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Welcome to the Media Center
Welcome to the Virtual Media Center for Joliet, Illinois' multi-purpose motorsports facility located on Historic Route 66 that includes Chicagoland Speedway and Route 66 Raceway. We hope this media website is a thorough, easy-to-use resource that will assist you in your coverage of events at the state's largest sporting facility and one of the most state-of-the-art in motorsports today.
Since 2001, the 1.5-mile D-Shaped tri-oval of Chicagoland Speedway has produced some of the most exciting moments in motorsports history - including some of the closest finishes in the IndyCar books. Route 66 Raceway's quartermile dragstrip boasts exciting racing of its own, from the NHRA Full Throttle Racing Series and Lucas Oil Series to weekly ET Bracket Racing, NHRA Junior Drag Racing League events and specialty races such as PINKS All Out, NMRA/NMCA and Goodguys.
Public Relations Team
The Chicagoland Speedway and Route 66 Raceway Public Relations team is dedicated to providing media with the service and information you need to cover our events. Please let us know how we can assist you.
Jeff Stur, Director of Communications
Office (815) 722-4180
Lachelle Seymour, Public Relations Manager
Office (815) 722-4179
Donald McClelland, Creative Services and Media Credential Manager
Office (815) 722-4225
Credential Policies
For information about credentials for all events at Route 66 Raceway, please contact Public Relations Manager Lachelle Seymour at (815) 722-4179 or firstname.lastname@example.com.
Credential Application Information:
All credential requests must be sent by the editor or the sports director and be submitted by mail on company letterhead. Requests must contain the name(s) of all individual(s) covering the event and their specific titles and duties (writer, reporter, photographer, etc.). Requests must also be received at least 14 days prior to the event to be given consideration. If you are in danger of not meeting the 14-day deadline, you must overnight your request in order to be considered. Credentials will not be issued to part-time personnel or for those who do not work in the sports department. If the request is for a freelance writer or photographer, you must send a certificate of insurance showing they will be covered under your company's workers compensation and liability insurance. You must also send tear sheets of any previous sports/race coverage with their by-line. Please specify the events and dates you will need credentials. Credentials are given on a weekend event basis only and must be picked up on-sight in-person with a photo I.D. upon signing a release waiver. Also, fax, phone, verbal or e-mail requests will not be accepted. Please note that NO BLANK CREDENTIALS WILL BE GRANTED. CREDENTIALS CANNOT BE ISSUED TO A MINOR. A credential is a WORKING access pass to allow members of the media to perform their duties in order to cover (reporters), photograph (photographer) or work (Public Relations) the race. This is not a spectator pass. Please contact the credentials department at (815) 722-5500 if you have further questions.
Note: Chicagoland Speedway reserves the right to request recent copies of your entire publication with your request so we can see the format. Copies of past coverage of any other racing events are appreciated.
Send all credential requests to:
Attention: Don McClelland
Chicagoland Speedway Credentials Office
500 Speedway Blvd.
Joliet, IL 60433
Race Weekend Credential Pick-Up Information:
Pre-arranged media, sponsor and corporate credentials are issued at Chicagoland Speedway. The Credential Office is located outside of the vehicle tunnel at the intersection of Laraway Road and Rowell Road at Gate 5. All credentials must be signed for when issued. No credentials will be mailed. Credentials are non-transferable and photo identification must be presented before a credential is released. Entry to contestant areas is subject to compliance with Chicagoland Speedway, NASCAR and Indy Racing League dress codes. Credentials are not valid for reserved grandstand seating. For further information regarding policies and procedures, contact the Chicagoland Speedway Public Relations Department at 815-722-5500.
NASCAR Weekend Dress Code:
- No open-toed shoes of any kind, feet must be completely covered at all times.
- Full length trousers/jeans must be worn at all times.
- No tank tops, sleeveless shirts or blouses.
- No shorts, dresses or skirts of any length or style.
- Long Pants must be worn at all times.
ARCA/IndyCar Series Weekend Dress Code:
- Shorts are permitted in the IRL Garage and Pit Corral (Cold) the entire weekend and Pit Alley (Hot) up to one hour before the start of the IndCar® race.
- No open-toed shoes of any kind, feet must be completely covered at all times.
- Full length trousers/jeans must be worn at all times.
- No tank tops, sleeveless shirts or blouses in restricted areas.
- Dess code once "Race Mode" credential goes into effect, complies with NASCAR Weekend standards.
- Dress code for ARCA Garages and Pits complies with NASCAR Weekend standards


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|Whatever you want to say that doesn't fit under the comments about places or another forum.
|Post details
|Post (Contract pics)
2012-09-10 14:50:31
Riders to the Sea 2Landing on Inis Tuaisceart was challenging, the swell wasn't large, but the sea sucking greedily at a series of slippery slabs made jumping ashore tricky. A short scramble up the cliffs to a sheep fold and we were on our way to the summit, past the shattered stone walls of settlements, St Brendan's Oratory and the ghostly ridges of lazy beds. If those mute stones could only speak, what stories they would tell of life in this remotest corner of Europe! Of a woman whose husband, a shepherd, died during a ferocious storm that lasted many days, and she, alone and too weak to lift his bloated, rotting corpse was forced to hack it to pieces and carry it out of their cottage, limb by limb. Uninhabited now, the island harbours a large colony of Storm Petrels and is a breeding ground for Puffin and Manx Shearwater whose malodorous carcasses litter the ground, the remains of a savage summer-feast by gulls that do not leave our shores, but circle nosily in the salt laden air, eyeing all. The island seems to have been upended; a steep grassy slope leads to vertiginous sea cliffs on the NW, the sea so far below, the waves crashing onto the rocks are silent. The words of playwright, J.M. Synge, entered my mind. There was indeed something almost appalling in the loneliness of this place.
Back on the boat we headed for An Blascoad Mór. The stone shells of rustic cottages dotting the hillside drifted into view as we approached. The haunting cadence of Gaelic seemed to be whispered in the very wind, fragments of poems, prose and plaintive songs that tell of the lives of those who doggedly coaxed a living on this island over 3 km from the mainland. On, past An Traigh Bhan, a strand of golden sand bathed by turquoise waters above which lie the stone walled fields once fertilised by seaweed to grow potatoes and oats that kept the famine from these shores, to a small pier. Here pleasure boats now disgorge hordes of curious day-trippers seeking the mystique of this 'place outside of time'.
Above the old village, 2 tracks on opposite sides of the island circle Tur Comhartha, joining at the saddle below Slievedonagh. The south track has impressive views of the ragged coastline of the mainland and, on the horizon, Skellig Michael bursting through the ocean like a grey spear tip. Atop Slievedonagh the track narrows as it traverses the spine of the island, slopes blushed pink with heather. An Cro Mór now came into view. One last push uphill and the summit was surmounted. Here Europe ends and before lies the mighty Atlantic, restless, relentless. Somewhere over the horizon, the Americas. Atop this peak, the eyes of countless islanders surely stared out across the watery void to dream of new beginnings…
The evening crowned the day as the Blasket Princess rocked gently over cornflower blue waves to Ventry, landscape and seascape bathed in the soft apricot glow of a sinking sun. Thank you, Conor, for organising an impeccably choreographed island odyssey.
|First, five stars .. by zanzibar (Show all posts)
|The area between t.. by Conor74 (Show all posts)
|On a different iss.. by maclimber (Show all posts)
|...or Star Wars?To.. by Conor74 (Show all posts)
|Well done to the i.. by maclimber (Show all posts)
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subset: commoncrawl


text: Software-Defined Storage SDS Software-Defined Storage SDS: Storage infrastructure that is managed and automated by intelligent software as opposed to by the storage hardware itself. In this way, the pooled storage infrastructure resources in a software-defined storage (SDS) environment can be automatically and efficiently allocated to match the application needs of an enterprise. Separating the Storage Hardware from the Software By separating the storage hardware from the software that ma...More


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Review of Patra Guest House, Bhubaneshwar
This review of the Patra Guest House is written after a stay of four nights five days. Room was booked online.
Why I booked the guest house?
- Location of guest house is in the old town, near to many tourist spot
- Online reviews were good.
- Online booking was available
- Pick up on arrival was available
- All cards are accepted
Positive points:
- Working website, hassle free booking
- Pick-up person contact was messaged and he was punctual to call us before arrival and pick us up
- Hot water was provided in bucket on request.
Negative points:
Room was not prepared before arrival. When asked to clean it, was done halfhearted. Bed sheets and blanket provided were too old.
No towel and soap was provided. No drinking water and glasses were kept in room.
- TV quality was bad with very few channels displayed in good quality.
- Intercom was not attended on some occasions.
- Area of Combined toilet and bathroom was too small. Latches of the doors were nonfunctional.
- No basin inside the room.
- Water purifier outside the room was not working.
- No room window.
- Poor wall colors.
- Single low watt CFL as light source making room indecent.
Furniture and bedding:
- Wooden beds were old and noisy.
- Mattress was too thin.
- Only one blanket was provided even for a double room. When asked for extra, initially request was declined. On insisting a bed sheet was provided. Bed sheet was not changed during entire stay.
Booking assistance:
Although providing website means a professional attitude for such a small guest house, any other support was pathetic and unprofessional. When called on mobile, owner failed to provide information and no call back was promised. Talking to the Male receptionist was also not helpful, probably he was new.
Food quality:
- I ordered a cup of tea, the quality was so bad that I never dared to order the food from guest-house restaurant.
- Menu prices were higher compared to good AC restaurants from the city.
- Availability was for limited time and order needs to be placed an hour before.
The photos on website doesn't represent reality and are kind of misleading.
Bed tea promised when room booked online, was never delivered.
Bed tea promised when room booked online, was never delivered.
As this guesthouse was economical one, I did not expected a posh one. However the standard was far inferior to the money paid. Even basic and standard facilities were absent. At seven hundred per day much better facilities are offered.
I would never book a room in future here.
My rating for this guesthouse would be three point out of ten.


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two more days until nwnw arrested development song video
On Thursday, September 22, SPEECH featuring young artist, Kamren will perform the sure-fire hip hop hit, "I'ma Fight Back Now (No Wedding No Womb) HERE!
Special thanks to SPEECH, Arrested Development, Jason "JJBoogie," videographer, Lamar Tyler, and photographer, Eric Payne, who contributed their time and experience to make this premiere off the chain!
No Wedding No Womb needs your help! We are in urgent need for seed money for the "Map Your Future" campaign, the first online, remoter mentorship platform for at-risk teens and young adults. Â Please help us meet our minimum goals to build the digital platform by clicking here.


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When I was diagnosed in 2005 I totally gave up any form of bread, baked goods, rice and potatoes. I still do not eat anything in those categories that are white. No processed sugar, white or processed flour or the products from white flour, no white potatoes and no white rice.
(This is my choice, not to impose my rules on you in any way).
I did find that these things spiked my blood glucose). Probably more than any one thing that upset me most about this disease was the fact that I love to cook, bake and of course eat.
In October of 2006 I met a very nice woman in my diabetes support group that told me about her experience with whole grains. She said she grinds her own wheat, millet, groats, rye, etc and makes her own breads and baked goods with no sudden or high rise in blood glucose. My thoughts were "oh yeah I know that hard, strong tasting stuff", that isn't for me!
She told me about a store not far from my office that sold the grinders and grains. In January, 2007 I was driving by that shop and decided to investigate. I spoke with the owner for a long time. I asked if I invest in the grinder will I be able to make good tasting bread and whole grain products. She said I will teach you myself! I invested in a Nutrimill grinder and a Bosch Kitchen Center (Mixer) and 50 pounds of golden wheat from Montana a few other products for baking such as SAF brand yeast and dough enhancer and off I went.
A couple of weeks later I went in for my first class. Now I make homemade low carbohydrate whole grain bread, whole wheat pita bread, whole wheat tortillas, pancakes, waffles and pasta. I don't use any processed white flour at all and use vita wheat gluten in its place when a recipe calls for the addition of white flour or high gluten flour. I don't eat these things everyday because of weight control, but I do have them often with no blood glucose spikes. The extra fiber in my diet has lowered my cholesterol and triglycerides as well. The addition of complex carbohydrates, that digest slowly (thus avoiding blood sugar raising quickly), to my diet in moderation I seem to have a bit more energy too.
You now know why I will include whole wheat, whole grain, legume and brown rice recipes on this blog. It may not be for you, but if you have a longing for some of those days of baking like I had, you might just want to try whole grains and see how your body/blood glucose responds. It is worth the effort!


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Technology and Security
Nimbox Vault is built securely, from the ground up.
We can't access your data, and we're transparent about how we protect it.
Administrative controls
Administrative controls
With an extensive range of administrative controls, you can deploy secure file sharing for your teams, whilst complying with your organisation's information policies.
Your dashboard provides detailed insight into how Vault is being used across your teams. Through reports, alerts, and custom policies, you can control exactly how and where information is shared and collaborated on. Policy controls include: allowed file types, custom retention periods, share settings, security and authentication controls, account access, and device management.
Unlimited history and global file locking
Never lose changes again. Each file, folder, and account has a full version history, and revisions can be restored at the click of a button—letting your team focus on truly brilliant work, without worrying about overwriting important drafts or edits that colleagues make.
Ransomware protection
Quickly recover from ransomware attacks, using our snapshot feature. Administrators can restore organisation data as it existed at a specific point in time. This feature recovers content that was previously deleted, recreated, or changed, and maintains the full revision history of restored files.
Tracking and audit
Vault tracks files from creation through to destruction. In your dashboard, you can view tamper-proof audit logs that detail exactly who has touched, changed, viewed, and downloaded a file or folder. These audit logs are time-stamped, and can be exported in many common formats.
Configure alerts to be sent by email, text message, or via your service desk, which inform IT staff, compliance officers, and team leaders about pre-determined events in your cloud. Alerts can report, in real time, on user activity, guest access, end-point and backup status, and many more.
User permissions
Create user groups, and assign object-based file and folder permissions so that users only see the data to which they have been explicitly given access. Decide where users can access files, and prevent them from viewing content on machines that you haven't specifically approved.
Access control
Enable two-step authentication across your organisation. When accessing data using the web, desktop, and mobile apps, team members will need to enter a single-use code—generated by an authenticator application, or delivered by SMS and email.
Import accounts and user groups from Active Directory and LDAP sources, to allow domain-based authentication to our platform.
Selective Sync and network throttling
Select which files appear on desktop computers, and choose when to limit network usage with custom throttling settings—perfect for remote workers and in offices with limited bandwidth.
Vault offers unparalleled levels of security, and the following sections detail how we achieve them.
Data stored in Vault is encrypted with 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) cryptography in cipher-block chaining mode. Organisation data is always encrypted—on a device, in transit, and whilst stored—and can only be decrypted by the customer, and its authorised users.
Our architecture allows for the secure inspection of traffic by the customer to ensure there is no malicious content. Importantly, Nimbox can never see your data, unlike many other cloud storage services that may be able to access unencrypted customer data.
Zero-knowledge protection
In Vault, only the customer has control over the encryption and decryption of their data. Because encryption occurs at the device level and the encryption key that is needed to decrypt the data always stays with the customer, we cannot decrypt stored data.
Data that is stored in Vault is instantly encrypted and decrypted on-the-fly, on the device that is being used at the time—even when using the Vault web application. Nimbox uses AES, a well-known and widely trusted encryption algorithm, with a 256-bit key.
AES is an approved cryptographic module in FIP 140-2, and in its CNSSP-15 publication, the Committee on National Security Systems states that AES with a 256-bit key is secure enough to encrypt data marked up to TOP SECRET for the U.S. Government.
In essence, only encrypted binary data is stored by Vault and it is this data that is synced with other devices registered to the user's account, through an encrypted 'tunnel'.
Client-side encryption
The data that a customer stores in Vault is always encrypted and decrypted on the user's device, not on our servers. This process is known as client-side encryption, because the client (which could be an iPhone, PC, Server, Mac, or the web app etc.) is doing the encryption work.
The raw cryptographic keys used to encrypt and decrypt users' data are never stored on or transmitted via our servers. To enable multi-device working, an encrypted version of these keys are stored within Vault, and only provided to devices that are registered to the Buyer's account.
The encrypted binary data that is stored in Vault would be essentially useless to an attacker if it was intercepted in transit or at rest, as they would not have access to the encryption key. This includes access by Nimbox.
Breaking a symmetric 256-bit key would require vast computing power. In practice it would take 50 supercomputers—that could check a billion billion (10^18) keys per second—about 3 x 10^50 years to exhaust the 256-bit key space.
Transport Layer Encryption
Nimbox utilises Transport Layer Security (TLS) versions 1.1 and 1.2 to securely transfer encrypted customer data between the client and the Vault platform. TLS 1.1 and 1.2 are modern versions of the protocol, and are considered to be extremely safe by the cryptographic community; we don't support older, less-safe versions of transport layer security, such as SSL 3 and TLS 1.0.
We also support Forward Secrecy key exchanges using Diffie-Hellman (ECDHE and DHE) enabled cipher suites.
TLS certificates using the SHA-2 algorithm, and signed by GoDaddy CA are deployed on all Nimbox services. SHA-2 is the most secure signature algorithm currently offered by commercial and open-source certificate authorities.
Encrypted sharing
Every Vault user account, including guests, has a 4096-bit RSA key pair that is used exclusively for sharing. When a user shares a file or folder using the Secure Share option, the data is encrypted with the recipient user's public key. The recipient user then decrypts the data with their private key. The process is automatic and transparent. This allows a user to share data only with the intended recipient, since only the recipient is able to decrypt it.
Key generation and storage
Password-Based Key Derivation (PBKDF2) with HMAC-SHA256 is utilised to convert a user's password into a 256-bit encryption key. A second key—derived from the first key—is then used to encrypt data and other keys, such as the RSA key. This second key is shared with the customer's organisation account, to enable corporate control of data stored within Vault.
Any subsequent keys that are not generated directly from the user's account password are generated by an open-source, cryptographically secure, pseudorandom number generator on the user's device. Because keys are generated on the device, they cannot be seen by us.
Private keys that must be stored (to enable cross-device, and intra-team working), are always encrypted prior to transmission to the Nimbox platform. These keys can only be decrypted with either the user's password, or the customer's administration password.
User and server authentication
Users can access Vault with a username and password, or you can integrate AD/LDAP sources to provide domain-controlled authentication. Our API also supports OAuth2.0 for custom integration.
Two-factor authentication can be enabled as a mandatory organisation policy, or for individual accounts. Tokens can be generated by text message, email, or smartphone app. We currently support Google Authenticator, Amazon AWS Virtual MFA, or any other TOTP-compatible app.
Nimbox authenticates each user when transmitting data or encryption keys. Authentication is achieved by comparing a PBKDF2-generated hash of the user's account password, with a stored hash on the Nimbox platform. By using a hashed version of the user's account password, Nimbox is able to securely authenticate the user without requiring the password itself.
Remote device wiping
If a device is lost or stolen, you can easily unlink it through your dashboard. When a device is unlinked, all cached and locally stored data is removed from the device, and the authentication tokens are deleted. Our software also 'black lists' the device, so that it cannot re-connect. All device wipes are tracked in the audit logs, and administrators can create custom alerts.
Network architecture
Nimbox owns, controls and when necessary, custom-builds systems. We operate multi-zone environments to maximise uptime, redundancy, and to provide the fastest response time to customers. Our network architecture is designed to reduce single points of failure, and is constantly reviewed for best practice and compliance.
By using this approach to platform architecture, we can provide customers with the fastest and safest cloud environment.
Resilience, disaster recovery, and backup
Nimbox is hosted on a resilient platform, in three data centres. Our platform is powered by VMware technologies, and utilises automatic replication and failover. We test our failover procedures regularly.
Monitoring and vulnerability scanning
Our platform is monitored 24x7x365 from our system centre, and by Pingdom AB. Our platform is monitored for availability, reliability, and speed. A comprehensive external security testing programme is run each week to ensure that our service is secure from known exploits, new vulnerabilities, and targeted attacks.
Physical data security
Vault is hosted in Tier 3+, ISO27001:2013 certified data centres, which have 24x7x365 on-site security, zonal swipe card entry, CCTV systems, perimeter fencing with controlled access, fire suppression systems, in-rack early warning temperature sensors and fire detection in all rooms, ceilings and below raised floors, N+1 UPS, and N+1 generators with a minimum 48 hours of fuel.
Vulnerability reporting
Vulnerability reporting
You trust us to encrypt and store your data. We take this trust very seriously. We thoroughly investigate all reported security vulnerabilities, and aim to make this process as transparent as possible.
What our programme covers
Our security programme includes our platform, public web assets, and third party services (but only where the attack can exploit our customers directly).
Please don't submit reports derived from automatic scanning tools, such as SSL Labs; we scan our systems regularly, and will already be aware of (and be in the process of fixing) these issues.
Additionally, attacks that only affect individual user accounts (such as self-XSS), the presence of application or web browser 'autocomplete' messages, Logout Cross-Site Request Forgeries, banner disclosure on public services, issues only exploitable through clickjacking, and descriptive error messages, are not covered.
In scope assets
Not in scope assets (unless the attack can exploit our customers directly)
How to report a security vulnerability
To contact the Nimbox Security Team, please email email@example.com.
What to tell us
When contacting our Security Team, try to include information that we can use to replicate the issue (e.g. configuration details, a proof-of-concept, or exploit code). Please read our security programme's scope before submitting your report, as only in-scope reports will be accepted.
What happens next
We aim to respond to all vulnerability reports within 24 hours. We will then provide you with updates every 20 working days.
The Security Team reviews all reported vulnerabilities and takes steps to validate and reproduce them. If more information is needed, we will work with you until such a time that the vulnerability can be validated.
Once the review is complete, and the vulnerability has been confirmed, the results will be sent to you along with information about its resolution and any subsequent public disclosure.
Public disclosures will be made on our blog. We realise that individuals, businesses and organisations usually publish vulnerabilities on their websites, and if possible, we'd like to publish our respective public disclosures simultaneously.
We'll let you know if a reward (either payment or 'swag') will be issued for the bug that you report. Rewards are issued at our sole discretion, and we don't guarantee that your report will result in a reward being issued.
You guys rock
The security researchers below have reported security vulnerabilities to us, helping to make the internet a safer place.
Shivam Kumar Agarwal
Pradeep Kumar
Mansouri Badis
Charfeddine Hamdi
Konduru Jashwanth
Muhammad Osama
Zee Shan
Suyog Palav
Ali BawazeEer
Babar Khan Akhunzada
Nithish Varghese
Ashish Padelkar
Ross Bingham
Additional documentation
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Project Leadership that sets us apart.
When you work with Hathaway Dinwiddie, you get real people. People who care about your project and goals, and have the experience and attitude to ensure success. You'll get to know us by name and watch as we build our reputations – and yours – through experienced execution. We are partners, not vendors. Collaborators, not individualists. Experts, not text books. We take pride in our people… from the bottom up, and the top down.


text: Many people love fortune cookies. Why not? Even if you rather not eat them, the surprise inside of fortune cookies can bring smiles and laughter to even the crabbiest diner. And they're so easy to make, there's no reason to wait for your next take-out order before enjoying them. Learn how to make these classic cookies right in your home with just a few simple steps. For an added surprise, make your own fortunes and tuck them inside.


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Show your favorite teacher how much you appreciate her with these sweet apple cake pops. (Even better that they're made of chocolate cake!)
You know the phrase "Those that can, do; those that can't, teach"? Pshaw! What BS! I for one could never be a teacher. I've toyed with the idea of hosting cooking classes over the years, even baking classes for kids, and each time before I pulled the trigger, I balked.
I have the patience of a saint when it comes to piping intricate designs on cookies, but teach someone else and I'm bouncing off the walls. If I imagine trying to capture and sustain the attention of a room full of wiggly kids, I break out into a flop sweat. It's hard enough maintaining my composure when helping my own kids with their homework, I would never survive six hours with a roomful of someone else's.
I clearly have the utmost respect for teachers. One, for simply making it through the day. And two, for actually teaching my kids something useful. The same kid that I spent two years teaching to zip a zipper came home knowing how to divide fractions. You say teacher, I say wizard.
When teacher appreciation week rolls around at my boys' school, I'm always more than happy to contribute and I had so much fun making these apple cake pops for the teacher's luncheon this year. I've shared a few different cake pop recipes and videos on this blog, so be sure to check here and here for tips and a tutorial. Now, cake pops take some time and patience. There's baking, rolling, chilling and dipping, but they can be made in advance, store well and transport like a dream. (And you can do it blissfully alone if you choose.)
Sure, they take a little time, but cake pops never cease to impress. I presented these apple cake pops in little bushels with chalkboard labels, perfect for a school function. I hope the teachers enjoy these treats as a thank you for educating, tolerating and inspiring so many young minds, because in my world, "Those that can, teach; those that can't, bake."
- Chocolate Cake
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 cups sugar
- 1½ tsp baking powder
- 1½ tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 3 eggs lightly beaten
- ½ cup canola oil
- ½ cup boiling water
- Fluffy Buttercream Frosting
- 12 oz unsalted butter 3 sticks, softened
- 1 lb confectioners sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2-12 oz packages red melting wafers
- 1 cup green melting wafers
- ¼ cup chocolate melting wafers
- white luster dust/small paint brush optional
- 48 lollipop sticks
- *small ice cream scoop
- **piping bags #5 round tip, small leaf tip
- ***styrofoam block
Chocolate Cake: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Add buttermilk, eggs and oil to the dry ingredients and mix well until combined.
Slowly add in boiling water and mix to combine.
Grease a 9x13 inch pan and line the bottom with parchment paper. Pour the batter into the pan and smooth the top.
Bake about 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Cool in the pan for 5 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.
Buttercream Frosting: Beat butter until fluffy, about 2 minutes on med/high speed with an electric mixer.
Gradually add in confectioners sugar, mixing well to combine.
Stir in vanilla extract until incorporated and then beat for an additional 2-3 mins until light and fluffy.
Cake Pops: Crumble cooled cake by hand or in a food processor until you have fine crumbs.
In a mixing bowl, pour in the crumbs and add 1 - 1½ cups frosting (the rest can be refrigerated and stored for another use). Start with a small amount and add more to reach desired consistency.
Mix with the paddle attachment of a mixer on low speed until mixture holds together and has the consistency of play-doh or wet sand. Alternatively, mix by hand with a spatula.
Line a baking sheet with wax paper or parchment and using the small ice cream scoop, measure out level scoops.
Roll each scoop into a ball (alternatively you can use a cake pop baller or the easy roller to roll out the balls) and place on lined baking sheet.
Now form each ball into an apple shape by making the bottom more narrow and making a small indentation on the top with a lollipop stick. We're not looking for perfect, they look more like apples if they're all a little different.
Chill the balls for 2 hours in the refrigerator or freeze 20 minutes.
Remove about 10 balls at a time and allow to to sit at room temperature for about 5 minutes before dipping.
Melt the red coating according to package instructions. If necessary, thin with a few drops of canola oil and stir well.
Dip the end of each lollipop stick into the coating, then stick into the bottom of each ball (the tapered end) and poke them into the styrofoam block to harden before dipping.
Dip each ball and tap off extra coating, tapping on your hand holding the stick, not the stick directly. Place the cake pops back into the styrofoam block to harden and dry.
Melt the chocolate wafers and fill a piping bag fitted with a #5 round tip or simply snip the end.
Place a piece of wax paper on the counter and pipe 48 - 1/2 inch slightly curved stems. Place the wax paper in freezer to set.
Heat the green wafers according to package directions and fill a pastry bag fitted with a small leaf tip. Take the stems out of the freezer. Pipe 1, 2 or 3 leaves on the top of each apple and carefully place a stem in the center.
Once the cake pops are dry, shake a small amount of luster dust into a small dish. Dip your paintbrush into the luster dust, shaking off the excess. Brush it onto one side of the cake pop to create a shimmer. Don't brush the entire apple, the shine will create a little dimension.
Serve and enjoy!


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More than 50,000 learners at Trafford, Knowsley, Northumberland, Suffolk, BCA and Farnborough used SkillsBuilder for learning and assessments for the first time in September.
We're delighted that this brings the total number of orders from FE Colleges in England in the last 12 months to just over one hundred – representing more than 4 in 10 learners at FE Colleges, not quite as high as the 7 in 10 learners at training providers using SkillsBuilder but we're getting there!
And one final small fact, if the paper based initial assessment booklets were sold by bookshops instead of ForSkills direct, they would actually have made The Times Bestsellers list for September!


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Server Team 20100505 meeting minutes
Here are the minutes of the meeting. They can also be found online
with the irc logs here.
Weekly SRU review
Lucid has been added to the list of nominations to be reviewed while intrepid was removed (being EOL). The list of bugs fixed in the last 9 days has also been fixed and can again be used in the SRU weekly review.
A session about SRU improvement has been scheduled at the next UDS.
UDS Maverick
There is a tentative schedule available on the summit website.
Agree on next meeting date and time
Due to UDS the meeting has been canceled next week.
Next meeting will be on Tuesday, May 19th at 18:00 UTC in #ubuntu-meeting.


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Yesterday was just one of those great days in an academic life. I read a chapter of a colleague's book manuscript and delighted at the flourishing of her prose style and the maturation of her critical voice. I revised a press release for CHE on this bluestone project (and expect to be bombarded, I tell you, with requests for interviews..... Any minute now....). I chatted with another colleague about a possible collaboration between our Centre for the History of Emotions and a local gallery. I had a performance appraisal meeting with another colleague and marvelled at the amount of work she has done in the art community. I had a delicious hot okonomiyake under the gorgeous enormous plane tree in the courtyard of the old graduate school, and I heard a terrific paper in the evening about plague regulations and community in seventeenth-century Scotland. I also read part of a book on medieval art and the representation of faces. I rode my bike to work and back without feeling too nervous; and I watched 4 Corners while my son cooked dinner for three friends.
But the real bluestone highlight was coffee this morning with Chris and Joe (keeping my usual first-name only policy here). Joe's out here from the US working on street art with the wonderful Alison, and Chris is both a lecturer in chemical engineering here and co-teaching a second year breadth subject on Street Art.
Here they are both are:
But the real bluestone highlight was coffee this morning with Chris and Joe (keeping my usual first-name only policy here). Joe's out here from the US working on street art with the wonderful Alison, and Chris is both a lecturer in chemical engineering here and co-teaching a second year breadth subject on Street Art.
Here they are both are:
Chris and I enjoyed explaining the mysteries of Melbourne's bluestone to Joe. Chris was particularly interesting on the question of Melbourne's bluestone identity, reminding me that the city's famous laneways were necessary in the absence of an underground sewage system. The laneways were used for ease of access for the collectors of 'nightsoil', so the intersecting cobbled lanes that provide Melbourne's distinctive secondary network are a powerful side-product, and a reminder, of human waste. Chris also thought —and I'm hoping he'll read this and correct me if I'm misinterpreting him — that the attraction of the laneways was the vista they provided on a changing city. From the lanes it's somehow easier to observe the changing uses of buildings, and the changing buildings themselves.
Somewhere the National Trust describes the effect of bluestone cobbled laneways as "fine-grained". I rather like that: in the midst of higher and grander buildings, there is something human-scaled about these bluestone pitches: cut by hand, and worn by foot and hoof and wheel.
We also discussed the contested site on the corner of Nicholson and Princes St (more on that soon). I wondered how street artists might feel about bluestone as a painting surface: whether they might ignore it, or respect it, or avoid it. Unsurprisingly the answer was that it was difficult to paint on, because it is usually cut so unevenly.
One of the loveliest things about our meeting, though, was the realisation that Chris and I were both working in fields far from our first beginning. He's a chemical engineer; I'm a medieval literature scholar. And yet here we were in an Australian university setting comfortably talking about street art and urban history. Nothing not to like about that!


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Thursday, May 20, 2010
rainy days
3 comments:
I recall a story in my grade 3 reader about a little girl whose mom would sew creative animal- shaped patches on her dresses. In the 60s and 70s knit clothing became very popular (and inexpensive) and this is always more of a challenge to mend than cotton weaves. But there are still those things that can be mended as long as there are fingers that know how to sew.
- May 20, 2010 at 2:59 PM
- Piecefulafternoon said...
I always had a mending day - it was announced a few days ahead of time so everyone could make sure their mending joined in the fun - and I would usually have enough to spend most of a day doing mending - it felt so good to get it all done. Of course sometimes there were emergencies that had to be mended immediately - and we still have mending day - just not as often since the kids are no longer at home.
- May 20, 2010 at 11:47 PM
My mother always had a basket of mending which she did as we watched I Love Lucy and other 50s shows. She was especially handy at darning socks.
She had one of those egg shaped wooden implements that you put in the sock and then weaved the hole. I have tried this and it is very difficult. Clothes are more poorly made today and of poorer fabrics. It hardly seems worth it to mend them - except for jeans of course.
- May 23, 2010 at 4:24 PM


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Expert advice about jaundice
Dr Peter Ilves gives advice on dealing with jaundice.
'My daughter became jaundiced a few days after her birth but doctors tested her and said it would clear up without treatment. Why did this happen, and why didn't my baby get phototherapy?'
Jaundice in a newborn is very common, and we often call it neonatal jaundice. It can look dramatic but in many cases is not significant, doesn't need treatment and will get better on its own.
However, some babies have jaundice over a longer period – this can particularly be the case in those who are breastfed, although we don't really know why. Jaundice is caused by a yellow pigment (bilirubin), which is released when red blood cells (haemoglobin) break down; usually the liver deals with it. However, the liver of a newborn baby is developing rapidly and can take up to two weeks to settle down. Also, a newborn has a high level of red blood cells that will naturally break down. This combination of factors means the pigment appears under the skin.
This is all normal for a baby; the jaundice often takes two to three days to appear and about 60 per cent of babies will have it, but only about five per cent will require any intervention. If jaundice is present immediately after birth there are other causes to look for. There may be a yellow tinge to the whites of the eyes, yellowing of the skin, and your baby's urine can change colour too. If this occurs at any time, always report it to your midwife, GP, health visitor or paediatrician.
They will check the level of bilirubin in your baby's blood, and your specialist will be able to say whether treatment is needed or your baby simply needs to be monitored. Good luck.


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In our short workshop you will get to experience an introduction to the Lego® Serious Play® method to understand the basic idea of it. It is a fun but still a very deep and serious method, that can help you uncover you and your teams subconscious thoughts and hidden wishes. It also helps you to lead a constructive conversation with your team even on the most uncomfortable topics. There is more cases where this unusual method can help you and your company solve challenges in a slightly different way. Learn how to let your hands do the thinking. Join us and you will get a hands-on experience of the method with the coloured bricks.
Lego® Serious Play® 101
Workshop Area
10:35 - 11:05
Workshop 3


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Manufacturer receives five-year, $2.1 million cost-shared contract to develop polymer exchange membrane technology
The Department of Energy recently awarded Danbury, Conn.-based FuelCell Energy, Inc. a five-year, $2.1-million cost-shared competitively bid project, subject to final negotiation, to develop a high-temperature membrane for low-humidity operation of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane fuel cells. The composite membrane is intended to have the mechanical strength and water retention capability required for efficient operation and reduced system cost.
The contract is one of 12 projects that will receive a total of $19 million in federal funding for polymer membrane research.
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Transform your photos into one-of-a-kind, hand painted masterpieces!
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by J McCombie
Our baby onesies are made from 100% pre-shrunk cotton and are available in five different sizes. All baby onesies are machine washable.
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How to build a high-performance engineering team
Alcoa commits to reliability.
In 2003, the Alcoa Warrick Smelter was 43 years old, and it had the second-highest maintenance costs in the corporation's global smelting system. Asset reliability in the plant continued to suffer, and equipment instability prevented success in fully implementing lean manufacturing tools. A formal assessment of the smelter's repair and maintenance (R&M) efforts determined a mostly reactive approach with a focus on trying to be really good at response to emergency breakdowns.
That year, the location's top management provided support to embark on a Reliability Excellence (REX) journey, which created a significant transformation. Ten years later in 2013, Alcoa Warrick Smelter's R&M costs are 29% below its 2003 pre-REX base (44% lower adjusting for inflation) and OEE performance improvement gains have matched R&M savings dollar-for-dollar annually.
A formal asset integrity audit performed in 2010 by corporate-level resources confirmed that these cost savings were real — in other words, they weren't gained by simply deferring R&M. In fact, the Warrick Smelter had the lowest percent of corrective actions needing attention in the next five years of all the corporation's global smelters.
Building a high-performance engineering team contributed to the success of reliability excellence now in use for the smelting business at Alcoa Warrick Operations.
Importance of reliability engineers
Reliability engineering is different than a traditional engineering role in manufacturing. These are not engineers who provide the routine, day-to-day support for production centers. Instead, reliability engineers are in a strategic role — focused on failure prevention and, most importantly, helping to determine how to improve reliability and operate the plant's assets at the lowest cost.
Do you have reliability engineers at your plant? If so, what types of tasks are they doing? Are they managing capital projects? Are they firefighting? Are they in tactical roles? If so, they're not reliability engineers.
If a problem isn't solved to root cause, it may keep recurring. If a plant doesn't know which assets are the most critical, then the plant may be focusing on the wrong things. If a facility isn't using equipment failure data to direct its resources on the true equipment bad actors, then there is most likely a lot of money being left on the table.
Reliability engineers help with all of that and lots more.
But we like firefighting
How many times have you experienced a major equipment failure at your plant, and felt relieved when it was over? We all have praised our firefighters; these are the individuals who excel in a crisis and, in many cases, thrive during every minute of it.
We need them. There is no doubt that when a production center is interrupted, we need resources to respond. And when a major downtime event occurs, we need people with strong troubleshooting skills and those who can get our equipment back up and running again. These are the ones who are working hard to reduce mean time to repair (MTTR). They could be engineers, technicians, craftsmen, or others. And when they get the equipment running again, we thank them and feel the weight lifted off our shoulders. How many of us have given lavish praise to these "knights in shining armor" when they swoop in to save the day? We probably all have, and that is not a bad thing, but what we sometimes forget in the heat of the moment is to step back and ask, "How did we get into this mess in the first place? Why did this failure occur?" And most importantly, "What are we going to do to prevent it from happening again?"
This is where the reliability engineers steps in. They are not focused on MTTR, but instead mean time between failures (MTBF). While others are on the scene, working to do whatever it takes to restore immediate production flow, the reliability engineers should be there investigating what happened. They will talk with the operators, review operational data and trends, take photographs of the scene, pull up past history of similar incidents, review camera footage, if available, and try to piece together all the available evidence. This is the detective work that will enable them to lead a root cause analysis (RCA) to determine why the failure occurred.
And speaking of RCA, it may seem obvious, but you need to have proper follow-up mechanisms to ensure the RCA action items are getting completed. Have your reliability engineers keep these corrective and preventive action items in front of your teams so that these tasks get done. Archive your RCA files to be easily accessible later on. And if the failure returns, retrieve the previous RCA and review it to try to understand what may have been missed and why the failure recurred.
Free-time reliability engineering
Focus. That is one of the most important parts of our success. If you have a reliability engineer in a hybrid role — doing some maintenance engineering or some project engineering — then you don't have a true reliability engineer. In a hybrid role, the crisis of the day or a production manager's pet project can take precedence over working on long-term objectives. If you expect reliability engineers to work on reliability when they can find the time, you aren't going to make the gains you're seeking. They must be focused.
Yes, we all are busier than ever these days. We all wear multiple hats. But the reliability engineering role is one where we must discipline ourselves to focus them solely on failure elimination and prevention. When you pull a reliability engineer off a proactive task to work on a reactive task, you are losing ground in your reliability efforts. Set yourself up with a maintenance engineer or maintenance professional to handle the tactical production needs while the reliability engineer is allowed to focus on the strategic efforts.
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Archive for category Windows 7
Cisco VPN X64 support…. or not.
Posted by Bil in Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA), Cisco, Microsoft, Network Security, Vista, VPN, Windows 7, x64 on May 13th, 2010
Okay, if you read this http://www.cisco.com/web/software/282364316/31835/5.0.07.0240-beta-rel-notes.txt it says that x64 support for Windows 7 and Vista is finally here. It's just that it also says that 64 bit isn't supported.


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Product Description
From the author of the best-selling Handbook of Chinese Horoscopes: find out how birth order influences a child's personality.
Discover your child's lunar sign and personality – before it even develops – through Chinese Horoscopes.
Chinese astrology, based on our year of birth, can help anyone to become better parents, by understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each sign and how it will affect the undeveloped personality of a child.
Divided into twelve chapters to correspond with the twelve lunar signs, Rat, Rooster, Ox…, each chapter explains the sign's personality traits, along with the effect of birth order. You child's birth time gives the ascendant sign that will characterise the child's 'inner self' while also outlining how birth order affects a child's outlook on life and relationships.
The Rat: A leader and self-starter
The Ox: Dedicated and hardworking
The Tiger: Charismatic and courageous
The Rabbit: Peace loving and intelligent
The Dragon: Dynamic and optimistic
The Snake: Wise and confident
The Horse: Perceptive and independent
The Sheep: Artistic and graceful
The Monkey: Brilliant and curious
The Rooster: Efficient and ambitious
The Dog: Loyal and just
The Boar: Affectionate and generous
Each chapter concludes with a specially written fable dedicated to each sign that imparts lasting lessons for your child. Entertaining and enlightening for your child, as well as for parents.
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What Large Business Employees Need to Know
If you get coverage through your employer
If you work full time at a large business with more than 100 full-time employees and get health insurance from your employer, chances are health care reform won't affect you too much right now. The good news is there's nothing you need to do. You can continue getting health insurance from your employer.
Health plan benefits
Health care reform doesn't require health plans for large businesses to offer essential health benefits (EHBs). But if they do, the 10 EHBs are:
- Ambulance service
- Emergency care
- Hospitalization
- Laboratory services
- Maternity and newborn care
- Mental health and substance use services
- Pediatric oral and vision services
- Prescription drugs
- Rehabilitation and habilitative services
- Services for preventive care, wellness, and chronic disease management
Health care reform only requires EHBs in health plans for people who get insurance on their own through an individual plan or through a small business employer.
For example, you can get incentives for participating in HMSA Well-Being Connection's Healthways Well-Being Assessment, health education workshops, or stop-smoking programs. Check with your employer for details.
Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Assessment is a trademark of Healthways, Inc. All rights reserved.
If you don't get coverage from your employer
If you work part time (less than 20 hours a week) and don't have insurance, you'll need to get it. The health care reform law says almost all Americans need health insurance. If you don't buy coverage, you may have to pay a fine to the federal government. Because of health care reform, you won't be denied coverage, even if you were denied before because of a serious health condition.
How to get health coverage
If you don't have coverage, don't worry. We'll help you choose an HMSA health plan that's right for you.
- Contact us directly, or
- Buy an HMSA plan on healthcare.gov, the federal health insurance marketplace. Depending on your income, you could get financial help from the government to pay for health insurance through healthcare.gov.
HMSA Plans for Individuals and Families
Good health care is within your reach. Discover an HMSA plan that best fits your needs and lifestyle.
This information is based on HMSA's review of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This overview is intended for educational purposes only and should not be used as tax, legal, or compliance advice.


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It is possible to assess the differences in male and female perceptions of politics in a practical way by looking at the impact of women's contributions in the arena of local government. From 1869, a number of measures affected women's participation in a whole range of municipal offices. The Municipal Franchise Act 1869 gave women ratepayers the vote "in the election of councillors, auditors and assessors" from which they had been excluded since 1835 on the same terms as men. Despite the Married Women's Property Act 1870, the courts ruled in 1872 that this vote should be confined to single and widowed women. It was not until 1894 that the Local Government Act extended these rights to married women and allowed women to serve as councillors. In the Education Act 1870, (that established school boards to set up and manage state board schools) these women became similarly eligible to vote for and stand in elections to the new School Boards. Around 70 were serving by 1879. Similar provisions applied to Scottish women from 1872 onwards but it was not until 1882, following feminist pressure and representation from Glasgow's MP, that they enjoyed the municipal franchise and the right to vote in burgh (town) elections. It was unclear whether women were eligible for election to the poor law boards established in 1834. Both the electors and board guardians were required to possess property and women could not use the property qualifications of their husbands. In 1875, Martha Merrington became the first woman to be elected to as a Poor Law Guardian. It was harder for women to be elected partly because of the property qualifications required (until 1894) and because farmers, shopkeepers and the businessmen who dominated the boards and put financial considerations first, feared those women would be extravagant. The Local Government Act 1894 allowed women to serve on parish rural district and urban district councils. By the late 1890s, they were in evidence in local government, on School Boards and Poor Law Boards, on parish, rural and urban district councils and on London's vestries. Only the city and county councils eluded them. The Local Government Act 1907 admitted women to all local government authorities (including borough and county councils) and women ran their first candidates that autumn. By 1914, some fifty women were serving on borough and county councils in England and Wales.
The slow growth of direct female involvement after 1869 became a rapid rush after the 1894 Act. In 1892, there were some 136 women among the 28,000 Poor Law Guardians in England and Wales[1]. By 1895, women accounted for 800 or 900 of the total though a large number of Boards of Guardians still had no women members at all. By 1900, there were around 1000 women Poor Law Guardians, more than 200 women members of School Boards and about 200 women parish councillors. Women formed 13.7 per cent of the eligible local government electorate. Female involvement in many levels of local politics may be interpreted as an extension of philanthropic and improving work. The establishment of School Boards to supervise state schooling provision and of Poor Law Boards concerned with relief of the destitute, were clearly areas in which many middle class women found scope for quasi-public charitable work. Coming into local government from philanthropy, moral reform, suffragism and party politics, the elected women shared a feminist perspective which they deployed, quite explicitly, on behalf of women and children, the old and sick, the morally, mentally and physically deformed. Patricia Hollis argues, "They spoke to the moral community". They also linked the local and parliamentary franchises, maintaining that the one led logically to the other.
The metropolitan and provincial school boards drew in many able women -- including Lydia Becker, Emily Davies and Elizabeth Garrett -- who gave a larger commitment to their tasks than many employed male colleagues. They learned how to play politics, build support networks (which included male family allies), make policy and administer it, cope with demanding workloads, adapt middle-class attitudes to the working-class communities they frequently served and persuaded the working class to accept features of the educational system, such as compulsory schooling, that they viewed with dismay.
The 1869 and 1894 Acts did not given women access to all areas of local government, and in both the 1880s and 1890s, setbacks occurred. The London County Council Act 1888 resulted in three women candidates being put up for election, all of them active feminists. Lady Sandhurst's success was short-lived and the Court of Appeal held that her sex made her ineligible to be a councillor. This prompted the founding of a committee to secure the return of women to the London County Council, a committee that widened its remit in time as the Women's Local Government Society. The success of their adversaries was further entrenched by the London Government Act 1899 that replaced the older administrative unit of the vestry with new metropolitan boroughs. Women could sit on vestries (a by-product of the 1894 Act) but under the new act, they could vote but not run for election on the new metropolitan boroughs. In 1902, school boards were abolished, to the dismay of the women's movement. Elementary education passed to borough and county councils to which women could not be elected, though they could be statutorily co-opted on to all local education authorities (LEAs). By 1914, seven hundred or so had been co-opted onto the LEAs and other committees.
The accent on the domestic and the setbacks in London should not obscure the significance of the public political context in which women were now required to act. The Local Government Act 1894, pressed for by women's groups, created secular parish councils and rural and urban district councils for which women ratepayers and married women owning property separately from their husbands could vote. District councillors automatically became members of boards of guardians, while the Act abolished the £5 property requirement and ruled that any adult who satisfied residence qualification could be elected. As a result, the number of women guardians increased. The number of women elected to the new councils was modest: 200 on the 8,000 parish councils in 1896 and by 1900 about 150 rural and 10 urban district councillors. The elective nature of these bodies meant that women fielded as candidates would have a high public profile, a high degree of accountability when elected and, of course, be required to work in mixed gender committees. The stand taken by women on a range of issues -- from corporal punishment to sewerage and housing -- was generally less allied to political factions and more concerned with improving social conditions. Middle class women were particularly strong in local government in the great industrial cities of the North and Midlands, reflecting the dominance of the political structure by the liberal middle classes and women's activities there in suffrage societies, philanthropy and liberalism. However, women were disappointed that so few of them had broken into the final citadel of local power, after all their struggles. It was difficult. Borough councillors needed a property qualification, just as guardians did before 1894 and this limited the field to the single and the well to do. There was the further hurdle of election. Most women candidates stood on the left, while local government after 1906 was swinging to the Conservatives.
[1] The 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act set up poor law unions (groups of parishes). Each union was managed by an elected Board of Guardians.


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News & Events
Nuclear Waste in Your Backyard
If you care about the environment and the rule of law, then it's essential to consider how politics is driving the way we're approaching nuclear energy.
Robert L. Ferguson, a nuclear energy insider who's spent more than fifty years working in the field, details how he partnered with others to wage a legal battle against two of the most powerful men in the world—President Barack Obama and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu—and won.
The stakes were high: President Obama and his administration suddenly and illegally shut down the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, which violated the law and was a smack in the face to residents of 38 states that expected spent nuclear fuel to be buried at a central location.
Arm yourself with the knowledge you need to hold elected officials accountable and ensure that they're not allowed to flagrantly violate the law. If you don't take time to analyze the issues and do your part to improve U.S. energy policy, you may just end up with Nuclear Waste in Your Backyard indefinitely.
The Cost Of Deceit & Delay
Bob Ferguson writes about his experience as one of three private citizens who dared to sue the President of the United States for breaking the law. Update: "We won!!!"
Book Video: The Cost of Deceit & Delay
Limerick Video: A Lament for the Nuclear Waste Policy Act
When President Barack Obama terminated the Yucca Mountain deep geological nuclear waste repository project, he broke the law. When Congress failed to hold the President accountable for violating the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA), three private citizens from Richland, Washington, businessmen involved in managing nuclear waste at the Hanford Site, filed suit against President Obama, the Department of Energy (DOE), and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Two states, two counties, and another organization affected by the termination of the Yucca Mountain Project joined Robert L. Ferguson, Bill Lampson, and Gary Petersen in their lawsuit. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that neither the President or these two federal agencies had the legal authority to terminate the Yucca Mountain Project or to stop the NRC's review of the Yucca Mountain license application. Only Congress has that authority through legislation.
On August 13, 2013, the D.C. Court of Appeals issued its final ruling--ordering the NRC to obey the law and resume its review of the Yucca Mountain license application. The private citizens won their case--holding the President and his administration accountable to the law!
Wall Street Journal, August 25, 2013
Letters to the Editor: Nuclear Waste, Yucca Mountain and the Rule of Law
The NRC should obey the law on the Yucca Mountain facility and Harry Reid should support the rule of law. More...
ANS Nuclear Cafe--A Blog for All Things Nuclear, August 15, 2013
Court Finally Rules on Yucca Mountain's NRC License Review
After a year-long wait, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission must follow the law and resume the review of the Yucca Mountain license application. More...
New York Times, Green Blog, by Matt Wald, November 12, 2012
Will a Lame Duck Congress Confront Nuclear Waste?
A new book by Mr. Ferguson, "The Cost of Deceit and Delay," takes a deep dive into some of the politics surrounding the repository, which is about 100 miles north of Las Vegas. It focuses on a problem that the court may deal with next month. More...
Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald, September 26, 2012
Former DOE official would abolish agency, he says in new book
Bob Ferguson, a former Department of Energy official, makes the case for abolishing DOE in his new book released Tuesday. More...
Going Critical: A Nuclear Waste Blog Site
Crosby-Ferguson Publishing
Richland, Washington 99352
Send mail to Managing Editor:
3510 S. Garfield Place
Kennewick, WA 99337
Robert L. (Bob) Ferguson has more than 50 years of experience in the field of nuclear energy and managing nuclear waste. He is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Programs within the U.S. Department of Energy, and former Managing Director for the Washington Public Power Supply System (now Energy Northwest). He is responsible for building the Fast Flux Test Facility, a government test reactor for the Breeder Reactor Program, and the Columbia Generating Station, a commercial nuclear reactor still in operation on the Hanford Site in eastern Washington.
On February 25, 2010, Bob and two colleagues from Richland, Washington, filed a lawsuit against President Barack Obama and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu to stop them from violating the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to terminate and dismantle the Yucca Mountain deep geologic nuclear waste repository in Nevada, and a second lawsuit against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its former chairman Gregory Jaczko for illegally stopping the NRC's review of the license application that would have determined whether or not the Yucca Mountain was a safe and suitable site for a nuclear waste repository. His book, The Cost of Deceit and Delay, is the story of how ordinary citizens can hold their government leaders accountable to the law.
A portion of the royalties from this book will be provided to the following scholarships established by Katie and Bob Ferguson. If you would like to donate to these scholarships for needy and minority students, please contact these organizations directly at the web addresses provided. Thank you.
Tri-Cities Prep High School, Pasco, WA
The Rosalio Armijo Academic Scholarship Fund
Washington State University-Tri-Cities
William R. Wiley Scholarship Fund
Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA
Bing Crosby Memorial Scholarship Fund
Holy Names Music Center, Spokane, WA
Crosby-Ferguson Music Scholarship Fund
Limerick: A Lament for the Nuclear Waste Policy Act
A Limerick by Catherine Crosby Ferguson, based on the book The Cost of Deceit & Delay.
Video version on YouTube.


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A surreal red light shone on the painted head of a doll. The doll's head sat on a windowsill, its features were facing outward, as if on display. There was violin music playing from inside the room, sounding muffled and maudlin. Beneath the window, the woman lumbered stiffly up the staircase, nursing one leg and leaning heavily on the rail, which creaked under her wieght.
"Your future's in my pipe," she said, "I'm smoking your future," and she smiled while drawing deeply on her pipe.
"That's how it is," she continued, "I smoke everybody's future. Everybody that walks by. If I see them or not. It don't matter."
She stopped to inspect me for a moment. Her expression became roguish. I half expected her to wink. I tried to watch the trail of my future plume from her pipe, but it was a breezy night and the wind blew away any evidence of my future's remains.
"See," she said, "You have no more future. I smoked it."


text:
And then the analysis beings. After tallying everyone's results from my cookie throwdown (I asked them to rank each in order, to which I gave 5 points to their favorite, 1 to their least favorite) I came to an inconclusive conclusion.
Unfortunately there was no "dominant" winner as I was hoping to find. Certain people tended to prefer particular types of cookies, while others really disliked them. Some people couldn't get past the oats in the Neiman Marcus, while others chose it as their favorite. Others completely hated the flatness of the New York Times cookie, while a few preferred them greatly. Me so confused!
Cookie #1 - the New York Times cookie
Honestly, what a disappointment. I really had high hopes for this guy. But even if I did make ity-bity dough balls and bake them only for a few minutes, they somehow manage to completely spread out. Being as this was a "chewy-chocolate-chip-cookie" tasting, this was last place, with a whopping 19 points. However, since there were dozens and dozens remaining at my boyfriend's house (seeing as how he ate all the other ones first), I began trying new things. I placed a damp paper towel over it and microwaved it for about 20 second. Surprisingly it came out quite good, and the taste (while comparing with others leftover) was more dominant. The other cookies were just bready and plain, while this one had a distinctly pleasing cookie taste. For the record, I rated this second to the last place; and majority of people ranked it their very last.
Conclusion: 5th
Cookie #2 - Alton Brown's "The Chewy"
What should be noted is that we did not make these cookies the same size as Alton Brown states we should. These little nugget cookies were probably half the size of his, so I'm not sure if that made much of a different in taste. They were a little cakey in the center, and had not much flavor, but I still enjoyed the chewiness. I personally ranked these third but I guess no one else really cared for them because it got fourth place.
Conclusion: 4th place
Cookie #3 - Cooks Illustrated "Thick and Chewy"
Ahh, my old friend Cook's Illustrated. These were very good, and most people agreed. With an amazing 35 points, this cookie wins the competition! The size was perfect, the spread of the dough allowed for a chewy center and crisp outer, and the taste was good as well. Overall, this was a winner.
Conclusion: 1st place
Cookie #4 - Neiman Marcus cookie
The underdog of the day was this cookie. Resembling a bowl of day old oatmeal, I had no expectations for these cookies. Once spreading nicely, they allowed for a chewy center with an interesting crunch. I actually ranked these second, and coincidentally it came out at second place as well. Only a few points behind Cook's Illustrated, I can't really consider this a close winner because it had staggered results- either people loved it or they absolutely hated it.
Conclusion: 2nd place
Cookie #5 - Tollhouse
Blehh, Tollhouse is Tollhouse, and will always be Tollhouse. Actually, a lot of people enjoyed it and even chose it as their first choice. Really? You had all these gourmet cookies yet you choose the old-fashioned Tollhouse... I guess it has been ingrained into their taste buds that this is what a chocolate chip cookie should taste like. Personally, it was my last choice, but in the end it came out right in the middle at third place.
Conclusion: 3rd place
Here are my tallys. Hopefully I calculated them right lol.
#1 - 5 3 1 1 1 1 1 4 2 = 19
#2 - 1 2 4 3 2 3 2 2 3 = 22
#3 - 3 1 3 4 4 5 5 5 5 = 35
#4 - 4 4 2 5 5 4 4 1 4 = 33
#5 - 2 5 5 2 3 2 3 3 1 = 26
Monday, November 16, 2009
results of the cookie-throwdown
time: 11:09 PM
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text:
The Central Colorado UAS Club brings together owners, operators and interested parties in an informal and social atmosphere to discuss drones, their legal and safe operation and positive benefits to society.
From the intersection of US Highways 285 & 24 in Johnson Village, Colorado, go north on US 24 about one mile and turn west on Steel Drive. The first left turn is Chaffee County Road 319. The terminal building is to the left, and the conference room is on the second floor.
Small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) are becoming more commonplace in all areas of the country.
The regular meeting of the CC UAS Club is intended to bring sUAS owners, operators and interested parties together discuss many aspects of UAS. Our typical agenda includes the following:
We welcome all in the central Colorado region to attend this meeting.


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Thursday, 29 July 2010
Going G
How ironic.
I had the day of today so decided to spend a little time looking at the latest methods and strategies people were implementing in order to be a little more friendly to the environment. In other words - going green.
Well I went to Google as you do and typed in Go Green. As luck would have it the first site that popped up said going green.
Can you imagine I got my note pad out and thought to myself - yes, a few more ideas I can share and hopefully show my customers that I know what I'm talking about. After all I do work in the waste transfer and recycling industry.
OK - moving on. Click on the site. Advert for a new electric car. Hold on a minute. Surely this is some government funded site that is going to provide useful information to someone like myself who wants to make a difference.
How wrong I was - as the full content of the site was in relation to buying a new or used electric car - as long as you buy it from them I might add. Not a mention in relation to the environment. I mean I can't grudge someone capitalising on a good URL in relation to the environment - but at least give something back.
I guess if I want to learn a little more about how I can contribute to looking after the environment - I'm probably going to have to dig just a little bit further. . .
Recycled Items
Free Fire Wood
House Clearances
Metal Removal


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Two West Virginia residents died in a car accident possibly caused by distracted driving. They were killed in a car accident caused by a semi-truck. Law enforcement is working to reconstruct the accident to determine exactly what happened, but it is suspected that the driver was distracted behind the wheel.
Police are working to determine the exact cause of the accident, but it is believed that perhaps speed or other factors played a role. It is also possible that the driver looked away from the road, fell asleep or was doing something else in the moments leading up to the crash. The elderly driver of the smaller vehicle and the truck driver died from the impact.
At this point, law enforcement does not believe that the West Virginia truck driver attempted to brake in order to avoid the impact. This could possibly imply that he did not see the impending wreck. While the case is still under investigation, the passenger of the smaller car is still recovering from her injuries.
The driver of the truck is deceased, but it may be possible that his estate, employer or trucking company could be held liable for the car accident. Truck drivers are responsible for ensuring that they drive safely and carefully around other smaller vehicles. While the trucking company cannot monitor every second that their drivers are behind the wheel, it is their responsibility to enforce safe and cautious driving with employees. If the family of the elderly driver or the injured woman wishes to seek compensation, they should begin by determining if they have a case.
Source: www.heraldcourier.com, Cause of Interstate 81 crash that killed two still under investigation, Kevin Castle, March 2, 2014


text:
(I originally posted this in a sci-fi forum. I was trying to illustrate how writers on these shows play fast and loose with concepts in physics. How'd I do?)
Well, let me just ramble for a moment...
If I were writing some fiction, and convinced myself that I wanted to throw in chaos theory in relation to n-dimensional planes, I'd have to imagine some kind of force that crosses between those dimensions. Otherwise the gauge aspect of chaos theory wouldn't hold at all (if the planes were not connected by *something*, then the idea of local vs. global is meaningless between dimensions). So, let's further imagine this force is some kind of field, and we know (heh) that fields typically have some particle counterpart.
We now have a transdimensional field, and we have particles which are generally considered a physical manifestation of energy (E=mc^2 takes care of that for us). Ok, good. Now we need a name that gathers that together. For sake of my own ego, I'll call them lokkions (bigger heh).
These so-called (by me) lokkions exist, because we say they do, and so we can detect them in some way. Perhaps it's indirectly, but nonetheless if we can detect, we can influence. Now we're getting somewhere! Since we presume the gauge part of chaos theory holds true, and if we suppose that lokkions interact chaotically (they are sensitive to initial conditions), and finally that we can somehow manipulate them, we have a tool for doing *something* across the dimensions.
Stick with me, 'cause it gets really hairy right here...
It's not enough to do *something*, because if the system is non-linear and exquisitely sensitive to the start of some event, we can leverage the localization of chaos theory in our dimension to also do *something* in another dimension. Let's assume for the moment that we get to choose which dimension, and not think too hard about it. Let's further assume it's a dimension that allows us to survive, and is conveniently aligned in such a way that we don't pop out into the middle of a sun. A nice dimension with bikinis and piña colladas.
Mmm... coconut. Where was I?
Oh, dimensions. We have a tool now, and we can change the very fabric of time-space (locally, remember) to allow us to travel without using a worm hole. And (bonus points), it works both ways! Again, the gauge aspect of chaos theory allows us symmetry - if we can get there, we can get back. Of course, we'll need the same tools there as here.
But wouldn't you know it? The specific flavor of energy relies on some exotic combination of field interactions that can be detected but not manipulated by our current technology (see the paradox? I already said if we could detect, we could manipulate. but we're writing fiction, so we just shrug and say "except in this case"). Moreover, that exotic combination must occur here and there at the same moment in time. Then we need to figure out a way not to control the fields, but to redefine time between the dimensions. It's relative, right? We push into hyperspace, thus changing our time relative to the time in Piña Collada Prime (I just made that up), and set our sensors to look for a confluence of fields.
We find it, pop through, sniff the air, and check our clock against star charts (worry about those details later). We see that while it took us 3 days to find the confluence, barely an hour passed in PCP (remember our other dimension?). See, we can now say there's an inversion in relativity due to symmetry that isn't realized until you hop the border. And bonus points because it works going both ways - when we get back, we only left two hours plus how ever much time passed in PCP. Presuming we can find another confluence in the same 3-day window.
And guess what? Some of you are thinking we just found a new way to cover huge distances but gain back the time. Well, I'm afraid it doesn't work that way, Sir. Because we are the ones traveling, we still age normally in our own plane of reference. We get back in 2 hours, but aged 6 days.
See there? I've built my own limitations and plot twists, setting up for hard decisions in the future.
I need a beer.


text:
Microsoft is under pressure on the Linux front. While the company awaits a decision on whether the Supreme Court will hear its appeal of a federal order to split the company in two, a mutiny is occurring inside and outside its ranks. Inside the company, its own programmers — some of whom have used Linux for years — are putting pressure on management to start building Linux applications, according to insiders. Their argument: the Windows market for desktop applications is mature and growing at a slower rate than the potentially explosive market for Linux applications on the desktop. What's more, if the Feds succeed in breaking up the software giant, asked one Microsoft programmer, "isn't it better to be ahead of the game, with Linux applications ready to hit the market" just when smaller rivals are ready to make a splash? The only thing holding back applications for Linux inside Microsoft is the behemoth's paranoia about cannibalizing its own Windows empire, insiders acknowledge. While Microsoft has sometimes publicly argued that it has no problem creating software for rival platforms, citing the Mac as an example, insiders point out that the Mac was never really a competitive threat to the software giant because it represents a different processor platform. As one Microsoft programmer put it; "The Intel-based PC has been Microsoft's strategic platform from the start. Any threat to dominance there is of primary concern to the company."
Indeed, this was a key concern on the part of federal regulators when coming to grips with how to remedy Microsoft's anti-competitive conduct. Justice department and state attorneys who proposed their plan to Microsoft argued that forcing a separation between the operating system enterprise and applications, including Internet software, would ensure that the applications company would be driven more by market opportunity than a monopolist's concern with preserving its market power.
Outside the company, some of Microsoft's largest partners and customers are putting pressure on the software giant. Company insiders say that it is not lost on programmers inside the applications group that computer giant Compaq has been selling 18,000 Linux servers per quarter. (At least that's the amount sold in the fourth quarter of 1999, according to a study by IDC.)
Even Microsoft's close partner Intel has spread Linux program managers throughout the company, and many industry watchers say the chip giant's investments in Red Hat, Turbo Linux, VA Linux, and others would probably have been thwarted if Microsoft had not been under intense scrutiny by antitrust regulators. (The software giant successfully squelched Intel's past attempts to develop new technologies that strayed from the Microsoft camp.)
This past June, Intel announced its Linux-based dot.station, and Microsoft programmers are wondering why it doesn't make sense to write applications for that machine.
In the midst of all of this, Microsoft has recently come public with it's road map for the future of Windows and Office, and it calls it Microsoft .Net. .Net is Microsoft's plan for bringing Windows and Office to the next generation of computing devices, which will be Internet-centric, rather than PC-centric.
But what is the .NET strategy, really, and what does it mean for Linux? Could it allow Microsoft to avoid ever having to develop applications specifically for the Linux market?
The Appearance of Openness?
In a carefully orchestrated campaign of leaks to the press, Microsoft has hoped to create the impression that it is becoming more "open" in its approaches to competition. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has hinted that the company is considering making some of its code "open source" and may be looking at Linux applications, while providing no details on when or how this might happen.
The recently announced .NET strategy now being scrutinized by federal lawyers offers few technical details regarding how that might be accomplished. Microsoft talks of "dynamic delivery" of software to "any device" on the market, and a "universal canvas." But will Microsoft's universal canvas lock out Linux devices?
Bill Gates has said that the .NET software will break down barriers between computing devices, Web sites, organizations, and industries to help realize the full potential of the Internet. In his own words; "Our goal is to move beyond today's world of standalone Web sites to an Internet of interchangeable components where devices and services can be assembled into cohesive, user-driven experiences."
He and Microsoft, however, refused to answer questions about what the .NET strategy means for the Linux market and Linux developers.
Linux users hope the company is sincere when it talks about "any device." The ability to run industry-standard Office productivity applications on Linux devices, ranging from PCs to mobile computers to Internet appliances, would have an enormous impact on the adoption of the Linux operating system.
Indeed, some analysts warn that Linux devices will still be considered "second class citizens" in an all Windows world. IDC analyst Al Gillen said, "I see no reason at this point in time why Microsoft would elevate a Linux client to be a first class citizen, on a par with a Windows client. It's simply not in their best interest to do that."
Interestingly, Microsoft's claim that Office will be part of the .NET "dynamic delivery" of software to "any device" on the market seems to imply that operating systems will become irrelevant. The implication is that, via Office .NET, those using any operating system will have access to Microsoft's Office suite. However, industry watchers warn that Microsoft intends to tightly control the underlying technology that will tie Office to the Internet.
According to Robert Muglia, group vice president for Microsoft's business productivity group, the .NET strategy is simply about delivering software in a completely new way. "We are moving from delivering software in a packaged form that has to be installed and deployed, to delivering it as a service," he said, meaning that under .NET, software will no longer be permanently installed on a PC, but instead delivered on demand via the Internet.
As with his peers, Muglia was mum on the topic of how this strategy will specifically impact the Linux market. All he would say is; "We need to take .NET and broaden it out to work across multiple devices. The PC, but also cell phones and a wide variety of other devices."
So what will be part of .NET? According to Muglia; "In the short run we've been working on the next version of Office, and you can expect to see a traditional version of Office with Word and Excel, PowerPoint all as a part of it. But as we move forward with Office, we will be incorporating .NET technology into it and at the same time we'll be working on a totally new version. You can think of it as Office .NET or Office that's delivered as a software service."
With .NET, Microsoft says that "every application can be exposed as a service on the Internet." But in the first release of Windows.NET — code-named Whistler — IDC's Gillen says that it is likely that only Windows .NET users will have access to applications through Office .NET.
Over the longer term, however, if Microsoft is sincere about delivering applications software as a service to any device, the .NET strategy bodes well for Linux, Gillen said. "But I think what you will see for some time to come is that Windows devices will have a richer interface on them than non-Windows devices just because of the synergy. It remains to be seen what the Microsoft .NET program will bring to non-Microsoft devices."
And what about developers? In a white paper Microsoft issued to developers in June, the company states that it is "offering every developer the tools they need to transform the Web and every other aspect of the computing experience." Again, IDC's Gillen doubts that "every developer" will include Linux developers.
Chicken and Egg
IDC has analyzed Microsoft's opportunities in the Linux space. On the client side, Microsoft's key area of focus is productivity applications: word processing, spreadsheets, presentation software, and databases.
The Mac and Windows platforms, on the client side, accounted for about 92 percent of all client operating environment shipments in 1999, according to IDC. By comparison, Linux accounted for about four percent of the total.
If Microsoft were split up, the question is whether a Microsoft applications company looking at new markets would deem it worthwhile to move to Linux in order to gain an extra four points of market share, Gillen said.
But it's a chicken-and-egg situation. The growth of the Linux operating system market would arguably be huge if Microsoft desktop applications were suddenly available on Linux. The growth potential would clearly be much larger than current measurements.
Still, Gillen is conservative. "For a company like Microsoft, because of the size of their business, they would need to look at their return. Granted it's a growing market, but right now the traditional client operating environment market is not, at least from our perspective, shaping up to be the area where Linux is going to have the most impact. It will have a greater impact in the embedded space and the server space. I question whether it would be financially justified for the company to make the investment that would be required to bring their products to Linux on the desktop."
"On the other hand, if there was a Microsoft applications company, the server arena is a market that would be very competitive. Under this scenario, the products that Microsoft would look at bringing to Linux would probably include their Access database product, and Exchange, their groupware product. Given the way the market is configured currently, you'd be looking at competing against IBM and Oracle on the database side, and companies like Lotus on the groupware side — as well as Sendmail, which is very popular," Gillen said.
In the server arena, it would be difficult for Microsoft to capture a large marketshare in the Linux space as it would be moving into a market where it had no presence before, and would be competing against established, well funded, entrenched competitors.
Gillen notes, "We recognize a certain portion of the Linux community is religious about Linux and this group would be absolutely hostile to any Microsoft product. But this group constitutes the minority of the Linux user community moving forward. Statistically they'd be a small percentage of the market. When you get the general user at the Fortune 2000 company that's looking at a product for Linux, the IT manager is not going think 'I'm not going to use Microsoft just because I hate Microsoft'. That's a much less likely scenario."
Linux is a particular threat to Microsoft in the embedded software space, which includes set-top boxes and interactive television. As previously mentioned, Intel recently announced its dot.station Internet appliance, a device aimed at this market, which runs Linux. These kinds of devices represent a potentially huge untapped market –those who will be using hybrid computing/entertainment devices in their living rooms. Unfortunately for Microsoft, in this space they are still playing catch-up with Windows CE. It recently announced Windows CE 3.1 and they are making improvements to that product "to address its shortcomings in the embedded space," Gillen said.
Two Sides to Every Coin
While Microsoft's entrance into the Linux applications market would surely be a boon for the growth of the Linux market overall, IDC analysts say that it would also mean stiffer competition for existing Linux developers. An independent Microsoft applications company could be a threat to Linux desktop developers such as Corel, Applix and Sun Microsystems (which owns StarOffice).
Judge Jackson's order that Microsoft refrain from penalizing business partners who choose to also endorse competing technologies would have a positive influence on encouraging PC and server manufacturers to collaborate with Linux providers. "That would give the open source market a major boost," according to Dan Kusnetzky, vice president of IDC's System Software research.
Still, making it easier for PC hardware manufacturers to collaborate with companies doing Linux desktop development may not be enough. In what seems like an ironic twist of fate, even if Microsoft is truly sincere about making Office .NET available on all kinds of devices, its entry into the Linux market has the potential to badly damage the existing desktop players.
Can even a government mandated break-up or behavioral restriction change that aspect of this situation? Or is this even a real issue to consider? Is it possible that the existing Linux office suite players would continue to grow and thrive in a market that includes Microsoft as a direct competitor? Only time will tell.
Breaking Ground
Whatever else you can say about Microsoft, one thing is for sure — they never like to be caught unprepared. Just 10 minutes from Microsoft's Redmond campus, east of Seattle in Issaquah, Washington, a three million square foot office campus is currently being built which can accommodate 12,000 employees. Company insiders, as well as real estate brokers in the area, speculate this will be the future site of a Microsoft applications company, if the software giant is ordered to be broken up. (Microsoft currently has about 20,000 employees in the Seattle area.)
Meanwhile, Microsoft is bolstering its legal team, and preparing a huge new office site in Washington, while waiting to hear whether the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia or the Supreme Court will hear its appeal of the Federal court ruling that the company violated antitrust laws and should be split in two.
Regardless of which court hears the appeal, Department of Justice sources said that it is expected that Microsoft may have to defend its .NET strategy, which the Feds may cite as an example of an opportunity for continued, potentially anti-competitive leveraging of its market power to the Internet. The Feds see the strategy as a way to irrevocably tie Windows technology into Web-based software, while Microsoft is expected to argue the contrary — that its strategy makes operating systems moot, seeing that software will theoretically be delivered as a service to any computing device.
Wendy Goldman Rohm is the co-author of Under the Radar. She can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com.
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