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ANOTHER week, and another great blog entry, brought to you this Monday by the carp fishing experts from Fox International. The round-up is brought to you by Fox media assistant Harry Charrington.
We hope you enjoy the blog, and share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the icons above, or by the "old skool" method of telling fellow anglers! Feel free also to comment by using the special space at the bottom on this page
FOX TRIPPING UP THE 50's!
SEPTEMBER has always been a month where you can expect a few extra lumps to get tripped up. There is a noticeable bite in the air on most mornings, the weed on many of the lakes up and down the country starts to loosen its strangle hold and the carp begin to really get on the munch in preparation for winter. It is a fantastic time to be on the bank and gives you the opportunity of snaring some your lake's biggest residents.
This is exactly what the Fox RAF team Capitan managed to do on the well-documented Wellington Country Park. Sgt. Glenn Beardsall has been fishing the venue for a few seasons now and has always had his sights set on slipping his net under the lakes biggest carp 'The Turtle'.
It was only a few days previous that Glenn had emailed me to order a few items of tackle and he mentioned that he was finally getting back on the bank after a lengthy time away from the lake, due to an injury that, much to his frustration, left him unable to fish. He joked that the lake would pay him back and 'The Turtle' would be his by the next time we spoke. Well he was not wrong and that session Glenn snared the 54lb 4oz beast using a New Grange bottom bait, on a simple rig tied using the CoretexHooklink material and a size 6 Arma Point SR hook.
It's funny how things turn out like that, but it seems to happen quite often amongst carp anglers. Perhaps we talk so much about the fish that we want to catch that it's bound to happen rather more frequently than you would initially expect.
It has also been a fantastic month for Marian Sura who is one of our German Sponsored anglers. I have been hugely impressed with this lad since he has joined Fox, he seems to put big carp (and I mean BIG) on the bank on a weekly basis from some very tough German venues. None of his captures however have been more impressive than his latest capture of an incredible 55lb mirror, with a remarkable similarity to the famous 'Choco' from Stoneacres in Oxford.
Marian told me that this was a fish that he has wanted to catch since childhood and now he has gone and done it. It really is the stuff of dreams and shows you that if you want something enough, you can make it happen! Marian fished his bottom bait with 25lb rigidity down to a size 4 Kuro S4XS creating a stiff rig however, the bait was allowed to move naturally by the addition of a soft braided hair. A rig that he has 100% confidence in and employs whenever he can.
Getting back in the swing of things has been Fox media manager Lewis Porter. After fishing very little throughout the summer months, Lew had been toying with the idea of going back to his syndicate lake; the notoriously deep Bundys Pit, a tricky water at the best of times. He had enjoyed a blockbuster of a spring campaign on the venue, but knew it would be hard to begin where he left off.
Bundy's is a lake like no other, being a mere seven acres yet reaching depths in excess of 60ft and knowing what depth the fish will be feeding at can be one hell of a conundrum. After arriving at the lake, for a quick overnight session, with very little knowledge of what had been occurring in the weeks and months previous Lew went on a hunch and set up on the back of a big South Westerly. Well he said it was a hunch however, I have my suspicions that the thought of doing a night with gale force winds hacking into his bivvy was enough to send him scuttling off round to the comfort of other side. Either way it was a good decision, as no sooner than he had got his third rod chucked out he was away.
He went on to have another three carp that night which is a fantastic result for a quick night on the venue. One of the carp he caught also happened to be the very first carp he saw after joining the venue. It was a common with a very distinctive deformity in its tail and whilst not a big fish by Bundy's standards it made the already successful trip all the more worthwhile for Lewis.
Arriving in October we have two new Royale Tackle Boxes, which offer superb value for money! These boxes feature a very carpy semi-translucent green lid and also come fully loaded with tackle storage devices.
Pictured below is the new Medium Royale Tackle Box which comes loaded with 1 x 2 compartment box, 1 x 4 compartment box, 4 x 4 compartment flip top boxes, 1 x rig board and 1 x dispenser. With all these extras and at an RRP of just £24.99, it really is a no brainer when it comes to getting a new tackle box.
If you prefer a larger box we will also be releasing a Large version which will come loaded with even more tackle storage devices and RRPs at just £39.99.
Looking Forward
Coming up very soon is the Tackle and Guns trade show which is one of the most important dates in the calendar for any tackle company hoping to make a big impression on their retailers. I know Angler's Mail magazine will have strong coverage on the events again, with their own highlights.
At T&G thousands of angling retailers travel across the country to see all the latest products from the biggest companies to gain an idea of what products are going to make a big impact on the market over the next year. This has meant that at Fox we have been working tirelessly to ensure that everything is ready to rock so that the retailers will be blown away by our new products.
Our Supabrolly has been one of the hottest items on the market in 2012 and the additions to the range, which will be revealed to the retailers, are sure to cause quite a stir at the show. Many of you have been calling out for a wrap or a system version of the brolly and we have made no secret of the fact that they are coming and once you see it you will not be disappointed. The latest sample that arrived in the office only a few days ago is very close to the finished article and will be the one we are taking to T&G. To say there is a buzz around the Fox HQ at the moment is an understatement and these new additions look set to become very hot property when they are released to the public. Watch this space…
I have been working tirelessly towards T&G also, and a couple of weeks ago I was filming for a Free Fox Rage DVD. For those who don't know Fox Rage is our lure brand headed by World Lure Angling Champion Dietmar Isaiasch.
Dietmar flew over from Holland to take part in the filming and Julian Chidgey our specialist consultant who happens to be a dab hand at lure fishing was on hand to help show how it is done. It was an eye opening experience filming this exciting and varied section of our sport. Being predominantly a carp angler it was a refreshing change to see how these guys go about their fishing. I
t inspired me to raid their boxes of lures and traces and give it a go my self and I have to say it was a breath of fresh air.The gear is minimal and I have been stopping off at any piece of water I pass on my travels and having a cast. I have even put some predators on the bank myself.
If you have found your carping getting a tad stale, or you fancy a different challenge then I strongly recommend you get yourself a light lure outfit and give it a go.
Since then I have been editing the footage solidly and it will be ready to show at T&G, with free copies being sent out to shops shortly after.
Soon I will be Oxford bound to take part in the UK Carp Cup final and until then all of my spare time will be taken up by filling my Rigid Rig Case with copious amounts of rigs, spooling reels, preparing bait etc all the things that one must do to ensure they are 100% ready for whatever the carp decide to do. Also featuring in the final will be Fox Consultant and England International Mark Bartlett so with any luck one of us will manage a good draw and be in with a real chance of lifting that trophy at the end of it.
Wish us luck in the competition as I wish you all luck in your various exploits throughout my favorite month of the year; October. Tight lines!
Related posts
Fox's last carp fishing blog here
Here's the list of all the new blogs and when they go live:
MONDAY: Carp crews on rotation – Korda, Fox, Nash and ACE.
TUESDAY: Steve Collett, Mail contributor and ultimate all-rounder.
WEDNESDAY: Angler's Mail HQ – yes, us!
THURSDAY: Specialists from Pike Anglers Club, Korum and Pallatrax, on rotation
FRIDAY: Carl & Alex, Angler's Mail juniors and video diary makers.
SATURDAY: The Angling Trust – guys at the governing body.
SUNDAY: Colin Mitchell, veteran coarse angler and top journalist


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Recent signs that China's economic slowdown is worsening has fueled fears a so-called hard landing. But even if that happens, many investors believe the world's second-largest economy has a big-enough safety net to contain the damage.
Decelerating growth in China would have substantial effects around the global economy, which is reeling from the European debt crisisand the lingering fears that the U.S. is speeding toward the edge of a fiscal cliff.
Most economists believe that the so-called hard landing, often described as growth that would slip under 7 percent or so, is avoidable.
But in a world where several crises in recent years have ended up much worse than they looked on the surface, Chinese policy makers won't be taking any chances, experts on the country's economy say.
"If a hard landing comes, obviously it's a major global issue because Europe's going nowhere and the United States is stagnating," said Michael Yoshikami, CEO and founder of Destination Wealth Management in San Francisco. "You're looking at a serious global event, obviously. It's not just China who's going be suffering."
Yoshikami just returned from a trip to Shanghai, where he said business is brisk.
He's not a subscriber to the hard-landing school of thought partly because he sees China sitting on huge cash surpluses and a still-improving business climate, and partly because Chinese central bankers stand at the ready with powerful stimulus options.
In fact, Yoshikami thinks now is a good time for investors to start "dipping in" to Chinese stocks, and recommends diversifying between both the Hang Seng and Shanghai indexes.
"The Chinese have such a surplus that they're going to carpet bomb as much as they possibly can to avoid a hard landing," Yoshikami said. "It's very easy to talk about a hard landing when you really aren't in China looking at what's happening."
Hedge fund titan Jim Chanos, at Kynikos Associates, is perhaps the most vocal naysayer on China in the investment community. Chanos cites vacant buildings throughout the nation as evidence that China overbuilt for a stampede that never came.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch recently cut its outlook for Chinese gross domestic product (explain this) growth to 7.7 percent from 8.0 percent in 2012, and from 8.0 percent to 7.6 percent in 2013. BofA based its negative revision on "China's slowing potential growth, falling new home starts and slower growth in developed economies."
"Despite the cuts, we are still believer of China's soft-landing, and we think a growth pace above 7 percent is quite good given the colossal size of the Chinese economy and worsening external demand," BofA said in a research note.
"In this globalized era, no economies could be decoupled from others. Policy-wise, though we believe Beijing to step up policy easing/stimulus and Beijing still has deep pockets to engineer a faster growth," the firm said.
This month's BofA fund mangers' survey found a net 14 percent expecting growth in China's economy. (Read More: Cheap and Cheerful, Chinese Phones Outsmart Apple)
Not everyone is as enthused about China's prospects.
Weaker-than-expected inflationdata from July and a meager 1 percent export growth for the month have tamped down hopes that China would be able to make it through the global slowdown unscathed.
"If you look at some of the anecdotal data such as electricity production, Korean exports, coal prices, iron ore etc., I think you're looking more at mid-single-digit (GDP growth) at most," Jurrien Timmer, director of investment research for Fidelity Investments and co-portfolio manager of the Fidelity Dynamic Strategies Fund, told CNBC.
"If you define a hard landing as 6 percent or less growth...I think China is in a hard landing and you can start seeing that in the S&P earnings numbers," Timmer said.
In that instance, investors likely could expect a sharp round of stimulus, though policy makers probably would stop short of Federal Reserve-style money printing.
"What they're going to do is force banks to lend," Yoshikami said. "People forget that unlike Europe and the United States, (China) has cash in the bank. They don't need to sell Treasurys to make money. You print money when you don't have money."

subset: commoncrawl


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Sunday July 21, 2019; 09:45 am EDT
Venus, Saturn and the moon make for a beautiful sight, but don't read too much into it
Twilight Thursday and Friday reveals dazzling Venus low in the west with much fainter Spica less than two degrees below. Look for Saturn a dozen degrees above and to the left of this pairing.
In the half-hour following sunset Saturday, an ever-so-thin nascent crescent moon joins the party, hovering just above the western horizon to the lower right of Venus and Spica. To spot it, you will need good timing, an unimpeded view and maybe even binoculars.
Sunset Sunday finds the moon a little higher in the west, and now it is less than one degree away from Venus. They create a beautiful pair and are close enough that both will appear within the eyepiece of small telescopes and binoculars. Adding to the picture that evening, Saturn hovers three degrees above Venus. There should be no confusing the two planets, as Venus blazes at –4.5 magnitude, while Saturn, at –1.1 magnitude, shines more like a bright star. Catch this group while you can, because the moon and Venus set by 8:30pm, leaving ringed Saturn following a half-hour in their wake.
These three objects look close in the sky, with the moon dwarfing the other two. In reality, however, the moon is the smallest of the bunch, about one-quarter the size of earth. Venus is close to the size of earth, while Saturn is almost 10 times the size of earth. The moon looks so big and shines so bright because it is so close, roughly 250,000 miles away compared to Venus at 25 million miles and Saturn at a whopping 750 million miles away!
While astrologers place great import on these conjunctions, they are more sightly than significant and purely a matter of our earth-bound perspective. The moon and planets, as well as the constellations of the zodiac, appear to travel the same path through our skies, and thus they come together fairly often.


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From Conservapedia
Fairness is the noun form of Fair.[1]
Usually, complaints about unfairness have nothing to do with justice, but are simply a reaction to finding out that you have to take responsibility for your life; that you are accountable for your actions; that your choices have consequences; that you have to work for money; that you have to fix something you broke; that you do not get rewards that others earned while you played video games. None of this is unfair. - Charles J. Sykes, 50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School, page 12


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Ryanair is one of our travel partners for cheap India flights from US cities. IndianEagle issues cheapest air tickets for Ryanair? US to India flights in all travel classes. You can even search and book Ryanair? cheap last minute flight tickets to India at IndianEagle. We also provide our customers with all relevant details about their USA to India flights by Ryanair Save money on air travel by booking Ryanair? cheap flights to India at IndianEagle!


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Genteq Tutorial 1.1 App Takes Top Prize in Training Category
Genteq introduces its e-lab service training app featuring trainer Christopher Mohalley. The e-lab courses are created for technicians, service managers, distributors and manufacturer reps. With this new app, users can take the videos wherever they go, whether they need a refresher while servicing a customer, or have a little free time and want to learn more. The app is not just about Genteq's replacement motors, it also has tutorials for OEM products. Users learn how to install, service, and maintain ECM motors. According to company sources, the knowledge gained from e-lab is beneficial to technicians at all experience levels. The app is available for iPad, iPhone, and Android.
www. regalbeloit.com.com
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New Self-Sensing Series from Taco
The Taco Self-Sensing series with ProBalance integrates Taco KV or KS pumps with a variable frequency drive. Self-Sensing ProBalance pumps allow the installer to accomplish easy do-it-yourself system balancing for both constant flow central plant applications and variable flow building distribution applications. According to company sources, the system greatly reduces balancing contractor costs at commissioning or start-up.
Pump performance curves are embedded in the memory of the speed controller. During operation, pump power and speed are monitored, enabling the controller to establish the hydraulic performance and position in the pump's head-flow characteristic. This enables the pump to continuously identify required head and flow at any point, providing accurate pressure control without the need for external sensor feedback.
SelfSensing SKV pumps are available in sizes from1.5-hp to 10-hp. The SKS line is available from 1.5-hp to 60-hp. Models up to 600-hp will be available in 2014.
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Mitsubishi Electric Introduces meVIEW AR iPad App
The new meVIEW AR app provides homeowners and professionals with an augmented reality visualization of a Mitsubishi Electric ductless product positioned within a desired space.
Available for use with iPad via the meSync custom enterprise app program, meVIEW AR allows the contractor to show a homeowner a model of a Mitsubishi Electric indoor or outdoor unit in the actual space through the iPad camera. The meVIEW AR app has evolved from the original meVIEW app, launched in 2011, which allowed users to take photographs and insert product models into the frame. This more dynamic augmented reality app shows the indoor and outdoor models from all angles.
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GeeXLab 0.28 with NVIDIA FleX support
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Feature Highlights of the AMD Catalyst 12.9 Beta: AMD Catalyst Mobility support for AMD Enduro TechnologyAMD Catalyst Mobility now includes support for AMD Enduro Technology. AMD Enduro Technology for Notebooks delivers: Long lasting battery life GPU accelerated performance for gaming, video, and compute apps A Seamless and automatic experienceNew features found in Catalyst 12.9 Beta: Re-designed Catalyst Control Center user interface View all profiled applications View recently run applications Profile applications based on power source Expert mode control and customization Performance centric AC Battery centric DC Feature Highlights of AMD Catalyst 12.9 Beta Linux® Driver: New OS SupportThis release of AMD Catalyst Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems. Ubuntu 12.10 early look support RHEL 6.3 production supportPerformance highlights of AMD Catalyst™ 12.9 Beta (versus AMD Catalyst 12.8 ) Up to 10% in Lost Planet 2 in single GPU configurations


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Town of Marlboro, VT
The Marlboro College campus is located in the town of Marlboro, among the foothills of the Green Mountains in southern Vermont. Tucked on its own Potash Hill, the college is an integral part of the town, a community of less than 1,000 where many staff, faculty, and students are active citizens. Some of the many benefits shared by both the college and the town include a volunteer fire company, a community newsletter called the Marlboro Mixer, cross-country ski trails, the Marlboro Historical Society, the Southern Vermont Natural History Museum, the Marlboro Community Fair, and the January Book Swap. Marlboro is also the site of the world famous Marlboro Music Festival, which occupies the campus during the summer.
Marlboro offers many recreational opportunities, including hiking, biking, swimming, paddling, and cross-country skiing on an extensive network of trails that start right on campus. The town of Marlboro is only 30 minutes from the Appalachian Trail, 20 minutes from Mount Snow ski resort, and an hour from hiking trails up storied Mount Monadnock or the world-class whitewater of Zoar Gap.
While some students choose to bring cars to campus, many others find it just as easy to take the Marlboro College van, hop on the public MOOver bus, or carpool to and from Brattleboro, the nearest substantial town offering many cultural highlights. For other more urban pleasures, Marlboro is 45 minutes from Bennington, Vermont, or Keene, New Hampshire, and an hour from the city of Northampton, Massachusetts.


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This is great. Thank you very much for posting.
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A photo geek or just a photography beginner? Ask, discuss, explore!
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Pho.to Community » Photo editing: most common problems and quick solutions » Remove digital noise, or how to fix grainy pictures » Post new reply
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This is great. Thank you very much for posting.
This was interesting. You seem very knowledgeable in your field.
handle_url_tag('http://www.hamariweb.com/islam/islamic-names.aspx', 'name meanings')
Very well said nice article ......................:)
I recently purchased a new nikon digital camera and I get no noize at all.
I guess the newer cameras have solved this problem.
Paul Burkhardt
I also face on digital noise, it is very important to remove digital noise from a photo to make it elegance. thanks to the Pho.to_admin for mentioning tips about Remove digital noise. I think it's a step forward in photo editing and the after pic looks really good after removing the noise.
"Wooden Greenhouse" I'm totally agree with of you that any kind of unexpected noise in digital photo will be looking like smudge. So it's a great concern at that time.
So as soon as possible should be fixed this problem and remove digital noise.
Any photographs taken in loud noise is surely seen in the photo. So using such tool will surely make the photographs crystal clear. Photoshop also can be used.
Thanks.Why am I using exclamation marks everywhere!I stumbled onto your blog and read a few
post.I will be coming back to
For night shots always use tripod and long exposures, also 100 ISO. I think Editor.pho.to great tool to clean up digital noise.
Fantastic post.
The Denoise tool in Online Photo is really helpful. It can remove different types of noise from my photos.
Thanks a lot for sharing with us. It's really amazing.
Oh, so that's one software I can use when editing pics. I have a lot of pictures from our family and friends' outings, and they seem to have that noise. It's nice of you to post this software's information. Keep it up!
"Wow, that actually makes a pretty big difference. My old camera used to get noise if the lighting was not the best, but it does not seem to happen too much on my new one. I think because it is a much better camera.
I have the tiniest camera in world produced by SONY. The problem is that the pictures come out too bad in dark lightning. I tried to fix them using Photoshop but it's very hard.
jasonbill, you can use it for .jpeg format (just uploading image from disk), but not for .psd format.
But for using in Adobe Photoshop you can first save the .psd image in .png or .jpeg format and them denoise it with our tool.
Nice post on....
effect of Noise in digital photos really looks like flecks of random color in an area of an image
really its amazing creativity...
Cool trick man. I used the trick for my handle_url_tag('http://www.theuen.com', 'Starcraft strategy') website. I first fixed the digital noise of one of my photos I took at the release of the Wings of Liberty party. Then I removed the grainy picture that happened at night. The common problem with night time shots is that it is so blurry and the lighting is no good. I took a picture of the Terrans. It looks good. I'll post here in a second.
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text: Gerry, > Debates and differences aside, often-times, this forum *is* an authoritative > source of information. > Indeed it is. By the way, we've got an old-ish course on multilevel parallel programming at ci-tutor.ncsa.uiuc.edu in case anybody wants to go there and see what people were thinking a couple years ago when they wrote it. I've seen the benchmark speedups with mixed-mode as well. With the right code, on a day with the wind to your back, threads can make good use of communication induced idle time on a node [yeah MPI supports overlap... that's more difficult to achieve than it would appear, requiring-- excellent programming, most excellent MPI implementation]. By the way, if you've used Intel's mkl, you may have run with hybrid code already and not know it [do you know how your system sets OMP_NUM_THREADS ?]. -Galen


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Ezra Levant's Shakedown: A preliminary note
I will shortly review Shakedown as a book.
But first I want to say something on my own behalf, because Levant's book is, in some ways, about the life I have lived.
It is rare that any Canadian writes a book about what traditional Canadians have actually lived through. Writers rarely get CanLit prizes for that! So for no money and no price, just let me tell you what it was like.
It has been a long time since I have really felt proud of my country. Not since 1972, actually.
US draft dodgers, who got jobs at a publishing company beside my home (as I did) were jeering at me because I was pregnant (and married - not that that would have mattered to them).
They were Population Bombers, and would have been glad to help me to an abortion. It would further one of their key causes.
Even at 8.5 months pregnant - when I was phoning St. Michael's Hospital to book the usual prenatal tour - these unspeakable people were heckling in the background, urging me to ask for an abortion.
Let me be quite clear about this: I am not a victim. I blew them off. I am simply recording a fact. I want this fact recorded in the river of history. Those are the sorts of people we Canadians took in at that time - much to our disadvantage, I now think.
My one consolation in those days was one afternoon in September when I went out on my break to get a coffee and Danish at a local bakery.
Suddenly windows opened all over. People were shouting and laughing and singing the national anthem.
Against all odds, Canada had WON the hockey series against the Soviet Union. The one we couldn't win, according to the pundits. Our smackdown would prove that a free society couldn't hold a candle to the "discipline" of the USSR. So many pundits had told us so.
No? Not so certain? Well, here's the winning goal:
Enjoy. Or not. Or go to blazes.
Of course we never got credit for that, because Eastern Europe would have been terrified to admit that (in terms of population) tiny Canada had won, fair and square, according to the rules of hockey. Our victory was, as we would expect, decorously downplayed, even in Canada - which was - even then - overflowing with authoritarian traitors, many homegrown.
But we didn't care about them then. We knew we had won. Traditional Canadians knew - then and forever - that liberal democracy beats any kind of authoritarian system dead.
Dead in the water. Authoritarian corpse is belly upside, floating, rotting.
Well, even though I was heavily pregnant and carrying a cup of coffee and a danish, I ran, ran laughing, all the way back to the office and sank heavily into my chair.
I ignored the dodgers, and worked away the afternoon laughing.
After all, we were right. And there was hope. Hope for my kid.
However, for many years, like so many Canadians, I had to keep my head down. The Trudeaupians had other ideas for us. And they soon spelled them out. But it is fair to say that none of their ideas were so vile as the "human rights" Commissions of today. That is Trudeaupia in full, poisonous flower.
But what could we do about them? The legacy media has fronted them - up until recently.
The first time I ever really thought of putting my head up was when I listened to a YouTube video in which a man says, in a classical Canadian quack: "My name is Ezra Levant." Here:
I thought, wow! That guy is actually proud to be a Canadian. Like me. Yes, I admit, Canada has been nearly submerged by authoritarians fronting garbage, promoting victimhood and dependency on government.
And, when you hear him say his name, he isn't declaiming oratory. We don't do that here. To a foreigner, it might even sound dull - at first.
But, in the end, left with no other option, we Canadians do fight like hell. Every military strategist knows that.
And our social engineering tyranny is recent. When I look back on our pre-Trudeau history, it is worthy of great respect. My own ancestors and the many magnificent Aboriginal people who helped them would treat these Trudeaupians with the scorn they justly deserve.
As I will do too, more freely, from now on.
Legacy media have been nearly worthless on these subjects, so I can only ask foreigners: Please do not judge Canadians by what you see in legacy mainstream media.
Most Canadians are better represented by these guys (who saved a woman's life by brave, skillful action) than by some social worker whining for more welfare for crack addicts or some "human rights" officer demanding compensation for middle-aged strippers who are not of interest to patrons of sex clubs.
Honestly. If you don't believe me, I dare you to come to Toronto, go up the CN Tower, and walk out on the glass floor. Hint: Do it on your knees. You can do it on your knees.
Make whatever you want of that fact. As a traditional Christian I would say that that is one reason why the Lord gave you knees. You will be amazed what you can do on your knees that you cannot do on your feet.
Labels: Canada, Ezra Levant, intellectual freedom, Shakedown


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New Research Sets The Stage For Next Round Of Cat-And-Mouse Between BitTorrent Users & Snoopers
from the don't-look-now,-you're-being-watched dept
The BitTorrent protocol is an extremely efficient way of moving files around the Internet, especially big ones. That makes it highly popular with those seeking to download unauthorized copies of music and films, for example. But the clever approach that enables BitTorrent to do that, which involves downloading fragments of a file from a shifting swarm of fellow peers holding some or all of it, is also a weakness from these users' point of view: it means that downloads take place in public, rather than as a private transaction from a client to a server (as with cyber lockers.)
Fascinating new research entitled "The Unbearable Lightness of Monitoring: Direct Monitoring in BitTorrent" (pdf), from researchers at the University of Birmingham, explores just how public. It seeks to quantify how many peers in a swarm are actually being run by companies monitoring unauthorized downloads, and how long it takes for them to detect such activity:
From our experiments, we derived a number of interesting properties of monitoring, as it is currently performed: e.g., that monitoring is prevalent for popular content (i.e., the most popular torrents on The Pirate Bay) but absent for less popular content, and that peers sharing popular content are likely to be monitored within three hours of joining a swarm.
Many BitTorrent users are aware that such monitoring is going on, and try to avoid detection by using some kind of blocklist designed to catch peers being run by companies offering digital forensics. But if the current research is accurate, those lists have big gaps: of the peers the researchers identified as likely to be run by monitoring companies, only 69% were found on the blocklists they checked. In other words, there was nearly a one in three chance that they would not be blocked, and would therefore be able to monitor unauthorized downloads.
Despite this, one of the study's authors, Tom Chothia, told New Scientist that file sharers needn't be worried too much by the revelation they are being monitored -- at least, not yet:
"All the monitors connected to file sharers believed to be sharing illegal content. However, they did not actually collect any of the files being shared. So it is questionable whether the observed evidence of file-sharing would stand up in court."
More cautious users of BitTorrent may find other ways to avoid detection, using VPNs or proxies. But as Tim Lee points out, the main effect of this new analysis will probably just be an escalation of the long-standing arms race between file-sharers and copyright enforcers:
Users will presumably take advantage of the new monitor-detection techniques identified by Chothia et al to produce more accurate blocklists. Monitoring firms may respond by tweaking their monitoring clients to behave more like real clients, and by more frequently changing the subnets they use for monitoring.
And so the game of cat-and-mouse will continue.
Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+
Filed Under: bittorrent, monitoring


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ACLU Lens: ACLU Tells Supreme Court Warrantless Blood Tests of DWI Suspects Not Justified
January 9, 2013
Jump to navigation Skip navigation
Steve Gosset is manager of media relations. He joined the ACLU from Columbia Law School, where he served as press officer. He has also worked at CBS News as a writer, editor and producer for radio and TV. Steve also served as a reporter at The Record in Hackensack, N.J., The Journal-News in West Nyack, NY, and a reporter and editor for United Press International in Albany, N.Y.


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Our angle iron sign frame and sign panel unit makes a great yard sign as it's one of our most durable yard sign units available. Also known as our Gibraltar frame, the angle iron sign frame is powder coated for a smooth finish, features strike tabs at the top of the frame in case you need to hammer it into firm ground and includes gussets underneath the foot push to prevent bending. The steel sign panel is printed on both sides using non-fade printing inks and is backed with our three year no fading or peeling guarantee.
Height: 44 inches
Width: 30 inches
Weight: 13.45 lbs
(*indicates a required field)


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CALGARY, Alberta, March 16 (UPI) -- Sven Baertschi scored 17 seconds into the game Thursday, igniting the Calgary Flames to a 4-1 victory over Phoenix in a contest heavy with playoff implications.
The Flames won their fifth straight, a streak that has boosted their post-season hopes.
With teams around the league heading into their final 10 games of the campaign, Phoenix missed a chance to draw even with Dallas for the lead in the Pacific Division.
Coyotes and Colorado both have 81 points, leaving them tied for the seventh and eighth spots in the playoff chase. Calgary has climbed within one point of those two clubs.
Baertschi's goal put Calgary in front to stay and the Flames expanded their advantage early in the second period on the 31st of the season from Jarome Iginla.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson brought Phoenix within one late in the second, but Matt Stajan restored the two-goal lead less than a minute later.
A shorthanded goal from Calgary's Alex Tanguay in the third wrapped up the scoring.
Miikka Kiprusoff got the win with 27 saves. Mike Smith allowed all four goals on 19 shots.


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COLLEGE STATION – It's been an ugly week around Aggieland, and one of the results might soon be the dismissal of athletic director Bill Byrne.
An A&M insider told me Friday that Byrne is expected to be fired soon, in large part because of the Internet postings of his right-hand man in the athletic department, chief financial officer and senior associate AD Jeff Toole. Toole was discovered posting under an alias on TexAgs.com and ridiculing A&M president R. Bowen Loftin, describing Loftin as a "putz," "hopelessly underqualified puppet" and "idiot."
Byrne also had almost nothing to do with A&M's exit of the Big 12 – a league he helped form while at Nebraska – and entrance into the Southeastern Conference, and he also lobbied for football coach Mike Sherman all the way up until Sherman's Thursday firing by Loftin and A&M's regents.
Byrne became A&M's athletic director in late 2002. His contract runs through 2013, and the insider said there is no specific timetable on Byrne's firing, but it could come within the next several weeks.


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Cadillac ELR event first impression
Cadillac ELR event first impression
" Literally threw up in my mouth a little"
I laughed.
And that is why it will only remain a token novelty like the Equus (not a bad car for the price, but too much considering the other options) and never see significant numbers...Hopefully Cadillac has made peace with that, as Hyundai did from the start.
Sounds worse than the Volt. :-)
I was really hoping this would be a good vehicle. My parents drive Cadillacs (my mom just loves them for some reason). They were hoping this would be a good vehicle so they could drive to Florida on gas then drive around town/Florida on electric. My mom tends to pack everything for the trip including the kitchen sink...(seriously she even packs light bulbs) so if the storage is compromised they won't look any further at it.
As far as the sales reps not having answers, sounds typical for the majority of dealers (except Nissan and Toyota isn't too bad). I have a friend trying to purchase a plugin hybrid and so far his best bet has been to just get the manual from the salesman and read it himself. It kind of reenforces Tesla sales model reasoning.
Honestly, at the end of the day Cadillac would much rather sell you the extended version of the Escalade which looks long enough to double as a limo in Vegas, than the ELR. They made a wave or two with that Super Bowl ad, but I haven't heard a peep since.
Thanks for the excellent review. I
hate the looks just enough that I'd never even bother with a test drive.
@P85marin - I saw an ELR in Cincinnati a month ago, and my impressions of the Caddy were less complimentary than yours. You would think that GM (post bankruptcy)had learned its lesson from taking the same car and putting a different flag on it. The XLR was a Corvette in Cadillac clothing, and the ELR is nothing more than a glorified Chevy Volt. I wonder how little the ELR will sell for on Ebay in a year.
I heard they are selling something like 2 a day and have enough inventory already for the next 2 years at that rate :)
GM actually might have had a car people would want to buy if it was all electric and had a 200+ mph range and < 5.5 seconds to 60 but that would mean they actually have to create an innovative product people want to buy.
As it is you need to have quite a few brain cells missing to buy an ELR over even the most basic Model S.
I hope GM doesn't give up, but sees an opportunity to develop something better. The basic idea of a "commute length" electric range with gas range extender is not bad. Personally I prefer all electric, of course, but still.
The big killer with the ELR is the horrible performance. 0-60 in almost 8 seconds won't cut it in that price class.
They will probably end up selling them at 30% discount and try to forget the whole thing.
The sooner the ELR dies, the sooner GM can actually innovate. I don't put it past Mary Barra but she hasn't had the chance to put her stamp on any new products.
CADILLAC ELR: It's... passable -- if you drive it like a Hippie Treehugger...
P85marin: Very good impressions of the car and its sales staff. Thanks!
I'm convinced the car would have cost 20 or 25 thousand dollars less if the Tesla Model S didn't exist. I feel so sorry for General Motors at times... On the one hand, they hire a bunch of engineers that are so willing to do well... On the other hand, they hire a bunch of accountants who only care about the bottom line... Then they wonder why the result is so often cars that are not... quite... there.
Further, GM has to live with a Dealer network that won't allow them to make across the board changes. The Dealers want to continue supporting their Service departments with Remove & Replace duties dubbed 'Repairs'. Since they are all part of NADA, none of the Dealers speaks with a voice of their own to say, "Hey! I wouldn't mind trying something different!" Especially not after Saturn was assassinated.
The Cadillac ELR is a prime example of why I just can't get fully excited over ICE vehicles anymore. I just keep feeling how much... better they would be on the Tesla platform instead. This car in particular, with the dividing wall of batteries down the center of the interior is just repulsive. And the total mess of how things look under the hood, combined with the tiny trunk just make me cry for a frunk and liftback configuration instead.
If only GM would just make two firm decisions and live with the results:
Release a zero compromise, ultra high-end, fully electric Cadillac limousine class car that rivals Rolls-Royce and Bentley 'for a few dollars more' than the top-of-the-line Mercedes-Benz S600 V12 cruiser, and see what happens.
Take on Tesla directly with a Buick Electra, 100% Battery Electric Vehicle, and see what happens.
A real shame they aren't likely to accept either challenge, ever.
Consumer Reports - 2014 Cadillac ELR Review (2:21)
MotorWeek - Road Test: 2015 Cadillac ELR (6:22)
CNET On Cars - On the road: 2014 Cadillac ELR (8:56)
Everyman Driver - 2014 Cadillac ELR First Drive & Review (9:44)
Jay Leno's Garage - 2014 Cadillac ELR (15:14)
Cadillac used to call itself the standard of the world. it is now just substandard IMHO.
That "Everyman Driver" review was not a review, that was a commercial. Having a rep from Cadillac in the car tell you everything he wants you to hear, is not reviewing a car.
Yeah, sorry about that. I mistakenly thought it was was video from a different series that has a similar name. The other guys are on EverydayDriver instead, and it seems they have not yet reviewed the Cadillac ELR, though they did a great review of the Tesla Model S.
Even so, there was a Tesla Model S video by Motor Trend where Franz rode along for a bit, before they had the car to themselves. Another had Fisker on a ride-along with someone in the Karma.
Red Sage, no apologies need. My remark wasn't directed at you, it was that they themselves considered it a review, when it wasn't. A review is generally the reviewer's observations and opinions. That was far from that. I did find it funny how the guy asked what would be the EV from Caddy that would hold a family for a trip. The Caddy rep sidestepped the question and repeated about the car having the generator so that you can go on the long trips. Since the reviewer obviously doesn't have balls, he didn't call the Caddy Rep out on this point.
Yup! I noticed that too. If I ran Cadillac, I would...
"Release a zero compromise, ultra high-end, fully electric Cadillac limousine class car that rivals Rolls-Royce and Bentley 'for a few dollars more' than the top-of-the-line Mercedes-Benz S600 V12 cruiser, and see what happens."
...and thereby reinitialize 'The Standard of the World'.
But then, I'm like, totally enjoying Tesla-Flavored Kool-Aid, and stuff.
(LMB spouse)
Per the Caddy rep on Jay Leno's Garage at 3:15, the drag coefficient is 0.305. That's 25% worse than the Model S Cd = 0.24.
(LMB spouse)
Sorry, 27% worse.
Well, I really like the styling of the ELR, I probably would have bought the thing if it came in around 45k. It did get me interested in electric cars too. Always hated the hybrid look. I would have never bought a Prius or Leaf. When I saw the ELR I finally saw a hybrid with style. So glad Cadillac decided to put a 75k price on it. It made me take a look at Tesla, wow, what a difference!
I would have liked to see an all electric ELR with 150 mile range and be at 50k. That would be a winner.
What was the response when you finally 'fessed up to being a Model S owner? Did they shoo you out fastest?
To be fair, the Tesla is limited in some areas by the still incomplete Supercharger network. I still would not ditch my Model S in favor of the Cadillac Volt.
Marketing tactics aside, what's happening is quite plain:
Cadillac can only succeed in EVs by making cars people want. If they don't, people won't buy them, no matter how they market it.
The ELR is simply not compelling. It's expensive, mushy, and slow. And nice interiors can be had for far less money.
It has none of the simplification benefits that come from eliminating the gasoline engine and transmission.
So it's not selling well, and it won't ever.
The Model S is a car that people want. Even though it's pricey, it drives better than any car of the same cost, and it's cheaper to fuel than a Prius.
So it sells very well. Really well. Worldwide. And it's sales are growing.
The ELR is what happens when you try to design something by avoiding risks, instead of building what people want. Ordinarily smart executives act comparatively dumb when they are so conflicted.
This conflict is like a cancer that will destroy the legacy car industry if they don't soon accept their burden to build what people want. The majority of brands will not change quickly enough, and many will likely fail.
The collapse of gasoline cars will always be assumed to be many years away, until the year it happens, at which point it will catch everyone by surprise. That time will come sooner than most expect because the differential benefits are so compelling.
All of this is like watching an epic, slow motion train wreck. We see it coming, but no one seems to be able to avert it. This will rank as one of the most historic disruptions of any industry in our lifetimes.
It doesn't have to be this way. There are many great engineers in those companies. But the cancer runs deep, and the patient is refusing help.
The day may yet come, when Tesla actually buys one of those household names for a song, and retools it based on new technology.
It will take time, but much will change.
I don't think it's unusual that my family is just tired of hearing about it. They're happy I have a new hobby and that I'm now much more likely to want to go somewhere than stay home, but just stop talking, please.
My daughter emailed me a copy of an article about the Tesla from The Slate a couiple of weeks ago. Of course, I had read it previously but this wasn't her just sending me an article that i might be interested in. She called me later that day to explain that she sent it to me because she wanted to know when she'll be able to put down a deposit on the Gen 3.
If she had asked me this on father's day she wouldn't even have had to buy me a card. Right now she drives a 2011 Equinox and she loves her car, but it's likely to be the last ICE she'll ever drive.
As long as they get it as right as the S, the Gen 3 is going to be huge!!
@Mark K
Very true. I am wondering what is a full cycle of a car. Not once it hits the road, but from design specs, R&D and test cycles.
These guys are probably working now at what they think people will be driving 5 to 8 years from now. So what do most car makers have to offer 5 years from now to compete with Model S, Model X and third generation Tesla?
@Al1 - I suspect GM in five years will offer the new ELR2 with even plusher seats and two new exterior colors, although based on the older ELR platform.
And did I tell you it has plusher seats!!! Of course the price will have gone up to accommodate the new plusher seats.
Nice writeup. The ELR appeals to me so much more than the ugly little i3. Beautiful car, great technology and the best looking PHEV, till the some i8 is out.
Mark K: +1 UP! Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. This is something I imagined happening 40 years ago. It is something I saw as a solid possibility 30 years ago. It is what I thought we were on the cusp of 15 years ago with the GM/Saturn EV1. And now, it's finally here!
The really strange thing is that I honestly thought that General Motors would be the one to bring electric cars to market in full force. Their concept cars always seemed to be so... FORWARD thinking. They were swoopy, and imaginative, and cutting edge. Or, so I thought.
It has only been in recent years, since the assassination of the EV1, that I realized it was all a sham. I felt so cheated. Now I know that all those pretty show cars -- were just for show.
Oh, people are surprised that the Cadillac ELR came to market looking so much like the show car it was based upon... And that's nice, I guess. But the looks do not live up to the implied promise behind them. Just like everything else from GM..
It's really not that complicated.
Tesla put together a battery system and designed a car around it. Everybody else is taking existing car designs and trying to shove a battery pack into them.
The battery system is where you start: it's not an add-on.
How much influence do the dealership attitudes have (what kind of cars they will buy/sell) on the design of GM future offerings. Which customer is GM most influenced by? Another reason for the Tesla sales model, no misunderstanding on who the customer is!
P85marin wrote, "10. ... 0-60 in 7.8 seconds, no regenerative braking response, cushy smushy brake pedal (even on the so called 'sport' mode). Of course the test drive route avoided the highway, hmm."
Did you get to try the 'Regenerative Braking Paddles' behind the steering wheel?
It's all rather sad, really.
In any other business, when a competitor gets a jump on everyone else, the competition races to catch up. This was always doubly true in the auto industry: Ford came out with the Mustang and then made it faster, GM came out with the Camaro/Firebird even though it took a few years. When GM announced the Vega (UGH!) was coming, Ford beat GM to the market by exactly 1 day with its (double UGH!) Pinto. When Ford came out with the Explorer, GM improved the Suburban, etc. etc.
But here, at a moment in which one company is getting a whole lot of well-deserved attention and has been putting full electric cars out on the road for over 23 months now, what do we see?
BMW crushes its experiments.
Toyota goes all in on Hydrogen.
Fisker goes belly up and then has some billionaire with a big mouth tell us how his corpulent car with a moustache in front is going to topple Tesla.
GM pretends the ELR is good enough.
BMW pretends the i8 is good enough.
Fiat / Chrysler guy tells us he doesn't want anyone buying his 500e.
It's as if they're all hoping that Tesla mysteriously vanishes into thin air, rather like the EV1 and then they'll pretend it never happened at all.
I used to think that -- hey, if they don't want to compete with Tesla then they don't have to. Good for Musk, good for Tesla, good for us.
But it isn't.
For one of the ways in which technology moves forward is when companies actually have to fight each other for market share: GM comes out with a lighter weight battery that costs less and goes almost as far as Tesla? Game on -- what will Musk do next? What will Ford do to respond? They push each other to get better, and as a result -- WE ALL WIN.
That's not what we have here. We have a collection of companies that are pretending to compete, all the while bowing mercifully at the feet of the oil companies and old-school thinking. As a nation, it is not in our interest to see these companies continue to behave as if it is most important to protect yesterday. If they continue, then sooner or later they are going to need government help again -- and in so doing we are forced to make the hard choice between bailing them out yet again or causing our unemployment rate to go up by at least 1% because not only the automakers but their suppliers and those who work in related fields are suddenly out of a job.
That's stupid. And unnecessary. And an incredible waste, especially given how important these companies are to our economy.
And I think we deserve better out of them.
I've written before that Elon Musk believes firmly that without Tesla Motors acting as both the carrot and the stick in a competitive marketplace, the rest of the automotive industry will ignore changing their ways until it is absolutely too late to do anything to help the environment and get the world out from under the domination of energy by oil companies when it comes to transportation.
It is a shame that the other car companies don't want to come out and play. They aren't interested in competition, not really. Each just wants to dominate. They previously dominated with horsepower wars. Longer stroke, bigger bore, higher compression, more cylinders, add a turbo or two, or four... Done! Some are even now attempting to combat Tesla with that strategy, as seen by their 2015 vehicle specifications, as compared to 2013. They just don't know.
Auto dealerships don't see what's coming either. The are only fighting Tesla's business model because they don't want other auto manufacturers to adopt the same. They already know they don't have to change their own business model, which is based upon removal and replacement of parts 'servicing' of cars. They know that's exactly what the auto manufacturers prefer as well. So the Dealers don't see electric cars as a threat at all.
So Tesla's stick is just going to have to get bigger. We, as consumers, will just have to buy more and more of their cars, and fewer and fewer of anyone else's. They've all been given a chance to compete, but have turned it down. Their loss.
Now Nisan received 1.6 billion partially to build the lithium-ion battery pack facility.. Does any one know if they have or will pay that back?
Ford received 5 billion for improved whatever. Anyone know if they have or will pay that money back?
@Mel, well, one would expect Nissan and Ford to pay off their DOE loans. They are solvent companies, no reason why they won't pay the loans off. They have many years to do so however - like nine years or so.
Both Andrew and Red Sage make some good points and I agree FAIR competition is constructive.
I just hope customers do get to make the choice of who wins an not the corrupt politicians! If Tesla can get big enough before they are taken seriously we have a chance to be part of a true revolution!
Actually, Nissan got nearly 3 billion bucks... Ford got a hair under 6 billion clams... Neither has paid the money back.
I suspect that Volkswagen Group is most poised to change gears, switchback, and powerslide into a line of electric vehicles. They may be waiting for a certain tipping point... Perhaps once everyone else has jumped fully on the HFCEV bandwagon?
It took a successful invasion by an outsider...Japanese auto manufacturers...to get US makers to start producing decent small cars at all. It may be the same with EV's. Perhaps Renault, whose Zoe is a decent vehicle. Or a complete outsider like Tata Motors. Or even, despite the blustering, BYD.
Andrew - Great treatise on the essence.
The intrinsic animal spirits of engaged competitors generally bring us the innovation we need. But this is an unusually difficult stasis.
We are very stuck in a sludge of century-old infrastructure and its economics, and it's killing us.
The outside disrupter is the indispensable catalyst.
Can somebody please translate Mark K.'s post? ;)
Sorry, Andrew = Plugged In
Thomas N - translation: without Tesla, we'd be screwed.
My tesla gets delivered next month. In 2016, when the x is readily available, my wife will trade in her SUV for it. My daughter turns 16 next November and I will buy her an electric car (Maybe gen 3 or an i3).
Now we are not tree hagglers, activists, wanting to save the environment. We are a normal family and now that the light bulb has gone off that hey- I don't need to pay for gas- why would I waste my time at a gas station- this is what's driving our decision.
I would argue that most of America is that way. Most people don't want to make a statement or change the world. Most people just want something that's better, faster cheaper.
The better and faster part we already have- aka all the early adopters on this forum. When the cheaper part comes in a few years, most of America is going to jump on board.
When that happens, those automotive companies that do not change will be in deep deep trouble. I have no doubt that mercedes, bmw, vs, gm etc will all get on the bandwagon of full electric cars. That's not happening yet because consumers aren't demanding it. They aren't demanding it cause electric cars are expensive. The ones that are affordable frankly suck. So the first company that makes a better faster and cheaper car will rule the automotive world.
My bet is on Tesla but don't count the big boys out. They just haven't woken up yet.
Btw- my 16 old next year will probably grow up never driving a traditional ICE car. Weird huh
@socalsam; "What's a gas station, daddy?"
Socalsam - that's the general idea. Both my kids are learning to drive in Tesla's.
They'll never learn how to feather a clutch, change oil, replace air filters, or pump gas.
They'll never get a $5,000 bill for repairing a transmission either.
Happy to spare them that. They're not missing anything.
Life indeed gets better.
Not to be a downer...
I've read of several Model S owners spending a lot more than $5,000 on body work (instead of repairing a transmission or engine repairs) alone. Cars, in general, are expensive to own, gas or electric.


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A Glock is no 1911 in the looks department. Unless you're into that eastern-European industrial look. But some believe a tan or Flat Dark Earth Glock is one of the best-looking handguns one can own. I happen to be of that opinion myself.
And up until now, the only choice was to look on the used market for one of the few remaining Glock Gen3 guns that were offered in the company's "OD" color, or to take the plunge and spray the thing with Duracoat.
However, firearm distributor Lipsey's has announced a third option: GLOCK Pistols featuring Flat Dark Earth frames. Nine different models will be offered, including the Generation 3 Model 17, 19, 22, and 23, as well as the Generation 4 Model 17, 19, 21, 22, and 23.
This will mark the first time that any GLOCK Generation 4 pistols are offered in a different frame color.
"GLOCK set the standards by which all other polymer pistols are judged. The addition of our exclusive Flat Dark Earth models gives the consumer a choice other than all black," said Lipsey's buyer Brett Frey.
I asked Jason Cloessner, also of Lipsey's, where in the world these were coming from.
"These are straight from Glock," Cloessner told Gun Digest. "We have been working on this project for some time. Glock made some Gen 3 22's for a certain Special Forces Unit in the past, but in very limited numbers. These are the first FDE guns offered commercially and for sure the first "non-black" Gen 4 guns.
"Just a side note, the Gen 4 extra backstraps are FDE too on all the guns except for the G21."
To see Lipsey's full line of Flat Dark Earth Glocks click here.
My Recommended Glock Resources:
The Gun Digest Book of the Glock, 2nd Edition
Glock Disassembly & Reassembly DVD
Standard Catalog of Firearms Glock Pricing Download (PDF)
Glock 17/22/31 Brown Leather Cutaway Holster


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Knee Deep Cattle Company prides itself in our cattle and assures you quality beef, from birth to consumption we trace the history of each animal. From our ranch to your table we produce what the consumer wants to eat: Beef Grass Fed, just as cattle were meant to live in their natural environment, grazing on lush green Oregon pastures. Our cattle have continuous and unconfined access throughout their lives to these pastures and have never been confined to a feedlot where freedom to roam is limited.
Learn more about Free Range Grass Fed beef


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A quality, fun preschool with special education services and Pre-Kindergarten for everyone!
Lighthouse International welcomes boys and girls from two through five years to attend our integrated preschool.
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Following the success of DAB specialist Pure's first collaboration with renowned designer Orla Kiely, the maker has introduced a further update of the Evoke Mio radio featuring a new print, and we were invited along to the designer's flagship store in central London for a sneak preview.
The new radio will sit alongside the existing model and boasts the slate grey Abacus Flower print, along with a walnut-veneered cabinet, a mirror chromed handle and a cream-coloured plastic fascia. The radio includes both DAB and FM tuners, along with an 3.5mm input for iPods and other MP3 players. As well as a mains power supply, the radio can be used with Pure's optional ChargePAK so that it can be moved around without being tethered to a plug point. Along with an OLED panel with automatic brightness adjustment, the new Pure Evoke Mio includes an alarm, kitchen timer and 30 presets.
The fact that the pattern stretches round to the back of the chassis - which also reveals a mirrored chrome plate bearing the designer's name - means that the radio can be placed in the middle of a room without an unsightly back panel runing the fancy aesthetics.
Boasting not just style, but substance, too, the new model also packs some impressive green credentials as it's park of Pure's EcoPlus range and has already received a recommendation from the Energy Saving Trust.
Designer Orla Kiely commented: "Since my first collaboration with Pure has been so popular, it made perfect sense to add a second radio to the range. I chose the slate grey, abacus flower print for this radio as it contrasts well with the first radio and fits in with my passion for creating quality and functional down-to-earth designs that complement any home interior."
The Pure Evoke Mio by Orla Kiely Abacus Flower Edition will be available exclusively from John Lewis and Orla Kiely stores from 10 August with a price tag of £149.99.


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Topic: cool Boba motorcycle helmet!
Did anybody else see this?? Now that's sweet.
Message Boards - Boba Fett Fan Club → Collecting → cool Boba motorcycle helmet!
Did anybody else see this?? Now that's sweet.
Thats so coool!!!!!!!
Do you own that?
I wish! I'm thinking about ordering one tho.
that is sweet, i almost want to buy a motorcycle just to have an excuse to buy one of those.
Moving this to the Collectibles forum, since it's not as much fitting for "observations, opinions, and ideas surrounding Boba."
I wish! I'm thinking about ordering one tho.
Where would you order it from?
Yeah man could you post a link to where you can get one.
*EDIT* Ok guys if you go *HERE* you can get the contact details of the guy that has the helmet, if you e-mail him he can organise it for you. I've sent him an e-mail I'll let you know how it go's.
Wow nice thats cool .
hey when you get a reply...how much is it and does he have anymore?
hey when you get a reply...how much is it and does he have anymore?
I got a reply, I just need to send my helmet size so we can get things rolling, I'll post again when I get the price.
I Want!
*while waiting humms the Star Wars theme Jeopardy style* i wonder if their is a suit that goes with it. that would be sick.
I got an e-mail back last night and the helmet is going to cost me US$300 including freight.
ouch, thats a heavy hit in the pocket... contemplate on this i must.
It's still cheaper than a carded Fett. And it's unique.
Just an update, work has started but due to the amount of work that goes into creating this work of art it probably wont arrive until after christmas. I'll try to post pics when I get it.;)
Right on.
That is so cool. My hubby's going into cart racing, maybe I should buy one for him... or it could be my helmet I like the sound of that better.
holy crap thats the most awesome thing Ive ever seen! sike its not but its really cool! Id really love to get on a nice Slave 1 Harley and ride it and BECOME A BOUNTY HUNTER AND HUNT POEPLE DOWN ON MY HOG!!! YEA!
....................just as soon as I learn how to drive..........hahah
That is freaking awsome!
I can't believe it took me so long to get here...that is sooo cool!!! Did you get the helmet yet, Jaster?
Shoud be geting it around the end of the month.:D
I guess this guy's not only doing the Fett helmets, but plenty more now. Found this quite by accident, and recognized the helmet from here. HAHA. Pretty cool.
man that thing is so sweeet.....i wounder how much is it i would bye it
I actually like the gray helmet better. But, of course, that's the color scheme I like for the Mandalorian helmets. Still pretty cool, though.
Message Boards - Boba Fett Fan Club → Collecting → cool Boba motorcycle helmet!
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Updated Dairy Data Highlights now available from NMPF.
Source: National Milk Producers Federation
Need to know the nation's top 10 milk-producing states? How about Class III milk prices by month going back eight years? Or perhaps you need the top 10 export markets for U.S. dairy products in 2012.
All that and more is available in the latest addition of Dairy Data Highlights from the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF). The handy, pocket-size booklet includes 53 tables and 19 graphs filled with national and state milk and dairy production data from the mid-1970s through 2012.
Dairy Data Highlights has been published annually by NMPF for more than 60 years. A must for anyone involved in milk production, it is available to NMPF member cooperatives and associate members for $7.50 a copy, or $5 for orders of more than 10 copies. For nonmembers, the cost is $10 for single copies or $7.50 for bulk orders. An order form is available on the NMPF website.
All aspects of milk and dairy products production are covered, as well as producer, wholesale and retail milk and dairy product prices; federal milk marketing orders; sales and consumption data for milk and dairy products, and comparative information for U.S. dairy imports and exports.
Specific tables include:
• National milk production data going back to 1925;
• Cow numbers, farms and herd size data going back to 1950;
• Milk production and prices, production-per-cow, cow numbers and dairy farms by state, with comparative data from the 1980s and 1990s;
• Class III, manufacturing grade and all-milk wholesale prices by year 965;
• Annual wholesale prices for butter, cheddar cheese, and nonfat dry milk;
• The ratio of feed prices to milk prices by month;
• The share of commercial sales by product—including milk, butter, cheese, frozen products and nonfat dry milk;
• Annual production and per-capital consumption of key cheese, butter and frozen products from 1975;
• Annual exports of milk, butter, cheese, ice cream, yogurt, and nonfat dry milk by region and country;
• A short glossary of dairy industry terms and useful conversions factors for milk and dairy products.


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Roger Daltrey says there aren't many contemporary singers who could "lead" a band, and he partially blames shows like "American Idol" for it.
"A lot of the new people they choose on shows like 'American Idol' and things like that — I don't ever hear lead singers," The Who frontman said. "They always seem to choose to pick people that are great singers, fabulous singers, but they've never got the voice that makes a great lead singer."
Daltrey, 67, went on to name drop some of music's best singers: "You hear 10 seconds of Rod Stewart, you know it's Rod Stewart. Ten-seconds of Mick Jagger, that's Mick Jagger. Ten-seconds of Eddie Vedder, you know that's Eddie."
English-born Daltrey says there is one exception in today's music scene: Adele.
"I mean, I love Adele. That's a lead singer, that's the real deal," he said of the British soul singer, whose sophomore CD "21" is the year's top-selling album in the United States and the United Kingdom.
So, would Daltrey join the panel of a singing show to fix what he believes is wrong?
"I'd probably throw them all out," he said, laughing.
"I quite like the idea of 'The Voice' — that new show, simply because they have to choose the voices," he said. "They might present me with 50 voices and if I didn't like any of them I couldn't work with any of them. It would be pointless."
Daltrey made the comments while promoting his latest tour, "Roger Daltrey Performs The Who's Tommy," which kicked off earlier this month.
"I rediscovered how fabulous it is as a piece of music and I decided it needs to be heard," Daltrey said of The Who's 1969 "Tommy" album.
The CD, mostly composed by band mate and guitarist Pete Townshend, became a Broadway musical in 1993; a film version was released in 1975. But Daltrey says his new tour gives him a chance to present his side of "Tommy."
"I loved the film, but it's Ken Russell's view of 'Tommy.' The stage play was what it was, and that was Pete (Townshend) and (theatrical director) Des McAnuff's view of it. But to me it's always been the music that's important, and I can never get bored with that because it's brilliant," he said.
"It's a classically written piece of music and I've never seen Tommy as one person, I've always seen Tommy as all of us," he continued. "We're all screaming see me, feel me, touch me, heal me."
Daltrey says his voice has bounced back since he had a precancerous growth removed from his vocal cord just before The Who performed during the 2010 Super Bowl halftime show.
"It's sounding better than it's ever sounded, and this is an extremely long show," he said. "It's richer, it's got a different resonance … but it's like Johnny Cash, his voice wasn't the same at the end. But it was his best work."
Daltrey's tour wraps up in the United States on Oct. 25 in Seattle, Wash. He'll visit Canada for five dates after.
— Associated Press


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The company reconfirms release dates for several of its upcoming games.
The company reconfirms release dates for several of its upcoming games.
See the first screenshots from NFL 2K2 for the Microsoft Xbox.
Sega ships a revamped NFL 2K2 for the PlayStation 2.
We take a hands-on look at the first PS2 installment in VC's acclaimed football series.
Get new screenshots of the PS2 version of NFL 2K2 here first.
The first Sega Sports game to go multiplatform will be NFL 2K2. We play the PS2 version to bring you our hands-on impressions.
View the first screenshots of NFL 2K2 for the PlayStation 2.
Sega announces new sports games for the Xbox.
Sega announces the official release dates for its final sports games for the Dreamcast.
Tentative date set for the Dreamcast version of NFL 2K2.
Sega's flagship sports game comes back in its third season, packed with features.
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He's shaving. "Why even bother?" she asks, not unreasonably. The world's going to end at 4:44 the next morning, you see, so facial hair grooming probably shouldn't be much of a concern. And there's the question: faced with the last day of existence, would you keep those little habits in place? Would you maintain that two years of sobriety? Would you reach out to those you've neglected? What exactly would you do with those final, precious hours? These are the questions asked by 4:44 Last Day on Earth, a melancholy but compelling drama from Abel Ferrara, a filmmaker I must confess not keeping proper tabs on in the years since his breakthrough picture Bad Lieutenant. But I always knew he was out there, making his gritty, uncompromising little films, and 4:44 is a difficult yet thoughtful effort.
As indicated by the title, the action is confined entirely to the last 24 hours or so of existence before "the final explosion," according to Cisco (Willem Dafoe)--an Ozone meltdown, after which "there will be no survivors. The world will end." Everyone has sort of accepted it, or at least isn't fighting it; the overall tone is one of mellow resignation. Frankly, it feels as though the real end of the world (if we had any warning, anyway) would go something like this.
Cisco shares a loft in New York with his artist girlfriend Skye (Shanyn Leigh), a young painter who is spending the final day making a work of art that, presumably, no one else will ever see. The action is mostly confined to that apartment; they eat, fight, fuck. He wanders up on the roof and witnesses a neighbor casually jumping from his fire escape; that guy's not going to stick around. Cisco, on the other hand, has a few things to take care of--an estranged daughter and ex-wife to contact, old friends to rap with, choices to consider very, very carefully.
The opening scenes are deceptively low-key, with several scenes of Dafoe wandering in and out of his apartment, muttering to himself, a constant running monologue. He seems too detached to let all of this get to him, or at least to let it penetrate his existential cool. But something breaks during that Skype call with the daughter he hasn't been a good father to (the actor's work in this scene is particularly raw and exposed, and admirably so), and the personal interactions become exponentially more urgent.
"What if they're wrong?" his brother asks, later on. "Think about it!" This is a concern worth investigating; Ferrara's script is utterly believable except in its presumption of consensus, ignoring the notion that climate change deniers would presumably continue insisting that the danger is overstated right up until 4:43. (A news anchor even says "Al Gore was right" at one point, an assessment that Fox News would spend the rest of our time on earth arguing.)
That said, there is an intensity in the closing scenes, with their unsettling music and imagery, indicating that the perceived modesty of Ferrara's ambitions early on may well have been a ruse. But it's not all bombast, either; he finds room for moments of melancholy, like the boundlessly sad moment that Cisco sees from his roof of a neighbor sharing a big steak with his good dog. The apocalypse is a big idea that, in the run-up to 2012, keeps making its way into our films, but like Melancholia and Take Shelter, Ferrara's 4:44 Last Day on Earth knows that the most frightening way to think of the end of the world is on personal, tangible, human terms.
Jason lives in New York. He holds an MA in Cultural Reporting and Criticism from NYU.


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Xanthippe wrote:Rome
Project Scorpio wrote:
Also if anyone likes BOfB there is a new series coming out made by the same folks in the same vein :
Hickiefan wrote:Xanthippe wrote:Rome
Really want this!
John23 wrote:I need advice...which box set to watch next.
West Wing...Done
The Wire...Done
Any suggestions????
John23 wrote:I need advice...which box set to watch next.
Sopranos...Done - Loved it
West Wing...Done - Loved it
The Wire...Done - Not seen it. Yet
Any suggestions???? - Entourage
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Presentation by
Michael Miller in wheat field near Odessa, Ukraine, May, 2001
Michael M. Miller, Bibliographer
Germans from Russia Heritage Collection
North Dakota State University Library
Fargo, North Dakota, USA
Deutsch-Amerikanisches Zentrum
German - American Centre
James F. Byrnes Institut e.V.
Charlottenplatz 17, Stuttgart, Germany
May 31, 2001
A brief history of the Germans from Russia on the Dakota prairies
Approximately 300 mother colonies were founded throughout Russia during the settlement years and as the population grew, more acreage had to be acquired for the landless. Thus, numerous daughter colonies were founded. Eventually there were more than 3,000 ethnic settlements in Russia.
Their schools and churches provided instruction in their native language, German. Life was generally good for the colonists and they maintained the distinct customs, dress, musical tastes, and dialects of their ancestral homelands. Many adjustments to Russian ways, however, were inevitable.
In 1871, Czar Alexander II revoked the preferential rights and privileges given to the German colonist settlers by the manifestoes of Catherine II and Alexander I. The colonists, as a result, were reduced to the common citizen status of the Russian peasants and under the same laws and obligations to which peasants were subject. In 1874, the colonists' sons were drafted into the Czar's army for the first time.
The natural result was that the colonists were dismayed and angry, feeling that the Russian Crown was guilty of a breach of contract. As there was nothing the colonists could do to change political policy, their thoughts turned toward leaving Russia. But where could they go? To return to Germany did not enter their minds, for when their ancestors had left Germany years before, they had no intention ever to return to their native country.
During the summer of 1872, Ludwig Bette, a former colonist, who had led a party of 83 friends from the Black Sea to the United States in 1849, decided to visit relatives and friends in the Black Sea colonies. Noting the unrest and dissatisfaction among the colonists for having lost their privileged status, he extolled the virtue of the United States, urging emigration there. Shortly after his return to the United States, an emigration movement to the United States, Canada, and South America was set in motion which continued more or less unabatedly until the outbreak of World War I halted further emigration.
Alexander III came to the throne of Russia in 1881 after his father, Alexander II, had been assassinated. Russification became the official policy, which greatly affected the former colonists. Academic classes later had to be taught in the Russian language. Business was required to be transacted in Russian. Also, opportunity became increasingly difficult for the German-speaking colonists in Russia to purchase more land necessary for their expanding numbers. All political rights of self-government in their villages were lost by the colonists under the changed conditions.
Hesitating to make the long journey over the ocean, many colonists decided to stay in Russia in spite of the Russification policy. In actual numbers, about one out of four German colonists emigrated to North America and South America.
Because of registration requirements of the U.S. Homestead Act of 1862, the German-Russians who took up homesteads in the United States were required to live on their 160-acre farms. They could no longer live in villages or colonies as they had in Russia. Many Volga Germans settled in cities in the central plains. The Bessarabian, Black Sea, and Crimean Germans acquired land and homesteaded primarily in the Dakotas. Many families settled in the western Canadian prairie provinces. The Volga Germans became closely associated with the sugar beet industry in Colorado and western Nebraska. Most Bessarabian, Black Sea, and Crimean Germans became wheat growers in the Dakotas and in Canada. Others became orchard and grape growers in California. Today many descendants of those early Germans from Russia homesteaders are living in California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oregon, and Washington, as well as, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan in western Canada.
The very first settlement of the German-Russians in the Middle West, specifically Dakota Territory, occurred in the spring of 1873. This settlement was a direct result of Ludwig Bette's visit to the Beresan District village of Johannestal in 1872, when he influenced four groups from the Black Sea area to emigrate to the United States. The four groups, numbering 175 men, women, and children, were united at Sandusky, Ohio, where they spent the winter. In the spring, scouts were sent out in search of land. They determined that Dakota Territory was the place for them to settle. They loaded their belongings on a special freight train, possibly one or two passenger cars and a few freight cars, and traveled to Yankton, Dakota Territory. They arrived there in one of the worst winter blizzards on record, and many thought the country was worse than Siberia. This Easter Sunday blizzard occurred in April of 1873. After the stormy weather cleared, they searched for suitable land on which to homestead, finding land where Lesterville, South Dakota, is now located, about 18 miles northwest of Yankton.
Following early settlement near Lesterville, thousands of Germans from the Black Sea areas of Russia poured into Dakota Territory during the following four decades. Their homesteads spread westward and northward until most arable land was homesteaded, in what later became South Dakota in 1889. As more and more immigrant Black Sea Germans continued to arrive in Dakota Territory in search of land, their homesteads spread in 1884 into what is now North Dakota. Eventually, their homesteads were located in all arable parts of North Dakota. As a result, North Dakota census numbers had twice as many Germans from Russia than does any other state in the United States.
In the book, "Plains Folk: North Dakota's Ethnic History," Professor Timothy Kloberdanz writes: "They came by the thousands, bent under the weight of all their possessions. There were few sighs, few tears, few moans of disbelief. They simply pushed on, repeating to themselves the two words that were their destination: Nord Dakota."
"They came from scores of German-speaking colonies and villages that once dotted the present-day lands of European Russia, coastal and western Rumania, northeastern Yugoslavia, western Czechoslovakia, and southeastern Austria. At each place they stopped on their way to the American prairies, they heard themselves referred to by every strange and disparaging name but their own: Russen, Rossbunds, Pruskies, Bobunks, Hunkies, Honyocks, Polacks. The women, their faces framed by the ever-present headshawl, betrayed little of the anxiety they harbored within. The men, clad in homespun and dark caps, carefully studied each fellow traveler before posing the inevitable query: Kannst du Deitsch? The children, pale and tousle-haired, grew weary of their own restlessness. Like their parents, they had no other choice but to look ahead."
The town of Eureka, South Dakota, became very important, where thousands of German-Russian immigrants arrived by train from New York City. The Agricultural Experiment Station publication at South Dakota State University states: "For 15 years, from 1887 to 1902, this `end of the track' town was the largest primary wheat market in the world, claim historians. In 1897 alone, two thirds of the world's wheat crop entering the commercial market was shipped from Eureka."
"Picture over 165 trains of 20 cars each being loaded at one small town. That number of boxcars was needed in Eureka during the $2 million wheat-shipping year of 1892. The wheat bonanza was created by several factors: the end-of-track location for 15 years, the richness of the new land, and the hard work of the German-Russian farmers settling the prairie."
Like many south-central North Dakota families, my Baumgartner and Miller families arrived in Eureka in the late 1880s and trekked by foot with their wagons to homestead on virgin land near Strasburg, North Dakota.
By 1920, it was estimated that 116,539 German-Russians were in the United States. The largest concentration was in North Dakota, where some 70,000 lived in 1920, coming from the Black Sea region. German-Russians heavily populated central North Dakota. Many families in Pierce and Towner counties of north-central North Dakota again resettled in Saskatchewan, Canada, due to lack of farmland.
Professor Kloberdanz writes in "Plains Folk": The largest volksdeutsche group in North Dakota were the Evangelical and Roman Catholic Black Sea Germans (Schwarzmeerdeutsche). Other Black Sea German settlers included a number of Mennonites and Hutterites, as well as Dobrudja Germans who had briefly lived in southeastern Rumania. There were representatives in North Dakota of other major German-Russian groups as well, including the Volhynian Germans (Wolhyniendeutsche) of Polish Russia, The Caucasus Germans (Kaukasusdeutsche), and the Volga Germans (Wolgadeutsche).
I grew up speaking American English, plus the traditional German dialect and accent of my ancestors of historic Strassburg in the Kutschurgan mother colonies. I am grateful to my parents to have learned their Schwäbisch German language during my youth in North Dakota which has been so very valuable for my work at North Dakota State University.
My hometown of Strasburg, North Dakota, became well-known as the birthplace of the late bandleader Lawrence Welk who was born in a sod house and spoke little English until he was twenty-one. His parents immigrated from Catholic Black Sea colonies in Ukraine.
Today in German-speaking volksdeutschen communities throughout North Dakota, there remains a noticeable degree of linguistic variation. This can be verified with GRHC's oral histories on cassette tape. I recall my interview in the German language with Rosa Martin Welk at Einbeck, Germany, on December 29, 1994. Rosa was born on October 30, 1891, in the Catholic village of Karlsruhe, Beresan District. When I interviewed Rosa, she was 103. She died on November 27, 1995. Interviewing Rosa, I felt at home as if I was speaking German at Strasburg, ND. It was an unforgettable experience to be with Rosa Martin Welk who even had lunch ready with cheese buttons (Käseknepfla) similar to those made by Theresa Kuntz Bachmeier, Rugby, North Dakota, who appears in the "Schmeckfest" documentary.
My German interview with Antonia Welk Ivanova on June 8, 1994, at Limanoske, Ukraine, the former German village of Selz, Kutschurgan District, was as if we were speaking back home in North Dakota. There was a bonding and kinship with our German dialects Antonia could not believe, which could be traced to my Baumgartner ancestors who left the Kutschurgan villages in 1889. Antonia died in October 1998.
Further research of our Dakota dialects offers important study which needs to be pursued with scholarly activity, including comparisons with ethnic Germans who once lived in the South Russia German villages and now living in Germany.
South-central North Dakota was once the most heavily populated German-Russian region in the United States. Based on the 1990 census, other than the English language, about 20% of the language spoken in North Dakota's three south-central counties - Emmons, Logan, and McIntosh - was the German language. Ten years and the 2000 census will show a decrease of ethnic German-Russians speaking the German language in these counties.
Professor Kloberdanz writes: "For the Volksdeutsche, both in Europe and in the New World, a common theme ran through many of their folk narratives, songs, and poems: the longing for homeland free of war, wants, and suffering. Despite their deep appreciation of the German Vaterland, they seldom hesitated to move on in search of better conditions, no matter how far away such hopes would take them. Many reached North Dakota, then feeling satisfied, broke the virgin sod and erected homes. Other families traveled further north in search of other opportunities, crossing the border into Canada. For the Black Sea or in the Banat, the truth of the old Latin adage seemed ever appropriate: Ubi panis, ibi patria (Where there is bread, there is my homeland)." This was certainly true for the Dakotas, with large wheat production and the "bread basket of the world."
Notable books covering the history of the Germans from Russia, especially relating to North Dakota include: "From Catherine to Khrushchev: The Story of Russia's Germans" by Adam Giesinger; "Homesteaders on the Steppe"; "Paradise on the Steppe" and "Memories of the Black Sea Germans" by Joseph S. Height; "Plains Folk: North Dakota's Ethnic History" edited by William C. Sherman and Playord V. Thorson; "Russian-German Settlement in the United States" by Richard Sallet, translated by LaVern Rippley and Armand Bauer; "Prairie Mosaic: An Ethnic Atlas of Rural North Dakota" by William C. Sherman; and "The Black Sea Germans in the Dakotas" by George Rath.
Dr. Shirley Fischer Arends, a native of Ashley, ND, has authored an important book published by Georgetown University Press, Washington, D.C. titled, "The Central Dakota Germans: Their History, Language and Culture." The book is presently out-of-print. GRHC is cooperating with Dr. Arends to publish a new edition including photographs in 2002. Dr. Arends works at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, Germany.
Collections in the central and northern plains
It is important to note the significant German-Russian genealogy resources, books, and reference collections in the United States. The American Historical Society of Germans from Russia at Lincoln, Nebraska, and the Germans from Russia Heritage Society at Bismarck, North Dakota, founded in the early 1970s, have growing library collections. Both societies have impressive archival resources and headquarters. The Mennonite Heritage Centre at Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the Newton College archives in Kansas have valuable collections.
The Germans from Russia Heritage Collection at the North Dakota State University Library is one of the major resources in North America and the world. In May 2000, the Marie Rudel Portner Germans from Russia Endowment was established for GRHC. Marie Rudel Portner was a first generation Bessarabian German growing up near Fessenden, ND. In October, 1999, Marie died at age 102 bequesting a gift of $1.1 million for the Collection in memory of her parents.
German-Russian heritage and culture yesterday and today
Newspapers published in the German language were very important for early pioneers. German was their native language and they wanted to know what was happening back in their homeland of South Russia. Dakota Freie Presse, Nord Dakota Herold, and Der Staatsanzeiger had many subscriptions. County and local German newspapers were published at Ashley and Wishek in North Dakota. The Eureka Rundschau was a significant weekly newspaper. Letters in German published in Eureka Rundschau are featured in the new book, "Marienberg: Fate of a Village" (Marienberg: Schicksal eines Dorfes) authored by Johann Bollinger and Janice Huber Stangl. "Marienberg" is published in one volume in the English and German languages.
Today's media and technology for the Germans from Russia
In the 1990s, the heritage and culture of the Germans from Russia entered the technology world of the Internet and websites with impressive and far-reaching results. The pioneering efforts, beginning in 1991 at the North Dakota State University computer center with electronic discussion groups or listserves, have been of much importance. Today there are five listserves, plus the Black Sea Mail List, totaling more than 5,000 subscribers worldwide.
The development of websites for the German-Russian community, especially in North America, has seen large increases in usage. Between January 1999 and April 2001, the website for GRHC reached close to three million successful requests.
Prairie Public Television's partnership with the North Dakota State University Library to develop scholarly videotape documentaries has reached millions of viewers in North America, many who did not know "Who Is a German from Russia?" The award-winning documentary, "The Germans from Russia: Children of the Steppe, Children of the Prairie" (1999) and "Schmeckfest: Food Traditions of the Germans from Russia" (2000) have reached more than 10,000 in videotape sales. Major documentary work is planned for 2002 to 2004, including the folk art of the German-Russian iron crosses and music, as well as the heritage of the Kutschurgan and Glueckstal villages and settlement in the Dakotas.
The future
In the Dakotas, we are seeing fewer persons still speaking the German language with the fading of the ethnic German dialect so unique to our prairie people. Family reunions are important to share a sense of place providing important events for gathering of family members to share the culture, music, and foodways of the Germans from Russia. Family reunions are important for the ethnic survival of the culture heritage for the Germans from Russia community.
Published family histories are important to document the life and times and provide valuable genealogical data. I anticipate continued growth in publishing family histories in North America with additional family research data available from websites and new materials located in archives of the former Soviet Union.
Computer technology experienced a huge growth during the 1990s with the Internet and website development. The future will see an even larger community of German-Russians with email addresses, especially at a younger age. The web pages of the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection and other websites continue to be primary links for uncovering in text and visually our ethnic heritage and ancestry. The most important impact will be: how to develop interest and usage to these websites for classrooms and libraries.
Because of the well-established Germans from Russia societies in the United States with membership throughout North America; the significant role of an academic library at North Dakota State University; the partnerships with organizations including Prairie Public Broadcasting; the establishment of the Germans from Russia Cultural Preservation Foundation; and the technology era, I see even a greater interest and awareness in our people: the Germans from Russia, Unsere Leute.