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Welcome to Better Know An Umpire, an effort to educate ourselves on the human elements who have ultimate decision-making power over some 2,500 Major League Baseball games a year. (All cumulative statistics are through the 2011 season, unless otherwise stated.)
Name: Dan Bellino
Uniform number: 2
Age: 33
Height/weight: 6-foot-2, 205 pounds
First year as MLB umpire: 2008
Total MLB games worked through 2011: 273 (home plate: 65)
Previous experience: New York-Penn League, Midwest League, Florida State League, Eastern League, Pacific Coast League, International League, Arizona Instructional League, Hawaii Winter League, Arizona Fall League, Puerto Rico Winter League
Career ejections: 10
No-hitters called: None
Over/under record (2009-2011): 28-36
Hated in: Boston, Tampa Bay, Chicago
Notable alleged blown calls: Royals-Indians, May 28, 2012; Red Sox-Mariners, August 25, 2010.
Claim to fame: Once ejected Boston's Adrian Beltre for talking to Felix Hernandez during an at-bat.
Scouting report from Major League Umpires' Performance, 2007-2010, by Andy Goldblatt:
Bellino's 2010 statistics put his strike zone squarely in the middle. His BB/9 was half a percent lower than average and his K/9 was half a percent above average, making his K/BB a scant one percent above average. His R/9 was four percent higher than average, somewhat anomalous in that his slash stats weren't that far from the norm.
Scouting report from an angry blogger:
Apparently age has nothing to do with maturity. The call was made without thinking, and Pellino had no answer for why he came to such a quick decision. He was clearly just nervous and that's all he could do to get himself out. Either way, get this clown out of here, its bad enough with the umpires the MLB already has.
Average K/9 (2011): 15.4
Average BB/9 (2011): 6.5
Sample PITCHf/x strike zone: May 17, 2012. Red Sox shortstop Mike Aviles was ejected for arguing a called third strike, but Bellino's zone was pretty consistent throughout the night. (On the flip side, Aviles was the clear beneficiary of Jeff Nelson's hysterical blindness last night.)
True fact: Graduated from John Marshall Law School in Chicago in 2003 and passed the bar exam, all while training to become a minor league umpire.
On umpiring:
A few started referring to me on the field as "counselor." It's funny and all that, but I say, "Do me a favor: Call me Dan." They all want to know what I'm doing here. Wouldn't I be making so much more money doing other things. "The answer is always the same: "Yeah, probably. But I wouldn't love it as much."
Strike 3 call:
To check out other installments of Better Know An Umpire, click here.


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Yesterday, I threatened you with a stream of videos that were supposed to be in a v-book edition of What Would Google Do?. Here are two more.
First, a discussion about beta-think – releasing products as betas to learn and collaborate – and the end of the myth of perfection:
Next, a video my editor likes better than I do about capturing the wisdom even of the moving crowd. I recorded it last winter on a very cold run over a nearby interstate (so cold, it was hard to talk).

subset: commoncrawl


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The Written Image: Voices in Wartime
This image of an American infantryman comforting a soldier whose friend has been killed in action during the Korean War is taken from Voices in Wartime, a documentary about the experience of war as seen by soldiers, journalists, historians, and poets. The film, which features contemporary poets Chris Abani, Sam Hamill, Marie Howe, and Todd Swift, along with the words of Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Randall Jarrell, and Walt Whitman, among others, opened in select theaters nationwide last month. During the filming, director Rick King, executive producer Andrew Himes, and others involved in the production decided to launch the Voices in Wartime Network, a nonprofit organization with a mission to address the collective trauma caused by war, and to allow people to express themselves artistically while working to create a less violent world. The organization's Web site, www.voicesinwartime.org, offers poetry, stories, and essays, an online forum for live conversations, and a venue for posting original creative writing about the impact of war.


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motionball for Special Olympics is a registered not-for-profit corporation, raising money for Special Olympics programs across Canada. 70% of the funds we raise are distributed to programs in the province where they are raised, with the remainder going to the long-term funding of programs through the Special Olympics Canada Foundation.
While COVID-19 has affected us all, Special Olympics athletes are feeling the effects of this global pandemic more than most. Sport programs are suspended, competitions have been cancelled, and many athletes remain stuck indoors, at a greater risk of contracting COVID-19 than the general population. Now more than ever, the role of motionball in these athlete's lives is incredibly important. As one of the Special Olympics' largest funding partners in Canada, motionball has donated over $13M to date. motionball supporters are dedicated to ensuring that every local club and program can return stronger than before, and that no Special Olympics athlete is left behind.
The number of Special Olympics athletes across Canada
Child and youth Special Olympics athletes across Canada
The number of Special Olympics Canada volunteers


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fScanX - High-Speed Document Scanning for Macintosh
The fScanX® package:
If you require support for older OS versions, contact us to discuss what features and scanners are supported by older versions of fScanX.
fScanX will scan single- or double-sided documents, black-&-white or color or grayscale, directly into multi-page TIFF or PDF files. At last Macintosh users and developers can integrate high-speed production document scanning into their workflows!
In addition to the stand-alone scanning application shown below, the package includes an Automator action for easy integration of scanning into workflows, and a command-line utility for full-control scripting of scanning functions.
We've used the ease of FileMaker, the flexibility of AppleScript, and the ever-growing features of fScanX to create what I consider the ultimate in business automation. Fujitsu's great scanners coupled with Scott's excellent software, service, and support makes it a no- brainer. Anyone serious about running a business on a Mac needs fScanx.
Aaron Smith & Ryan Thorpe
This rocks! Today I borrowed an fi-4120c scanner, bought the fScanX package, unpacked the scanner, plugged it in to my G5 running Panther, and 20 minutes later I had implemented a scan function inside 4D (using the excellent Scripting Tools to do the command line), and could display the scanned documents with QPIX in my 4D layout.
Simply awesome!
Thanks Scott!
Nils Kollandsrud, Ixmal Intelesis
fScanX is available by online purchase at $149-$1,999 (USD) per scanner, depending on the scanner model. If you already have access to a compatible scanner, you can download the software right now to try it out. The software will watermark scans until you purchase a license.
(If you have an older ScanSnap that is not supported on your Mac, check out fScanX Home Edition to see if your scanner is supported.)
© 1996-2020 Scott Ribe.


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Searching for information is a process that involves critical thinking. A Google a Day is a trivia game that provides students and grownups with a playful way to improve search skills. Every day Google posts a question that is complex enough that a regular Google search won't yield the solution. Players have to put on their thinking caps to find the answers. Here are some things you should know about a Google a day:
Home » Archives for 11/1/11 - 12/1/11
Improve Search Skills - A Google a Day
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12 Tips for Filling Out/Submitting Online Applications
December 04, 2013
(Allison Shirk is a freelance grantwriter based on Vashon Island, Washington. She is on the Board of Directors of the Puget Sound Grantwriter's Association. This article excerpted from her upcoming book. For more information, visit www.allisonshirkgrantwriting.com.)
Trees everywhere are rejoicing as more and more funders switch from paper to online applications. But for some grantwriters, having to disrupt the flow of their narrative to accommodate character-limited text fields is both inconvenient and cumbersome.
If you're one of those grantwriters, here are some tips designed to make the online application process a little more enjoyable and productive:
1. Get organized. As you create a login for the application, make a note of your username and password. Then bookmark the login page in your favorite browser so you don't have to go through the eligibility survey every time you come back to the application. Make a note of the date and time (including the time zone!) that the application is due.
2. Create a road map. Read through the application instructions and the application itself and map out where your organization and project descriptions need to be inserted. Identify the questions in the application that you'll need to write narrative for and make a note of data and statistics that need to be collected. List the attachments you'll want to upload. Remember, not every organization can fit neatly into online applications, so highlight any special information you'll need to insert later.
3. Create a working document. One of the risks of typing right into an application form is having your session time out, causing you to lose your unsaved work. You can avoid that nightmare by cutting and pasting the questions from the application into a Word or Google doc. Some online applications are offered in a downloadable PDF format, but if you go that route be sure to double check the printout against the actual online application, making note of character limits and drop-down choices. If you're having trouble moving to the next tab in the online application because error messages tell you that you haven't completed the page yet, type in some dummy text (e.g., "draft"); it should let you continue. (For number fields, type in a couple of zeroes as a placeholder.) Use the top header tabs to jump from page to page; the bottom "continue" button will only take you forward a page at a time. Be sure to place your online username/password and the application due date at the top of the working document so it's easy to find when you're ready to start entering your narrative into the online application.
4. Call rewrite! Take a minute or two to go back and read the instructions and any other information the funder provided. With that information in mind, sit down and revise your narrative to make the deepest possible connection between your project and the funder's priorities.
5. Enter the data. Once your working document is complete, start loading it into the online application, remembering to save often. (Note: Online applications often will have you type in your board members one board member at a time. Creating a list of board members and their affiliations that you can cut and paste from will save you a lot of time.)
6. Keep your presentation simple. As you load sections of your narrative into the online application form, it's likely that bullet points, italic and boldface font styles, and other text effects will not transfer over. To save yourself some aggravation, remove font styles ahead of time and replace bullet points with a simple dash. Note that if you chose to review the application in preview mode (if such an option is offered) and notice strange symbols showing up in the text, it might be due to smart quotes or other formatting carried over from the Word document. If it's happening a lot, you might want to cut and paste that section from Word into a plain-text editor like Notepad, save it to your desktop, highlight it again, and copy/paste back into the online application. You can also turn off smart quotes in Word by clicking the Microsoft Office Button > Word options > Proofing > AutoCorrect Options > AutoFormat > and uncheck replace "straight quotes" with "smart quotes."
7. Keep track of characters and spaces. Nearly all online applications limit the number of characters allowed for each question. As you are inserting text from your working document into the online application, highlight your answers in the working document and check your word count. (In Microsoft Word, this handy feature is located under the Review tab.) Note the number of "characters (without spaces)" versus "characters (with spaces)." Now check the online application for the number it uses -- it's usually with spaces (meaning less room for you to write). And remember: Just because an application offers you 2,000 characters for an answer does not mean you have to use them all. Funders greatly prefer that you answer each question succinctly rather than ramble on for the sake of filling space.
8. Use creative placement. Another reason to keep your answers short and to the point is that you may find you have important information to communicate that doesn't readily fit into the space allotted for certain questions. Look for answers where you didn't use up the allotted space and see if you can squeeze in bits that otherwise might end up on the cutting-room floor. For example, if the application asks for a timeline for your project and you were able to provide it in a few short sentences, consider whether you can elaborate on another aspect of the project in the context of milestones and deadlines. Similarly, if you can't figure out where to talk about an award the organization received (as in the graphic above), check to see whether the application allows you to upload an award letter as an attachment.
9. Take the time to prune. Inevitably, there are going to be places in the online application where your answers just don't fit. In that situation, look for information that is duplicated elsewhere in the narrative. Maybe you described a specific outcome in two different places. Combine those sentences into a single stellar sentence using the best word choices. Look for unnecessary adjectives. Let the reader decide whether a project is "unique," "the best," or "innovative." Take the time to make every sentence in your narrative crisp and to the point. Then ask yourself, Are there any sentences that would work better in a different section? Think of the application as a sort of puzzle that is solved through a process of trial and error. Last but not least, delete extraneous spaces after sentences (you only need one) and paragraphs.
10. Take some care with attachments. When you are ready to upload your attachments, take some time to format them in the same font, add your logo to headers, and label them with consistent naming conventions (e.g., "Attachment 1: Most Current Financial Statement").
11. Read it through it one last time. Before you submit the completed application, read through it one last time for typos and to make sure it flows. Is anything missing or redundant? Would you fund the program or project? If your answer to those questions is "no" and "yes," your work is almost done.
12. Submit! Before you hit the submit button, highlight the entire application and cut and paste it into a Word document for your records. Try not to wait until the day of the deadline to submit it. Online systems bog down to a crawl on deadline day, and it's quite possible you'll experience delays. Experienced grantwriters do their best to submit applications a week or two ahead of time.
And that's it. Your latest application has been submitted and now the really hard part -- waiting for the funder to approve or say no to your application -- begins. Of course, there are plenty of things you should be doing while you wait, and I'll be covering those in future posts.
Until then, feel free to share any tips you have for filling out and submitting online applications in the comments section below. We'd love to hear them!
-- Allison Shirk


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The power grid may determine whether we can kick our carbon habit
Minutes before 4 p.m. on a sizzling September day two years ago, right at the time when they were most needed, San Diego's air conditioners suddenly died. Thousands of television and computer screens also flickered into darkness. Stoplights stopped working, gas stations ceased pumping, and traffic slowed to a snarl. Trains ground to a halt and planes idled on the runway. Wastewater treatment pumps shut down, spewing some 4 million gallons of raw sewage into the Pacific. Around 2.7 million "customers" -- amounting to anywhere from 5 to 7 million people -- lost their power, with some remaining in darkness for 12 hours or more.
As commuters extricated themselves from highway gridlock, and batteries faded away on millions of electronic devices, folks flocked to the handful of neighborhood bars that –– thanks to generators –– were able to keep their lights and refrigeration going. There, they could drink away the darkness and speculate as to what had caused this sudden plague of electrical impotence.
Many assumed it was terrorism -- San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station had been sabotaged, they said, or the North Koreans had set off an electromagnetic pulse that fried the grid, or maybe an Iranian cyberattack had crippled the computers that keep the modern world humming. Others blamed solar flares for disrupting the cosmic electromagnetic field, or suggested that a more earthly storm had caused distant wind farms to go haywire. Then again, perhaps a raven just landed on the wrong piece of equipment out in the desert and got fried, its death rattle reverberating through the transmission lines all the way to San Diego.
Their guesses weren't stupid or outlandish -- they all involved genuine threats to the power grid. But the biggest power outage to hit the Western Grid in a decade actually started hundreds of miles east, at a substation outside Yuma, Ariz. And it began not with a bang, but with a misplaced checkmark that ultimately crashed Southern California's electrical system.
That event was no freak occurrence. It could have happened anywhere, at any time, in the complex machine that generates, transports and delivers power to nearly every corner of the nation. Our proliferating air conditioners and gadgets have put new pressures on the grid, as the demand for electricity has grown twice as fast as the infrastructure needed to carry that power. Now we're straining it even more by trying to get that power from cleaner, more fickle sources. Meanwhile, the electrical grid -- the circulation system of today's modern age -- is still stuck back in the '80s, like one of those guys from high school who clings to a mullet haircut and his Dungeons and Dragons dice. Compared with what's to come, some say, San Diego's blackout might seem in retrospect no more than an excuse for a candlelit block party.
A 6-foot-high, gleaming white cross stands alongside a mostly empty road near Tonapah, Ariz. At its foot is a tiny Nativity scene, and an angel on the end of a stick. The shrine's purpose isn't clear, but its location makes it seem like an altar dedicated to the patron saint of electricity. Behind it, rising from the desert scrub, are the elongated containment domes of Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station's three reactors. And beyond them lie two huge fields of photovoltaic panels and three natural gas power plants. There is probably no other five-square-mile patch on the planet with more electrical generating capacity.
Yet just as critical is the network of transformers, switches and wires through which all that electricity flows. Congregated just north of Palo Verde, a dozen high voltage transmission lines slice the sky, crackling ominously as they link up in the giant, skeletal "switchyard." The lines, gently curving toward earth between each giant tower, lead inward and outward in every direction, like spokes on a bicycle wheel, making the Palo Verde/Hassayampa switchyard the biggest power-trading hub and crossroads in the region -- the electrical Union Station of the West.
Among these lines is the 500-kilovolt Hassayampa-North Gila, or H-NG, line. On Sept. 8, 2011, about 1,300 megawatts -- almost half of all the electricity imported into Southern California that day, enough to power about 1.5 million homes -- flowed westward through the H-NG line. All that juice was needed because it was so hot; the mercury hit 115 degrees in El Centro, and even sea breeze-cooled Oceanside reached 88. By mid-afternoon, air conditioners cranked across the Southwest, while irrigation pumps pushed water onto the half-wilting lettuce in California's Imperial Valley.
On its way to San Diego, the H-NG line passes through the North Gila substation outside of Yuma. Just before 2:00 that afternoon, Arizona Public Service, the substation's operator, sent a technician out to fix a capacitor bank, used to stabilize voltage in long-distance lines. As he worked -- we'll call him Kilo Watt, since the utility has kept his or her identity secret -- he marked each completed step on a checklist to make sure that he didn't miss anything. But then Watt, distracted, put a mark in the wrong place, causing him to skip one critical step: bypassing all that juice around the capacitor bank so that he could work on it safely.
At approximately 3:27 p.m., he cranked open the disconnect switch, an event that should have been uneventful. Instead, the 500 kilovolts still running through the line began to arc -- the current leaping through the air, much the way the evil Emperor zapped Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi. Watt continued cranking the switch, hoping to manually break the arc. Instead, the writhing electrical serpent grew larger, and some 43 milliseconds later, the entire H-NG line "tripped," like a home circuit breaker, and shut down.
The chain reaction, which would climax just 11 minutes later, had begun.
But the roots of the San Diego blackout are deeper than that Yuma substation. In order to really understand what happened, we need to travel back in time to the grid's primordial days among the hardrock mines of the Rocky Mountains.


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Micro Chiplets
In the same research lab where the ethernet, laser printer, and graphical user interface were born, engineers are forging an entirely new way to assemble electronic devices—a technique that could be faster, cheaper, and more versatile.
Typically, chips are made in bulk on semiconductor wafers and then cut into individual units and placed on motherboards inside computers and other devices. But researchers at PARC, in Palo Alto, California, envision doing something different with the wafers: chopping them up into hairs-width "chiplets," mixing them into an ink, and guiding the tiny pieces electrostatically to just the right spot and orientation on a substrate, from which a roller could pick them up and print them.
Although now at a very early stage, the technology could lead to novel kinds of computing devices, such as high-resolution imaging arrays made from tiny ultrasensitive detectors assembled by the million. Because printers can deposit materials on different substrates, this technology could be used to make high-performance flexible electronic devices, tiny sensors festooned with dense arrays of diverse sensors, or 3-D objects with computing functions woven in, says Janos Veres, who manages PARC's printed-electronics team. And the approach could make it easier for more people and small companies to design and manufacture custom computing devices.
PARC's vision for the technology starts with wafers made by conventional methods and designed to hold thousands of tiny functioning devices. These could include LEDs or lasers, processors and memory, or sensors based on microelectromechanical devices, or MEMS. They'd all become feedstocks for a palette of chip-infused inks. Existing electronics-printing systems generally use lower-performance materials, but "potentially, we can use the absolutely highest-performance chips on the market," says Eugene Chow, an electrical engineer who leads the project.
The technology marshals chiplets into place using software-controlled electrical fields generated by arrays of wires beneath an assembly substrate. Like balls rolling into divots, the chiplets go to locations defined by the electrical fields. "The fields are changing in time and space in all kinds of fancy patterns that can be controlled to allow high-throughput assembly," Chow says.
For now, placement is aided by simple positive and negative charges added to chiplets before the wafers are minced. For a printing system to handle different kinds of chiplets, PARC envisions differentiating them with unique charge-based bar codes or creating multiple printing steps, with one type of chiplet set down at each step. "Years from now, if this works, it's a new platform where we put millions and billions of things together," Chow says.
The first hurdle is figuring out how to precisely assemble chiplets; so far, PARC has managed to place four at a time and then wire them together in a second step. Still, that achievement is a start toward "accelerating the evolution of microelectronics," Veres says. "We can iterate new circuits every minute, opening up thousands of uses."
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Financial know-how alone isn't enough to help adults make sound choices about their spending and saving, according to the research paper.
Does financial literacy alone lead to better financial choices?
A paper co-authored by Jonathan Morduch, a professor of public policy and economics at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and Barbara Kiviat, an academic fellow there, suggests that institutions, as well as individuals, combine financial literacy education with steps to help adult consumers make sound decisions on spending and saving.
"Maximizing the effectiveness of financial training is not just a matter of better use of classrooms and better development of training materials, but also of re-envisioning what financial literacy education can be," according to the authors. Their paper, "From Financial Literacy to Financial Action," was published by The McGraw-Hill Research Foundation.
Morduch is managing director of the Financial Access Initiative (FAI), and Kiviat is the David Bohnett Public Service Fellow at NYU Wagner and a research associate at FAI.
The authors recommend governments, businesses, and non-profits organizations pay particular attention to five areas in financial literacy education programs, including:
· Knowing one's legal rights, the types of questions to ask financial providers, and other practical steps to gather information for financial decisions.
· Accessing financial products and options, such as 401K's, which tend not to be readily available to low-wage workers.
· Gaining awareness of one's susceptibility to temptation, distraction, and other personal challenges.
· Developing structures to facilitate good financial decisions, such as automatic telephone calls or text message reminders of bills coming due.
· Enlisting social networks to promote peer pressure and support for actions regarding one's personal finance.
"To make financial education as powerful as possible, we need to focus on knowledge that is made up of more than just financial facts. Knowing basic rules of thumb and being aware of legal rights and recourse matter too," the researchers write.
"Beyond that, practitioners of financial literacy education must broaden their worldview to take into account the extent to which individuals possess self-awareness, feel support from broader social norms, can access reliable financial products, and have available workable structures to implement ideas."
A copy of the full report, "From Financial Literacy to Financial Action," can be found here.


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Harry Chapin
Harry Chapin's career as a popular singer/songwriter was cut short by an auto accident in 1981, yet he left behind a series of recordings that his fans continue to treasure decades after his death. Chapin was never a critically acclaimed singer/songwriter. Critics accused him of over-sentimentalizing his subjects and attaching heavy-handed morals to his socially aware story-songs; the heavily orchestrated arrangements that accompanied many of his songs didn't help his case with the critics, either. Nevertheless, Chapin earned a devoted audience during the '70s, through his music and his charity work as a social activist.
Chapin began performing while he was in high school, singing in the Brooklyn Heights Boys' Choir and forming a band with his brothers Tom and Stephen. During college, he decided to pursue a career as a documentary filmmaker; in 1968, he directed the Oscar-nominated Legendary Champions. In 1971, he switched his career, concentrating on music. Chapin recruited a backing band through an ad in the Village Voice; the respondents included bassist John Wallace, guitarist Ron Palmer, and cellist Tim Scott. The group began performing in various clubs around New York and the singer/songwriter was soon signed to Elektra Records.
Heads and Tails, Chapin's first album, was released in the summer of 1972 and became a success thanks to the hit single "Taxi," which soon became the songwriter's signature tune. Later that year, he released his second album, Sniper and Other Love Songs, which didn't fare quite as well as his debut. Short Stories, Chapin's third album, appeared in the spring of 1973; it spent 23 weeks on the chart due to the success of the single "W.O.L.D.," a story about the life of a disc jockey. After recording his fourth album, Verities and Balderdash, Chapin disbanded his backing band and began work on his musical The Night That Made America Famous; both Wallace and cellist Michael Masters worked on the show, along with guitarist Doug Walker, drummer Howie Fields, and Chapin's brothers Tom, Steve, and Jim. While he was working on the musical, Verities and Balderdash became his biggest hit, peaking at number four on the U.S. charts and becoming a gold record. The album's success was benefited by the number-one single "Cat's in the Cradle," a song about an inconsiderate, career-oriented father that was based on a poem written by Chapin's wife.
The Night That Made America Famous opened on February 26, 1975. It closed on April 6, after 75 performances; the show would earn two Tony nominations. Chapin won an Emmy award that spring for his contributions to ABC television's children's series Make a Wish, which was hosted by his brother Tom. That spring, the singer/songwriter co-founded World Hunger Year, a charity designed to raise money to fight international famine; the organization earned over $350,000 in its first year. In the fall of 1975, Chapin delivered Portrait Gallery, his follow-up to Verities and Balderdash. While the album performed respectably, peaking at number 53, it failed to recapture the mass audience of his previous album.
Greatest Stories -- Live, a double album released in the spring of 1976, became the singer/songwriter's second gold album, peaking at number 48. Chapin was becoming more politically active throughout 1976, as evidenced by his role as a delegate at that summer's Democratic Convention. Late in 1976, he released On the Road to Kingdom Come, which spent a mere six weeks on the charts. The 1977 double-album Dance Band on the Titanic was on the charts for a few more weeks, yet it didn't spawn a hit single. The following year, Chapin met with President Jimmy Carter, discussing the need for a Presidential Commission on Hunger; he also released Living Room Suite that summer, which peaked at number 133.
Chapin released a second live album, Legends of the Lost and Found -- New Greatest Stories Live, in the fall of 1979; it was his least-successful album, spending only three weeks on the charts. In 1980, he signed with Boardwalk Records, releasing Sequel that fall; the title track of the album was a sequel to his first hit single, "Taxi," and became his last Top 40 hit.
On July 16, 1981, Chapin was driving to a business meeting on the Long Island Expressway near Jericho, NY, when his car was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer. The accident caused his gas tank to explode, killing the singer/songwriter in the process. A memorial fund was established in his name following his death, with Elektra Records providing the initial donation of 10,000 dollars. Over the years, the fund has raised an estimated $5 million, which has gone to a variety of social causes that were close to Chapin's heart.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Read more


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FHWA Announces Rescissions: One Week to Protect Bike Funding
From the League of American Bicyclists:
Yesterday, the Federal Highway Administration informed state Departments of Transportation of another rescission of funds, this time totaling $2.5 billion. A "rescission", you may recall, is a mechanism by which states return to Washington various unspent amounts of money that they could have spent but haven't yet done so. The action is taken under the 2011 Full-year Continuing Appropriations Act. This is the FHWA notice, which includes the total amount of funds each state is to send back to Washington. Not the most entertaining piece of prose you'll ever read, but hidden within the language is another significant threat to the funds that are available to spend on bicycling improvements.DC has been asked to return $10.5M. Virginia has been asked to return $62.5M. Maryland has been asked to return $39.7M.
States are given maximum flexibility about the source of the funds that are rescinded – from among a variety of transportation programs. Most critically for bicycling, the transportation enhancements, congestion mitigation, and recreational trails programs are included in the list of programs. Fortunately, the Safe Routes to School program is not included, so those funds are safe. States have been given a whole week to respond – that's right, they got the notice yesterday and have to decide what funds to send back by Friday July 8. The memo recommends that "Division Administrators should encourage their State department of transportation officials to reach out to stakeholders in considering how to implement the rescission," but our experience has been this really doesn't happen. Or at least, the bicycle community either isn't considered a stakeholder worth reaching out to or once reached out to, our views are simply ignored. We say that because Transportation Enhancement and Congestion Mitigation Air Quality funds have consistently been inequitably targeted for rescissions in most states – and this will likely continue unless State DOT's hear from their customers. In August, 2010 almost $1 billion of CMAQ, TE and Recreational Trails funds were returned to Washington, out of a $2.2 billion rescission. That means that State Departments of Transportation didn't spend these funds in the first place – even though they could have been using the funds to build better bicycling infrastructure, provide bicyclist education, install bike parking – and now are choosing instead to send the money back to Washington.Please use the League's Action Alert to state your support for bike projects, and to ask that they not be disproportionately targeted for rescission (as they often have in the past).


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Actively recruiting can be better than referrals
This article is based on one I originally published in BusinessWeek on Dec 9, 2009.
Hunting for the ideal job candidate? Ask any hiring managers and
they will very likely give you a ranking system for would-be hires.
Lower on the list are those actively looking for a job. High on the
list are employee referrals.
Unfortunately, it can be difficult
to elicit employee referrals on a broad enough scale. First, employees
know only so many quality candidates. Second, if you have a very
rigorous hiring process, employees will be loath to refer people unless
they are sure that person would get strong consideration.
a hiring manager to do, then? One way to get a steady flow of
high-caliber applicants is to actively seek them out. Instead of only
relying on employee referrals and active job-seekers, companies should
spend more time identifying, nurturing, and recruiting so-called
passive candidates, people who are perfectly happy in their current job
but would move to a new company if they felt there was higher growth
potential. While these candidates might not have the same
qualifications as employee referrals, they can be found on a wider
Recruiting passive candidates can be an involved and
difficult process. Because passive candidates are not looking at job
boards such as Craigslist and Monster.com, you need to think of creative ways to reach out to them directly.
Web Recruiting Strategies
hunch is that at most companies, the mix of job applicants is something
like 80% active candidates, 10% passive, and 10% referrals. A better
mix would be 30% active, 60% passive, and 10% referrals. Here are some
strategies for boosting your pool of passive candidates, using the Web
and social media:
• Seek great people. Companies can seek out great people on sites such as LinkedIn, XING,
and other professional social networks. These sites house millions of
passive candidates and include tools that let would-be employers search
for candidates by geography, skills, interests, and a host of other
criteria. It may be time-consuming to message each person you consider
a good candidate, but it is among the most effective strategies.
• Advertise to candidates.
Instead of posting a job announcement that will only get read by active
job-seekers, try to find passive candidates while they are surfing the
Web. Google famously posted a candidate-seeking math puzzle on a billboard
alongside the 101 in the San Francisco Bay Area. Those who don't have
tens of thousands of dollars to spend on a billboard can advertise by
purchasing keywords that possible candidates might be searching for
online. For instance, my company, Rapleaf,
is always looking for people who are interested in Hadoop, an
open-source software framework that supports applications running
across multiple, distributed computers. So we purchase ads that will
appear when people search for keywords associated with Hadoop. The
approach has helped us find qualified candidates.
• Continually remind great people.
Once you find people and drive them to your careers page, you'll want
to continue to remind them about your company. That's because most
passive candidates who visit your careers page will only be browsing
and won't submit a résumé. A great way to continue to remind passive
candidates is through retargeted ads—ads that follow the passive
candidate wherever she or he goes on the Internet (like on the
Huffington Post, Yahoo Finance, and CBS Sports). Rapleaf uses Retargeter.com,
which helps you deliver ads to your site visitors as they navigate to
other sites. It has huge reach because it works with Yahoo's Right Media, Google's DoubleClick, and Fox Interactive. (full disclosure: I am an investor in Retargeter.com.)
• Encourage others to refer candidates to you.
Ask all your employees to put a footer in their e-mails reminding
people that their company is hiring. My e-mail signature says "Note:
we're hiring amazing engineers, BD people, and a star Ops person …
refer a friend and get fully paid trip to Hawaii for two." Another
great tool is to have employees use their status lines on Facebook, Twitter,
LinkedIn, MySpace, and other social networks to let friends know their
company is hiring. A great status update might be something like: "I
love my job: come work with me" with a link to your careers site.
• Stay in touch with past applicants.
You may also want to consider sending occasional newsletters or other
communications to people who have applied in the past but, for one
reason or another, didn't get the job. They may be just the right fit
for a new opening, or they may at least know of a qualified candidate.
a company's best asset is its people, and filling open positions with
top-notch people gives your company the best chance to continue to grow
and innovate, which is especially important during these down times.
(special thanks to Michael Hsu for his help writing and editing this article)


text: Hey guys, your ebony and lovely girl is here, let me make you mine and you will have me on your mind forever, you look for an obedient girl? Someone who makes your wishes and hottest and dirtiest desire come true, ********** are in the right place, I will be whatever you want me to be!!


text:
First up, we look at the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that led to a last-minute peace deal in Afghanistan over the weekend. Then, what's going on with Bowe Bergdahl, the Army Sergeant captured by the Taliban in 2009 and freed May 31st? He's back on active duty but refusing to speak to his parents. Next, we take a look at how architects are using drones to design buildings here in L.A. Then: the Peace Corps has the lowest number of volunteers in a decade. Why, and what does it say about how our culture has changed? Finally, we look at a race between the U.S. and England to map the human brain.
Banner Image: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (L) attends a Peace Corps Volunteer Swearing-in Ceremony in Rabat, Morocco on April 4, 2014


text:
Modern area rugs can brighten the look of your home by adding pattern, texture, and notes of color. They also protect hardwoods, are easy on the feet, and warm up your floors during those colder months. Use these versatile floor coverings anywhere you walk—a hallway, living room, bathroom, entryway, or kitchen. Z Gallerie features an exclusive line of rugs in all sizes, materials, styles, and shapes.
Searching for a bedroom area rug so your feet land on something soft first thing in the morning? Look no further than the sumptuous Indochine Rug a stunning white shag rug with generous, lush piling. The Eastern-inspired pattern adds a lived-in elegance to the blue area rug. If you're craving something a little more offbeat, our Ayi Faux Cowhide Rugs come in a range of sizes, all with a quirky, rustic charm.
At Z Gallerie, we believe a modern area rug—large or small—infuses character, whimsy, or pattern into any space. Whether you're looking for a braided rug, a plush high-pile rug, or a hair-on-hide piece, Z Gallerie offers rugs for every room for everyone's budget.


text:
9 years ago
Global Smartphone Shipments Top 1Bn: IDC
BEIJING: Global smartphone shipments topped 1 billion units for first time in 2013, climbing 38.4% percent from the previous year to 1.004 billion units, research firm IDC said.
Smartphones made up 55.1 percent of all mobile phone shipments last year from just over two-fifths in 2012, IDC said.
Samsung Electronics Co's market share edged up one percentage point year-on-year to 31.3% to keep its place as the world's biggest smartphone vendor, while second-place Apple Inc's fell from 18.7% to 15.3 percent, according to IDC.
Huawei Technologies Co, LG Electronics and Lenovo Group were third, fourth and fifth largest respectively, each with a market share of just under 5% in 2013.


text:
Taking Liberties
The salesmen say 'yes' is a vote to stop government from taking your land, but this stealth campaign would do far more than that
BOZEMAN, Montana — The first time I talked to Eric Dondero, I called his cell phone, and caught him on a sidewalk in the small town of Three Forks. He was asking people to sign a petition. He convinced one man to sign while I listened. Then he told me enthusiastically about his political work: "I'm full-time, all the time! I try to do a good 10 hours per day … I'm a very ideological person. I'm a proud libertarian."
Dondero was operating as a point man for a campaign that stretches from Arizona to Washington state. I hoped he would allow me into the ground-level operations. "All right," he said, "you want a really good story? Come on out. I'm standing in front of the Conoco store, you can't miss me. I'm rockin' here!"
I drove west from Bozeman, through suburban sprawl and 30 miles of farm country, to the confluence of rivers where Three Forks sits. The town only amounts to a few dozen blocks, and it has a random feel, trailer homes mingled with small houses, a looming talc plant, and a fringe of new, pricier subdivisions mysteriously growing on former wheat fields.
Dondero was hanging around a gas-station store on the not-too-busy main street. Stocky but not imposing, he was dressed to blend in with the Three Forks community (trimmed hair and mustache, jeans and work boots, American flag pin) as well as for a long day under the hot May sun (visor, sunglasses, long-sleeved shirt). Petitions were stacked on his clipboard, and even as I approached, he persuaded another passerby to sign. "You're a great American! I appreciate it!" he told the guy.
We shook hands, and Dondero grinned, animated and immediately likable. I stepped back and watched him work. Locals wheeled their pickup trucks into the parking spaces around the Conoco, and as they walked into the store, Dondero asked them politely, "How are you doing (ma'am or sir)? Are you a registered voter?"
He seemed like an ordinary concerned citizen, not a part of an orchestrated, multistate campaign. But the libertarian movement he belongs to — broader and more powerful than the anemic Libertarian Party — has a growing reach in American politics. The movement's mission is to maximize individual freedom by limiting government power in everything from taxes to judges' rulings. One of its national leaders, Grover Norquist, has said that he wants to reduce government "to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
In this campaign, which is playing out in six Western states, the libertarians mostly want to "reform eminent domain" — or at least that's what they say.
Governments at all levels invoke eminent domain on occasion to condemn property and force the owners to accept a buyout to make room for new roads, electricity lines, urban renewal and other projects that benefit the public. Recently, however, eminent domain has been the target of public outrage, thanks to a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling known as the Kelo case. The high court held that the city of New London, Conn., could exercise eminent domain to condemn the homes of Susette Kelo and six other holdouts, to make room for a global pharmaceutical company's 100-acre manufacturing complex. Since then, more than 30 legislatures have either passed or considered laws limiting eminent domain, and ballot initiatives have sprung up from Alaska to South Carolina.
Dondero carried a knee-high posterboard that said simply: "Protect Private Property Rights … Citizens Fighting Eminent Domain Abuse." Each time he made the pitch, he began, "This is a statewide petition to protect our property rights. To keep that new eminent domain law from coming to Montana and taking our homes away. … I know you saw this on Fox News, or CNN. …" He often referred to the Kelo case: "New London, Conn., they condemned this little old lady's property to take it away."
But the patriotic sales pitch hides something else entirely. National libertarian groups are not just funneling big bucks into this campaign to protect a few property owners from eminent domain. They have their sights set on something much bigger — laying waste to land-use regulations used by state and local governments to protect the landscape, the environment and neighborhoods. Their goal has received little attention, partly because of its stealth mode. But the fact that the libertarians just might pull it off makes the campaign the hottest political story in the West this year.
I began to see the pattern in April, during a conversation with John Echeverria, head of the Environmental Law and Policy Institute at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Echeverria called it "eminent domain hysteria."
"The Kelo case is presented as a caricature in the news," Echeverria said. "Most people don't understand the valuable development (that eminent domain) can help generate, and how, if it's fairly conducted, it can produce entirely fair, even highly favorable outcomes, for affected property owners — they're paid market value or well above." We talked about some of the horror stories, where governments use eminent domain in questionable ways. But those are few and far between. What's really going on, Echeverria said, is that, "The property-rights advocates have exploited Kelo to advance a broader anti-government agenda."


text:
Two snaps to Nikolay Davydenko for joining a small group of active ATP players who've hit the 400 match win mark in their careers — a list that includes Moya, Federer, Nadal, and Hewitt, among others. This achievement has to be a welcome boost for the Russian, who's slated to defend title wins at the Shanghai Masters and the ATP Tour finals. (On the flip side, keep in mind that Kolya's finished strong at year-ends prior; in 2008, making the semis of Bercy and the finals of the men's YEC.)
Draw: As the fourth seed at this week's China Open in Beijing, Davydenko beat Cilic for that 400th win and will face Isner in the quarters. See the rest of the match-ups here.
Crew: For Beijing, Dunlop switches from the white/blue 2010 US Open polo to this bright blue crew, a shade that works well to give Davydenko's anemic features some pop. (And earlier in the North American summer, there was a blue polo but had a white right sleeve.) For now, the kits are still not for sale as far as we know.
More: Two other pics of Kolya
after the cut…
(images via China Open)


text:
INTERNET-DRAFT R. Hinden, Nokia August 26, 2003 Brian Haberman, Caspian Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses <draft-ietf-ipv6-unique-local-addr-00.txt> Status of this Memo This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet- Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." To view the list Internet-Draft Shadow Directories, see http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. This internet draft expires on March 1, 2004. Abstract This document defines an unicast address format that is globally unique and is intended for local communications, usually inside of a site. They are not expected to be routable on the global Internet given current routing technology. draft-ietf-ipv6-unique-local-addr-00.txt [Page 1]
INTERNET-DRAFT Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses August 2003 1.0 Introduction This document defines an IPv6 unicast address format that is globally unique and is intended for local communications [IPV6]. These addresses are called Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses and are abbreviated in this document as Local IPv6 addresses. They are not expected to be routable on the global Internet given current routing technology. They are routable inside of a more limited area such as a site. They may also be routed between a limited set of sites. Local IPv6 unicast addresses have the following characteristics: - Globally unique prefix. - Well known prefix to allow for easy filtering at site boundaries. - Allows sites to be combined or privately interconnected without creating any address conflicts or require renumbering of interfaces using these prefixes. - Internet Service Provider independent and can be used for communications inside of a site without having any permanent or intermittent Internet connectivity. - If accidentally leaked outside of a site via routing or DNS, there is no conflict with any other addresses. - In practice, applications may treat these address like global scoped addresses. This document defines the format of Local IPv6 addresses, how to allocate them, and usage considerations including routing, site border routers, DNS, application support, VPN usage, and guidelines for how to use for local communication inside a site. The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC 2119]. 2.0 Acknowledgments The underlying idea of creating Local IPv6 addresses describe in this document been proposed a number of times by a variety of people. The authors of this draft do not claim exclusive credit. Credit goes to Brian Carpenter, Christian Huitema, Aidan Williams, Andrew White, Charlie Perkins, and many others. The authors would also like to thank Brian Carpenter, Charlie Perkins, Harald Alvestrand, Keith Moore, Margaret Wasserman, Shannon Behrens, Alan Beard, and Hans Kruse for their comments and suggestions on this document. draft-ietf-ipv6-unique-local-addr-00.txt [Page 2]
INTERNET-DRAFT Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses August 2003 3.0 Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses 3.1 Format The Local IPv6 addresses are created using a centrally allocated global ID. They have the following format: | n | | bits | m bits | 16 bits | 64 bits | +--------+------------+-----------+-----------------------------+ | prefix | global ID | subnet ID | interface ID | +--------+------------+-----------+-----------------------------+ Where: prefix prefix to identify Local IPv6 unicast addresses. global ID global identifier used to create a globally unique prefix. See section 3.2 for additional information. subnet ID 16-bit subnet ID is an identifier of a subnet within the site. interface ID 64-bit IID as defined in [ADDARCH]. There are a range of choices available when choosing the size of the prefix and Global ID field length. There is a direct tradeoff between having a Global ID field large enough to support foreseeable future growth and not using too much of the IPv6 address space needlessly. A reasonable way of evaluating a specific field length is to compare it to a projected 2050 world population of 9.3 billion [POPUL] to compare the number of resulting /48 prefixes per person. A range of prefix choices is shown in the following table: Prefix Global ID Number /48 Prefixes % of IPv6 Length Prefixes per Person Address Space /11 37 137,438,953,472 15 0.049% /10 38 274,877,906,944 30 0.098% /9 39 549,755,813,888 59 0.195% /8 40 1,099,511,627,776 118 0.391% /7 41 2,199,023,255,552 236 0.781% /6 42 4,398,046,511,104 473 1.563% A very high utilization ratio of these allocations can be assumed because no internal structure is required in the field nor is there any reason to be able to aggregate the prefixes. draft-ietf-ipv6-unique-local-addr-00.txt [Page 3]
INTERNET-DRAFT Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses August 2003 The authors believes that a /7 prefix resulting in a 41 bit Global ID is a good choice. It provides for a large number of assignments (i.e., 2.2 trillion) and at the same time uses less than .8% of the total IPv6 address space. It is unlikely that this space will be exhausted. If more than this was needed, then additional IPv6 address space could be allocated for this purpose. For the rest of this document the FC00::/7 prefix and a 41-bit Global ID is used. 3.2 Global ID The allocation of global IDs should be pseudo-random [RANDOM]. They should not be assigned sequentially or with well known numbers. This to ensure that there is not any relationship between allocations and to help clarify that these prefixes are not intended to be routed globally. Specifically, these prefixes are designed to not aggregate. There are two ways to allocate Global IDs. These are centrally by a allocation authority and locally by the site. The Global ID is split into two parts for each type of allocation. The prefixes for each type are: FC00::/8 Centrally assigned FD00::/8 Locally assigned Each results in a 40-bit space to allocate. Two assignment methods are included because they have different properties. The centrally assigned global IDs have a much higher probability that they are unique and the assignments can be escrowed to resolve any disputes regarding duplicate assignments. The local assignments are free and do not need any central coordination or assignment, but have a lower (but still adequate) probability of being unique. It is expected that large managed sites will prefer central assignments and small or disconnected sites will prefer local assignments. Sites are free to choice either approach. 3.2.1 Centrally Assigned Global IDs Centrally assigned global IDs MUST be generated with a pseudo-random algorithm consistent with [RANDOM]. They should not be assigned sequentially or by locality. This to ensure that there is not any relationship between allocations and to help clarify that these prefixes are not intended to be routed globally. Specifically, these draft-ietf-ipv6-unique-local-addr-00.txt [Page 4]
INTERNET-DRAFT Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses August 2003 prefixes are designed to not aggregate. Global IDs should be assigned centrally by a single allocation authority because they are pseudo-random and without any structure. This is easiest to accomplish if there is a single source of the assignments. The requirements for centrally assigned global ID allocations are: - Available to anyone in an unbiased manner. - Permanent with no periodic fees. - One time non-refundable allocation fee in the order of 10 Euros per allocation. - The ownership of each individual allocation should be private, but should be escrowed. The allocation authority should permit allocations to be obtained without having any sort of internet connectivity. For example in addition to web based registration they should support some methods like telephone, postal mail, fax, telex, etc. They should also accept a variety of payment methods and currencies. The reason for the one time 10 Euro charge for each prefix is to provide a barrier to any hoarding of the these allocations but at the same time keep the cost low enough to not create a barrier to anyone needing one. The charge is non-refundable in order to keep overhead low. The ownership of the allocations is not needed to be public since the resulting addresses are intended to be used for local communication. It is escrowed to insure there are no duplicate allocations and in case it is needed in the future (e.g., to resolve duplicate allocation disputes). An example of a allocation authority is a non-profit organization such as the Public Internet Registry (PIR) that the Internet Society has created to manage the .org domain. They already know how to collect small sums efficiently and there are safeguards in place for the appropriate use of any excess revenue generated. Note, there are many possible ways of of creating an allocation authority. It is important to keep in mind when reviewing alternatives that the goal is to pick one that can do the job. It doesn't have to be perfect, only good enough to do the job at hand. The authors believe that PIR shows that this requirement can be satisfied, but this draft does not specifically recommend the PIR. draft-ietf-ipv6-unique-local-addr-00.txt [Page 5]
INTERNET-DRAFT Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses August 2003 3.2.2 Locally Assigned Global IDs Global IDs can also be generated locally by an individual site. This makes it easy to get a prefix with out the need to contact an assignment authority or internet service provider. There is not as high a degree of assurance that the prefix will not conflict with another locally generated prefix, but the likelihood of conflict is small. Sites that are not comfortable with this degree of uncertainty should use a centrally assigned global ID. Locally assigned global IDs MUST be generated with a pseudo-random algorithm consistent with [RANDOM]. Section 3.2.3 describes a suggested algorithm. It is important to insure a reasonable likelihood uniqueness that all sites generating a Global IDs use a functionally similar algorithm. 3.2.3 Sample Code for Pseudo-Random Global ID Algorithm The algorithm described below is intended to be used for centrally and locally assigned Global IDs. In each case the resulting global ID will be used in the appropriate prefix as defined in section 3.2. 1) Obtain the current time of day in 64-bit NTP format [NTP]. 2) Obtain the birth date of the person running the algorithm (or one of his/her descendants or ancestors) in 64-bit NTP format. 3) Concatenate the time of day with the birth date resulting in a 128-bit value (i.e., TOD, Birthday). 4) Compute an MD5 digest on the 128-bit value as specified in [MD5DIG]. 5) Use the least significant 40 bits as the Global ID. This algorithm will result in a global ID that is reasonably unique and can be used as a Global ID. 3.3 Scope Definition By default, the scope of these addresses is global. That is, they are not limited by ambiguity like the site-local addresses defined in [ADDRARCH]. Rather, these prefixes are globally unique, and as such, their applicability exceeds the current site-local addresses. Their limitation is in the routability of the prefixes, which is limited to a site and any explicit routing agreements with other sites to propagate them. Also, unlike site-locals, these prefixes can overlap draft-ietf-ipv6-unique-local-addr-00.txt [Page 6]
INTERNET-DRAFT Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses August 2003 4.0 Routing Local IPv6 addresses are designed to be routed inside of a site in the same manner as other types of unicast addresses. They can be carried in any IPv6 routing protocol without any change. It is expected that they would share the same subnet IDs with provider based global unicast addresses if they were being used concurrently [GLOBAL]. Any routing protocol that is used between sites MUST filter out any incoming or outgoing Local IPv6 unicast routes. The exception to this is if specific /48 IPv6 local unicast routes have been configured to allow for inter-site communication. If BGP is being used at the site border with an ISP, by default filters MUST be installed in the BGP configuration to keep any Local IPv6 address prefixes from being advertised outside of the site or for these prefixes to be learned from another site. The exception to this is if there are specific /48 routes created for one or more Local IPv6 prefixes. 5.0 Renumbering and Site Merging The use of Local IPv6 addresses in a site results in making communication using these addresses independent of renumbering a site's provider based global addresses. When merging multiple sites none of the addresses created with these prefixes need to be renumbered because all of the addresses are unique. Routes for each specific prefix would have to be configured to allow routing to work correctly between the formerly separate sites. 6.0 Site Border Router and Firewall Packet Filtering While no serious harm will be done if packets with these addresses are sent outside of a site via a default route, it is recommended that they be filtered to keep any packets with Local IPv6 destination addresses from leaking outside of the site and to keep any site prefixes from being advertised outside of their site. Site border routers SHOULD install a black hole route for the Local IPv6 prefix FC00::/7. This will insure that packets with Local IPv6 destination addresses will not be forwarded outside of the site via a default route. draft-ietf-ipv6-unique-local-addr-00.txt [Page 7]
INTERNET-DRAFT Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses August 2003 Site border routers and firewalls SHOULD NOT forward any packets with Local IPv6 source or destination addresses outside of the site unless they have been explicitly configured with routing information about other Local IPv6 prefixes. The default behavior of these devices SHOULD be to filter them. 7.0 DNS Issues Local IPv6 addresses SHOULD NOT be installed in the global DNS. They may be installed in a naming system local to the site or kept separate from the global DNS using techniques such as "two-faced" DNS. If Local IPv6 address are configured in the global DNS, no harm is done because they are unique and will not create any confusion. The may not be reachable, but this is a property that is common to all types of global IPv6 unicast addresses. For future study names with Local IPv6 addresses may be resolved inside of the site using dynamic naming systems such as Multicast DNS. 8.0 Application and Higher Level Protocol Issues Application and other higher level protocols can treat Local IPv6 addresses in the same manner as other types of global unicast addresses. No special handling is required. This type of addresses may not be reachable, but that is no different from other types of IPv6 global unicast addresses. Applications need to be able to handle multiple addresses that may or may not be reachable any point in time. In most cases this complexity should be hidden in APIs. From a host's perspective this difference shows up as different reachability than global unicast and could be handled by default that way. In some cases it is better for nodes and applications to treat them differently from global unicast addresses. A starting point might be to give them preference over global unicast, but fall back to global unicast if a particular destination is found to be unreachable. Much of this behavior can be controlled by how they are allocated to nodes and put into the DNS. However it is useful if a host can have both types of addresses and use them appropriately. Note that the address selection mechanisms of [ADDSEL], and in particular the policy override mechanism replacing default address selection, are expected to be used on a site where Local IPv6 addresses are configured. draft-ietf-ipv6-unique-local-addr-00.txt [Page 8]
INTERNET-DRAFT Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses August 2003 9.0 Use of Local IPv6 Addresses for Local Communications Local IPv6 addresses, like global scope unicast addresses, are only assigned to nodes if their use has been enabled (via IPv6 address autoconfiguration [ADDAUTO], DHCPv6 [DHCP6], or manually) and configured in the DNS. They are not created automatically the way that IPv6 link-local addresses are and will not appear or be used unless they are purposely configured. In order for hosts to autoconfigure Local IPv6 addresses, routers have to be configured to advertise Local IPv6 /64 prefixes in router advertisements. Likewise, a DHCPv6 server must have been configured to assign them. In order for a node to learn the Local IPv6 address of another node, the Local IPv6 address must have been installed in the DNS. For these reasons, it is straight forward to control their usage in a site. To limit the use of Local IPv6 addresses the following guidelines apply: - Nodes that are to only be reachable inside of a site: The local DNS should be configured to only include the Local IPv6 addresses of these nodes. Nodes with only Local IPv6 addresses must not be installed in the global DNS. - Nodes that are to be limited to only communicate with other nodes in the site: These nodes should be set to only autoconfigure Local IPv6 addresses via [ADDAUTO] or to only receive Local IPv6 addresses via [DHCP6]. Note: For the case where both global and Local IPv6 prefixes are being advertised on a subnet, this will require a switch in the devices to only autoconfigure Local IPv6 addresses. - Nodes that are to be reachable from inside of the site and from outside of the site: The DNS should be configured to include the global addresses of these nodes. The local DNS may be configured to also include the Local IPv6 addresses of these nodes. - Nodes that can communicate with other nodes inside of the site and outside of the site: These nodes should autoconfigure global addresses via [ADDAUTO] or receive global address via [DHCP6]. They may also obtain Local IPv6 addresses via the same mechanisms. draft-ietf-ipv6-unique-local-addr-00.txt [Page 9]
INTERNET-DRAFT Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses August 2003 10.0 Use of Local IPv6 Addresses with VPNs Local IPv6 addresses can be used for inter-site Virtual Private Networks (VPN) if appropriate routes are set up. Because the addresses are unique these VPNs will work reliably and without the need for translation. They have the additional property that they will continue to work if the individual sites are renumbered or merged. 11.0 Advantages and Disadvantages 11.1 Advantages This approach has the following advantages: - Provides Local IPv6 prefixes that can be used independently of any provider based IPv6 unicast address allocations. This is useful for sites not always connected to the Internet or sites that wish to have a distinct prefix that can be used to localize traffic inside of the site. - Applications can treat these addresses in an identical manner as any other type of global IPv6 unicast addresses. - Sites can be merged without any renumbering of the Local IPv6 addresses. - Sites can change their provider based IPv6 unicast address without disrupting any communication using Local IPv6 addresses. - Well known prefix that allows for easy filtering at site boundary. - Can be used for inter-site VPNs. - If accidently leaked outside of a site via routing or DNS, there is no conflict with any other addresses. 11.2 Disadvantages This approach has the following disadvantages: - Not possible to route Local IPv6 prefixes on the global Internet with current routing technology. Consequentially, it is necessary to have the default behavior of site border routers to filter these addresses. - There is a very low probability of non-unique locally assigned global IDs being generated by the algorithm in section 3.2.3. This risk can be ignored for all practical purposes, but it leads to a theoretical risk of clashing address prefixes. draft-ietf-ipv6-unique-local-addr-00.txt [Page 10]
INTERNET-DRAFT Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses August 2003 12.0 Security Considerations Local IPv6 addresses do not provide any inherent security to the nodes that use them. They may be used with filters at site boundaries to keep Local IPv6 traffic inside of the site, but this is no more or less secure than filtering any other type of global IPv6 unicast addresses. Local IPv6 addresses do allow for address-based security mechanisms, including IPSEC, across end to end VPN connections. 13.0 IANA Considerations The IANA is instructed to allocate the FC00::/7 prefix for Unique Local IPv6 unicast addresses. The IANA is instructed to delegate, within a reasonable time, the prefix FC00::/8 to an allocation authority for Unique Local IPv6 Unicast prefixes of length /48. This allocation authority shall comply with the requirements described in section 3.2 of this document, including in particular the charging of a modest one-time fee, with any profit being used for the public good in connection with the Internet. 14.0 References 14.1 Normative References [ADDARCH] Hinden, R., S. Deering, S., "IP Version 6 Addressing Architecture", RFC 3515, April 2003. [GLOBAL] Hinden, R., S. Deering, E. Nordmark, "IPv6 Global Unicast Address Format", RFC 3587, August 2003. [IPV6] Deering, S., R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6) Specification", RFC 2460, December 1998. [MD5DIG] Rivest, R., "The MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm", RFC 1321, April 1992. [NTP] Mills, David L., "Network Time Protocol (Version 3) Specification, Implementation and Analysis", RFC 1305, March 1992. [POPUL] Population Reference Bureau, "World Population Data Sheet of the Population Reference Bureau 2002", August 2002. draft-ietf-ipv6-unique-local-addr-00.txt [Page 11]
INTERNET-DRAFT Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses August 2003 [RANDOM] Eastlake, D. 3rd, S. Crocker, J. Schiller, "Randomness Recommendations for Security", RFC 1750, December 1994. [RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", RFC 2026, BCP00009, October 1996. [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", RFC 2119, BCP14, March 1997. 14.2 Informative References [ADDAUTO] Thomson, S., T. Narten, "IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration", RFC 2462, December 1998. [DHCP6] Droms, R., et. al., "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6 (DHCPv6)", Internet Draft, <draft-ietf-dhc- dhcpv6-28.txt>, November 2002. [ADDSEL] Draves, R., "Default Address Selection for Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)", RFC 3484, February 2003. 15.0 Authors' Addresses Robert M. Hinden Nokia 313 Fairchild Drive Mountain View, CA 94043 USA phone: +1 650 625-2004 email: firstname.lastname@example.com Brian Haberman Caspian Networks 1 Park Drive, Suite 300 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 USA phone: +1-929-949-4828 email: email@example.com draft-ietf-ipv6-unique-local-addr-00.txt [Page 12]
INTERNET-DRAFT Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses August 2003 16.0 Change Log Draft <draft-ietf-ipv6-unique-local-addr-00.txt> o Changed file name to become an IPv6 w.g. group document. o Clarified language in Routing and Firewall sections. o Several editorial changes. Draft <draft-hinden-ipv6-global-local-addr-02.txt> o Changed title and name of addresses defined in this document to "Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses" with abbreviation of "Local IPv6 addresses". o Several editorial changes. Draft <draft-hinden-ipv6-global-local-addr-01.txt> o Added section on scope definition and updated application requirement section. o Clarified that, by default, the scope of these addresses is global. o Renumbered sections and general text improvements o Removed reserved global ID values o Added pseudo code for local allocation submitted by Brian Haberman and added him as an author. o Split Global ID values into centrally assigned and local assignments and added text to describe local assignments Draft <draft-hinden-ipv6-global-local-addr-00.txt> o Initial Draft draft-ietf-ipv6-unique-local-addr-00.txt [Page 13]


text: Bottomless Pours at Chateau Margaux by Chuck Hayward Apr 4 2012 Bottomless Pours at Chateau Margaux Post by Alex Shaw | April 2nd, 2012 Here in Bordeaux, two words inspire more reverence than any others: First Growth. Thanks to the 1855 classification system, there are only five First Growths (Lafite, Latour, Haut Brion, and Margaux, with Mouton added to the group in 1973), and they are widely considered to produce the finest wines from the Left Bank. We were lucky to taste all five on Monday, an excellent exercise that shed some light on the possibilities of the top end of the 2011 vintage. For many, including myself, the First Growth that inspires the most passion, even reverence, is Chateau Margaux, so it was with great anticipation that I looked forward to dining there that evening. View of Chateau Margaux from inside(!) the gate Many who visit Bordeaux will recognize Margaux - the chateau and the grounds were constructed 200 years ago (from 1810 to 1815), and many have gazed through the gate, 100 or so yards up the driveway, at this monumental chateau. I'd tasted the wines and toured the cellars multiple times, but the chateau, sitting majestically behind the gate, was always a thing of untouchable beauty. It would not be a stretch to call it the grandest of all the Bordeaux chateau. Margaux Director Paul Pontallier & JJ Buckley staff A chill ran down my spine as I saw the famous gate open for us. As we drove up, we were greeted by Margaux's Technical Director, Paul Pontallier, who for several decades has been in charge of making one of the world's greatest wines. Following a tour of the cellars and a tasting of Margaux's three wines: Margaux - soft, supple and complex, with classic elegance; Pavillon Rouge - the best second wine we've tasted thus far; and Pavillon Blanc - a stunning example of the heights attainable for white Bordeaux, we were led into the chateau. Walking up the massive front steps was an experience I'll never forget, and looking around at my colleagues, I knew I was not alone. The evening would prove to be unforgettable on every level. We were joined by Margaux's owner, Ms. Corinne Mentzelopoulos, and her lovely daughter Alexandra, which was rare and exciting. We dined on lobster with foie gras, rack of lamb, cheeses and sweets. And the wine…oh the wine! Dinner at Margaux We enjoyed a glass of Krug Grand Cuvee with hors d'oeuvres, then turned our attention to the wines chosen to accompany dinner: the 2001 Pavillon Blanc, 1999 Chateau Margaux, and the 1989 Chateau Margaux. They were absolutely outstanding - the Blanc had multilayered flavors of seashell and vanilla that unfolded throughout the evening. And the reds were exactly what you'd expect of Margaux: mind-blowing. The 1999, just beginning to reach maturity, was vibrant and elegant with red fruit and a silky texture. The 1989, with secondary notes of cassis and violets, was a wonderful example of how gracefully and elegantly Margaux's wines age. Tasting two vintages of a First Growth side by side is an event, but this was above and beyond. We never saw any of the actual bottles because the staff kept our glasses full. Everyone was drinking and appreciating these great wines, and as the meal went on laughter got louder, conversations became more animated, as if someone had turned up the volume in the room. Bottomless Chateau Margaux…how many times in your life does that happen! Tags 1855 classification system, 2011 bordeaux vintage, bordeaux, chateau margaux, first growths, haut brion, lafite, latour, margaux, mouton, ms. corinne mentzelopoulos, paul pontallier, pavillon blanc, pavillon rouge Share on Social Media


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Flexibility and Waivers – Dear Colleague on Local Flex in Washington – NCLB Policy Letters to States
March 8, 2004
Dear Colleague:
We are writing to encourage you to seriously consider joining Seattle Public Schools as a Local Flexibility Demonstration (Local-Flex) District. This program will enable up to 80 school districts to consolidate the funds they receive under the Teacher Quality (Title II, Part A), Educational Technology (Title II, Part D), Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities (Title IV, Part A) and Innovative Programs (Title V, Part A) under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Districts awarded Local Flex authority may use those funds for any educational activity permitted under NCLB. This flexibility is intended to help participating districts meet their State's definition of adequate yearly progress, and attain measurable goals for improving student achievement and narrowing achievement gaps.
For Seattle Public Schools, which recently became the first Local-Flex district in the nation, the flexibility offered by the program will make it possible for the district to target resources where needed to implement its long-range plans to improve academic achievement for all students, and to narrow and eliminate student achievement gaps.
Seattle Public Schools is Washington State's largest public school district, with a total enrollment of approximately 47,000 students, grades K-12, who come from many different ethnic and racial backgrounds. Like many urban districts, Seattle serves a large group of economically disadvantaged students (approximately 40% of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch). The district also serves a large number of students with disabilities and students who are English language learners (students in the Seattle Public Schools speak more than 76 languages).
The district has worked for a number of years to overcome the problem of persistent achievement gaps among the diverse groups of students it serves. In June 2001, the district and its community partners undertook a long-range planning effort to address this concern. As a result of this effort, the district has strategic goals and priorities and an action plan to implement them. The flexibility provided by the Local-Flex program has given Seattle the opportunity to integrate federal funds and other resources, and better align those resources with the vision, mission, priorities, and strategies the district has developed. The district expects that the ability to align resources with its plan will expedite implementation of the plan, which, in turn, will lead to annual increases in the number of African-American, Latino, and Native American students who meet academic standards and who graduate from high school on time. The district also anticipates increasing the number of students who re-enter regular school settings after attending alternative schools, and expects to see increasing numbers of formerly educationally disadvantaged students accepted into advanced learning programs.
For Seattle, Local Flex will facilitate efforts to meet district and State student achievement goals and ensure that students who have not succeeded in the past are better able to succeed in the future. Ultimately, the flexibility provisions under NCLB allow States and school districts to make better use of Federal resources so that all of their students, regardless of their racial, ethnic, or economic backgrounds, their national origin or their disability status, can achieve.
We hope your district will join Seattle and take advantage of the opportunities the Local-Flex authority provides to help you meet your unique challenges as you endeavor to ensure that no child is left behind.
|Raymond Simon
Assistant Secretary,
Office of Elementary and
Secondary Education
Raj Manhas
Seattle Public Schools


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Maribor Pohorje - world of adventures!
On the far headland of the Alps, where the green Pohorje met up with the playful wine growing hills and the melancholy Pannonia, you find the unique bond between city and nature, culture and sports, as well as relaxation and a driving pulse. One encounters Maribor and Pohorje - a place, where man and nature are shaping a mosaic of different experiences.
Winter fun
The travel destination Maribor - Pohorje is characterized by the rich offer and the excellent conditions for numerous winter sports and leisure activities. In addition to high quality slopes for both beginners and experienced skiers there is also a ski slope for night skiing, a walking exercise terrain, a ski school and a kindergarden in the snow, a practice area for snowboarders, a rental of sports equipment and much more offered.
The modern hotels offer a range of spa services, from saunas, massages, swimming pool with thermal water as well as fitness and yoga to special features, such as Alpine Wellness and the beneficial effects of the extraordinary energetic places in the immediate vicinity.
Recreational activities
With its extraordinary oxygen capacity and its pleasant climate provides
the green Pohorje a unique area both for relaxing and for adrenalin activities. Particularly suitable space for various forms of hiking, mountain biking and downhill riding, Nordic walking, horse riding, paragliding and other activities. However, adrenaline-seekers can choose between an alpine toboggan run, an adrenaline rush, an adrenaline toboggan run and a bike path for departures. All of this on your own or with a guide.
Together with the high quality urban sports infrastructure, the modern accommodation capacities and the corresponding sports training ground in nature, the possibility of carrying out all types of sports competitions and preparations of athletes.
In particular, skiers, football players, shooters, cyclists and athletes use the covered and other sports places, including the Olympic pool, sports halls, the ice rink, the football and athletics stadium, as well as the shooting range and feel also well on the Maribor Pohorje.
Source: www.slovenia.info/en/Turisti%C4%8Dne-destinacije/Maribor-Pohorje.htm?destinacije=178&lng=2&redirected=1
Tips för fritiden Maribor-Pohorje
Kontakt Maribor-Pohorje
TIC Maribor
Partizanska c. 6a, SI-2000 Maribor
- Telefon
- +386 2 2346611
- Fax
- +386 2 2346613
- Hemsida
- http://maribor-pohorje.si/
- firstname.lastname@example.com


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Oncidium Assorted (grower's choice)
Oncidium Assorted (grower's choice)
Hand-picked Oncidium orchid from our greenhouse. Orchid will be in-bloom, with sample photos above of what to expect.
We do not guarantee that plants will be in bloom or bud when we ship due to our plants also being available for sale in-store, but if you're looking for one in bud or bloom please email firstname.lastname@example.com and we will have a staff member check if we have any in bloom of the specific plant you are interested in.
If you are shipping your plants to a cold environment or to the East Coast during this time, please add one heat pack to your order, which can be found by searching "Heat Pack" in the search bar of our store or located below on this product page. Many of these orchids may have a more difficult time in shipping and a heat pack will greatly assist in keeping the plants warm during transit, especially if you live on the other side of the country from us here in Washington State.
We do not guarantee our plants for winter shipping, please order at your own discretion. We can hold an order until your location has warmer temps and do our best to ensure they arrive safely, but it is the buyer's responsibility to be aware of the nature of these orchids and shipping and notify us if an order needs to be held.
If you'd like to pick-up and pay in store on an order instead, we can set it aside for you if you can email or DM us on Instagram about the specific plants you'd like.
Price Includes Shipping
Price Includes Shipping
All product pricing on our website includes shipping, and all plants available on our site are available to purchase in-store.
Shipping Info
Shipping Info
Orders placed by Friday morning will get shipped out on the following Monday.
Feel free to email us and let us know if you would like your order to be delayed or shipped at a later date, and we will do our best to accomodate your request.