text:
MOUNT RAINER NATIONAL PARK, Wash. — For an hour we stared at the mountain.
Four tired hikers at the end of a long day, settling in at Klapatche Park with our freeze-dried dinners, and watching nature's version of television.
First, Mount Rainier spun a lenticular cloud and donned it like a hat. Then, slowly, the entire scene turned orange before the alpenglow faded to black.
The Wonderland Trail takes a lot out of you. It's roughly 93 miles, with more ups and downs than 21/2; trips to Rainier's summit.
But the trail gives much more than it takes. There's the postcard beauty of alpine lakes, lush meadows, thick forests and glaciers giving life to muddy rivers. The haunting serenade of bugling elk and the surprise of finding the way blocked by a black bear. The slowing of time, the separation from stress and the fulfillment of meeting the trail's challenge.
Last summer, colleagues Matt Misterek and Drew Perine, Graham firefighter Thad Richardson and I spent eight days wandering Rainier's Wonderland. It's a trip about 820 people attempt each summer (by comparison, about 10,000 try to summit the mountain), most giving themselves 10-12 days while hiking clockwise from Longmire. We went counterclockwise from the White River Campground and by the time we finished, having looked into the mountain's many faces, we were somehow simultaneously exhausted and invigorated — another of the trail's wonders.
DAY 1: White River to Granite Creek — 7.7 miles, 2,700 vertical feet
If Mount Rainier had a heart, its EKG printout would look like the elevation profile of the Wonderland Trail — ups, downs and hardly anything flat.
Of course, if the mountain had a heart, it wouldn't have made its iconic trail so challenging.
I decided the best way to take on the Wonderland was to ease into it. So at 11 a.m. on Sept. 11, we set out with packs weighing from 38-48 pounds and climbed upward through the trees from White River to Sunrise.
By the time we reached the foot of Skyscraper Mountain, we realized the first night was going to be colder than we expected. Contrasting the sunny forecasts we'd read, hikers told us they were pelted by hail the previous night.
DAY 2: Granite Creek to Cataract Valley — 11 miles, 2,825 vertical feet
The hiking got more challenging on Day 2, but we were rewarded with a short break on the bank of Mystic Lake and a beautiful downhill stroll through Moraine Park.
Along the way we met a team of trail runners with packs smaller than those used by most schoolchildren. They were running the Wonderland in four days with a well-stocked support crew waiting for them at the trailheads.
We heard they ate like kings, had masseuses, and slept on big, comfy air mattresses. But we were hardly jealous that night when we arrived at Cataract Valley — "A sight for sore eyes," Matt said — and found ourselves all alone.
DAY 3: Cataract Valley to South Mowich River — 11 miles, 1,810 vertical feet
The Spray Park route adds about 700 feet of climbing to the standard Wonderland route, but rewards hikers with an up-close view of the mountain and a sea of wildflowers. At an elevation of 6,400 feet, this route required crossing two snowfields, even in mid-September.
DAY 4: South Mowich River to Klapatche Park — 14.5 miles, 4,360 vertical feet
The fourth day might have been our most memorable.
Starting at first light allowed us to climb 2,000 vertical feet over 41/2; miles before breakfast. Atop this foothill, the trail flattened and rewarded us with a bounty of huckleberries. Our pace slowed dramatically as we feasted and hoped for a glimpse of a bear. It seemed every hiker we talked to on the trail saw bears here.
We were ready. Our plan for scaring away bears that got too close was to click our trekking poles together and crank up the volume on an ongoing debate: Which "Rocky" opponent would win in a fight, Ivan Drago or Clubber Lang?
It must have worked, because we didn't see anything. Instead, we settled for gathering around ranger Paul Harrington on the porch of the Golden Lakes ranger station and listening to his stories about wildlife encounters.
By lunch we'd descended to the North Puyallup River, where a thunderous waterfall plunged under a bridge. We rested on the rocks above the falls, re-energizing for the final push to Klapatche Park.
DAY 5: Klapatche Park to Pyramid Creek — 13.2 miles, 2,000 vertical feet
When you encounter a fellow Wonderland hiker — on the trail or off — one of the first questions inevitably is "How long are you taking?"
On Day 5 we met a couple attempting a 24-hour trip and college students taking the maximum 14 days.
Fast or slow, pace can be a point of trail snobbery. It takes hardly any effort to find messages online from slow hikers chastising trail runners for going too fast to appreciate the mountain's beauty.
A Wonderland veteran even told me before we left we needed to add at least five days to our itinerary. As if it was just that easy for four people to carve two weeks out of their schedules. Even still, it was hard to miss an undercurrent of "you guys could go faster if you packed better" when talking with some ultralight speedsters.
DAY 6: Pyramid Creek to Maple Creek — 13.7 miles, 2,215 vertical feet
We finished the 31/2;-mile trek to Longmire by 8:30 a.m., but arrived with mixed emotions. My wife, kids and dog met us with warm pulled-pork sandwiches, cookies and fresh supplies for the final push. But Drew's work schedule meant he was going home early.
Losing Drew was even more disappointing than the bad news I got while looking through the resupply bin. When I looked up, I noticed my wife, Kristen, was wearing her unmistakable "oops" expression.
It seemed somebody else (who will remain nameless because she also sent along the pulled pork sandwiches) accidently removed all my food for the final leg.
Thad and Matt gave me some of their extras and I took Drew's leftovers, but only the ones I was certain hadn't been used as a mouse toilet.
After our goodbyes, we spent the rest of the day walking across the south face of the mountain. While this is one of the easiest and most visited stretches of the Wonderland, it was still memorable.
DAY 7: Maple Creek to Indian Bar — 9.8 miles, 3,330 vertical feet
Even after seven days on the mountain, Mount Rainier can still blow your mind .
Before noon, we'd made the long climb up the Cowlitz Divide and were greeted by the bugle calls of elk and the smell of smoke from a nearby forest fire. But as we descended to Indian Bar, the mountain once again dominated the horizon and we slowed, admiring its grandeur as if we'd just stepped off a plane from Florida.
We arrived at Indian Bar early and soaked our feet in the creek before relaxing in front of an old shelter.
That night we relished our last trail dinner. I bummed eggs from Thad and tortillas from Matt. Thad sprinkled bacon bits over ramen. And we took great pleasure needling Matt for his meal.
Matt — who Drew dubbed a "trail culinary genius" for meals like pizza, hard-boiled eggs and clams — had finally stooped to our level with a dinner of mashed potatoes and Pop Tarts.
As we ate, the joking reverted to an old subject.
"You know, if we get up early enough we could finish in less than a week," one of us said. "We'd be one in a million."
For some reason, we decided to try this.
DAY 8: Indian Bar to White River — 10.3 miles, 2,200 vertical feet
We woke up at 4:30 a.m. and almost immediately blew our halfhearted attempt to finish by 11. Using headlamps to light the way we quickly ran into a damaged section of trail. We spent about 15 minutes fanned out in a dry creek bed trying to find our way. We were about to stop and wait for sunrise when Matt found the path.
It wouldn't be our only delay. Below Panhandle Gap, the highest point on the trail, we stopped to enjoy the sunrise. On the north side of the gap we stopped for breakfast. And we paused once more at the always bustling Summerland camp.
At Summerland, even with its green meadows tempting us to linger, it was as if we could smell the finish line. Even hindered by a sore knee, Thad led a final 6.9-mile push that took about two hours even with one last stop to filter water.
The entire circuit took 1 week, 25 minutes, 49 seconds. Hardly one-in-a-million pace, but definitely a one-in-a-million trip.
Wonderland Trail: hard hike with stunning rewards
MOUNT RAINER NATIONAL PARK, Wash. — For an hour we stared at the mountain.


text:
New Delhi: CBI has registered a case to probe alleged irregularities in the construction of a high-end mall in Indore, including the role of then Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh.
CBI sources said the agency acted on the orders of Indore Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court which had directed it to probe "roles of senior officials, the then Chief Minister, and Chief Secretary, and environment minister" among others.
The case relates to allegations that the mall was illegally built on a residential plot of one lakh square feet, with undue concessions from the then state government under Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, Congress General Secretary at present.
In its order on October 19, Division Bench of Justices P K Jaisawal and Moolchand Garg had directed the CBI to probe the matter and report back in six months.
The Bench gave the direction on a plea by social activist Mahesh Garg who had filed a complaint with the state Economic Offences Wing in 2009 which had given a clean-chit to Singh.
Soon after the court order, Singh had welcomed the probe and posted on social networking website twitter that "permission was given for it (mall) during my tenure as Chief Minister. The BJP government`s Economic Offences Wing has already investigated the matter and found nothing against me."
The EOW had filed FIR against Entertainment World Developers Pvt Ltd, which constructed `Treasure Island` mall in a joint venture with Madhya Pradesh Housing Board in 2002, and probed 12 other accused officials and ministers, including Digvijay Singh.
It later filed a closure report giving clean chit to Singh, while saying there was a case against six others including the developers.
After the closure report, Garg filed a PIL in the High Court which has now given the case to CBI.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Ditto what sonogirl said. I also have a high needs child and my life would have been absolute hell had i tried to achieve the parenting books' normal. I never expected his sleep pattern to stay stable. It changed every few weeks depending on teeth, illness, and developmental milestones. I think he did have a wiggly phase around 4-5 right before he started crawling. He had a great patch at 8 months with a 12 hour sleep once! Verbal milestones from 12-18 months caused the worst night waking. I did find early on that ds is sensitive to his sleep environment. He gets hot easily and dislikes wearing clothes. I remember him waking every 20 minutes to nurse one night until I realized he still had his socks on. Took those off and he slept for a few hours. I enjoyed Dr Sears' The Baby Sleep Book as it doesn't promote a one size fits all solution.
Thanks girls!
I guess it's no so much the frequent waking but the fact that LO acts like something is bothering her - she's grunting and pulling her legs up and takes a while to settle.
I gave her a bit of paracetamol the last two nights and it didn't improve things, so maybe it's not teething?
Will ask the doctor to check her ears tomorrow as she continues to scratch the sides of her head/her ears.
Okay, good luck!
Apologies for the short responses! I'm usually responding one-handed on my smartphone!
I just posted a new thread similar to this as our baby as been waking more and more regularly with what seems like wind thrashing since he was about 7 weeks- he's now 4 months and we're waking on average 5 times a night. We also co-sleep, which started out brilliantly for night feeds, but now he won't latch on easily. He's fussy feeding in the day now too- may the 'four month fussies'?. butt that doesn't explain the nights.
I'm feeling your pain as well. Really trying to decide what his needs are and what we r making habits.
Sometimes feeling like I'm creating a monster at night. And other times feeling like the best mom in the world for making it through another night of every hour wakings. Baby boy, born aug/2013 ebf.
Your baby 's need to nurse at night is very real. Check the link above and this one http://kellymom.com/parenting/nighttime/sleep/ for a realistic look at infant/toddler/preschooler sleep. It's hard to maintain faith that your child will outgrow night waking when society has such a fear based parenting culture. Do what you can to facilitate sleep for your whole family: teething remedies, limit tv and other stimulating activities in the evenings, a simple bedtime routine with young babies, nap with baby when possible, go to sleep at the same time as baby, experiment with room temperature/baby's pajamas/white noise or fan. And then trust your baby to know what they need.


text:
Markup Streams
A stream is the common representation of markup as a stream of events.
1 Basics
A stream can be attained in a number of ways. It can be:
- the result of parsing XML or HTML text, or
- programmatically generated, or
- the result of selecting a subset of another stream filtered by an XPath expression.
For example, the functions XML() and HTML() can be used to convert literal XML or HTML text to a markup stream:
>>> from genshi import XML >>> stream = XML('
Some text and ' ... 'a link.' ... '

') >>> stream <genshi.core.Stream object at 0x6bef0>
The stream is the result of parsing the text into events. Each event is a tuple of the form (kind, data, pos), where:
- kind defines what kind of event it is (such as the start of an element, text, a comment, etc).
- data is the actual data associated with the event. How this looks depends on the event kind.
- pos is a (filename, lineno, column) tuple that describes where the event "comes from".
>>> for kind, data, pos in stream: ... print kind, `data`, pos ... START (u'p', [(u'class', u'intro')]) ('<string>', 1, 0) TEXT u'Some text and ' ('<string>', 1, 31) START (u'a', [(u'href', u'http://example.org/')]) ('<string>', 1, 31) TEXT u'a link' ('<string>', 1, 67) END u'a' ('<string>', 1, 67) TEXT u'.' ('<string>', 1, 72) START (u'br', []) ('<string>', 1, 72) END u'br' ('<string>', 1, 77) END u'p' ('<string>', 1, 77)
2 Filtering
One important feature of markup streams is that you can apply filters to the stream, either filters that come with Genshi, or your own custom filters.
A filter is simply a callable that accepts the stream as parameter, and returns the filtered stream:
def noop(stream): """A filter that doesn't actually do anything with the stream.""" for kind, data, pos in stream: yield kind, data, pos
Filters can be applied in a number of ways. The simplest is to just call the filter directly:
stream = noop(stream)
The Stream class also provides a filter() method, which takes an arbitrary number of filter callables and applies them all:
stream = stream.filter(noop)
Finally, filters can also be applied using the bitwise or operator (|), which allows a syntax similar to pipes on Unix shells:
stream = stream | noop
One example of a filter included with Genshi is the HTMLSanitizer in genshi.filters. It processes a stream of HTML markup, and strips out any potentially dangerous constructs, such as Javascript event handlers. HTMLSanitizer is not a function, but rather a class that implements __call__, which means instances of the class are callable.
Both the filter() method and the pipe operator allow easy chaining of filters:
from genshi.filters import HTMLSanitizer stream = stream.filter(noop, HTMLSanitizer())
That is equivalent to:
stream = stream | noop | HTMLSanitizer()
3 Serialization
The Stream class provides two methods for serializing this list of events: serialize() and render(). The former is a generator that yields chunks of Markup objects (which are basically unicode strings that are considered safe for output on the web). The latter returns a single string, by default UTF-8 encoded.
Here's the output from serialize():
>>> for output in stream.serialize(): ... print `output` ... <Markup u'
'> <Markup u'Some text and '> <Markup u''> <Markup u'a link'> <Markup u''> <Markup u'.'> <Markup u'
'> <Markup u'
'>
And here's the output from render():
>>> print stream.render()
Some text and a link.

Both methods can be passed a method parameter that determines how exactly the events are serialzed to text. This parameter can be either "xml" (the default), "xhtml", "html", "text", or a custom serializer class:
>>> print stream.render('html')
Some text and a link.

Note how the
 element isn't closed, which is the right thing to do for HTML.
In addition, the render() method takes an encoding parameter, which defaults to "UTF-8". If set to None, the result will be a unicode string.
The different serializer classes in genshi.output can also be used directly:
>>> from genshi.filters import HTMLSanitizer >>> from genshi.output import TextSerializer >>> print TextSerializer()(HTMLSanitizer()(stream)) Some text and a link.
The pipe operator allows a nicer syntax:
>>> print stream | HTMLSanitizer() | TextSerializer() Some text and a link.
4 Using XPath
XPath can be used to extract a specific subset of the stream via the select() method:
>>> substream = stream.select('a') >>> substream <genshi.core.Stream object at 0x7118b0> >>> print substream a link
Often, streams cannot be reused: in the above example, the sub-stream is based on a generator. Once it has been serialized, it will have been fully consumed, and cannot be rendered again. To work around this, you can wrap such a stream in a list:
>>> from genshi import Stream >>> substream = Stream(list(stream.select('a'))) >>> substream <genshi.core.Stream object at 0x7118b0> >>> print substream a link >>> print substream.select('@href') http://example.org/ >>> print substream.select('text()') a link
See also: genshi.core, Documentation


text:
SWAN VALLEY, Idaho — Concerned that a dry winter could yield too little water to adequately support late-season power generation, the Bureau of Reclamation has decreased flows below Palisades Reservoir.
The decision to reduce flows from 1,200 cubic feet per second to 900 cfs, effective Jan. 5, was welcome news to many Upper Snake River irrigation managers, who had repeatedly requested such a change to preserve future water delivery options.
Roland Springer, manager of reclamations with the bureau's Upper Snake Field Office, explained other irrigators in the Magic Valley supported 1,200 cfs flows as a means of maximizing winter power production and limiting their pumping costs.
Electricity marketed by Bonneville Power Administration from the bureau's 176-megawatt Palisades hydropower plant helps the agency defray reservoir management costs, and the savings is passed on to storage holders. During the irrigation season, releases typically exceed the capacity of the turbines, leading to a lost opportunity to produce power.
In defense of maintaining 1,200 cfs flows until now, Springer said there's ample storage space downstream in American Falls Reservoir, which is 59 percent full. He said models show there's little chance that American Falls will fill and lead to wasted water to free more storage space. American Falls was built earlier than Palisades and has a senior priority date, but a large volume of American Falls storage rights are kept in Palisades for greater flexibility.
The Upper Snake snowpack is now at about 92 percent of normal, and Palisades is 24 percent full. Though Springer said there's little chance that Palisades will drain low enough to impair power production, he said the bureau ultimately agreed to the reduction to ensure it can meet its regional power requirements late in the season. He said 900 cfs is the minimum amount required to protect fish populations.
"We know it's a drought year and we know we have to conserve water, and we're doing that," Springer said, adding irrigation is the bureau's top priority.
Springer said the bureau began hearing concerns from irrigators about the 1,200 cfs flows in November and shared its logic and analysis with them at an annual meeting during the second week of December. He said some members of the Committee of Nine, an oversight committee representing irrigation interests in Water District 1, requested decreased flows.
Lyle Swank, watermaster over Water District 1, said he, too, encouraged a reduction in flows to retain sufficient upstream water for deliveries.
"Even if American Falls isn't clear full, you still may want to have water upstream to run through canals between American Falls and Palisades," Swank said. "Sometimes it's just good to be able to preserve your options."
Steve Howser, general manager of Aberdeen-Springfield Canal Co., said 900 cfs is the "most I would feel comfortable with in a drought year like this."
"It makes more sense to keep storage water as high in the system as possible," Howser said. "That means storing American Falls water in Palisades until the end of the season."


text:
Library Hours
Monday, Tuesday & Thursday 9 a.m.-7 p.m.
Wednesday and Friday 9 a.m.-6 p.m.
Saturday 9 am – 3 pm
Summer Reading Events
June 11 — Superhero Movie — 2-5 p.m.
(ages 6-12) No sign up! Children under 12 need adult supervision.
June 15 — Making Superhero Mask
1-3 p.m. — Call to sign up. Only 20 spots open.
864-427-7140 ext. 302
June 16 — Making Mason Jar Superhero Banks
10 a.m.-12 p.m. — Please call to sign up.
Only 15 spots open. 427-7140-ext. 302
June 23 — Teen Event — Making Comic Book Magnets
1-3 p.m. — Please call to sign up.
Only 10 spots open 864-427-7140 ext. 302
July 8 — Preschool Superhero Training Camp
2-4 p.m.
No sign up! Children under 12 need adult supervision.
July 13 — Ronald McDonald
3 p.m. — No sign up! Children under 12 need adult supervision.
July 16 — Superhero Family Night
4-6 p.m. (Dress like your favorite Superhero) — Prizes
July 20 — Draw Your Own Superhero
4-6 p.m. — No sign up! Children under 12 need adult supervision.
July 30 — Grand Finale — End of Summer Reading Superhero Party
4-6 p.m. — Prizes, snacks, and Fun!! Wear the costumes you made! No sign up!
Children under 12 need adult supervision!
Community Superheroes
June 18 — Union County Sheriff 2-4 p.m.
July 15 — Spartanburg Regional One 10-12p.m.
Kids Make Comics! With Dave McDonald
Registration Required Ages 8-13 Only
Tuesday, July 21 10-11 a.m.
864-427-7140, ext. 302
Adult Summer Reading
Read or listen to any book of your choice June 2-July 22
Fill out entry form and return to the library
Drawings will be held once a week on Wednesday's until July 22
Grand Prize Drawing — Adult Summer Reading Finale July 23 4-5 p.m.
New Books
(Available 6/10/15)
Adult Fiction
Finders Keepers by Stephen King
14th Deadly Sin by James Patterson
Adult Non-Fiction
The World Almanac 2015
A Death On Diamond Mountain by Scott Carney
Bill O'Reilly's Legends & Lies : The Real West by David Fisher
Being Mortal: Medicine And What Matters In The End by Atul Gawande
The Pope And Mussolini by David I. Kertzer
Missoula by Jon Krakauer
Crime Seen by Kate Lines
Blood Runs Green by Gillian O'Brien
Hissing Cousins by Marc N. Peyser
My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me by Jennifer Teege
The Wright Brothers by David G. McCullough
Teen/Young Adult Fiction
Infamous by Sherrilyn Kenyon
There's A Nightmare In My Closet by Mercer Mayer


text:
The Fairmont State men's and women's basketball teams held its first-ever "Fan Fest" during Homecoming. Students and fans took their first look at the 2012-13 squads including previews from Coach Steve McDonald and Coach Jerrod Calhoun.
The night included a dunk contest, three-point shootout, mini-scrimmages, autograph sessions with players and coaches and a student/fan zombie contest.


text:
PHOENIX—An ex-convict who police say killed two people before engaging in a gunbattle with authorities on a Phoenix-area freeway was paroled from a Colorado prison in October after serving 4 1/2 years of a roughly six-year sentence on charges that included punching a sheriff's deputy in the face.
Andrew J. Rael, 25, died about 3:30 a.m. Monday after leading police on a 30-minute chase on Interstate 10 across much of the Phoenix area.
Department of Public Safety officers, who joined in the pursuit, used tire-puncturing strips to stop Rael's car, authorities said.
Rael immediately exited his vehicle and opened fire on authorities with a semi-automatic rifle before being shot and killed, DPS spokesman Bart Graves said Tuesday.
"It was over pretty quickly. We spike-stripped him. He came out of the vehicle shooting at us, and we returned fire and killed him," Graves said.
Rael was paroled from a Colorado prison Oct. 29 after serving about 4 1/2 years. He did not get early release, but instead earned credit toward his sentence while incarcerated, said Mary Carlson, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Corrections.
Rael was granted permission to serve his parole in his native Arizona, where authorities said he had been in full compliance.
Before the shootings Sunday and Monday, "he had no police contact, no reports of drug use, and he had at least part-time work as a landscaper," Arizona Department of Corrections spokesman Doug Nick said Tuesday. "He reported every month, never missed."
Rael was imprisoned in Colorado after pleading guilty to several charges stemming from crimes in 2007 and 2008, including at least two assaults, one on a law enforcement officer, according to court officials.
"He punched a deputy in the face," Sgt. Joe Roybal of the El Paso County Sheriff's Office said Tuesday.
Meanwhile, authorities in Arizona say Rael killed a tow-truck driver Sunday and a convenience-store employee early the next morning before leading police on the chase that led to his death.
Michael Psalidas, 49, was fatally shot outside an auto-repair business in Buckeye. Rael and Psalidas reportedly argued about a payment before the shooting, police said.
A few hours later, early Monday morning, Glendale police say Rael shot convenience store clerk Daniel Scott White, 26, following an argument outside the shop. White died later at a hospital from several gunshot wounds.
The investigations into both shootings remain ongoing.


text:
Creating Outlook Protection RulesAlthough Exchange 2010 has powerful IRM features, there's always the concern that a user might send a sensitive email message that's unprotected (e.g., over a public network) until it reaches your Exchange 2010 server and is detected and processed by a Transport Rule. In large organizations, where many sensitive email messages are sent, you might not want to rely on the use of Transport Rules because heavy use can affect performance.
Transport Rules have numerous potential performance problems, ranging from rules that require in-depth analysis of email and attachments, to the actions that must be performed when a rule fires (such as encrypting an email and attachments). The potential performance effect depends on the type of rules, the actions that must be performed, and how often they fire (typically tied to mail volume).
Depending on compliance obligations, your company might need to encrypt certain types of data, including email messages with information about customers, before transmitting it from a desktop or laptop. In addition, you might not have Exchange 2010 fully deployed yet, meaning you can't take advantage of IRM features in Exchange 2010 Transport Rules. For all these reasons, you should consider using the new IRM feature in Outlook 2010 called Outlook protection rules.
Outlook protection rules aren't as sophisticated as Transport Rules and are limited to applying rights protection to email messages based on one or more of the following three criteria: the department or group the sender of the email message is in; the recipient email address; and the scope of the email message (whether the recipients are inside or outside the organization). The protection rules are created on your Exchange 2010 servers using PowerShell scripts. You need Exchange 2010 deployed sufficiently so that rules can be distributed to Outlook 2010 by using Exchange web services.
Outlook protection rules are based on rights policy templates. You need to create these templates on your Active Directory (AD) Rights Management Services (RMS) servers. If you already have existing templates that will apply the policies you need, then you can reuse them. You can enumerate the list of templates available from the Exchange Management Shell (EMS) using the command Get-RMSTemplate. The list returned will always contain the default template named Do Not Forward. You need to be careful, though, when creating or using existing templates because it's possible to create an Outlook protection rule that specifies a particular template be used with a set of users and rights that will render rights-protected email messages unreadable by recipients or might allow recipients to forward the email messages or even print them. Always check the rights specified in a template before using it.
You might find it simpler to create new templates that specify Anyone as a consumer of rights-protected content, rather than specific named users, and ensure that the right to forward an email message isn't selected in those templates. This configuration will ensure that all users can read an email message they receive that was rights protected by an Outlook protection rule but can't forward the email message to anyone else.
After you have your rights policy templates set up, you create your Outlook protection rules using the New-OutlookProtectionRule cmdlet in the EMS. You can't create Outlook protection rules using the Exchange Management Console (EMC) or Exchange Control Panel (ECP). There are only two required parameters to the cmdlet. The first is the name of the Outlook protection rule and is specified by the argument -Name <rule name>. You'll use the rule name to manage the Outlook protection rule. The second required parameter is the name of the rights policy template and is specified by the argument -ApplyRightsProtectionTemplate <rights policy template>. In addition to specifying the rule name and rights policy template to be applied, you need to specify the conditions under which the rule will be applied.
To specify that a rule is applied when the sender is from a particular department, use the -FromDepartment <department name> argument, where <department name> is one or more departments that the rule should apply to. The argument <department name> is checked against the department attribute on the user object corresponding to the user sending the email message to see if a match exists and whether or not the rule should apply. You can set users' departments by editing the Department field on the Organization tab of one or more users' Properties dialog box, which can be viewed in the EMC or in the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in.
To apply a rule based on the recipient, use the -SentTo <recipient name> argument. The <recipient name> parameter can be the names of one or more recipients in Outlook's address book and can be one or more SMTP addresses (which are typically used for external recipients). Note that if you create a rule that specifies a distribution or mail-enabled security group, the rule won't apply when an email message is sent to one or more members of the group without using the group name. The rule will apply only when the group name specified in the rule matches a recipient on the To:, Cc:, or Bcc: lines in Outlook.
The condition you can specify is the scope of recipients, using -SentToScope <scope>. The two possible values for <scope> include InOrganization and All. InOrganization specifies that the rule applies when the recipients are internal to the organization; All specifies that the rule applies regardless of who the recipient is. Although this rule can be used on its own, it's typically used as a modifier to either or both of the previous two rules.
If you create many Outlook protection rules, you might end up with two or more rules that apply based on the department the sender is in, the intended recipient(s) of the email message, and the scope of the recipient(s). You can control the order in which rules apply by using the argument -Priority <n>, where n is a number. The default priority is 0. Rules with lower priorities are checked first. When a rule match is found, the specified template is applied, and processing stops. When a rule is matched and a template is applied, the user can choose to override the Outlook protection rule. To prevent a user from overriding a rule, and to force a template to be applied, you can supply the argument -UserCanOverride $false.
The following command creates an Outlook protection rule that applies the rights policy template FTE Only to all email messages sent to the distribution group InfoSec Research FTE and that can be overridden by the sender:
New-OutlookProtectionRule -Name "InfoSec Research FTE - FTE Only" -ApplyRightsProtectionTemplate "FTE Only" -SentTo "InfoSec Research FTE"
You can enumerate the Outlook protection rules on your systems from the EMS with the cmdlet Get-OutlookProtectionRule. Rules can be enabled and disabled by using the cmdlets Enable-OutlookProtectionRule and Disable-OutlookProtectionRule and can be deleted with the cmdlet Remove-OutlookProtectionRule. All four cmdlets let you specify the rule with the argument -Identity <rule name>. Finally, a rule can be modified using Set-OutlookProtectionRule, specifying the rule to modify using the -Identity parameter. The other parameters accepted by this cmdlet are identical to those used in New-OutlookProtectionRule.
Configuring End Users' Systems for Outlook Protection Rules
Before templates specified in Outlook protection rules can be applied to email messages, the rights policy templates specified must be available to Outlook. The built-in template Do No Forward is always available, and any Outlook protection rules that use that template will work without any configuration of end users' systems.
Rights policy templates are XML files; it's common to configure AD RMS to store them on a central file share and to configure Microsoft Office applications to point to the file share so that these templates are available to users. An alternative is to copy the templates to users' machines and configure Office applications to access them on a local drive.
Prior to Windows Vista, distributing rights policy templates meant periodically running a custom script or application to copy templates from a central share. However, in Vista and later, as well as in Windows Server 2008 and later, built-in Task Scheduler templates work with AD RMS to download rights policy templates, as Figure 1 shows.
The first template is intended to be used by domain-joined end user systems; it runs at a preset time (3:00 a.m.) and when a user logs on. The second template is intended to be used on systems that aren't domain joined; it requires you to override the EnterprisePublishing registry entry used by non-domain-joined AD RMS clients.
Each task, when run, checks to see whether the user has obtained templates in the past 30 days or more. If so, the task contacts the AD RMS infrastructure to obtain rights policy templates. It can take as long as an hour after a user logs on to a system for the scheduled task to run, as well as to copy templates, if required. The templates are stored in the folder \%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\DRM\Templates. The folder \%LocalAppData% is mapped to the folder \AppData\Local in each user's profile folder, which is typically C:\Users\<username>. If you change templates frequently and need the tasks to fetch templates more often than every 30 days, you can create a DWORD registry entry called UpdateFrequency under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSDRM\TemplateManagement registry entry. The value of the registry entry is the number of days that should elapse before checking for new, changed, or deleted templates.
Configuring the Task Scheduler on each end user's machine to download rights policy templates probably isn't feasible for your organization if you have several end user systems. Instead, you can use an alternative method, such as a network share configured as an offline folder on the client. Another alternative is to run a logon script to copy templates, as you probably did pre-Vista.
Regardless of how you distribute templates to end users' systems, you need to set a per-user registry entry to configure Microsoft Office 2010 to find the templates. This registry entry is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Common\DRM for 32-bit editions of Office 2010 running on 32-bit editions of Windows and 64-bit editions of Office 2010 running on 64-bit editions of Windows. For 32-bit editions of Office 2010 running on 64-bit editions of Windows (which is the default when installing Office 2010 on a 64-bit edition of Windows), the registry entry is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Common\DRM. The registry entry is AdminTemplatePath, and the entry type is Expandable String Value.
You don't need to visit each of your end users' systems to configure the correct registry entry if you download and install the Office 2010 Administrative Template files and Office Customization Tool. The download includes various templates that can be used to create Group Policy Objects (GPOs) that can control many aspects of Office 2010, including where it searches for rights policy templates. Make sure you download the correct pack—there are packs for the 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Office 2010.
To configure the AdminTemplatePath setting for your end users by using a Group Policy setting, download and install the administrative templates (under the ADMX folder) to C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions or to the Group Policy central store. Alternatively, you can manually add the file office14.adm template to the Group Policy Management Editor. Create a new GPO, open it for editing, and navigate to \User Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\Microsoft Office 2010 (there's a node for legacy administrative templates above the last node if you use the ADM file). Select the node Manage Restricted Permissions, then double-click Specify Permission Policy Path in the right-hand pane. In the Specify Permission Policy Path dialog box, select Enabled and enter the path to the rights policy templates, as Figure 2 shows.
If you're using Offline Folders, this folder will be shared. If you're copying files to end users' machines, the templates will be stored in this folder. After the GPO is created, link it to an organizational unit (OU) that your users are in.
A large gotcha when using GPOs to set the AdminTemplatePath setting for use by Office applications is that the registry entry is fixed as a REG_SZ type, which means you can't use a variable such as %LocalAppData% when specifying the location of the rights policy templates—which pretty much precludes using a GPO to point to the Templates folder populated by the Task Scheduler. For this reason, I recommend setting AdminTemplatePath to the file share where RMS templates are stored and configuring administratively assigned offline files (under \User Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\Network\Offline Files) to add the location of the share where the templates are stored in the same GPO. This configuration ensures that the most recent templates are available to end users (without waiting for the Task Scheduler to pick them up) and available offline for laptop users when they disconnect from the network.
You can test the availability of templates to Outlook 2010 by logging on as a user who has AdminTemplatePath GPO settings, creating a new email message, and selecting the Permission drop-down on the Options tab, as Figure 3 shows. If templates are available, they're listed between Do Not Forward and Manage Credentials.
End User Experience with Outlook Protection Rules
The end user experience with Outlook protection rules is seamless. When an email message matches one of the Outlook protection rules' specified conditions, the appropriate rights policy template is applied to the email message and a visual cue is presented, as Figure 4 shows. Unless the rule specifies that the user can't override the rights policy template, the user can select the Permission drop-down on the message's Options tab and select No Restrictions. (The rights policy template that was applied to the message will have a checkmark next to it, as Figure 5 shows.)
One thing Outlook protection rules can't do is prevent end users from sending sensitive email messages without protection when using a browser, OWA, or a mobile device. You should therefore consider using Outlook protection rules in conjunction with Exchange 2010 Transport Rules to create a complementary IRM strategy. You can also prevent users with desktops and laptops from using OWA to send email messages, to ensure that Outlook protection rules aren't bypassed.
Extend Your Protection
Outlook protection rules let you extend protection of sensitive information to the desktop and can help you meet specific compliance obligations. They complement Exchange 2010's Transport Rules nicely, and they can even be used to do away with the need for some Transport Rules, which helps offload processing from your Exchange 2010 infrastructure.


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TAG | obamacare
The Affordable Care Act: Yet another way of proving that there is no such thing as a free lunch
0 Comments | Posted by gimme-five in Econ, Health, Politics
One of the most important things I have learned is that every choice we make in life has costs and benefits. If I use my only $5 to purchase a latte, I give up the ability to purchase something else with the $5. It's an elementary principle, but somehow we forget it when we talk about big-picture things.
The Affordable Care Act is an example of this basic lesson. A simplified version of the argument for the ACA is that the President and his supporters wanted to ensure that everyone was covered by health insurance, and that being old or sick would not cause one's putative insurance rates to be so high that he could not afford to purchase insurance. The ACA also redistributes money to the poor and lower middle class so that they can purchase health insurance for free or at a discounted rate.
By itself, this idea sounds great. No one, except the most partisan, could argue that it would be a good thing if, all else equal, all those who currently don't have the opportunity to purchase affordable health insurance magically had the opportunity to purchase affordable coverage that they desired.
Unfortunately, it's not that simple, because things cost money. To pay for the benefit of expanding coverage, which costs money, we have to find a source of revenue. The ACA's proponents have claimed that this revenue will come from people buying into the health insurance system who otherwise would not have done so, and the money from those individuals being redistributed to benefit the poor, old, and sick. The ideal situation, according to the ACA's proponents, is that lots of young, healthy individuals will buy in to the system. The unspoken logic is that such individuals will effectively pay the way for others have affordable healthcare coverage. The ACA's proponents also believe that the new law will result in some limited efficiency gains, such as lowering dependence on emergency room visits by substituting preventative care, though no one seriously contends that these efficiency gains pay for the bulk of the cost (and it's up for debate whether the law actually makes insurance less efficient). That's why the ACA includes the individual mandate, which requires individuals to purchase insurance or pay a penalty. And that's also why the ACA makes illegal insurance policies that provide "sufficient" coverage. The point is to require the young and healthy to buy in, and to pay not only for insurance coverage they think they'll use, but intentionally to get them to pay for insurance coverage they almost certainly won't use, so that this coverage will be cheaper for the law's beneficiaries.
To put it another way, because the bulk of the cost must be paid for the young and healthy, they, as a group, are the "losers" of the ACA, whereas the old, poor, and sick are the "winners." The cost that can't be paid for by the young and healthy will be paid for through increased premiums, so to the extent one's insurance premiums go up, one is also a "loser" whose costs are distributed to the law's "winners." (Additionally, to the extent the law leads to increased taxes, those paying the taxes are also "losers.")
Moreover, for the reasons discussed above, no one can seriously contend that the ACA is "free." That is, if we're going to expand health insurance coverage, it's going to cost a positive dollar amount. Given the number of uninsured and seniors (e.g. baby boomers) in this country, this will be a substantial dollar amount.
Therefore, in arguing over whether the ACA is good policy, the question is not simply whether you believe that it is good that everyone has health insurance, or whether you believe that we should spend less. This is not the question because for every story about a family who is able to buy health insurance at a lower rate, there is a story about a family that must cut back because they have to pay a higher rate. The question instead is whether the expansion is worth the cost and redistribution of wealth. For a number of reasons, I have my doubts that it is. For example:
- Why are we redistributing even more wealth from the young to the old? The old in the US consume so many resources, have the benefit of social security (which may not be around for the young), and have passed the buck of the nation's crippling debt onto the young. Moreover, a huge percentage of the old in the country have not saved for retirement and will likely need to be "bailed out" using the resources of the young.
- Why won't the ACA's proponents frame the issue of the ACA as the trade off that I have labeled it here? They speak as if the law will cause no one to pay a single penny more. But as we've learned from the President's embarrassing about-face instructing insurers that he won't enforce the part of the ACA that required them to cancel plans that were not deemed sufficient by the law (which is plainly unconstitutional and practically a disaster), the law clearly is a trade off.
- So far, we've heard far more about "losers" than "winners" in the news; that is, we haven't heard many stories about people or families saving money, but we've heard lots about insurance rates going through the roof. Particularly embarrassing for the President was using an anecdote of a woman who thought she had saved money under the ACA, but then learned the rate that she was originally offered was a computer error and her true price was far higher.
- Many of the uninsured who have pre-existing conditions today were once young and healthy, and chose not to purchase insurance when they were younger. They took the benefit of not buying insurance (saving money) when they were young, and bore the risk that they might be unable to purchase affordable coverage if they developed a health condition while uninsured. Under the ACA, however, they are bailed out of the consequences of their risk, on the backs of the present young and healthy who no longer get to make the same choice. This is simply a wealth transfer from young to old.
This doesn't mean that the concept of expanding health insurance coverage is a bad thing. Perhaps to you, you believe that the concept of universal health insurance is so valuable that it is priceless, which justifies your belief that the benefit is worth the cost. (Though I would disagree that anything is "priceless," and would ask why the burden should be on the young and healthy to fund your belief.)
What is to be done about this? I don't agree with the tactics of the Tea Party to threaten the apocalypse if the ACA is not repealed. But I do think that the President needs to be more flexible in discussing substantial modifications to the ACA. The law is not a panacea, and should never have been marketed that way. I would be interested in seeing amendments that, for example, place heavier burdens on well-to-do seniors, or focus more heavily on actual efficiency improvements as opposed to wealth redistribution.


text: I've been combining anything pumped within 24 hrs to try to fill each storage bag as much as possible. Now that it seems 3 oz portions at a time may be better for my lo, would it be best or less wasteful to freeze each bag with 3 oz so it's already portioned? DH gives playtex liner bottles to DD. He fills it up, approx. 4.25 oz. Sometimes lo takes half sometimes she'll drink it all. I'd prefer more consistency. Or, would freezing 4 oz portions be more efficient? The freezer stash has varying amounts, up to 10 oz or full lasinoh BM bags. What is best for portion control?


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This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Daryl Zadock Budd (who goes by Zadock) is a faithful Mormon known for his cheerful spirit and good sense of humor, not to mention his colorful writing style.
When he shared a gospel-spreading experience he had several years ago, the story spread on the Internet until it found its way to me in an email from a reader. I contacted Budd, who confirmed his humorous tale is true.
It's too good not to pass along.
Budd and the elders quorum president in his Clearfield LDS ward were home teaching to lapsed members when they came upon a home containing a member more lapsed than they could have imagined.
They were welcomed into the woman's apartment, which she shared with a boyfriend.
"As we were preparing to say the closing prayer at the conclusion of our visit, we heard someone pounding on the door and yelling, 'It's the police! Open the door!' I thought, 'Oh, that old joke.' Then there was more pounding," Budd wrote.
Before the boyfriend could open the door, it flew open and 10 armed men wearing Kevlar vests bearing the word POLICE swarmed in, ordering everyone to the floor.
Budd wrote: "I thought to myself, 'This is going to make a great story.' "
As Budd lay face down on the carpet, the elders quorum president stood up from where he was sitting on the couch, thinking he could explain why he and Budd were there.
"The kind officers [who were spouting language the two LDS home teachers were not used to hearing] did not seem to like this action and one very large officer stepped toward Budd's companion, who then found himself looking directly into the muzzle of the gun with a bright light shining in his eyes. The officer placed his finger over the trigger and shouted, 'I said get on the ground!' "
The portly elders quorum president quickly complied, but to Budd's chagrin, there wasn't enough room between the couch and coffee table, so he landed on Budd.
"I never thought I would need to 'support the president' like that," Budd continued. "I assure you, I really felt the weight of my calling."
While they were on the floor, the cops, who were part of a narcotics task force, continued to shout orders and threats. "The humor of the whole situation hit me full force and I started laughing," wrote Budd.
They were handcuffed and searched for weapons, not including their scriptures.
The elders quorum president finally blurted in one breath that they were home teachers from the LDS ward, causing the officers to look at one another in puzzlement. They asked for church ID and were quickly shown temple recommends.
"I knew that my temple recommend could help me get into the Lord's house," Budd wrote, "but I never dreamed it could help me avoid going to the Big House."
Alas, they couldn't save the couple they had gone to enlighten. "The lost sheep we were hoping to bring back to the fold sadly ended up going to a different pen."


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'The Love Sponge' set for new season at speedway
www.ocala.com – ZUBER — The worker circling the dirt track here on a road grader last week was none other than nationally syndicated shock jock Bubba "The Love Sponge" Clem.
"This is therapeutic," said Clem, a lifelong racing enthusiast who bought the track most recently known as Ocala Speedway last year and renamed it Ocala Bubba Raceway Park.
Clem, a racer himself, has a hands-on approach at maintenance that includes leveling the surface with heavy equipment while holding Bianca, his Yorkie pup.
Clem, who claims to be the second-most fined DJ in radio, sports a ball cap, dark glasses and black sweatshirt marked "censored" while he and Bianca later pace the track on foot, intently checking the dirt on the D-shaped oval.
Clem, 45, who hosts his five-day-per-week, talk-only radio show out of FM-102.5 in Tampa, hopes to breathe new life into the speedway with some major improvements and big draw events — including the inaugural Bubba Army Late Model Modified Winter Nationals with Hulk Hogan as grand marshall on Feb. 18.
"We put down 300 truckloads of fresh clay, widened the track by about 20 feet and increased the banking in the turns from 7 degrees to 18 degrees," Clem said. "We added more guard rails, concrete walls and $20,000 more (in) lighting."
Clem's big plans for the start of the season also includes visits by the UMP Open-Wheeled Modified series, the USAC Winter Dirt Games, and the All-Star 410 Winged Sprints.
Clem said the purses at the three-eighths-mile track are "double other local tracks" and the combined purse for February's planned events will be "almost $400,000."
His ambitious plans for the 2012 season, along with his technical approach to the track, have been endorsed by racing regulars such as 2011 late model points champion Ivedent Lloyd Jr.
"He has an edge because he's (both) a driver and a track owner," Lloyd said. "He knows how to help the drivers and keep them in balance."
Lloyd, 45, the two-time defending champion of the track's signature Powell Memorial annual event, said Clem's attention to the track's condition has opened the door for more competitive racing by allowing lapped drivers the opportunity to fight their way back into the race.
Lloyd also praised Clem's ability to promote the track — Clem often talks about the past weekend's racing during his Monday radio broadcast.
"I once got a call from a contact with Hoosier Tire after a remark about their tires on his broadcast was heard in Indiana," Lloyd said.
Lloyd said the larger-than-life personality heard daily on Clem's radio show is "entertainment," and not necessarily the same guy who runs the speedway.
Clem also separates his radio persona from his role as a father, businessman and racer.
"Schwarzenegger wasn't The Terminator when he was governor," said Clem, who traces his "Love Sponge" nickname back to his football playing days at Indiana State University, where he majored in broadcast journalism.
Once at the track, he's just "Bubba" — until he returns to work on Monday. He said he prefers Marion County's solitude and "wide open spaces" to the alternative, which would be to "stay in his St. Petersburg mansion."
"I've sort of infused myself here," said Clem, who said he's a regular at regular-guy Ocala establishments such as Waffle House and Cody's Steakhouse. He also lauded the recent relocation of a Scorpion Racing Products facility into Ocala as a boost to the racing community.
"I love this area," he said, adding that his dirt-track roots in Indiana, Marion County's relaxing atmosphere, and the desire to support his family racing efforts all pointed him toward buying the Marion County racetrack.
His 9-year-old son, Tyler, also factored into the decision. Tyler, Clem said, is a developmental driver with Stewart–Haas Racing — co-owned by NASCAR driver Tony Stewart, and the track "is a natural way for him to practice."
"We've made a go-kart track near turn one," Clem said, "I plan to make a mud bog area nearby."
Clem also plans to race this season in the track's late model division, which begins racing on March 3.
It's all part of a busy agenda for a famous voice who's just looking for a quiet place to pursue his passion for racing.
"I'd like to build a house in those woods," Clem said, pointing his finger just outside the track compound, "and live right here."


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SEMI Conference Focuses on Manufacturing Issues that Will Move the Industry Forward
SAN JOSE, Calif. – April 18, 2012 – The 23rd Annual SEMI Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Conference (ASMC 2012) will be held May 15-17 in Saratoga Springs, New York. The conference will feature presentations of more than 85 peer-reviewed manuscripts covering critical process technologies and fab productivity. This year's event features a panel discussion on "Competing for R&D Dollars" and 15 technical sessions on advanced semiconductor manufacturing, as well as a tutorial on Advanced Device Design offered by IBM Research.
For over 20 years, ASMC has provided a premier venue for industry professionals to learn and share knowledge on new and "best practice" semiconductor manufacturing issues and concepts. ASMC provides a valuable source of cost-effective, hands-on solutions to address real-world manufacturing challenges. It is acknowledged as a leading technical conference that enables collaboration and sharing of technical breakthroughs. This year's conference features keynotes delivered by industry leaders, including:
- Michael Campbell, senior vice president, Engineering, Qualcomm
- Andrea Lati, principal analyst, VLSI Research
As advances in materials and process technology continue, the semiconductor manufacturing industry is faced with difficult challenges as it balances costs and critical technology issues. Limited R&D dollars is the reality, and it is unclear how wafer size transition, next node scaling, new transistor technology, 450mm EUV, and 3D-IC will be funded. To address this issue, ASMC offers a panel discussion this year on "Competing for R&D Dollars: Funding the Future" with panelists from Applied Materials, ASML, GLOBALFOUNDRIES and IBM addressing 450mm, EUV and 3D.
ASMC 2012 sessions include:
- Factory Optimization: Semiconductor equipment and manufacturing are increasingly complex with strict economic constraints. The sessions discuss novel solutions to improve equipment/factory productivity and performance.
- Advanced Metrology: Advanced semiconductor manufacturing demands advanced metrology techniques. This session details new technologies and improvements.
- 3D/Through Silicon Via (TSV): Very Large Scale Integration motivates 3D integrated circuit architectures. This session presents complexities of TSV techniques supporting 3D designs.
- Equipment, Materials & Processes: Advanced memory and logic manufacturers face daunting challenges as the next generation device nodes come on line. Innovations in equipment, materials, and processes help meet those challenges.
- Emerging Technologies and Innovative Devices: Innovative integrated circuit functionalities continue to be integrated in semiconductor manufacturing. This session presents analysis of the effects of enabling technologies, and innovative integrated circuit designs.
- Equipment and Materials Productivity: Optimizing equipment and performance will help improve fab metrics, minimize wafer costs and maximize competitiveness— how to help optimize equipment utilization, improve predictive modeling of fab operations, and tool performance.
- Advanced Patterning and Design for Manufacturability: IC production today requires innovative lithography design and manufacturing techniques, including collaborative efforts between chip makers and equipment suppliers discussing leading-edge solutions
- Process Development and Control: The demand for high quality and product yields is a constant driver for advanced process development and control techniques. Session covers improvements in processes, tool controls and predictive process performance analysis.
- Defect Inspection and Yield Optimization: Defect inspection, yield analysis and optimization are integral components in the development and manufacture of semiconductor devices
ASMC also holds an interactive poster session and reception, which provides an ideal opportunity for networking between authors and conference attendees. During this session, participants can engage authors in in-depth discussion of a wide range of issues.
ASMC 2012 is presented by SEMI with technical sponsors: Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE), IEEE Electron Devices Society (EDS), and IEEE Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology Society (CPMT). Corporate sponsors include: Applied Materials, ATMI, ChemTrace, CNW Courier Network, Edwards, KLA-Tencor, Mentor Graphics, Nikon, NY Loves Nanotech, and Valqua. Additional sponsors include: Saratoga Convention & Tourism Bureau, Saratoga Economic Development Corporation, and the city of Saratoga Springs, New York.
Registration for ASMC 2012 is available at www.semi.org/ASMC. For more information, please visit the website or contact Margaret Kindling at email@example.com or phone 1.202.289.0440. Qualified members of the media should contact Deborah Geiger (SEMI Public Relations) at firstname.lastname@example.com for media registration information.
About SEMI
SEMI is the global industry association serving the nano- and microelectronics manufacturing supply chains. SEMI member companies are the engine of the future, enabling smarter, faster and more economical products that improve our lives. Since 1970, SEMI has been committed to helping members grow more profitably, create new markets and meet common industry challenges. SEMI maintains offices in Beijing, Bengaluru, Berlin, Brussels, Grenoble, Hsinchu, Moscow, San Jose, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.semi.org
Association Contact
Deborah Geiger/SEMI
Tel: 1.408.943.7988
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
# # #


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The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) is a civil society movement working to end the global education crisis.
Our mission is to make sure that States act now to deliver the right of everyone to a free, quality public education.
Members of the Global Campaign come from almost 100 countries, including international and regional bodies as well as national coalitions. Find out what's happening in your country:
GCE works to strengthen the voice of civil society in the development of national education. Through quality resources, shared learning and programmes such as the Civil Society Education Fund (CSEF) national campaigners hold governments to account to ensure Education For All is implemented in countries with the greatest need.
Read more about the development of the education movement.


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ATHENS, Greece (AP) — French President Francois Hollande pledged investments in Greece's ailing economy during a brief visit on Tuesday, seen as a show of support for the country's uphill struggle to recover from its debt crisis.
But a media strike left the event with minimal domestic coverage, to the fury of the Greek government that had sought to play up the visit to an austerity-weary public. State TV reporters were eventually forced back to work by court order.
Hollande said French firms were expected to participate in Greece's huge privatization program, a key condition of the country's bailout program. The government is focusing on energy, water, transport and railway deals.
"I am here in Athens to mobilize French companies so that they invest in Greece," Hollande said. "That is in the interests of Greece and France alike."
France has long been a major arms supplier to Greece, which was until recently one of Europe's top defense spenders due to an arms race with regional rival Turkey. But Hollande said he was not in Athens to sell military hardware.
"We must provide the Greeks with solidarity, aid and above all show confidence — which will help restore growth," he said
The journalists' 24-hour walkout pulled all news broadcasts off the air and left news websites without updates. Newspapers will not publish Wednesday editions.
The government hastened to accuse the main opposition Syriza party of deliberately instigating the strike to "cause a news blackout of the visit of French President Francois Hollande."
State television carried live images — without commentary — of Hollande arriving at the airport and being greeted by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and Cabinet members, as well as of the leaders' joint press conference. For hours, it broadcast repeated raw footage of Hollande in Athens, replete with background noise like birdsong.
Towards the end of the visit, however, state TV workers resumed full coverage after a court ruled their action illegal, forcing the main POESY journalists' union to call it off.
But POESY called a new 24-hour strike for state TV on Wednesday, according to union head Giorgos Savvidis.
Media unions have been protesting firings and pension and benefit cuts among other issues. Hundreds of journalists in the private sector frequently go unpaid for months at a time.
The walkout comes a day ahead of a 24-hour nationwide anti-austerity general strike which will see all services disrupted across the country.
Government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou showed clear annoyance at the timing of the media walkout.
"The journalists' union leadership succumbed to the usual party aims and Syriza's plan to cause a media blackout during the visit of French President Francois Hollande," he said in a statement, adding that the opposition party "does not hesitate to damage the country's international image."
Greece has been gripped by a severe financial crisis that has left it since early 2010 dependent on billions of euros in rescue loans from the International Monetary Fund and other European countries that use the euro. In return, it has enforced a series of deep spending cuts and repeated tax hikes in an effort to rein in runaway budget deficits and reform its moribund economy.
France has been generally far more lenient in its attitude towards Greece and the southern European country's financial crisis than the other major eurozone power, Germany, which has advocated strict austerity measures. Germany is the single largest contributor to Greece's bailout packages.
After nearly three years of austerity, Greece finds itself stuck in a deep recession, with thousands of businesses shutting down and unemployment spiraling to 27 percent. Among young people, the jobless rate has reached nearly 62 percent.
During his visit, Hollande also met with Greek and French businessmen, while the two governments signed an agreement to cooperate on tourism, a vital earner for Greece.


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Lake Park, FL 33403
United States


text: A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts directories. Title : Multi-area MPLS Traffic Engineering Author(s) : K. Kompella, Y. Rekhter, J. Vasseur, T. Chung Filename : draft-kompella-mpls-multiarea-te-04.txt Pages : 14 Date : 2003-6-27 An ISIS/OSPF routing domain may consists of multiple areas. This document postulates a set of mechanisms, and then outlines how these mechanisms could be used to establish/maintain Traffic Engineering LSPs that span multiple areas. A URL for this Internet-Draft is: http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-kompella-mpls-multiarea-te-04.txt To remove yourself from the IETF Announcement list, send a message to ietf-announce-request with the word unsubscribe in the body of the message. Internet-Drafts are also available by anonymous FTP. Login with the username "anonymous" and a password of your e-mail address. After logging in, type "cd internet-drafts" and then "get draft-kompella-mpls-multiarea-te-04.txt". A list of Internet-Drafts directories can be found in http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html or ftp://ftp.ietf.org/ietf/1shadow-sites.txt Internet-Drafts can also be obtained by e-mail. Send a message to: email@example.com. In the body type: "FILE /internet-drafts/draft-kompella-mpls-multiarea-te-04.txt". NOTE: The mail server at ietf.org can return the document in MIME-encoded form by using the "mpack" utility. To use this feature, insert the command "ENCODING mime" before the "FILE" command. To decode the response(s), you will need "munpack" or a MIME-compliant mail reader. Different MIME-compliant mail readers exhibit different behavior, especially when dealing with "multipart" MIME messages (i.e. documents which have been split up into multiple messages), so check your local documentation on how to manipulate these messages. Below is the data which will enable a MIME compliant mail reader implementation to automatically retrieve the ASCII version of the Internet-Draft.


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Epidemiology Field Manual Available Soon
Indiana Epidemiology Newsletter
July 2007
Stephanie English
District 6 Field Epidemiologist
The ISDH Surveillance and Investigation Unit has developed a resource for local health departments (LHD) to use when investigating communicable disease cases and outbreaks. The ISDH Epidemiology Field Manual is an all encompassing manual that provides the investigator with all of the needed information in one easy-to-use reference. Sections of the manual will contain reporting forms and information for every reportable communicable disease in Indiana. The manual will also provide information on calculating general statistics.
ISDH Communicable Disease Epidemiologists are currently reviewing a draft of the manual. Revisions will be made after the review has been completed, and printing is scheduled for completion at the end of the summer. The District Field Epidemiologists will distribute one manual to each LHD and provide training on its contents.


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2 Superhero Capes Costume Kid Capes Custom cape Personalized seen on GMA
Product Info
2 Personalized superhero capes costumes Kid Cape is made special in 7 to 10 days. Using quality and childs favorite colors, logo, an initial to a Superhero cape. Bulk pricing available.
Great Custom Gift for all those parties your child gets invited too.
We are the #1, Original, and Highest Positive Feedback of Superhero Kids Cape Seller on Etsy so you are buying from the Best!!! Quality and Customer service has always been our Goals to make you happy read our feedback and see what others say.
Buy with confidence over 10,400 transactions on Etsy
Made in USA
Babypop Customizable personalized costume Superhero Princess Cape 23†long from center back neck to bottom of cape not including the neck and Velcro closure. Recommend ages 2-7. The dress up cape body is made out of REAL high grade satin(shiny/smooth) fabric I don't skimp by using substandard fabric and sewn with expert professional sewing. The BabyPop superhero letters are made of Environmental Friendly Felt. The super felt is made from recycled soda bottles!…so fun for the kids with big bold BabyPop custom designed superhero letters but gentle to the earth. The super letters are Sherry Aikens BabyPop Superhero special designed font, larger at top them bottom so they have that super fun Baby Pop shape!
If you purchase a costume cape and also buy a mask then there is no shipping charge for mask.
BabyPop Cape COLORS CHOICE:
Picture is an example of a cape it is Custom so your choose. Let me know if you would like a
Super hero Cape colors:, Black, Red, Royal Blue, lt Blue, Light Pink, Hot pink, Lavender, Dark Purple, Green, Yellow, and Orange.
Superhero Princess Cape Logos : Shield, Crown, Circle, Star, lighten bolt, or Heart
Superhero Princess Cape Logos Colors: Black, Brown, Red, Royal Blue, Lt Blue, Lt Pink, Hot Pink, Lavender, Dark Purple, Orange, Green, Lime green, Yellow, White, grey
Personalized Superhero Cape Letter: Black, Brown, Red, Royal Blue, Lt Blue, Lt Pink, Hot Pink, Lavender, Dark Purple, Orange, Green, Lime green, Yellow, White, Grey
Superhero Dress Up Quality:
Sherry Aikens has 15+ years in the Apparel Industry has taught me quality first. Read Babypop feedback words like "excellent quality workmanship" are used often and trust me there is a difference..
*All superhero costume cape edges are serged and also folded under for a clean finished.
*Inside all superhero capes are woven BabyPop Design Label.
*Since I, Sherry Aikens am a Mom, I tested the super capes Velcro closure neck for Quick release to avoid neck injuries.
are based from (once I receive payment and design details complete all colors all logos)..
We make all our cape from scratch
-Superhero capes aprox 7-10 to make + shipping time
-Mask, aprox 7-10 days to make + shipping time
-Gloves with in aprox 7-10 days to make + shipping time
-Cape sets w/Tee shirts or skirts Take 21-30 days to make + shipping time
-Larger Bulk Super Cape orders please ask !
(please check shop policies subject to change during holidays)
I can do rushes but please ask prior to purchasing. Please make sure to also contact via email either through etsy or firstname.lastname@example.com. When I am busy I sometimes I only get to process the orders close to when they are due. I will be more than happy to try to meet your deadlines, so help me help you. Priority shipping will be required 3.25 for shipping and rush fee might be applied $5 more.
(no rushes from Nov 23- Dec 25 no exceptions)
Please put color details (for capes) or Size (for clothes) in the "note to seller" or email me as soon as possible so I have the information I will start creating your custom creation so as all the information is received.
I follow the etsy address you enter, that is where your item will be sent. Thanks!
US SHIPMENTS will be sent 1st class mail (5-10 days) unless other arrangements have been made we try to keep
If you would like insurance or expedited shipping for US shipments cost is 3.25 extra for priority in most cases, please contact me email@example.com and I can send you a revised paypal invoice for you to pay.
CANADIAN SHIPMENTS I will not be responsible for lost shipments, I cant track packages unless upgrades are requested and paid for. I strongly suggest upgrade to Priority Shipping for Canada with insurance $25.00+. I will not replace lost goods due to Canadian mail system. No exceptions.
INTERNATIONAL SHIPMENTS: are shipped air mail and etsy price reflects i do not offer insurance or tracking on international packages unless priority up grade is asked for please note shipping price will increase $$
Worried about the dress up personalized super hero capes being gone…..don't I always have more
BabyPop Superhero Capes Saving One Backyard at a time.
BabyPop, BabyPop Designs, logo, name, taglines, descriptions, pictures, designs, are registered and protected by US Trademark and Copy write law.


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Drumk 2 is a Max For Live instrument device for beat-oriented sample manipulation. Based on a grid and multisliders, drumk 2 is a really powerful and versatile tool: you can use drumk 2 to process drums samples, voices, strings or any kind of source you can imagine. In drumk 2 you can choose to design sound with your hands, meticulously editing each step parameters and playback modes, but you can also use aleatory functions as random buttons, drunkwalk, walker mode, and time variation probabilities. Drumk 2 stores up to 8 snapshots per preset. This makes drumk 2 an useful instrument in studio as well as during live performance. Recall snapshots on the fly, trigger random functions from your controller, play steps with your MIDI keyboard: you can create and perform your song with tons of variations using a couple of loops and following your inspiration. Slices are triggered in sync with Ableton Live transport or via MIDI note messages. more infos at www.k-devices.com/drumk
Submit: News, Plug-ins, Hosts & Apps | Advertise @ KVR | Developer Account | About KVR / Contact Us | Privacy Statement
© KVR Audio, Inc. 2000-2018


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Style # 231874
Sexy lace V-neck with our crystalized bebe logo across a ribbed tank. Guess what else? Mesh shoulder design to match. Style with jeans for a luxurious look that's mesmerizing in moments.
- 94% Rayon, 6% spandex
- Hand wash
- Made in USA
- Center back to hem: 23.25" (59 cm)
- Model is 5'10" and wears a US size S


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Before Widows 7 was officially released on October 22, the operating system already had a market share figure of around 1.5-2.0%. The operating system was available as a release candidate to "normal" people, but the final code was available to OEMs and MSDN subscribers too. In any case, it was already more popular than Linux, which can't seem to break out of the round and about 1% share.
After Windows 7's general release, its market share figure starting going up, reaching the 3% mark over the weekend. On November 1, Windows 7 had a share of 3.67% according to NetApplications' figures. Not bad for a brand new operating system release.
"The early adoption of Windows 7 looks very strong, and I don't believe Vista enjoyed the same early success," said Vince Vizzaccaro, an executive vice president at Net Applications, "Plus, we've seen surges the past two weekend days, and Windows has historically seen much higher usage market share on weekdays than on weekends."
To put it into perspective: In October, Mac OS X (all versions) had a market share figure of 5.27%, whereas Linux sported a 0.96% figure. At this rate, it will only take a few days for Windows 7 to be more popular than Mac OS X. Predictable, yes, but it does illustrate that no matter how much Apple dominates the news, its worldwide market share figures are relatively low - let's not even get started about Linux.
Still, Mac OS X's market share is increasing, and it has been doing so for a while now. Windows 7 might be a bright spot for now for Microsoft, but by no means is it possible to tell if it put a halt to Mac OS X's rise.
As always, these are just figures and statistics, and should not be taken literally. They are indicative of trends, and should not be seen as absolutes.


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18 U.S. Code § 224 - Bribery in sporting contests
§ 224.
Bribery in sporting contests
Whoever carries into effect, attempts to carry into effect, or conspires with any other person to carry into effect any scheme in commerce to influence, in any way, by bribery any sporting contest, with knowledge that the purpose of such scheme is to influence by bribery that contest, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.
This section shall not be construed as indicating an intent on the part of Congress to occupy the field in which this section operates to the exclusion of a law of any State, territory, Commonwealth, or possession of the United States, and no law of any State, territory, Commonwealth, or possession of the United States, which would be valid in the absence of the section shall be declared invalid, and no local authorities shall be deprived of any jurisdiction over any offense over which they would have jurisdiction in the absence of this section.
(c) As used in this section—
The term "scheme in commerce" means any scheme effectuated in whole or in part through the use in interstate or foreign commerce of any facility for transportation or communication;
The term "sporting contest" means any contest in any sport, between individual contestants or teams of contestants (without regard to the amateur or professional status of the contestants therein), the occurrence of which is publicly announced before its occurrence;
The term "person" means any individual and any partnership, corporation, association, or other entity.
(Added Pub. L. 88–316, § 1(a), June 6, 1964, 78 Stat. 203; amended Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(L), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.)
1994—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 103–322 substituted "fined under this title" for "fined not more than $10,000".
LII has no control over and does not endorse any external Internet site that contains links to or references LII.


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News and media
|Remove Year: 2014
|New Zealand
|Remove Country: New Zealand
WEC New Zealand highlights world energy issues
The World Energy Issues Monitor will be a hot topic in New Zealand's energy discussions this week as the BusinessNZ Energy Council (BEC), the WEC member committee, launches the report nationally. John Carnegie, Secretary of the committee, talks about what's keeping New Zealand energy leaders awake at night.
Posted on 4 March 2014


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Reports on strings of point-of-sale (POS) attacks on a number of retail chains in the United States began to surface during the holiday season of December 2013, placing millions of consumers' credit card information and identities at risk for theft. Most prominently in the headlines was Target — a POS attack that has been ranked as one of the largest data-loss occurrences in history. Neiman Marcus, White Lodging, Harbor Freight Tools, Easton-Bell Sports, Michaels Stores, and 'wichcraft all reported similar POS breaches in 2013.
While there is no public record proving that these attacks maintain the same origin, a large portion of them were executed from cybercriminals who purchased off-the-shelf, ready-made malware. POS malware is not a new development, yet there has been a significant spike in the malware families POSCardStealer, Dexter, Alina, vSkimmer, and ProjectHook, most of which can be purchased online.
Target and BlackPOS
McAfee Labs has pinpointed that the specific malware used to breach Target security was BlackPOS — a ready-to-deploy exploit kit for sale online that can easily be modified with little programming or malware knowledge. The source code for BlackPOS has also been leaked online, which allows cybercriminals easier access to the malware.
McAfee Labs researchers know that Target uses a custom-built POS security system, which is critical information since a custom-built system is typically more difficult to breach. Cybercriminals would usually learn the infrastructure of a company's POS system offline by using available leaks of other commercial POS applications prior to deploying an attack. Although BlackPOS is an easy-to-deploy malware, numerous customizations were made to it prior to the attack that made it easier to infiltrate the Target system. Details related to Active Directory domain names and user accounts were copied and transferred to remote servers by some of the malware components. Moreover, the script sent back to the cybercriminals' servers was done so unencrypted, meaning it was sent in plain text from the point of inception back to the server storing stolen information. The Target POS breach is the only retailer that McAfee Labs has confirmed was hacked by BlackPOS.
Effects and Consequences
Of the near 40 million credit card numbers that were stolen in late 2013, McAfee Labs researchers have traced many of them to large lots, or key "carding" marketplaces online and available for purchase. Typically, cybercriminals are able to buy these credit card numbers in bundles that range anywhere from 1 million to 4 million card numbers at a time.
Lampeduza Republic is one example of the various credit card black market sites on the dark web. The site relies on a well-organized hierarchy that provides for a smoothly functional marketplace. The sales on Lampeduza are quite active, and some have contained stolen credit card numbers tied to the recent POS retail attacks.
While the long-term consequences of the 2013 POS attacks is unknown, these breaches will likely soon prompt changes to security approaches and compliance requirements. Moreover, the main lesson learned is that the rapidly growing cybercrime industry played a major role in enabling the POS attacks and will likely not decline in popularity among thieves anytime soon.


text: Friday, March 04, 2011 Obama Open to Giving States Flexibility in Meeting Reform Requirements President Obama will support legislation to allow states to opt out of one of the "more controversial" provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) -- the requirement that all people purchase health insurance or face a penalty -- sooner than the law allows, says an article in The New York Times. Speaking Monday to the National Governors Association, Obama said he was "…not open to refighting the battles of the last 2 years… or undoing the progress that we've made." However, Obama said he was willing to amend the reform law to give states the ability to obtain waivers from the individual mandate as soon as it takes effect in 2014, as long as they find another way to expand coverage without driving up health care costs. Currently under PPACA, states must wait until 2017 to obtain waivers. The likelihood for a new proposal, which was recently introduced in the Senate, appears dim, the article says. Obama calls the bill "reasonable" and says that it will give governors flexibility while still guaranteeing the American people reform. Nonetheless, Congress would have to approve the change through legislation and House Republican leaders say that they are "committed to repealing the law, not amending it."


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The hit EWTN talk show "The Catholic View for Women" will kick off its third season Wednesday at 11 p.m. ET with an episode focused on "What Catholic Women Think."
Co-hosts Janet Morana, Teresa Tomeo and Astrid Bennett-Gutierrez will discuss the findings of a recent survey on "What Catholic Women Think About Faith, Conscience, and Contraception," by Women, Faith, and Culture.
"It seems like someone is always speaking for Catholic women, but this survey actually asked church-going Catholic women their opinions on a variety of issues. The answers may surprise you," said Mrs. Morana, executive director of Priests for Life, co-founder of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign and author of "Recall Abortion."
Future episodes will tackle a wide variety of topics, including: Making the switch from contraception to Natural Family Planning; Catholic and divorced; Body image blues, and Hispanic women, catechesis and the Church.
"What is unique about our program is our constant effort to produce shows based on specific requests from our viewers," said Ms. Tomeo, a motivational speaker, host of the popular radio show "Catholic Connection" and author of several books, including "God's Bucket List" to be released next month by Image Books. "We ask for their input and then pull together those comments to see what topics of interest come up most often and the feedback is how we form our show line up. That's why women are responding so strong and positively to this show as it really addresses what is on their hearts and minds."
The first show will air only once. Subsequent episodes will be on at 11 p.m. ET on Wednesdays, and will be re-broadcast at 10:30 a.m. on Fridays on EWTN. For information about the show, go to www.TheCatholicViewforWomen.com
"I'm excited about the new shows and topics that I am sure will speak to the hearts of our viewers," said Ms. Bennett-Gutierrez, president of Hispanics for Life, executive director of Los Angeles Pregnancy Services and vice president of Hispanics for Life and Human Rights. "As we continue in this year of faith, we hope they will find encouragement in their faith and clarity on the moral issues under assault today. No matter what our vocation, we are all called to be apostles of His love and truth!"


text: Newark, New Jersey-based Public Service Enterprise Group, Inc., or PSEG (NYSE: PEG), is a diversified utility holding company that operates through four wholly-owned subsidiaries: Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G), PSEG Power LLC, and the two direct subsidiaries of PSEG Energy Holdings: PSEG Global L.L.C. and PSEG Resources L.L.C. PSE&G is a regulated utility company providing electric service roughly to 2.1 million customers and gas service to approximately 1.7 million customers in New Jersey. In the 3rd quarter of 2007, this regulated subsidiary accounted for 52% of the Group's operating revenue and 26% of the consolidated operating income. PSEG Power, the company's non-regulated subsidiary, which engaging in wholesale power generation and energy trading activities, contributed 39% and 61%, respectively, to the Group's operating revenue and operating income, while the Holdings segment accounted for 9% of total operating revenue and 13% of operating income during the 3rd quarter of 2007. PSEG Energy Holdings, through PSEG Global, owns and operates electric generation and distribution facilities in Asia, Europe, North America, and Latin America. Through its Resources unit, the company invests in energy-related financial transactions.


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Say there's a race coming up you're excited to see- something like Liège-Bastogne-Liège. The day of, you flip on the TV to catch the action, right? Whoa- hold on there, Sparky. Not so fast. This is cycling we're talking about! We don't get spoiled with things like instant, easy access to our favorite sporting pastime. We have to prove our dedication. So, how does one experience the excitement of live coverage without the convenience of TV coverage? Take my hand and let me be your guide through the forest of the interwebs.
The Basics
If any races are going to be shown on TV in the US, either live or recaps, Versus or Universal Sports are the channels to go to. However, unless it's a big time race, it probably won't get live coverage (Think the Grand Tours or the biggest classics). To watch the other races live, one must turn to the internet. The most basic coverage on the internet is live streaming. The feed usually isn't great, but it's good enough. Most coverage with English commentary comes from Eurosport. Otherwise, your best bet for coverage online comes from Belgium with Dutch commentary – usually from the Belgian channel Sporza. While watching a race with Dutch commentary might seem like a futile exercise, it's actually quite useful! Even if one can not understand what is being said, reading the emotions and reactions of the commentators can be quite informative. This coverage can also be supplemented by Twitter and live blogging.
It is the races with no live coverage at all where the obsessive cycling fans earn their stripes – for these hearty souls, no live video coverage is but a minor speed bump in their quest for compete fandom domination. Aided by their two greatest weapons, Twitter and live blogs, no race is too obscure!
Live Coverage
As mentioned above, any live TV coverage offered in the States will either be on Versus or Universal Sports (I have no idea where you might watch live outside the States, so you're on your own!).
Paid live coverage
When those TV execs decide we're not worth the investment (which is most of the time), and it's a bigger race, those channels will often offer live streaming on their websites for a fee – usually $10-15, but sometimes up to $30. Another site that offers paid coverage of a wider range of small and larger races is cycling.tv. For $80/year or $30/3 months, you have access to live race coverage with English commentary, on-demand highlights, post-race reports, etc. One of the benefits of paying for coverage is reliability and ease of access- you don't have to search around to find a good feed and you have more flexibility to watch recaps if you miss the race. However, there are lots of free options and I've never paid to watch a race. This service has gotten mixed reviews, and TeamSkyFans.com has done a great in depth review of the site and its service to give you an idea if this is something you might want to use.
Free live coverage
While you have to search a little harder and the feed might not be great, there are free live feeds if you're willing to look for them. If there is live coverage, these sites WILL find it:
- CyclingFans.com (@cyclingfans): Here you will find links to streams, start lists, the official race website, live tickers, and schedules with start times (the local start time along with the EST start time) and an analog clock with the local time of the race (ridiculously useful, for those of us not adept at time conversions…). This is my go to site for feeds and live tickers. They also post great photos after each stage, along with any recap videos available.
- SteepHill.tv (@steephill): This site has pretty much the same information as CyclingFans.com, and while I don't think they do as good a job laying out the start times of live coverage, they have a great chart which lists the media source, links to online streaming, and comments about the stream.
- ProcyclingLive (@ProcyclingLive): Only has links to live streams, but their live ticker on Twitter is killer. They've also started posted race/stage previews and doing a really great podcast.
While those sites help direct you to live streams, there are places to look to see if a live stream is playing (leave no stone unturned!):
- EverythingOn.TV has a EuroSport stream, which, more often than not, is where the race will be broadcast. However, it doesn't stream just the cycling, but the whole channel. So it's important to consult the EuroSport TV schedule! It is also important to note the times listed are CET (Central European Time), which means it's 6 hours ahead of the East coast.
- FromSport has links to live streams, but they only posted around broadcast time, so you need to know about when the race is being broadcast.
- MyP2P also just has links to live streams. I've never used this one before, but the Cycling Tips blog offers instructions on how to use this site. I'll be trying it out as the Tour Down Under gets underway.
- BVLS is similar to FromSport. You have to scroll down the page to find the cycling links and know when the race is supposed to start to use the links.
No live video coverage
When there is no live coverage, Twitter and live tickers are the way to go. I covered how Twitter can be used to watch races in my love letter to Twitter here, but here's a quick recap.
There are two ways to follow races on Twitter. First is to follow accounts which tweet live updates.
- ProcyclingLive (@procyclinglive) does, by far, the best live ticker on Twitter. If you only follow one account which live tweets, this is the one.
- Often, the race itself will have an official Twitter account which will tweet live updates. For example, recently the Giro had an official Twitter account to provide race updates, @giroditalia. The Tour has an official Twitter as well, @letour. It also tweets about other races the ASO owns, like the Dauphine. Usually these accounts can be found through the official website.
The second way to follow races on Twitter are through race specific hashtags. For example, the upcoming Tour de France race hashtag is #TdF. This means if you want to tweet something about the race, just add the hashtag #TdF to your tweet and it will go out to everyone who searches for #TdF.
In addition, if you want to get reactions, updates or photos from people watching the race, a search for #TdF will show you all the tweets with that hashtag!
The last source of live race updates are live tickers. CyclingNews.com offer live blogging of races. Their live race updates are similar to updates on Twitter, as they the make note of breaks, time gaps, attacks, and rider order on the road. However, because they aren't limited to 140 characters, they can offer more commentary, answer questions, and provide background and history. This is my preferred site when I can't watch live. They've recently revamped their live blogging site and it looks great. In addition to CyclingNews.com, the official site for the race usually has a good ticker. Often it will be in the native language, but you can do an auto translate. ASO, the company that owns/runs the Tour has a great live ticker. Check out their site as the race starts to see their ticker.
Any of these can be used in conjunction with live feeds as well- I've found it nice to have different perspectives on the race. However, there is a certain amount of skill involved in keeping track of all the media you have going on!
Don't forget…
…time differences! As most races occur in Europe, if you are going to stream something online, it is imperative to keep track of the time differences to make sure you don't miss the race! If you're watching through EuroSport (even if it's a race in France or elsewhere), there is a 6 hour time difference to the East coast. Here's a good time zone converter to help you figure out what time to watch!
If there's an invaluable race resource you use, let me know! It ain't easy being a cycling fan, but our quest for the most complete coverage sets us apart from other sports fans and the challenges make our successes all the more sweet.
I relish the challenge of finding live race coverage. Follow me on Twitter.