorder.
Psychological scientist Dorthe Berntsen of Aarhus University in Denmark and a team of Danish and American researchers wanted to understand why some soldiers develop PTSD but others don't. They also wanted to develop a clearer understanding of how the symptoms of the disorder progress.
"Most studies on PTSD in soldiers following service in war zones do not include measures of PTSD symptoms prior to deployment and thus suffer from a baseline problem. Only a few studies have examined pre- to post-deployment changes in PTSD symptoms, and most only use a single before-and-after measure," says Berntsen.
The findings challenge the notion that exposure to combat and other war atrocities is the main cause of PTSD.
"We were surprised that stressful experiences during childhood seemed to play such a central role in discriminating the resilient versus non-resilient groups," says Berntsen. "These results should make psychologists question prevailing assumptions about PTSD and its development."
[Note from Mom Psych: The really surprising thing is that the researchers were surprised. Other researchers have long known that secure attachment in childhood supports resilience (against the effects of stress as well as trauma), and that differences in resilience help explain why some people succumb to mental health issues later in life and others don't.] See also: http://www.mom-psych.com/Articles/Trauma-and-Resilience/What-Is-Resilience-GS1001.html


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Chocolate Caramel Breads Recipe
Candy bars are the chocolate-caramel surprise in this bread. I invented this braid as a way to make my basic yeast sweet bread recipe a little more decadent.
Recommended: Caramel Apple-Inspired Recipes
VERIFIED BY Taste of Home Test Kitchen
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- 6 to 6-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 2 packages (1/4 ounce each) active dry yeast
- 1-1/2 teaspoons salt
- 2 cups (16 ounces) sour cream
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/4 cup butter, cubed
- 2 eggs
- 48 fun-size Snickers or Milky Way candy bars
- 1 egg white
- 1 tablespoon water
- In a large bowl, combine 1-1/2 cups flour, sugar, yeast and salt. In a small saucepan, heat the sour cream, water and butter to 120°-130°; add to dry ingredients. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Add eggs and 1/2 cup flour; beat 2 minutes longer. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a soft dough.
- Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.
- Punch dough down; divide into thirds. On a greased baking sheet, roll out one portion into a 16-in. x 10-in. rectangle. Place 16 candy bars lengthwise in two rows down the center third of the rectangle.
- On each long side, cut 1-in.-wide strips into the center to within 1/2 in. of candy bars. Starting at one end, fold alternating strips at an angle across candy bars. Pinch ends to seal and tuck under. Repeat with remaining dough and candy bars. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
- Beat egg white and water; brush over braids. Bake at 375° for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pans to wire racks to cool. Yield: 3 loaves (16 slices each).
Originally published as Chocolate Caramel Breads in Best of Country Breads 2000, p90
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March 16, 2012 > March Madness ends with wild finishes
March Madness 2012, ladies fast pitch softball tourney, held this past weekend, March 10-11 at Central Park in Fremont and hosted by Ohlone College Renegades, saw plenty of action, especially in Sunday's Gold Bracket games. Saturday was pool play with 16 California Community College teams participating in four pools, A, B, C, D, of four teams each while Sunday's games would be single elimination play.On Saturday the Renegades opened against Merced with sophomore Lauren Ermitano out of Castro Valley High School toeing the rubber. Ohlone started out like it was going to run away with an opening game victory taking an 11-3 lead after three innings. However, walks and Renegade fielding errors over the last three innings saw Ohlone escape with a 12-9 win.Ermitano gave up six runs on six hits and three walks over the first five innings while reliever, freshman Brittany Wright, California High School, San Ramon, allowed three runs (one earned) on four walks and no hits. Renegades committed six errors during the game.Offensively, Ermitano helped her own cause going 4/4 with a home run, four RBI's and two runs scored; sophomore center fielder Ashley Vignola, Granada High School, Livermore, was 2/4 with a home run, four RBI's and two runs scored; and sophomore right fielder Megan Tyler, Robertson High School went 3/3 with two runs scored.Game 2 on Saturday for Ohlone saw them fall, 3-2 to Feather River in a much better played game which was called after six innings of play because of the imposed 1 hour, 45 minute time limit. AllSaturday games could not start an inning after 105 minutes provided the losing team had at least five innings of at bats. This game saw the Renegades commit just two errors while walking one and FR walked four but had no errors.Sophomore southpaw, Katy Bihl, Newark Memorial High School, pitched all six innings giving up five hits and only one earned run. Sophomore left fielder Renelle Traylor, San Lorenzo High School, tripled in going 2/2 with a walk and a run scored. Bihl added a double.Final game on Saturday against Gavilan was called after 4 1/2 innings based on the eigh- run mercy rule with Ohlone shutting out the Gilroy team, 8-0. Wright went the distance for the Renegades giving up just three hits and striking out four. However, she gave up seven walks but was able to keep all the free passes from scoring. Sophomore catcher, Shelby Fowler, California High went 2/3 with a double, three RBI's and two runs scored; freshman designated player, Jamie Costa, West High School, Tracy was 2/2 including a triple, a walk, two RBI's and a run scored; Traylor was 2/3 with two RBI's; and freshman lead off hitter, Mariah Nisbet, California High walked twice and scored a run.When Gavilan defeated Feather River, 11-3 in the last game of Pool B play, the result was that those two teams and Ohlone ended in a three-way tie for first in Pool B at 2-1. All three teams defeated Merced and beat each other. First tie breaker was total runs allowed by each team in pool play. Gavilan and Ohlone each allowed 12 runs while FR allowed 16. This meant FR ended up third and would have to play in the Silver Bracket on Sunday. To determine the first and second place teams, the second and last tie breaker would have to be used, a coin flip. Ohlone won the flip and drew Pool C second place Hartnell on Sunday while Gavlian would have to face first place San Jose City.Bihl would get the start for the Renegades on Sunday against Hartnell and the southpaw pitched a beauty. She gave up just two runs (one earned on an Ohlone error), five hits and no walks while striking out 12 of 21 outs in going the distance, with a 7-2 win. Nisbet was 3/4 with an RBI and a run scored; Ermitano 2/4 with three RBI's; Fowler, a home run; sophomore third baseman, Kaley Marden, Washington High School, a triple and a run scored; and sophomore second baseman, Sarah Ragusa, Granada, a double, two RBI's and one run scored.Meanwhile, Fresno City College Rams, second out of Pool A after another three-way tie for first at 2-1, played College of the Siskiyous Eagles, from Weed, first out of Pool D. Siskiyous came into March Madness at 14-1, ranked number one in the state. In pool play on Saturday, Siskiyous did not allow a run in their three games.Finally in the second inning, Fresno broke through the goose eggs with a home run for a 1-0 lead. However, the Eagles showed why they are ranked #1 when they answered with five runs in the bottom of the second.Meanwhile, Fresno would keep battling, picking up single runs in the third and fifth while shutting down the Eagle bats. Top of the seventh saw Fresno score two and tie the game at 5-5 which ended up sending the game into extra innings. In top nine, Fresno broke the tie to go up 6-5 and they then shut down #1 which sent the Rams against the Renegades in a Gold Bracket semi-final.Wright would get the start on field 3 against Fresno and right away you could see Ohlone had left their "A" game back on field 4 where they had played their previous four games. Top of the first saw Fresno load the bases on two singles and a walk, but Wright got out of it without allowing a run. In the second, the Rams scored two runs on a walk, a hit batsman and two singles. Bottom second, Renegades loaded the bases but could not score.Finally in the third, the wheels came off for Ohlone. Fresno scored seven runs when the Rams went single, sacrifice, triple, strike out, double, single, walk, triple, single, then three straight errors including two on one play. Score was now 9-0 and if not for being only in the third inning, it would have been game over. Bihl relieved Wright after the walk in the third.To Ohlone's credit, they kept battling and finally got on the board with a three-run fourth and added two in the fifth and one in the sixth while holding Fresno to one in the fifth. With the score 10-6 Fresno going into the seventh, the Renegades were still within range of a comeback if they could shut down the Rams in the top of the seventh.With the bases loaded, two outs and no runs in, came the play of the tournament. Fresno second baseman, Kassie Sierras, hit a dribbler down the third base line. Third baseman, Marden charged the ball, caught it and flipped it to catcher Fowler as it looked like she would have had no chance to get the batter at first. Fowler caught the ball and appeared to be touching home plate. With the bases loaded, only a force at home was required and not a tag. However, the Fresno runner then kicked the ball out of Fowler's glove and the umpire ruled the runner safe and not out on a force play. Ball then went to the back stop as a live ball and before anyone could get control of the ball, two more runners scored and the batter went to third. A following single would then score the fourth run of the inning and Fresno now had an almost insurmountable lead, 14-6, going into the bottom of the seventh.Again, Ohlone kept battling and scored five runs in the seventh on five singles, a sac fly and a Fresno error to go down 14-11, enough for a win if not for the bizarre plate at the plate.Gold Bracket final would be between Fresno and San Jose City Colleges. SJC jumped out to 5-0 lead after 2 1/2 innings before Fresno closed the gap to 5-4 after four innings. Jaguars would put up five runs in the fifth to take a 10-4 lead but again Fresno was not dead. Rams would score one in the fifth, three in the sixth and three more in the seventh for an 11-10 Gold Bracket Championship with the winning run scoring on passed ball. Solano College of Fairfield defeated Feather River, 12-1 to win the Silver Bracket.Ohlone is now 16-6 on the year and 5-0 in Coast Conference North (CCN) league play. Next scheduled game is Saturday, March 17, 12noon at home against CCN second place, College of San Mateo (24-3, 4-1) weather permitting. Renegades return home vs. CC South Gavilan on Thursday, March 29 and on Tuesday, April 3 vs. CCS San Jose City. Both games start at 3:00 p.m.Congratulations to Ohlone Head Coach, Donna Runyon and her staff of coaches, parents and volunteers on a very well run tournament.


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NEW HAVEN, Conn. – No. 31 Yale (9-2) will look to bounce back from just its secod loss of the season and reassert its home court advantage when it hosts Western Michigan Sunday at the Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center.
Just two weekends ago, the Bulldogs defeated No. 32 William & Mary to extend its home winning streak to 23 matches before having the streak snapped the next day by No. 20 Vanderbilt.
Already on spring break, the Bulldogs will play this match before heading down to Florida to take on No. 20 South Florida and No. 49 Florida International.
Season to Date
Yale is currently 9-2 this season with wins over ranked opponents William & Mary, Wake Forrest, Harvard, Dartmouth, and Boston University. Yale's lone two losses came against defending national champion No. 1 Duke and No. 2 Vanderbilt.
Yale's impressive resume this season includes a national ranking as high as No. 28 and an ECAC Championship.
Eight of Yale's eleven opponents thus far this season have been ranked at some point this season. Yale won matches over Wake Forrest, William & Mary, Harvard, Dartmouth, and Boston University twice.
The Bulldogs have also faced No. 1 Duke and No. 20 Vanderbilt.
Yale's remaining schedule includes matches against No. 20 South Florida and No. 49 Florida International. The Bulldogs will face No. 37 Dartmouth, No. 45 Princeton, No. 56 Brown, and No. 60 Harvard during the Ivy League season.
Returning Players
The Bulldogs return six players from last season's squad, including five starters. Senior captain Sarah Lederhandler and senior Jessica Rhee have both started all four of their years at Yale. Juniors Lindsay Clark and Stevi Petrelli have also been contributors as starters every season they have been at Yale. Sophomore Vicky Brook posted an undefeated 7-0 record in the Ivy League at the No. 3 singles slot as a freshman. Brook begins the spring season with sophomore newcomer Stephanie Kent ranked No. 41 in the ITA doubles rankings.
New Additions
Yale adds three players to its squad this season. Sophomore Stephanie Kent, a transfer from Cornell, had a successful fall season for the Bulldogs and begins the season ranked No. 87 in the ITA individual rankings. Her successful fall season included impressive performances in both the ITA National Indoor Championships and ITA Northeast Regional Championships. Kent also starts the season ranked No. 41 in the nation in doubles with partner Vicky Brook.
Freshman Elizabeth Epstein, Yale's blue chip recruit from Chicago, Ill., will start the season ranked No. 122 in the nation. Yale also adds freshman Jenna Ritz to its roster.
ITA National Indoor Championships
Yale played host to the 2009 ITA National Indoor Championships from Nov. 5 to Nov. 8 at the Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center. The 2009 ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships, the nation's premier collegiate indoor tennis tournament, is the second of three national championship events for college tennis this season. The ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships featured a 32-player singles field and 16-team doubles field.
The draws were made up of qualifiers from Wilson / ITA Regional Championships held across the country, the ITA National Small College Championships, top performers from the ITA All-American Championships, and at-large wild card selections made by the ITA National Tournament Committee.
As host of the tournament, the Bulldogs received two singles bids and one doubles bid. In the first round of the tournament, the No. 8 seeded singles player edged sophomore Stephanie Kent in three sets. Kent then won a consolation singles match over Auburn's Fan Chichieva, the No. 4 seed in the consolation singles draw.
Kent and Brook competed in the ITA National doubles draw. Rhee also competed in the ITA National singles draw.
No Place Like Home
The Bulldogs have won 23 of their last 24 matches at home dating back to 2007. Yale has lost only once with Danielle Lund McNamara as its head coach.
The Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center serves as home for the Bulldogs. The fabulous eight-court facility complete with a spectacular viewing area and lobby has been serving as the home of Yale tennis since 2008.
The Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center was made possible by the generous leadership gifts from Sam Heyman '60 and the estate of the late Joseph Cullman III. The project includes a new building with four new courts that are attached to the existing four Cullman Courts. Additionally, the renovation includes team locker rooms, a team room and coaches' offices. The new spacious lobby has been named by Larry Leeds `50 in honor of his son Cary '79. The eight courts have been named to recognize great figures in Yale Tennis history.
Blue Aces Fan Club
The Blue Aces Fan Club is the official fan club for the Yale Bulldogs women's tennis team. It's free to join.
To join Blue Aces, fans can go to http://www.yaleblueaces.com or sign up at home matches.
Ivy League Champions
Yale posted an undefeated 7-0 record in the Ivy League in 2008 to win its first Ivy League Title since 1989 and its first outright Ivy League Title since 1981. In their first ever NCAA Tournament appearance, the Bulldogs fell in the first round against No. 2 seed Georgia.
The Bulldogs finished the year with an Intercollegiate Tennis Association East region ranking of No. 6 and an ITA national ranking of No. 74. The East Regional rank of No. 6 was the highest of an Ivy League team in the end of the year rankings. The Bulldogs trailed only William & Mary, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Virginia, Marshall and Virginia Tech in the end of the year regional rankings.
Report Filed by Steven Horn '10,
Yale Sports Publicity


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Each Tuesday, 12 to 15 teens from the Springfield area meet at The State Journal-Register to learn about journalism, share ideas and plan upcoming Voice sections.
Those meetings bring students together from different school districts in a unique way. Their collective work makes The Voice one of the great young writers� programs with a newspaper in the country.
Leading the group this year is Voice intern Amber Campbell, a senior at Tri-City High School.
Amber joined The Voice in January 2013 and quickly became active. Her energy and enthusiasm and growing love of journalism make her a great intern.
Not every Voice intern plans to go into journalism, but Amber does. She�ll attend a college to be determined and major in journalism.
�I didn�t know that I wanted to be a journalist until I started on The Voice, and I really loved it,� Amber said last week. �I like to talk to people about the things that they do.�
Amber called it a �fun challenge,� having to report and write on a variety of topics. �To me journalism is an opportunity to educate other people about issues and what�s going on,� she said.
The Voice, published every Tuesday, is a great example of that. Teens writing on issues that are important to them educates all of our readers on what�s happening in and out of schools.
And the section is highly read, certainly contributing to the SJ-R�s 73 percent weekly readership by the 18-34 age group, according to the most recent Media Audit.
Youth achievement is regularly recognized by The Voice, and the biggest recognition of the year is coming as The Voice reaches out for students who�ve made a difference in a big way.
Nominations are now being accepted for the annual Top Teen Award, which honors high school students who have made an impact on their school, home and community overall.
Five students will be named finalists, and each will be featured in The Voice section. An overall winner will be chosen by a group of Voice students.
�Last year�s Top Teen Award was really cool because I�ve really never heard of some of the great things they did,� Amber said. �This is a great opportunity for them to get recognized.�
If you know a top teen, make sure they are nominated by March 4. For rules and details refer to last Tuesday�s Voice or find the story on The Voice page on Facebook or The Voice page on our website.
And if you�d like to get involved in The Voice, just contact Voice editor Alissa Groeninger at alissa.groeninger.com. You can meet everyone and get on board, and come back for a full school year.
Amber certainly is glad she did and appreciates the feedback from readers.
�A lot of people think it�s cool that I�m a senior in high school writing for a professional paper,� she said.
GOP sheriff debate set
The State Journal-Register will sponsor an online debate featuring the Republican candidates for sheriff on Monday, Feb. 24, at 10:30 a.m.
Thanks to Jack Campbell and Wes Barr for agreeing to participate in the debate that will be shown live on our website.
It will take place in our auditorium, and there�s room for a few people to attend. We�re giving 10 tickets to each campaign, and we have 25 tickets for readers. If you�d like to attend, please send a note with your full name to email@example.com. We�ll let you know if you�re among the first 25.
Our reporters will ask the questions during the debate. This week on The State Journal-Register�s Facebook page we�ll reach out for questions you�d like to ask.
Meanwhile, our election 2014 page online (bit.ly/SJRprimary) is filling up with coverage and videos of our editorial board�s candidate endorsement interviews. Those videos are posted when we�ve completed the interviews in a race. Visit when you have time; we think the page will be a great resource for voters in coming weeks.
Thanks for reading us and let me know what you think about anything in The State Journal-Register or www.sj-r.com.
Executive Editor Bob Heisse can be reached at 788-1505 or firstname.lastname@example.com. Read his �From the Editor� blog.


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Story highlights
- Henrique Capriles will face acting President Nicolas Maduro
- The two traded angry barbs Sunday night
- Capriles lost to Chavez last year; Maduro is the late president's hand-picked successor
- Candidates have until Monday to register for the April 14 election
Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles has announced that he will run in next month's presidential election to replace the late Hugo Chavez.
He faces an uphill battle against acting President Nicolas Maduro, who was sworn in last week and was Chavez's hand-picked successor.
According to state news, the candidates have until Monday to register for the April 14 election.
"Nicolas, I will not give you a free path," Capriles told reporters Sunday. "You will have to defeat me with votes."
Capriles, 40, ran against Chavez last year and lost. But he mounted one of the fiercest challenges during the late president's 14 years in power.
He accused the government of manipulating Chavez's death for political gain
"My fight is not to be president. My fight is for Venezuela to move forward," Capriles said Sunday night.
Maduro quickly fired back, appearing on state-run VTV to counter Capriles, calling him irresponsible.
"His aim is to provoke the Venezuelan people," Maduro said. "He's looking for violence."
The sharp exchange gave a potential preview of what the campaign period might look like -- angry, bitter and deeply divided.
Earlier Sunday, Maduro, 50, the ruling Socialist Party's candidate, picked up an endorsement from the country's small Communist Party.
He vowed to continue the policies and vision of Chavez, who died last week of cancer.
Chavez was a larger-than-life leader, who positioned himself as a champion of the poor and cast himself as a "21st-century socialist."
He was a polarizing figure, revered by legions even as others accused him of repressing dissenting voices and turning over once-independent institutions to partisan loyalists.
"I will be president and commander in chief of the armed forces because that's what Chavez ordered me to do. I will follow his orders, but I need the help of the people," Maduro said, according to VTV.
When Maduro was sworn in last week, Capriles protested loudly, telling reporters in Caracas the ceremony was "an abuse of power."
"To be president, the people have to elect you," he said. "The constitution is very clear."
Maduro addressed the upcoming election.
"May the best person win," he said. "The people will decide."


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NEW YORK (MarketWatch) – Financial stocks rose modestly on Monday, as investors eyed the G-20 finance minister meeting later this week.
Bank of America BAC, -0.17% rose nearly 1% while Citigroup Inc. C, -1.26% gained just over 1%. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. JPM, -0.51% and Morgan Stanley MS, -1.83% were flat.
The Financial Select Spector SPDR Fund XLF, -0.32% which tracks financial stocks in the S&P 500, moved up by 0.43% and is up more than 14% for the year.
Nasdaq OMX Group NDAQ, +0.18% had talks with The Carlyle Group CG, -0.68% about a potential buyout of the exchange operator. The talks, which have since been halted, were in the very early stages when the private-equity firm realized it wasn't going to be able to reach agreement with the exchange on price and the discussions broke down, a person familiar with the situation told MarketWatch.
The talks between the two firms happened in the past month, according to the person familiar with the situation. Just weeks earlier, exchange rival NYSE Euronext US:NYX announced an $8.2 billion deal to merge with IntercontinentalExchange Inc. ICE, -0.58%
Nasdaq and The Carlyle Group had no comment. Nasdaq shares were up nearly 5% on Monday. The talks were first reported on Fox Business Network.
Moody's Corp. MCO, +0.05% shares were up 5% and shares in McGraw-Hill Cos. US:MHP which owns Standard & Poor's Ratings Agency, were up nearly 4%, ahead of McGraw-Hill results on Tuesday.
Shares for both firms have fallen after the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against S&P last week. The government says the ratings agency intentionally boosted ratings for certain financial products, specifically mortgage-backed securities related to collateralized-debt obligations, right before the financial crisis.
Barclays PLC BCS, -0.18% is likely to cut costs by more than $3 billion and possibly lay off as many as 2,000 employees as part of some changes at the investment bank, according to reports. The British firm will report fourth-quarter earnings on Tuesday.
Barclays is likely to cut back some of the firm's equity operations in Asia and some of the retail and commercial banking in parts of Europe, said a report in the Financial Times.
Chief Executive Antony Jenkins is attempting to turn around the firm after the LIBOR scandal last year. The charges from regulators over manipulation of the interest rate led to several top executives leaving the firm. Barclays shares ended the day with a very small decline.
Goldman Sachs GS, -0.46% veteran banker Gregg Lemkau has been named global co-head of mergers and acquisitions, according to a memo sent by the firm. Lemkau, who is currently the head of M&A in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, will co-head the unit with Gene Sykes, another veteran of the firm.
Goldman Sachs holds the top spot for the M&A business and the unit can be very lucrative for the firm. M&A has slowed in recent years but as the economy picks up, the business is likely to do the same.
Lemkau will be replaced by Gilberto Pozzi as head of M&A in Europe. Pozzi is currently global co-head of consumer and retail, according to a firm memo. Goldman Sachs shares were up modestly on the day. Read: While you were 'Nemo' watching, Goldman got a little bearish on equities.
Dell Inc. US:DELL on Monday filed a notice with the Securities and Exchange Commission saying that taking the company private is in the best interests of the shareholders.
Silver Lake Partners, not mentioned in the filing, is partnering with the CEO to do the deal. Dell's largest investor, Southeastern Asset Management, which owns 8.5% of the company, has objected to the transaction.
Critics say the current LBO undervalues the company and investors have threatened to vote against the move, say reports. Dell shares were up slightly at $13.65. Read: Dell defends deal: 'Shifts risk' to buyers.


text:
Light Snow Possible On Tuesday
Early forecasts for Tuesday call for some light snow on Tuesday but an exact track has yet to be determined.
National Weather Service forecasts call for below normal temperatures on Tuesday and the possibility for some light snow in northern areas of New Jersey with rain for the rest of the state.
Forecasters are watching the track of the next storm to determine if the snow line moves south.
If the storm tracks closer to the coast it would mean the rain mixes with snow on Tuesday afternoon and turns to all snow Tuesday night before ending on Wednesday morning with more snow accumulating inland.
No watches or warnings are yet in place for Tuesday.
Temperatures are expected to stay below normal for most of the week.


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JUNEAU (AP) — U.S. Sen. Mark Begich says there's no question in his mind that drilling in the Arctic will continue to move forward.
During a conference call with reporters on Thursday, Begich was asked about the floating drill rig that recently ran aground in Alaska. The vessel Kulluk drilled last year in the Beaufort Sea and was bound for Seattle for upgrades and maintenance when it ran into trouble.
Begich said critics might use the incident in their arguments against drilling in the Arctic. But he cast this as a transportation and shipping issue — not a drilling issue. He said there are still questions to be answered, but he sees this as a learning experience and said he considers the debate over drilling in the Arctic over.
ANCHORAGE (AP) — Skiers and snowmachiners entering the backcountry are being warned about the danger of avalanches.
The Anchorage Daily News (http://is.gd/437dsa) says the Chugach National Forest Avalanche Information Center issued an avalanche advisory Wednesday. Center director Kevin Wright says conditions are right for an avalanche because of stormy weather that was followed by sunshine.
He says more than 10 feet of new snow has fallen in the mountains over the past two weeks. Large natural and human-triggered avalanches have been reported over the last week.
ANCHORAGE (AP) — A 56-year-old Anchorage man has died after his car ran into a grocery store early Thursday morning.
Anchorage police say Peniata Tauinaola was pronounced dead at a hospital following the 1:50 a.m. low-speed crash at the Carrs/Safeway at the Northway Mall.
Police say in a release that drugs and alcohol don't appear to be factors.
His SUV had been going between 5 to 10 mph through the mall parking lot, and it appeared he was attempting to park in front of the store. But police say the SUV never stopped, sideswiped a parked car, went across the sidewalk and hit the building. He was found unconscious but with no visible injuries.
Damage to both vehicles was light, and police say there's no monetary damage to the store.


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The Oakland Press (http://www.theoaklandpress.com)
Friday, August 22, 2014
LONDON, Ontario >> So Yeon Ryu used a second straight bogey-free round to pull away at the Canadian Women's Open.
Ryu shot a 6-under 66 Friday at the London Hunt and Country Club to get to 15 under, the best two-round start in the tournament's history. She was five strokes ahead of fellow South Korean Na Yeon Choi, playing partner Anna Nordqvist and Danielle Kang.
"A lot of birdies is still a good sign, but no bogeys is more (of) a great sign because it means I play really consistent and when I was in trouble I handled it pretty well," she said. "That's my goal. I aim for the bogey-free round all four days."
If Ryu keeps it up over the weekend, she'll have a good chance at winning her first tournament since the Jamie Farr Toledo Classic in 2012. With eight top-10 finishes this year, including a tie for fifth at the U.S. Women's Open, she hasn't been far off.
Despite her victory drought, Ryu tries not to complain or worry.
"I'm happy to be just travelling all around the world," she said. "I'm really happy to show my golf swing and my golf game to all golf fans. The thing is to not really think about the result thing. I'm playing golf and I'm happy."
Ryu "absolutely" is happier when playing the kind of golf she has over the past couple of days.
"So Yeon is probably making everything she looks at," said Cristie Kerr who shot a 4-under 68 Friday to get to 9 under. She was the champion the previous time this tournament was in London in 2006.
American Brittany Lincicome, who was a runner-up to Inbee Park at last week's LPGA Championship, had the best round of the day with a 65 to move to 8 under. Lincicome said her confidence level was "really high."
"I felt really confident when I stepped on the first hole," she said. "It was a very smooth day and it was nice to get some putts to fall."
Joining Lincicome at 8 under were Lizette Salas, Lindsey Wright, Mi Hyang Lee and Xi Yu Lin.
One of the last players to tee off Friday, Kang saw Ryu's 15 under and didn't let it bother her. Instead, she watched the leaderboard with delight thinking about what she can do on this course.
"That tells me that there are birdies out there," said Kang, who borrowed defending champion and friend Lydia Ko's ball marker after forgetting her own. "You just got to go by the scoreboard, the scoreboard tells you everything you need to know."
Like a lot of players, Choi wasn't focused on others' performances before she teed off. The 2012 U.S. Women's Open champion also took a different approach Thursday night after shooting a 64.
Choi stressed about her driver after shooting a 70 Friday to tie Nordqvist for second. It's her hope that fixing a left hook in her swing can help her stay in the hunt.
Kang, a 21-year-old from San Francisco, is in contention and feeling confident going into the weekend.
"There's a lot of people contending, and there's a lot of birdies out there and everyone's shooting low, so you've just got to keep making birdies," she said.
Note: American Jessica Korda had a hole in one on the eighth, drilling an 8 iron from 147 yards from the tee. She shot a 70 to get to 4 under through two rounds.


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School-Led Total Sanitation: Reflections on the Potential of the Shebedino Pilot, March 2011.
Robert Chambers
This note is based on two field visits, in November 2010 and 23 February 2011, discussions with Berhanu Tunsisa and others in Plan Ethiopia, and with Government staff and others in Shebedino, and the findings of the February 2011 Assessment Report on School-led Total Sanitation: Shebedino Program Unit, by Fisseha Atalie. This report is timely and a useful source of insight and ideas. It includes a comparison of CLTS and SLTS carried out by the Regional Health Bureau and Plan Ethiopia staff.
From an international perspective this innovation is unique. To my knowledge, this is the first time anywhere in the world that teachers have been systematically engaged in triggering CLTS. This began only in October 2010 and has already been applied to achieve 100 per cent coverage in 6 kebeles. If it continues to work well, it may provide a means for going to scale faster with CLTS in Ethiopia.


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Great news in the state of Washington: a new state law bans the use of restraints on incarcerated pregnant women. No shackles can be used during labor, post-delivery recovery, or during medical trips or court visits in a prisoner's third trimester. Sounds like common sense, right?
Unfortunately, Washington only joins 6 other states that have similar laws. Elsewhere, women are allowed to be shackled and restrained while giving birth to their child, a truly disgusting example of how our prison system dehumanizes people. One woman, as reported by the ACLU, felt like "an animal giving birth before my masters."
Hopefully Washington's law will influence other states to adopt similar bans. By treating these women as mothers first instead of prisoners, this law highlights what is too often forgotten in our society: incarcerated women and men are human beings too.


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It will allow the government to track you.
"This project's definition of secure media is similar to Zimmermann's work on ZRTP, in that we assure there is no forwarding knowledge by using uniquely generated keys for each communication session. Furthermore, we will use GNU Privacy Guard (GPG) to fully automate session validation. This will be done by extending the SIP protocol to exchange public keys for establishing secure media sessions that will be created by each instance of SIP Witch operating at the end points on behalf of local SIP user agents, and then verifying there is no man-in-the-middle by exchanging GPG signed hashes of the session keys that were visible at each end."
So there are encryption measures in hand. Even vanilla VoIP has SIP over TLS and SRTP to work with. ZRTP is reasonably well supported too. It also employs a Skype-style P2P routing system, which should help provide a comparable degree of anonymisation: "Our goal is to make GNU Free Call ubiquitous in a manner and level of usability similar to Skype, that is, usable on all platforms, and directly by the general public for all manner of secure communication between known and anonymous parties, but without requiring a central service provider to register with, without using insecure source secret binary protocols that may have back-doors, and without having network control points of any kind that can be exploited or abused by external parties. By doing so as a self organizing meshed calling network, we further eliminate potential service control points such as through explicit routing peers even if networks are isolated in civil emergencies."
So, which is preferable, transparency wise, a technology provided by a publicly traded company, or an open-source technology which can be administered by the end users if they so wish?
The problem I foresee with a distributed system (as I understand Freecall is intended to be) is nuisance calls - the so-called SPIT (SPam over Internet Telephony...)
Traditional phones mainly relied upon cost - and the likes of Skype have the benefit of infrastructure under their control.
Are there any plans to address this (orthogonal) issue, I wonder?
Well, I can think of various technical solutions. For one, you only know the person on the other end based on their gpg public key, which is probably registered somewhere you reasonably trust if you want to accept the call. We could show you the registration info for the caller, and after answering you will find if the person on the other end claims to be the same person or organization. If the call turns out to be illegal spam (based on the national do-not-call list?), we could have buttons in the app to report the caller to both the registry where they published there public gpg key, and with federal authorities who may be able to look into major offenders.
Another part of the solution could be the whole web of trust thing, which is a great idea that never seemed to pan out. In theory, if you are trying to call me, some non-spammer I know should be able to vouch for you. Somewhere out there should be someone willing to identifying all real people on the net. In fact, maybe I would pay this organization a few bucks to somewhat verify that I'm a real person, and not a robot, someone unlikely to spread spam. If we automated black-listing spammers so fast that they didn't get to make many calls with that few bucks they paid to get white-listed, it wouldn't be profitable for them.
Another possibility is that for callers not on my white list, I demand some electronic cash for the call to go through, maybe something like a buck. If I accept the call and don't black list you afterwards, your white listed and your cash is refunded. If I blacklist you, I keep the buck. I'd love to do that one to my ex-wife if she ever calls
No, they haven't been tried for e-mail, and they would work if put into common use.
If we were willing to upgrade e-mail protocols, we could beat spam. How dumb is it that we allow any person in the world to trivially claim to be any other person when sending you an e-mail? Imagine what a pain it would be if Google and Facebook leak e-mails of all their users and their contact lists? Heck, we don't even have the will shift to secure DNS. Like the shift to IPv6, the world wont willing move forward unless
While I commend the effort to find a way around the inevitable onslaught of spit, I note that there are technical drawbacks. The web of trust sounds like a great idea - until you try to use it... then most people find themselves ham-strung by human nature which finds 'vouching' to be an onerous responsibility - especially when the full implications of making errors is not understood. Conversely, a centralised directory almost completely undermines the value of using a decentralised mesh network over conve
It will allow the government to track you.
And other "services" do not ? Look at skype for example you have to connect to other nodes to open a call it is not a direct connection. Who is to say that some rogue node is in between ? SIP can be 2 way and not multi node.
With GNU Free Call everything is open sourced. It would be a whole hell of a lot easier to find out and eventually block bad nodes, MitM, etc. Also not to mention some people who like to use OSS and operating systems will finally have a decent service/client to use on multiple
If it's that big of a concern, one really ought to be tunneling the SIP connection directly to the machine that they want to connect to anyways. That way you mostly have to worry about the end points and less so about the intermediaries.
Oooo. Wire tapping. Waste as many CPU cycles as you want intercepting my calls about grocery shopping, how your day went and what time we're meeting at the bar.
If I *really* wanted to kill the president, start thermonuclear war, blow up dirty bomb in New York City, funnel money to Al Qaeda, etc. I'd find much better means of communication.
There are dozens of 'free image sharing' websites. Pair that up with craigslist, steganography and some pgp and best of luck tracking all of that. If for nothing else the noise ratio is way too high.
So I plan on blowing something up. I take a stock photograph of a car and dump a pgp message into it. I post it to craigslist under something that doesn't exist. Like "Rare 1963 Ford Mustang" My friends know what to look for and maybe an area.
For example this image: http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/5563/steghide.jpg [imageshack.us]
Download, then run it through:
steghide --extract -sf steghide.jpg -xf message.txt -p bomb
Or there's python-stepic. http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/4907/stepic.png [imageshack.us]
stepic -d -i stepic.png -o jnk
And you can embed more than just short messages. I tested out a 20 paragraph ipsum.
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/4911/ipsum.jpg [imageshack.us]
steghide, password 'slashdot'.
It's only the dumb criminals/terrorists that get caught. If people WANT to hide messages, it's not that hard.
Well, either the government is expecting everybody to put stenographyc data at images and text at sites, or it is overwelmed trying to extract noise from every non-mainstream torrent out there. Either way, they'll only catch stupid people (if there is any stupid people that knows how to do stenography).
Ok, the alternative is sane intelligency based filtering. Now, some governemnts may be able to do that, but it doesn't look mainstream.
Perhaps we need to add steganographic noise to the other elements on your photo-sharing sites, just so that your messages don't stick out like a sore thumb.
So this has no relation to the two previous articles? http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/11/03/15/0432226/Richard-Stallman-Cell-Phones-Are-Stalins-Dream [slashdot.org] http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/03/15/1513257/Encrypted-VoIP-Meets-Traffic-Analysis [slashdot.org]
He's suggesting that there might be some synergy between RMS talking about how cellphones provide a way for The Man to track you, and a GNU project popping it that aims to route voice communications through a P2P mesh with privacy features.
Ya reckon?
Its aims are going to be crushed by its terrible name. GNU Free Call is a mouthful that even I, knowing what the acronym means, don't like the sound of. If they want adoption they should quit their self-promotion-in-the-name and re-brand, even "GFC" would be a million times better.
GNUCostCall (pronounced nu cost call) would kind of work...
Actually, you're doing it wrong. That's pronounced. Neek. Cost Call.
If you do that again I shall say neek to you, good sir.
Or coming up with an actual fscking name. Why is this so difficult for OSS? Free Call is uninspired and reminiscent of both built-in Windows card games and, not coincidentally, "fecal." Here's a few alternatives off the top of my head:
VoCall, SyndiCall, CryptologiCall, UnequivoCall, etc...
SPL (pronounced "spiel")
Freq. In/Out
Streaming Telephony Framing Utility
uPhone (greek mu, pronounced "microphone" by geeks; "you phone" by idiots; "lawsuit" by Apple)
Really though
Speakeasy is a pretty damn solid name actually!
It'll probably be a command line tool or library that nobody will use in its pure form; instead, they'll use a GUI frontend with a completely different name. I expect it'll eventually be built into Pidgin and other chat programs.
Of course, I didn't read the article so it's all a mystery! I love surprises.
It'll probably be a command line tool or library that nobody will use in its pure form; instead, they'll use a GUI frontend with a completely different name. I expect it'll eventually be built into Pidgin and other chat programs.
Of course, I didn't read the article so it's all a mystery! I love surprises.
And finally one IM/SIP/irc/etc Client for all your needs .
It'll probably be a command line tool or library that nobody will use in its pure form; instead, they'll use a GUI frontend with a completely different name.
No, they'll use 12 different GUIs that depend on a hundred different libs and apps on different platforms. You'll go to the "gnufreecall" website and get a list of links to FTP sites that contain different and incompatible versions of various backend tools and GUIs, with "installation instructions" that start with, "To install from github..."
No, they'll use 12 different GUIs that depend on a hundred different libs and apps on different platforms. You'll go to the "gnufreecall" website and get a list of links to FTP sites that contain different and incompatible versions of various backend tools and GUIs, with "installation instructions" that start with, "To install from github..."
Oh no! Not multiple programs using the same library! Then we'll get terrible confusion like how end-users want to download Webkit, but it's a huge pain because they have to find their own Javascript library and network stack and everything, and then do a bunch of programming, then compile it themselves. It would be really helpful if normal users didn't know what libraries are, and always looked for an actual program instead of library -- like Safari, Chrome or Konquerer, but average people are way too inter
It looks like what they're doing is using SIP Witch [gnu.org] as a basis. As far as I can tell, SIP Witch just connects endpoints to each other, allowing those endpoints to negotiate a protocol for what they're streaming to each other independently. I think the new thing here is that it'll be able to route through a P2P/mesh type arrangement, for privacy and independence from a single central service provider -- but everything else is existing code.
I'm not sure I agree, the GNU in the name commands seriousness, and dedication of the project.
From it people immediately understand, that there are some technical hard-hitters behind it, and that it won't suddenly turn into a free (but you need to pay) kind of thing, that happens to most of these so called "free" things.
Without it, what's to differentiate the project from all the googles, voddlers, moogles, twitters, flickrs and all other stupid names that one can't even remember the difference of?
I'm not sure I agree, the GNU in the name commands seriousness, and dedication of the project.
Like the dedication to GNU/Hurd where they'll give up as soon as something better comes along?
It doesn't command seriousness or respect. gcc and linux both have gnu in their name, but most common users never see it. When I see GNU in a name, I don't think there are smart people are behind it because of the name, there are smart people behind plenty of non-gnu open source projects too, I just see shameless self promotion.
Frankly, outside of Free software communities, the GNU folks are acknowledged to do go
Meh, personally, I hope it goes through, because if you ever have to support it, you'll be in the Gnu Free Call Information Technology group, and get to say to people...
GNU -- FC IT, but how can I help you anyway?
Gnu Free Call is only 3 syllables, so is GFC, equally pronounceable. Unless you pronounce the "G".
Agreed. I'm grateful for all the tools that have been published under the GNU name, but it's PR poison. Let me count the ways:
It would be pronounced "New Free Call" . People would wonder about the "Old Free Call"
In case you're not aware, Ekiga already exists and is a free-software SIP client implementation. See http://ekiga.org/ [ekiga.org] . At best this should be an extension for Ekiga, not an entirely new project.
In case you're not aware, Ekiga already exists and is a free-software SIP client implementation. See http://ekiga.org/ [ekiga.org] . At best this should be an extension for Ekiga, not an entirely new project.
Ekiga is a softphone client, not secure self-organized communication services.
This project aims to implement the entire VOIP network back-end, vaguely similar to how Skype does it (largely P2P).
This project aims to implement the entire VOIP network back-end, vaguely similar to how Skype does it (largely P2P).
I sure hope they won't need any central servers, including DNS, that could be used as choke points by any entity (commercial or government) to shut off the network.
Yeah. I'm also hoping they route all internet traffic by satellite, otherwise the government could use routers as choke points to shut off the network.
What are you talking about? This is free, open-source software, where fragmentation and throwing a hissy fit by starting your own fork are the first steps to the path of failure and obscurity.
Oh oh! Being GNU, does that mean that my conversations become open sourced by purely communicating over this service? I'm wondering this because technically my voice is being de-compiled into a byte stream and then re-compiled on the other end. Doesn't that make all my conversations bound to the terms in GPL? And how would I attach the source code of my conversation? Would I have to have some sort of text-to-speech implemented (non-proprietary of course) to facilitate this? And if I am discussing somet
This is supposed to be a peer to peer system. Which makes me wonder how will it interface with POTS or will it just be an internet only system.
In which case why not just use voice chat over any number of jabber clients?
Of course you are correct in one really important way. It would be dumb to not develop a plug in for Asterisk for this. You can buy a Skype gateway for Asterisk now.
This is supposed to be a peer to peer system. Which makes me wonder how will it interface with POTS or will it just be an internet only system.
I'm not sure they're thinking that far ahead, but perhaps the POTS gateways would just be "peers?"
Who will pay for the pots interface? Will they create a billing system so people can add a POTS interface to their system and make some cash?
That is the issue. It takes money to interface to POTS. That is why Skype charges for it.
Who will pay for the pots interface? Will they create a billing system so people can add a POTS interface to their system and make some cash? That is the issue. It takes money to interface to POTS. That is why Skype charges for it.
Short answer: the users of the gateway will pay for it, just as they do now.
Long answer: SIP gateways that charge for their services exist already. They are not necessarily connected with the suppliers of the SIP clients. Generally, they are separate business that happen to have a customer-facing SIP service. Currently, you log into the SIP service and they route your call to the land-lines via the internet. What would change with the new protocol is the routing between your client and the SIP-to-POTS g
If you are going to contract with a sip provider then why have this project?
If you really want to do computer to computer communications why not use Jabber? It is already an open standard and has been adopted by both Google and Facebook. There are a large number of Jabber servers that are open to the public as well.
Empathy, Ekiga, Twinkle... the list goes on. Even pidgin has SIP plugins. Why is this project special or needed?
As I understand it, the crucial difference here is that their objective is to implement the VOIP back-end as a P2P service. Something like what Skype does now, but without being evil.
SIP doesn't even traverse NAT firewalls without help from outside, and even then, barely.
SIP is also too verbose, and therefore it's hard to tweak the network to avoid jitter. (This is a huge problem currently)
A large reason why Skype became so popular is, that it didn't have the same problems as SIP.
IAX2 has none of these problems, supports multiple line trunking, and, it's already supported by lots of software and hardware.
IAX2 was developed out of a need for an efficient call trunking protocol for the fr
"SIP doesn't even traverse NAT firewalls without help from outside, and even then, barely."
Yep, thats what ICE is for.
What do you mean, if it traverses NAT, then only barely? I didn't know you could barely send an IP packet. is there anything like an O_BARELY flag?
Depending on the type of NAT and the SIP implementation, it either works or it doesn't.
Also I don't want to reconfigure my client each time I change network.
In my view, this is the *main* reason for the weak adoption of SIP, it's also getting way too complicated.
SIP doesn't even traverse NAT firewalls without help from outside, and even then, barely
The problem here is NAT, not SIP. The solution is IPv6 and reintroducing end-to-end connectivity. SIP is also only the signalling protocol. The actual multimedia streams are usually RTP, so the jitter you refer to is nothing to do with SIP.
If you're referring to the problem with Empathy, the solution was posted in the bug report here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/empathy/+bug/486508/comments/11 [launchpad.net]
I just had that issue, you can modify
<accelerator key="W" modifiers="GDK_CONTROL_MASK"/>
<accelerator key="Escape"
and ask for forgiveness to the gods that decided that would be a sin, cheers
If you're referring to the problem with Empathy
He's actually requesting that they employ the exit command from vi instead of the one from Emacs
Oh, whoops
I use nano myself.
Ctrl-x y
Congress passed a law requiring US based ITSP's to provide E911 support. If this idea ever went live it would require the same connections to E911. This connection costs money, its not free...
GNU VoIP would have to pay Verizon/Comcast/et cetera to connect to E911 and who is going to pay for that?
Unless congress provides an exemption.. (pfft, yahh)
So don't base it in the USA. That does not mean folks in the USA can't use it.
First implication that comes to mind is...
If you want to get sued when someone picks up your phone and dials 911 during an emergency.. Does a sticker really prevent liability (this phone isn't connected to 911)?
If you want to get sued when someone picks up your phone and dials 911 during an emergency.
Um, what? I know you guys are pretty trigger-happy when it comes to lawsuits, but could some Joe really sue you because a random device isn't what they thought it was?
I miss read the summary at first and thought they are aiming for it to be as stable as Skype, I thought can't you aim a little higher than that guys.
Reminds me of someone talking about how they got 5 nines uptime with Windows, some else asked if they were aiming for 10% next year
Think it will ever happen? Or is this just more GNU vaporware
I was all excited to see what a VoIP program that distinguishes itself as being "free of GNU" really meant. Come to find out, it is just a GNU project with a terrible name.
Whether you like Stallman's politics or not (i think he's a bit of a zealot, but I'm sure he'd agree and think as a compliment) there's a decent history of projects launched and ending up in some kind of Limbo someplace. Even emacs, his pet project, got forked into xemacs because of inactivity. The hurd has gone through many iterations, many underlying microkernels, and seems irrelevant. Even gcc, probably the best known and used FSF project, was forked by the egcs team and moved so much quicker than main
the op obviously hasn't tried the "latest" 2.1 beta of skype for linux - i expect he's been using skype 5 on windows/osx.
Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.


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To support water efficiency efforts by monitoring and benchmarking water use over time.
Case 1. Single family
Install a whole-house water meter. Single-family attached homes may share a whole-building water meter if landscaping is commonly managed and any units that will not achieve LEED certification are separately metered.
Encourage homeowners or tenants to share water usage data with USGBC via a USGBC-approved third-party.
Homes that use only well water and are not connected to a municipal water system are exempt from this prerequisite.
Case 2. Multifamily
Install a water meter or submeter for each unit or the entire building.
Encourage homeowners or tenants to share water usage data with USGBC via a USGBC-approved third-party by describing the benefits of participation in the Homeowner Education Manual.
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Powerful Class: Social Justice Meets Theatre
INSIDE USD — Every few minutes, the room went pitch black, followed by eerily silence and a mixture of feelings —uncertainty and, at the same time, excitement — for what would emerge.
Darkness, though, soon gave way to a bright spotlight that illuminated USD's Studio Theatre, where 15 enlightened expressions, "one-acts," were performed by students in Theatre Arts and Performance Studies Associate Professor Evelyn Diaz Cruz's powerful course, Theatre and Community.
There was Jose Galvan's gripping opener, "Littlest Lives"; Connor Sullivan's act of homeless enlightenment in "The Play"; Sara Padilla's beautifully crafted "Dreamers' Dance" as famous poet Maya Angelou voiced "Still I Rise"; spoken-word veracity of Tarez Lemmons' "Mirrors," and guest poets Karla Cordero and Stacy Dyson; and the serious reflection put forth by Jalen Angel, Toney Sawyer and Lemmons in "Hopeful." A fun, upbeat rap, "Ride Together," brought smiles and the entire student cast out for a final bow and an impromptu group dance. (full article).


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Boys hoops last to make season debut
November 17, 2012
The last of the high school winter sports to open regular season play is boys' basketball in the coming week. Mariner, Island Coast and Ida Baker make their season debut on their home courts Monday....
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People who wish to erect a Memorial Monument must obtain approval. The approval ensures any monument is within Council Guidelines and is in accordance with the Cemetery Association's proforma.
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A 2009 live-action movie and martial-arts fantasy based on the Japanese manga series. On his 18th birthday, Goku (Justin Chatwin), is given a Dragonball by his grandfather. Whoever unites this mystical sphere with six others will be granted a wish. However it turns out the evil Lord Piccolo (James Marsters) is trying to obtain all seven spheres so that he can destroy the world.
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The Realm of Possibility by David Levithan
Read by: Anna/Copley Teen Room for the TBOM group meeting on May 8th, 2013.
This is the stories of multiple teens struggling to find themselves and figure out who they are in the world. It's told from their multiple points of view in poem and song lyric formats.
This was an interesting read for me because I wasn't expecting it to be in poetry format. I was expecting a novel. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the way these stories were told. Each poem and song interwove themselves seemlessly with each of the others. Some responded to what had happened in other poems, some wrote their poems to another person who had a poem in the book. It was a unique take on writing a book in verse. Obviously, each person who "wrote" a poem was a character that came from David Levithan's head, but he did a really great job with the characterizations and making each one as unique as the next. The first poem and the last poem are connected, which was a nice circle back to the beginning once you got to the end. I really felt that the emotions of the teens he was writing about were clearly stated, or were just as confusing for the reader sometimes as they can be for teens in real life. It was realistically done, and a book I would highly recommend to anyone who enjoys stories told in this fashion or thinks they would like to try one for the first time. The fact that some of the characters are gay is not stated in such a way as to hit the reader over the head with it, and there are some who appear straight. Some are lesbian. There is a good mix of characters and experiences to round out the story over all.


text:
The El Niño climate pattern has returned for the first time since 2003 and will affect the climate in the Southeast for the next three to six months, according to the latest outlook from the Southeast Climate Consortium (SECC).
The SECC is a coalition of six universities, including Florida State University, University of Florida, University of Miami, University of Georgia, Auburn University and the University of Alabama-Huntsville.
While this El Niño event began a little later in the year than most warm events, summer/fall is the usual time when sea surface temperatures may rise and spread across the Pacific, according to the forecast. El Niño normally reaches peak intensity and coverage in the winter months.
Because of this seasonality of El Niño, the first impact felt in the Southeast U.S. is the relative inactivity of the hurricane season. "In spite of predictions to the contrary, 2006 has so far been a quiet tropical season and many are blaming the developing El Niño. El Niño is known to create an environment of high shear (winds changing with height) over hurricane formation regions in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico that hinders hurricane development.
With El Niño continuing to grow and with the hurricane season over half over, we expect the remainder of the hurricane season to continue below average activity," according to the SECC report.
Partially due to the expected decrease in tropical activity, El Niño actually brings drier than normal conditions (20 percent to 30 percent less rain than normal) to Florida, southern Alabama, and southern Georgia in the months of September and October. "Rainfall from tropical systems is an integral component of the climate of the Southeast in the fall, which is otherwise fairly dry without the impact of a tropical system. El Niño does not have much influence on temperatures during these months September and October," states the SECC outlook.
Once the colder months arrive (November through March), the classic El Niño climate patterns should establish themselves and control weather during that time. The El Niño is known to bring more frequent storms, excessive rainfall, and cooler temperatures to Florida and coastal Alabama and Georgia.
"Florida can expect 40 to 60 percent more rainfall than normal in the winter months. It is believed that the increase in rain and cloudiness associated with El Niño causes average temperatures to be cooler than normal during the winter months. These cooler temperatures result in greater chill accumulations over the course of the season. While average temperatures are often cooler, El Niño actually reduces the risk of severe cold outbreaks in Florida and the Southeast. The strong subtropical jet stream that is typical of El Niño acts to 'block' the intrusions of cold arctic air masses," according to the forecast.
Turning to more current conditions, the SECC says that after a very dry spring and early summer for most of the area, more plentiful rainfall returned to the Southeast in August and September. As is the usual case for summer precipitation, coverage and accumulations have been highly variable throughout the region.
"Southwest Florida has received soaking rains from tropical storms Alberto and Ernesto along with frequent thundershowers, resulting in a surplus of summer rain. Other areas, the western Panhandle of Florida and southeast Alabama in particular, have remained rather dry. While not offering immediate relief, El Niño should help these areas catch up in the coming winter."
The SECC predicts the following impacts on Southeastern crops from the latest El Niño:
Winter vegetables (tomato, green peppers): Tomato and green peppers generally yield less during El Niño years than during Neutral or La Niña years. Most soil-borne pathogens and fruit quality problems increase in El Niño years. Fruit quality problems like gray wall are also more prevalent in El Niño years,
Pasture: In general, El Niño years are good for winter pasture due to wetter conditions. However, growth may be slower due to increased cloudiness and consequent decrease in solar radiation.
Row Crops: El Niño impacts are less evident on annual summer crops since its strongest signal occurs during fall, winter and spring. Analysis of historical yield data is a good way to evaluate potential impacts of various row crops. Increased disease pressure and slower development may affect spring sown horticultural crops.


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Wayne Thomas, who as Freight Train Wayne was the off-screen voice orchestrating the "red light, green light" milk-drinking game that was a highlight of the children's TV show hosted by Engineer Bill, has died. He was 77.
Thomas, who created the long-running Oscar-prediction show "Your Choice for
," died Jan. 27 of complications related to
at Huntington Silverado Senior Living facility in Alhambra, said his niece, Laura Latt.
From 1954 to 1966, "Cartoon Express" with William "Engineer Bill" Stulla was a weekday evening fixture on Channel 9, then known as KHJ-TV, where Thomas was an announcer.
With milk glasses at the ready, Stulla, his two young studio guests -- and the home audience -- would listen for the "green light" cry, usually delivered by Thomas, that signaled the drinking should begin.
When Thomas yelled "red light," it meant the drinking should stop. The goal was to finish the glass of milk without drinking on the "red light," which was not as simple as it sounds. Thomas would try to confuse the contestants by substituting phrases such as "green eyes" or "green grass" for "green light" and "red car" or "red pants" for "red light."
"The kids didn't goof very often. I was the one who always lost," Stulla once said.
at age 97.
In 1965, Thomas targeted an older audience when he created a program that turned into something of
-eve tradition.
Originally called "Your Choice for the Oscars," the show forecast winners of the Academy Awards competition.
The results, tallied at first from ballots published in magazines, often mirrored the outcome of the Oscars.
After the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences filed suit in 1982 to block both the use of the name "Oscar" and the official list of nominees, the syndicated show was renamed "Your Choice for the Film Awards."
Film critics were then asked to compile the list of nominees in six categories.
"The average viewer sitting at home with his pretzels and beer will see exactly the same format and, for the most part, the same nominees," Thomas, who produced the show for about 20 years, told The Times in 1983.
"Over half the show is clips and . . . that, more than anything else, is why people like the show."
He was born Michael Wayne Thomas on Aug. 13, 1931, in Oakland, the eldest of two children of research chemist James Albert Thomas and the former Dorothy Friend.
As a teenager, Thomas worked as a puppeteer and magician.
He started out as an announcer at
-area radio stations, then moved to
with a friend who had gotten a job in
After graduating from the
Playhouse school of theater arts, Thomas joined KHJ-TV as a studio announcer in 1959 and stayed for 27 years.
For more than 25 years, he was the voice of "The Million Dollar Movie," as it was known when KHJ canceled the feature in 1983.
Thomas once calculated that he had introduced the program about 7,550 times.
Since at least the 1970s, he had lived in a 15-room home high in the Hollywood Hills that overflowed with memorabilia, including a player piano once owned by entertainer
"Since I was a kid, I've always loved to collect unusual things," Thomas said in 1978 in The Times.
He owned a fleet of classic cars that he rented to Hollywood productions and lighted his pool area with four old-fashioned street lamps that once stood along Sunset Boulevard.
In addition to his niece, Thomas is survived by a nephew, Carl Troxa.